Growing Up- Hayward Style

I grew up in Hayward, CA. A blue collar city in the San Francisco Bay Area between Oakland and San Jose. My family and I lived a lot of those years on Tehama Ave. It was in unincorporated Hayward which means that there were no sidewalks and if something caught on fire you had to call the County Fire Department.





Here is a Google view of the 'hood:


That square at the top of the picture is an apartment building that used to be a field when I was a kid. It caught on fire every year. I guess the County Fire Department would respond. We lived across the street- about where the "a" is in "Tehama" from the pic. There is a large parking lot directly behind the house that served as a short cut to the nearest store, the school and the church parking lot itself which proved to be a playground. It was a blacktop parking lot and in the summer the heat would build up and make being barefoot nearly impossible and I was barefoot a lot during the summer. I remember trying to cross the parking lot one day in the summer and it was so hot I couldn't take more than a few steps. I had to take my shirt off and throw it ahead a few steps then jump on the shirt and repeated that to cross the molten tar of that lot.

Anyway, what got me thinking about the old neighborhood was an article I was reading about a vice bust at a massage parlor. When I was a kid, there was a massage parlor near a liquor store on the corner of South Garden and A Street. I was called "Suzi's School of Sexual Awareness". My buddy and I were eager to learn what went on in Suzi's school. When I was at his house, we used to look up the number in the phone book and call over there "How much for a massage?" "Can I enroll in a class there?" "Is your refrigerator running?"

Invariably, they would ask us how old we were and then hang up on us. They never gave us the salacious details we craved. So we would go to the store and then as we passed SSOSA we would rap on the window and run to the nearby laundrymat awaiting our sexual awareness. We expected to see someone (Suzi herself?) come out in scantily clad lingerie and look to see who knocked on the window. She should have then invited the bold window rappers inside and show them around the school. Sadly, this never happened and one day Suzi closed up shop and moved.

What became of Suzi is anyone's guess.

Let me google it

As anyone who has spent some time with me will attest, I love Google. When a trivia comes up that stumps me or the group I'm with, I'm the first to say "Let me google that". The site is fast to load and fast with the answer. Google has a cool thing on it called "Google Trends". You type a word or two and it shows what city in the world has googled that term the most. So, I ran some terms through it and let's see how it makes sense:
Term City
Baseball and hot dogs--------- St.Louis, Mo - makes sense. Tons of baseball fans and lots of hot dogs
jobs and unemployment-- ----Thomas Ditton, UK - Unemployment in UK is high, real high I guess
bars and churches-- ------------Dallas, TX - search totals were pretty close. Chicken and egg thing happening.
gambling,bankruptcy-- --------New York
pizza, yoga -----------------------San Diego,CA
peace,love----------------------- Edmonton, Canada
peace,war------------------------ Brisbane, Australia
music,hearing aids -------------Irvine,CA
McDonalds,gym ----------------Brisbane, AUS - all that war and peace talk makes em hungry
party, rehab ---------------------Miami, FL
marathon, shins----------------- Minneapolis - I thought San Leandro would be #1 with all my googling
shoes, socks ---------------------New York
silence, lambs------------------- Montreal - mental note: do not bring any plus sized girls to Montreal
dating, divorce -----------------Copenhagen, Denmark
prostitutes, free clinic ---------Dublin, Ireland

Wow- that was fascinating. I learned so much and I am richer for the experience. Most importantly, I killed 30 minutes at work. Back to work and then treadmill tonight. I can do it!

More Shins than a...

I have been looking up shins and shin related injuries today. Fascinating stuff. Most pain in the shin is caused by not warming up or over exertion. In my case, I am guilty of not stretching and warming up the shins before hopping on the old treadmill. But first some more shin related info:

The word shin is an Indo-Iranian word and from the same root we get shank which makes sense.
The shin is actually the tibia bone which is paired with the fibula. The fibula is smaller and gets second billing.




The common site there is where my shin pain is. It is caused by inflamation of the pere-something or other that connects the tendons, muscles and bones together. Which brings up a good question: what's the difference between a tendon and a muscle? Do you know? No googling. Muscle is tissue that has the ability to expand or contract to produce movement. A tendon (fibrous tissue) connects a muscle to a bone. A ligament connects a bone to bone.

Anyway the best shin exercise is to extend your leg and spell the alphabet with your toes, rotating your ankle to spell the letters.

Last night, I attempted the treadmill to do my mile. Man , when the body doesn't want to work out, it will let you know. I didn't think I would make it but managed to complete my mile. I also found a training calendar and it matches my handy graph that I created, here it is:


Hmm, another small chart. Anyway, by January I need to be at 10 miles per week. Yikes that a lot of walking/running.

Don't tell my shins that they have a lot of work ahead.

Training Calendar

So Saturday I did a mile in 16 minutes for the third time. Yeah for me, give me a cookie. I am still wheezing more than I would like and my shins hurt (more stretching), but I am making progress and seem to working towards that 1.5 mile goal.

I know I want to do the San Diego Marathon (May 31st) and that's 26.2 miles. When I trained last time, the most we ever trained to was 22 miles and that was two weeks before the event. So, I worked my way backwards from there to come up with this wonderful graph:

Hmm..a little small but working in increments of two weeks, I need to be at 4 miles by the end of December and increase 1 mile per week after that. Not entirely impossible.

So, I'll keep this graph going and post the progress. Now that I see it, I am not as intimidated as I was when I decided to start this thing.

I was checking around and there is a Half Marathon in April in Atlanta, so I may go and visit my sister and compete. Pam -this is your notice that I might be popping by. If I do, please be prepared to make that Chicken Pesto Pizza- it looked delicious. For the recipe, check out her blog at adailycowboy.blogspot.com.

Weekend went ok. Went to my Dad's for his birthday and watched a lot of sports on TV. Going to the gym tonight to try for 1.5 miles. Let's see if my shins hold up.

Match Game

Let's play the Match Game

Here's the question - "Did you hear about the Sarah Palin's fundamentalist church in Alaska? They call themselves the ________"

Let's go to our first celebrity - Debra Lee Scott - what did you put down?

"Gene, I said they call themselves "the IdidaGods"

Good answer, Debra Lee Scott but wrong. Let's go to Brett Somers - Brett, what did you say?

"I am sorry, I don't think this is a match I said the "Jehsnowvah Witnesses" See what I did there. Snow."

Cute Brett, but wrong. Last chance for a match. Let's go to Charles Nelson Reilly. Charles?

"I think I have this one. They call themselves the "Holy Polars".

Audience - groan. This concludes this episode of the Match Game. If you have a better answer, post it.

Open Letter to my Fellow Gym Goers

I have read other people's rants and raves about going to the gym and I thought I would add my rants and raves


1. Here's to you Mr. Yell at the Top of your Lungs Guy

You lift a lot of weight and want people to know it. What better way than to yell/grunt at an ear piercing volume when you complete your set. Science has shown that yelling improves your capacity by 0.2% and by gum, you want every advantage possible. Also, lose the MC Hammer Pants and Bad Boy Muscle Shirt.


2. Here's to you Mr. I use three pieces of equipment at once so don't even ask to work in guy

You need to complete your superset and need three pieces of equipment simultaneously. If someone approaches one of your unused machines you let them know "I have one more set there". In other words, I need to use this equipment sometime tonight and your presence upsets my flow.

3. Here's to you Marathon Mamma

You use the treadmill or eliptical trainer for hours on end. You occasionally reset the timer in case someone takes a look at how long you have been on. In those two hours, you have covered a distance of 2.3 miles. Way to go, tortoise. You're the same person who circled the parking lot for half an hour to find a close spot.

4. Glandular problem guy

Most people sweat at the gym. There is a sign a my gym that says "Sweating is optional. Towels are mandatory". Your body pours sweat from everywhere leaving the machine for the next guy a disgusting mess. There isn't enough Purell in the world to sanitize the bench after you have drenched it in your body fluids. Ewww

5. Multitasker guy

Your workouts can only take up so much of your precious day, so you must continue to talk on the cell phone while working out. You also read the paper and watch TV. You do everything but move on to the next machine so I can do my bicep curls.

Ok enough of that. You get the idea. I could on - naked guy, inappropiate workout clothes lady, smelly old guy, mirror staring guy. I guess there is a good case for working out at home but I think that going to the gym is part of the effort. "I drove all this way. I might as well work out".

In spite of all those annoying people, I managed to work out last night and even did 30 minutes on the eliptical trainer.

Last post, I talked about "Iron Horse" as a metaphor for a train that I never picked up on. My sister commented in the section about a song our mom and grandma used to sing about an iron horse. Choo Choo was an iron horse and he wore an iron shoe. I literally used to picture an iron horse running through a field. I swear the whole train thing never hit me. By the way, Lou Gehrig was known as the "Iron Horse". He played in all of those consecutive games as a Yankee and then ironically enough he was afflicted with "Lou Gehrig's disease". Also a 1924 movie by John Ford was called "Iron Horse" and a winery and a song by Motorhead and a bar in Houston. Viva la Google!

More School House Rock!

Any child of the '70's knows School House Rock. It was an ABC thing between cartoons. Some of my favorites:

- Verb! That's where action is

- Lolly get your abverb here

- Three in the family

- I'm just a Bill

- Conjuction Function

I remember in Junior High we had to recite the Preamble and everyone in the class song the song "We, the People" from School House Rock. Ah Good times. Do kids have to memorize stuff anymore? With all of their gadgets and gizmos, I would think that memorizing things would seem outdated and unnecessary. Why memorize when you can Google/Youtube/Wikipedia it.

On the exercise front, I exercised on Saturday (20 minutes treadmill - hit the 1 mile in 17 minutes). On Sunday and Monday, I rested. Last night, I was raring to go and did a mile in 15:30 - yes! I was like the Flash - now you see him - now you don't. I was wheezing quite a bit but got through it. I talked to my sister about calorie counting - and while the idea seems abhorrent to me, it makes sense and I plan on incorporating it in my overall scheme to run the marathon in June 2009 - San Diego.

I think I can push it to 1.5 miles this week. I think I can - choo! choo! Sidenote - I had no idea that the term "iron horse" referred to a train. For whatever reason, my brain thinks in a very literal way - so I pictured "iron horse" as an actual giant iron horse, kind of like a Trojan Horse. I can't remember when exactly I figured out that "iron horse" was a term for train but I know it was recently.