God's Story

Gold... or Whatever

Olympian Abdi Abdirahman arrived in New York ahead of a race last week with every intention of going for a 50-minute training run. Then his plans changed.

"I just wanted to eat, lie in bed and watch basketball," said Abdirahman, an American long-distance runner. "So that's what I did."

Distance runners tend to be Type A personalities. They weigh their food, chart their mileage and obsess over everything from sleep to stretching. Then there is easygoing Abdirahman, a Somali native who moved to the U.S. as a child. He eats what he wants, likes to party and runs fewer training miles than other marathoners, occasionally skipping workouts altogether.

Despite this approach—if not because of it—Abdirahman will compete in his fourth Olympics this summer.

At 35, Abdirahman is no more expected to win a medal in London than he was in Beijing, Athens or Sydney. In his three previous Olympic competitions, running the 10,000 meters, he never finished higher than 10th. He qualified for the 2012 Games by finishing third in the U.S. marathon trials in January behind teammates Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi. His best marathon time is five minutes slower than the world record.

When asked about Abdirahman this week, Alan Ashley, the U.S. Olympic Committee's chief of sport performance, was at a loss. "Who is he?" Ashley asked.

For Abdirahman, winning medals isn't everything. He earns enough money from sponsorships to live comfortably. Competitions take him on trips around the world. And he refuses to endanger his love of running by shoving unappealing amounts of it down his throat. While many elite marathoners run more than 140 miles a week, Abdirahman peaks at about 105.

"He's the polar opposite of any other runners I've ever known."

Story and photo from The Wall Street Journal Online

Transparent

Tokyo makes glass houses

“In a connected world where privacy is a valued, but diminishing part of daily life, home remains a reliable refuge. But here’s one home that intentionally strips away even that illusion for its inhabitants. In this nearly transparent Tokyo home, known as House NA, outsiders can see everything and everyone inside.

Tucked into a quiet residential neighborhood, this three-story, 914 square-foot home was created by an award winning Tokyo architect named Sou Fujimoto. His unusual design, with high glass walls and varying sized modular tables, contains 21 “floor plates” for residents and guests to sit, work, cook, eat, sleep, or play. Some of the floor plates are heated to provide comfort in the winter.

Surprisingly, Fujimoto’s multi-level home design wasn’t inspired by stacked phone booths but rather by the concept of a tree with perches on both high and low branches. “The intriguing point of a tree is that these places are not hermetically isolated but are connected to one another, … “ said Fujimoto, a lecturer at Kyoto University, in a statement explaining House NA.

Though the home is almost entirely transparent, there are curtains that provide some modicum of privacy for occupants. Still, living in a fishbowl might make residents think twice about climbing down to breakfast without first getting dressed.”

article from Yahoo news, and image from google images

Honk! (If you love me)

I had never been so embarrassed! The school bus stopped in front of my house and almost immediately after I stepped off the bus, the horn began blaring. It was a loud and obnoxious sound. And it wouldn’t stop!

The blue station wagon had the attention of everyone on the bus. Kids flocked to the back door and hung their heads out the window to see what was going on. Why was this person laying on the horn behind a stopped school bus?

The loud mournful wail followed me into my driveway, much to my horror. I rushed to get away from the noise, but felt called back to the blue station wagon that now sat in my driveway. Actually, I didn’t feel called back, but since my mom was calling me, from the front seat of the “blue bomb” (the affectionate name my sister and I gave it), I had to face the music (or in this case – the blare of the horn).

My mom had tried to just be friendly and toot at me to say hello since she was arriving home the same time as me. However, what she meant for a small toot, turned into a never ending siren. The horn got stuck. Did I mention how embarrassing that was?

Peaks and Valleys

Colby Lewis makes history in loss

BALTIMORE -- Texas Rangers starting pitcher Colby Lewis took peaks and valleys to a new extreme in Thursday's 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of a doubleheader.

Lewis gave up five hits -- all home runs -- yet he also had a career-high 12 strikeouts. That made him the first pitcher since 1918 to give up five home runs and have at least 10 strikeouts in the same game.

"It was a freakin' weird game," Lewis said. "I don't know how to justify that game."

Lewis gave up home runs to the first three batters he faced, falling behind 3-0 after just eight pitches as Ryan Flaherty, J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis all hit home runs. It was the first time in American League history that a team started a game with three straight homers (fourth time overall).

Lewis then did a tremendous Cy Young impersonation, retiring the next 18 batters he faced -- 11 of them on strikeouts. His slider was nasty, his fastball command solid, and he was unhittable. It was an impressive run and unlikely, given his start.

But in the seventh, he lost his remarkable form and gave up two more home runs -- a solo shot to Adam Jones and a two-run homer to Wilson Betemit, allowing six runs on five hits -- all of them homers. He collected a career-high 12 strikeouts in the process.

"It seemed like one of those days where you have really good stuff and if you miss your spot and it's not just a hit, it's a homer," Lewis said. "It was weird. You can't really look at it any other way. It was a weird game."

Lewis, who is now second in the AL in homers allowed with 11 on the year (so 45 percent of that total came in his seven-inning start Thursday), said he felt he threw good pitches on three of the homers. He'd like the slider back that he threw to Markakis in the first, saying he didn't bury it enough. Markakis hit it off the foul pole in right. And he threw a 2-0 fastball that was too high to Hardy, who is hitting the ball well right now and was looking for a fastball on that count.

"He kept us in the game," manager Ron Washington said. "He settled down and made some adjustments. It was just two innings. It just so happened it was the first and the seventh."

Lewis was still shaking his head after the game. He said he felt great, had good stuff and thought he had the energy to even pitch longer. He said he didn't allow the three straight homers in the first to rattle him.

"I'm not worried about it," Lewis said. "Somebody's going to get out. The best hitters get out seven out of 10 times. Eventually, something is going to happen."

Story courtesy of espn.go.com.

Image courtesy of news.google.com.

Unplugged

Maybe it seems like the fastest way for a gadget-and-technology blogger to commit career suicide, but Paul Miller gave up the Internet at midnight Tuesday.

Miller, who was and still is a senior editor at a tech news site, plans to stay offline for a full year. When he needs to post something to the website that employs him, he will hand his editors a thumb drive with his stories saved in offline files. If he needs to look up a phone number, he'll get on the phone and start calling people.

Why go to all this trouble? For years, the idea of a digital sabbatical has appealed to the hyper-connected set -- people who spend most of their days in front of computer screens, checking blogs, reading Twitter and somehow trying to figure out how to get their work done in between. At the office, they dodge dozens of click-me-now messages per minute, each demanding instant attention.

Depending on your perspective, it may be either surprising or fitting that a technology blogger would get so caught up in the online tornado that he would quit, completely, and for a full year.

On one hand, the Internet is Miller's passion and livelihood.

"I love the Internet," he said. "It allows people to interact in really deep and meaningful ways and to create awesome things and do awesome things. I think it's a wonderful invention and I have no ill will against it."

But on the other hand, he also was semi-required to be online almost all the time. "I've been on the Internet for the majority of the hours of my waking life," he says. Over the years, that started to take its toll. Longer-term, big-brainpower projects, like a sci-fi novel he's writing, fell to the wayside of quicker, easier distractions, he said.

So he wants to try life without all that.

"I just want to know how it's impacting me and the parts of it that might not be good or might not be good for me," he said in the interview. "That's why it's an experiment, not an indictment."

Story from CNN.com

X-ray

TSA Finds Gun Parts In Mickey Mouse Stuffed animal

DENVER -- Gun parts were discovered inside a Mickey Mouse plush toy and two other stuffed animals at a Rhode Island airport.

The gun parts were found when the stuffed animals went through the x-ray machine. Mickey Mouse, a teddy bear and a rabbit each had a different part that, when assembled, would create a gun.

Investigators determined the gun parts were in the stuffed animals as part of a "domestic dispute," saying the 4-year-old and dad had no idea the gun parts were there. The boy and his father were allowed to continue on their trip.

Article from yahoo.news. Image from google images.

Hog Wild

Life at home for one Florida man got a lot more complicated when he accidentally shot his girlfriend in both legs thinking she was a hog.

Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies say 52-year-old Steven Egan was hog hunting Saturday night with girlfriend Lisa Simmons at a hunting camp off a rural county road in the northern part of the state. Around 7:30 pm, officials said, Egan shot at a hog and then left Simmons behind in the tent to go look for it. When he heard a noise in the woods he fired his gun again, thinking it was the animal.

Unbeknown to Egan, Simmons had also left the tent to pick up loose oranges that had fallen from trees on the property. Instead of hitting his wild target, Egan struck his girlfriend in both legs with a .30-caliber bullet. “He saw a hog and thought he shot it and went to look for it,” Maj. Steve Clair with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office told ABCNews.com. “He heard her and thought it was a hog and just shot.”

Simmons had to be airlifted to the Halifax Health Medical Center for surgery and was listed in serious condition. Authorities said they did not plan to charge Egan in the incident. “He was very sympathetic that he’d shot his girlfriend,” Clair said. ” It was an accident. I think it was just a violation of one of the cardinal rules of hunting which is you never shoot what you don’t see.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Story and photo courtesy of http://abcnews.go.com