The View From Kalamazoo

No workout yet this week. Sat. night Emma started vomiting roughly every hour to hour and a half…took her to the doc Sun. late AM and they gave her something to stop the nausea, but no dice. Still puking nearly 24 hours after it started and seriously dehydrated we called in and then went to the hospital. Good thing, it’s not like Em has a extra ounce to spare anyway, but her eyes were sunken, she was hallucinating and combative…it was ugly, really ugly. We were finally discharged yesterday afternoon (hence no Mon. workout) – she’s reconstituted rehydrated and has an antibiotic course in progress for a nasty infection in her u-tract somewhere – and she’s feeling fine ( I knew she was back to her old self the minute she started bring a crabby pain in the ass in the hospital – the Little Dictator in all her mightiness). This unhappy episode will result in a bunch of lab tests (of the ultrasound and VCUG varieties) and other nastiness before we see her pediactric urologist again in Nov. for her two-year surgery follow-up. We thought the reimplantation then to correct her vesicoureteral reflux corrected her, er, plumbing problem…hope the labs show this as a fluke, not a sign that it’s still a problem and perhaps more surgery might be in our future. Erg.

Of course, while we were in the hospital I was getting no rest (not that I slept Sat. night at all) and experiencing my usual allergic reaction to the place so, of course, I picked up a nasty summer cold. So I declined today’s workout since I’m tired, no where near as strong as usual, and I can’t do cardio with a miserably stuffed-up head. I feel lousy. Fri. looks to be the next time in – I hope this cold is mostly history by then.

Behind again. Router still crapped out, work still busy – c’est la vie.

Mon. did my upper body + cardio, Wed. my lower + shortened cardio because I had to relieve Brian (sick kid). Upped my leg press to 90 lbs. each side (180 lbs. total) and I soooo still feel it. This morning woke up late – power went off at 4 A.M. or so and I had forgotten to install batteries in my new clock. I just got dressed and dropped the kids off and went to work – meeting this morning I would have *just* made after a regularly-times workout. Also I was home sick yesterday with Em’s virus and still feel pretty lousy today, so I suppse I should just lay low and try not to encourage the virus to settle in and stay awhile. Wed. weight – 267.5!

My favorite fat broad consignment shop appears (from the sign I passed on my way in this morning) to be closing, much to my great sadness. I think I’ll have to pop in at lunch and see what good deals there are – I’ll buy tight so I have something to look forward to! 🙂

I’m behind on this – been busy at work (not even enough time to take a 15 I-don’t-smoke smoking break for this) and my router has taken the big crappola so no updates on home-time. Bleah. Ok, so I need to be so very brief: -Weight down to 268, so 20 lbs. down overall. -Used all Olga time I had left, so more Olga time means I have to shell out ca$h, so not for a while. I’m going commando solo.

I’m using a combo of machines, and I’m not sure who I’m helping by posting my weights, but here’s the down and dirty:

pecs: M 50 lb. 2/12

delts: C 20 lb. 2/10 standing or C 50 lb. 2/12 seated

traps: M 50 lb. 2/10

upper back: C 50 lb. 2/12

lower back: roman chair ‘crunch’ holding 10 lb. weight 2/12

biceps: D 15 2/12 doubles or 20 lb. 2/20 singles (each arm)

triceps: D 10 lb. 2/12 singles (each arm) or D 20 lb. double (overhead/reclined)

abs: M 100 lb. 2/20 or crunches 3/10+10

inner thigh: M 70 lb. 2/15

outer thigh: M 90 lbs. 2/15

hamstrings: K 90 lb. 2/10

quads: P 70 lb. (per) 2/12 or K 70 lb. 2/10

calves: P 70 lb. (per) 2/12

glutes: one-leg squats at bar 2/10 (each leg)

obliques: roman chair ‘crunch’ holding 10 lb. weight 2/12 (each side)

(M: Magnum machine; C: cable; D: dumbells; P: press; K: Keiser machine)

I don’t think I need to explain why I’m just *floored* by this. Disgusted, amazed, FLOORED. I commented about it briefly on my other blog, but this is really the place for it.

From the issue dated June 27, 2003, By Scott McLemee

Seeing Red

Philip Foner influenced a generation of young labor historians, but critics call him a plagiarist who helped himself to their research (full piece here)

“He was a pioneer in the development of labor history as a discipline, in moving it out of the economics department,” says Nelson N. Lichtenstein, a professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He notes that Foner chronicled the struggles of black and female workers at a time when the constituency of unions was assumed, by default, to be white and male. By the late 1960s — despite his marginality, or perhaps because of it — Foner was an acknowledged influence on the younger generation of historians studying the labor movement.

Strangely Familiar

Meanwhile, Foner was in turn being influenced by lesser-known scholars, to put it as kindly as possible.

The first sign of trouble came in 1971, when James O. Morris published an article in Labor History charging that Foner’s book The Case of Joe Hill (International Publishers, 1965) contained extensive plagiarism from an unpublished master’s thesis that Mr. Morris wrote in the 1950s. “About one quarter of the Foner text is a verbatim or nearly verbatim reproduction of the Morris manuscript,” he wrote. That was a low estimate, because Mr. Morris also noted that many of the primary sources quoted in his thesis also appeared in Foner’s book — passages that “begin at the same word in a broken sentence, involve the same pattern of dots for omitted material, end at the same point. …”

In his reply, published along with Mr. Morris’s article, Foner listed the archives and sources he had consulted. He acknowledged reading the thesis, but said he did so only toward the end of his research. He did not respond to Mr. Morris’s documentation, in side-by-side columns, that compared Foner’s book to the thesis and showed extensive borrowing, much of it word for word.

It was not to be the only time…”

and more, from another source:

Melvyn Dubofsky: “…when I did my book on the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] I discovered that Foner had never seen documents cited in his footnotes that were supposedly located in the National Archives (they were classified and unavailable to researchers) and that he had destroyed documents at AFL-CIO headquarters (pre Meany Center and pre SHSW AFL collection, the Federation’s records were stored in what amounted to an attic room in the headquarters building and rarely examined by scholars).” (read the rest here.)

Friday didn’t happen – a certain small blonde girl was SO uncooperative and then we just needed to GO. Monday I did upper body as Olga had set up Wed., and I wrote down all of the weights for the Magnum machines I’ve been on but I can’t find that paper right now, so will enter those when I find it. Monday’s weight 270.5. Monday night there was a biiig thunderboomer – so yesterday AM we arrived at the gym to find it dark and uninhabitable. The sign outside said

No cardio for you!

Well, not really, but the result was the same. Today did the upper body set (will meet again with Olga Fri. for lower body fun) same as Mon. Hopefully cardio tomorrow. Today’s weight 272.0 – I’m a big ol’ hormone-driven water balloon today (and that means 1-1.5 extra lbs. on the scale), that should ease back when I check Fri. If’ I’m Very Good I’ll do crunches tonight. Ok, if I’m Very Good I’ll do crunches after making dinner, Emma’s lunch for tomorrow, doing some laundry, and tackling some small area of the house (all areas need help). Riiiight. I have been SOOO busy at work I’ve been Not Good about my water, and even find myself skipping my snacks (I’m pretty much trying to stay in the Biometrics ballpark) but I hope that won’t work against me too much. Time for smack snack!

Been a busy week, time to log in the MFA campaign. Monday was the final assessment for Biometrics – final weigh-in, the dreaded Calipers of Doom, Bp, the whole thang. The system will spit out my starting and ending measurements and percentages and whatnot (I should get that box any day), so I’ll post on that when I get it. Final weight was 272.3 – down 16 lbs from the program first weigh-in. I have some free PT time that came with my new gym membership, and I’m trying to figure out if I can afford to buy more – so I at least get to work with Olga a bit more before I might have to go totally solo.

Followed that up with a short upper-body workout on my own on the Keyser machines since I didn’t have enough time after the assessment for a full workout. I also weighed myself with the doctor’s-office style scale in the locker room to see how different the weight would be compared with the extra-sensitive digital scale connected to the computer used for Biometrics. There appears to be about 1.5 lb. difference, so on that scale I weighed somewhat under 274.

Tuesday Brian joined me for cardio – I did 18 minutes on the eliptical trainer (all uphill, for glutes) followed by a quick 2 minute jog on the treadmill. We’re planning on 5 days a week together at the gym in the early AM after we drop the kids off at the sitter – MWF lifting, TR cardio. Brian plans to do cardio Sat., too, but I need to do laundry and grocery shop and basically spend that time on domestic crud, so I’m opting out of *that* little fun-fest. Today’s weight 273.5.

Wed. I met with Olga and she showed me more of the Magnum (pullies, nautilus..you know, different from the pneumatic Keysers) equipment and we started to set my weights on those – totally different weights than I do on the other machines. We just did upper body and Olga is out of town for a week, so when she gets back she’ll show me other fun things on the other equipment for lower body, since she figures I’m probably going to plateau out on the same-old-same-old routine we’ve been doing three times a week with Biometrics. I’ll comment on those weights and machines tomorrow or this weekend – I’ll need to note them down when I get my file tomorrow AM. Today’s weight 272.5.

Today did 20 minutes on the eliptical trainer, same all-uphill glutes course and I increased the resistance slightly. Today’s weight 271.5

Today’s heat index was 105 degrees – so thank goodness for fat-free aspertame-sweetened ice cream! uuugh.

I can’t say I’m joining the ranks of those who greatly dislike Dave Winer because, well, I don’t bother to read his blog and my husband pretty much has the anti-Winer thing all sewn up.

I am, however, totally amazed at this conference this guy is running at Harvard I’ve run across.

It’s a con on blogs. Simple enough. It was originally one day, recently, it appears, expanded to two (sort of – the second day is made up of “Birds of Feather Meetings” (basically chit chait space and time to finish any conversations started the previous day.) Again, small conference, only US speakers (it was originally billed as international, but that has been changed as well), cozy. Simple enough, yes? Well they’re charging an unbelievable $500.00 for this con. Honey, they can hire Alan Rickman to orate the damn thing and one day (and change) is certainly not worth a half grand of precious spendolas.

Winer’s explaination is hardly convincing. I’m the coordinator for a conference, albeit not on blogging, held at a university. It’s *4 days*. Our registration fee is less than a *quarter* of his. We have a couple of special speakers (of the paid variety), we’re nickle-and-dimed to death by the university, but more importantly we’re frickin huuuuge. My point here isn’t to blow my own horn – yeah, the Congress (or simply Kalamazoo, as it is known to a world full of medievalists) is big, both academically and logistically complex, well WELL over a year in the making, and a SIGNIFICANTLY better deal…so much so that I can’t fathom what the heck requires a $500 reg. fee.

Truly amazing. We here in lowly Kalamazoo must be damn near miracle workers…or, uh, something…

I’m back from TN – more on that is here. I packed dumbells and an exercise band I purchased from the Pro Shop before I left. I was Pretty Darn Good (as opposed to Very Good, but I was on vacation, damnit!) with my calories and alternated days with trying to work out as closely as possible to my routine with the machines and walking. I discovered that holding a laughing 20 lb. baby over my head while doing crunches is exceptionally effective (and fun for him, too!) I am really uncoordinated with the band, however, so I don’t think that was as effective as I might have hoped. It’s hard to say how much I gained on vacation – we’e quessing maybe .5-1 lb. Before I left my weight was up almost 2 lbs., but the scale was misbahaving – it’d register in the right weight range and then suddenly pop up. I couldn’t have gained 2 lbs in 2 days, and Olga did say the computer was acting a little funny, so she thought it was a computer issue (it’s connected to the scale) and told me not to fret. Ah well. I must be exceptionally good this weekend. I’ll be in tomorrow AM for cardio.

Today’s workout (last one!) with Olga was the usual schtick – upped chest press 1 lb. and leg extention 2 lbs. I need to figure out how to manage more time with her on a more periodic basis (maybe going down from three times a week to once a week?), but it’s tres pricey. Monday will be the weigh-in and Great Caliper Ritual for the final assessment. I can hardly wait, let me tell you. Today’s weight 274.0.

Note to self: WOW! chips are named that because you say WOW! as you experience cramping, WOW! as you suddenly run to the restroom, and WOW! as you spend some lengthy quality time there. Could it be because I have no gall bladder?

I’m about to run out the door to Nashville to take the kidlets to visit Sis, so this will be brief!

Let’s see – Leg extention and seated leg curl both up 1 lb., chest press was mis-set (rather, it mis-set itself somehow – do pneumatic machines do that?) and so I went up over *6 lbs.* to just over 80 lbs. today. I’m a brute. Two sets (each) of 20 bicep singles with the 15 lb. dumbell. Olga reminded me again how strong I am fer a guuurl. 🙂 Triceps today with a 12 lb. dumbell (two sets of singles) so I could see how I can use just the band and a set of dumbells we had here at home to work out while I’m out of town. Positioning, positioning, positioning! Crunches (three sets of 15+10) with the band, no time for cardio! I’m outta here!