Like the Wind

Today I decided to indulge in shirtless running. I by no means ever do this to “show off” or any other similar stereotypical reason people seem to come up with in their heads about shirtless male runners.  I do it for many other reasons. I’m going to dive into a list here of reasons why I believe it is beneficial to be running shirtless. First of all I would only consider it when it is over 25 degrees Celsius outside (it was 31 today). I’m not so bold to ditch the shirt any cooler than that, although I personally believe it would be perfectly acceptable anywhere over 15 degrees. Now to get onto the aforementioned list:

-Not to overheat:  People who simply walk or bike in the heat do not realize just how much warmer the body gets when you are full out running for kilometer after kilometer. You get very very hot. When you are shirtless the heat is allowed to escape from your torso and the wind passing across it is such an awesome added bonus.

Fun Stuff.

-To prevent my nipples from bleeding: Okay that must have put a fairly vivid picture in your heads but it is true. When sweat starts to build up on a cotton shirt the constant rubbing of the wet shirt against the nipples combined with the humid environment can cause a pretty nasty looking chest. It is not fun to come home with a shirt that has two extra red designs on it that were not there when you went out. This is true especially for long runs over 10km.

-To get an even tan and prevent burning in the future: This is kind of a silly reason, but I thought hey why not mention it. Running shirtless prevents you from getting that t-shirt or muscle shirt tan and makes it all even. Also building up a tan slowly overtime without too much sun exposure at one time helps prevent your skin from burning as badly when you are forced to be in contact with the sun for a long period of time in the future.

-To prevent coming home with a shirt that weighs 3 pounds/having to do less laundry: Basically, yeah a shirt with a run’s worth of sweat in it can come to feel quite heavy and cumbersome and it is better to just avoid that situation. Plus, it saves on laundry detergent. I’m only thinking of the earth we all share :p

-Gives incentive to eat better: When you know that people are going to be seeing you running each time it gives you a sense (even if it is only subconsciously) to eat better so that your appearance is more appealing to them next time you run by them.

-Plainly because it feels better: Running shirtless makes you feel free and it is the most natural, comfortable way to run. It is how we were brought into this world and how people were doing it for hundreds of years. It also seems to give you that little extra spring in your step.

-Inspires others to get out and get in shape and run: This is not really a reason why I do it directly but I think it is an excellent byproduct of my actions. I think when someone sees an in shape shirtless runner it inspires them to want to also get in shape so they can do it themselves.

 

I was already thinking of doing a post on shirtless running but I thought I should mention a story from my run today that kind of put it to the top of my topics list. I was trying to cross the highway at an intersection where there were no lights of crosswalks. I finally saw a clearing and went for it and what did I see from the blue pick up truck that just passed me? I saw an overweight man sticking his hand out the truck window and flipping me off. It took all I had to not just break out laughing hysterically right there. Thankfully not much flusters me and I was able to maintain my focus and continue on with my run. Hey, if it makes him feel better about himself to do that to other people, as sad as that is, I’m glad it was to me so that it did not have the possibility or discouraging someone else.

I move for a shirtless runner epidemic! Get out there and run with your shirt off. Girls, a jog bra would do haha. But hey, if you don’t want to go shirtless at least go out and run. It would be awesome to see more runners out because it seems to me like we are an endangered species.

Peace out!

epop aka runman21

Triangles!

I’m going to mix it up on my blog a bit today. I found it odd how I am going to be graduating as a math major this upcoming year and that I do not have anything math related on my blog yet. I’ve decided to change that.

I’m sure most of you have heard of Pythagorean’s Theorem at some point during your schooling in high school.  The old a^2+b^2=c^2, where c is the hypotenuse of a right triangle, and a and b represent the two shorter sides of this right triangle. However, I bet most of you haven’t been shown a proof of this theorem and have just been told to except it unless you have taken math in some sort of post secondary education or you were curious enough one day to go and find a proof online or in a book. I’m going to introduce a neat proof today that I first saw in a video from one of my favorite YouTubers named Vihart. The reason why I found this proof particularly interesting is because it is not in the usual form of a mathematics proof which usually involves either writing lines and lines of explanation or manipulating axioms until the desired result is achieved. This proof is purely visual and very easy to understand.

Okay, so I’m no artist and all I had to work with was paint so bare with me…

In the above picture we see a square image with a smaller square in the interior of it bordered by 8 identical right triangles. If you wanted to make this with a piece of paper it is fairly easy. Just fold a square piece of paper in half twice lengthwise (not along the diagonal) and you should have a square that is 1/4 the size of the original square. Then fold this square in half along the diagonal to obtain a triangle. Finally, position this triangle so that the edges of the paper are at the bottom of your perspective of the paper and take the upper corner of the triangle and fold it downwards to create a crease which is parallel to the edges at the bottom of the triangle. It does not matter how far you fold the corner down it will still work. This step may seem confusing but try to visualize the words that I have written. After this you should obtain creases equivalent to the lines in the picture above.

We will label the hypotenuse of each of the 8 right triangles with an H, and the other two sides with B and L to denote big leg and little leg.

Now, we will remove the four triangles coloured in green. If you are playing along with the piece of folded paper there is no need to remove these pieces but simply fold them behind.

With these four green triangles removed we obtain a square (or we would if my paint skills were a bit better). One can see that each side of this square is the length of the hypotenuse of one of the right triangles. So, with some simple math we see that the area of this square is the length of the hypotenuse squared (or simply H^2).      

We will now refer back to this image but instead of removing the four green triangles we will remove four different triangles. We will remove the two upper triangles which share the hypotenuse labeled H in the picture as well as the two triangles on the left hand side of the square. With the folded paper you can make a small tear on the line labeled L and fold these four triangles behind.

Van City

As you all probably know, the Vancouver Canucks lost in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals on Wednesday. It just so happens that the Canucks are my favorite hockey team and have been ever since I moved to BC when I was 5 years old. So, you would think I would be in complete disappointment and anger after this happened, which I was. However, the events of the day put my emotions on a roller coaster. At first before the game I was in a state of excitement and nervous energy. I decided that I would not get my entire hopes up after seeing what had occurred in game 6. In the back of my mind I found it kind of unlikely that a team that played that poorly just one game before when they could have won the Cup in Boston would have a complete turnaround when facing the same situation a few days later just in a different venue. Unfortunately my intuition was right. The Canucks seemed to put up a great effort throughout the first period but after that they went back to their old ways. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a Canuck and will always be a Canuck but one thing I do not understand is when you have worked your whole life to get to a point and you are one win away from achieving your ultimate goal, how you cannot show up to the last two games and put absolutely everything in your heart into those games. I know thousands of people who would’ve given their all if they had the talent and opportunity to do so. Are these players just lacking the determination? Has their passion been lost? With the exception of Ryan Kesler in game 7 it seems to me that this was the case for the Vancouver Canucks. In this world greatness isn’t just given to you; you must work your ass off to get it. If you do not play and think like you are going to win. You won’t win. It’s that simple.

I will discuss this later on, but through what happened in the events following the game, something became clearer to me. One cannot achieve peace with others without first having peace with oneself. When Boston won I was not mad at the players of their team for winning. I did not hate them. I had an incredible amount of respect for them. They were fighting for the same goal and just fought harder than we did. It is weird that these words are even being written by me but I was actually happy for Tim Thomas (the goalie of the Boston Bruins) when he won the MVP trophy and lifted the Stanley Cup.  He did not make it into the NHL until he was in his early thirties. He lost his opportunity to start in the playoffs just last season and did he let any of these things get to him? No, he didn’t. He played even harder throughout this entire season and put out what in my opinion looks to be a Vezina Trophy like performance this season and set a record for the most saves made in a playoff run along with getting a shutout in the final game to win his team the Stanley Cup.

As soon as the game ended I’ll admit I was a bit bitter and angry after the Canucks had just lost. However, as soon as I saw the images of the angry “fans” outside Roger’s Arena flip over a car and setting it on fire, I thought to myself “Is it possible that my anger in losing could ever go this far?”. I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t but it is still an unsettling thought. My feelings soon turned again to nervousness and disappointment. I was nervous for the families who got caught up in this disaster of a riot and disappointed in the people who were a part of it. Through this I am starting to be able to control my anger much more in situations like this when my team loses. Of course I am still angry but I am starting to not let it affect me as much. To those who are not avid sports fans it may seem silly to be so passionate about something you can’t control and something that is “just a game” but true sports fans feel like we are actually apart of the team and are sharing the disappointment right along with the players. However, in no way should it have ever gone as far as it did Wednesday night.

I know that the majority of these people were not hockey fans at all and some or most might not even have been from Vancouver, but just ordinary criminals wearing my team’s jersey who took advantage of the situation to do damage to a wonderful city. They probably would have done this even if the Canucks had won. However, it is hard to believe that not even a few of them were actual Canucks fans. I feel unbelievably sorry for these people and for anyone involved in their lives that had to feel ashamed for seeing these people make a disgrace of themselves on an international stage. I hope these people can find a way to fix whatever psychological problems they have that make them feel it is okay to do these things or even feel happiness for inflicting pain on others. I know there is something wrong with these people, but in some part of me it makes me embarrassed to even be associated to the same species as them. They are putting a bad image on my team, my province and even my country.

Finally, I saw something on Thursday morning that reminded me why I love this country and put my faith back in people. Thousands of people coming out to sign the boarded up buildings expressing their appreciation for the police and their work the previous night and going out of their way to help clean up the mess the criminals made the previous night. This put a smile on my face. These were the true fans. These were the people who deserve to live in such a wonderful city.

I leave you this time with a quote by a great man who went by the name Martin Luther King, Jr. which I apply to both the Canucks and to the criminals mentioned as well.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

Top 10 Favorite Animated TV Shows

Well, I have decided to put together another top 10 list. I was sitting on the couch this morning watching cartoons and had a moment of nostalgia. This gave me a great idea for a blog entry so this time I will be ranking my all time top 10 favorite animated TV shows.

I will start off with a section of 5 shows as honourable mentions. All of these 5 shows I loved watching as a kid and I felt that I couldn't leave them off the list entirely.

Kim Possible

SpongeBob SquarePants

Phineas and Ferb

The Powerpuff Girls

The Magic School Bus

Now to get onto the top 10:

#10: South Park

This is just simply a ridiculous and funny show. The writers are not afraid to cross any boundaries. They have made fun of almost every religion, a ton of celebrities, all sexual orientations and a lot of racial stereotypes. If you get offended easily this show is not for you. However, if you like yourself some rude and crude humour I'm sure you'll love South Park.

#9: Hey Arnold!

This was one of my favorite shows as a kid and I am sad that kids of the next generation will not get to watch it on TV after school the way I did. It was very relatable in the way Arnold helped his friends solve their problems which are common to all kids. Your football head suited you just fine Arnold.

#8: Dexter's Laboratory

Another of my childhood favorites. One episode I vividly recall was when Dexter got caught up in one of his experiments and made it so he was only able to speak french. He was cooking a cheese omelette and kept screaming "omelette du fromage!". I thought it was so cool to know something in french and went on myself to scream this through the house for at least a week. Sorry family!

#7: Recess

This was a very fun loving show. It showed how kids from all different social groups could put their differences aside and have fun together. The show also incorporated concepts such as hierarchy and government into the children's play groups. All in all a very good watch.



#6: The Simpsons

This is an classic that never gets old. It is amazing that after all these years that the writers still have new ideas for episodes. I've been watching this show as long as I can remember and it will go down as one of the all time greatest.



#5: Death Note

This is a show that some of you might not be so familiar with. It was originally a Japanese Anime that was translated into English. It is a very dark show that never ceases to capture your interest with either tricks and surprises or just the awesome story line. To sum up the main idea, Death Note is about an incredibly smart high school student who one day discovers a book (the Death Note) that has the ability to kill anyone just by writing their name in it. Each book is guarded by a Shinigami (Death God) who is essentially immortal. The Shinigami can extend it's life by taking the remaining years of a person whose name gets written in the Death Note. There are many many rules on how one can use the Death Note but I'll leave those up to you to discover. I do not normally watch Anime but if I was to recommend just one this would be it. I am actually just starting to re watch it currently.



#4: Rugrats

I'm sure you all know this one either from watching it yourselves or from one of your younger relatives watching it at one point. Very fun show, the kids get into a bunch of wild adventures and have crazy imaginations. I used to get my parents to tape every episode of it and I'm sure we probably still have a box of VHS tapes of this show.

#3: 6teen

This is a show I continue to watch today. It is about a group of teenagers who work and hang out in a mall. They go through all the issues normal teenagers do. Be it dating, getting prepared for college and of course finding and losing their part time and summer jobs. It is a very funny comedy and the holiday special shows would have to be my favorite.

#2: Pokemon

Okay, so maybe the actual Anime wasn't always the greatest but for at least the last 12 or so years of my life Pokemon has been involved in it in some way. Either by collecting and trading the trading cards when I was a kid, watching the show or by playing the games on Gameboy and Nintendo 64. I cannot believe the concept of catching and training these creatures can be so fun and addicting.

FUCK TRAINS!

People who know me know that I do not get mad very often. These people know to stay the hell away from me when one of my favorite sports teams loses or when I do badly on some sort of test. Besides this not much makes me angry. Not much people say to me really makes me angry and I have the ability to brush most of the other things off. Anyway, you get the point. However, when I was on my run today I was infuriated. You see, I had been planning all week to run this 13km run today and had laid out the specific route and everything. So I start out on my run and everything is going just fine until I get about 3km into it. I turned the corner to go onto this long stretch of road and I see a train on the train tracks blocking the only way for me to continue on my route. I smiled to myself and figured "okay, I will just run up and down this road in a circle until the train moves out of the way of the road. It shouldn't take too long." I was sadly sadly mistaken. I was running around like an idiot for about 5-7 minutes and when the train had only a few railroad cars left to go it decided to reverse directions. This was by no means a short train. It was probably around 1km long so I knew it would probably take at least 15 minutes for it to completely move the opposite direction. I will now draw you a picture of the situation:

 

Top 10 Beautiful Women

So I have decided to compile a fun list. I am sorry for the shallowness of this but I will be making a list of my top ten most beautiful celebrity women. It will be my best of all time and not the current statuses of the women. I am also only considering women in the acting and music industries.

I will first start off with an Honourable Mention: Rachel McAdams

She was oh so close to making my list but turned out to be the last one cut.

She is just such a wholesome girl and has a very natural beauty to her.

Now to start it off with #10: Jennifer Anniston

40!?

Is that body really over 40? Best looking lady over 40 years old I have ever seen.

#9:Cameron Diaz

Those blue eyes are so captivating. As Jim Carrey would say, she is "SMOKEN!"

#8:Sofia Bush

This girl was half the reason why I watched One Tree Hill.

#7:Elisha Cuthbert

For some reason I want this girl to make me pancakes in a maid's uniform...is that strange? Plus she's Canadian. Hell yeah!

#6:Natalie Portman

She is cute as ever and for some reason has a kind of exotic feel to her.

#5:Jennifer Love Hewitt

This girl fits into all categories. She is sexy, cute, pretty and beautiful all in one package.

#4:Megan Fox

This girl is pure hotness. "Wow" *jaw drop* is a good way to describe her.

The top 3 girls are honestly all tops in my books. They were all my favorite at one point and it is difficult to put an order amongst them.

#3:Scarlett Johansson

Absolutely beautiful woman. She is very classy and Ryan Reynolds was one lucky son of a bitch. Bro, how'd you mess that one up man?

And the runner up is...

#2:Christina Aguilera

I have always thought this girl was beautiful right from when she started singing as a teenager up until now as she ages in her 30's.

Crazy Crazy Crazy

Throughout my 3 years of working at a campground I have come across some very interesting characters, but none more interesting than this one guy. Let’s call him D. The guy was unstable and had to take medication to keep his anger and emotions straight. He was staying at the campground for just over a month so this gave plenty of time for many events to occur.

Here is an example of one of our encounters:

This is actually somewhat what he looked like, minus the glasses.

*I am sitting in my office and D enters with a little kitten*

Epop: Hey D what’s this?

D: Oh, I was visiting one of my friends and they gave me this cat.

Epop: Oh nice, are you going to keep it?

D: Yeah, I’ll keep it in my trailer here. I bought this organic meat from this store out of town.

Epop: Oh awesome.

*The kitten is now attached to D’s sweater with its claws and is just hanging there*

D: Yeah, *picks up the kitten* he seems a little light I need to toughen him up.

*He puts the kitten down on my desk and it starts walking on my keyboard*

D: HA HA HA

Epop: LOLZ it is quite cute.

D: Oh yeah. I taught him to walk on a leash and he was trying to kill bugs by the river.

Epop:  Nice Nice.

D: Yeah and all the ladies in town seem to like him too hehe.

Epop: haha that’s always good.

*The kitten is now chewing on the cord for my computer mouse* (haha cat chewing on mouse)

D: Yeah so I have to go into town for a bit. Do you want to look after him for a few hours in your office here?

*at this point I was worried that he wouldn’t come back to get it*

Epop: Um… I’m not going to be in my office the whole time so you should probably take it.

D: Oh, it’ll be fine don’t worry.

*I think*      *I start to get up and move towards the door*

Epop: I have to actually go to the ballparks around town to do some maintenance right now.

D: Oh, okay. I’ll talk to you later then.

Epop: K, cya.

*D did not show up the next day and I found this unusual as he usually visited daily. He showed up again the day after that, kittenless. *

Epop: Hey where did you go yesterday and what happened to your cat?

*D says in the calmest monotone voice*

D: Oh I got arrested and had to spend the night in jail.

Epop: What the heck? Seriously? What happened?

OM NOM NOM

D: I decided to bring the kitten to A&W with me and we were hanging out there when my friend L called and said that she was omitted into the hospital. So I left the kitten on a shelf by the exit with some of my hamburger I had left over and biked over to the hospital. Afterwards when L was set up in the hospital I biked back to A&W to pick up the cat. However, when I got there my kitten was gone. *He is still speaking in the most monotone calm voice* So I went up to the counter and started yelling at the kids. I was like “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CAT! WHO THE FUCK TOOK IT!” and I kicked the counter as hard as I could and slammed my hands down on it and was like “TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHICH ONE OF YOU GUYS STOLE MY CAT!” and I started to go behind the counter. Well then for some reason the kids went behind in the cooking area and locked the door and I guess one of those fucking kids phoned the cops. Then they came and arrested me and said I had to spend the night there. I mean who the hell phones the police for something like that?

Epop: haha…yeahhh…that’s weird.

Come Run With Me

Running is meditating in motion.

Who would’ve thought this would be written by my hands after going through those 2 hour long basketball practices where more than half of the practice consisted of running suicides for each free throw my team missed with more than a couple “double or nothings”. Not me. I forgot to mention, our team consisted of far from elite free throw shooters.

No, I did not always love running. Nor did running always love me. I remember the day of a 3km race in high school I woke up with the flu. Did I tell my parents I should stay home from school? No. Did I think it was a good idea to maybe skip this one race? Unfortunately I didn’t. I was too competitive (or… arrogant?) for that.  Yes I did grow a lot in the intelligence department as well as a runner throughout the years. Oh, what happened in the race you ask? Well, I finished the race second and in a fit of anger and nausea ran to the closest garbage to the finish line and knelt over. After doing the deed I looked up to see a group of little girls pointing and screaming “EWWWWWWW”. Thanks girls, thanks. That put me on the couch and out of running for a couple of weeks.

I have no doubt though that running and I will be lifelong friends. I mean what more could you ask for in a friend than one who helps you get through problems, helps you stay in shape and is there any time at all when you need them.  Yeah, running is nothing but good in my book.

It is my escape. It is my drug. I do not need my mind altered or my reality blurred to get through the stresses life brings. I just need my mind clear and that’s what running does for me. Whenever there is a big or tough life decision for me to make I ponder it over during a run first before going through with anything. Running has also taught me self discipline and with that has given me a strong will.

When going out on a 10K run and feeling the pain in your lungs and legs half way through, teaching yourself to fight on and complete the run by telling yourself “this will make it easier next time” instead of listening to the voice in your head saying “I want to quit” helps develop immense self discipline and an impenetrable will that will help in all other aspects of one’s life. And the feeling it gives you inside when you’re done, oh WOW!  Well, let’s just say it is like nothing else. It makes me want to only strengthen my body and mind even more. This will and discipline helps me to refrain from eating and drinking foods and drinks which I have decided not to intake, control carnal desires and to abstain from doing things which will cause permanent damage to my mind and body because if I do, this can prevent me from running, which is not something that is easy for me to handle.