Fact Check Before Believing

I know another political post, what can I say, I live in New Hampshire and it is in our blood.  

The above image is going around on Facebook and after a bit of research I have found it to be 100% false. Lincoln was never elected for President as a member of a third party. In 1860 Lincoln was a member of the Republican party which held a collation majority in the House.

Below they have added a vote for Lincoln is a vote for Douglas. Lincoln was the only Northern and Republican candidate running for office, while the South split their vote between three candidates: The Democrat party split into two groups, John Breckenridge (Southern Democrat), Stephen Douglas (Democratic), with John Bell being a true third party candidate (the Constitutional Union Party). The election was won by Lincoln only because the North had more electoral votes than the South and Lincoln won all the Northern States. So the added statement is even a bigger falsehood.

Now without the added notation on the bottom you could take this to mean because the South split their vote three ways they lost the election and if they hadn't wasted their vote on someone other than Stephen Douglas, the South would have won the election and we would not have gotten Lincoln. This is still false since Lincoln won enough electoral votes in the North to win the election.

Lesson is don't believe anything on Facebook, unless you spend the time to check it out. All to often something looks good so we share it and only add to the problem. Same goes for the media cause they mislead you as well and have their own agenda. It use to be the media could tell no falsehood, now it is they can say anything as long as they do not KNOW it is false. That is a big difference, they no longer feel they have the obligation to fact check themselves first.

And above all be respectful of the other candidates and especially be respectful of whom ever becomes President no matter what you think of them. We need to teach our children how to be respectful and it doesn't work if we aren't respectful to those in authority over us.

Should we only vote for a moral president?

I can't take it any longer and I must speak out.  I don't want my blog over run by politics, but I must speak out on several issues.  So here goes the first of several post on the current state of our election process and the grumbling I hear all to often.  I'll try and keep it neutral. 

I will never select my president because they love to hike, no more than I would hire my plumber, carpenter or investment broker on the fact that they have hiked the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end. Now when I am choosing among equally qualified individuals, I will than and only than use other criteria to help me narrow down the choice. If they are a fellow hiker they get bonus points. But I will not chose someone just because they share my love for hiking.

There once was a murderer and adulterer and thief whom God was very pleased with and was willing enough to endorse him and call him a man after his own heart. HIs name was King David. You may try and argue the facts, but it will remain that King David was a horrible sinner, worthy of the death sentence by the rules of his own land. Jesus also called Matthew a tax collector and hot head and liar named Peter. And Peter was going to be the head pastor of his new Church. Yikes!

I'm not saying that we should not ignore the sins of those on our list of candidates, but rather focus more on the issues at hand. If two people running for office are almost equal on the issue, that are important to you, then you can take out the morality issues to help you make a final selection. On the other hand if one candidate was perfect and had no moral faults yet wanted to pass laws that would ban anyone over the age of 45 from hiking they probably would not get my vote, but I might let them do my plumbing if they were licensed.

Dirt Sidewalks

I see it has been a while since I last posted, so I felt an update was due.  If you have been following my blog you can see that my summer was full.  At the end of summer we had to shift gears and start getting ready for school.  New school supplies and clothes had to be purchased.  The new schedule for my oldest daughter, now in middle school, has me getting up an hour earlier and it is taking me way too long to adjust to my new schedule.  I think she is doing better than me.

I'm still barefooting it as much as possible.  A little funny if you were a fly on the wall.  I walk everywhere barefoot, but when I shop locally I put on my vivobarefoot sandals to enter the store.  It really feels a little backwards.  Usually one takes off shoes when you enter your home and here I am putting something on.

I am attending church Sunday nights barefoot and the other day the Pastor's wife laughed when she saw I was barefoot.  Not a bad laugh, but more from amusement that I was still barefoot.  Perhaps, since summer is now over.  Not sure what funny bone I hit, but at least I made someone smile.

Today I walked to and from work barefoot and the temperatures were below 50ºF on the way in and 57ºF on the way home.  I'm wondering how low I can go, so it should be an interesting fall.  On the way home I had the opportunity to walk on a section of sidewalk that had been torn up.  As I walked on the dirt I never knew what my feet were going to encounter underneath the top layer of sand.  It was also interesting to  note, that most of the shoed people seemed to be avoiding the now sand sidewalk and using the street.



There is one problem.  I am still developing a blister of sorts between my big toe and its neighboring toe.  I've seen a coach and he informs me I need to learn to activate different muscles and gave me some exercises to help me work towards this goal.  Of course being 50+ I have a lot of muscles that are no longer being used like they should, so hopefully this will help me out in the future as well.  But today I think my posture might be the biggest culprit.

My coach had discussed with me that I needed to activate my glutes more, which I never realized I don't really do while walking.  How's that possible, I'm not sure.  I had started walking differently and did notice a difference, but all of a sudden the blister comes back bigger than ever.  I realized that I had stopped walking in the way my coach suggested.  Today I tried his method again and I think it will help the blister problem.

Auto Dealership

Today started out pretty normal.  We got up and headed to our men's breakfast held on the last Saturday of every month.  Since I'm a single parent they allow me to bring my daughter, so the two boys, my daughter and myself all jumped into my van for the breakfast.  Then my van decided to give me trouble starting.  Last winter the battery would often be dead and I had worked trying to find what was draining the battery.  While the vehicle was in the transmission shop they said they found a short in the grounding line.  I thought that problem had been fixed, but maybe it hadn't.

I attended the men's breakfast barefoot as I had been for a while now and nobody said a word.  Afterwards we headed to the car dealership to see what we won on the flyer, (you know the kind that make it look like you won $25,000) we had received in the mail.  I told my daughter that we would be lucky to get $1 (we actually got $5).  I felt it would be a good lesson in how advertising works.

I only gave it a second thought before I decided to enter the store barefoot.  I was greeted normally and was escorted to a table to begin the dance.  As I walked past several of the other sales people they made comments about my barefeet.  I think one of them said I couldn't be there barefoot, but I just waved him off.  My salesman was treating me with respect and courtesy right from the start. 

While I was sitting at the table one of the sales people from the peanut gallery had found an extra pair of sneakers and walked over to offer them to me.  They were way too large and I told them I was all set.  During our negotiations one of my handlers mentioned that his uncle use to always be barefoot.  Not sure if I could believe him, but it was a nice way to try and smooth things over.  I took the comments as being playful and I don't think they meant to be offensive, though they may have been close to the line, but if you choose to be barefoot, you are bound to draw attention to yourself.

I took the vehicle for a test drive and than we got down to serious business.  I was not 100% sure if this was what I wanted so they sweetened the pot continually until I couldn't refuse.  I told them I wanted to take another look at the van and went out onto the blacktop on a bright sunny afternoon and spent a while "kicking the tire".  If this didn't show them I was a real barefooter, nothing would, that blacktop was very warm.

I was in the store at least four hours and barefoot the entire time and got no further comments until I went in to sign the papers.  When I arrived in the financial office to sign papers I was asked if I was always barefoot.  I told him as much as possible.  

So I learned not to teach my kid a lesson about advertising. Though if my van had started properly this morning I might have won out and drove away $5 richer.  But as it was my van was 16 years old, with 170,000 miles and numerous quirks.  It wouldn't last much longer before beginning to cost me a lot in repairs.

Amusement Park

Having foster kids has many rewards, most of them are not monetary, but today Canobie Lake Park offered free tickets to all foster and adopted children.  Those accompanying them would be charged only $10.  A very good deal and very nice of the park to offer.

Now the question is should I go barefoot.  I decided to enter the park with by Xeroshoes.  The park was paved and I was concerned about it getting too hot, but after a while my shoes started to bother me and I started walking around barefoot.  It did not seem to be an issue.

When we stood in line to purchase some refreshments the pavement did start to get hot, so I put my shoes on for a little while, but took them off once we got moving again.  We eventually arrived at a ride called the Boston Tea Party and it was a log ride where you got wet.  A sign stated shoes were required for the ride.  Considering that you can get really soaked on this ride, I thought it a very silly rule.  Since it was the rule, I took my sandals out to wear for the ride and after a short waiting line we were finally ready to board our own log and I was asked to put my shoes on.  

Leaving the area of wet rides we came to another sign that said shoes and shirts required beyond this point.  So the shoes went back on until we came to the next wet ride. To be fair some rides required shoes and shirts and they required a child in front of us to put his shirt on to ride, so at least they are consistent in enforcing the rules.

Overall I found the park barefoot friendly, except for being required to wear shoes while on most of the amusements.  They actually let you wander most of the park barefoot.  There are a few rides they allow you to go barefoot, and a couple rides even have spots to place  your shoes while you are on the ride.  Not all of those rides were water related either.

Having to put your shoes on for a water ride where you are sitting inside a log boat, with feet safely inside, has to be one of the silliest rules I have seen in a long time.  Considering the the shoe rule was enforced, consistently, politely, and only required on some rides,  I would say it had to be more insurance or some other engineering requirement than it is a simple dislike of barefeet.  I even ate at one of the sit down food places barefoot and didn't have any problems.

First Barefoot 5K Road Race

Last night I ran my first 5K road race barefoot.  My work offers to pay for the entry fee and also gets us t-shirts.  We gather together before the race and have our picture taken.  Then we split up to run the race and gather back afterwards for pizza.

Only one person in the office knows I run barefoot.  So I showed up wearing my old minimalist sneakers for the pictures.  Afterwards I snuck away and left my shoes in my cubical and walked down the stairs, hoping I would avoid meeting anyone.  As I exited the stairs a lady from accounting was just leaving the elevators and inquired if I ran in bare feet.  So much for stealth mode.

I stood in the shadows as much as possible before the race.  I was very nervous and could feel the adrenaline coursing through me.  Would the pavement be too hot, it was 93ºF and had been scorching hot all day.  Half the race was on older pavement, but the last half was on pavement laid down just last year and was still black.  I figured I could try and run on the concrete sidewalks if the pavement got too hot.  Also, my furthest distance running barefoot was 2 miles and on that run my legs began to stiffen up as I attempted to adapt to my new running form prescribed by my coach.  I figured I could run/walk the last mile or the whole race if needed.

I was in the middle of the pack and it took about 3 minutes to reach the starting line and then we were off.  The pavement was much cooler than I had expected, being shaded by the buildings along the street, the second half I was sure I wouldn't be so lucky.  As one runner passed me he commented on my bare feet and was duly impressed. Got at least one other positive comment as well, no negative remarks.

Around the mile mark we entered a residential area where the locals had put out a few sprinklers and hoses to help cool off the runners.  I didn't seem to get wet enough to make a difference.  At the water station I took a few sips and then just dumped the rest over my head.  With about a mile to go the fire department had set up the best sprinkler yet, it was more like a local rain shower.  That seem to help me a little bit. 

Around 2.2 I stopped running, which is now my longest barefoot run.  The rest was mostly walking with a few short runs.  At the very end of the race the city fire department had another hose showering the runners.  This location caused a large puddle to appear, which I gladly walked through, cooling off my feet.

I finished in 40:21, a few minutes slower than last year, but I'm very pleased.  It was 14 degrees hotter than last year, I was attempting to run using a new form I've just started working on and it was my first barefoot race. What more could I ask for.

After the race I went back to the office to grab my stuff and to grab a slice of pizza.  I went into the celebration room barefoot and while grabbing my slice to go and one of the guys commented on my footwear. 

Today at the office the lady from accounting asked if I ran the whole race barefoot and another lady inquired if she had heard correctly that I ran the race barefoot.  She was impressed but I could not convince her that my feet possessed no special powers.  So I guess half the office will know shortly that I ran the race barefoot.  This might be the best way to come out of the barefoot closet.

Longest Barefoot Streak at Day 5

Today we pack up our wet camp and head home.  It is an easy day on the feet as most of it is spent at the campsite packing up or on paved surfaces, no gravel paths today.  I'm pleased with how fast my feet are getting conditioned.

On the way home I stopped at a mom and pop store to pick up a drink and as I walked up to the cashier it seemed as though she noticed my feet and had a slight look of disapproval.  But she said nothing and treated me cordially when I checked out.  She probably figured I would be gone in a minute and I wasn't worth the effort of reminding me that shoes are needed to shop.

After unpacking at home I was very hungry so we walked over to the Bamboo Garden and ordered enough food for a few days.  I didn't want to have to cook again tomorrow.  My mother had also cooked us a boiled dinner, so I'm all set for a few days at least.

Over the past five days I have visited 9 different stores.  We actually went into the store at Gunstock to buy supplies on two separate days.  It was a very successful barefoot outing.  Can't wait till my next one.