My voice singing Dixie, second attempt

The previous version of 'Dixie' ( http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-voice-singing-dixie-first-attempt-at.html ) I used just two vocals tracks. The latest version, linked to in this blog post, I used four vocal tracks.

The production process was that I had a track that was a loop of about the first 20 secs of Dixie, repeated seven times. To this was added vocals recorded four different ways using different audio effects.

The previous version I just took the vocals that accompanied the first of the seven repeats, from two of the four vocal tracks.

This version, I used: the vocals accompanying the 6th repeat of the 20 secs of Dixie from one vocals track; the vocals accompanying the 6th repeat from a second vocals track; the vocals accompanying the 5th repeat from a third vocals track; and the vocals accompanying the 2nd repeat of the 20 secs of Dixie from a fourth vocals track. I had progressed in techno-knowledge to the point where I could do this.

I found that the first ten attempts I made at singing the first 20 secs of 'Dixie' were incompetent. But after this the attempts became better and better until at the end the majority were competent attempts.

Problem is that the later attempts that were more competent, were made using hyped up audio effects that produced a sound that was too loud and too echoish.

I was able to correct the extreme loudness and echoishness and improve the sound on these attempts simply by creating a 'voice envelope' and reducing the volume for these attempts.

The vocals for this version, were done as follows: mouth about two feet from microphone; headphone playing music I was singing along with on shelf about two feet from my head (so a very low volume of it was heard); 'echo', which produces an unrecorded echo of the input into the microphone on, but heard only at a very low volume through the headphones. Perhaps for the track that was made using no effects whatsoever I had the mic closer to my mouth not sure.

I felt that the echo I could hear of the input into the microphone, by turning the echo option on, was very important for someone who has a pathological tendency to be out of tune such as myself. I also realized how being able to hear the music I was singing along with would help with this. But I had gotten so sick of hearing 'Dixie' that I could no longer tolerate hearing it through the headphones on my head, and so simply listed to the faint noise coming from headphones on the shelf.

Time and experimentation will tell whether I should have the headphones playing the music I sing along with on my ears when I sing, what the optimal setup for hearing the echo of my voice is, etc etc.


The vocals for this version were produced before I went on my six mile jog, not after, although I suspect that such vocals will come out better after the jog as opposed to before.

The vocals for this version were made while I was what I call "under the weather".

The vocals for this version were all done at a low volume so as not to disturb the neighbors, at night after most everyone had gone to sleep. This also was, I estimate, a disadvantage.

I wonder whether I am too critical with myself. Being incompetent at singing for two to seven minutes, and then attaining to a moderate level of competence, is not that bad for someone who basically has'nt done any singing for years.

Could be music is similar to other subjects I have improved alot in simply through: perseverance, attention, application of cunning/wiliness/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, effort.

The version linked to in the previous blog post and this version are both based on a recording session of Feb 10, late at night.

This latest version of Dixie can be accessed through the following link:

Feb 23 version of Dixie-- 4 vocals tracks + tambourine percussion added to 1916 version of 'Dixie':
http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=5772523.wav

My voice singing Dixie, first attempt at vocals

A couple of weeks ago on Feb 6, I posted ( http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/1916-audio-of-dixie-land-combined-with.html ) re 20 seconds of an audio of 'Dixie' to which I added three tambourine tracks.

Continuing the project, I added to the recording presented in the Feb 6 post: a vocals track made using the graphic equalizer reached through process-audio-graphic equalizer in the Sonar LE (Sonar Le has two graphicequalizers) set to the 'tambourine' preset I created and no other effects; a vocals track made using the fx settings I used for the low volume tambourine tracks; a snapping of the fingers track using no effects except the process-audio-graphic equalizer in the Sonar LE set to the 'tambourine' preset I created; and, a clapping of the hands track using the same fx settings as used in the low volume tambourine tracks in the first recording.

This is my first stab at vocals in a long long time. In India when I was about eleven for a year I took lessons in singing and tabla. Aside from that I was never trained in singing, seems like in grade school and high school the teachers and I all sort of agreed that I was not a singer and I stuck to the drums.

Memories re my singing: my boyhood friend Dr. Michael Gross tried to turn me into a rock-star; this Jewish girl Cathy Altman who was a friend in high school made fun of me singing out of tune (she said, 'it's like, strangers in the night', singing 'strangers in the night' out of tune, to describe my singing); my dad told me that I had a 'prosaic' voice; when taking singing lessons in India as a boy I had to sing loud and strong in the mornings but nobody ever complimented me; apparently Jews have some religious law that prohibits them from complimenting gentiles.

You can download the new recording by clicking on the following link:

Dixie+tambs+vocals+fingersnaps+handclaps recording

Feb 21 morning running shoes footwear experiment

The run I planned for the night of Friday February 20, did not get started until 450 AM Saturday Feb 21. Again I did the six mile course around the block, jogging the first third and fifth miles, walking the second fourth and sixth miles, timing myself after the fifth mile.

Morning of Sat Feb 21 the time was 82 minutes same as previous run. Previous run I had a day's rest, this run I did not.

I wrote the start time down on an index card with a pen, this was relaxing, not having to worry about remembering the start time.

I concluded back when I first ran/walked the round-the-block course of 5 miles in 89 minutes, that I was 1 minute faster on this course than I was on the Main and Moody St 5 mile course. 82 minutes over the five miles on the round-the-block course is real progress.

I remember the days when I would give up after running half of one block on the round-the-block course, due to foot pain and calf pain (around the block twice on the round-the-block course is a mile). Indoor soccer shoes without pads just did'nt cut it for long distance running on concrete, and my calves and the sole area of my feet were weaker back then.

But I did'nt give up and when I got to the speed where foot pain began to develop I persevered and patiently worked out a combination of carefully chosen shoes and footwear add-ons that have produced a situation that is better and better on a daily basis foot-comfort-wise.

What has been happening on the runs has proven that I was correct when I concluded that the reason I had reached a plateau at 90 minutes, not getting any faster than 90 minutes day after day, was that I was experiencing excessive pain in my feet running in the Adidas Powerline cross-trainers.

I was like a slick quarterback the way I figured out the problem and solved it.

Since the time I patiently began working on choosing shoes and then adding padding to the chosen shoes, my personal record time on the round-the-block 5-mile has dropped from 89 minutes to 82 minutes, which I consider equal to 83 minutes on the Main & Moody 5-mile, where my personal best was 90 minutes.

In the two weeks since my first day using these shoes Feb 8, I have dropped my personal best from 89 minutes on the round-the-block course to 82 minutes, an improvement of 8.5%; the 90 minute plateau at which I stagnated has been broken, and a new plateau of 80 minutes has been reached.

Whereas during the plateau phase my rate of progress was such that I could expect to get down to 48 minutes on the run/walk five mile in four years, after all the patient careful work re footwear, looks like I'll be down to 48 minutes in just two months.

Weather during Feb 21 run link:

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/wxStationGraphAll?day=21&year=2009&month=2&ID=KMAWESTO6&type=3&width=500&showsolarradiation=1&showtemp=1&showpressure=1&showwind=1&showwinddir=1&showrain=1

Footwear today:

Left shoe:
foam/gel heel-to-toe insole +
'toe bed' (forefoot gel pad for ball of foot and toes) +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for big toe +
pad made of 8 layers Mueller M-wrap glued to area beneath big, index and middle toes, glued to toe area of gel forefoot pad +
pad made of 16 layers Mueller m-wrap around sides and rear of heel.

Right shoe:
foam/gel heel-to-toe insole +
'toe bed' (forefoot gel pad for ball of foot and toes) +
pad made of 16 layers Mueller M-wrap glued to area beneath big, index and middle toes glued to toe area of gel forefoot pad +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for index toe +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for middle toe +
pad made of 16 layers Mueller m-wrap around sides and rear of heel.

As has always been the case thus far, the removeable insole that comes pre-installed in the shoes were also worn.

Note: Previous blog-post, I accidentally mis-reported that there were 8 layers of Mueller m-wrap in the pad glued to the forefoot gel pad toe area for the right foot. Actually there were 16 layers of Mueller m-wrap in this pad. Wrapping the tape around the hand eight times produces 16 layers, not eight.

Notable in the run today, is the fact that the pad made of m-wrap attached to the forefoot gel pad, was deliberately for experimental purposes, 8 m-wrap layers thick in the left shoe, and 16 m-wrap layers thick in the right shoe.

The foot-wear padding setup used today produced basically good results in terms of comfort except that in the second half of the fifth mile, which was run, discomforts were felt: slight pain in the middle and index toes of the left foot, slight pain in the line that marks the intersection between the toes and the ball of the foot in the right foot, and slight pain in the balls of the left and right feet.

I attribute this pain to the increase in speed that has suddenly come about for me, from 89 minutes to 82 minutes in I guess just 13 days. At the faster speed, certain areas of the foot take more of a pounding.

Generally I was pleased that today for the entire time except the second half of the fifth mile, I could run in exactly the style that comes naturally to me, without having to inhibit this style due to pain produced by the foot hitting the hard unnatural concrete surface.

How great it is to be able to run in one's natural uninhibited style on any surface including unnatural concrete--it's an underestimated pleasure and benefit.

People underestimate the value of such pleasures/benefits, because they have become indoctrinated into the idea that pleasures are expensive, as if the great pleasures and healthy things in life are all bought with alot of money.

For the pleasure of being able to run on any surface in one's own natural style, uninhibited by pain/discomfort, all you need is about $130 for running shoes plus about $30 for pads etc to put into the running shoes = total $160, plus patience with tinkering with pads. That's not alot of money but the pleasure/benefit is still there.

Logical next steps:

Increase padding in pad made of m-wrap for left middle index and big toes from 8 layers to 12 layers; add 4-layer pad made of m-wrap to line between toes and ball of foot on right foot; add 4-layer m-wrap pad to ball-of-foot area in left and right feet.

If this increased padding is implemented, there will result probably excess constriction of the foot and excess heat for the foot. As of now my long term goal is to combine such increases in padding with getting rid of some or all of the toe-tubes (or replacing the toe-tubes with thinner home-made toe-tubes). Currently I am wearing a toe-tube on my left big toe and on on my right index and middle toes. Maybe the upper part of a toe-tube could be removed leaving just the lower half of the toe-tube, held in place with m-wrap.

Today the glue used again was the 'non-toxic CVS School Glue Gel'; weak as it may be it served its purpose again at least for one run.

90 minutes after the conclusion of the run morning of Sat Feb 21, I was still wearing the shoes I ran in and there was no discomfort except excessive heat in both the left and right feet.

Running Tactics

Tactics Sat Feb 21 were the same as the previous day: counteract the natural tendency to go too slow in the first two miles; exploit the natural tendency to be loose and energetic in the fourth and fifth miles.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Night of Feb 19 running shoes footwear experiment & rant re tactics vs strategy, Smoot-Hawley

Thursday night of Feb 19 was the first night since Feb 5 that I would say that I was not "under the weather". I did the six mile course around the block, jogging the first third and fifth miles, walking the second fourth and sixth miles, timing myself after the fifth mile.

Night of Thursday Feb 19 the time was either 72 minutes or 82 minutes. I thought the time was 72 minutes starting at 336 AM Feb 20 to be exact, but I think that I actually started at 326 AM so the time was 82 minutes. I ended at 449 AM Feb 20, subtracted one minute for tying my shoes twice.

I had earlier decided that I could remember the start time, and that writing the start time down on a card was unnecessary. This might be wrong. When you write down the start time you can forget about the start time, which is relaxing and frees the mind to think of other things.

Digression:

Reminds me of how emphasis on rote memorization can be harmful as the mind is un-freed to do things other than memorization.

Likewise with emphasis on solving problems extremely quickly compared to the average man, the emphasis on solving problems quickly leads to the mind not being available for something other than mental sprinting.

End digression.

The night of Thursday Feb 19 time of 82 minutes for the five miles around the block would be a new personal record, 4 minutes faster than the new 86 minutes personal record set Feb 17. The fast time was again evidence of the power of taking a day off (the previous day there was no running).

The Adistar Control 5 shoes again worn today, were adequate for the cold and snow. The temp was 21 degrees, thin layer of soft snow on the ground, certain areas for several yards featured unavoidable slippery ice. The Adistar Control 5 shoes breathe more than the Adidas Powerline crosstrainers, the foot gets colder in the Control 5s.

Weather during Feb 19 run link:

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/wxStationGraphAll?day=20&year=2009&month=2&ID=KMAWESTO6&type=3&width=500&showsolarradiation=1&showtemp=1&showpressure=1&showwind=1&showwinddir=1&showrain=1

Footwear today:

Left shoe:
foam/gel heel-to-toe insole +
'toe bed' (forefoot gel pad ball of foot and toes) +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for big toe +
tube made of 2 layers Mueller M-wrap for index toe + tube made of 2 layers Mueller M-wrap for middle toe +
pad made of 16 layers Mueller m-wrap around sides and rear of heel.

Right shoe:
foam/gel heel-to-toe insole +
'toe bed' (forefoot gel pad ball of foot and toes) +
pad made of 8 layers Mueller M-wrap glued to area beneath big, index and middle toes in toe area of gel forefoot pad +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for index toe +
CVS 'toe bandage' (toe tube) for middle toe +
pad made of 16 layers Mueller m-wrap around sides and rear of heel.

As has always been the case thus far, the removeable insole that comes pre-installed in the shoes were also worn.

The glue used was 'CVS 'non-toxic' 'School Glue gel' ( http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/catalog/shop_product_detail.jsp?filterBy=&skuId=886499&productId=886499&navAction=jump&navCount=3 ), just $1 for a 5 oz bottle. This glue was able to hold layers of m-wrap together but the pad made of m-wrap affixed to the gel forefoot pad with the glue, was just very slightly stuck to the gel forefoot pad at the end of the run (though it had not moved out of place). This despite the fact that I used a 25 pound weight to press the m-wrap pad I was trying to glue to the gel pad. Seems the glue can get absorbed into the Muller brand m-wrap as a result of which it is not able to glue the m-wrap to the gel. When this glue hardens it becomes literally hard, it does not turn into a soft padding type gel like best I can recall certain other glues I know of (whose names I cannot now recall).

The foot-wear padding setup used today produced basically good results in terms of comfort except: the left heel was loose; at times there was a sense of unevenness beneath the left toe; at time slight numbness and tingliness were felt in the left foot.

Logical next steps:

1

Use 4 layers of mueller m-wrap as pad under big, index, and middle toes of left foot, glued to left gel forefoot 'toe bed' instead of m-wrap made from 2 layers of Mueller M-wrap on left middle and index toes. This will produce experimental contrast between 4 layers under the toes on the left foot and 8 layers under the toes on the right.

2

Call or visit the 'green' 'organic' 'natural' stores and try to find some glue that is non-toxic, becomes soft and gel-pad-like when it dries instead of hard, and has more sticking power than the CVS 'School Glue Gel'.

Having become aware of how foot pads can be used to detox the body, and how substances can toxify the body entering the body through the skin, I was interested in using a non-toxic glue.

Heck the blue CVS 'non-toxic School Glue Gel' looks and sounds so nice you could drink it up, it gives you fantasies that when it dries it is like the expensive blue gel pads, and it only costs a dollar, but it lacks sticking power, even when you press the glued substances together 'until dry' like the instructions say. That's alot to ask--to 'press together until dry'. I am not a carpenter equipped with all the tools of a carpentry shop.

During the Thursday night Feb 19 run, The left and the right shoes seemed almost equal during the run in terms of comfort. However 45 minutes after the run concluded, pressure heat and itchiness around the left big toe and left index toe began to be felt. This was not the case with the right foot.

Running Tactics

I've noticed that in the first and second miles I tend to go too slowly (I don't use a warmup, the first mile IS my warmup), and that by nature I go fast in the fourth and fifth miles. Thus I reminded myself not to slack off in the first and second miles; and I reminded myself to take advantage of the fact that by nature I am energetic in the fourth and fifth miles.

I heard some political candidate (McCain) boast that he knew the difference between tactics and strategy whereas his opponent did not know the difference. I scoff at this. Fact is, you could know the difference between tactics and strategy, and still be completely inadequate as a military officer.

Words have flexible meanings, exactly what a word means changes over time, this is a fact of life you can ask any linguist.

Tactics refer to for example the tactics of a particular battle, whereas strategy technically speaking refers to a strategy used for more than one battle but who cares?

A sign of incompetence is failing to realize the similarity between tactics and strategy, and how one blends into the other in terms of linguistics.

A strategy could be composed of a set of tactics applied to several different situations. Therefore to see a radical difference between strategy and tactics when in fact no such radical difference exists, could be a symptom of incompetence and/or a cause of incompetence.

Along this line, it is IMHO as of now nutty (a la Senator McCain) to talk about how in the depression of the 1930s a government action carried out was a 'mistake' and so therefore should not be carried out now, when the situation now is completely different from the situation in the 1930s 80 years ago.

Aside from the fact that the alleged mistake was not actually a mistake.

I re-iterate that the idea that we can now succeed by now doing what should have been done but was not done way back in the 1930s,is foolish, because this is 80 years after the 1930s.

Comparing the 1930s to 2009 is like comparing 1950 to 1870. Think of how different the world was in 1950 compared to 1870. Think of a civil war battlefield with its muskets, cannon and horses compared to a 1950s type battlefield with nuclear weapons, tanks, machine guns, and jet planes.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Feb 17 running shoes footwear experiment; and re a Meeting with Fearsome yet impressed and hospitable Wampanoag Braves

Feb 17 Result:

Shoes + full-length foam/gel insole + gel forefoot 'toe bed' + toe tube on left big toe + toe tubes on right middle & index toes + front 3 shoelaces loose + top 3 shoelaces tight + (NEW!) foam tape around heels = almost comfortable run on ultra-hilly around-the-block course, heel looseness problems almost solved.

Logical next steps: use foam tape to create toe-tubes for left index and middle toes; use foam tape to increase padding on right middle and index toes; use adhesive tape to prevent foam tape intended to fit around the heel from sliding to underneat heel.

Tuesday night Feb 17, I ran the course around the block, 12 times around the block = 6 miles, first third and fifth miles jogged, second fourth and sixth miles walked. Time after five miles was 86 minutes, 3 minutes faster than my personal best so for of 89 minutes for this round-the-block course, which was a few weeks ago, less than 8 weeks ago.

The around the block course is different from the Main and Moody streets course. This one is Pond st to Bacon st to School st to Exchange st to Pond st, a loop or circle. It is half uphill half downhill, the hills are steeper than the Moody street hill. The forefeet of my feet apparently slap the ground harder both on steep downhills and steep uphills, this results in greater discomfort.

Tuesday night Feb 17 the footwear was the same as Sunday night Feb 15, except that Feb 17 Mueller brand 'M wrap' ( http://www.muellersportsmed.com/Retail_Tape_and_Wrap.htm ) was used to pad the sides and rear of the foot in the heel area to counteract the looseness in the heels.

The package of Mueller 'M-wrap' cost me $3 about a year ago, I bought it at some place like 'Olympia Sports' or 'The Sports Authority'. It is a very thin non-adhesive tape composed of flexible styrofoam type material. The $3 bought me a 2.75 inches by 21.4 yards piece of it, that would be about 3 inches by 257 inches.
I created three pads about five inches wide and three inches high, each one was composed of 37 inches of Mueller M-tape, folded eight times. I put one of these pads around the sides and back of my left heel and two of these pads around the sides and back of my right heel.

The first jogged mile the tightness in the right heel seemed just about correct, the looseness in the heel having been apparently cured; and the left heel looseness-situation was improved but not as satisfactory as the right heel. However when the run was over I discovered that the pads made of the 'M-wrap' had shifted from being behind and to the sides of the heel as intended to being crumpled up beneath the heel.

Feb 17 this M-wrap around the heel was combined with the foot-wear-add-ons of Feb 15, which were: toe-tubes on the left big toe and right index and middle toes; full length gel-foam insole, 'toe bed' (ball of foot and toes, forefoot pad).

Tuesday night on the round the block course I felt some pain in the third mile in the left middle and index toes which did not have toe-tubes on them, and also in the right middle and index toes which had toe-tubes on them. I attribute this to: the wrap in the heel area tightening up the fit of the shoe in general; and, the round-the-block course being hillier.

I stopped for 30 seconds (not counted in the time recorded) after the first mile to tighten up my left shoe-lace. This tightening seemed to result in slight numbness and tingliness in the left foot. I estimate that if the level of padding in the left heel area is increased, this will tighten things up result being I will not have to tighten the laces to the point where the annoying numbness and tingliness set in.

On both shoes today I tied the front three shoe-laces tightly and the top three shoe-laces loosely.

The 74 inches of 'M-wrap' padding around the right heel cost me only 86 cents; much less expensive in terms of price per unit of padding compared to the ready-made pads such as toe-tubes.

During and after the run Fb 17 I did not feel as good mentally and physically as I sometimes do during and after a run. I suspect that the six-mile jog-walk after one day of rest is too little exercise for me. This despite the fact that a day of rest produces faster times.

Wampanoag Interlude

The reason I did not do the jog/walk Monday night Feb 16: Monday evening I allowed myself to have just 12 oz of beer after having been awake for only 3 hours--I thought I could take it, could not, became too lazy to jog for the next 24 hours. Some 'Wampanoag' 'braves' -- the same people that first met the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth rock some three hundred plus years ago, entertained me with conversation and food and I decided to have a beer.

No really--except these were half English ancestry, Martha's Vineyard was apparently named after one of their female ancestors whose last name was 'Golding'. They emphatically told me that I looked like I had American Indian ancestry. I told them about a story I've heard re my ancestors, how due to the wildness of the historic American 'wild west' of a couple of hundred years ago, I have some American Indian ancestry.

It surprised me that the 'Wampanoag' 'braves' would be so sure that someone whose American Indian ancestry level is at most less than ten percent of all his ancestry, is 'American Indian'. They were convinced that the Indian ancestry in me is not Asian Indian but American Indian. Naturally I suppose, they appeared to consider 'American Indian', that is the natives of North America type ancestry as a much greater thing than Asian Indian ancestry as in from India.

Reminds me of how Hispanics think I look Hispanic, Whites think I look white, Indians from India think they can see India-Indian in me; people who look like my brother, annoyingly pretend I look like my brother. The price I pay for being so good looking I guess, everyone likes to think they can see their own ethnic group in me, people who are similar to my brother annoyingly pretending that I look like my brother.

I listened to the 'Wampanoag' 'brave' give his long speech--while drinking his Budweiser beer with the noise of the TV in the backround-about matters such as: how his 'girlfriend''s son is the fastest sprinter in his grade, how to cook various meals, his five brothers, someone slipped on outdoors steps he built, his birth and youth in Newton Mass, his ancestry, the dangers of nicotine gum, the famous American Indian rock group 'Red Bone', and etc.

Seemed to me like the man I was listening to compared to the fearsome American Indian warrior braves of hundreds of years ago, was sort of like a cat compared to a tiger. Admitting such to be the case reduces the drama and impressiveness out of the narrative but anyway. At least I am able to omit factoids that reduce the level of 'drama' and 'brag' that the 'first people' of our area think of me as one of them, are hospitable with me, and have invited me back to share with them some barbecued pork that I have quickly become expert in cooking.

I forgot to mention to the Catholic 'Wampanoag' 'braves' a thought that had been on my mind: how can Catholics who disagree with their own church about so many things, be so prejudiced against Christians who are not Catholics? It does not compute. But these particular 'Wampanoag' Catholics were not as far as I could tell prejudiced against non-Catholic Christians.

Note: the barbecue pork recipe can be found in an earlier blog post of this month. It produces inexpensive barbecued pork that I can now honestly say, produces the best barbecued-pork tacos I have ever eaten. It produces barbecued pork that, days after it was first cooked and put in the frig, tastes very good both after re-heating/cooking and even without re-cooking or re-heating. By way of contrast, many high-sales-volume restaurants sell you cooked meat that tastes good while it is warm, but does not taste good when it cools down, a sign of inferiority in quality.

Thoughts re Moody street (Waltham) people I jog by during my run; Feb 15 footwear running exp

Thoughts re the Moody Street crowd

During the run on Moody street, I noticed what seems like a signature characteristic of Moody street--the 'attractive' women with black hair and skin "white as milk".

During the run I heard a tall young white man's voice that sounded like a worm burrowing into the earth.

The woman with him and this other woman I ran by, by way of contrast, had voices that sounded something like what one would imagine to be the voice of some somewhat masculine (not unnattractively or strangely masculine) female Catholic saint.

Running on Main and Moody streets, I sort of marvel at how with the economy the way it is, there are all these people with money to spend on drinks and on restaurant meals.

The people doing the spending have money to spend and are happy in part due to factors such as: good parents; good community; good family; good social life, good conduct. I wonder if a person who has experienced the absence of such things could ever internally be like these lucky ones; could the lucky ones ever internally feel what is like to live through the absence of such things?

Gazing upon the bar and restaurant crowd on Moody street, it occurs to me, in certain ways these big spenders have more in common with the richest than they do with the poorest. For the present, at least, they can live like the richest basically.

And plenty of them to some extent are able to bask in a mindset similar to the rich through a blissful ignorance that gives them an unwarranted optimism similar to the more realistic optimism reveled in by the richest. But hey, blissfully ignorant as they may be, they have beautiful voices, beautiful faces, beautiful bodies, their skin is white as milk like the 'princes of Israel of three thousand years ago'--and at least in the Moody street area, their hair is black as a raven, like King Solomon's, black as sackcloth.

Scorned as they are by the Jewish racists, often to the poetic eye they look like they popped right out of the Old Testament like a lost tribe of Israel.

Seems like these 'blessed' truly enjoy themselves on Moody street--I wonder if they know what it feels like to be pretending to enjoy yourself instead of actually enjoying yourself. I admire them for the way they have mastered the art of, in moderation, occasionally enjoying a night out at the bars and restaurants.

They are people from that socio-economic class that is white, goes to church on Sundays or at least once a month, does'nt abuse drugs or alcohol, and is financially in the 60th to the 90th percentile, from the level where 60 percent have a lower income than them, to the level where 90 percent have a lower income than them.

We know they are out there, this class of people, we know there are millions of them, but they disappear into the woodwork--we don't see them on TV, they are not the ones working the cash registers in the stores. You could attend top-notch high schools and colleges and still not run into them because the vast majority of them despite being in the upper half in terms of income are associated with high schools and colleges that are typical. They are a class that is an important, classical, traditional part of this country--but you could go through life never running into them. In the nearby areas of Canada there are millions more who are similar to them.

Seems like we can end up, in our actual lives and also in terms of what we see and hear in the media, being exposed to people who are in the bottom half in income, and being exposed to people who are in the top ten percent in income, but never exposed to the white people who are above average in income but not in the top ten percent, which is a group that is such a historical, classical traditional component of this geographical area of the world. And there are millions and millions of them. It's awesome to think that out of say 100 million of them, there are 100,000, who are in the top ten percent in three unrelated important criteria. There are amongst 100 million of them, ten thousand who are in the top one percent in two different criteria. There are amongst them 100,000 who are in the top one tenth of percent, one out of a thousand, in one criteria.

But it's like, we spend our lives amongst the elite that is above this white sub-elite, and then the elite kicks us out, pukes us up, and then we spend our time amongst the lower class, never getting to know the great white upper class that is however not the top one percent or even the top ten percent in wealth and/or income.

Not only that, but this elite that is way up there financially, way above the upper middle class, that puked us up, was to such a large extent not white, and not Christian, alas!

I gaze upon these white Christian upper middle class with money to burn on the restaurants and bars of Moody street, and rebelling against the insane Jewish racist scorn for white Christian persons, I think of the people these people are descended from. Some of them are descended from great white Christian kings of medieval times like Charlemagne. Most of them are descended from persons who were once respected honored white Christian citizens of white Christian kingdoms--White Christian kingdoms featuring amongst a certain percentage a spiritual life that was very superior to the typical spiritual life of the typical resident of the USA in the 21st century--

Which is a USA infested with anti-white, murdering, lying, thieving, anti-Christian, racist, elitist, homosexualist, atheist, criminalist, etc etc sub-populations, which render the enormous disservice of corrupting beautiful good-natured well-behaved studious children, and turning them into things that end up being eternally damned to hell.


I must admit it seems the Moody street crowd would be fun and interesting to socialize with. I can't say they are all unfriendly, when the weather is warm when I jog or walk by, sometimes seems like almost every day some 'white as milk' woman amongst them will say something social to me as I go by. But the fact is the cops have drilled me into not responding to such friendliness, by passionately shouting at me when some woman complains about some insignificant pea under the mattress.

What is missing from my life more than women who are interested in me, is males who are 'buddies'.

In this area you are apparently supposed to find such 'buddies' through female friends such as wives; yet it is be natural to find female friends such as wives through male friends. Problem is that there is too much of a certain kind of selfishness amongst the 'white as milk' males around here which is the 'I think I'll avoid him because if he is my friend, the women will ignore me and pay attention to him instead' variant of selfishness, which is considered to be 'natural' and 'acceptable'.

Just one case of this kind of selfishness can produce disastrous results. Imagine there is some guy out there who could have been your friend. Through him you could have met more friends; and through these friends you could have met through him you could have met even more friends--and all of this could have ended up landing you a job paying twice as much as the one you have now. But guess what--the guy was never your friend, because he was afraid that if you were around him the ladies would ignore him. Result: big socio-economic black hole in your life.

Come on guys. Have'nt the priests at your Catholic churches taught you white males that envy and jealousy are sins, that selfishness or the excess thereof is often a sin? Have'nt you heard about the sheep and the goats? If females find a male attractive, that could be because he is possessed of worthy qualities that you should appreciate in a friendly way.

Have you Catholics gotten to the point where non-Christians and atheists are closer to you than Christians who are not Catholic? Have many of you fallen into the misfortune of being amongst a congregation and priests who never taught you the Christian ethics because everything was so focused on bureaucratic ritual, the pope, and Mary?

Sure Mary looked fat when she was pregnant with Christ. And then they passed a law discriminating against fat people. And then employers were afraid to ask if the woman is fat or is it a pregnancy because if they asked they could be sued for discriminating against a fat person. And then all fat persons were assumed to be the living incarnation of the pregnant Virgin Mary herself. And then I could not get a job, even in places where an athlete like me belongs, because they hired the fat incarnation of the Virgin Mary herself.

As for the pope--true, a wise and good man can tell when the thought in his head is most certainly true and infallible; but history itself shows that some of the men who have been pope have not been wise or good. You catholics will say, we are Catholics but we disagree with almost everything the church teaches, we don't think the pope is infallible. Does your unfriendliness have something to do with the fact that you disagree with so much of what your own church teaches?

I don't get it. What is the point in going to a bar with a half dozen people, if you are going to put up an excessively cold wall against persons who are not from your little group? If you want to avoid people who are not from your little group, you could stay at home.

Then you have the attitude: 'he looks like the type of male who gets into trouble with employer-owner types by being good, so I think I'll avoid him'. This is the way to treat someone who seems to be good? Sort of like a coward on a battlefield who avoids the slightest danger thereby making life miserable for the good heroic men? This kind of cowardice is especially contemptible for some of you because you are in a relatively secure position financially. Think about it, the good man who you are like cowards like shunning, might be the one whose ideas if implemented could save your cowardly ass and your family from disaster.

There is this 'dark' side of gay-liberation which goes unrecognized, which is males avoiding friendship with males due to a desire to avoid homosexual males--the result being a cold society. Re this, all I can say is that people in general, some more than others, are able to tell the difference between a gay cruising for sex and a straight being simply friendly. I figure that people should be given to some extent the benefit of the doubt, not assumed to be a gay looking for unwanted sex until it becomes obvious that such is what they are. Generally one can expect that the gay man looking for gay sex will not waste his time hanging around hetero type environments.

Feb 15 footwear experiment

Shoes + full-length foam/gel insole + gel 'toe bed' + three 'toe bandages' + shoelaces loose + top 3 shoelaces tight = comfortable run but loose heels

Sunday night Feb 15, I ran the outdoors Main & Moody streets five-mile course again with the first third and fifth miles jogged and the second and fourth miles walked. Time was 93 minutes. Foot-wear ingredients: same as Saturday Feb 14, but with toe-tubes NOT used on middle and index toes of left foot and NOT used on big toe of right foot--result being CVS brand 'toe bandages' (toe tubes) on left big toe and on middle and index toe of right foot.

The temperature was 25 degrees, slightly cooler than the previous night. For some reason I did not think the weather was so great or become mentally carefree like I did the previous night.

Today finally in the left foot: there was no numbness or tingliness; the feeling of unevenness below the sole of the foot was almost gone; I still felt this feeling of an annoying ridge below the left toe, but this feeling quickly went away after walking instead of jogging for a few minutes.

Today I tied the bottom four laces loosely while tying the top two laces tightly. During the run there was this annoying loose feeling in the heels and at the end of the fifth mile the top lace on the left shoe had come un-tied. Alternatives I can think of now to correct this: padding of some sort behind the heel to tighten up the heel; tying the bottom three shoes laces loose but the top three laces tight; carving out a hole where the heel is in the insole layer that reaches from the toe to the heel.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Shoes + heel-to-toe gel/foam insole + gel 'toe bed' + minimal use of 'toe bandages' + shoelaces loose + top shoelaces tight = painless smooth running?

Sat night Feb 14, I ran the outdoors Main & Moody streets five-mile course again with the first third and fifth miles jogged and the second and fourth miles walked. Time was 96 minutes. Foot-wear ingredients: same as Friday Feb 13, but with 'Profoot' brand toe-tubes added to middle and index toes of left foot and big toe of right foot--result being toe tubes on middle index and big toes of both feet.

The run Sat night Feb 14 was very pleasurable and relaxing, sort of like being half asleep out on the sea at night, without a care in the world, and with the weather just right; this was partly due to the weather which was perfect for jogging in the heavy winter coat and the sweatshirt combined--for the first time in years I felt like, as I breathed in the air...'ah...New England air...love it!". For a few days prior I had not consumed any alcohol.

The relaxed pleasure was also due to the fact that tonight I knew that I would be able to jog all the miles in my natural way feeling little or zero pain, ball of foot and heel hitting the ground almost simultaneously, forefoot sort of slapping the ground. And that's what I did, jog my natural way the whole time. For me there is relaxed exuberance in jogging in my own natural way.

The weather was: 29 degrees fahrenheit, wind calm 0-3 mph, delightful cool wind gusts of 3-7 mph, humidity 49-52 percent, no rainfall, barometric pressure 29.85.

Apparently the wind direction was from the northwest, from inland Canada, even though it felt like it was coming in from the Atlantic ocean as fresh as an 'Old Spice' commercial. At least I can glory in the idea that the wind that felt so good on my face and in my lungs, was from the North pole of our planet, land of Santa Klaus.

Air quality index during the run was listed as good, possible pollutants being ozone and pm 2.

( http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAWESTO6&month=2&day=15&year=2009 ) ( http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=02451 ).

The lesson learned today in foot-wear was that adding toe-tubes to toes that do not hurt can produce pain that did not exist before the toe-tubes were added, this despite the fact that toe-tubes can work wonderful pain-alleviation when they are needed.

As soon as I started jogging Saturday night Feb 14, I knew that I was going to have a problem with the excess toe padding on the left foot constricting and twisting the toes. Second half of the third mile jogged I felt pain in the middle and index toes of the left foot, toes in which I had never or rarely felt pain before, toes that I had anyway put toe-tubes on for the night, as an experiment.

Sant night Feb 14, I added the toe tubes to the middle and index toes of the left foot and the big toe of the right foot, because I wanted to be symmetric, have both feet the same way; I was so impressed with the way my right foot felt on Feb 13 that on Feb 14 I wanted everything on the left foot to be the same as the right foot was Feb 13.

As of now certain thoughts re the hyper-symmetrical approach come to mind: plenty of symmetry is already present because the left and right shoe are identical twins--in fact, maybe excessively identical given the wonders of modern technology; machines like jet airplanes are perfectly symmetrical, but that does not mean that the clothes footwear etc a human wears should be perfectly symmetrical; humans tend to be left or right handed and footed as opposed to ambidextrous; the human face is not symmetrical; the left breast in the human female is generally larger than the right breast.

During the Saturday Feb 14 run, for both left and right feet I had the spaces between the flaps on the shoelaces at 32 16ths of an inch--two inches-- for the 3rd and 5th shoe lace pairs and at 48 16ths of an inch--three inches--for the top 6th shoe-lace-hole pair. This is what the setting were for the right foot Friday night Feb 13. During the run Sat night Feb 14, the situation in the left foot was much improved compared to the previous night in terms of the numbness, tingliness and feelings of unevenness in the sole of the left foot.

I now estimate that the wise thing to do for next run is to get rid of the toe-tubes that were placed on toes that had never felt pain, and to combine this with the shoes not being tied too tight. Excess of padding and shoe-laces drawn too tight both have the same effect of creating excess constriction of the foot.

The toe tubes added Saturday night Feb 14, that were not used the previous night, were 'Profoot'brand 'toe bandages' ( http://www.profootcare.com/p-toe-bandages.html ), price $4.71 with tax at Walgreens, package contained three 4 inch tubes. These 'Profoot' brand toe tubes are less expensive than the CVS brand toe-tubes (which CVS calls toe-bandages), but they do not come in three sizes in one package like the CVS brand--they are all the same size.

The 'Profoot' brand toe tubes seem thicker than the CVS toe tubes and too big for the middle and index toes though appropriate for the big toe.

The 'Profoot' brand toe tubes seem to be more resilient to wear and tear than the CVS toe tubes; but the CVS toe tubes coming in different sizes appear to be the better choice for use on the middle and index toe because they take up less space in the shoe.

Saturday night Feb 14th, there was a slight annoyance of looseness in the heel, which probably results in less efficient use of physical energy. I estimate this can be corrected by tightening up the top shoe-lace pair and the one below it, while keeping the lower shoelace pairs loose.

It somewhat grieves my heart that although there are hundreds of different models of running shoes, I could not find one running shoe with the high ankles, as in basketball shoes. I estimate that the laces on the high ankles could be used to tighten up the heel area looseness which is created due to an approach that involves looseness in the ball of the foot area.

After all, army boots have the high ankles. The great boxer of old times Cassius Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali, used to train for his fights by jogging in army boots.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Adidas 'Adistar Control 5' Running Shoes + heel-to-toe insole + gel 'toe bed' + 'toe bandages' + shoes not tied too tightly = heaven on earth?

Friday night, Feb 13, I jog-walked the outdoors 5 mile course on Main/Moody streets, 1st 3rd 5th miles jogged, 2nd, 4th miles walked, in 94 minutes. Wore Adidas 'Adistar Control 5' shoes + gel 'toe bed' ( http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/catalog/shop_product_detail.jsp?filterBy=&skuId=334568&productId=334568&navAction=jump&navCount=3 ) + 'toe bandages' + gray and blue gel heel-to-toe insole (same as Feb 12 run except for addition of toe-bandages). Ran using my natural preferred heel & ball-of-foot strike ground at the same time style of running. Did not feel pain. Felt irritating sensory illusions of wrinkled sock wrinkled out-of-place gel pads and tingly numbness in left foot.

Alleluia, finally, right foot felt almost perfect, like a tiger's paw on the earth, even though it was a human foot on the concrete sidewalk.

I would have avoided 'toe bandages' because they sound gruesome and I consider myself too healthy for things like 'toe bandages'. But I was alert to consider them because online I saw other companies call them 'toe-tubes' or toe-caps'. Hey a tube sounds like some high-speed train line and some top athletes wear caps.

The footwear ingredients Friday Feb 13 were the same as Thursday Feb 12 but with the addition of the CVS brand 'Foam Toe Bandages', which are foam on the outside cloth on the inside tubes that you cut into pieces and then put your toes into. I used the three 4 inch length tubes to create tubes for my left big toe, my right index toe, and my right middle toe; these choices were based on the experience of the Feb 12 run. This to my surprise used up almost all of the tubes in the $5.24 (tx incl) package--I decided to pad the toes from base of toe to tip of toe as I was worried that the toe-tube might slip out of place. Accidentally I thought the narrowest tube was the middle-diameter tube. I put the tubes on to the (left big-toe, right index-toe, right middle-toe) toes and then cut off the excess length of tube.

I estimate that the numbness, tingliness and discomfort experienced in the left foot during the Feb 13 run, was a result of the shoe-laces being drawn too tightly in the left shoe.

We err if we dismiss an excellent control like a shoe-lace, simply because it is not composed of flashing lights and buttons. Thus I resolved to carefully note how my shoes were tied differently in the left foot as compared to the right foot during the Feb 13 run.

Counting the shoelace loop-hole pair closest to the toes as loop-hole pair 1, the third pair of loop-holes up is loop-holes-pair 3. At loop-hole-pair 3, the width between the left leather flap the shoelaces run through and the right leather flap, was during the Feb 13 run, 21 16ths of an inch on the left shoe and 30 16ths of an inch on the right shoe. That is a difference of 9 16ths of an inch, about half an inch; the distance for the left foot today was 30% less than it was for the right in this measurement.

(following measurements from Feb 13 run)

At loop-hole pair 5, the distance between the flaps was 20 16ths of an inch on the left shoe, and 30 16ths of an inch on the right; the left distance was 33% less than the right at this loop-hole pair.

At loop-hole pair 7, the loop-hole pair closest to the ankle, the distance between the flaps was 40 16ths of an inch on the left shoe and 48 16ths of an inch on the right shoe; the left distance was 17% less than the right.

On the left shoe, 12.5 inches of shoe-laces exited beyond the left loop-hole at loop-hole pair 7, and 13.5 inches exited beyond the right; total 26 inches.

On the right shoe, 10.5 inches of shoe-laces exited beyond the left loop-hole at loop-hole pair 7, and 10.0 inches exited beyond the right; total 20.5 inches.

On the left shoe I had 5.5 more inches left over to tie the knot with compared to the right foot. The amount left over to tie the knot with was 27% greater on the left foot compared to the right.

(reminds me of the depressing fact that some have alot more money to marry or tie the knot with than others, which promotes persons basing marriages on things other than love)

To properly conclude this aspect of the experiment, I should pull out the shoelaces that were worn today and measure them but I beg off--it would be better to simply call the store and ask them what the length of the shoelaces is.

This mini-study of shoelace tightness is meaningful to me because what I felt today in the left foot, that was not pain but was annoying and irritating, the numb tingliness, the feeling of wrinkled pads and socks, though not pain is similar to pain, is something that definitely can be physically felt, something that significantly detracts from the pleasure of the run. Though it is not pain, one senses that it is a discomfort that could turn into pain, and this could impair the performance level and the pleasure of the run.

It's been boring and depressing the past few days, working out this shoe problem. Advertising trains us to expect that if we spend 130 dollars on a pair of carefully chosen shoes, as soon as we put on the shoes and run we will be god-like. But now that I am on the verge of victory with regards to the problem, I can appreciate what a great thing it will be to be able to jog or run on any surface, using my natural style of running; I feel like I have cleverly accomplished something good and great by banishing pain from the act of running.

If I have the footwear ingredients problem for running on a very hard surface like a concrete sidewalk conquered, then I have the problem conquered for rubber tracks, wood basketball courts, grass fields, concrete basketball courts, concrete tennis courts, you name it. I'll have the internal pleasure of knowing that I have done all that I could do, to banish pain from the act of running on some surface.

The banishment of pain will improve my physical endurance, as I will not be burdened by pain while engaging in exercises that build up my level of endurance. The banishment of pain will improve my emotional state of mind; the banishment of pain will allow me to painlesly engage in activities I excel in and enjoy, unburdened by the tragedy (ya, for a star like me it's tragic) of not being able to keep up due to pain or exhaustion.

Seems to me like for me it is a religious good work, to banish pain from running on the various different surfaces that are found in our world. Could such be what is meant by the 'hallowing' of 'God's name'? Sometimes an athlete running can be a significant expression of God's spirit.

Christ and his apostles were a vocal music singing group like the Beach Boys and the Beatles, except with less emphasis on sophisticated instrumentation. I estimate that to a significant extent aerobic health correlates with and improves vocal and simple instrumental musical performance.

So the tedium of working out the foot-pain during running problem was well worth it for me, especially taking into account my unique characteristics as an individual.

This conquering of pain that I take pleasure in, was in part a result of me having internalized a tactical lesson, the lesson being that often even in activities in which spirit and genius play a significant part in, simply focusing one's attention on applying one's common-sense cunning (as opposed to spirit or genius) can produce success--which reminds me of how the prophet extolled worldy wisdom as neglected and under-emphasized by the religious. Sometimes just applying, with attention focus and energy, mental capabilities found even amongst those of average or below average so-called 'intelligence' helps us to achieve significant victories.

Things dont come easy. Reminds me of how in the 'Book of Proverbs' over and over again you are exhorted to hard work, to refrain from resting, to eschew pleasures. Money success happiness and also even pain relief--are apparently the result of hard work, the use of the mind (thinking can be hard work). I guess the media the movies and the songs can deceive us, make us feel like if we are meant to succeed we will succeed by just waving a wand and if waving the wand does'nt work we are not meant to succeed--the everything is talent and natural ability idea.

Don't pass up the high priority stuff while getting absorbed in low priority stuff. Remember to put the stuff you use often where you can reach it easily, remember to put the stuff you don't use often in the hard to reach places.

Plan for Feb 14 run: same foot-wear ingredients as Feb 13 run + toe bandages for left middle and left index toes to emulate the success had Feb 13 with the right foot.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Running Shoes + 1 layer gel heel-to-toe insole + 1 layer 'toe bed' + 'toe tubes' = lighter-weight solution for no pain?

Thursday during the day I did not get a chance to scout around town over the phone, finding out which stores had a big selection of foot padding type stuff.

Thursday evening I visited the local CVS and Walgreens stores looking for foot padding type stuff that would provide an improvement over the two layers of heel to toe gel padding solution used Wednesday night, which was a heavy solution. Seemed as if both stores carried more items of this type of stuff than they used to previously.

Possible buys I found at Walgreens:


Ball of foot:

Gel padding $2.60 on sale
Covers ball of foot area only. Hard to believe that it would not slip out of place during use. One suspects that the reason the prices for this thing have been repeatedly slashed, is that it slips out of place.

Fore-foot

'Toe Beds', gel padding for ball of foot and toes area, 1 pair, $5.50

Toes

Gel corn-protectors pair for $6.50

Gel toe protector 1 for $6.50

Toe bandages, 3 4" tubes $4.50

Heel-to-toe insoles

Dr. Scholls gel, $15

Aero 3 gel, $12.50

Walgreens gel, $10

Lightweight foam padding, $3


Possible buys I found at CVS:

Ball of foot

LifeFitness gel pad, pair, $8

Toes

Gel corn-protectors pair for $6.00

Gel toe protector 1 for $6.00

Foam toe bandages three approx 3" bandages (diameters 1 small tube, 1 medium tube, 1 large tube), $5
Seems like great deal given you get a narrow tube, a mid width tube, and a wide width tube and you can then cut these tubes up and fit them over your toes.

Heel-to-toe insoles

CVS Lightweight foam, $2.5-4

Lifefitness Gel insoles, $11-13

CVS gel insole, $11

Dr. Scholl's gel, $ 15

Aero $14

SoleX, on sale, $23

Time was running out and I had to make a decision fast before Walgreens closed, so that I would be able to mount a worthy experiment in foot padding during the night's run. What would be the wise decision in terms of what to buy tonight?

I decided in the end to make just one relatively inexpensive purchase: the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds' sold at Walgreens ( http://profootcare.com/p-toe-beds.html ). These 'toe beds' pad the ball of the foot and the toe areas, which are my problem areas pain-wise.

The instructions on the package were to remove the protective wrapper and glue the gel 'toe bed' to the shoe. I did not want to glue it to the shoes as I fantasize about the possibility of returning the shoes to the store to obtain something better instead. I glued the toe beds to these heel-to-foot, gray and blue gel insoles; I did not want to glue them to the blue and orange gel insoles that I use in my indoor soccer shoes, because I am not sure I need such ball-of-foot and toes gel padding in the indoor soccer shoes.

I felt as if it was a stroke of genius on my part that for for the Thursday night Feb 12 run, in the shoes I put the detachable insole that came with the Adidas Adistar Control 5' shoes ON TOP of the blue and gray gel insole to which I had glued the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds'. This produced a smooth surface and decreased the possibility of the gel 'toe beds' being forced out of place due to the running.

Night of Thursday February 12 I jog-walked the outdoors 5 mile Main and Moody course in 98 minutes; I was able to jog in my natural style featuring heel and ball of foot striking the ground almost simultaneously, without pain for the three miles run during the five mile course--except that during the third mile there was some pain in the left big toe and in the index and middle toes of the right foot. For most of the five miles the feet in the balls of the foot area felt numb and tingly. The run was done in what I call an 'under-the-weather' physical state, Thursday was the third day in a row on which I had run this five mile course.

Although during the run it felt like an annoying prominent ridge of padding was under the big toe of each foot, and it felt as if the padding and/or the socks had gotten irritatingly crinkled up under the ball of the left foot--apparently such perceptions were merely sensory illusions.

When I got home and sat down I was suprised to find that it no longer felt as if there was an elevated prominent ridge of padding under the left and right big toes; and I no longer felt as if the padding and/or sock under the ball of the left foot had gotten irritatingly crumpled up (I noticed this sensory illusion phenom on a previous run).

After the run I found that the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds' that I had glued to the gray foam side of the gray and blue gel insoles, had maintained their affixed position on the gray and blue insoles, they had not been moved out of place.

I conclude that a possible solution to the pain problem would be to combine the padding used Thursday night Feb 12, with toe tubes or toe caps over the left big toe and the middle and index right toes. This would be lighter than the first solution that eliminated pain, the two layers of heel-to-toe gel.

Thursday I could not help but notice, that Adidas seems to be foolish, in that in the 'Adistar Control 5' they combined very thick 1 and 3/4 inch thick padding in the heel area, with only 0.5" thick padding in the toe area, creating a HIGH-HEELED shoe featuring inadequate padding in the ball of the foot area; this despite the fact that even a novice upon beginning to investigate the foot-padding mysteries, immediately notices that ball-of-foot padding is especially made for, targetted at, and needed by, women who wear HIGH HEELED shoes, due to the pressure placed on the balls of the feet by the high heels. All this despite the obvious fact that in the state of nature, the heel and the ball of the foot are level in altitude.

Hey Adidas genius MBAs and engineering Phds, here's an idea that you somehow apparently missed: create a shoe that is the Adistar Control 5, except with half an inch of padding added to the toes area and a half an inch of padding removed from the heel area, creating a shoe with 1.25" thick padding in the heel area and 1" thick padding in the toes area. Name it the 'Adidas Wehumblyreturntocommonsense 1 running shoe'.

Stroke of genius: what shoes that are not so-called 'running shoes', have this kind of distribution of padding, 1.25" in the heel area and 1.0" in the toe area?...those could be the best so-called 'running shoes' for me.

Could be I should not allow feelings of irritation to arise within me with regards to such matters, but I feel irritated that it should take me so much time energy and money to solve the problem of footwear that allows me to run a few miles in my natural style of running on a sidewalk, without feeling pain. Seems like the shoe producing corporations and other corporations are churning out too much low quality in terms of goods, services, customer-service, and user-manuals.

Related Links:

http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/running-shoes-2-layers-of-padding-no.html

http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/running-shoes-and-gel-cushioning.html

Running shoes + 2 layers of padding = no pain (imperfect solution number 1 & possible better solutions)

For background to this post see my earlier post, "Running shoes and gel cushioning insoles have padding in the wrong places" at http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/running-shoes-and-gel-cushioning.html .

Wednesday night Feb 12, I again ran the five mile course on Moody and Main, the first third and fifth miles jogged, the second and fourth miles walked. The time this time was 94 minutes (again under-the-weather disadvantaged, as has been case since Feb 5). I ran in the 'Adidas Adistar Control-5' running shoes, with two layers of gel heel-to-toe padding in each shoe. I found this resulted in elimination of pain that was experienced in the balls and toes of the feet with zero or one layer of gel padding added to the "Adistar Control 5' shoes. The pain was Wednesday night replaced with a tingly numbness.

Wednesday night I felt grateful that I was able to run every yard of the three miles run in my natural style--heel and ball of the foot hitting the ground almost simultaneously, without pain; this resulted in a jogged-miles-jogged- fast, walked-miles-walked-slowly type of night.

However the time wednesday night was not very impressive; this imperfect solution elevates the feet in the shoes to a level--3/8 of an inch additional elevation due to the two layers of gel sole padding--where they should not be, excessively high in the shoe; and it adds significant weight to the shoe. But as some famous American general whose name I forgot said, an imperfect solution is better than no solution.

Researching the subject on the internet, I came across foot-care products that I had never seen before, products that I did not know even existed, that could replace and improve upon the two layers of heel to toe gel padding:

Toes Padding

Footsmart Gel Toe Crest, $9 each
http://www.footsmart.com/P-Footsmart-Gel-Toe-Crest-ea-40110.aspx
My Adistar Control 5 shoes already contain a built-in, pronounced, toe-crest of this type.

Footsmart Gel Toe Cap, $10 for two, $5 each
http://www.footsmart.com/P-Gel-Toe-Cap-Set-of-2-98122.aspx
Capping each toe would cost $5X10=$50 with this product!

Footsmart Gel Toe Tubes, $9 for two 4.5" tubes (each cuts up into more than one toe tube/cap)
http://www.footsmart.com/Product.aspx?ProductId=2323&cm_re=xsell-_-product-_-1
This way I could cap two toes and tube eight toes for only $10, much cheaper than the Gel Toe Caps.

Ball of Foot Padding

Silipos ball of foot cushions, $16/pair
http://www.footsmart.com/P-Silipos-Ball-of-Foot-Cushions-40021.aspx

Ultra Gel Forefoot Wrap $20/pair
http://www.footsmart.com/P-FootSmart-Ultra-Gel-Forefoot-Wrap-Pr-40298.aspx
This pads the ball of the foot not the toes

FootSmart Gel Forefoot Pads, Pair $9
http://www.footsmart.com/P-Peda-Bella-Gel-Forefoot-Pads-40013.aspx
Seems this pads ball of foot only

Forefoot Padding

Forefoot Pad with Metatarsal Dome, Pair $20
http://www.footsmart.com/Product.aspx?ProductId=65&cm_re=xsell-_-product-_-2
This pads from the middle of the ball of the foot to the tips of the toes.

Silicone Forefoot Insoles, Pair $12
http://www.footsmart.com/Product.aspx?ProductId=262&cm_re=xsell-_-product-_-1
These pad the area from the ball of the foot to the tips of the toes. They pad the entire ball of the foot not just the middle of the ball of the foot. The blurb at the footsmart site is extraordinarily enthusiastic about this product. This product seems like the best deal in foot comfort for me now.

A remaining task for me now is a task I have found so far, to be surprisingly difficult: to find what local retail outlets sell this kind of stuff. I have never bought this stuff before, to me it seems reasonable that the first time you buy something you buy it at a retail outlet. Buying from a retail outlet: I don't have to wait a few days to take delivery and go through confusion and worry, for example, re will the delivered stuff be stolen from the hallway; I establish someone I can ask questions of, who could be indebted to me for being a customer; and, it is easier to return stuff that does'nt work out.

At a time like this when we are staring into an abyss of a terrifying future featuring an attempt to survive without money in a non-agricultural, cold-temperature, high-population-density environment, people probably think, how could someone be getting into detail re jogging-shoe-add-ons at a time like this?'

I get into this matter in detail because my perspective is: that improved aerobic fitness results in improved performance in 'important' tasks related to survival in difficult environments; jogging on a treadmill strengthens different muscles compared to running on ground and is boring; jogging on a track is impossible during snowstorms and results in interesting encounters with a relatively narrow segment of the population; since I could be a star in soccer and sports similar to soccer if my aerobic/anaerobic fitness improved running is the reasonable path to aerobic fitness for me; improvement in aerobic fitness for me is impaired as a result of pain in the feet.

Running shoes and gel cushioning insoles have padding in the wrong places

On Monday January 26, 2009, I bought a pair of the 'Adistar Control 5' ( http://www.netsweat.com/Running/Online_Running_Store/Category/Mens-Road-Running-Shoes.htm ) ( http://www.runningwarehouse.com/descpageMRS-ASTCT5M.html ) running shoes at Marathon Sports in Cambridge MA ( www.marathonsports.com ) (617-354-4161). The shoes cost $130.

On Sunday Feb 8 (13 days after I bought the shoes) I wore them outdoors for the first time; while wearing them I ran this outdoors course that I run on Main and Moody Sts in Waltham on the sidewalk, five miles, the first third and fifth miles jogged, the second and fourth miles walked--my time was 92 minutes 2 minutes worse than my personal best of 90 minutes. The course features a run uphill on Moody St going south on the fifth mile, and a walk uphill going south on Moody St on the second mile. On Tuesday Feb 10 I ran the same course a second time, this time with one gel insole ( http://www.paragonsports.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Category_Insoles%20&%20Pads_10551_10051__20523_-1_1.htm ) for padding in each shoe. The second run my time was 94 minutes, 4 minutes worse than my personal best of 90 minutes.

Since Thursday Thursday Feb 5 I had been in a way 'under the weather', which impaired my performance. Conversely, On the Feb 8 and Feb 10 runs the clothing I wore was lighter than it was when I did my 90 minutes personal best.

I bought the shoes because I estimated that my time for this run had reached a plateau of 90 minutes, and not gotten any faster than 90 minutes, because at the 90 minute speed the pain factor became significant--along this line, the slower you run the easier it is to minimize pain.

One could reasonably theorize, that the time at which the difference produced by a new shoe is most clearly felt, is during the first few hundred yards run in the shoes. While running the first few hundred yards I ever ran in these 'Adistar Control 5' shoes I could tell right away, that the shoes (compared to the cheaper Adidas cross-trainers) made it easier to generate and maintain momentum, similarly to the way a wheel makes it easier to maintain and generate momentum.

However after the first mile on the first run, during the second mile jogged on the first run, I noticed that there was pain in the toes that was slowing me down. The first run in the end my time was 92 minutes, 2 minutes slower than my personal best run in the Adidas 'Powerpoint' cross-trainers.

The second run, run using the gel insoles, combined with the 'Adistar Control 5' shoes, there was pain in the front sole section of the foot again, this time the pain was in the ball of the foot and also the toes, not just the toes; and the pain in the second run started during the first mile jogged not the second mile jogged. Compared to the first run, the pain was more inhibiting during the second run; it got to the point that I switched from my natural style of the heel and the ball of the foot striking the ground at the same time, to the heel striking the ground before the ball of the foot strikes the ground, which is a style that I find to be unnatural dainty and inefficient.

I was disappointed that the Adistar Control 5 shoes failed to provide the level of cushioning support that I need. Seems to me that the shoes and also the gel insoles (from some company that was not Adidas), have not distributed the padding in a way that corresponds to my personal needs.

The Adistar control 5's sole is 1" thick at the ball of the foot, 1.75" thick at the heel, and approx 0.5" thick at the extreme front end of the toe. The gel-padded insole is thickest in the arch of the foot area and the heel, and thinnest in the ball of the foot and the toes area. The Adistar Control 5 shoes like most shoes, force the foot into a position wherein the heel is (compared to barefoot) unnaturally high.

By way of contrast, my feet while running in the Adistar Control-5 shoes both with and without the added gel insole, need padding in the balls of the foot area and the toe area, and have more than enough padding in the heel area.

When I run long-distance type running the heel and the ball of the foot hit the ground at approx the same time. I estimate given my state of knowledge as of now, that this is normal for long-distance running; running on the balls of the foot is the style used for sprinting not long distance running. The heel striking the ground before the balls of the feet strike the ground is characteristic of walking, characteristic of a clumsy type of running.

Alternatives I face now: replace the shoes; get yet another pair of shoes; find gel insoles with padding in the right places; create gel insoles with padding in the right places using scissors etc makeshift style.

I suspect that my tactic of buying the motion control shoe that had the most padding amongst motion control shoes, may have been erroneous. Perhaps I should have just gotten the shoes with the most padding period, and to hell with 'motion control'.

Now I'll find out exactly what Marathon Sports meant when they said that they could let me try out another pair of shoes if these shoes did not work out.

barbecue sauce ingredient quantities accidentally omitted error corrected

By accident I omitted the quantities for a couple of the ingredients in the 'David Virgil Barbecue Sauce Number One' recipe in the post on barbecue sauce at http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/01/simple-computer-logic-tricks-used-to.html . I corrected this recipe so that it now shows amounts for all the ingredients used in the first experiment. I omitted that the salt in this recipe is 2 tablespoons and the Paprika 2 tablespoons.

1916 Audio of Dixie Land combined with tambourine tracks added by me

At Youtube someone posted in video format, an audio of a man singing 'Dixie Land' in 1916 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff58W_m2ipk ).

I combined this audio with three tracks of me playing tambourine, with different special effects used in each track. You can hear the resulting combination here:

Dixie Land with added Tambourine Tracks

I took tabla lessons for a year in India when I was in 5th grade when I was a boy. In grade school I took drum lessons at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. I played the drums in music class in grade school and/or high school not sure.

The percussion tracks I added are not in an exact metronome-like mechanical rhythm. I don't see the advantage of exact machine-like rhythm. By using the special effects in the software that came with the mic, I was able to make the tambourine sound like three different instruments on the three different tracks.

I used the Samson CO1U Studio Condenser USB microphone (to record the tambs) and the Sonar LE software that came with the mic (both bought at Best Buy in Watertown MA) to produce this Dixie+my-tambourines audio.

I must admit that though I consider myself expert at searching the internet, my internet search did not reveal to me that this Samson C01U mic is a good buy for PC audio recording use. When I got to Best Buy they told me about the Samson CO1U condenser mic and the software that came with it, they told me it was a c condenser mic specifically made for the PC. They were enthusiastic about the mic and the accompanying software. I at first thought they were nutty, I had the idea that you don't get good softwares by just walking into a store and buying a box that is absurdly too large for the software inside of it; I thought success would lie in carefully checking the internet for good software; buying a condenser mic seemed like a weird idea to me compared to buying a dynamic mic given what I had learned on the internet. At Best Buy the salesmen taught me that there are cheaper mics specifically made for the PC that work better on the personal computer than more expensive superior ones that are not specifically made for the PC; this had escaped me during my internet info search.

Best Buy let me buy two mics to test out and gave me thirty days to return one or both of them, this impressed me. So far I'd say: the Sonar LE software is great if you can figure it out despite the difficult to understand help section; there are difficulties with getting the recorded volume up high in the Sonar LE; the Samson CO1U produces awesome vocals sound if you tweak things right in the SOnar software; compared to the high playback volume produced when the Samson CO1U is used to record vocals, the Samson CO1U produces a surprisingly low volume playback sound when it records a tambourine that is banged just a foot away from the microphone.

Peterson Institute's amateurish report a pathetic Bible for the anti-'buy American' movement

The Peterson Institute's report entitled 'Buy American: Bad for Jobs, Worse for Reputation' ( http://www.petersoninstitute.org/publications/interstitial.cfm?ResearchID=1114 )
which proclaims that Mr. Prez Obama's stimulus package should be cleansed of the pollution of 'buy american' measures, is apparently the Bible of the movement opposed to the 'buy american' measures in the stimulus package, a movement Prez Obama has apparently just recently joined. This despite the fact that during the presidential campaign less than one year ago, Prez Obama scored with voters by condemning McCain because McCain was against some 'buy American' initiative with regards to US govt procurement of motorcycles. And guess who Prez Obama's right-hand man will be in exorcising the 'buy American' legislation? None other than his opponent, Senator McCain. I guess I'm not smart enough to see how you can have a democracy when politicians in the heat of a campaign vehemently support one thing, and then three months later when in office vehemently support the opposite of what they supported during the campaign.

It seems to be the case, that President Obama in proclaiming his disdain for the 'buy american' provisions in the stimulus package, was parroting the Peterson Institute, as if the Peterson Institute is prez Obama's tag-team partner in an assault on so-called 'protectionism'. The president's statements were apparently made immediately after the Peterson Institute released its report; for days prior to the President's rejection of the 'buy American' provisions, the report's authors had been proclaiming anti-'buy American' summaries of what is in their report.

"As the (Wall St) Journal notes, a study out today from the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that the provision would cost many more jobs than it creates."
-- http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/02/04/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4775674.shtml

"A study released Tuesday by the centrist Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington concluded that the provision would likely cost far more jobs than it created."
-- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123370411879745425.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It is astonishing how amateurish this Peterson report, which has become the bible of the anti-'buy american' movement, is. It's amazing that the "Think Tank and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania" (Jan 2009) rated the Peterson Institute as the "top think tank in the world".

The Peterson Institute report, simply throws out projections regarding how US exports could be reduced by foreign retaliation for the US enacting 'buy American' measures; and, based on this alone, it concludes that the "buy american' provision in the stimulus bill is "bad for (American) jobs".

Problem with this is that any fool could (like the Peterson report) dream up massive trade retaliations that the world could inflict on the US, and that would more than cancel out whatever advantages the US gained through 'protectionism', and on this basis conclude that the 'protectionist' measure in question is a 'bad' idea.

It is simply irrational to say that since it is possible thgat disproportionate retaliation can be taken by an involved party when it comes to so-called 'trade wars', therefore all trade-barrier increasing acts are foolish.

Of course it is possible that the world could retaliate against US economic nationalism, hitting the US much harder than the US has hit it. However to say that this means the US should not hit the world with some economic nationalism, is illogical. If the foreign nations did indeed hit the US with disproportionate retaliation, the US could take appropriate counter-measures. The fact that the US is able to take such counter-measures, would impair the tendency to hit back at the US disproportionately.

The Peterson Inst report keeps saying: "if this 'buy American' provision is enacted the world COULD retaliate by reducing US exports to the world by 1 billion, the world MIGHT retaliate by reducing US exports to the world by 10 billion, the world COULD retaliate by reducing US exports to the world by 100 billion; since the world COULD and MIGHT do these things, therefore the US should not enact economically nationalist 'buy American' provisions in the stimulus package. This line of argument is obviously foolish.

The elephant in the room is the fact that over the past 30 years the US net international investment position has declined from plus two trillion to negative one trillion; simultaneously with this, the US had been running gigantic trade deficits as a result of continual reduction of trade restrictions. Obviously, the reductions in trade barriers have economically damaged the US at the expense of the world (we ignore for now the negative effects trade liberalization has had on the world). It is lunacy to ignore this elephant in the room, and to instead focus on amateurish, childish arguments such as those presented by the Peterson Institute's authors.

Obviously, reduction of trade barriers has economically damaged the US while in the aggregate economically benefitting the world. This indicates that obviously, one could expect an increase of trade barriers to benefit the US at the expense of the world.

Obviously the Peterson Institute report is wrong to ignore the general history of the past 30 years and imply that increases in trade barriers always have equivalent effects on the US and on the world, or hurt the US more than they hurt the world, simply because a tit can be retaliated for with a tat and a tat can be retaliated for with a tit, tit for tat fashion. The fact that the world is capable of retaliating against economic nationalism, does not prove that the US is incapable of improving its position through the use of trade restrictions.

Things get to the point where the world's tit for tat fails to negate the advantages the US gains through economic nationalism. The fact remains that when trade barriers were higher, the US net international investment position, the US economic health, was far superior to what it is today. It is reasonable to believe that although the world can retaliate with tits for US tats, nevertheless the US by piling tat upon tat can climb out of its disadvantageous position.

Although relatively insignificant 'protectionist' measures taken by the US can be equivalently retaliated against by the world, nevertheless, the cumulative effect of several 'insignificant' measures together, can produce advantage for the US vis a vis the world.

The Peterson Institute's 'Bad for Jobs, Even Worse for Reputation' report attempts to estimate the amount of money foreign governments spend importing from the US as follows: (foreign govt ABC spending on goods & svcs as % of gdp) times (foreign nation ABC imports of US goods & svcs) equals (estimated $ spent by foreign govt ABC on US goods & svcs). In doing this they blythely assume, that for govt the percentage of total money spent that is spent on imports is the same as the percentage of total money spent on imports in the private sector --this despite the fact that even though data they themselves provide in their report (they state that 4% of the money the US govt spends on manufactured goods is spent on imports), indicates that governments spend a very different percent of their expenditures on imports compared to the general public. This is the best that the 'world's best think tank can do'? This is supposed to over-ride the elephant in the room which is the changes in US NIIP corresponding with trade liberalization?

Indications are that the total spending to purchase of imports ratio varies widely from nation to nation; and, the ratio of the percent of govt spending that is spent on imports compared to the percent of public spending that is spent on imports varies widely from nation to nation. The Peterson study estimates ignore such variation.

The Peterson report attempts to predict how much foreign govts spend consuming imports from the US, based on the percentage of total national spending in a given nation that is government spending. This is unworkable however, because many nations import more than they consume from all sources combined. This being the case, one cannot simply assume, that for example if govt of nation ABC spends 10% of the GDP of nation ABC, therefore the govt of ABC consumes 10% of the imports. The private sector does not consume all that it imports--the private sector uses imports to produce exports also. Therefore to say that since a nation imports 100 billion dollars of goods and services it consumes 100 billion dollars of goods and services, is inadmissible. When a nation imports 100 billion of goods and services, it consumes less than 100 billion of goods and services. Nations vary in terms of the imports consumed to imports purchased ratio.

The Peterson estimates ignore the fact that the ratio ofimported goods and services that are consumed to imported goods and services that are purchased in the private sector in a nation, will vary from the ratio of imported goods and services that are consumed to imported goods and services that are purchased for the government of the given nation. Since the activity of using imports to produce exports is predominantly concentrated in the private sector, government will consume a greater percentage of the imports that it spends money on, compared to the private sector. This factor in isolation indicates the Peterson Institute report underestimated the amount of money foreign governments spend on imports.

By way of contrast, the fact that nations consume only a portion of the imports they spend money on, indicates that the Peterson study overestimated the amount that foreign governments spend on imports; and the fact that in the US (according to my best estimates as of now) the money the US as a whole spends on imports amounts to 17% of total US consumption of goods and services whereas according to the Peterson study itself only 4% of the money the US government spends on manufactured goods is spent on imports, contradicts the Peterson study's assumption that the spending on imports compared to total spending ratio is the same for government as it is for the private sector.

Thus it is obvious that the Peterson report's estimates: are surprisingly off-the-wall (like some movie about a damaged airplane patched together with rubber bands) indicating an incredible (for the 'world's top think tank') lack of access to statistics re economies foreign and domestic; fail to take into account all kinds of complications; in contradiction of empirical evidence assume that changes in trade barriers effect all parties involved equally; and, are a very inadequate foundation to build public policy on--especially when compared to the elephant in the room which is: the decline in the US Net International Investment Position (NIIP) coinciding with gigantic US trade and budget deficits, which indicates that changes in level of trade restriction do not effect all parties equally.

To me this is all indicative of the fact that generally speaking, Harvard, Ivy League, types, on the negative side, tend to over-value reputation, ie, 'I saw an article in Time that said Harvard is the best so I'm going there', while they ignore important facts ie, 'how is Harvard governed?'. President Obama is an Ivy league Harvard man--and he seems overly impressed by some amateurish 'think tank' simply because some university group has named it the 'world's top think tank'.

This economic stimulus package is being paid for by future generations of Americans. Especially at a time like this with the US economy as sick as it is, I do not see how future generations of Americans can be expected to subsidize foreign economic prosperity. The US would never expect the world to sacrifice its future generations to insure US prosperity. The US has already almost bled itself to death financially so that foreign nations might benefit. Yet President Obama today was quoted as stating:

"I think it would be a mistake ...at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade (http://uk.reuters.com/article/euIpoNews/idUKN0431144920090204
)" .

Similarly (I've heard that Prez Obama wants to give grants to illegal aliens as part of the stimulus package) I fail to understand what is 'democratic', about politicians not enforcing the law and contradicting the wishes of the voters of their nation by promoting the entry of illegal aliens into their nation, and then making mutually supportive deals with such illegal aliens--to me such looks like politicians teaming up with foreigners to circumvent the will of the voters they are supposed to represent.

Relevant Links:

USDX 100 in 2000, now 71. 0.71
-- http://www.populistamerica.com/what_is_a_dollar_bill_worth

Fed broad index of dollar, down from 116 feb 2000 to 109 feb 2009 0.94
-- http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/Summary/indexb_m.txt

Fed major currencies, down 98-81 200-2009 0.83
-- http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/Summary/indexn_m.txt

Fed OITP 2000-2009 up 128-139 0.09
-- http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/Summary/indexo_m.txt

exports world total exports 13.9 trillion US exports, 1.1 trillion, 8% of total world exports.
-- http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp-economy-exports

imports
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_imp-economy-imports

Imports per capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_imp_of_goo_and_ser_cur_us_percap-services-current-us-per-capita
weighted average $4884 per capita, current US dollars. Range amongst major nations: India $178, China $546, Belgium $30,000. Taking into account decline ins USDX since 2000, this would be in 2000 dollars, $3468.

expenditure per capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/eco_hou_fin_con_exp_etc_con_2000_us_percap-constant-2000-us-per-capita
weighted average: $3350 per capita, year 2000 US dollars.

Thus, estimate of percent spent on US imports vs total spending is: 3468/3350 = 1.04 x 0.08 = 0.08 = on average, the money the world spends on imports from the US, is equal to about 8 percent of the money its households spend consuming goods and services. By way of contrast, the money the US spends on imports from the world, is equal to about 17% of the money spent by US households on goods and services (and according to the Peterson Inst, 4% of the money spent by the govt on manufactures is spent on imports).

imports as % of gdp weighted average = 46%.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_imp_goo_and_ser-economy-imports-goods-and-services
8% Japan, 13% US, 56% Netherlands, 85% belgium

gross fixed capital formation per $GDP
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/eco_gro_fix_cap_for_cur_us_pergdp-formation-current-us-per-gdp

gross fixed capital formation
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_fix_cap_for_con_2000_us-capital-formation-constant-2000-us


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs

Are the Europeans crazy to be enraged by Obama's steel industry americanism?

I read with interest the article 'Barack Obama to dilute 'Buy American' plan after Europe threatens US with trade war' ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4414202/Barack-Obama-to-dilute-Buy-American-plan-after-Europe-threatens-US-with-trade-war.html ).

I find it hard to understand, how it is that these european nations, are apparently not able to seriously consider the possibility, that the US reducing its 'Net international investment position' (NIIP) deficit might serve the national self-interest of these European nations despite the result being some reduction of US imports of EU products. National self-interest should be seen as not just economic but as having psychological, cultural, emotional, social, and psychological components. If the US takes steps to strengthen itself economically this could eventually lead to increased long term US demand for EU products, more US tourists visiting the EU. The US and the EU have alot in common, genetically, and culturally; yet you have the EU acting as if the best thing for the EU situation in the world would be the US disappearing from the face of the earth.

Then again maybe the EU is just pretending to be offended by US attempts to normalize its trade outlook.

Foolish indeed it is, IMHO, that ivory-tower academic-theorists should contradict reality by religiously (blind faith) adhering to a free-trade economic doctrine that basically demands that: nations that are weak in terms of per capita possession of natural resources that are in demand world-wide, should commit economic suicide worshipping the false deity named Freetrade.

It all comes down to 'Net international investment position' (NIIP):

"A country's international investment position (IIP) is a financial statement setting out the value and composition of that country's external financial assets and liabilities. The IIP is one component of the capital account of a country's balance of payments, containing for example stock of companies, real estate, financial instruments, and so on. By comparison, imports and exports of goods and services are part of the current account. ...The difference between a country's external financial assets and liabilities is the net international investment position (NIIP)."

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_position

It is surprising that the revered 'Nationmaster'
( http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pub_deb-economy-public-debt ) website would provide 'public debt' data for the world's nations, defining this as 'the cumulative total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country's home currency'-- this definition is too hard to understand, why would repayments denominated in the home currency be ignored as debt?. 'Total public and private debt owed to non-residents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services' is provided by the venerable Nationmaster site ( http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_deb_ext_pergdp-economy-debt-external-per-gdp ) which obtained the data from the 'CIA World Factbook' site; problem is that this external debt is meaningless without taking into account the reverse, what one could call 'external credit', how much foreign nations have borrowed from the nation in question. In general it appears that the world suffers from a foolish inability to understand the importance of net international investment position. I using Google could not even find what Germany's NIIP is now. The world is obviously tripping over its delusion that persons who are hard to understand are especially clever. Actually clever people are adept at making themselves easy to understand.

A couple of the best sites of the sites I visited today are described in the notes below.

Notes

Current Account Fact and Fiction (2006)
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~dbackus/CA/BHLT%20latest.pdf
html version http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:2kB5H68btZMJ:pages.stern.nyu.edu/~dbackus/CA/BHLT%2520latest.pdf+germany+france+uk+eu+%22net+international+investment%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=25&gl=us

'Figure 3 US Net International Investment Position' is of interest here, it shows how from 1980 to 2000 the US NIIP changed from +1.0 trillion to -2.0 trillion. Continued decline at this rate is IMHO disastrous.

Key para here: "The US (NIIP) deficit is matched, of course, by surpluses elsewhere, but the numbers vary substantially across countries; see Table 1. The largest surpluses are Japan ($172b, 3.7% of GDP), Germany ($104b, 3.8%), China ($69b, 4.2%), Russia ($60b, 10.3%), Saudi Arabia ($52b, 20.5%), Switzerland ($43b, 12.0%), and Norway ($$34b, 13.5%). The de¯cit
countries include Spain ($55b, 5.3%), the UK ($42b, 2.0%), and Australia ($40b, 6.4%). Panel (c) shows us that advanced economies, in aggregate, accounted for a little more than half the US deficit. Emerging economies accounted for about a third, split evenly between the Middle East and Asia. What's left (the \world de¯cit" of $86b) remains a mystery;
our measures of current account balances do not balance worldwide, as they should. The major oil producing countries (the Middle East, Russia, and Norway) collectively account for about a third of the US deficit."

----------

A tale of Two 'Globalizations': Capital FLows from Rich to Poor in Two Eras of Global Finance (2006)
http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/faculty/economics/persons/schularick/schularick_tale_of_two.pdf
html version
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:b8QFZb-JHdMJ:www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/faculty/economics/persons/schularick/schularick_tale_of_two.pdf+germany+france+uk+eu+%22net+international+investment%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&gl=us

'Table 6 Foreign Capital Stocks of Individual Countries in % of GDP' is interesting here, it shows how much the world had invested into various nations, in 1913 and in 2000; by 'foreign capital stocks' what is meant is how much the world invested in a given nation, NOT how much the given nation invested in the world.

'Table 9 Net International Investment Positions 1914 vs 2000 % of GDP' is also interesting--even though the accompanying text and the column headings in the table are too difficult to understand, the table displays properly in the pdf version not in the Google cache. This table shows that in the year 2000, if you look at the US UK Germany France Switzerland Netherlands Italy and Canada as a group, the Net International Investment Position of all these nations combined, was negative, negative 1% of their GDP.


@2009 David Virgil Hobbs