Ryan and Debi Cragun’s Blog

We spent the weekend in Jacksonville, FL visiting with a colleague.  On the way there on Friday we stopped by Mt. Dora, Florida, a cute little hamlet north of Orlando.  It was recommended in a little travel book our neighbor gave us.  It does have a small, resort town feel with lots of cute shops and a nice lake.  We ate lunch at 5th Avenue Cafe, which was good, then stopped by the lake to snap a few shots.  The first one is of Debi by the lake.  The next one is Ryan by the famous lighthouse on the lake.

It’s a cute place and supposedly great for the sunsets over the lake.  Maybe we’ll stop by again some time.

We went to dinner that night at the Jacksonville Landing.  According to my colleague, the Landing is the city of Jacksonville’s attempt to bring people downtown.  However, because it is frequented by minorities along with whites, it has a hard time drawing wealth white suburbanites in.  Racism is alive and well in the US.  There was certainly a mixture of races and ethnicities when we went.  We had dinner at Vito’s Italian Cafe.  It was good, but not remarkable.

On Saturday we drove down the coast to St. Augustine.  We drove through Ponte Verda, which is filled with enormous homes (stratification is alive and well today too).  We also stopped in Guana River State Park to check out the pristine vegetation and beach.  It is really beautiful.  Here’s Debi by the beach at a lookout.

We then spent the afternoon cruising around St. Augustine.  St. Augustine is the nation’s oldest city.  It has a bunch of side streets filled with shops and restaurants.  It is also the home to Flagler University, which is housed in a very cool old hotel.  There are also a bunch of cool art galleries, some of which had artwork that was really cool.  It’s a bit touristy, but definitely a place worth visiting, especially if you like window shopping and pretending like you have enough money to buy original artwork.

Here’s a picture of Flagler University:

On our way back to Tampa we drove through Palatka, the home town of one of the other professors at the University of Tampa.  He talks about it all the time, describing it as a bit backwater-ish (okay, the way he describes it I thought it was going to be a rednecks only zone).  It wasn’t nearly as backwater-ish as I thought it was going to be, but it certainly has its moments.  We ate lunch at Angel’s Diner, which claims to be the oldest diner in the US.  It’s definitely unique.  The diner looks to be in an old, converted rail car.  It’s a bit “greasy” inside, but the wait staff were friendly enough and helped us pick out some nifty local food.  Debi got a grilled cheese sandwich and onion rings.  I went with an actual burger just to get the authentic experience.  Strangely, it tasted just like the burgers I used to eat in Morgan, UT.  The food was a bit greasy and probably took a few years off our lives, but it was tolerable.  Here we are at the diner:

And here’s Debi outside:

It was a good start to our travels in Palatka.  We drove through town and past our friend’s house where he grew up.  It really isn’t that bad of a place, but I couldn’t believe my eyes at one point.  We were driving around town when I spotted what looked like an overgrown junkyard.  It was pretty overrun and I thought it was strange to have such an eyesore in the middle of a relatively nice town.  Then we got closer and I realized it was a cemetery.  The light areas in the photo are tombstones.

We happened to be chatting with our friend as we drove past and we asked him about it.  Turns out, and this blew my mind, it’s the black cemetery.  Just a few blocks away is a nice, normal cemetery that is well kept.  Turns out that is the white cemetery.  A reflection of racial stratification?!?

Our friend suggested we swing by Ravine Gardens State Park while there.  It’s a very cool park surrounding a cool ravine that has been left wild in some areas and is formally gardened in others.  It’s very beautiful and was a cool place to visit.

Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to hike around, but if we find ourselves back there we definitely will take the time to do so.  There are a lot of hiking paths that would be fun to explore.

Overall, it was a fun trip.  We got to see a lot of Florida, but there’s still a lot more to see.

Most people probably don’t know this about me, but I’m a fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).  I wouldn’t say I’m an over-the-top fan; I have yet to go to a live event (and probably won’t).  But I do watch the events I can and even read news about the UFC online.  So, after a couple years of following the UFC, the repeated exposure to fighters who are often very cut kind of got to me.  It’s not that I was super fat or even obese, but I had been wanting to loose 10 pounds just to get down to the weight I’ve wanted to be at for years.  Inspired by guys like Roger Huerta (the fighter in the photo to the right), I finally decided to just do it:  This summer I dropped the 10 pounds I’ve been wanting to drop for a couple of years.

So, because I was inspired by UFC fighters, I’m calling this the UFC Diet.  How did I do it?  I followed the tried and true “diet” formula: caloric intake = food eaten - activity.  Rather than increase my activity (it’s actually probably gone down over the summer), I just started eating less.  Less food = fewer calories = lower weight.

This isn’t revolutionary of course.  No quick fix.  In fact, it’s hard to feel hungry sometimes.  But it’s the price you pay for getting to a good weight.

Now, don’t get the wrong impression.  I don’t have the 8-pack of George St. Pierre (in the picture to the left).  I also can’t say the UFC did anything specifically to encourage me to do this.  But seeing fighters who are physically fit not for the sake of looking good but because they need to be at a physical peak to fight at their best is inspiring.

(Postscript: Hopefully lawyers from the UFC won’t show up here and make me take this down over copyright infringement, etc..  I’m not claiming to represent the UFC or anything of that sort.  But, if lawyers from the UFC do show up, I’m not above discussing a book deal turning my idea/experience into a book.  Hint, hint.)

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks buried in my research (some of which is getting published, but I’ll post about that when it actually comes out, which will be in a few months), so I haven’t had much to blog about on here.  But two news stories caught my eye today.

First is this NYTimes Editorial about everybody’s favorite administration - The Bush Administration.  I’m surprised there haven’t been more stories about this, but basically what the editorial details is the fact that the Bush Administration has filled posts in government departments with people inimical too to the very purpose of the department.  To run the Environmental Protection Agency the Bush Administration tapped a guy who wants to block reductions in greenhouse gases.  That makes sense in “Opposite Land.”  But the main point of the Editorial linked above is that, to run the Labor Department, the purpose of which is to be “responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics”, the Bush Administration tapped Elaine Chao, whose record in this position has been deplorable.  Now, before all of the conservative readers of my blog say, “Well, the government shouldn’t regulate labor anyway,” read the Editorial.  Under Ms. Chao, complaints of hard-working employees NOT GETTING PAID have simply been ignored.  I can understand people arguing over minimum wage standards, but is there anyone out there who is opposed to people getting paid for the work they do for someone who has agreed to pay them?  Yeah, didn’t think so.

Second, a science finding.  Turns out, people really can’t tell whether a meat burger tastes better than a vegetarian burger that tastes about the same.  According to this study, if you tell someone who “loves” meat that they are eating meat, even when they are eating something with no meat in it, they can’t tell the difference.  I’m wondering if they got the idea for the study from my experiment with my brother-in-law.  Here’s the original blog post about it (now removed):

2006, February 14th, Tuesday
So, we’re here in Utah and finding a little time to relax. Amidst our relaxation, I decided to cook for Debi’s family last night. As most readers are probably aware, Debi and I are vegetarians - the rest of her family members are not. So, when I offered to make sloppy joes, I raised a few eyebrows. Even so, we decided to turn the meal into a taste test so everyone could see that you can actually make vegetarian food that tastes just as good as meat-based foods. Of particular interest in this test was the opinion of one of Debi’s brothers who insisted he remain nameless (though anyone in the know will likely figure out to whom I am referring).

This nameless brother agreed to participate in a taste test - Rosemary, Debi’s mom, would make her sloppy joes and I would make mine. We would let everyone try both and decide which ones they liked best. The nameless brother agreed to this scenario, but when I mentioned it to Debi and her mom, they had a better idea. Rather than have Rosemary make sloppy joes to compete in the test, I’d just make two distinct batches of sloppy joe mix and let them decide between them. I normally make two batches anyway as Debi likes hers particularly bland and I like mine very spicy. So, before everyone arrived, I made up the sloppy joe mixes, both of which were vegetarian, and prepared samplers for everyone. I then handed them to Debi who delivered them to the table. I didn’t tell Debi which batch was which but assigned letters to them so she didn’t even know which batch was hers and which was mine (we were trying for a double-blind taste test).

They all tried them and people were divided as to which they liked (the real shocker was that most people liked mine better), but the best part was that the nameless brother insisted that Debi’s batch was real meat and mine was the tofu. It was hilarious to watch him insist that one was meat and one wasn’t when, in fact, both were tofu but just seasoned slightly differently. He was, let’s say, a little perturbed by our subterfuge once we revealed what we had done.

Oh we vegetarians… We’re shameless, aren’t we?

I try not to post on here about Mormonism very often as I don’t want to offend family.  Even so, I feel this issue is important enough to mention.  If you’re not aware of it, the LDS religion recently came out with a letter encouraging the members of the religion in California to work towards a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.  Surprise, surprise, I’m not very fond of this action.  But, I’m not alone.  Dozens of people have come together to express their disagreement with this bigoted action of the LDS religion on this website: Signing for Something.  Basically, the website is a place for people to post letters to the leadership of the LDS religion.  The people running the site will also personally deliver the letters the LDS headquarters in SLC.  As an additional option, many people are resigning their memberships in the LDS religion because of this action and to protest the bigotry of the religion.  I’m mentioning this here because I think everyone should take 15 minutes and read through some of the letters on the website.  A number of them are from gay members of the religion, from heterosexual current members who are resigning in protest, from former mission presidents, etc.  This position of the LDS religion is drawing ire and criticism from the group that most needs to criticize the leadership: the members.

We decided to take a day off yesterday for the 4th and spend the day at the beach.  We’ve been to Fort de Soto’s two beaches so we figured we’d try another beach.  This time we went to Honeymoon Island.  It’s a state park and costs $5.00 per car to get in.  It was pretty packed yesterday, though that still didn’t mean it was busy as the beaches we’ve seen in California.  Even though we aren’t really beach bums, we are starting to become beach snobs.  While the beaches on Honeymoon Island are nice, they still aren’t as nice as Fort de Soto’s.  The beaches aren’t quite as wide and, at least where we were, there was a distinct sulphur smell most of the time.  Also, the beach is a bit rockier.  Those two minor issues aside, it’s a nice beach.  Staying there for nearly 8 hours gave us a chance to see the changing tides, which dramatically alter the shape of the beach, which was pretty cool.

Having never done so before, I decided I wanted to build a sand castle.  Here I am hard at work with my high-quality sculpting instruments (I actually used a broken piece of sea shell for most of the sculpting).

Our neighbors at the beach, who were just behind Debi as she took this picture, were kind of fun to watch.  There were three kids: an infant and two kids between 5 and 10 years old.  The two older kids saw us building the sand castle and decided they wanted to make one too.  They didn’t really know what they were doing, but they tried hard.  The ended up with a circular mound, kind of like our moat, but without any towers.  I finished our castle and was just about to say they could come play with it when I saw the boy who was building the castle take a toy hoe to it and dash it to pieces.  I didn’t invite them over…

Here’s Debi by the sand castle at sunset.

And here’s the sunset just before we headed home:

It was a nice day overall, though we ended up with some minor sunburns.  I failed to put sunscreen on my ankles, so they are nice and red.  I lathered up Debi’s back, but it wiped off while she read and she didn’t realize it.  So, she ended up with a rather toasty back.  Even so, it was a very enjoyable and relaxing day.