Farm Fun Wrap Up

In my last ‘Family’ post I talked about the time we spent with my parents and my wife’s parents out on the farm.

We have been making the trip for the last four weekends, and sadly we have just made our last trip. The weekend could not have been better. Whilst the Saturday was a bit cold, it was just an excuse to have the log fire burning, giving off the relaxing vibe that only wood and flame can give.

The Sunday was a gem. We woke up at approximately 7.30am, as the cows needed to be moved to a new paddock. My 3 year old son immediately wanted to ‘help’ pop and daddy to shift the cows. So he got dressed, put on his mud boots and we where off. The smile on his face was enormous. He had been talking about the chooks and cows on the farm non-stop since we first went out and this time the cows where a little stubborn. This meant he and I had to coax the cows to move. We did this by doing my best cattle dog impersonation, walking around them with a few ‘move alongs’ for good measure.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the sun chatting, reading, eating and playing boule.

We all loved getting out there, pretending being a ‘farmer’ for a couple of weekends. So much so we are thinking of buying 5 acres somewhere so we can get away from the city on the weekend.  So if you have 5 acres for sale within 2 hours of Melbourne, let me know by adding a comment

Cheers

Dave

V8 SuperCars – Surfers Paradise Wrap Up

The problem with predictions is that there is always a big chance you will get it wrong and have egg on your face.

In Friday’s post I assured you that Craig Lowndes would win this race with Ford teams fairing well in the top 5, I even said that Steven Johnson was a smokey for the weekend.
I think I need to clean that crystal ball, must be dirty.

Let’s look at the weekend. In the qualifying session it was all Holdens. With Rick Kelly and Garth Tander taking the coveted P1 and P2 spots, the top 5 where separated by just under 0.6 of a second. Ford driver Mark Winterbottom and Jason Bright from FPV qualifying 3rd and 5th respectively.

The Top Ten Shootout was held on the Saturday, with the weather changing from dry track to a wet track to a drying track. The session looked as though it was going to heavily favour the top three as the track was in a mess for the early competitors for the shoot out. The track was still wet in parts and an Indy car dropped oil on two sections of the track making conditions very tricky.

Fortunately for Craig Lowndes, who qualified 7th was able to jump up the queue due to some mistakes by drivers, and more importantly Rick Kelly failed to finish his shootout lap. This meant that Craig had gained the upper hand, with Surfers being notoriously a track that is hard to pass on.

The weekend didn’t pan out so well for Craig after the shootout. He unfortunately was penalised in race one after being found guilty of warming his tyres between Turn 12 and the start grid on the observation lap. Lowndes was relegated from 5th to 11th.

Craig was also penalized for short cutting the circuit after an altercation with Russell Ingall in the final race. Lowndes’s subsequent drive through penalty pushed him from 5th back to 14th and 10th overall for the round, meaning he gave up valuable points to Rick Kelly.

“This round was always going be the toughest of the four remaining and it was certainly true to form,” Lowndes said.

“We lost a lot of points this weekend and can not afford to have another round like this one.”

The placing’s at the end of the Surfer’s round where:

Top Ten Round Results

1st Todd Kelly, Holden, 313pts
2nd Mark Winterbottom, Ford, 300pts
3rd Rick Kelly, Holden, 294pts
4th Jason Bright, Ford, 274pts
5th Russell Ingall, Ford, 259pts
6th Garth Tander, Holden, 257pts
7th Steve Johnson, Ford, 234pts
8th Jason Bargwanna, Ford, 233pts
9th Cameron McConville, Holden, 227pts
10th Craig Lowndes, Ford, 223pts

Top Ten Championship Standings

1st Craig Lowndes, Ford, 2601pts
2nd Rick Kelly, Holden, 2571pts
3rd Mark Winterbottom, Ford, 2283pts
4th Russell Ingall, Ford, 2211pts
5th Garth Tander, Holden, 2105pts
6th Jamie Whincup, Ford, 2000pts
7th Jason Bright, Ford, 1988pts
8th Steve Richards, Holden, 1982pts
9th Todd Kelly, Holden, 1927pts
10th Steven Johnson, 1927pts

V8 SuperCars – Surfers Paradise

This weekend sees the V8’s join the circus that is known as Indy cars.

I will be upfront about one thing – I think the QLD government should just scrap the yank imports and give the fans a bigger race meeting for the V8 SuperCars. There I got that of my chest; now let’s take a look at this round.

The Indy Round is set in the streets of Surfers Paradise. It is a tricky circuit, which like Adelaide and the forgotten Canberra round, is a concrete jungle. There is absolutely no run off on the track, so one small mistake will quickly become a large panel beating effort.

With Craig Lowndes (CL) and the 888 Racing Ford, leading this year’s championship, it shapes up to be a crucial round in the series. Like last year Craig has been very consistent, taking out race wins. This year however sees him being rewarded for his efforts with the lead. Currently CL is 101 points in front of his nearest rival Rick Kelly from the Toll HSV Team.

CL’s won this round last year, so I hope and would expect he and the team will set the car up perfectly for the race. CL needs to put in another winning effort to cement his championship lead, with four rounds remaining.

Rick Kelly in last years event could only manage a 6th for the round, although is talking up his chances (just like all racers do). The key to the round as always is qualifying and pit stop strategy.

I see CL’s biggest challenges coming from his own team mate Jamie Whincup, Rick Kelly Jason Bright, Steven Richards and of course Greg Murphy. A smokey would be Steven Johnson, who has performed consistently (albeit out of the limelight) and is placed 9th in the championship.  You might be asking ‘Yeah Dave, but what about Skaife and Tander?’ Well my answer would be that they are broken men. Tom Walkinshaw’s experiment to split the HSV and HRT teams for the enduro’s to improve the Holden drivers championship fortunes has failed, and I believe this has had a psychological effect on the normally collected Skaife and Tander (plus it is now secret I think Skaife is arrogant and am happy to see him floundering).

I do feel sorry for Tander, as even though he rides a Holden he is a good racer and seems to be an honest hard working bloke, not like ‘fancy pants’ Skaife who thinks he is the Schumacher of V8’s. (I will stop there as I feel an anti Schumacher rant brewing)

So my predictions are

1st – Craig Lowndes
2nd – Steven Johnson
3rd – Rick Kelly
4th – Jamie Whincup
5th – Greg Murphy

Stay tuned for my round wrap up on Monday

Dave

Living Well – Fat Myths

Last week I spoke about some high profile diets and commented on them. This week sees me attack the fat myths out there. The list by no means is definitive. If you have any questions please do so via adding a comment to this post.

Myth One: If you eat fat you will get fat – If you eat lots of fat, say on un-trimmed steak, you will not necessarily get fat. Sure it’s not the best way to ‘live well’, remembering ‘Everything in Moderation’.

Before fat from a steak becomes fat in the human body, it is first digested and broken down into its applicable base nutrients and sugars (for energy). Then if the energy from the sugars is not ‘burnt’ through say exercise, yes it will turn to fat, but not by simply eating it.  It is all about having a balanced amount of kilojoules / calories vs. activity levels. If you have a diet high in kilojoules and live a sedentary life, you will get fat. If you exercise this will help use up the kilojoules / calories.

A balanced weight-loss plan would allow for 30–40 g of fat a day for women and 40–50 g a day for men.
Did you know? – Kilojoules supplied per gram of:
• Fat = 37 kilojoules
• Alcohol = 29 kilojoules
• Protein = 17 kilojoules
• Carbohydrate = 16 kilojoules

Myth Two: 99% Fat free – Fat free it might be but take a look at the other ingredients, what about sugars (count them all as sometimes they try to mask the content by separating glucose from say cane sugar), sodium etc.
High in sugar means that if you don’t ‘burn’ the sugar it will be stored as FAT in your body. Also many of these products have artificial sweeteners in them. I am not a fan of these, they can have side effects, granted in large quantities, but I always chose glucose over artificial sweeteners.

Myth Three: You can target fat build up in specific parts of your body – Sorry, but doing a bazillion ab crunches because you have a flabby stomach is not going to specifically reduce the fat deposits there. You cannot target fat deposits. The only way you can reduce fat deposits in the boy is by taking a holistic approach. Now don’t get me wrong, keep doing those ab crunches, as you can target muscles and this will give you a nice 6 pack, but you will not get to see it unless you expend all the energy stored in the fat deposits first.

Myth Four: Fats are bad for you – There are many people who say you should not eat any fat in your diet. Here is a simple rule: Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats are good (such as olive oil, nuts, avocados), saturated animal fats (such as bacon fat / lard) are bad. It’s not rocket science really. I come back to ‘Everything in Moderation’. Splash a bit of olive oil on that salad, but only a little.

Myth Five: Fat only gives us energy – Nope, wrong again. Did you know that without fat, our organs will not have any cushioning? Fat contains the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. These vitamins can be found in other foods, but without the presence of dietary fat, the body cannot metabolise them, hence the term ‘fat-soluble’.

I have only listed my ‘Top 5’, there are many more. If you have any questions please submit a comment and I will get back to you. Stay tuned for my next post ‘Joe and Jane Average don’t exist’

Note: Always seek professional medical advice before embarking on any exercise or diet program

MotoGP – Portuguese Race Results

Well what a cracker of a race. The end of this race would have to be this years closest. Toni Elias beat Valentino Rossi by 0.002 seconds. The difference in the end might have been the thickness of the stickers on the front fairing of the bike!!

Full credit to Elias, he triumphed after some incredible pressure for Valentino,
taking the lead on the final lap to out gun the world champ.
Elias has been on the fringe for a long time and thoroughly deserved to win his maiden GP.

Valentino admitted he had some scary moments on the track,
with one in particular where it seemed he didn’t see Elias who was right on his shoulder attempting to overtake.

Rossi’s second place along side the fact that Nicky Hayden was knocked out of the raceby an apologetic Dani Pedrosa in the first ten minutes of the race, will give him a decisive edge for the next race.

The incident could only be described as a ‘brain explosion’ by the normally cool headed Pedrosa. Honda currently does not have a policy of ‘team orders’, however after this incident I am sure they will unofficially introduce them in 2007.
In fairness to Pedrosa, Hayden did almost knock him off before this incident.

The results from this race mean that Valentino is now 8 points ahead of Hayden
with only one race to go in the championship, setting up an exciting race at Valencia.

If Hayden wins, Valentino can still retain the title with a second place.
What the American needs is for a victory and Rossi to come in third or lower.
I don’t see this happening as Valentino is a true champion and he will rise to the occasion to win his 6th world title.

Congratulations to both Chris Vermuelen who backed up his podium at Phillip Island with a ninth on the Suzuki, and to Garry McCoy, who was riding a prototype 800cc machine to gain a point in the championship by finishing 15th.
I hope that ‘Gazza’ gets a ride in 2007 he is a highly under-rated rider.  He has had to ride a lot of bad machinery over the years (for example the ‘Foggy Petronas’ anchor), and unfortunately this has tarnished his reputation unfairly.

Race results (Top 5 finishers):

1st = Elias
2nd = Rossi
3rd = Roberts Jr
4th = Edwards
5th = Tamada

The championship Top 5 standings are:

Rossi = 244 points (yeah!!!)
Hayden = 236 points
Melandri = 217 points
Caparossi = 209 points
Pedrosa = 202 points

Look out for my review of the Valencia round next week…

Cheers

Dave