I’ve learned over the years that there is a timespan of hours that if my sleep falls into that range, I’m going to be a complete waste the next day. That range, 4-6 hours. If I get more or less sleep than 4-6 hours, I’m good to go. But for some reason that range is the death of me.

Last night due to a server maintenance that went south, I got 5 hours.

So, here in good old Iowa, we have had the shift as with many other states that went from blue to red. A new, well really old actually, Republican Governor and part of our congress.

Now, all of these people pretty much ran on 2 issues. Jobs and the economy. So far, here are the priorities that they have put first:

• Stop gay marriage
• Discriminate based on religious beliefs
• Stop early pre-school (or at least make it more difficult)
• And now – ban abortions and many forms of contraceptives.

When you guys lose your seats at the next election, try not to be too shocked.

So far, I’m off to a good start in completing one of my goals for 2011. Its not a huge stretch goal for me, but it keeps me in a certain shape in order to complete goal #5, run 3 5K races in a year.

Race #1 is in the bag. Considering it was run on 2/12 in Iowa, you would expect absolutely freezing temps. To be honest, I was overdressed seeing as it was in the mid 30s at the start of the race. And I was only wearing a tshirt, long sleeve T and then a sweatshirt. I should have dumped the sweatshirt but I was solo on this one and didn’t have a good person to hand it off to on the route.

This guy has way too much time on his hands. But damn cool.

Living in the midwest teaches you a lot of different things. One of those lessons, Mother Nature always wins. She can be awesome with warm springs and falls that make the trees turn all sorts of wonderful colors. But she can also be pretty mean. A tornado can devastate mile wide tracks across the midwest. Floods can wipe out farms, homes and everything it reaches.

Winter in the midwest gives you the opportunity to experience freezing cold temps that would make a fish stick shiver. Add on the occasional deluge of snow (in the 1-2 ft range) and you really get the pleasure of knowing Mother Nature. I have a few wonderful words to say to her right now and I haven’t even gone out to shovel yet.