I've always been perplexed by sports, but it's a large structured part of most students days through 10th grade at least. It's one of the few things that's done publicly, in front of your peers, instead of graded by a teacher. Plus, among students, it's the one class you're supposed to succeed in without being called a nerd (or whatever today's spiteful iteration is).
I don't know if adults have the power to change this dynamic; after all, parents almost uniformly want academic achievement from their kids. I assume that most praise their kids for their academic success. Yet by the end of elementary school, the jungle mocks those who study.
I'd propose this link to go with the post.
I'm on vacation this month and the house we're at has a much nicer yard than ours, and the kids spend several hours a day out there... playing baseball (with a little soccer thrown in.) Of course it's mostly batting practice, throwing the ball around, ghost runners, etc.; not a real game or practice since there are only three of them (the almost 2 year old tries but isn't really doing anything.) Now is that "playing sports" or just playing? The two older ones do play on a team in the spring for about 6 weeks and I'm sure this is improving their abilities.
Now is that "playing sports" or just playing?
It's playing, and it's great!
There are certain sports that if you learn as a kid, when it's easier to pick up various motor skills, that do let you do more entertaining things as an adult. I think tennis and swimming are most obvious, but team sports like soccer, volleyball, softball, hockey are things that are hard to pick up as an adult but are fun to join a rec league. N.B I do not consider running to be a sport.
Mara seems like a natural athlete, but has announced she wants to play golf rather than basketball so she doesn't have to run. That said, pretty much all her time spent outside not drawing with chalk all over everything is spent running.
Kids play sports all the time if you leave them to it. Yes, they need lessons for some of those things, but league play throws a few big anchors into everyone's week.
I have the impression that these things are much more organised now than they once were, and perhaps even more so over the pond in Weirdlandia than they are here in the UK.
Certainly when I was a kid, I spent literally hours every day playing football [soccer]. But I don't think I had any formal coaching [and even then, only in the form of usual PE lessons at school] until I was 12 by which time we'd been playing for years and years.
The best evidence that this is driven by college anxiety is that it apparently does not happen in Canada which has a flatter hierarchy of colleges:
http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~vramey/research/Rugrat.pdf
Concerted cultivation just means sports pretty much.
That is so depressing. This doesn't even have a real payoff in terms of college admissions.
I need a thread where the non-Americans tell me what's horrible about their country, because this is not a good month to be an American.
One thing that might make Oggers feel better is to be reminded that the US's current outburst of anti-refugee sentiment is the sort of thing that's been happening pretty much nonstop in the UK and elsewhere in Europe throughout the 21st century.
Yeah, I do tell myself that. I need more.
Isn't it a stupid college admissions strategy the way most parents play it? I mean if you force your kid to take up squash or fencing maybe. But football, basketball, probabl soccer thanks to you aholes, probably even things like swimming -- unless your kid really is a top 1-2% gifted athlete you're almost certainly better off having them do something else from a pure college admissions rat race standpoint, right?
For example, they could go to Ecuador and build wells.
Exactly my point in 12. If this is for college, it's an even bigger waste of time than I thought. Someone once said "well-rounded" when speaking of college admissions, and that person probably said it because he hated Jews, and I hope his body is buried next to an expressway and his soul is in the seventh circle of hell.
||
OK, here's a diversion. For reasons I don't understand I'm suddenly being inundated with stuff from LinkedIn, which I have hitherto ignored. I have nothing to offer on LinkedIn, because I'm old and crippled and my skills are all years out of date. So should I link to all you reprobates, and if I do, what happens?
|>
My nephew is the only white kid on his track team. The overt, stated mission of the team is to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. The very explicit exchange is that they spend their childhood doing this so they can get track scholarships. The first night my sister was there, the parents of eight year olds were earnestly discussing whether the odds for a scholarship were better in track or football.
There is no illusion whatsoever. The kids are there to start a life of selling their physical abilities for money. On Monday night, Coach gives small cash awards for exceeding his expectations of each kid at the meet the weekend before. No one is saying that sports are for the love of the activity. Most of the parents did track themselves. There is also a lot of camaraderie and enjoyment, but that is not why they are there.
Is that college anxiety? Not in the sense of the linked article. This is definitely not burnishing a college ap. Track is their college ap.
19: As soon as you link to 5 of us, you instantly die. It's the circle of life.
Right now, the team's big star is a woman who got a full ride to University of Oregon. She has an older sister who was faster. Her mother told us this story:
The faster older sister calls her mom from high school, mid-afternoon. She had forgotten her track shoes for the meet that day, could her mom please bring them to the meet? Her mom leaves work, gets the shoes, brings them to the meet. When she arrives, she sees the faster daughter sitting on the sidelines, in street clothes, not warming up. She asks, shouldn't the faster daughter be warming up? "Oh, no!" replies the faster daughter. "I won an academic scholarship! I am never running again."
This was well received all around. For the families on my nephew's track team, sports are purely instrumental.
23 et al -- presumably this is a league of kids whose parents have good reason to think that they're in the top 1-2% of natural athletes, right? Makes a lot more sense that way.
I grew up in a large county that included two towns in which sugar cane is grown and a stunning number of NFL players are born. The belief that football was the only way out of the muck was widespread (and in practice, largely accurate). The annual game between the two towns' high schools is legendary.
No. Acceptance to the team isn't based on ability. It is based on willingness (family-wide) to obey the coach, who is strict and particular. My guess is that they think that ten years of practice will make a big difference.
The other thing that article doesn't mention is the possibility that the kids want to be at sports that much. For me and my sister, sports were entirely self-motivated. My parents participated nearly zero-amount. They certainly never attended my meets. Nor my sister's games. For the teens in the linked article, maybe they want to be at practice that much and it is way funner than an extended family gathering or games night at home. Maybe home is boring, with everyone staring at their own screens. Just 'cause the parents miss their kids during sports doesn't mean that the kids miss their parents.
Kids are going to choose from among available options.
26 -- seems like a bad bet, then.
You could forbid them sports, I suppose. But the motivation isn't necessarily college-anxiety nor middle class expectations. It could be that kids would rather be doing sports than having family time or taking up cello.
Or maybe you mean that they could play at a level that allows the occasional absence. That would be nicer for families, for sure. But getting good is a ratchet. As the athlete, it is hard to want to play down or forego the gains of constant practice.
I agree that the coaches in that story sounded very intolerant of occasional absences. Not sure why they have that much power.
30 - Good thing there are incidental benefits to track.
My parents participated nearly zero-amount.
That's going to be hard to pull off in a place where kids have to be driven everywhere.
At the younger ages, team sports are fun for kids for the same reaosns running around is fun for kids, and the team aspects work out especially well for those not blessed with siblings or close neighbors of similar ages. For parents, dropping off a kid at the field is much more convenient than keeping them entertained at home all the time.
Also, what opportunity costs? If I hadn't played little league, I would have more young adult novels, and I read way too many without that. If my son wasn't in little league he'd see more tv, and psosibly play more Super Mario of whatever teh kids are doing these days. We were both better off on the sports fields.
We were in LA. I rode my bike two miles to my tkd studio and caged rides from other people who were going to the meet. My sister played volleyball. She rode the late bus and got rides. If you truly do not give a fuck about your kids' sports, as my parents truly did not, it isn't that hard not to give them rides.
If you truly do not give a fuck about your kids' sports, as my parents truly did not, it isn't that hard not to give them rides.
SOMEONE has to give them rides. You have to free-ride off the 90% of parents who do give a fuck about your kids' sports.
True, but I think the marginal cost of one more kid in the car was pretty low. I went to where they were to get the rides.
I have asked my parents about it. In retrospect, were they ever proud that both their daughters did so well in sports?Nope. We got good grades, so they didn't mind, but no, they never cared, even in retrospect when we got good (my sister better than me).
league play throws a few big anchors into everyone's week.
Word. We tried the club soccer thing and such when they were younger and it was ridiculous. Along with the practices everyone was all gung ho on doing out of town tournaments on a regular basis. Like out of town enough that you'd have to get a motel room and everyone would look at me like some kind asshole when I'd suggest that maybe this was fucking nuts to do this all the time just to watch a bunch of 10 year olds.
The MMA gym is way better. They can usually start at 5 years old or so. I'm sure you've got good ones around there.
You're from KY or TN or WV or something, right, knecht?
...and went to the University of the Ruling Class. Never mind.
Mandatory crossfit for all from age 5, college athletics abolished, NCAA abolished, all other youth sports lose school affiliation and take the form of youth leagues that are at least semi-pro by age 16 a la the Ontario Hockey League. Done and done.
43: I took the kids to Kids CrossFit this weekend, only to have it canceled on account of teacher sickness or something. We'll try again, because I think a non-team sport would be best for Nia. She wanted to play football but I'm not being sexist as she charged in saying no 8-year-old of mine is going to be aiming for concussions and other injury like that.
It's hard to think of something more depressing than youth crossfit. Isn't crossfit almost explicitly for aging non-athletes who have discovered fitness in the shadow of mortality?
The nice thing about crossfit is then kids won't accidentally learn any fun skills.
Why run around outside when you could be puking in a warehouse, kids?!?
I mean, I admit, I may have puked in a warehouse or two in my twenties. But that was she debauchery, and thus noble.
"sheer debauchery" not "she", geez.
In our case, it's just running around a warehouse jumping on things, apparently, no weights or the adult stuff that I find more problematic. A friend of mine from HS is going to be the teacher and her daughters participate. I just wanted to find something indoors for when the weather gets bad. Nia has gone from having all her focus in life be on looking cute to taking a lot of pride in being strong, and I think anything that makes that easier and more effective for her could help. And I only lose 5 dollars every time she goes, so I'm willing to let her try.
Also, I'm lazy and it's five blocks from home. If she doesn't stick with it we'll find something else, but I want to start with something that's a low commitment but also something that will make her feel special.
Wait, Kids Crossfit is an actual thing? Apparently civilization collapsed while I wasn't looking.
Here, apparently it's mostly for the children of people who do crossfit themselves, who otherwise are in the babysitting area. I don't think there's anything that makes it specifically crossfit except that they're in the same building, just an exercise class. But I did talk it up to her in part so I'd be able to see if any of the wackiness from heebie's and Halford's CF gyms pans out but of course I'm not actually going to do crossfit myself.
My kid is possibly a worse natural athlete than I am. I feel bad for him - its very frustrating for him that all his friends can best him in basically any physical endeavor. But I'm sure glad about not having to cart him to practice.
55: Have you considered Kids Crossfit?
I live in terror of the thought that my wife might find out about Crossfit and make me do it.
No means no, Spike. Surely she'll understand!
College admissions anxiety has a shallower class profile in the US than youth participation in organized sports, methinks. I would guess both are explained by our general love for ritualized competition in all endeavors.
|| Quick bleg, short fuse. Is there a term of art for the training/practical internship type thing that a person with a microbiology degree would do for a couple of months in a hospital so as to be qualified to do hospital lab work as a career? Responses offline, if wished: pseud is email enabled. Thx. |>
61: sounds kind of like what my flavor of researchers would call a "research assistant" but it's not an exact fit, so maybe it has another name. A quick search for "biomedical research assistant" seems to turn up a fair number of hits.
61, are you talking about being a medical technologist?
I think you need to work in an approved lab for at least a year. The accrediting body is the American Society for Clinical Pathology.
63 sure is more informative than 62.
43
Sports is something that actually keeps a fair number of kids in school and even motivates them academically to stay eligible. This is no small thing. Same goes (w/o the eligibility issue) for some kids and theater.
|| Thanks, guys. Interested party is a foreigner, and will have the career abroad, but wants to do the unnamed thing in the US. |>
We've had an interesting last 4 weeks around non-school activities, it's been a bit whiplashy from a parental perspective, but looking currently as if we may come out of it with free-bass accordion and tap dancing, an outcome I would be so delighted with that I have to actively suppress any leakage of parental glee.
we may come out of it with free-bass accordion
Probably better to snort.
Despite having no interest in sports at all (and no athletic ability myself), I've put a surprising amount of money and effort into various kid athletic things -- mostly for Sally, who's jock-inclined by nature, but some for Newt as well.
Little-kid neighborhood soccer, cheap. Sally didn't end up liking it much. Newt did, but lacksidasically -- he's graduated from unserious little-kid soccer to unserious middle-school rec league soccer -- they're good enough that they're actually playing the game, but no one is even dreaming about an athletic scholarship. Even at that level, it kind of kills a Saturday morning and makes the weekends hard to schedule.
Little kid baseball -- that was one, maybe two summers, and didn't take for either of them.
Swimming -- years of lessons for both of them, Sally wanted to move on to a team. One year on a terrible local team, one year on a very very good very expensive team that was much more demanding than made sense for her.
Rugby -- some demented gym teacher at Sally's school recruited her for a club (that is, not affiliated with the school) team, which was an incredible hassle for me, because the practices were incredibly inconveniently located. But I really liked the team, particularly socially -- the girls were the sweetest, nicest bunch of homicidal thugs you'd ever want not to run into in a dark alley. Unfortunately, after a year of that, they lost their coach and it all got kind of erratic, and she drifted away in favor of her school's new rugby team, which I don't need to be involved in at all -- yay! Come to think, she got shanghaied onto the soccer team as well, but I forget because she's so much less interested in it.
I have put a lot of energy and encouragement into all of this. Part of it is kind of a 'do as I say, not as I do' belief that sports and physical activity are one of the basic fun activities in life, and if you don't develop some skills as a young person, they're really hard to develop later. And part of it is that you just can't throw kids out the door to play with freeranging packs of other children, inventing their own wholesome games with bits of sticks or whatever, because there aren't reliably existing packs of children out there. If you don't chivvy them around to scheduled league activities, there's not much of anything for them to do but watch TV or surf the internet.
68: Can't play left hand melody if you snort.
When our children were young I'd go out on the block after dinner, and they found other kids and played, however they liked. We adults found each other and talked. 20 years now, and we're all still friendly, and many of us meet weekly on summer evenings, even though our kids have grown up and moved out.
Some parents enrolled their kids in youth leagues, more or less in proportion to the interest the parent had in organized sport. I didn't, because I grew up in the world of youth sports, organized and un-, and un was always better. Had either of my kids expressed any interest I'd have supported them, but as it was they played games in the old self-organized way, and still do in their early twenties.
Kids' (poussins) le biff baff is sort of hilarious:
So maybe I'll get xelA into that later. Right now though, I'm thinking nothing that will improve the daddy bashing.
61/6: Positions like internships would typically be compensated, so it's hard to find a place willing to take someone for a few months of training, since they'd have all the visa paperwork and someone who leaves immediately after becoming competent. I'd recommend e-mailing lab directors to see whether they allow "volunteer" positions at clinical labs of large research-oriented hospitals to get a foot in the door if they want to bypass full certification programs. "Post-baccalaureate fellowship" or "Pre-doctoral fellowship" in laboratory medicine would be a one-year program in that field.
I took the kids to Kids CrossFit this weekend, only to have it canceled on account of teacher sickness or something. rhabdomyolysis.
Softball and baseball here are the crazy sports. Travel teams start young; the grooming starts young; they start talking about scholarships and whatever at stupidly young ages.
My friend's kid is seven and is now competing in gymnastics meets 2-3 hours away, most weekends. Ugh.
I'm totally on "keep it recreational" team. At a certain point, in certain areas, I think your kid can no longer participate unseriously without getting a lot of social pressure.
I started my boys on football (the English version) when they were six and three, because I figured if they were any good at it, they'd never have any problems making friends anywhere in the world. It worked brilliantly when we moved from Japan to England last year, when they were twelve and nine. Despite being small compared with British kids, and generally behind academically because of the language (though light-years ahead in maths), their footballing skills meant they were immediately recruited straight into the popular groups on the playground. A year and a bit later they're both doing well in their new environment, with solid networks of friends. Never having been either sporty or popular myself, I'm watching the process with gratified incomprehension.
The downside, of course, is that I'm about to start a second autumn and winter of spending every Saturday and Sunday morning freezing my fingers and toes off on muddy, windswept touchlines in some of the most inaccessible sports fields in East Anglia, sipping lukewarm instant coffee from polystyrene cups and trying to sound as if I know what I'm talking about when the other parents start criticizing the referee.
Team sports are bad, not least because of the early inculcation of rubbish like "team," "teamwork," "team spirit," "team unity" and "Coach says...," but little kids doing martial arts are pretty cute.
77. I was just reading this article, and the first sentence was all that I needed in order to know that I wouldn't want to work for this person:
Recruiting the right team member is always difficult.
77: Mara very much wants to do martial arts, but that's because she wants to be able to "kill people and make their blood come out." I think she's going to do art class instead.
We do swimming lessons strictly for the don't drown part. When they got to the level in their old classes where they started learning flip turns and butterfly we switched to semi-private lessons at the Y that just focused on endurance. I think I've mentioned before that the old place has a big banner above the pool- "Swimming- not just a sport, a way of life." Yeah, no thanks.
"Swimming- not just a sport, a way of life."
I confess I buy that completely. Swimming is a low-risk-of-injury physical activity that people can do well into their old age. I'm definitely going to insist that they learn to swim well enough to be "good" swimmers. Whether they want to compete will be up to them.
I'm shocked, I never would have thought that you of all people might believe that.
I remember knowing how to do flip turns.
Swimming- not just a sport, a way of life.
The beginning stage of the propaganda campaign to get people to love global warming.
Swimming is a low-risk-of-injury physical activity that people can do well into their old age
Swimming is actually one of the most lethal widely-engaged-in pastimes in the US. Every year there are around 3000 deaths and 160,000 injuries associated with swimming pools - more kids die from drowning than from any other cause except motor vehicle accidents.
When I got to high school, I had to choose between continuing to play football or joining the marching band (football players can't march in the halftime show, you see). I think I made the right choice, as it's doubtful I could still be playing offensive line semi-professionally at age thirty-two, but I still play drums.
In conclusion, kids should play music, not sports.
Wouldn't you think most of the people who drown are people who don't swim, but are playing in the water anyway?
re: drowning: Check out the bar graph at the bottom of this cdc article, which shows drowning deaths broken down by age group and gender. Group most at risk for drowning? Men 15-24. Alcohol is frequently a factor (does this even need to be said?).
http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsdrowningrisks/
If I had to drown, I would probably choose to do it in alcohol.
My sister and I were just raving about basketball, a sport her boys don't currently play. If you play basketball, there's always a pick-up game somewhere and barely any gear. Lotta injuries, though.
I play several different sports but for some reason basketball is the one I just loathe.
Related, I just got an email from work that they're starting one of those programs where you wear a fitbit and report every activity every minute of the day to them, plus everything you eat and your vital signs, and you might get- ta da- up to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS per year! Hold it, there, fatty, no money for you, you'll probably just blow it on milkshakes.
You have to have below a certain BMI to get paid?
|| Refining the bleg, now that I think I'm looking at medical technologist programs at universities with associated hospitals, we probably need to engage a consultant to help (a) choose from among programs and (b) wrangle the application process. What is such a person called, and does anyone have any referrals to make for an adult international student from the UAE? |>
I'm not aware of anything like that. It doesn't sound like a university-type thing.
89: and much more likely to be black or Hispanic. Clearly water is racist.
94: Are there consultants that do that kind of thing for life science grad school? That's mostly grades, GRE, and rec letters. Med school consultants exist, but that's not going to be quite right. Not knowing a ton about the field, I think you'd look at top ranked research/teaching hospitals, look at their clinical labs to see whether they have a program, then just do the application. For example: Emory, SLU, etc. "Medical Laboratory Science + location" is what you probably want to search.
93- it says for "improved or ideal BMI" you get a certain number of points each month. Certainly you can make the cash milestones without those points though.
96: There's a huge amount of racist ugliness about African Americans and swimming. (And Hispanics, in the other direction - think Rio Grande.) I think that's a can of worms you might prefer to avoid.
99: yes, I know - lack of access to swimming pools etc for AA (and presumably for Hispanics too?)
99, 100:
I'm guessing that this association is not true in Britain, as it is not in the West Indies, for obvious reasons.
I can remember an episode of New Tricks--does the appeal of that show to me need explanation?--where the scuba instructor in Britain was black. Implausible here.
I'm guessing that this association is not true in Britain, as it is not in the West Indies, for obvious reasons.
Actually, it kind of is. British Army slang for black soldiers is "non-swimmers", and anecdotally speaking if you have a group of recruits going through the standard swimming test, you can be pretty sure that most of the ones who fail will be black.
it says for "improved or ideal BMI" you get a certain number of points each month. Certainly you can make the cash milestones without those points though.
The rules governing these incentive programs are complex and not fully tested. Obamacare expanded the permissible scope for employers to offer wellness incentives. If the incentives are offered merely for participation, the rules are fairly lax. If incentives are contingent on health outcomes, a whole raft of regulations comes into play, designed to prevent employers from discriminating against individuals with health problems. One rule is that a heath contingent incentive has to be accompanied by an alternative standard for anyone who cannot attain the regular standard. The goals also have to be reasonably attainable: it would not be permissible to say "everyone has to hit a BMI of less than 27 to qualify for the incentive." You could say "Everyone with a BMI over 27 has to make progress toward reducing their BMI to qualify."
97, I'd think the consultants might be specific to the home country. Don't know about medical technologist programs, but doctoral and post-doctoral programs sometimes even find themselves augmented by an extra trainee whose home govt is paying whatever tuition and stipend would normally be involved.
I don't know why this should be, necessarily. There aren't now and as far as I know never have been legal barriers to pool use on racial grounds. In fact, inasmuch as the black population in Britain is overwhelmingly an urban population, you'd think there would be higher rates of swimming than elsewhere (people don't learn to swim in the sea or in rivers in the UK because it's too chilly, they learn in pools, and if you live in a city you'll obviously have much easier access to swimming pools than if you live in the countryside).
One complication here is that the generations who didn't have pool access then can't teach their children. Lee doesn't swim, nor did her parents'. All the black parents I know want their children to learn to swim, but many of them are not comfortable in the water themselves. Sure, there are lessons and all that, but it's just harder than having it be just something you do as a family.
It looks like there are enough participation things that if you do all those alone (20k steps a day, journal entries) you can hit the max incentive. If you meet the health ones (BMI, BP) you don't have to write as many journal entries.
Late to this, but this is an area where my own experience with my kids (and others) leads me to agree with ogged--particularly with regard to the opportunity costs. My kids. my wife, and I (not just as coach but a league "commissioner"--in two different sports! What a maroon!) were quite involved, and is one of two* significant things which I would do differently in a re-run (and not not do it at all, just tone it way down). Soccer was better in general than baseball (which included one of the few incidents the mere memory of which still induces jaw-clenching rage at the mere thought), but even that led me (and unfortunately my son) to have extensive dealings with one of my top 5 all-time worst human beings (HS coach) with whom I have known in my life.
*The other would be looking to live someplace with better "walkabilty" for kids when they were older but not yet driving.
20k steps a day is kind of a lot. Work bought FitBits for a lot of us by way of having a one-month, grouped-into-teams step competition, and then let us keep it (they have no particular access to the data). I get about 7500/day with my normal no-intentional-exercise daily routine and subway commute.
109: Is that the GCC? We're doing that. It does sorta kinda make me pay attention to being active.
Certainly not anti-sports, but Martina Navratilova has railed against premature specialization.
In a chapter on "How to Be a Tennis Champ" Martina Navratilova told us: "Growing up, I played many sports; I bicycled, I swam, I skied, I climbed trees. I played soccers and hockey. And all that contributed to my longevity in tennis and made me a better athlete both mentally and physically. - See more at: http://theartofdoing.com/what-happened-to-childs-play/#more-3583She's also a good twitter follow (other than at times too much re-tweeting of NYT articles). And if you ever get a chance to see one of the short TV docs on her life, it's worth the time. A true sports hero of mine.
No, never heard of GCC before - some homegrown thing just at our office, I think. Glancing at GCC, I think the GCC Pulse wouldn't work as well for me - the key thing about the Fitbit is that it uploads all the step counts (in 5-minute intervals, even) without any effort on my part - I just look at the dashboard and it's all already there. Having to look at the counter and enter it into a form somewhere... well, it's an interesting exercise in awareness, but I would probably just forget to do it.
It's 20k steps or 45 "Active minutes". I'm hoping biking counts for that because then I'll hit it every day, my commute is about 22 minutes each way.
111: Have you seen the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on her friendship with Chris Evert? It was one of the most honest and charming things I've ever seen about women's friendship and aging even beyond all the sports stuff.
20k is very a lot. I've hit it once. Hour of racqetball is ~6k, lazy day for me is 5k, normal day 8k, active day w/o exercise is 10k.
111: No, I should catch it. Just saw a Tennis Channel one where she did spend some time talking about her relationship with Chris. I believe they first played each other in my fair small midwestern Ohio city.
There's also not much in the way of domestic pools here, partly for weather reasons and partly for cost of land reasons. They do exist, but I would imagine the frequency is several orders of magnitude less than in the US.
re: 117
I was surprised when I looked at aerial photos of the Oxford suburb we used to live in that there were several pools on our street. But yes, not common.
20,000 steps a day is a lot. Outside the realm of what I think would do-able without a lot of dedicated exercise time. 20,000 steps is going to be in the region of 10 miles of walking per day. More, maybe.
The most I've done in a day was 15,000 with my fitbit. And that involved at least one 6-7 mile walk, plus general strolling around, and doing stuff with the baby.
115: 20,000 steps at 110 paces per minute (which is a pretty fast marching pace) turns out to take just over three hours. I suppose you take faster steps on staircases, but even so. It's also quite a distance. If I took 20,000 steps I would have travelled about 18 km (11 miles). And then I'd have to take another 20,000 in order to be the man who fell down at your door. Or my own door. Whatever. I'd need a rest in any case.
One of the guys I played football with in high school went on to coach high school football, and then got done for swapping dick pics with the 14 year old boys. (Was just in the papers today.) So yeah. Youth sports: ups and downs.
I've only done more than 20,000 once since installing my app and it was indeed a lot of walking. 13k-15k happens pretty often.
re: 123
Yeah, I average out at about 8,000 on days when I'm doing nothing. And about 10-13,000 one days when I'm doing a lot of walking with the baby. But over 14k is very rare, and 15k the most I've done.
114: And right on cue, NYT has an interview with the two of them as part of their run up to the US Open coverage. Gets a little "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!" towards the end. If you ever get a chance to hear Martina give commentary on a match (hard to do since she is on Tennis Channel), she is far superior to most mainstream commentators--insightful and intelligent.
*The other would be looking to live someplace with better "walkabilty" for kids when they were older but not yet driving.
This seems wise. We're drawn to rural-ish places, but for obvious reasons we tend to think of tromping in the woods with little ones, and not of having bored teenagers in the house demanding to be driven somewhere.
126 -- walkable small town in the middle o'nowhere. A few exist.
126: Yeah, our neighborhood was great for playing with neighborhood friends, nearby park, a bit of woods to be stupid in etc. Walking access to the bus, or to the convenience store to shoplift cigarillos, not so much. In retrospect, I think that retards developing independence a bit.
128: A lot of small college towns have this. Although also college students.
128 - For really actually small towns, two nice ones I know of are Trumansburg, NY and Weaverville CA. And there are tons of small cities that are walkable and still surrounded completely by beautiful natural stuff.
I just looked at Weaverville on google maps, and now my computer smells like crystal meth.
Interesting! I think Fort Collins remains our top choice on these grounds.
There are tons of walkable small towns on the East Coast. Even some that don't have colleges, like Tunkhannock, PA near where I grew up.
I'm already about a 1000 miles farther east than I ever intended. Not one more inch.
Acouple of non-colleges that I can think of:
Chardon, Ohio (although my google search returned "Man charged in heroin death of Chardon victim's father" as top result, and the victim refers to one of 3 HS students killed in a schoolshooting there last year.Otherwise, idyllic and rural,maple syrup, but relatively close to the yuppie side of thriving metrpolis Cleveland, Ohio.
Ligonier, Pa --near Laurel Ridge,historic, rich Mellons nearby
Grand Marais. Mn--much north, very Lake Superior
Then ski towns and old mining towns are your friend.
Seeing 134, never mind.
In that case, just go for Mendocino.
Yellow Springs is pretty great, if that's your vibe (and don't mind living in Ohio/tornado alley).
We want to live in Tres Cantos, Spain in a couple years. Hooray for fascist urban planning.
136 to 134. Geographic locator says ... Crested Butte. Probably still possible to live there for under a zillion, rare for a ski town. (Nb -- I have never been there). Or where Carp lives or one of the other nice towns in that state.
Yeah, I've been to Crested Butte. Beautiful place. (You really don't have to search for me; I'm been on this case for literally years). But CB has become quite expensive recently. The nice thing about Fort Collins is that it's just big enough to be sufficient for daily needs, but not too far from a real city with a hub airport.
The nice thing about Fort Collins is that it's just big enough to be sufficient for daily needs, but not too far from a real city with a hub airport.
And there are 24,000 undergraduates there.
138: Yep, and barely a college left there. When my daughter looked at it for college (it was just about to die in its previous form) I immediately launched into "buy a 2nd house she'd use and then we'd ultimately retire there" fantasies (and I have family in D'ton.) By SW Ohio standards has some bits of very nice geography.
141 -- I want to know some other towns on the list. This is a fun game and not at all a nice daydreaming fantasy for me. Bozeman MT? Eugene OR? Ashland OR? I guess Taos and Santa Fe are too obvious and too expensive. It's a little scary how small the California list is -- I guess SLO and that area would still qualify, though pricey, and Mendocino, though same.
I've actually daydreamed about moving to Idaho, like all white native Southern Californians. But I am not a racist!
Whatever kind of town you have in mind, I'll tell you where to go (limited to Pennsylvania).
145: I know, right? Sandpoint looks awesome. Let's do it. We'll shun Mark Fuhrman and just hang with Viggo.
We have good friends in Moscow, ID who are on us regularly to move there. That probably belongs on your list. Asheville, NC, if you want to be in the South. Bellingham, WA, if you don't mind the rain. Missoula for the (relatively) hippie vibe; Bozeman supposedly more stunning, but more yuppie/conservative. Ashland, OR, like you say. Portland, ME, if you want to be on the East Coast. In California, Nevada City is something of a haven for opted-out Bay Area transplants.
How about Kamloops, one of Canada's few extremely hot desert cities.
Oh yes, Nevada City. I've never been there but it's on the list of meaning to go sometime.
I've weirdly spent a decent amount of time in Moscow ID, it's got a nice very small university town/hippyish vibe (unlike nearby Pullman, WA, which is weirdly not that way at all despite being a college town). But it's more "not far from beautiful scenery" than "surrounded by beautiful scenery," it's basically just gigantic wheat fields and a move there has never seemed appealing. Sandpoint looks great aside from the Klan.
You are so very, very white.
And yet no one believed me when I told you what a disaster the robbery video was going to be. But look, pretty much by definition you can't find a great place to live that other people haven't discovered.
150 -- I would not have expected Duluth to top that list.
Think outdoors. Think adventure. Think cosmopolitan. Think Duluth.
149 -- also been there. Interior BC is pretty goddamn nice, except for all the Canadians.
I'm going to be less than an hour from Duluth this weekend. I considered a side-trip, but it didn't take long to convince myself that that wouldn't be necessary.
153: Or Provo at 2? WTF. Uh, how about 40 miles north where the outdoor scene is arguably even better along with a real city.
Provo surprised me. Isn't it more Mormon than thou?
Also, that list really needs a subhead along the lines of "if you don't mind freezing your ass off for half the year."
Lander, Wyoming, is a nice little town with a couple of decent-looking restaurants, coffee places and and a nice ice cream stand. White as the proverbial sheet, especially for a place located right next to a reservation, though.
For a few months I was calling out "Lander, Wyoming!" when something here would annoy me. It's supposed to be very sunny, too. But a little too remote and not at-all-liberal for me.
160 is right, the list seems to have been put together by snowshoers and cross-country skiers.
But, still, this for Louisville and Duluth:
Head to the perpetually hip Highlands, where houses go for $185,000 (citywide median: $139,400) and you can run or ride Cherokee Park straight from your door.
You can find homes in the Riverside neighborhood for $140,000 (citywide median: $148,600).
Aggh! Urple and Urple's non-union Minnesota equivalent, I am coming for you.
Think of all the munitions you'd be able to stockpile!
You know, Fargo is actually, I would say, more cosmopolitan than Duluth. Not that Duluth isn't nicer, what with the shore and the BWCAW nearby, but Fargo is downright snooty. It's funny though, for all our Fortune 500 companies and fancy neo-American food restaurants, Mpls is still sort of a cow town. Or was within living memory. You can still see the traces all over if you know where to look.
Easy to get to Berlin. Big castle in your backyard. Pretty. There's at least one good cafe.
163: $185k sounds surprisingly low for the Highlands to me, but I guess urple could weigh in more accurately. But yeah, in any case, it's a cheap place to live. (I think I was paying about $600/month for a summer sublet in Chicago when I was in college and my parents were appalled by how expensive it was; they thought a large one-bedroom apartment should go for at most $400/month. I can't imagine what they think of what I pay now.)
Or, I don't know, Nafplion? There's a good jewelry store there.
156: You're going to Hinckley? Be sure to bring back some of the cinnamon rolls from Toby's.
Mpls is still sort of a cow town. Or was within living memory. You can still see the traces all over if you know where to look.
Ew, cow traces.
You're going to Hinckley?
Port Wing, WI.
Well, the State Fair just started, so probably you'd want to look there first. You know what they say though: If you're squeamish, don't visit the 4H Clubs' Miracle of Birth center.
Jackson, Wyoming, is as maddeningly lovely and expensive as the travel magazines say it is. The bison herd is pretty cool.
Huh, never got up that way myself. If you want a side trip, Bayfield/Madeleine Island would probably be more fun. Good time of year to go up there too.
We're staying with friends (who live on an apple farm), so we're just going to put ourselves in their hands. Should be fun for the kids.
Jackson, Wyoming
That's like "best of" lists that tell you to live in Palo Alto. Ok, I'll get on that.
Provo surprised me. Isn't it more Mormon than thou?
Totally, and Provo isn't just one isolated town down there, it's in a metro area of half a million people. Half the people and twice the vanilla of the next valley north. If you're not Mormon and could get a job in either valley I can't imagine voluntarily choosing Provo.
I found Duluth surprisingly decent; take a trip up ogged. Grand Marais which I mentioned earlier is a fair bit further up the coast.
That's cool. I'm sure they'll have lots of fun stuff to do. And it's Wisconsin, so of course there's beer.
Yeah, the Big Swamp is kind of a trek. Seems to take as long from Duluth to there as it does from Mpls to Duluth. Grand Portage is even further. Might as well just continue on to Thunder Bay at that point.
Someday I'm going to move to Gimli, MB.
This seems vaguely relevant though it's about urban gentrification, not nice outdoor towns. There must be neighborhoods in Duluth where you could score higher than 10, no?
Decent "brewpub" in Susanville. It does look to be a fairly republican place, though.
It does look to be a fairly republican place
If you're going to get away from a city, you almost have to be in a college town, because otherwise that's going to be a problem.
182: Downtown Duluth would probably get up to 30 or 40 nowadays. Most of the rest of it is pretty dead though.
Oh sure there nosflow, mention the brewpub but not the prison.
you almost have to be in a college town
Or a prison town!
Somewhere pretty? Old mining town? Has a prison? Grants, New Mexico, here we come!
How odd, catching up on this thread, to see that ogged has mentioned the (very white) city that I live in.
Does Grants have a community college with a gunsmithing program? Is Grants a hour drive from an active volcano and the Pacific Crest Trail. Is Grants a mere 35 miles from beautiful Chester, CA and Lake Almanore, home to none other than CHUCK MOTHERFUCKING NORRIS? I think not.
Chuck Norris doesn't fuck mothers. He makes love to them.
Does Grants have
The joke is that Grants is a depressing little town on the verge of blowing away in a cloud of dust, but it does meet the listed criteria!
177: Keep moving North, and it's even more fun, but don't tell anyone because I like being able to afford my house.
I don't think anyone would want to move to Provo. Nice enough place to be from.
TOOK A WEEKEND
DROVE TO PROVO
THE SNOW WAS WHITE AND FLUFFY
BUT A WEEKEND IN UTAH WON'T FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH US
AND THE GREY SKY WAS VAST AND REAL CRYPTIC ABOVE ME
I like being able to afford my house
I thought you already bought your house? You should be saying "this is the next Boulder!"
That's true, but I don't want any more property taxes. But it is the next Boulder! 253 miles of trails!
Actually, this is a pretty nice place to live. Our visitors from the Front Range are positively impressed by how convenient everything is.
But if one were considering leaving the country, I'd put Kelowna pretty high on the list.
It's August. I'm not acknowledging the existence of winter just right now. (It's supposed to snow in Glacier this weekend.)
103: I hate the new wellness stuff. (Not Obama-related). My BF's company used to pay for his community rowing.
Now they will only pay (subsidize, really) for weight watchers or smoking cessation. And you have to provide copies of your blood lipids which he would prefer to keep private.
After my week of ER visits, I got a letter from Cigna suggesting that I might want to get a health coach to manage a chronic condition. Look, it's not my fault that the ER doc was too pigheaded to page the ENT and gave me s treatment which both didn't work and made me vomit.
140: Crested Butte is awesome. There aren't any good beginner slopes, though.
But the winters, bro.
Said the man...in Chicago.
But I would never tell someone to live here.