Lone - The Birds Don`t Fly This High

I heard this while driving to Cooper Mountain to meet Kurt for a run. Great sound! Life is good.

You will want to try my favorite bagel

What have I eaten for breakfast yesterday and today? A peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwich on a Thomas' 100 percent whole wheat bagel. That they were on a two-for-$5 sale at Fred Meyer made the decision for me to try them. Otherwise I would have picked something else I could make a PB&J breakfast sandwich out of, which I ate every morning last week on toasted English muffins and the craving was still going strong.
High in fiber, calcium, and iron and low in fat and sugar, these bagels taste good and pack nutritional value. They're soft and moist and lighter than say, chewy and bland plain cafeteria-fare bagels. You don't need cream cheese to make these palatable. Although I didn't like them as much toasted because I found them drier, you might like them better that way. Kurt had already eaten two by the time I tried one - the morning after I bought them - so this healthy staple is also hungry-husband-approved.

Source: http://www.thomasbreads.com

Kurt and I are both runners so we're confident these bagels are doing our bodies good after intense five-mile hill runs we've done the last three evenings. Here is why: One bagel = one serving = 240 calories. Twenty are from the two grams of fat in each bagel, with 0.5 grams coming from saturated fat. The total fat makes up three percent of the Food and Drug Administration's daily recommend fat intake for you, so you have the rest of the day to eat your remaining 97 percent!
If you want your food to both fill you and go to work for you, it's a good sign when whole grain flour, water, and flaked wheat are the first three ingredients. What comes fourth is sugar. Added sugars supply seven grams of sugars in each bagel. That means 28 calories per serving are from added sugar. According to the American Heart Association, women should consume no more than 100 calories from added sugar per day and for men it's no more than 150 calories. So much of what we each contains sugar but in my opinion, if you don't drink pop or eat dessert most days, you don't need to worry about the sugar content in these bagels.
According to WebMD, men and women need at least 56 and 46 grams, respectively, of protein daily and each bagel has 10 grams. So this is a good choice if you don't eat meat. If you care about sodium, there is 17 percent of your daily recommended intake in each serving. Two of the 19 ingredients are low-grade preservatives - calcium propionate and sorbic acid.
In the future if these bagels are on sale when I do my grocery shopping I'll buy them. Because they're a great source of energy and tissue repair for athletes, I'll strongly recommend them to our 2015 Hood to Coast team, the Jogging Juggernauts.

Five lessons from LEGO's rebound that can help in life

Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary is only 20 minutes long and looks at how LEGO CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp helped make what had become a struggling company profitable again. Embedded in the story are five life general lessons I picked up while watching the film on Netflix:

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

1. Your life can be a case study in how to turn things around. Less than a decade ago, LEGO was losing a million dollars a day but it is now the world's largest and most profitable toy brand.

2. Know yourself. What are you uniquely about? What is your core business? LEGO lost its way when it no longer understood its own self-identity as a Danish toymaker whose name means "play well." Founded in 1932 by a carpenter, LEGO drifted from its base as a brick and building system and ventured into business areas which LEGO knew little about (one example being theme parks). Spreading itself too thin, LEGO lost money. By not understanding your core business and what your unique advances are, you will underestimate your own strengths.

3. Listen. Like Nike, Starbucks, and Apple, brand recognition means money for LEGO. Kids for decades have been inspired by playing with LEGO's and customers and fans value the company's openness into how their products work. But there were gaps and to identify and fill them, LEGO had to ask customers what they want. Then deliver. A great example: Before delving into extensive market research, LEGO didn't know that girls - surprise! - want to build and construct stuff. It launched a product line for girls and the brand's popularity among that customer segment has grown.

4. No immediate growth is okay. In the first year Jørgen vig Knudstorp was CEO, the company didn't grow but it also didn't seek growth. Sales fell 20 percent in 2004 and grew five percent the next year. Instead, LEGO spent that time putting its energy back into production, product development, and marketing. "When you're not growing, you have to drive productivity," vig Knudstorp said. Re-base and re-focus on what makes you unique, why you exist, and what you can give to others. Prosperity will follow.

5. Think big from your foundation. While LEGO got back to the core of its existence and its value to others, it identified three global hubs - Europe, Middle East, Asia - from where to expand into new and emerging markets. Look at your journey up until now, and keep moving forward with a fresh sense of adventure.