Postcards from the Funny Farm

“What a trip” Las Vegas can be.
My 10 year old son Brandon and I are seen here sharing a couple cool ones (cokes that is) at “The World of Coke” museum in Las Vegas right in the heart of the strip. This is just one place we went on our vacation last week that were “family friendly” places. Las Vegas is a great place for adults: you can drink for free, gamble your nest egg (should you choose!), see great shows, dance, etc. But Las Vegas also offers plenty for kids as well. Our goal was to get into a mental place I call “vacation psychology.” I hope my kids made it there. From the looks of things, they did. I also had at least one event that got me in that zone. SCORE!

This Las Vegas slogan of recent years is kind of funny: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” What do you think that means? I have my ideas. At first it sounds sardonic, mischievous, but I try to keep an open mind and accept everything until proven wrong.

There is a psychology in vacationing that is a “wow” so-to-speak. It takes you away from the daily grind and see something truly marvelous. Now does that have to be secretive? Not in my case. We went to a children’s museum that was ok, buffets that were tasty, and walked the strip to pick up tasty snacks here and there and all that was great. My kids did the “Build-a-Bear Workshop” and we ended up spending a hundred bucks on that. I know that sounds steep, but you should have seen their faces. All people, small or large, need to take care of their brain through vacation psychology.

Vacation psychology for me happened during a Cirque de Soleil type show. The announcer said that a recent “Miss Wyoming” was about to do an interpretation of that new song “Too Late to Apologize,” which I kind of liked already. She came out and did a ballet type routine suspended from two large red ribbons. It was the most amazing set of “human tricks” I have seen in a long long time. The song was moving and the amazing dexterity of this young acrobat was truly inspirational. Whether vacation psychology is better when it’s secretive, I will never know. In my case, I am glad that what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas. Sometimes it makes it to a blog and other people get to experience it too. (The YouTube video of “Too Late to Apologize” is linked at my online diary.)

My wife has been telling me for the longest time I need to drink less soda. She’s right, but I didn’t come to see that until I did a little research on the health effects of soda on the body. Remember this lovely ad I posted a few months ago as a joke? Well now that I’ve educated myself it’s funny for a different reason … irony.

You can read the many pages about this topic I bookmarked on de.licio.us, I couldn’t summarize everything here, but to put it all in a few words, here are my findings:

Many sodas, diet and sugared, contains needless “phosphorous.” In excess, this has been shown to cause side effects in people. There is nothing nutritional in sodas: caffeine, sugar, carbonation, phosphorous and other chemicals all serve to cloak a very acidic quality. In other words, you don’t know how sugary it is because of the acids and the acids are cloaked due to the excessive sugars. In short, you’re better off drinking water.

Another detractor I read about was the tooth decay caused by sodas. One article said it starts 8 hours after drinking a soda. Wow. Think about how many sodas you’ve drank through years. How are your teeth going to treat you when you’re older? Does this image tempt you as much now? But let’s chat a bit more …

I’ll leave you with a blockquote from the nutrition research center. Suffice it to say, I’m not drinking much soda any more.

When somebody drinks a Coke watch what happens…

• In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
• 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
• 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
• >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
• >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
• >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

What do you make of my recent “soda epiphany?”