Running in the Rain

Going off of the "Staying cool while training/working out" post I did earlier, another easy way to stay cool is to just run in the rain! The other morning, the raining was coming down in sheets and didn't really look like it was going to stop (sorry other states with droughts! Wish we could share the rain) so I decided I might as well get a good run in.

Running in the rain provides a different kind of exhilaration than normal. Not to say that a normal run isn't that uneventful and enjoyable, but the rain adds a different experience. The wetness provides a nice cooling factor that makes the temperature enjoyable to run in and adds a bonus "training weight" to my clothes and feet. However, the best part is probably running through the sheets of rain as if I were travelling much faster than normal and all the while having to avoid/running through huge puddles.

It's a fun experience and I recommend it for everyone!

And here's a picture from my office of Houston on a normal day:

Notice you can see downtown/horizon on this one... try and ignore the  obvious beauty (it's hard I know)

And a picture during the rainy day:

Can barely see a few hundred feet

The Fixie Bike Project

Awhile back, Kate and I adventured to this bicycle store in Houston. I was semi-looking for a commuter bike, but only if one popped out at me. While we at the store, one did exactly that.


After negotiating a deal and a time (shady right?) I went back to the store and picked up the bike for $35. It wasn't in very good shape and needed some work, but I was willing to put in the time.


Here were the issues with it:

1. No seat or seat post
2. Bent upper tube
3. Rear wheel's bearings loose and needed greasing
4. Tires would not inflate and needed replacing
5. No brakes*

Off I went to go work on getting the bike operational.

Two wheels, one frame, and one gear - perfect

Getting the bike grease, seat, and post were a piece of cake. There was a slight issue with the piece that held the bike seat up. Apparently my bike is a bit of an odd size and was also being stubborn and required going through about 4 different clips until finding the right one.

Seat post holder = black piece around bottom of seat post

Probably the most difficult task was getting the tires fixed up. I couldn't figure out why they weren't pumping, so I took out one of my tire levers to get the first tire off... SNAP! It broke like a twig. It was ok though, tire levers seem to come in packs of three so I had two more.

-Wrong!-

Both of them snapped just as easily as the first, with almost no progress on even seeing what's inside this tire. Next up... a metal spoon. That helped to reveal what was giving me so much trouble and why I had to resort to much more drastic measures- the bead of the tire had rusted itself onto the rim! So I attempted performing surgery....

After cutting the tire, I realized I'd need something heavy duty. I went over to my parents and, with the help of my dad, used a Dremmel tool to cut off the tire. It wasn't pretty, but got the job done. It also revealed someone had stuffed plastic bags inside the tire... makeshift tires I suppose?

Now that most of the bike was assembled, it was rideable. I've had some good rides on it so far even without brakes. It just requires extra force when attempting to stop.

Fully functional

But to make my life a little easier when biking with this bad boy... I installed brakes!

Rear Caliper

I wanted front brakes, but the pieces needed to attach the brake wouldn't fit over the front tire... so the rear I went.

Brake lever

And now I have a fixie with one semi-functional brake! How awesome :)

Thanks for reading.

Training with the Heat

With the summer already upon us, it's really starting to heat up. We've already had temperatures of over 100 *F for multiple days, with the heat index much higher. Just standing outside gets your shirt soaked.


Despite the heat, I must continue training as I have a race in less than a month, and then in August a few more. With that said, training in the heat is no fun. To try and battle the heat, I've been attempting a few different things to beat the heat.


Early Mornings
You would think in the mornings it would be nice and cool and perfect running weather, right? Well take a look at what the other day's temperature vs humidity looked like.

Click to enlarge - Temperature vs Humidty on June 28th in Houston

So in the early morning (around 5), the temperature is about 80* and the humidity is about 90%, and putting that in the handy-dandy heat index calculator, we get the heat index is about 87*. So running in the morning is still quite the workout with battling the heat! I'll usually come back from my run nice and sweaty and usually feeling kinda gross from the mugginess. But it's the best way to beat the high heat and out of the sun during the day.


That's Houston for you. Can't complain too much because if you're looking at the chart, you'll realize that it got up 93 before the thunderstorms really let loose! (Thunderstorms happen in the spike in humidity and drop in temperature, around 3pm).


During the Day/Afternoon
Not too much of a surprise, but I have a hard time waking up early every morning (I like sleep). Every now and then I'll get a workout during lunch, which means a little shorter of a workout but typically I'll go inside on a treadmill where it's a bit cooler (A/C!) and I have quicker access to a shower.


If it's after work, my favorite spot is memorial park. Why you ask? Well not only is it a great running trail, but they also have some off-road trails that offer a significant amount of shade along with some trail running thrills. Despite the heat, I really enjoy doing runs on the trails. There's something about whizzing past trees and making sharp cuts left and right that's so much more enjoyable than watching more flatness come into your unobstructed view while running on a regular running trail.






The issue with the high heat, whether it's in the 80* mornings or 95-100* evenings, is keeping the body cool. If I'm running at a rate that's making my body work pretty hard (say around 7'/mile), the body begins to produce a lot of heat (basic physics and common sense). However, when the temperature is hot enough, my body begins doing more work to keep itself cool then to keep up the pace, thus making it more difficult to run fast and preventing me from overheating immediately. And nobody really likes being a victim of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.


So what can you learn from me rambling about all this? Well different symptoms set in for different levels of what level your body temperature is at.


Body Temperature                                           Symptoms

  101-104 *F                                                    Muscle Weakness, Fatigue


  104-105                                                         Disorientation, Severe muscle weakness, loss of balance


  Above 105                                                     Diminished sweating, loss of consciousness






So don't be afraid to take breaks if you're feeling pretty hot and drink water!


Good luck.. and just because I happened to pull this data up, here is the month of June:

Canon AE-1 SLR

A while back, I was at my grandparents house and happened to just be perusing their an old bookshelf that happened to have a camera on it. I looked at it, and it seemed to still work, but it was old and I wasn't entirely sure how it worked. It was an old camera of my grandpa's that he no longer used, and decided to give it to me as a gift.

Turns out it was a real workhorse back in its day... a Canon AE-1. Really solid camera. I thought I knew a bit about cameras... but turns out I didn't really, and still learning a lot.

I got the chance to use my first roll of film in it when I went to Sequoia National Park. I happened to have a little bit of a mishap when unloading it as it was the first time I had ever completed a roll of film on an SLR. Some pictures turned out really well, but out of the 32 I shot, only about 10 turned out. Note to self: roll the film up BEFORE opening the back! (kinda obvious right?)

In the event someone runs across this camera and is in a similar predicament that I am, hopefully they won't overexpose their film as I did. I'm still working with the camera to get better at taking faster and better quality shots, but I'm a bit sluggish with the steps. Here is a very minimal step-by-step approach.

1) Load film and wind once

2) Set shutter speed according to how much light is around

3) Determine aperture (aka F-stop) setting based on light and shutter speed (I use the handy dandy light meter inside the viewfinder, but I presume if one is good with the camera, they know what the aperture should be)

4) Focus

5) Now focus the camera (<-- see what I did there?)

6) Shoot!

Here are some shots that did and didn't turn out well!

First picture I took

Hondo!

 Finally on the way out to San Francisco and probably one of the best photos that turned out.

Seemed to have gotten everything right on this one.

Overlooking a lake in Cali

I started playing with slower shutter speeds to see if I could get the water to be blurred together.

Shutter speed  1/125 I think.

And for comparison... the same shot, but different shutter speed.

Shutter speed 1/250

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading!

Great Sequoia National Park

A few weeks back (Memorial Day weekend to be exact) I took a trip out to San Jose, CA to visit my little brother. The voyage was to not only see what his life has been like at school (Santa Clara University), but to also take a trek off to some of the great California parks... namely Great Sequoia National Park.


The trip started with the most idle-rific/dawdle-ful departure ever...and for the trip planning was kept to a minimum (including, but not limited to, forgetting utensils and containers to drink from). So off my brothers' friends and I went... We made it to the park late at night and witnessed the grandeur of the park through headlights and extremely winding roads. We showed up at our campsite to find that it was covered in snow!


Remember me saying, "...planning kept to a minimum." I really had no clothes or shoes that would keep me too warm past 40 *F. Unfortunately it was about 25 out, and I was very ill prepared.... and I will likely not be making a similar mistake again in the future.


Our first full day there, we were able to get a hike in and see another part of the world (or so it seemed). We hiked through Kings Canyon National Park and went to see Misty Falls. Lots of rocks and interesting formations.

King's Canyon

Some more pictures of the hike

A bit of the canyon. Picture taken with Canon AE-1 (see previous post regarding issues with that camera).

That evening I got the opportunity to test out and sleep in an awesome hammock that Kate got me for my birthday. Now you may have asked yourself where I slept the night before. Well remember when I had said planning was kept to a minimum? The night before, I had attempted sleeping in the hammock , but got snowed on and consequently joined my brother and his 3 friends to make a 3-4 person tent extra cozy with a 5th person.

The hammock with my sleeping bag

During my brief attempt at the hammock the night before, I learned that I was going to need a rain fly for overhead protection, and an air mattress to try and keep my butt from freezing.

View from inside the bag with a makeshift rainfly

 Even with a cozy sleeping bag and air mattress, it was still quite chilly.

More gadgetry of mine - Note temperature was cooler than the watch shows

The picture of the watch obviously shows the altitude and temperature. But to get the temperature, I set the watch on the ground and it read 26, but by the time I had it on my wrist and then thought to grab my camera, my wrist had heated up the watch temperature gauge a bit.


The next day, our group visited Sequoia NP and got to see some awesome trees. The trees are really quite fascinating:

• they require fires to reproduce
  
• when a sequoia dies, it allows more sunlight through the canopy thus allowing younger trees to grow
  
• the roots of a sequoia aren't very deep, so they blow over easily
  
• the bark of sequoias are a natural flame retardant
  

Base of a giant sequoia

And I got a chance to be right next to one

Size comparison

 We also got a chance to see some bears up pretty close!

Really awesome creatures, worthy of some respect too.

So that was most of the trip. A lot of fun. I also got to hang out with Cisco and see his campus and play super smash bros, which was also great.


With that, I leave you with some more pictures.

View of some valley in California

Picture of lake in California - similar picture taken by me with filmed camera in other post

__________________________________

*The pictures with the nice shots were taken by my little brother and his camera. The three of the hammock and watch are from my phone, while the B&W unclear shot is from the Canon SLR.

Big Bend National Park

I realized that I never got a chance to post about my trip to Big Bend National Park! I went back in February with Kate and some of our friends and we had a great adventure!


Kate and I flew into El Paso and then road tripped out to Big Bend. Who knew that it would've been almost the same commute if we drove to Big Bend (BBNP) as flying. Driving is about 10 hours, while flying there takes about 2.5 hours plus a 5 hour drive... and that doesn't include the 2 hour pre-flight shenanigans and all that.

Well on our way out there, we got a chance to see some really cool things along the way. First off, we met up with one of our friends in El Paso so that it was a 3-person road trip. Then we drove into the night to stay at Fort Davis. There we met a very odd yet cool man that was in charge of the campgrounds we stayed at. He encouraged us to go see the Marfa Lights despite it being a 30-45 minute drive and it being 11:30 at night.

Construction Ahead

I'm currently working a little bit to try and spice up the blog a bit more. I'll be making some changes here and there, but if you have any comments let me know what you think works or doesn't.

Thanks!

....Still Alive

I know... it's been forever and everyone is wondering... "Are you still alive???" Well fret not, I am still here.

In the time I was gone a few noteworthy things have happened (some just national stories, others actually happened to me.. I leave the truth-finding up to your judgement)

-There was a man that got his face eaten by another man on "bath salts."

-Another man decided to stab himself and throw his stomach parts at police. (I know what you're thinking... But the truth is, zombies are not upon us, yet).

-I hugged a giant Sequoia

-I slept in a hammock in sub-freezing temperatures

-I slept in a hammock in a parking lot

-A rock didn't move

-The Houston Dynamo opened up their very own stadium!

-Multiple forest fires have been blazing in Colorado :-(   (not started by me!)

-Venus passed in front of the sun!

-LinkedIN and eHarmony got hacked (in other news, last.fm got hacked about a year ago, but just let their users know... thanks a lot)

-Summer has officially started

-Kate and I and some friends saw FPSF (Free Press Summer Fest) with a whole lot of bands and a whole lot of sweat

-I turned a year older

-I saw a bear

That's enough for now... I will be posting a more comprehensive, single-tract post later.. but just know I'm alive

Kemah Triathlon

This weekend, not only were my friends in town, but I also had a triathlon to race in! This was the Kemah Tri and my first race of the season.

I was really looking forward to it as I felt much stronger and more mentally prepared than any of the races I did last year. Before I get into the details, this race is a little different than other tri's. Most of the time there is a start where everyone either starts on land and dives into the water together, or you swim out into the body of water and start while treading water. This tri put us on a boat that sailed us to about 0.9321 miles (1500 meters) away and we jumped off the boat into the water and swam to shore.

Can you spot the difference from here?

Here is all my gear (much like the last time I raced). The key differences being: I'm taking a cat, I have my bike, and I only have 4 gel packs instead of 8. Other things to note, I am number 97. Because I was lower than 100 I was asked if I was a pro-athlete... I like to think, though, it was because I looked like one?

Pre-Swim

Due to the need to get started from a boat by 6:45, everything happened really early in the morning. Transition opened at 4:45, closed at 5:45, and we needed to be on the boat by 6:00 to have left by 6:10. That being said, Kate further solidified her awesomeness and drove out to watch me race! I didn't get a chance to see her pre-race since I was so rushed and had to be on the boat, but just knowing she was there was good news.

First off, I really don't like the swim portion... but then again, what non-swimmer triathlete does? Also, I am slightly afraid of open water. So I began to get a bit apprehensive on the ride out. We were packed in to this ferry boat much like people were packed into ferrys in The Dark Knight.

The Swim/Battle

As the elite/pro division of the race was about to start, everyone huddled over to one side of the boat to watch (quite a bit of leaning with the boat too). Shortly after, the woman in charge, whom I'll call the drill sergeant, told us that once she starts yelling, we just go. Maybe a minute passed and the race started... the drill sergeant began yelling, "Go! Go! Go!" and waving her arms for us to jump as if we were trained infantry jumping out of a plane. We headed into the chaos of a staggered swim start. I almost jumped on someone, and someone did jump on me.

As usually happens during the swim, I began thinking myself, "Why oh why did I sign up for this stupid race? I'll probably drown or never make it to shore..." It was definitely a rough swim. Lots of waves and lots of feet. I did get kicked in the face to where my goggles came off, but that's just part of the fun. After finally making it to shore after 40 minutes of a grueling swim (just side note, I was aiming for close to 30 mins on the swim since I can do the same distance in a pool in close to 20 minutes), I could rest easy knowing I would mostly likely not die anymore.

Now they say you're not supposed to drink ocean/gulf/salt water, but my theory was that since I was racing, I need the electrolytes, so I gobbled as much water as I could during the swim, and didn't even need to get water post-swim. (In actuality, the water was disgusting during the swim, and I missed the people handing out water :/ )

The Bike Ride

Hopping onto the bike, I felt much more confident. Swiftly got into aero-position, and I was battling the wind (probably 10-20 mph headwind). There were a few times that I would be pacing with someone or I would pass someone, then they would pass me, and it came to be a sort of group that were all around each other. There was Bob (actual name unknown), Maurice (a 61 year old 6'4 dude), pink girl, and high-cadence girl. I think I passed each of these people twice, and they passed me twice. But that was before we turned around.

Not me, but an example of aero-position and it's benefits (along with other expensive things)

On the way back, we had the wind to our backs, and I determined I had saved enough in the legs on the way out, and now it was time to go faster. After that, I never saw the motley crew again. Although I did see Maurice afterwards (did not say hi) and he is very tall with some massive legs.

The Run

I recall that in previous triathlons, I was extremely pooped by the time I got to the run. But this time, I was feeling very good and ready to keep going fast. I had saved one last gel-pack for the run, and I was off. The course was beautiful, and we got to run on the boardwalk that was right next to the gulf. I surprised myself with how fast I did the run course in. I think the fact that the clouds were blocking the sun really helped. There was a nice breeze and just a bit overcast.. perfect.

The Boardwalk - Post-race

I had a finishing time of 2:41:22. Not too shabby! I got a medal, and some ice, and I even got to see Kate on the race course maybe 4 times, and then hang out with her after. It was great. Good start to the season.

Next race isn't up until July, but will be looking forward to being faster by then...if only I can shave a few minutes off that swim.

Thanks for reading.

Past Weekend Shenanigans

Well this past weekend I had some visitors in town... Lucy and her boyfriend, Clay!

It was great... we got to hang out and watch some Walking Dead (an amazing show...fyi). That's all we did!


Just kidding...

I wanted them to get the full Houston, Texas experience; with the help of Kate, we were able to come up with a plan for my outta-towner's visit to the greatest country in the US. We got to do some shenanigans. So here are a few of them!

SKYZONE
Skyzone.. a place full of trampolines that lets you jump away. Pretty sweet as we were the only ones there, largely due to the fact that we showed up a little before they opened up. Lucy showed us how to do some tricks, and did some herself. Note how empty it is... we really were the only ones there. If you decide to go, may I offer a warning. Just because you're jumping on something bouncy and springy does mean that you won't get sweaty and tired.

Food

We got a chance to sample the different flavors of Texas. We had some BBQ (see photos below). We also got to eat at Ninfa's for some tasty Mexican food along with Landry's Seafood! So a good sampling of food. We also ate a lot of eggs. Not that they are more special here in Texas, I just thought that eggs are SO great and tasty that I would mention them... and they probably are better in Texas... isn't everything better in Texas?

The Galleria

We ran on over to the world famous* Houston Galleria (*may not be world famous). Got some shopping done, complete with trying out the Microsoft Store and seeing how good our Jedi Mind Powers are with an game console. Also, by shopping, I mean the Microsoft Store and the Lego store were the only two stores we stepped foot in... and it was to check out the price of the Executor Star Destroyer from Star Wars ($400!) and then try out the Xbox 360 Star Wars game... go figure.

The Force is strong with this one

We checked out the Williams Tower and it's little waterfall that it's got around it. Side note: I decided to climb up to be right next to the waterfall, and there was a man there that saw me and said to me, "That looks fun, when I was your age, I would've walked all around [the waterfall]." I think he was challenging me, but I declined.

Zoo

We also had an opportunity to visit the Houston Zoo. Apparently it's great here in Houston? I had no idea. Even after visiting the zoo, I still feel unsure about the zoo but try and relax since the animals are treated fairly. That part aside, the animals were very interesting to look at. Did you know that monitor lizards (monitors = that lizard from "The Rescuers Down Under" and Komodo Dragons) have the same muscle for breathing as for their legs? That means if they want to sprint, they have to hold their breath. Fascinating right?

The rest of the weekend consisted of going to Kemah to check their fantastic boardwalk and seagulls after my triathlon. We also got to head down to Galveston to show my friends what our beach looks like. Luckily there was no getting in the water so they never noticed how much they couldn't see in the water. But it was an ocean nonetheless.. well Gulf to be exact (thus the Gulf of Mexico).

And that was the weekend! Thanks for reading

Learning to Adapt

For whatever reason, I have always been fond of food. Sometimes I am a little too fond. By that I mean I tend to eat it rather quickly. The reasoning behind that is the stomach communicates with the brain slowly. It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you've had enough to eat (I actually did a bit more research and it's true!) So in order to make sure that my gets the full amount of food, I have to make sure I get as much as possible in before that 20 minute timer goes off. Ok ok, I don't actually shovel food in until 20 minutes are up, but I do have a habit of eating fast usually because the food is just so good.

Because food is always good, I have a strange tendency to block a certain sense of mine. That sense being the hot detector. Let me explain. I'll be eating an egg quesadilla, for instance, and it'll be hot off the grill... I know this because I can feel it's heat semi-burning my hand. I'll take a first bite and it will burn me (obviously, but I'll finish the bite). Then, after just being burned by this delicious egg quesadilla, I'll take another bite, which is still hot (since it's been about 5 secs) and will burn me again (but it's SOO good!). This usually goes on until it cools down enough and I no longer notice the heat or I've finished the food (notice- not until I wait for it to cool). As my Former JV roommate (Renata) said, "A mistake most animals don't repeat."

My rationale is that it probably has had enough time to cool between bites so that it'll be good enough to eat? I'm actually unsure... all I know is that I usually only remember how good it tasted and that it was tasted good hot. Chances are, if I go home tonight and make something hot, I'll burn my mouth... and that'll happen next week too or whenever I make hot things.

So if you find yourself in the same situation (which, contrary to Renata's words, most people find themselves in that situation (I hope)), know that you're not alone, and I too realize you're just trying to eat it before your brain notices that your stomach is full/mouth is on fire.

Thanks for reading!

You've lost at Hangman?

A childhood favorite.. hangman. I'm sure we've all had a bunch of downtime playing the silly game. First you just guessed at random, then learned the vowels, then learned that "E" is the most popular letter, then started reading and learning harder words to guess like "oxymoron" and "lexicon." Now if you ever play (especially with Hanging with Friends), you probably just guess as best you can, but mostly random guesses.

Well get ready for all that to change!

Imagine an engineer/scientist/analyst who got bored one day and did an in depth analysis to the science and statistics behind guessing words for hangman. Well that happened. Now, basically we can be hangman wizards.

So here's the gist of it...  You have some blank spots on a board in front of you that you need to fill in with some letters. The problem is, you need to guess correctly otherwise you die. You aren't too sure but you think the best order to guess in is the following:

ETAOIN SHRDLU CMFWYP VBGKQJ XZ

If you guessed this order, you're close, but still have some refining to do! Maybe you've seen this list before... It's the most common occurrences of letters in literature (from left to right). So basically, if you put some common sense into the way the statistics were formed, you can actually break the letter priority based on word length and what's used in a dictionary/random words, as opposed to priority based on what you'd find in a novel.

What I mean is, if you have a 2 letter word, there are fewer letters to choose from because there aren't a ton of 2 letter words, so your letter priority will be different than a 5 letter word (make sense?). So let's look at the different combinations then based on word length:

Length of Word
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
#1	A	A	A	A	S	E	E	E	E	E	E	E	I	I	I	I	I	I	I	I
#2	I	O	E	E	E	S	S	S	S	I	I	I	E	E	E	E	E	S	E	O
#3		E	O	S	A	A	I	I	I	S	S	S	N	T	T	T	T	E	T	E
#4		I	I	O	R	R	A	A	R	R	N	N	T	S	N	S	N	T	O	T
#5		M	T	I	O	I	R	R	A	A	A	T	S	N	S	N	S	O	N	R
#6		H	S	R	I	O	N	N	N	N	R	A	A	A	O	A	O	N	A	S
#7		N	U	L	L	L	T	T	T	T	T	R	O	O	A	O	A	R	S	A
#8		U	P	T	T	N	O	O	O	O	O	O	R	R	R	R	R	A	R	N
#9		S	R	N	N	T	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	C
#10		T	N	U	U	D	D	D	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	C	L
#11		Y	D	D	D	U	U	C	D	D	U	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
#12		B	B	P	C	C	C	U	U	U	D	U	U	U	U	U	U	M	M	H
#13		L	G	M	Y	M	G	G	G	G	P	M	M	M	M	M	M	U	U	U
#14		P	M	H	P	P	P	M	M	M	M	D	G	D	D	H	H	H	H	M
#15		X	Y	C	M	G	M	P	P	P	G	G	D	H	H	D	D	D	D	Y
#16		D	L	B	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	G	G	Y	G	G	G	D
#17		F	H	K	G	B	B	B	B	B	B	Y	Y	Y	Y	G	Y	Y	Y	G
#18		R	W	G	B	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B
#19		W	F	Y	K	K	F	F	F	F	F	V	V	V	V	V	V	V	V	Z
#20		G	C	W	F	F	K	K	V	V	V	F	F	F	F	F	F	Z	F	V
#21		J	K	F	W	W	W	W	K	K	K	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z	F	Z	F
#22		K	X	V	V	V	V	V	W	W	W	K	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	K
#23			V	J	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z	W	K	K	W	W	Q	Q	K	X
#24			J	Z	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	W	W	K	Q	W	W	J	J
#25			Z	X	J	J	J	Q	Q	Q	Q	Q	Q	Q	Q	K	J	K	Q	Q
#26			Q	Q	Q	Q	Q	J	J	J	J	J	J	J	J	J	K		W

After your mind has recovered from being blown up, you may begin to understand this a bit more. It's saying that if you have a 5 letter word, the most common letter becomes "S" followed by "E" and so on down the list. But if you have a 4 letter word, your best first guess would be "A." Now you're probably saying to yourself, "But if I guess that a 6 letter word will have an E and it doesn't, then priority shifts because it probably contains a vowel so S wouldn't be the next logical guess anymore, but maybe it's the letter A instead?" And to that I would say... you are correct, and smart!

The also might be thinking to yourself, "Is there really no 18 letter word that contains a J? I was just thinking about that the other day." (You also may have too much time on your hands if that's what you're thinking about).

So basically you're just hoping for a cheat sheet you can print out to carry around with you. If you're playing Hanging with Friends or something similar, and get a 14 letter word you want to know what letters to guess. Let me help you out.

Number of letters	Optimal calling order
1	A I
2	A O E I U M B H
3	A E O I U Y H B C K
4	A E O I U Y S B F
5	S E A O I U Y H
6	E A I O U S Y
7	E I A O U S
8	E I A O U
9	E I A O U
10	E I O A U
11	E I O A D
12	E I O A F
13	I E O A
14	I E O
15	I E A
16	I E H
17	I E R
18	I E A
19	I E A
20	I E

BAM!

Let me break down what this means. You get something that looks the following:

5 letter word... Go!

So you should guess S first. If no S, then E. If no E, then A... until you get a letter. Then you should probably just go down that bigger chart up there or use common sense (whichever you're better at). If it's a 6 letter word, use that row. Hopefully you get the idea.

Cool right?

Now you'll be the master at Hangman!

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I can take no credit for this in-depth analysis. I actually used quite a bit of this person's work and must give them credit. Originally found the information here.