spacemonk

ok, my calculation in the last post was wrong. even as i was writing that post 46 mph seemed fast, even for an olympic speedskater. i forgot that witty won the 1000m in about 1:13, not the 1500m - placing her speed at 30mph...

since the last post i kept thinking how i could have calculated wrong, then i realized the error was in the distance. i can sleep now!

i've been thinking more about ice skating - and skating in general. what i like about it is the blend of power and speed. i love watching some of the skaters, most notably gold medalist/world record holder in the 1500m chris witty, who doesn't even appear as though she is working hard until you check out her times and realize just how fast she is going (if my calculations are correct, she averaged about 46mph for the 1500m in her record win). what a combination of great technique and power

from Daily Buddhist Thought Email (hmmm, did i need to read this on a saturday night)

A layman who has chosen to practice this Dhamma should not indulge in the drinking of intoxicants. He should not drink them nor encourage others to do so, realizing that it leads to madness. Through intoxication foolish people perform evil deeds and cause other heedless people to do likewise. He should avoid intoxication, this occasion for demerit, which stupefies the mind, and is the pleasure of foolish people.

first ice skating of the season today. got a season pass so the job for the next few months is to get our money's worth. didn't take too long to get accustomed to the ice, although, on the whole, i am much more comfortable on my trusty inlines. it's always good to go early and later in the season cause there are less little hellions skating at that time - there were only a few today. i enjoy ice skating, but going around and around does get a bt boring. i know in europe they have some marathon races - must be on canals or something. also, the yoga practioner in me doesn't like that we go the whole time in one direction. one glute feels more worked. i like to practice very slowly going for good form (not that i can go fast anyways)

ice skating is another of those things on an ever growing list that i don't particularly do well, but i enjoy doing. part of the reason i don't do well is that i am not particularly athletic. the other part is i'm strictly a dabbler. i do it for fun, not too serious about it. my goal for this winter is to add snowboarding to the list. i intentionally took up ice skating as a kind of cross-training for my inline skating - keep in practice/shape over the summer...and to lift my mood during the winter. at least now i dread winter a bit less cause i have ice skating to look forward to. plus getting outside in the fresh air always helps the mood.

halloween party for the kids had perhaps the lamest magician i ever saw. some of the kids were heckling him. they were kinda rude, but you know, kids are brutally honest - he wasn't very good. maybe smaller kids would have liked him

my wife and i were saying to each other how the guy probably hates kids and goes home after these gigs and gets liquored up, or something and gripes about the kids and how he should be a big star intead of david blaine

i'm kind of in the mode where the last thing i've listened to is my favorite:
last few things listened to include:
the rolling stones - exile on mainstreet
john abercrombie - open land
dido - i'm no angel
arild andersen/ralph towner/nana vasconcelos - if you look far enough
burton/corea - several

now, i guarantee that everyone reading this will have at least one of the following reactions.
those old guys suck!
who?
that cd sucks - commercial pablum
who x 3?!
who??

i always thought i had odd taste in music. not odd in terms of obscure. everyone likes obscure music these days. (intentional joke, btw), but that it is inconsistent. i mean i see no connection between those artists except that i like them. when i was younger this would legitimately bother me - felt i had to "pick a side" as it were. now that i am older and wiser (quit giggling) i realize that is ridiculous. i like them BECAUSE they are different. because they evoke something of each of each artist's personality. they each evoke a distinct - to use a sixies-ish word - vibe (as in feeling, not the instrument gary burton plays)

so what's next in the cd player - maybe polkas?!

boring friday five, but what the heck

1. What is your favorite scary movie?
i'm not big on scary movies. i liked cujo and the remake of the haunting

2. What is your favorite Halloween treat?
choc covered raisins

3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.
pppphhhfffttt!

4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?
no

5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year?
no - if i take my kids trick or treating, i might wear my skates

as some of you know. my formal work week ends mid-day thursday (don't get too jealous, i work like a dog mon-wed) it's not that i don't work thurs-sun, i just have no formal classes and don't need to be at the office, so i work from home. anyhow, i was having a real hard time trying to wind-down last night - still in "tense work mode" not in "relaxed weekend mode". so this AM i went for a skate on a bike trail between oberlin and elyria - converted rr tracks. very flat - straight out and back. what you have to remember on such a trail is however far you skate out, you have to do the same distance going back. so if you're feeling pretty good, and want to go another half mile, you're actually adding a mile. it's trickier still if you're going with the wind on your way out and feel good, teh turn around and fight the wind. pretty basic, i know - but if you;re feeling good and it's a nice day these kind of *details* slip your mind. anyhow i think i cut myself off at the right moment. i went about 5 or 6 miles - the first half pretty hard - more leisurely on the way back. not bad, a bit sore, was chilly and i haven't been really active last few weeks. i actually feel like myself again

i get home and start to work on my paper - power failure - we have more power failures here - one of the only things i don't like about my neighborhood. everything i could think of doing involved electricity - including leaving (electric garage door - yeah, it can be disconnected, but not by me) fortunaltely i found the discman, put on dido and took a nap. got up, only lost a sentence due to msword's autosave, and made it thru about 3/4 of my paper. debating whether to chill, or try and wrap it up. i still have a week to go on it, but it's cool to turn it in early! later we will have a delicious meal from taco bell and go to a halloween party for the kids at the y

tomorrow, i have to make up a test for my intro class and will either go ice skating or swimming

hey now!

larry sanders reruns on bravo - weeknights at 10pm.
best tv news i've heard in a while.

unless my vision is blurred by headache and fatigue, i think i read that baseball fans voted cal ripken breaking gehrig's streak as the most memorable moment in baseball history. i'm not much of a baseball fan so perhaps i should just shut up, but this seems like kind of a weak choice. my choice (perhaps because it occured during my peak interest years - early 70's, i'm guessing sometime in 1974) would be aaron beating ruth's career homer record - (ok - maybe the folks polled are too young to remember this). is ripken more memorable than the sosa/mcguire duel a few years back? heck that even got me excited - maybe folks didn't count that as one moment? even reggie jackson's world series heroics seem more memorable to me - and i'm not even getting into some of the real old-time stuff - ruth's "called shot", jackie robinson, larsen's perfect game, mazeroski's series winning homer or dimaggio's hitting streak, williams hitting .400

i know ripken's streak is impressive and he is a great man and a great athlete. but for me i don't see his streak nearly as thrilling or memorable as any of the above events. i kinda thought at the time that it would have been a class thing for ripken to bench himself the day before breaking gehrig's record. gehrig is an all-time great whose career was overshadowed by playing with ruth - check out the numbers sometime - what a hitter. he deserves better than being remembered as the name of a disease...

and while this is not relevant to ripken, when i was employed in the private sector, i always wondered about folks who didn't need to blow off a day of work every now and then

darn, so i shouldn't be expecting my check soon?

olympic hopeful in beach volleyball, holly mcpeak's favorite quote is from Aristotle about excellence: “You are what you repeatedly do.”

from bio on us olympic team site

haven't these folks seen any sci-fi movies?

i think in indian classical music, certain ragas are to be played at certain times of the day. this makes sense to me, as does listening to music during certain times of the year. gary burton, for example, is a fall/winter musician for me. don't ask me why, perhaps it is the power of suggestion given one of his cd's is titled cool nights.

it's hard to describe burton as underrated, at least in the jazz world given he constantly wins critic and reader polls on his instrument, vibes, yet somehow i think he is. he has had a long and distinguished career, both as a musician and as a music educator. he has played in any number of wonderful settings, duets, smaller groups, larger groups - in a variety of different styles. he was a pioneer of "fusion" music. he has "discovered" great musicians - pat metheny, john scofield, etc... he is an innovator on his instrument, pioneering the 4 mallet style...i think calling him a great "vibraphonist" is damining him with faint praise. he is a great musician, period. one of the best of the past, say 30-40 years...

picking a favorite of his would be hard, he is very consistent and has tons of recordings, so usually it's more of what i'm in the mood for, than one record being better than another. what i'm listening to today is some duet cd's he made with chick corea - these are consistenly favorites of mine - absolutely beautiful interplay between the two musicians. the cd i am listening to now contains corea's "la fiesta" perhaps the happiest music i've heard in my life. if hearing it doesn't bring me a smile, check my pulse....

has the sopranos gone downhill?

my vote is yes. keep in mind bad sopranos is still better than most tv shows, so i'll still catch every episode (probably more than once). my biggest complaint, which i also felt was the case last season, to a lesser degree, is that they have so many characters and set so many plot lines in motion that they can't give adequate time to them all - i.e. in yesterday's episode, nothing on uncle junior trial, not really much on how meadow is doing with her depression, nothing about the horse, etc...then when the season draws to a close, they will have to rush to tie up the loose ends, if they can even get to them all. there are worthwhile moments in every episode, but i am starting to feel puzzled with where it is going...

looks like tony and all may be jumping the shark...

though i can't begin to describe it, last night's episode of curb your enthusiasm was one of the funniest tv shows i've ever seen...

we went to cedar point, a local amusemaent park yesterday. after the rains cleared, it wasn't too bad of a day. a bit chilly - largely due to the wind. i as kind of like our group's sherpa. there to make sure we made it to the park, tote the baggage and supplies around, and in general make sure everyone as safe, fed and happy. my older daughter and wife rode many of the bigger coasters etc...(she has more guts than i did at that age) it was amazing how the giant roller coaster that was so scary when i was a kid is dwarfed in size and steepness by several other coasters. i ended spending most of the day with my younger daughter, who isn't really into the rides - even the smaller ones. we rode the merry-go-round a bunch of times - probably 7 times in a row! made some masks, went thru the fun house, watched essentially the same magic show, twice! played some arcade games. this is usually my role and i don't want to make myself sound like a martyr here because: a. it's great to spend time with my daughter, these trips give us a chance to spend long uninterrupted time together and b. i don't really like amusement parks either, so why not let everyone else go off and have a blast, while i keep an eye on the younger.

long and exhausting day though, got REAL chilly after the sun went down.