Tonight I was walking on the trolly trail with Anya and Chimay (our occasionally visiting poodle). After running this path so many times it was a rare pleasure to just be able to enjoy walking it and enjoying all of the nature that is there. The frogs are croaking away, the birds are nesting, and I even saw a fish in the swamp.
Anya managed to actually corner a groundhog! This is luckily a rare event – usually she chases them, but they magically disappear down on of their networks of holes, leaving a poodle intently staring with a madly wagging tail…. But not this time! She had run off the trail, and was barking and barking. I called her back and Chimay came but Anya continued barking without moving – uncharacteristic for her. I run towards her saying to myself “please, don’t let it be a porcupine!”. Well, no, it was one, brown, vertical groundhog, standing its ground for some reason. Nose to nose. Anya’s tail wagging wildly (does she like want it to play? Who knows!). So I pulled her back and scamper scamper off it goes.
Later on, I found a painted turtle, so I stop and look at it. Pretty thing, about maybe 15 – 18 cm large. Not moving. I sit there and watch, then I notice said turtle is backed up to a small hole, newly excavated. Look a little closer and, sure enough, there they are – a number of eggs (at least four) in the hole, with presumably more on the way. Plop, plop, plop! How she dug the hole I do not know – it had perhaps a 3 cm hole at the top, but was clearly “dug out” below, i.e. wider below ground than the hole itself – you could see the eggs spilling out to the sides! After watching for a while (the dogs weren’t interested it seems), I left her to do her thing. But I left a marker in the dirt to keep checking back as August approaches.
(For some great pictures of painted turtles, see http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/eastern_painted_turtle.htm )

Just got back from an evening sail.  No, there was not really any wind, but it didn't matter, really.  The boat drifted around in near calm, very quiet - sort of a lake of solitude in the middle of a busy world.  For some reason it reminded me of racing in light air in the Chesapeake bay, when there would be a light fog, and foghorns in the distance, playing their random pattern.

May has passed - almost on the first day the leaves came out, replacing the flowers on many trees.  Flower petals from the cherry trees on the ground, dogwood trees blossoming at the bottom of the street.  The leaves come out, the world turns lush.  Birds singing everywhere, calling to stake their claims to their new habitats.  Several times I have seen a baby fox on our street, usually in my headlights at night.

Middle May, the locust trees, which have still even begun the thoughts of leaves, break into spectacular blossom in an otherwise green world.  This lasts one week, and then they too are replaced by new, light green leaves.  The maple trees have already formed their helicopter seeds, and the dandelions have already spread theirs.  By the end of May, all the infrastructure is in place - the plants are ready for the serious stuff of life - growing taller, and yes, starting to store food for the winter, still long to come.

Been too long... Well, while I was obviously not blogging, spring has arrived here - no doubt this time!  The flowers are out, the leaves are getting ready to come out on the tree, and for the better part of two weeks it has ben between 10 and 23 degrees.  It hasn't even rained much!  So in summary, no complaints.

Our fledgling Vanguard 15 sailboat fleet had its first real organizational meeting, and while there are still things left to be decided, it is off to a good start.  We plan to put our boats on the blacktop on the 13th of May - in almost exactly one month!

I have been continuing to run occasionally, perhaps up to 3 times a week.  Now the weather is better, I will work on 4 x a week - some short, some long.  Biggest empasis is just on doing it.  Of course, although satisfying (and allowing me to eat more, my favorite hobby), if I were good I would work on stretching and upper body strength.  Oh well....

A new short-term obsession - figuring out how to better write web pages, at least the easy way with FrontPage.  I know, some of you are wretching, saying what's a self-respecting software engineer doing using a WYSIWYG program?  Well, truth to tell, I are not really excited about doing web programming, just being able to do some simple web site stuff - and FP should be the tool for that.

The last volleyball session was today - and in not very good style, I finished off the season playing really badly!   Perhaps I shouldn't have taken a nap before, as I never completely woke up.  Or maybe because I am feeling just a tad "off" - hopefully not a cold attacking just in time for Easter.

Spring has arrived

Today it is going to get up to 26 degrees and sunny!  And the first flowers are blooming.  Life is good for me.  G's life is less good, because she gets to watch all this from a chair - recovering from foot surgery.  Lots of other things going on, all at once.  I am working to organize the new Vanguard 15 fleet - our first "real" meeting is a week from today.  And work is reasonably busy.   Arkontheridge (that is our domain) now has web capability, so I will be learning how to build basic web sites.

More later.  Sorry to all I have been such a bad blog writer!

Today it is going to get up to 26 degrees and sunny!  And the first flowers are blooming.  Life is good for me.  G's life is less good, because she gets to watch all this from a chair - recovering from foot surgery.  Lots of other things going on, all at once.  I am working to organize the new Vanguard 15 fleet - our first "real" meeting is a week from today.  And work is reasonably busy.   Arkontheridge (that is our domain) now has web capability, so I will be learning how to build basic web sites.

More later.  Sorry to all I have been such a bad blog writer!

Chuck’s trip to
Florida

In the beginning of March, I went to
Florida
for one of my “multi-phase” vacations.  The primary motivator for this trip was to visit my Mom in
Naples, Florida
, and see what could be done about her poor trailer, that got damaged quite a bit during hurricane Wilma last fall.  Blown away (completely – you don’t even ask where they went!) were her screen porch and carport, as well as some windows.  All told, quite a mess.  My sister Kathy had visited in January and done some magic (she painted everything!), so things were not nearly as grim as they had been in the past.  Either way, here is what is left:

 

 

One the larger tasks was to do some work on the wheelchair ramp.  This used to be covered by the now-missing screen porch.  Now it is working on getting a suntan with occasional baths.  So at least a no-slip surface needed to be added to compete with the algae that will come with time.

 

Secondly, her electric wheelchair has taken up bungee-jumping over the side!  See those side rails?  Well, when the chair gets bored of going just up an down (booorrriiiinnnggg!), it instead decides to jump over the side.  This is, well…. “disconcerting” to the occupant!  Well, to solve it, in added on to the side rails so the chair cannot jump.  And did some other things around the house.  We also went out to dinner several times, and had lunch with “the aunts” – here is my Mom, Patty and Ro.  Can you tell they are sisters?

 

(First, in case it is not clear, "mess production" is a play on words, after "mass production", which this was).

Time for the annual cabbage roll cooking! Start with a kilogram of meat / rice mix, and a large, 2 kg cabbage.  Make lots of rolls, two full pans for the oven (I think I made around 30 cabbage rolls).  Fill the cabbage leaves with meat, roll up, put in the pan, then pour the tomato sauce (with lemon juice and "sour salt", a.k.a. citric acid).  Bake for 1 1/2 hours.  Result - many rolls.

Now what do you do with them?  Well, the goal is to freeze them for long-term keeping.  So I put them into vacuum pack nylon bags - sometimes one roll, more often 2 to 4 rolls per bag.  Add some sauce.  Now the trick is how to evacuate the air from the bags (ALL of the air) without sucking out the contents of the rolls.  Easy - freeze them first.

This works best in the winter...  Roll up the tops of the bags, and then set them out on top of the hot tub to freeze.  Luckily tonight it was -8 C, so they actually DID freeze.  Here is a picture:

Once the contents are frozen, you then use the "suck and seal" machine to suck out the air then melt the top of the bag.  The result freezes for up to 2 years - picture below (this is actually chili, from a past project, not a cabbage roll).

First thunder of the year!!!!  Yeah!!! Spring is coming!

(Florida trip report due soon - many photos to sort, etc.)

Well, I am completing the second day of my "vacation" in Florida.  I put that word inside quotes, because the first order of business is fixing various things in/on/around my Mom's mobile home, which got pretty beaten up in hurricane Wilma in November.  Kathy proceeded me in January, and also had a working vacation, cleaning and painting everything in sight.  I am doing things more like replacing hinges and doing some modifications to the wheelchair ramp she has.

The weather is perfect (of course) - sunny with highs around 25 - 26 deg C, lows about 19 deg C.  Last night I slept out under the stars and it was wonderful.

Now the the important thing in life -- the continuing search for the perfect Butter Pecan ice cream.  As those of you who know me know, everywhere I can I tend to order BP ice cream, to compare them.  Some are rather bad (Friendly's restaurant takes last place honors), but I have found a new high.  It is hard to actually imagine anything better.  The place?  Brewster's in North Naples, Florida.  It is fresh ice cream made "every morning" (I thought about this, and decided that this does not guarantee the MY ice cream was made that morning, only "some ice cream is made every morning"), and is very soft in texture -- Abbot's consistancy.  Full pecans.  Wonderful!

To earn my ice cream, I did at least go running.  Like our last vacation here, I am going to try to do this each day here (Masha and I last year vowed the same, and at least got running several times).

Monday - more work here.  I will probably visit the Thomas Edison / Henry Ford museum in Ft. Meyer's in the morning, then do a bit more work, and go swimming with my mom.

Tuesday - probably a visit to Corkscrew swamp in the morning, then lunch with my aunts (Roberta and Patty).  I will then go somewhere - not sure yet.  Maybe sailing - thinking about it, at least.

'Nuff for now.

BIG, fluffy Snowflakes!!!

All around, everywhere!  Winter finally!

OK, I've been doing my research on this little by little through the week.  The project?  How to clean and protect an aging vinyl floor.  For those who don't know, our kitchen has a really wonderful brilliant white floor that is now about 10 years old.  The problem, of course is that it was no longer white - more of a light, smoggy grey in places.  Normal cleaning does nothing.  So what to do?

Well, I wouldn't want to miss out on a mini-obsession, now would I?  Several elements - cleaning solutions, cleaning method, and (once clean) protection method.

Being a chemist at heart, I attacked the cleaning solution problem first - doing trials on small, labeled floor patched during the commercials in the Olympics.  The candidates were:

• 409 cleaner (standin for "standard soap / surfactant


• Lemon-scented "goo gone" - (standin for "hydrocarbon solvent")


• Acetic acid, 1 % (with a bit of detergent thorwn in as a surfactant)


• Ammonia, diluted 1:10


• Ammonia + Ethyl alcohol (strong imitation of windex, without the blue)


• Tri-sodium phosphate, medium strength solution

I will save you all of the details - the ammonia placed second, with the TSP placing first (which was also the cheapest).  You can just imagine the 10 labeled patches on the floor, all a varying amount of clean!  I'll spare you the pictures.

Next - how to clean the darn floor.  Its pretty big, so we need to think big.

• First disqualification - get down on your hands and knees and scrub with a cloth - even with a small patch, my back ached for several days!


• Works better - grind a cloth around with you foot.  Much better, no hurting back, uses your weight.  TOO SLOW, however!


• SCrub brush - works great, but there is the back problem!


• Rented electric floor scrubber machine - BING!  we have a winner!  Get it a soft pad, sometimes used for polishing, to avoid grinding up your floor.

So this morning we rented the machine ($30 for a day - a deal!).  Learning to "drive" it took a bit of getting used to - it has one large rotating pad, so you lean the machine forwards or back to make it go left or right.  Throw some water / TSP mix on the floor, and scrub away.  The entire job probably took 20 minutes of scrubbing - far less than getting the stuff out of the room.

This left us with one white floor, but still with no gloss, because the polyurathane top coat had worn off years ago.  We rinsed / dried it twice, then applied a commercial polyurathane vinyl top-coat reconditioner on it.  One base coat plus one thin top coat.  Result is wonderful, white and glossy! And I check an obsession off of my list!

 

After being sick on her vacation for a whole week, G wanted to do something fun tonight.  We decided to go to the downstairs Cabaret "The Water Coolers".  This was a set of skits, centered around the water cooler at work, joking at all the things that go on around an office.  Very funny!  Highly recommended!

OK, I learned this from a friend.  With a little practice :-) its really easy...

What, you say, is easy?  Eating a kiwi fruit.

Yeah, I know, you once tried eating one of those cute, green fruits, and I'll bet you that you don't eat them very much any more, because they are just more trouble than they are worth.  Peal them? - forget it!   All you get is a slippery, slimy mess that you couldn't even think about eating when the time comes, because you forgot to wash your hands first and started wondering where they had been recently.  OK, what about "slice and scoop" -besides sounding like a surgical technique, this used to be my favorite method, but for me, I needed a special, curved serrated knife to do it really well.  And you always felt like you left a quarter of the fruit inside the skin.

Nope, the best way to eat them I learned from my friend Kevin - you just eat the darn thing.  You got it - scratchy skin and all!

OK, the first time you do it it will seem a bit strange - but look on the other side - wasn't it easy?  See, I told you so - it WAS easy, wasn't it.  And the second time you realize that it is actually an eating experience.  The skin (yes, chew it - try it!) is somewhat tart, which balances out the rather sweet kiwi.  I actually look forward to the skin now.

Oh, and one other thing to trust me on -- I know what you are wondering --- yes, the skin does, errrrr,  "digest" completely.

Next week - a my next feature - increase fiber in your diet by eating your used sandpaper!  Followed by "sunflower seed shells on your salad as a garnish!"

Yummmmmm!

I just need to mention the obvious: the Olympic women figure skating is incredibly beautiful, and just totally amazing.  All of the skaters are awesome!  Three performances to watch in the short program were (in order) Kimmie Meissner, Irina Slutskaya, and Sasha Cohen.  Slutshaya and Cohen both had amazing programs - but that was somewhat expected.  Meissner to me was the great surprise - so full of life, and pure wonder of being there, skating in the Olympics.  The sheer wonderment really showed.

While this link lasts: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/02/21/sports/20060222_OLYMPICS_SLIDESHOW_index.html

I am also amused that to my strange mind, Sasha Cohen may actually look more slavic than Slutskaya (G looked her up - and yes, her Mom is Ukrainian, and she does indeed speak Russian and presumably Ukrainian).  She also (amusingly enough) skated to a Russian folk song.  Irena skated (also amusingly) to Dies Irae, which translates to "day of Wrath".  But it didn't matter - the music was great and Slktskaya's program was skated perfectly.

The finals are this Thursday.  I don't know who to cheer for - if Sluskaya wins, it will make up for last Olympics, where she placed second in a surprise (but well deserved) upset to Sara Hughes.  It will also give Russia golds in all three skating events, something that has never been done before.  On the other hand, Sasha Cohen has incredible art, and in the short program, showed she has what it takes.  Or there could be an upset - you never know.  That's skating!

Yesterday was G and my anniversary!  To celebrate (part 1), we ate, of course:

VERY tasty!  Tonight we will go out for dinner - still deciding where.  The Olive Tree (Greek) seems to be a frontrunner, although Indian is always there on the list...

And I was also a good husband, and bought some flowers - irises, which were prominent at our wedding.

 

It just happened - Gwendolyn just finished the last web-based test on her Nutrition course.  She is now DONE and very happy that it is over.  Her final average was 97.5%, which "should be good for a A".

This is her progress chart, now complete.  As you can see, she is smiling!

For each of the 22 chapters (652 pages), which were grouped into 12 exams, she had a 7 step process to study as follows:

1. Pull all material from the course web site


2. Type up the vocabulary for the chapter and make entries in table of acronyms


3. Take all of the teacher-provided materials (except lecture) and reformat into G's personal style.  Then print .


4. Take lecture, put into specially created word template - format using outline styles


5. Read and highlight chapter, with the outline of the lecture open on the computer.  Augment outline as necessary.  Print.


6. Review all printed material (i.e. actually study).


7. Take test...

Each step gets colored in on the "control chart" - exhibit A. - Yellow for "in process", green for "done". Earned value, practices at home.

Congratulations, Gwendolyn!

Well, several days ago winter finally arrived - it is -10C out at the moment, and there is, well, maybe 15 cm of white, fluffy snow on the ground.  I may have to actually shovel the driveway - only the second or third time this year, and this is February!  Its going to stay winter at least through the week.  It will help me enjoy California next week ;-)

This has been a busy week at work - just a lot of things to do.  I am collaborating with Eric on a paper (although I am worried I am not going to be able to give it a fair share of my time), and there is some standards activity going on, which is OK.  Next week I go on a combination trip - first to San Diego (CA) for a 2 day meeting, then a one day meeting in Denver, CO, then back home again.

I have been doing at least a reasonable job of keeping my exercise up - the last two days I ran (yesterday for 6.5 km, tonight for 7 km) - enough that my toes complained with some small blisters.  So no more running 'til Saturday.  Tonight it was easy because I had plenty of good distractions (and believe me, running on a treadmill NEEDS distractions).  I had the pool people to watch (waterslide and all), an MP3 player to listen to, and, special, tonight only, a girl and guy (they seemed to know each other well)  high school students (Juniors or Seniors - hard to tell.  They were loudly chatting away about everything high school - chemisty homework, falling asleep sitting up, what all their friends were doing, who is going to the snowflake ball, why ___ is so quiet lately.  Amusing.

G is almost done with her nutrition course, and doing very well, of course.  We both agree it will be GOOD for it to be OVER.

OK, you are all in for a real treat.  A friend told me about this one - and sure 'nuff, its on the web.  I won't explain, you'll have to look yourself - enjoy!

http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/dinoriki/phliez/work-well-together.html

Another blogger's reflection on this: http://www.aprilkelly.com/rambles/Wildblue.htm

   :-)

 

Weekends are good.  Winter has once again returned, albeit in a rather mild way - lot of wind.  I'm afraid nothing much happened today - it was a day of rest, at least for me (G has been studying furiously in Nutrition, trying to finish as much of her course as possible before classes begin - taken 3 "weekly" tests this week, with more to come.).  I hung out, took a walk, and went skating (late night - 10 - 11 pm) - it was nice to get back on skates and remind my leg muscles what they are about.  The good news is that at least I still remember how to do it, although I certainly won no gold medals.  Even had one good fall, but I am still in one piece.

Tomorrow (well, looking at the time, 12:30 am, I guess "later today") G gets a well deserved break and we are going to go to the zoo!

Anya says Hi!

 

Well, I'm beginning to feel a bit guilty about our strange weather here now that NW Russia is having such a cold spell - maybe our turn will come soon.  But here it is -- +13 degrees, and once again, people are not wearing jackets to work. It is a repeat of this time last week - last Thursday we had the same.  After that, it had indeed turned back to winter, with some reasonable temperatures more in the -8 range.  And it snowed, and the world once again turned white - it actually made sense to wake up and look outside.  January should have snow.  But then Tuesday it rained and the world once again turned green.  And now its warm.  Lunchtime walk, I think.  We'll see.

My sister had been visiting my Mom in Florida, and left yesterday to go back home in Canada.  She is in for a rude surprise, as Florida was in the mid-twenties temperature wise, and it is now -14 back at home, with -21C forecast for tomorrow.

. . . Almost like St. Petersburg, at least at the moment!

The last two nights I have been making an incremental dinner - there has been no time to cook, so after getting back from the gyn at 10:20 I start to cook.  Two days ago I did chopping, and last night I cooked.  A stir fry dish that if nothing else is pretty.  Hope is tastes ok.  Here is a picture:

Wonderful sunrise this morning.  Motivated me to get out of bed (to take a picture of it).

And it is going to be WARM today (about 15 degrees).  To celebrate, I am not going to wear a jacket to work! :-)

Yesterday was a great relief.  Work has been, well, "highly variable" in the motivation and general esprit du corps areas.  So disappearing in the mid afternoon was fun.  I did several things.  First, because I just wanted to MOVE, I went running aside the canal.  I started at the Lyndon rd., ran along the canal until I got to Fairport park, then ran back again.  10+ km, but not really a great problem - it was just so nice being outdoors without a jacket, and I didn't run fast anyways. Sure enough, there were many other walkers and runners out, so I was in good company.  I then walked for a bit, listened to the birds, stretched, and went home. 

After dinner I played volleyball.  I SUCKED big time for some reason (maybe it is because my legs finally decided to go on strike), but still had fun.  I slept well.

Eleven degrees (C) and sunny outside.  There is NO WAY I am staying at work.  What is vacation for?

I'm outta here!

This has been a strange sort of winter, and especially a strange January so far.  The middle of January is on average the coldest time of the year, average temperature wise.  Well, so far, this has not been the case.  It has not been exactly balmy, but not very cold either.  If I think about a typical day the high would be about 0 and the low perhaps -5.  Ok, for one day it probably got down to -11, but that was unusual.  Today it was about +5, and this Thursday it is supposed to get up to +10, or so they say.  If it does, maybe I'll take several hours of vacation and, I don't know, ride a bike or something....

Snow wise less than normal also.  So far average wise we are about 20 cm of snow below average.  Outside?  Green grass, no even very much mud.  Perfect weather for early April.

... Boy, I expect we are in for a rude awakening sometime soon...  I can see it now - some day I will wake up to a meter of snow and -15C temperatures... brrr...

New Years was pretty uneventful.  I started writing a "New Year's" blog entry, but then, in classic style never finished it.  Well, that opportunity was lost - I will have to wait another year for that...

Let's see, time for an obsession rundown for G and me:

Chuck's obsessions - fewer than normal

• Getting exercise: doing reasonably well here.  Ok, my motivation is not very pure - the more I exercise the more I can eat.  And I LOVE to eat...  But either way, I am managing to get some sort of exercise most days, either at the gym, walking, or (weather permitting) running outside.  At the gym I am mostly doing stairmaster and treadmill (running, not walking), and stretching (still my major weakness).  Overall goal by spring - 166 lbs (76 kg), which is about 8 lbs (ok, maybe even 9) below where I am.  But I give myself until June 1 to get there, so it should be pretty easy.  <Of course, I have said that the last 2 years and failed...>


• UML: This is a work thing.  I need to learn and understand UML 2.0, since knowing this is the bread and butter of my job, and I will never have time to get it right at work.  I don't do this stuff that often, but mid-winter is a good time.


• UML tool evaluation: part work, part play.  Evaluating demo versions of SW development tools that really do cost $13,000 a copy!  Better my company than me buying it.  Makes MS Office Pro look cheap!


• Budget: We don't really have one, and we need one.  Slowly working towards getting one set up.  At least all of our past year expenses are categorized now, so we know what we have spent before.  (We are actually doing pretty well).


• Oboe: Unfortunately, NOT an obsession at the moment, and needs to be.  Well, someday.

Gwendolyn's obsessions - few, but intense...

• Classwork: Anatomy done (A+), now working Nutrution, as well as Human Growth and Development.  She is trying to complete two one-semester courses over Christmas break.  May even succeed.  Unfortunately almost killing her at the same time.  Everyone keep your fingers crossed and think kind thoughts.


• More classwork


• And more classwork yet


• Blockbuster Online DVD club: Hey, you have to do something besides study.  So G has a continuous stream of DVDs coming to her.  This was a familiar experience when Masha was here, but...  G averages about 3 DVDs per week it seems.


• Sewing: obsession in remission.  But always there if the going gets tough!

Gee, what else is there?  Well, the living room roof replacement is now completed, but a new spot has shown up on the "flat spot" on our roof.  From what we understand, not a roof failure, but a siding failure.  But SOME DAY we will have the house fixed up.  Then we can work on getting the water damage to the drywall fixed.  It never ends.

Well, that's all for now...

fdsailor.blog-city.com — December 2005

Classes and life

Today started off with a bang - I gave two training classes (2 hours each, on two different topics) to 22 people from Harris' Melbourne, Florida division that came to Rochester to learn about developing software for one of our radio products. I feel for these people - they are going through a true "crash course". Three weeks ago, they were given "pre-reading" for all the classes they were going to take, with the idea that they would study it for two weeks, 8 hours a day. They then come up to Rochester, and listen (for two weeks) to 7 hours per day of dense, compact training material. They are motivated to learn it, because they have real work to do with this stuff, and know they will have limited access to the instructors or other help (because we are quite busy at the moment).

If I had to go through this, I think I would be brain-dead by now! They only have two more days to go!

Either way, the training went just fine. And it was recorded for posterity sake (my voice and the presentation from the PC that is - no live video pictures). I actually enjoy this, because (unlike some other training I am asked to do sometimes) I really DO know what I am talking about, so don't have to live in fear of questions I have no clue about!

I then spent several hours recovering (ever tried speaking for 4 1/2 hours straight, with only a 10 minute break at the 2 hour point?). The rest of the day went uneventually.

Sometime soon I need to go to Florida and visit my Mom - against our advice (hear that, Mom?) she returned to Florida (where she spends the winters) 4 days after a category 3 Hurricane passed through the area and had flooded everywhere and generally caused a mess. She lost her carport and screened porch - but went anyways. Well, she is doing fine, but that doen't make life easy... So sometime I will have to go see her. Tough duty, as Florida is soo cold this time of year :-))

Published: Thursday, 1 December 2005

Christmas / New Year's update

Well, it obviously has been a while since I have written something - but now is as good a time as ever. Let's see - what has been going on?

Well, first of all, an update on Gwendolyn and her Anatomy class. Well, despite how it may have felt to her as she studied for her final three tests (in a one week period - including two back-to-back on the same day), she did great, and has, well (to avoid embarassing her publicly), we'll say a "very" solid A in the course. 'Nuff said. She certainly is glad to have that over with. Congratulations, Gwendolyn!

I took the Friday before Christmas off (two days after G's final), and until Christmas we did not do anything really serious - more vacationed, which seems fair enough. G did not even do any studying (she has two "self study" semester courses to finish by the end of January!). The week before we had obtained a tree, and we put lights on it, had a fire, and just sort of chilled. On Christmas eve we went to midnight mass at church, which I really enjoy because I get to sing many Christmas hymns-- and smell the wonderful incense, even if I AM allergic to it.

We slept in a bit on Christmas day, having gotten to bed at 1:30 am that morning. The snow on the ground had been melting, but by Christmas morning it was still white - so we did have a white Christmas after all. We called, were called, or IM chatted with quite a few people, wishing Merry Chrismas. We prepared a full Christmas dinner, complete with a roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, aspargus, green beans and a wonderful dessert tart G had bought at Wegmans the day before.

It was really a wonderful, and very quiet night - something that could be enjoyed after several days of relaxation. The fire crackled away, time stood still, and life was for a while uncomplicated and simply good.

The next day started the week - which for me was a "vacation week", and for G was really more school work. It is incredible how hard she works, and how dedicated she is. Her focus is incredible and has to be seen to be believed. At times, however, I feel sorry for her - it seems that "learning the material well" is the only option. She will be the most educated Nurse Practitioner around, no doubt.

As for myself, while she is doing all of this hard work, I am doing a combination of things on my to-do lists, some work related stuff (but enjoyable from my standpoint - no specific task work, but rather new tool evaluation - learning, lots of learning), some hobbys, some reading, exercise and eating. Not as many things actually get done as I would like, but in the end, I am on vacation, so that is fine.

For the last several days, I have been encouraging G to pick something FUN she would like to do to prevent study burn-out. This took quite a bit of thought on her part, but in the end she suggested we visit the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. We tend to go there every several years, and it is a very pleasent pasttime. Admission was free for us, because my employer gives them money.

It was wonderful. Relaxed art viewing and visiting-- some remembered, some not. Now and then you would turn a corner and see some special, familiar piece of art. When this happens, you really feel at home there, like visiting an old friend. There are several pieces that I could look at for quite some time, as well as several other pieces that are wonderful, yet haunting.

We followed this with dessert (cake), and then grocery shopping at Wegmans. Dinner was salmon, eaten while watching "Brideshead revisited" - a DVD G is working through. Gwendolyn joined "Blockbuster online" a month ago - this gives here essentially unlimited DVDs (3 out at a time) - you send one back in the mail, and two days later the next on her online "queue" comes. As Masha demonstrated while she was here, with this arrangement you can watch over 30 DVDs or more a month for your $15, if you are really obsessive. Gwendolyn uses it a bit differently - many of hers are television series that take several sittings to get though, so she is seeing perhaps 3 per week. Still, not bad for $1.25 per rental with no due date. I can't remember the past films, but our current batch consists of:

• Sisterhood of the traveling pants


• Brideshead revisited, disk 1 (PBS)


• Allie McBeale, disk 1

So that at least brings things up to date! More as it happens, or so we can wish...

Published: Friday, 30 December 2005

fdsailor.blog-city.com — November 2005

11 pm - a couple of things...

First, I'm all excited - the boats ship from Vanguard (Rhode Island) this Friday, and get delivered on Saturday. And it will be warm (18 to 19 degrees). I won't get to sail my boat, however, because it will be in a (huge) cardboard box, from which it will probably not emerge until spring. Still though, exciting.

This morning I woke up to sunshine and brilliant yellow leaves. It seems that everything has changed in the last two days, and now the world is this wonderful yellow with a hint of orange in it - sort of school bus colored, I guess (but a bad analogy). Either way, wonderful.

Last night when running around the block, I saw a really big meteor - it moved quickly, and had real SIZE - and sort of exploded in the end. I don't see these very often, but what is really strange is that the one other time I saw one, it was almost at exactly the same place! This is just outstanding coincidence, nothing else (and no, they were not fireworks...). I waited for a minute to see if there was any sonic boom, but none to be heard, so a very high meteor.

Halloween was uneventful (I had band, and G entertained 4 trick or treaters). Wegman's seems to be skipping Thanksgiving, and is going directly to Christmas. I AM NOT KIDDING! Example - Chocolate bells and candy canes! No turkeys! What is this world coming to?

Published: Thursday, 3 November 2005

10:55 pm - WARM day!

Today was a good day - not only was it FRIDAY, but also amazingly warm - it got up to 19 degrees and was just wonderful! And better yet, tomorrow is going to be warm as well - probably 18 degrees. The lake is too cold to swim in, but you never know, sailing is not out of the question.

I just got back from running the trolley trail. It was really interesting - the trail itself essentially is a railway bed the is built across a swamp. When I started my run, it was quite cold (maybe 8 degrees), which was a surprise to me, given it was 15 at my house. But then you start running and now and then a gust of wind hits, and that, suddenly is very warm. So successive waves of warm / cold / warm / cold - a very interesting experience. And all of this under a starlit night, with Mars at its brightest - just last week it was the closest if will be to earth for quite a few years to come. It doesn't look like a point of light - there is actually a tiny disk there. Very cool.

Tomorrow the boats arrive - 11 Vanguard 15s, each with a hand dolly, all arriving in one big truck. Hope I get to see it.

And oh yeah - I get a long overdue haircut - so I can turn back into a member of the human race again.

Published: Saturday, 5 November 2005

10:30 pm - Visited the boats + general Saturday

Woke up this morning to a 9 am phone call saying that the boats had arrived in Canandaigua. Well, it is not my job to actually DO anything with them (that is the boat dealer's problem), but G and I did go down to visit them! You can visit yoj for some more pictures and a bit of a story, but sufficie it to say they are really pretty and now I can't wait until next spring when we can sail ours! Gwendolyn is psyched too - unlike the FD, this is a boat she can take anyone out in, without worrying about if they can right it if they flip. Sweet little boat!

Other than that, we mostly hung out. G studies Nutrition and of course, her Anatomy course. It never ends. We also took ourselves and Anya for a walk on the trolly trail.

Published: Saturday, 5 November 2005

7:20 pm - Leaf day

Today was once again a warm day, although sometimes really cloudy, and sometimes a bit sunny. The wind was blowing very, very hard, and all of those wonderful yellow leaves I wrote about only several days ago are now on the ground. It has been a late, golden fall.

I remember back in my days when I was doing theatrical stage crew work a very standard sequence - after one scene, a front curtain or scrim would fall, and while a short scene was going on "out front", there was an almost panicked, whirlwind of activity sweeping off the scenery from the last scene, while the elements of a completely new scene were whisked into place. Then the curtain goes up, and Voila! -- a completely different scene. I think this is how today felt for the world - yesterday most of the leaves were still on the trees and it was fall. Today, everything was changing, a very warm wind, leaves dropped, then an approaching storm and rain, then tomorrow we will wake up to a cooler world that looks more like the winter to come. The winds of change, indeed. Literally.

It was warm and I was doing outdoor activities, like washing windows, emptying the garden hoses so they don't freeze in winter, and finally taking "pass 1" of leaf raking. I know I didn't have time to do the whole yard - I was looking at the weather radar, and there was a clear line of storms coming my way. So I worked for the two hours I had, and did about 1/3 of the lawn before the heavens opened and let loose with rain. It actually was rather pleasant work, it was 20 degrees out, and I actually got to wear shorts!

Tomorrow, Act 4, "Late Fall" will dawn.

Published: Sunday, 6 November 2005

10:14 pm - How to buy and use your own domain for email

We interrupt this blog for a public service announcement. Sometimes I write some blog entries as a public service on topics that may be of use for our friends and others who find this blog as part of broad searches. This is one of those entries.

Many people we know use the email accounts provided by their internet service providers - for example, thedoes@rochester.rr.com . They use this for years, everyone gets to know and use the address. This ties the person to a particular ISP, resulting in one of several problems:

• the ISP could go belly-up
• you could move to a different area
• The ISP could change its domain name
• the ISP could raise its rates (in fact, this happens automatically with Roadrunner, for example, after the trial period is over) or not give enough storage space.

What is needed is a universal, guaranteed address that you could use for the rest of your life and have "move with you". The simplest way that many do is the get an ISP independent email address that is unlikely to change - either the person's college address, or a web mail service such as yahoo, gmail, hotmail and just use it. These all can work to some extent (even be a sufficiently good solution for many), but in other cases may not be versatile enough, or you may get tired of seeing ads, spam, etc.

A better, more robust method is to obtain (buy) a domain of your own, and then find a provider to host that domain and provide email service. You can then use the email service directly (including POP3, for example), or simply forward it to your ISP-specific email provider - both work.

OK, first, what is a domain? Simply put, a domain is the part of a web address that goes before the .com (or .us, .org, etc). Most, if not all domains that are not already "claimed" are available to be adopted. Once done, for all practical purposes, it is yours as long as you keep it registered. To do this, you register the domain with some entity - this costs a bit, e.g. $5.99 per year. Note that you are not tied to the firm you buy it from - if you ever want to change, the domain is yours, and you can transfer it to someone else. For example, I register my domain with www.1and1.com , because their prices are good. Well, if in the future someone else is cheaper, I can transfer my domain to that other firm. Note this does not change the domain itself - just the company supplying the services.

Once you have your domain, you can then use it for a number of purposes. Many people use their domains to host web pages - but I won't go there right now. You can also simply host a email account using your domain. From this, you create one or more "sub accounts", which are parts you add before your domain name. For example, if your domain was sailingisfun.com, you could create accounts personal@sailingisfun.com and public@sailingisfun.com . More about management and sensible choices in a bit.

There are lots of places that can register domains, host web sites, and host email accounts, and the fees are really low. The firm I am working with (and I am happy with) is www.1and1.com. This provides domain registration for $5.99 per year, and email hosting (up to 5 accounts, 1 GB per account) for $0.99 per month - so a total of $18 a year for quite a bit of control over email, spam, etc, as well as freedom to change ISPs whenever I want without anyone else even knowing I did it!

Here is an example using this firm (which I can recommend, by the way). Lets say you are currently using (tied to) luddite@rochester.rr.com , and want to become ISP independent. Here is what you can do if you want email only:

• Go to www.1and1.com - select their "Instant email" option (currently $0.99 per month).
• The first thing they will ask is to create a new domain (if you are reading this, you probably don't have one already). Here is where you get creative, and think of one. Unfortunately, many "good" ones are taken by people who are "squatting" on your domain and want to you bribe them to give it up. But you can probably think of something that describes you. For example "capsizingisfun.com" is available. Note that you can pick .com, .us, .name, etc. - most people in the US naturally think .com, but others work exactly the same way. The web site is a bit confusing - make sure you only buy the domains you want - they each cost money!
• Continue through the pages until you have both instant mail and your domain(s), and your domain(s) is tied to your mail account - this is pretty straightforward.
• Eventually you get a password mailed to you. You sign into the "manage your email" - and you now can create your email accounts. You probably have 5 accounts and some number of "email forwards" - these are separate concepts:
• And email account is your actual postbox - if you don't pull the mail out, the mail will accumulate and accumulate until you use up the 1 GB limit for that box. These are things that you either sign into (if you are doing webmail), or attach Outlook,etc. to using POP3. Mailboxes (email accounts) also have options for virus checking (do it!) and spam filtering (perhaps do it). For example, I could create an account george@capsizingisfun.com , which would be george's personal email account. Becky could create a second email account becky@capsizingisfun.com .
• Forwards are different - they simply redirect mail coming at your domain to another place - which can be one of your email addresses as part of your domain, or a separate email address entirely. For example, let's say that becky, being wise, does not want to provide her email to every web site on the web - suddenly everyone will be emailing spam to becky. Instead, she creates a web@capsizingisfun.com, and has this forward to becky@capsizingisfun.com - this way, in the future she can always delete that address and lose the spam, without affecting her personal friends.
• Typically you then connect Outlook via POP3 to your newly created email account and test it. Note that programs like Outlook can typically monitor multiple accounts - in our example here. a single Outlook account could monitor the (legacy) luddite@rochester.rr.com, george@capsizingisfun.com, and becky@capsizingisfun.com .
• Tell all of your friends your new email accounts, and there you are - receiving email without using your ISPs services.

At some future time, I will describe my thoughts on account management, for what its worth!

Published: Wednesday, 9 November 2005

7:44 pm - Suggested use of email mailboxes and forwarding addresses

This is a continuation of yesterdays "get your own domain" notes - today I will talk about what to do with all of those web addresses once you get them.

As mentioned before, you have email accounts (I think of these as mailboxes) and forwarding addresses. Mailboxes actually store stuff, and can be associated with virus scanners and spam filters. Forwarding addresses do just that - they present one address to the world, and when people send to it, it forwards it to another. The important thing is the the original email address is still accessible by Outlook, so you can sort on it.

My philosophy is to make it as simple as you can, while still getting what you want. What do we want? Well, in my case, the following comes to mind:

• To be able to hide our last name for many of the email addresses we give out, while still having one address that is "personal" to give to your friends and other trusted sources.
• To be able to filter for spam aggressively for many of the addresses, but to no lose critical emails from those you trust.
• To be able to perform some basic automatic sorting in Outlook
• To be able to change "public" email addresses when necessary without messing anything else up

With this in mind, we proceeded as follows (I will change the names and domains to protect the innocent:

• Set the mailbox 1: thejones@capsizingisfun.com - this will be the primary mailbox for trusted sources - this will have little or no spam filtering active. This mailbox POP3s to Outlook
• Setup mailbox 2: anon@capsizingisfun.com - this is used for generic, anonymous use - it has solid spam filtering enabled. This mailbox POP3s to Outlook
• Setup forward address: bills@capsizingisfun.com - have this forward to thejones@capsizingisfun.com - you don't want your bills to be spam filtered away.
• Setup forward address: web@capsizingisfun.com - have this forward to anon@capsizingisfun.com - this address will be used to submit to generic web sites with a high potential for spam - in this way, you can change this email address without affecting your bills, etc.
• Setup forward address: mailorder@capsizingisfun.com - same as web, but for frequent mail order places that are a bit less likely to spam, and you still want to keep in touch with.

Either way, you get the idea.

Published: Wednesday, 9 November 2005

8:50 AM - FIRST SNOW

This morning, just a bit before 8 I was sitting at my computer, and white started falling from the sky! SNOW! Actually, this was snow that needs some more practice before it can really graduate from snow school - fluffy it was not. Rather it is these little round white balls, as much hail as anything else - we call it corn snow. None has stuck to the ground (yet), but that will change, if not today, soon!

Now is a good time for me to wish that it does NOT stick, because we still have acres of leaves left to rake! And wet leaves are NOT happy leaves!

Published: Thursday, 10 November 2005

10:57 PM - Yard work weekend

Good news / bad news. The good news that that for both days this weekend the weather was absolutely splendid - highs 17 on Saturday and 19 on Sunday. And no rain in sight. The bad news is that as a result, I couldn't blame the weather for keeping me from doing yard work.

As a result, chainsaw man made another appearance - I chopped down several small trees that had died and several honeysuckle bushes that had been dead for a while, but I never got around to doing anything about. These bushes didn't look that big sitting there in the ground - sort of round bushes perhaps 3 meters tall. But boy - once you cut them and they spread out over the ground, each (and there were three) seem about the size of 3 Christmas trees. And they are a tangled mess - you can't stack them, you can't do anything with this - I can see why in the country some people just set their brush on fire and it magically disappears. Here is suburbia, we need to chop them into small bits, stack them up, and hire a "chipper" to chop them up.

I also cut down several small locust trees. Gee - talk about trees designed to resist cutting and disposal. Let's tally up their merits (NOT) from a yard work standpoint - well, first the wood is DAMN hard - it dulls chainsaw blades. Then when you cut it down, it is gnarled mess - no straight branches here! No, every twig goes every which way, so that it does not stack. And finally, there are the spikes! Did I mention the spikes? The branches are covered with occasional 3 cm straight spikes, that easily puncture gloves and skin. I am full of holes - let's hope there are no exotic poisons on them, or I am surely doomed for a slow, painful death!

And I raked, and raked some more - but that is boring to write about.

Afterwards, I rewarded myself with Abbot's ice cream (chocolate almond kiddy on a waffle cone), and went for a walk on the Crescent trail with Anya. I love walking with the leaves going "crunch, crunch crunch" underfoot.

Tomorrow I leave for Anaheim, California to present a paper at the Software-defined Radio Forum technical conference. Highs will be 29 to 30, so everyone should be jealous! :-)

Published: Monday, 14 November 2005

11:15 pm - I can't believe it...

OK, I don't understand it a bit, but several days before Halloween Wegmans (and many others) started putting up the Christmas decorations - chocolate foil covered Bells and marshmallow Santas in the bulk section, cards, etc. I know they can't wait until Thanksgiving, but you would think they could at least wait until Halloween is over! I can get used to it - I can handle that.

But what I could not believe was the Santa Claus came to Eastview mall today. Yup, you got it, the jolly fat man in the red suit! I doubt he came in a sleigh, since it was 19 degrees and sunny outside. Ho Ho Ho???!!!? Give me a break! Perhaps we need to rotate the characters to mark their appearances - we can eat roasted Santa for Thanksgiving, the Christmas Bunny can come hopping along, and the Easter witch can leave, well, perhaps toads for Easter!

Published: Monday, 14 November 2005

California - SDRF conference

Life is busy. The the last three days I have been in Anaheim, California. I am attending a conference on Software Defined Radios, where I will present a paper in a few minutes. I arrived Monday afternoon, and since then it seems that I have been doing something continuously (mostly eating), and this is the first chance I have at writing in a blog.

The conference itself is pretty reasonable - the papers are fine, although the presentations are starting to drive me nute - they all start with too much introductory material (which is known to most, usually VERY well), and they never get into the interesting part of their papers. Either that or the papers are thinly veiled advertising, which gets tiring.

When not attending papers, I need to network and talk to vendors - this is not my strong point, and it takes a lot of energy. I am so tired at the end of the days, so I usually take a nap.

I did find a running trail that goes alongside a "river" until it hits the ocean. The river is only a trickle at this time of year, however, although it clearly at times is quite large - huge embankments. So when it rains, it must RAIN. The path itself, which I have only run at night (full moon, though) is boardered by a long strip of a golf course - it seems that on both sides of the river is a long, thin (40 meters wide at points) golf course, winding along the river. So strange, yet at the same time makes sense. Just like everything else in the country of California (I understand this it IS a US territory, however ;-).

The hotel I am staying in is very cool. Check it out! http://orangecounty.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp

Published: Wednesday, 16 November 2005

A day in California - not everything according to plan...

Day 3 – Wednesday. I wake up early, not having let my body clock get too used to Pacific time – I have compromised half way – go to bed and wake up 1 ½ hours early by local time, and 1 ½ hours late by east coast standards. After doing some email, I work on API comments to the government (don’t ask) for a bit, then go to the speaker’s breakfast (today is the lucky day when I give my paper). That goes uneventfully – the session chair was changed at the last minute and we all have to get him our bios so he can introduce us.

The paper went just fine, which I didn’t really deserve since I had not dry run it earlier. It was planned for 30 minutes, and took 30 minutes – 2 minutes per slide, about average for me (my slides mostly have pictures to explain). Well, not perfectly – my laser pointer batteries died, but someone took pity on me and I borrowed one. The only shame is that the paper was placed in the wrong section, sort of, and as a result, much of the audience had neither a clue nor interest in my topic – but several people made a special trip and changed sections. It did make it a bit easier for me in the questions period, I guess.

Then more food (this particular conference has great food, which can be a problem!), and more API work. This I did from my hotel room, which is better than it sounds. Good light, a full wall window, and good scenery. Add some tunes from my MP3 player, and I can be happy for some time. Focused, because I actually like the work I am doing.

For dinner it was technically appetizers, but these were very tasty, and easily made a dinner. The general theme was oriental, and most items came in a bed of really long, really crispy noodles. They looked like slightly kinky pickup sticks. They were probably there mostly for show, but they were really tasty. Sort of hard to eat.

I had a plan for the evening – lets see how it worked out…

Part one of the plan was to watch the Disneyland fireworks. These happen most nights, just 2 miles north of the hotel. So first, I got online, went to the Disney site, and looked up when they were. 7:45 pm. Fine. Next, I pulled up the map of the area, and tried to figure out a good place to drive that we quite close. OK, found a place, makes sense. Next is to drive there.

So I drive a bit, and locate the neighborhood nearby, and park. Well, there must be other bright people in this world with the same idea from time to time, as the street signs clearly stating that parking is for residents only, and all violators will be towed. Tough – tow me, just try! 7:42 – just in time. 7:45 – not yet. 7:55 - ??? well, maybe they changed it to 8… 8:05 passes – no fireworks, and I don’t have a clue. I leave. I have not idea to this day what the problem was, but that night there were no fireworks.

The next and final thing for my day is an evening walk. Well, OK, I lied. It must be a small Dairy Queen ice cream cone instead. Then a walk. My destination for the evening is “Mile square park” which is indeed, one mile square (as well as one square mile…). Guess what – inside is a golf course – there seem to be lots of these in California! Everywhere I look.

It is 8:45 pm – I want to be leaving my 10. Well, with a one square mile park, I can’t walk more than 4 miles, right? That should get me back around 10. In fact, I will only walk around the perimeter of the golf course – that will be shorter. I park my car in the golf course lot (the park lots were locked).

The moon (one day past full) is in the eastern sky – my compass. Night sounds. The place seems to be pretty safe (yes, I did ask before going there). I settle into my walk – keep the golf course fence to my right, start walking and I cannot go wrong.

Gee, golf courses are big!!!

Then there is the small matter of the software diamonds in the park. These (there were 6, I think) had their own maze of fences, completel with dead ends. I finally get sick of backtracking and in one spot address the “I need to get there” problem by climbing.

Finally, I get back to the park entry road, and start walking to the parking lot. I see a guy fiddling with a chain, and then getting into his truck.

… . . ? ? ? ? ? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Yup, you guessed it, the gate is locked. And he locked it! I start running, putting myself between his truck and the exit. Start waving my hands. He answers – in Spanish. I explain my plight – in English. He manages to get out the “he doesn’t have the key”. Strange, because he locked the gate, or so I thought. I pause, look dejected, and started walking away. The starts to drive, and then stops again. I walk over to him. He points at a gap of trees and points.

This must be what Ford Mustang convertibles (that is a whole other story) must be for – all terrain vehicles. I can tell you with confidence that they can be persuaded to go over 6 inch curbs, and are quite maneuverable around small trees!

The rest is predictable and boring. Drive, then sleep.

Published: Friday, 18 November 2005

A very nice day...

They say one of the wonderful things about a find red wine is not simply its taste, but rather a mixture of a variety of factors – color, “nose”, the color and the texture. And of course taste – nothing simple, but rather a mix of tastes, each evocative of different things and different times.

By this standard, my “half-day off” has been a fine wine indeed. The evening is settling in as I sit on the back deck of a French restaurant in Laguna Beach (California). I am hungry and nibbling on some fresh French bread as I wait for my bouillabaisse to arrive. Crisp crust, but soft inside. Not far away is a sand beach – the beginning of the Pacific Ocean. The sun set some half hour ago, and the moon has risen in the east. I hear the surf and can see the forming lines of surf form in the moonlight. The ocean surface, indeed the entire world, is deep blue, with just a hint of the sunset past – once orange, but now more a deep lavender looking across the sea.

That is one part of the world – that is out there, over there, the ethereal world. One flavor. Nearby is the here and now – candles on the tables, the early diners arriving, and the music – someone singing in French, from a speaker beyond view. It is a very interesting juxtaposition – Paris meets the ocean. Cobblestones and gulls. The taste of good food with the smell of ocean in the air.

A very fine wine indeed.

Published: Friday, 18 November 2005

And now, a rare entry from my sister

My sister Kathy, as it happens, actually is genetically related to me, and writes better blog entries - she just doesn't write a blog. Until she changes that, from time to time I post her stories. As background, she teaches veterinary surgery to impressionable young vet students. She is a very good teacher - we just hope her students don't turn out as strange as she does. Anyways, here goes - enjoy!

-----------------------------------

I just had to tell you this story. Neighbor up the road (George) invited me to join him at team penning practice Saturday night. Team penning involves a herd of young steers with numbers on. Three people on horseback ride down to where the mob is and strain out the three steers bearing a given number, then send them down to the other end of the arena and herd them into a pen. You have a minute and a half to do this; a competitive time is under 30 seconds. No problem, I reckoned--as a vet I've spent far too much time (on foot) chasing cattlebeasts into pens when the farmers have failed to trap them for me ahead of time. Well. The first problem was that I own only a dressage (fancy English--well, actually German in my case) saddle, made for doing horse ballet or escorting the Queen. No horn, looks pretty darn prissy up against the standard-issue Western saddles at this event. Second thing was that (having had three friends have brain surgery after horse accidents) I wear a helmet, not a cowboy hat. So I stood out a bit, especially considering that the horse I had to ride was Coco, a huge fat palomino of George's. Coco is a horse of exceptional imagination but very little courage (he's the one who has been dumping me by tapdancing).

So Coco and I got into the arena with the other two horses...and then Coco caught sight of the steers. Oh my God. They might have been smaller than Coco individually, but there were a lot of them, and clearly all of their fangs were dripping horse blood already. Coco panicked and his transmission broke; thereafter he was stuck in reverse. So while the other two horsemen went up to round up the steers, Coco and I did several circuits of the periphery of the arena, backwards. Needless to say we didn't make the allotted time. Unfortunately, as the next group was getting ready, Coco and I were now supposed to stand guard up by the steers, to keep them bunched together until the chosen number was called. This did not go well, since I couldn't get Coco to move forward toward the steers at all.

We were in six go-rounds, with Coco making only tiny incremental strides towards coming to terms with large animals of another species. I stayed on top but provided endless amusement to everyone watching. We were in the final heat of the evening. As we set the first foot in the arena, Coco went into his backing up routine again. I decided, screw it--if he wanted to back up, then he was damn well going to back up a lot. By this point we had no dignity to lose. So when the flag went up, I sent Coco to the other end of the arena, full speed in reverse. He happened to just blindly and randomly back up beside three steers, who just by accident happened to be of the desired number. The steers were so astonished at having a horse ram into them full speed astern that they high-tailed it, on their own, to the other end of the arena and dashed into the pen for safety's sake. 28 seconds. We got the low time of the night and won the $200 jackpot!

Published: Friday, 18 November 2005

Published: Friday, 18 November 2005

Championship volleyball in Rochester

It all started on the plane when I was returning from California - the couple sitting next to me was having some debate and asked me if I was from Rochester. Well, that conversation was pretty amusing, but I am going to skip that for now. What I did learn is that the top four NCAA college volleyball teams were going to be in Rochester the next day (Saturday) as part of a tour prior to holding the semifinals and finals. Of course, I went.

There are some detailed photos on the photo site http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/789503 but first, a general impression. As expected, these guys are good - really good. Over 80% of the serves were good, most being jump serves, and almost every play involved a hard hit - "free balls" were at most one out of 10 times. If anyone has every played competitive volleyball, you know how good this is.The players really did seem to be able to jump 60 cm - check out the pictures.

Several years ago I had gone to a exposition match played by the US Olympic volleyball team. The volleyball was incredible, but quite hard to analyze. In this match, the good thing is that I could understand most of what was going on - I could keep track of the setter, see his signals, and could often guess what was going to happen. As people who know me could guess, I broke the game apart into pieces, and watched several points with a specific question in mind, like "can I keep track of the setter", "can I read the setter's signals" "who is calling the plays", "are they actually executing the plays they called" "how do they set up a triple block" - stuff like that. Is anyone surprised?

One amazing thing (and I am NOT making this up) - one player (he played the whole match) for Rutgers - the front left power hitter - had a CAST on his left arm. It may have been a splint, but, for example, no fingers showed, and it want to just below the elbow. But it didn't seem to bother him, as he hit with his right hand. I never watched him to see if he ever passed or bumped. But boy could he hit!

Finally, for those still reading on, here are some technical observations from watching several hours of this:

• All teams played a 5-1 offense. When the 5-1 setter was in the front, sets were from front right - just like the book says.
• Rally scoring, games to 30.
• For those who haven't been keeping close track of the recent rules changes - you can now serve anywhere in the back row, net serves are in play, and there is a "libero" - this is a pure defensive player (back row only) that has special privileges in exchange for never leaving the back court.
• In several plays I was amazed on HOW true the "setter has second hit" is true. In one play the guy literally dove into a back bump set as two players watched him do it nearby (instead of playing the ball). Why? Because they were preparing to hit the set "promised" to appear. And appear it always did - and it was almost always hit. I never heard a setter call help once, although in extreme cases others DID play the ball.
• Jump sets were routine, some floaters, nothing else. All serves were "normal", not roundhouse.
• An amazing, and very effective play was for the front-right 5-1 setter to back set to the back row right hitter.
• Most center hits were "twos", not "ones"
• Most sets were overhand jump sets (can you tell I am a setter at heart?).
• There is no way I could keep track of where the libero was - rotating in, out, you name it.

Published: Monday, 21 November 2005

Gwendolyn was accepted! Yaaaaayyyyyy!

Congratulations, Gwendolyn, on being accepted into the University of Rochester Nursing Program!

Way to go!

Published: Tuesday, 22 November 2005

Snow, finally....

Yesterday morning, we woke up to about 3 cm of snow on the ground. And unlike several weeks back, which was just barely recognizable as snow, this was normal stuff - fluffy. The roads were even a bit frozen, just to warn us to drive carefully. A bit more got added this morning. So unofficial winter is here.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving - we are staying home for a change.

Published: Wednesday, 23 November 2005

Thanksgiving!

OK, certainly not a standard American thanksgiving. I slept in a bit, we both did some house organizing, Gwendolyn did a lot of house organizing - "fall cleaning"?

Instead of having a traditional turkey dinner (a bit anti-climactic given there are just two of us, although Anya volunteered to "eat for four", in a strange play on words, we ate at an Indian restaurant. After all, Thanksgiving is about Indians and Pilgrims, yes? OK, so we got the type of Indian a bit off -- when Columbus did his thing, he was looking for a route to India, yes (or did I get my stories mixed up -- can't remember). Either way, that is what we did, and it was tasty.

Then we watched the Harry Potter The Prisoner of Azkaban - very strange. It has been a long time since I read the book, but it seemed much different. Unlike the first several movies, I liked the book more on this one.

Published: Friday, 25 November 2005

Puzzle Quilt

OK, Gwendolyn should write this entry, but I expect she will edit it if I get things wrong. She is working on a puzzle quilt, and this is how it works. First, you take a pattern - imagine something that makes a small square (maybe 30 cm square) with 9 internal "panels" inside - each with some interesting shape.. Number each panel 1 through 9, and cut the pieces apart. So now you have effective a 9 piece puzzle that can be assembled into a 30 cm square.

(Note to quilters: now you have to add the 1/4" seam allowance to each "panel" and make templates that include the seam allowance.)

Now take nine different squares of cloth, each 30 (plus a bit) cm square. Stack them exactly on top of each other. Then lay down your puzzle template pieces (assembled so they form the square), and (using a rotary cutting wheel) cut out each shape, through the nine layers of cloth. You now have nine different pieces of cloth for each shape - 81 pieces total.

Here is the tricky part. For panel 1, you leave them stacked exactly as they are. For panel 2, you move the top cloth from piece #1 to the bottom - giving a rotated pile. For panel 3 you move the top 2 cloths of piece #3 to the bottom. You continue this series until finally, for piece nine, you move the top 8 cloths to the bottom, leaving the original bottom piece on top.

Now set all of the stacks down, take the top layer, assemble and sew into a 30 x 30 cm square. Then take the second layer and sew into a second square, etc. - you end up with 9 squares, each with a different color in a different position.

In G's case she actually wanted 12 squares, so she then made 3 more squares picking the color orders in random.

Now, you just sew the larger squares together into some pattern that pleases you - and you have your quilt!

Published: Friday, 25 November 2005

Back to being warm outside

Today the world is confused again, but in a good way. It is currently 16 degrees C outside. The snow is gone, and I took a short walk during lunch with no jacket. Somehow this seems strange, because the trees and the rest of the world look like they are dug in for winter - a black and white world, save the grass.

This too will pass.

Published: Monday, 28 November 2005

Crazy

Absolutely crazy. Almost midnight, almost December and it is 19 degrees out!

Published: Tuesday, 29 November 2005

fdsailor.blog-city.com — October 2005

11:27 - soo far behind

Oh dear, I have gotten so far behind on my blogging. I am not even going to try to catch up - at least I got some pictures published on yoj.smugmug.

My obsession (and it has been intense) for the last week has been trying to accomplish the impossible - and I do mean impossible, as the last three attempts have failed. I am trying to form a new sailboat fleet at Canandaigua Yacht Club. Why is this hard? Well, the trick is one forms a fleet to race. To race you need, say 6 boats of the same kind. Boats cost money to buy - in this case from $2000 to $5000 each. A limited number of people (myself included, although I am not sure where I will get the money from) ARE willing to spend the money, provided that at least 5 others are willing to also - THAT is the problem. Getting interest is pretty easy - but finding out who is actually able and willing to shell out money is another. So it is a very binary outcome - either you have - boats or you have at least 6.

Starting in the fall, when it is quite cold already is not the best time to start this effort, but here I am. The good news is that you can get some great deals on boats this time of year... Well, I prepared a persuasive letter, I got all of my materials collected, and I made a web site. If you want to look at it, it is http://home.rochester.rr.com/giraffe - I am sort of proud of it. And, so far, so good.

More later, hopefully.

Published: Friday, 14 October 2005

11:08 pm - running again

I don't usually complain about the weather that much, but this last week has been really depressing. Yes, we got some wonderful weather before, but last week was around 10 degrees, and always cloudy. No sun whatsoever - none! Oh, and did I forget to say - it was raining most days... Well, this didn't help me get much exercise. And volleyball on Thursday night was really stupid, because (it is a long story), we only had one court, and so three people were rotated out on each side at any given time. And everyone was pissed about it, so everyone played lousy.

So since I didn't get much exercise (and ate quite a bit at the party Friday), I promised myself I would go running today. Well, today, although it was very windy and cool, was very nice - the sun finally came out, and there were many large clouds in the sky (but not Russia sized - never seen such big clouds as the Novgorod region can get in the summer!). We went to the dog park to walk, and visited the lake shore. Wonderful time.

And finally, at 10 pm, I went out and ran around the block (about 5 km).

Tomorrow I get to show the boats - so everyone keep fingers crossed, as I will finally find out more on how interested people actually are. This could go either way.

Now, what else does one do at 11:15 - Wegmans!!!

Published: Saturday, 15 October 2005

9:24 pm - a weekend closes

This weekend has been rainy, so it is hard to get excited about much. The trees are starting to turn color, however, and at times the sun will peak out and remind one what beauty can be found in pockets here and there - nature is not put off by rain, it takes a long view of things.

So, let's see what has been happening lately. In no particular order:

This Sunday afternoon we were feeling a bit "house bound", so went on a mini-adventure. It didn't really matter where, as long as it was a change of scene. The most important came first - getting pumpkins...

You can't have Halloween without pumpkins, and small things make us happy. We then wandered through a garden store, several office supply stores (we really like office supply stores, it seems!) and Pier 1, where we love to look at all of the things there and smell the incense and candles, while at the same time knowing we don't have to buy anything.

Later on we went to a small party at one of our neighbors, then went to the yacht club to eat dinner. G has not been feeling that well in the last week or so, so this was her first real "meal" in a bit - it seemed to work.

On Saturday I played a concert as part of my Wind Symphony at U/R - it went just fine. Well, for me it went just fine. It was "parents weekend", and this makes parking on campus nearly impossible. G had dropped me off (since I was late to "call", and then went looking for a place to park. Well, she did not succeed, and instead spent the time in Starbucks studying. Bummer!

My other significant accomplishment for the last two weeks is starting a Vanguard 15 Sailboat fleet at Canandaigua Yacht club. It is hard to start fleets, but I succeeded in convincing 7 other people (in addition to ourselves) to buy Vanguard 15s for next year. It will be fun, and should be a great little boat to have around. Here is a picture of the boat:

Pretty cool, eh? Well, the boat we (and 7 others) will buy will actually look almost exactly like this boat, although the top deck will be light grey instead of white. I know, we have too many boats already, but this will fit in nicely - much easier to sail and rig than an FD (which I will still keep and sail at regattas), and very fast to go down and get in the water - actually faster than a laser. No trapeze, though - you have to hike!

Published: Sunday, 23 October 2005

11:35 pm - Oboe!

OK, this may seem uneventful to most, but for me it has been over a year in coming. To make a long story short, for over a year I have not played my oboe. My life has just been too full, and something had to go. So oboe it was. However, since I am still on the steep part of the learning curve with this instrument (in about another 20 years I may have it mastered :-) it is important for me to keep after it.

Of course, it can't be THAT easy. You could just start playing for 45 minutes a day - if you want a cracked (wooden) oboe. No, it takes weeks for moisture from your breath to evenly work its way through the instrument's wood so it doesn't get too stressed. So for the first week 15 minutes playing time per day, then 20 minutes for the next week, 30 the week after that. But that is OK for two reasons - first, I sortta have to remember how to make my reeds play, and remember which of the 15 reeds I have work. And that takes time. Second of all, my lips probably can't take much more than 30 minutes of playing a day for a while.

Well, let's hope it sticks! If it does, it will be good news. I figured it would be a good obsession to replace my Vanguard 15 fleet obsession, which has taken much time for the last 2 weeks.

Published: Sunday, 23 October 2005

9:10 AM - Party and Vanguard 15s!

Last night we had the first fleet meeting of Vanguard 15 Fleet #75 - well OK, we didn't actually transact any business, we just had a party. But 7 people physically ordered boats, with 2 more "high probables" - so statistically, I would say our fleet has 8.4 members ;-)

A representative from Vanguard (coming from Rhode Island, on his way to Ohio) joined us, and told us anything we wanted to know about the boat. Food from tortilla chips, veggie dishes, etc to sushi, those funny little micro-quiches, cookies and dessert gave us a head start on the holiday "stuff" season.

We are now listed on the Vanguard 15 web site www.v15.org under the "fleets" listing.

Very cool!

Published: Wednesday, 26 October 2005

9:30 AM - Volleyball plus Home life getting back to normal

Last night the pickup volleyball was actually quite good. It started off being really good - somewhere between a recreational and power league, which is really good for a Perinton pick-up situation. The play decayed a bit over the evening, as some less talented players arrived and all joined the same team. We tried exchanging one of our good players for one of their bad, etc, but it didn't help. Then we did something I haven't seen since high school. Two team captains (both 190 cm women!) "self selected", and they took turns selecting teammates. I felt sorry the the last two people to be picked (in high school that was usually me), but it was interesting being in the "middle" of the selection for a change. This did indeed balance play out, and things went pretty well from that point onwards.

Life back home is getting back to normal, at least for me. The fleet building stuff is winding down, I am starting to play oboe again, etc. Now I have to get back to exercise again.

Published: Friday, 28 October 2005

3 pm - Beautiful, sunny day

As I sit here, the sun is playing on the leaves of the trees outdoors, and it is really very pretty. The trees are about half changed now - as much yellow as green, with some reds beginning to show. Simply put, a wonderful day.

Tomorrow is going to be reasonably warm (18 degrees) and sunny, so we may go for one last sail down the lake, as we often do at this time of year. But swimming is over I think (unless we use our wetsuits).

Beginning to make some other transitions into fall - putting the furniture on the back deck under a tarp and into its storage position, etc. We cleaned the house, and it is beginning to look like a house again.

Last night, it was quite cold, but I really wanted to go running - once again, it has been raining here much of the week, and I have either been too busy or have not had the chance. Hmmm - so what to wear - 10 pm at night, temperature 4 degrees C, clear sky... Well, I decided to wear my light weight tights and a long sleeve coolmax shirt. Anya joined me.

I started my run - normal pace, dog running alongside, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, but pretty much being a "pacer poodle - she runs at about 8:45 per mile.... Gee, it is DARN cold out here - hope I warm up. At the one mile point, it is, well, still DARN cold! This isn't supposed to happen! OK, my legs are fine, but my arms? FREEZING! Only one thing to do - run faster. So I start running at a 7:30 - 8 minute / mile pace. Still cold, but at least I am too tired to notice. And the dog? Well, she still paces at 8:45, and falls behind, then runs to catch up, falls behind, runs, etc.

For future reference, Chuck - when this cold with no sun, wear something warmer on top.

Published: Saturday, 29 October 2005

11:44 pm - SAILING!

Today was a happy day. I got an extra hour of sleep this morning (standard time began). Still woke up in time to do some around the house stuff. Then we packed our gear and went down to the lake. The FD was sitting on the beach (it gets displaced from the blacktop each fall because all of the other keel boats are hoisted with a crane and placed in cradles), almost ready to go. We put on dry suits, and went for a sail down the lake.

It was really wonderful weather for this - medium west breeze, sun, wispy clouds, and trees changing colors. Really wonderful.

Then we took down the boat for the season and drove it to Joe's barn, where it spends winter vacation.

Another good thing - the V15 fleet order is complete, with 9 boats being ordered. Very cool. Now I can stop working this for the summer.

Nite nite.

Published: Monday, 31 October 2005