Once again, I need to bring this blog up to date.  Sooo much has happened.  It is one of those unfair things in life that when things get busy, lots of stuff happens that would be interesting to read about, but then I don't have time to write any of it down.  Gee, sounds like a time management problem for me! hmmmm.  Well, time to get to a quick summary.

First, (re)enter Masha:

Welcome back!  Masha spent the 2004 / 2005 school year with us, and has now recently completed her first year of Medical school in St. Petersburg (and doing very well at it).  The three of us had talked about her visiting this summer for a month or so, and everything worked out very smoothly.  She arrived in mid-July and is now happily eating watermelon, watching many DVDs (Netflix to the rescue), and of course hanging out with us and our strange summer activities.  Of course we are enjoying having her here immensely, and planning a full summer.  Updates as they happen (and as I have time to write about them).

The other piece of excitement is that we are going to be hosting Nina from Novgorod this next school year!  Her name is Nina, also known as  "Brave Nina"!  

It is a funny story, because the first person to tell Nina she had a family here for the year was Masha.  We were talking with her on the phone arranging her trip here, and told her about Nina.  She immediately asked for her email, wrote her, and then they met.  And you know the amazing part?  Even after surely hearing all about us, Nina is still willing to come and stay with us :-))) .  We have since exchanged a few emails and had a telephone conversation with Nina, but of course we still don't really know much about her.  But we do have pictures, so here she is - somewhere unknown in Russia with her Mom:

More about Nina as she arrives, I'm sure. In the meanwhile, the summer goes on, and busy it will be.

We are planning something each weekend, and trying to squeeze everything we can get out of summer.  One month can come and go so quickly.  Hopefully in addition to sailing and walking and bicycle riding we will get to the Adirondacks and to the ocean in New Jersey.

Gwendolyn is not getting to play and rest as much as Masha and me.  She is working hard at her nursing training.  For the next three weeks in August she has "clinicals", where she follows other nurses around in various hospitals and practices her, well, "nursing stuff".  By the time she is done with this she will be qualified to do all sorts of stuff, from doing examinations, to diagnosis,  to giving injections and (gasp!) setting IVs.  She is practicing everything on me, but one rule remains - no needles! :-)  There are stories she has to tell, but they are almost rated R, even though they are hilarious!

During the summer my company has instituted summer hours, where we work four 10 hour days instead of five 8 hour days.  Interesting concept, and gee having that Friday off does seem to make the weekend much longer.  But those OTHER four days!  Work starts at 7 am, and runs until 5:30.  I feel like a high school kid getting up that early!  :-)  Now all we need is a school bus!

 

All told, I think it is actually a good deal for the company. Yes, it takes me a while to wake up and start working, but heck, that happens each day.  After that, I get a longer, uninterrupted work day.  But boy does that morning go slowly!  Once you get to lunch, you are good to go, however, as the time between lunch and when I normally go home is about the same.

 

Then you have Friday off.  Well, here

I just got back from giving Anya a short run on the trolly trail.  After a reasonably warm day, it is starting to cool off - down to 21 degrees now.  The lightning bugs are flashing, it is finally starting to get dark, with a deeping blue-violet sky.

But this is not a normal night - it is the Forth of July-- Independance Day.  Since the start of my run, the sky and soundscape is filled with the sound of random fireworks.  Some of city-sponsored displays, shooting high into the air with great sprays of colored flames, and many are just individuals setting off their charges of smaller fireworks.  A very cool experience.

In past years we have watched these from the water at the yacht club.  But on those nights we took the next day as a vacation day, so we could simply drop into a tent afterwards and sleep.  No such luck this year - I myself did get a "5 day weekend", so I feel like I have had a vacation, but G cannot claim being so lucky - she has a major paper due tomorrow (Wednesday)!  So she has been writing and writing.  She did camp with me last night at CYC and planned to stay today also, but the weather was on-and-off raining, so she came home.  I stayed and raced an awesome sailboat race (I will spare you the details, but it was windy!), and came home around dinner time.

Sailing this year is strange - it seems (and I am not the only one to say this) that it has been really windy this year.  Many weekends sailing was exciting, true, but not very relaxing, with much concentration required to just keep the boat upright.  But all told, no complaints.  Although a bit unusual with all of G's studying, I have actually been able to enjoy this summer quite a bit.  I am looking forward to more.

Well, no doubt, this has been a classic rainy day.  At the beginning of last week the temperatures were in the mid-thirties, but now we were lucky to get to 18 today.  It rained, and rained, and rained.  My accomplishment for the day?  I spliced a split-bridle mainsheet (don't ask, just don't ask!).  Exciting, huh?  And house cleaning, etc.

Tomorrow I try to sail (we have not actually gotten a race off in V15s yet - the first week it was crazy windy, and last week then canceled racing due to no wind at all), but if I do, it will only be for a bit - I have to fly out to San Diego, CA for a TWO HOUR meeting on Monday.  Groan.... I am trying to figure out how to make lemonade ("if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!") out of this lemon I have been given - still thinking how.

This entry is really for my own reference, as it is the most reliable place my history gets recorded that I can find again.  Everyone else, just skip this – it is boring.

Conditions – 22C, wind N 5 mph, cloudy, quite humid and wet, but not raining.

Everything here is raw data off the watch – no 20 second or distance corrections.  Also, my GPS gizzy had  lost sync just before the start, and presumably started a bit after the start, so the first lap distance is a bit messed up.  I also from memory know that the heart rate monitor was messing up for laps 6 and 7 – trust me, the average rate there was in the low – mid 170s:

            Lap 1: 4:22 -- 8:42/mi  -- Pulse 156

            Lap 2: 3:34 -- 7:09/mi – Pulse 166

            Lap 3: 3:48 --  7:33/mi – Pulse 169

            Lap 4: 3:41 -- 7:19/mi – Pulse 166

            Lap 5: 3:27 – 6:59 – Pulse 174

            Lap 6: 3:44 – 7:25 – Pulse 166 (?)

            Lap 7: 3:30 – 7:13 – Pulse 164 (?) - .486 miles

Well, it’s that time of the year again, and this last Thursday I once again ran the Corporate Challenge.  This is a race sponsored by Chase Bank that is run not only in Rochester, but in 11 other cities, including Frankfurt and Johannesburg (
Africa
).  This year there were 9,300 runners (and walkers), which believe me was MANY, but no nearly as many as had just completed the race in Frankfurt about 6 hours earlier – there they had 63,390 participants from throughout Germany!  So running is alive and well in !

In past years I have related the experience of running this race. It is the only race that I try to “seriously” run each year (my third).  It is an interesting mix of emotions in the week before, because at one level I am looking forward to it, while at another level fearing what I know from prior experience – that as good an idea as it sounds before the race, actually during the race you know you are going to feel SOOOO bad, and only want to quit.  This only happens when you run the race at the limit of your ability, but it is very predictable, and sure enough, this time did not disappoint.

This year it was about 6 degrees (C) cooler than last year, and no sun – both good things from a runner’s perspective.  It is hard to say if I was better or worse from a training perspective – my weekly mileage this year may be a bit worse than last year (Masha and I ran 5 km almost every day), but I have been doing more peak mileage – several 11 km runs, and many 7 and 8 km runs. 

My “official” finish time was 26.14, and my course time (removing the 20 seconds to get to the starting line) adjusts to about 25:55, for an average pace of 7:24 per mile.  This was a bit 18 seconds off last years pace, so no personal best for this race.  On the other hand, I didn’t almost pass out this year either, and generally I managed myself better – so we will call THAT an improvement.  For people who have never done it, it is amazing how strongly you want to quit mid-race.  I am still amazed at myself that I didn’t.  Sure, you are tired, but your brain also plays some mighty funny games.  But I won the will power (or is it stupidity) battle and finished at pace.  I don’t know where I stood with my company team – there were 150 runners and walkers from Harris this year.  If I find out I will post it.

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!