Playing with a few Google features...

Two awesome features that people may be interested in.

First up is Google reader. This is an RSS reader subscriber service. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, I didn't until last night. It works like this - you give it a number of site URLs that you visit often that also happen to support RSS. This (behind the scenes) "subscribes" to you them, so it there is any change on the web site, it will send the change to your Google reader. Here are some examples of things you can subscribe to in this way (it is free, of course):

• This blog (just paste in the URL), or most other blogs for that matter
• Photo sharing sites - no need to check anymore. Just include the URL, and if they post, you will then be told of the new pictures or changed albums. For example, our family/friend site. Very useful!
  
• Comics that only get published now and then. My strange favorite is www.xkcd.com.
  
• News feeds - that way new stories get pushed to you, instead of you going to your various sites to see what is new. (Personally I don't use this one, because there is just too much news in this world)
• Public Google documents, or calendars.

You can add this to your iGoogle home page for easy access.

Next, a cute trick, and it works, at least in the US: Google voice phone search. This cute and free service is like 411 - it asks you for your city, then you can ask it to look up businesses, or categories, such as "pizza". If you tell it to SMS the results (say SMS!) it does, otherwise it tells you in voice, and lets you select entries. I tried it from my office phone, and it had no problem with my voice, and told me where to get pizza.

Summer Progressions

As spring emerges out of winter, the world explodes into action. It seems that in a mere two weeks everything changes from a stark, latent state to a light green whirl of motion, of growth, of change. In the spring Nature has no time to doddle, the word is Now, Now, Now!

Life is so busy, and you hardly notice that as the days get longer, the world starts to settle into somehow, to become slowly satisfied with itself. The birds sing early in the morning, you count new songs every day, but the familiar pattern of Summer is forming itself.

Then, surprise!, it is Summer Solstice. Change itself changes to pattern, to familiarity. As July begins, morning warblers are changing to the continuous announcement of the red-eyed vireo and the wonderful song of the wood thrush. Spring peepers give way to crickets.

Summer days and nights feel long and balmy, and change seems absent, too lazy itself to make an appearance. It is with some sorrow that I see the bright magenta flowers of the vetch and wild peas - they remind me of fall, and I am not yet ready. But I still relax at night to the sound of the crickets. Quiet world, quiet nights. Even our hooded warbler is taking a rest for its incessant, urgent calling.

Now we sit near the end of July. Or rather the beginning of the end. The bird song has changed from the search for mates to that of insistent fledgling birds of all types, clamoring "feed ME! ME! ME!". No peepers, but now croaks from distant frogs.

For the first time this year, I hear the first tentative, occasional call of the first kay-dee-did. In several weeks, we will have so many of these that we will need to close the windows at night to sleep. Yes, that time will come soon, and with it August.

Summer changes still, but slowly, in ways measured in weeks. Summer rest.

Sailing Weekend for Chuck

This was a very busy weekend for me- tiring, but lots of fun too. The plan of the week(end) was to attend a regatta at Willow Bank Yacht Club, in Cazenovia, NY. This is a Flying Dutchman regatta that I have been attending for many, many years now. It usually gets between 9 and 14 regional boats, and is quite competitive and fun.

This year was a bit different, however, as several of the boats were attending the FD Worlds in Spain. Add a few more absences and we had 5 boats. This sounds low, but of these 4 are usually within striking range of ourselves - in the end we change places, but Kevin (my crew) and I usually finish ahead of them in the end. And, luckily for us, this pattern continued this year - we won the regatta with scores of 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - (2) for a perfect score after throwout.

After that we packed up the boat and drove back to Canandiagua lake on Sunday. The wind there was surprisingly nice and not too strong (for a change - this has been the year of the "very windy" instead of the year of the pig, it seems). Gwendolyn and I went out for a wonderful evening sail - truly the best sail of the year. Finally the sun started getting lower in the sky, and we then retired to dinner on the club porch. A very nice day indeed!

Chuck saves himself from sure embarrassment

Just a few minutes ago, I was in the men's bathroom near the end of the day at work. After doing what guys do in bathrooms (which as best I can tell is a subset of what women do in the women's room), I hear a cricket singing. Or maybe a cricket - certainly sounds like a cricket.

So, I walk up and down the length of the bathroom (amid a few confused stares), and can't seem to find him. I then listen to the wall the urinals are mounted on (more stares), and think I hear it in there. Hmmm.

Well, I know that on the other side of that wall is a janitor's closet, so I decide to check that out next. Luckily the door is unlocked. I walk inside, and can hear a cricket, but can't tell how near it is, because there is some noise from the vending machine in the hallway. To reduce that, I shut the door for a second.

Well, two problems - the first minor, the second more problematic. First, I had not turned on the lights. No problem, really, as I was only trying to find out where the sound was coming from. Now, about that second problem. After I pulled the door shut, the inside door handle pulled off! Result? VERY dark room, a door handle in my hand, and a "ching" of falling metal to the ground.

At this time, I was musing over the amusement everyone would have if I just started knocking on the door calling for help. Discussions such as "I don't know, Ken, should be let him out? Its really quiet in the engineering area without him around!". "I tend to agree Dave - let's enjoy a half hour of quiet, at least".

In the end, once I located in pieces, it didn't take long to assemble the door and let myself out. But it was a fun thought while it lasted!

Morning walk

Every morning I drive to work not really feeling awake and a part of the world. I park and begin my 400 meter walk to work.
I await this walk in the spring, because even though it is in the city, there are plenty of reminders of life and growth and newness around me. My favorite these last several weeks has been the lilacs. Along the sidewalk, my company has planted four large lilac "trees". I can smell them from afar, and always make a point to stop and smell them. This transports me to wonderful memories of wandering in Highland park, examining Lilacs of every color and type, from many countries in the world.
I like this unifying theme of lilacs-- a plant that is liked and grown the world over. Nina tells me stories of the lilacs in several parts of Russia where she lives, and I can understand them, because she many as well have been talking about my neighborhood as a kid, where there were lilacs. or any of the three houses I have owned since then.

Eeee GROSS!!!

Talk about unpleasant surprises! Talk about a bad taste sensation - try Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke! YUCK!

I went into our local soft drink 'fridge in my office, paid my $0.50, reached in a pulled out a can of what looked like Diet Coke - my standard drink when I want something with some caffeine. I open it, and take a sip.

It took everything I had to not just spit it back out all over my desk. This stuff is TERRIBLE! It tastes like cherry cough syrup with the added sweet sickness of vanilla.

Glug, glug, glug, glug -- that's the sound of it getting poured down the drain.

Spring Update

Spring is in full swing. Right about now is my favorite time, with the world looking so new and lush. The trees are all in flower, and the leaves, which came out in early May still have their "new" yellow-green look.

The feeling is much different than the "lazy summer" feeling, where it is warm, lazy, with singing cicadas overhead. Instead there is always a feeling of movement, of change. The evening sounds are of spring peepers (small frogs), with the occasional amazing song of the wood thrush. And we have the morning chorus - hundreds of hungry, hormone-crazed birds singing their heart out.

Yesterday the three of us went birding, being peak migration. It was somewhat cold, so we could get a late start. Even at 10 am, the birds were waking up. We started at thousand acre swamp in Penfield, then went up to the Lake Ontario Lakeshore (Webster park), and finally had a very productive stop at the bottom of Irondequoit bay.

The birds were a bit hard to come by, but patience was eventually rewarded. All told we saw 45 species, with several highlights being yellow, Blackburnian and Magnolia warblers, Baltimore Oriole, and ( !!! ) a Bald Eagle. This last was found at the bottom of Irondequiot bay 1.5 km away, and was spotted by Nina and confirmed by Gwendolyn. The bird was pearched on a high tree overlooking the bay, looking very majestic.

It's SNOWING!!!!

OK, we are back from vacation, it's the middle of April, and I wake up to 3 cm of snow on the ground - the world has turned white! And it is predicted that a bunch more is due tonight and tomorrow. I blame global warming, and in turn the Republicans. :-)

Vacation went pretty well, although it was not as relaxed a vacation as I would like. We started off to go visit my Mom, which had recently returned from Florida. She was quite sick when we got there, and after several hours of "visit", we ended up taking her to the hospital for general breathing and fluid electrolyte balance problems. They admitted her for the better part of the week. We delayed our trip to Washington for a day to help out and visit with her, and then proceeded to drive southward.

The trip to Washington when reasonably smoothly. Nina's electric wheelchair was waiting for us in the hotel. First, a bit about that. Something this is pretty impressive is that all of Washington is completely wheelchair compatible. Every street corner, every Metro, every bus, and every building (OK, excluding some old motels, like the one we were staying at) has a system of ramps and elevators. An electric wheelchair will run for 25 km, and can turn completely around in a space of about 80 cm. So Nina was actually the fastest walker of all of us, at around 7.5 km / hour.

The weather was a bit cold, but that is not surprising for April. We arrived late on Monday night (about 11 pm). After a bit of a late start, for the first day we got oriented. We took the Metro (our hotel was about 800m from the stop) to the Smithsonian stop, and then walked down the mall. We visited the Washington Monument, the (new) World War II monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. And all around we visited the cherry trees, for which Washington is famous. Most of these were "past bloom", but some species (they had ALL sorts) were either in bloom or starting to bloom. Very pretty. After all this the tired travelers returned for a late 9:30 pm dinner.

On Wednesday, Nina and I went and did some exploring and birding on Roosevelt Island, which is a quiet oasis on the river. Nina found a pair of pileated woodpeckers nesting, and the two of us saw quite a few other birds. We then wheelchaired back to the Metro (which is probably 4 km away from the Metro) and visited the Mall about the Capital building. There we were very surprised when Nina recognized Camille, the French exchange student at Fairport, and her family. In huge Washington, what is the chance of this happening?

On Thursday, we visited several museums that form the overall Smithsonian institution. The Smithsonian comes as close as we have to our national museum. It includes fifteen separate museums that cover almost everything. And it covers a vast expanse of land also, with most museums falling within a 1 km x .5 km rectangle. We started in the brand new Museum of the American Indian, then went to the Freer Gallery of Art, which features Asian art and some assorted American Art. By then we were starting to run out of time, but Gwendolyn and Nina did get to spend 1/2 hour in the Museum of Natural History.

Friday was departure and travel day. We packed our hotel room and then went to the Washington National Cathedral. This is an amazing beautiful cathedral with some amazing stained glass. It deserves more than a brief mention, but this will have to do for now.

After the Cathedral we started the 8 hour drive to Lakewood to visit my Mom once again on our way back to Rochester. She had been moved from the hospital to a nursing home for rehabilitation, and we visited her there. She sounded much better, with a functioning brain and all. She is still a bit weak and still has quite a bit of congestion in her chest. There are actually quite a few issues that we are going to have to resolve with her, but they are not a subject for this blog.

After that, back home to Rochester. We arrived this morning just after midnight. Now it is time to clean up the house.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I fly out this afternoon on a one week business trip to San Diego. Life is a bit too busy.

Happy Easter!

For many in this world, Easter is THE primary religious celebration, marking the Resurrection of Christ after a three-day (so that say, I count 36 hours or so) entombment. In fact, this year Orthodox Easter and western Easter.

Christ is Risen, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

Today also marks the primary celebration of another very different religion - the Celebration of the Half=price Chocolate Easter Bunny Sale. Yes, folks this is when it happens. Thousands of unloved, chocolate bunnies will be freed from their supermarket prison as the masses, with their credits card arrive to snatch of everything shaped like a rabbit, bunny, chicks, ducklings, eggs (don't forget the eggs!) or lambs. All will then be sacrificed, being eaten, part by part, in slow and painful bites. Actually, there is one humane act - the head is bitten off first. Poor things!

Anyway, amusement put aside, we are spending Easter in Jamestown, NY. The original plan was to visit my Mom for a day, stay the night, and then leave the following morning to drive our way to Washington, DC.

Well, after we arrived, we found that Mom was actually in pretty bad shape. To make a long story short, we admitted her to the hospital yesterday. She was just feeling rather crummy and having a hard time breathing. As a result, we will spend another day here to visit, observe, fix up the house and generally hang out.

When we left Rochester yesterday, everything was green, and the temperature was around 0 (we are having a really cold spell at the moment). Usually when you drive south, things get warmer, with less snow. Not in our region. Rochester is very near Lake Ontario, and is warmed by it. And my Mom lives near the east shore of Lake Erie (another great lake) - and the wind blows over the length of this lake and produces snow near her.

So, as we drove (about 240 km), it started getting colder and colder, and the ground gradually turned white. After a bit there was 3 cm of snow, then 5 cm, and eventually up to 10 cm. At one point on a country road I pulled over the car to look at a head of Bison (!!!) The problem is, when I pulled over, I didn't realize that there was a small ditch that was covered in snow, and down we went. We were stuck until a truck came by and pulled us out.

Other than that, not much has happened. So to be continued...

Running program for spring

(First, my apologies in advance. I am going to start my seasonal flurry of running posts - it is an obsession, after all! But if you are not into this, just skip it!)

Talk about starting behind! I am almost 5 kg over my baseline weight, and have not been running much this winter. I also want to at least run once again in the Corporate Challenge race in the end of May. This year I don't expect to better my best time, as I am not going to be quite as fit), but hope to run at least 7:30 per mile. So here is the plan:

• Phase 1 - get my basic fitness level up, and overall make myself less prone to running injury. This means running 4x per week, 5 or 6 km per run. Emphasis is not speed, but not quitting. Goal is to get my resting heart rate down consistently below 48 beats / minute. I started this last week, and hopefully by mid-April I will be there.
• Phase 2 - build base endurance. Run 4 x per week, two easy runs at 5km, one middle run at around 7, and a long run at 8+ (working up to 10km) at least once per 2 weeks. Every two weeks either the 5 km should be a medium-fast run, or interval work. This phase will continue throughout May. Now, here is the hardest part of all - by race day, I need to be down to 174 lbs (79 kg). Nearly impossible - but I'll try!
• Possibly run a 5K race one or two weeks beforehand - don't run it too fast (or I will quit running before Corp. Challenge - my normal reaction to running races "hard"). Aim for 7:45 per mile average.
• Run the Corporate Challenge. Expect to have an terrible, non-fun time and feel sick for the next day or so. DON'T INJURE!

OK, so far I have been doing well enough. In the last 6 days I have run 4 times - twice 5 km, the other two 5.5 km. Today I did a pretty hard run (enough to feel pretty crummy afterwards), over an uneven grass path (mostly flat) for 3.5 miles are around an 8 minute / mile pace. 5 hours later, while writing this my heart rate is 54, which is pretty good, given there is still heart rate recovery going on.

A sort of sister blog....

And now a word from my sister, living in the great Midwestern plains of Canada, in Saskatoon:

"Here's my house after the big blizzard. That white building in the background is actually a treehouse when the ground is at the normal level."


...Perhaps I should add that my house usually has two stories showing rather than one. Next picture is after I hired the guy with a front end loader to dig me out.

...Needless to say, two days after the guy with the front end loader dug me out ($150), another storm (termed a "sub-blizzard) hit, followed by -40 degree temperatures. Couldn't get car near garage, so that;s why the 150 foot extension cable.

(In case people don't know what the long extension cord is for, that is to plug in her car, so the oil will run and the car will start in the -40 degree temperatures!) Also look and see that in the picture before, you can see all of the garage door - compared with only half in the pic directly above!- Chuck

Running and Spring

Today was a very nice, sunny day, with a high of around 16. Since I got to work on time for a change, I left at a reasonable time. We ate dinner, and then I got to go our for a short run before it got dark outside.

The last time I ran it seemed soooooo hard, especially at first. THAT was on a treadmill, indoors. Today it was much easier, as I finally got to run outside. The birds were chirping, spring was in the air, there were interesting things to look at - good distraction, I guess.

When running on the path (trolley trail) I met a rather large (35 cm?) snapping turtle trying to cross the path from one pond to the next. (S)he was in no hurry. I didn't stop, but rather told myself I would look for her on the way back. Well, when I returned, no surprise, there was no turtle.

On the way home, I heard my first spring peepers. These are small frogs (actually I have never seen a spring peeper) that sing in the spring - by the hundreds! They really make me smile, and remind me that spring, and then summer, with all of the various night sounds, are coming. Winters long quiet is now done, being first replaced by the trickling sound of melting ice, to rain and thunderstorms, to peepers, and to birds.

Also, at the top of the road I saw a fox again. I am always amazed at how FAST foxes run! They look like the streak fast at twice the speed of any other animal! Nina tells me that they appear so fast because their body travels absolutely flat and straight like an arrow, while the little legs just fly underneath, at the speed of sound. Or rather at the speed of quiet.

Peeps!

OK, it's that time of year again to talk about peeps. These are as American as, well, anything! But for now, I am going to just send you to some fun links about peeps.

First, the official web site, the classic web site (a must see), and the all important Peeps Wikipedia entry!

Enjoy!

You know you are a geek if....

... these cartoons make sense to you at all:

http://www.xkcd.com

And some specific ones:
http://www.xkcd.com/c55.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c152.html
and finally, a classic favorite of mine:
http://www.xkcd.com/c123.html

Enjoy!

Cool puzzle..

This is simple to explain and really interesting. You are given 9 eggs. 8 weight exactly the same, and the ninth is slightly heavier. You also have a balance beam (you know, a balance with two pans). How many weighing are required to find the heaviest egg? (no, this is not a trick question, and the answer is not "none required - just use your hands to find the heaviest, etc.)

Been too long...

Well, between one thing and another, I have not really run for over two weeks, and even then, only occasionally. Well, my brain, the weather, and my waistline says to get back to it.

Last night ran for a "mere" 5 km. Boy was it a fight! Like my sister once told me, "the first 2 km are the hard ones". Well, these were. I kept telling myself to keep going, but it was hard. After that, it got easier. My heart rate was higher than normal for my (treadmill) pace, but that is probably because I am 3 kg heavier. But only one good way to solve that.

Spring will help! It was 16 degrees today! OK, it was raining much of the time, but still, I think Spring is really coming this time!

Happy Vernal Equinox!

Imagine a world where night and day are the same length, and where the sun rises from the same place and sets in the same place in the sky... every day.

Well, some day I would like to travel there perhaps, but that place is most definitely not Earth! I have no idea how it happened, but our Earth rotates at a skewed angle relative to it's orbit around the sun - 23.5 degrees tilted, as it happens.

But today (or yesterday, depending on your concept of time and what time zone you live in), we get a sample of that world. What does this mean for us? Well, for long-time readers of this blog, write down the answer now, and compare with the rest of this post - this is a quiz. Otherwise, read on and remember - there will be a quiz next year.

Here are the special things for today (and also on September 21st):

• The "equi" and "nox" part - everywhere on earth today (unless you are at the exact poles, in which case you are probably quite cold at the moment) has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, at least theoretically (we will ignore diffraction for now). No long summers or short winters for Russia - everything is the same, everywhere. And, since most roads run exactly east west, if you are driving at the crack of dawn or dusk, you will have the sun exactly in your eyes or rear-view mirror. (I have to check to see if the car accident rate statistically goes up this time of year).
• Unlike most of the year, the sun actually rises in the (true) east, and sets in the (true) west. From now on, until June 21, it will start to rise more and more in the north, then start moving back until Sept 21. Actually, if you get technical it is a bit more complicated. If you want a good explanation, go to http://www.analemma.com and click the "other phenoma" link.
• At its highest during the day, the sun's elevation (angle above the horizon) will correspond to 90 degrees minus the latitude where you live at. For us in Rochester, that is 47 degrees. For those in, say St. Petersburg, it is 30 degrees above the horizon. I know it seems higher, but go measure it - that is the highest it will get today. (To see the highest it will EVER get in the peak of summer, add 23.5 degrees - got it?).
• Lunar and solar eclipses strongly cluster around the equinoxes. To understand this you really need to get out an orange, paint an equator around it, and imagine a moon orbiting while it (tilted, remember) orbits the sun (a light source). Read about it - this is the stuff everyone needs to know! :-)

There will be a quiz, so study hard!

SNOW!!

Big white fluffy snow! Friday morning we had green grass all over, now we have 10 cm of snow, with another 10 cm possible today!

Should I be happy? Should I be sad? Should I be angry? Should I be glad? (That little ditty is in the spirit of the Suessical, which is high school musical we went to last night)..

Here again, gone again Spring

Well, we certainly aren't surprised. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it was really warm here, with highs getting up to 16 several times. But this is March - and sure enough, the thermometer early this morning was at -7.5. Tonight they say we could get 15 - 20 cm of snow.

Are we surprised? (No). BUT - we have daylight savings time three weeks early this year (it's a new law to save energy). So it actually doesn't get dark until after 7 pm. Soon, maybe we'll have both long days and warm!

Classic ChuckDream...

Last night was one of those strange, fractured sleep nights. I was initially too tired to sleep (go figure....) but eventually fell asleep around 3:30 am. I must have dropped into a pretty deep sleep quickly, because I had this long dream, then later woke up and saw the clock read 4:15.

This is yet another in a long series of classic dream I would have, all revolving around school. I pretty much stopped having these about 10 years ago, but perhaps walking through the crowded halls for Fairport High School while delivering Nina to the nurse's office brought them back again. Here goes, at least what I remember:

I am in a class room taking a math class in Calculus. There are about 20 students in the room. The classroom is wide and three tiers of desks deep. I am in the middle row. The clock at the front of the classroom says it is 11:15.

I am clueless about the calculus. The teacher is talking about something, and although I for some reason have good grades in this class, I am feeling like I am a fake - that that was all just a trick of mine somehow, and in reality I don't know what I am doing. And impostor.

Furthermore, I can't remember my class schedule - I can't remember what over classes I have to go to next. In fact, the entire semester I have never really learned it, and there is a chance that there are courses that I am registered for that I am not showing up for because I forgot what period they were. And as a result failing in them too.

Since I can' t understand the math being taught, I am very restless in my chair. I squirm around and am generally uncomfortable. There are girls behind me and to my side - unlike "normal" for some reason they are flirting with me, and I have to ignore them because I don't what them to see me like this.

Then the teacher passes out a test for us to do. I am filled with dread - there is no way I can do this material. When we get it, for some reason the lights in the classroom go out, and there is not quite enough light to read. Everyone else just takes out their flashlights and starts to busily work on the test. I just sit there and get depressed.

Sometime here I then go outside of the classroom (taking my test with me) - I am in the basement, sitting in the hallway. Prisoners dressed in black are walking by me to go to the bathroom - they ignore me. Later I return to the classroom. The lights are on, everyone has handed in their tests, and they are going onto the next topic. The clock reads 12:45 pm - this seems to be a long class.

I take the teacher into a corner, start to cry and tell him that I don't know what to do, that I don't know the math. He is very kind, reminds me that I am a fine student, and to come back some other time to take the test. I open it briefly and then notice that the questions are really simple - all of this panic was for nothing.

For some reason at this point , while it still feels like math class, everyone folds up their chairs (they somehow have changed from desks to wooden folding chairs), turns around to face the back of the classroom, and sits on the floor. Somehow the topic has changed to photography.

Today the teacher is teaching how to develop color prints. This is a complicated process, but I have done it many times before, so am happy to hear that for once I will be ahead of the class.

Later on, the teacher demonstrates something having to do with colored dyes. He is teaching us how to do pysanky. The designs they are doing are very elementary, and I have done much more complex designs myself. I tell him this (privately) and he is glad to hear it.

That's where it ended for some reason. I remember being surprised when I was awake again and the clock said 4:15 - about one third the time the dream had felt.

My normal school dreams (and I am certainly not the only ones to have these, I think they are quite common) revolve around several central themes:

• (most common) - cannot remember my class schedule, or what classes I am taking. It is the beginning of a new semester, and I have lost my class sheet.
• It is the end of the term, when I suddenly realize that there is a class (almost always an English class, usually taught by a Mrs. Bickle, who is a high school teacher I had that resembles the Calvin and Hobbes kindergarten teacher) that I have to take a final exam in. I don't know the material, because I have forgotten I had this class all along, and had not attended for months.
• I can't either find my locker (they all look the same), or can't remember the locker combination.
• I somehow have succeeded in some class, but (don't ask me how) it is because somehow I have deceived the teacher - in reality I don't know what I am talking about.