Elliott’s Blog

1. The loudness meter on the Jumbotron. I got to a game really, really early once, and they played this clip when the stadium was empty. They had a REAL “dB meter” on the ceiling of the old Reynolds Coliseum at NC State University. It was a series of six or seven colored light bulbs. Whenyou got that last red one to light up, it really was loud! I hope they transferred this to the new arena that the Wolfpack uses.

2. The various races on the Jumbotron. I think we all realize that the race itself is fake (they must have 10 or 20 of these races to choose from), but that sorta doesn’t matter because the winner does not matter. You can take your ticket for that Dunkin’ Donuts “Cuppa Coffee” and get a free cup of coffee, even if it doesn’t win. How are they going to know? Check the UPC on those cards–they are ALL THE SAME.

3. Cheers from the Jumbotron. Some/many of the cheers that are led from the Jumbotron have crowd noise already built in–they pump extra crowd noise through the PA system to make it seem like there is more noise than there really is.

Everything else at The United Center is real, though.

Random, Somewhat Related Comments About Bulls Games

• I wish they would offer one or two Bulls games where they turn off all the extra audio/visual crap: No Jumbotron, no loud music, no stupid, contrived races during timeouts, no scrolling and flashing ads on the ring-scoreboard.  In my childhood, all basketball games were like this.  I went to a West Aurora basketball game on Friday, and it was like this.
• How about the occasional National Anthem where the featured singer is the crowd! (They have the words on the Jumbotron–good; everyone should know the words, but it is good to have a reminder.  But, guys, the last sentence of the National Anthem is a question, and should end in a question mark.)
• I’d like to see something sold for under $1–how about a 6-ounce Coke. I bet they’d sell a ton of these!

I am having a little problem with my right thumb (trigger finger), so I got a steroid injection from an orthopedic doc.  This was on Friday.

On Saturday, I ran 3.8 miles in 48 minutes, and it felt great!  On Monday, I did a one-hour workout in the gym–also great.

I now know the benefits of steroids on excercise!  And my thumb is better, too.

Marty and I at the top of Le Reculet

Marty and I walked to the summit of Le Reculet in the Jura mountains in France on Wednesday. This is the second tallest point in this range of mountains, with “Le Crêt de la Neige,” just to the north, beating it out by a mere 2 meters. It was challenging, and kinda fun!

Background: My work group at CERN does this every fall, and some of the folks actually race up! I joined in last fall, not knowing what I was getting into, and I failed–making it only about half way.

I have thought a lot about why I failed, and it boils down to several factors: I had no idea how hard it would be; I was wearing heavy boots and tight jeans; I had a backpack; I started out following very light and athletic people, who did not follow the path but, rather, went straight up the mountain side; I was out of shape.

All of that is different now! I wore, as you see, gym shorts and sneakers; I followed the path, with my lovely and talented son pausing with me when my heart rate got too high; I joined the local gym last January and have been doing 2 to 5 hours in that gym per week.

Going up was very slow and challenging to one’s cardiovascular system.  Going down was also rather slow, but thanks to the excellently-maintained path (the worst inclines are actually paved with concrete), quite managable.  

There are several long sections that are at, or near, 100% grade!  I swear there are a couple of places that are even more than 100%.  (Click on the link, but the upshot is that 100% grade means that you rise 1 meter for every 1 meter of horizontal travel: 45 degrees.)   

Up works one’s calves, heart and quads; down is a big quads workout!!

Here are my statisitics for the day, taken from my Polar heart rate monitor:

• Time: 2 hours 20 minutes to get to the top; 30 minutes at the top; 1:50 to get down; total time: 4:41:42.  The sign at the parking lot says it take 2:30.
• Calories burned: 3423 (40% fat)
• Heart Rate: Max-154 (92%), Average-129 (77%)
• Elevation change: 1718 m at Le Reculet; 862 m at the parking lot: 856 m.  (Work done: W = m*g*h = 787,362.5 joules)

Check out more pictures at Picasa.

I guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

I went skiing at La Dole on the French/Swiss border last week and fell, hard, twice.  Both times I was not able to control my speed and lost control of my balance.  The first time I fell backwards very hard.  I hit my head, but the helment saved any injury there.  But I landed very hard on my back and this hurt like hell.  I lost my breath (for the first time in probably 40 years).  Nothing is broken except my confidence.  Sterling was right there to help me.  We had to walk down a bit of the hill to a level part, and then we skied the rest of the way down.

When I hit my back, I felt a sharp pain go from my back, through the left side of my chest, to the front of my chest.  This pain has not gone away.  We went to lunch, and then tried again.  I successfully navigated several small “blue” hills until (of course) the last one of the day.  I hit an icy patch while going too fast; my left ski (the uphill one) came off the ground and then hit the ground again a little skewed.  It dug in a bit and I fell forward, hitting my chest rather hard, and lost my breath again!  Once again, Sterling was there to help me down the hill.  But that was the end.

I went to work on Friday–no big deal.  But I hurt a bit, still. I attributed the hurt to muscle pain.

But on Saturday, it was still very bad.  So we went to the doctor.  He says I have a cracked rib (or two).  Ugh!

I expect a one-month recovery time.

Now, three of the five people in my family (me (cracked ribs), Alex (broken wrist) and Joanne (”not fun”)), are probably never going to ski again.

I interacted with a fellow at work recently who broke his shoulder while skiing, and cannot even sit up for more then an hour or so.  And I see several people all the time at work on crutches.

You know, I just don’t get skiing.  It is not fun (to me) to hurtle yourself down a mountain at (shall we say) breakneck speed, on the edge of loosing control at all time.  I guess this appeals to some people, especially if they have been doing it since they were babies.  There were a few moments for me that were a bit of fun, but nothing so fantastic that I would want to risk it again.

I think I am going to change my gym workouts with golf in mind, from now on (as soon as I can bend over and twist my torso again).  Golf is a MUCH safer activity!!!

Update, March 8, 2009

Although the cracked ribs are not completely healed, I am feeling much improvement on that front. Sterling wants to go skiing again, but I doubt that is going to happen.

Two news stories caught my attention today, and emphasized that life is different in the rest of the world, as compared to the USA.

1. The Chinese are executing two people for “endangering public safety” in the contaminated milk scandal!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tainted_milk_8

2.  “[L]ocal authorities in Geneva have decided to ban an anti-Davos demonstration planned in the western Swiss city on January 31 because of fears of violence.” (!!)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090121/business/davos_economy_politics_us2ndlead_1

A common phrase in the States is “Only in Amerca!”  So to these, I’d say, “Only NOT in America!”  Maybe we don’t have universal health care or supercars, but at least (I think) we have some basic Human Rights!

When in Rome, …

So, the first event of the 2009 CERN ski Club was yesterday, and #3 son and I joined in.  It was quite interesting!

The CERN ski club had decided somehow that I was a Level 1 skier, so off we went down the main slope of the resort.  The instructor said that he’d assess how we are doing and then start the lessons.  This was a “blue” (beginner’s) slope, so no big deal, right?  Wrong!  I managed to get about halfway down before fall number one.  The instructor and the rest of the group were about 100 m ahead, so they paused to wait for me.  I got up and started again, and quickly experienced fall #2, this time straight into a fence on the side of the slope.  The instructor called for someone to come rescue me and went on with the lesson for the real Level 1 skiers.

I must say that they handled my situation very well.  The rescue instructor was infintely patient with me and basically held my hand as I moved slowly down the slope to the chair lift.  Her English was equivalent to my French–pretty bad.  But we managed to communicate.

Here is what went wrong.

1. I was not a Level 1 skier.  I did not remember enough technique to navigate ANY slope.
2. My leg muscles were not strong enough for this.  I actually did pretty well at the beginning of the blue slope, but I fell because my legs had given out!
3. If I weighed 10 kg less, my legs might not have given out so easily.  If I weighed 20 kg less (I wish, I wish), I’d be on the black slopes.

Given that I did not remember the techniques (or, really, I didn’t remember them correctly), and that my legs weren’t strong enough to control my (all-too-massive) body, I, uh, freaked out.  Once I got scared, I could not continue.

So I went to the beginners’ level and started over.  This was actually the right thing–I needed someone to remind me of the proper techniques for getting down a hill!

The best advice I got was told to me, more or less, as follows.  “When you are going down a hill too fast and you are starting to panic, you have to think to yourself, ‘Push on the downhill ski!’”  This will cause you to turn upslope.  If you keep pushing on that downhill ski, you’ll actually end up going up the hill and this will stop you.  This instructor really hit the nail on the head for me–she saw that I was scared (52 year old scare-d-cat–that’s me), and she knew exactly what I needed to do to fix it.

I practiced this for the rest of the day.  My instructors were very supportive of my needs.  At the end of the day they complimented me on my technique and said I should definitely do the blue slopes next week.  (Deep breath here.)  Okay!

Apparently, the best excercise for skiing is biking.  I can do that.  Another great excercise is the one in the gym where you are basically laying down and you lift a huge mass with your legs.  I’d say, oh, 100 reps at 100 kg should work.  The excercising I have been doing of late has not been strenuous enough–I really need to push it.

For all of you who were in the University of South Carolina Concert Choir in 1976, please be sure to see the PicasaWeb album I have created:

Hungary 1976

I took at least 13 rolls of black and white film during that trip (I was 19 years old, by the way). Right now, all I have managed to put up are flat-bed scans of most of the proof sheets, one picture of the choir on stage, and one of my favorite pictures of all time (and the one featured on the album cover), the Cologne Cathedral at 10PM on July 1, 1976.

Thanks, John Simpson!

It was a life-changing event!

The best thing about the Canon XSi as compared to other cameras we have owned is the speed!  One can take several pictures per second, even without using the “rapid fire” mode (which they say is capable of 3.5 shots per second).  You point at a moving subject and click, click!  Your finger hardly has to move.  I had this capability in my old film cameras, especially the Canon F-1 I used throughout the 70’s and 80’s, but one is limited to 36 pictures at a time (the length of a roll of film), and I limited myself because of the expense of the film—the film itself costs a few bucks, and it takes a certain amount of effort to develop the film and make proof sheets (and all that).

So far, it has been common for us to take between 100 and 300 pictures of a scene.  I took 158 pictures of Son 2 and 3 in the workshop with the lathe, and threw away 40 in the first cut (excessive camera motion, out of focus, mis-aimed).  Son #1 seems to take 100 shots at a time of our Grand Kitten.  It is so easy—why not??

I ventured outside the other evening to take pictures of the stars. It was a first effort, so none of the pix were excellent—I need a real tripod.

Update, January 7, 2009. I tried again to get a good picture of Orion’s belt, and here it is.  The camera is MUCH stabler here.

It is a ton of fun taking all kinds of pix with this thing!  I really like the “sports” mode—it automatically chooses a faster shutter speed and a wider aperture, and it puts it into continuous-shot mode.  Also, it puts it into a “follow focus” mode, so when the shutter is half pressed it tries to stay in focus.  It will beep at about 0.5 Hz as long as the camera can keep things in focus.

It looks like my sons (mostly #2) took about 400 pictures yesterday.  #2 really likes photographing his bassoon, and his big brother’s cat, Majel.  He also took about 100 pictures of our Traditional Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas Train, which runs around the Christmas tree, through the piled-up presents.

Majel (my “Grand Kitten”) was very cute playing with the undone Christmas paper wrappings on the floor.  She kept attacking the paper, thinking that it was alive.  She hates our Traditional Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas Train, though.

We received the camera two days ago, and the whole family has been playing with it.  I outlined the specifics of what I bought in a previous post, so here are some initial impressions of the equipment.

The XSi and the kit lens, EF-S 18-55 IS, are (as I knew they would be) very light and very useful.  I also got the 50 mm, f1.8 prime lens.  The numbers told me this, but the reality is a bit more amazing: the kit lens is almost as light and almost as small as the 50 mm prime.  The image quality for both of them is real nice.

The 50 mm lens is wonderful for taking pictures of people.  You stand back a bit and snap away.  The speed of this lens (f1.8) is wonderful, as I thought it would be.  Shooting it wide open gets some amazing results, but the focus is a bit soft (as they said it would be in the online reviews) and it really only works on people at this aperture.  I tried to take some pix of the Chanukah candles, but this did not work very well. Stopping down to f8 worked better.

The 55-250 mm zoom is longer and bigger than I thought, so I don’t think I’ll be carrying this lens all the time (depending on the type of backpack I end up getting).  But I can’t wait to get this lens back to Switzerland to use outside.  Joanne is very eager to point it at Mont Blanc on one of those crystal Swiss clear days!

The most profound aspect of these first two days is that everyone in the family is really enjoying taking pictures with this camera!  All three sons (15, 20 and 23) have learned how to use it, and have taken some good pictures with it.  In fact, it is a bit difficult to get the camera out of their hands.  #2 son just finished taking pictures of his bassoon with it.  And as a family, we have had some interesting discussions on the terms “telephoto,” “zoom,” “aperture,” “ISO,” and “bokeh.”

Summary:

• It is very easy to use, both for pure “point-and-shoot” and for the various manual controls
• The 18-55 mm kit lens is excellent
• The 50mm f1.8 lens is excellent and takes wonderful pictures of people.  (I said before, and I reiterate it here, that there is no reason NOT to buy this $85 lens!)