Andrew Wyeth

I never knew the background of Christina's world. I didn't know she was 55 at the time of the painting or that she was crippled.

The impression it gave me was more along the lines of this other painting...

Wyeth often had a reputation for a grim view of life, but he could be playful too...

20, 10, 0...

Wednesday I went for a 10-mile run in 20F. I wore proper gear, but I won't lie--it was pretty unpleasant.

Thursday was a work day, so I only did 3.5 miles in 10F. I forgot my supplemental stuff at home and it was only bearable because it was so brief.

Today, I remembered the extra clothes and was reasonably comfortable on a 4.25 miler in zero frick'in degrees Fahrenheit.

One nice side-benefit--I never run slow when it is that cold! So this is good solid training.

Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III

Hi did something that hasn't been done before. He landed his jetliner on water and there were no fatalities. Evidently, he didn't have the power or altitude to make it back to the airport and NYC doesn't have a lot of large flat areas other than water.

All of this got me to thinking about the nature of potential. Captain Sullenberger, could have done this feat 20 years ago, or 5 years from now, but he was called upon to do it yesterday. He might have never had to do this kind of flying--most pilots never have to crash-land a plane. Chesley Sullenberger is a hero, but in some sense, he has been one for years.

Quietly waiting for reserves of strength to be called upon.

There are a lot more like him out there, I would bet.

Wednesday training...

I took 86 minutes, so this comes to about 8:20/mile. Eh, it is okay considering the conditions. Not so much the cold or the wind, but that on many of the roads there was snow and ice. This causes a little bit of loss on each step from sliding.

I saw a good number of other runners along the way. You can tell it is cold when runners are so bundled-up that you cannot tell if they are a man or woman until you see their face. I guess if it is really cold, you wouldn't even be able to tell then, since face masks would be de rigeur.

He made some mistakes--but you know, bad luck favors the unprepared

Article and pictures from FoxNews

What did he do wrong, besides the whole financial fraud, cheating on his wife & etc. which necessitated this stunt?

1. He called an emergency while in flight. The problem with this is that authorities will be looking for you if you do that. In fact, Air Force pilots saw the empty plane with the door open--so they would have doubted his death even if the crash site was never found.

2. The plane made it another 200 miles on autopilot and landed in the Florida panhandle. Maybe the autopilot malfunctioned, or was unable to cope with aerodynamic stresses of having an open door in the plane. One would expect that Marcus Schrenker would have had the sense to set it so that the plane would run out of fuel over the Gulf of Mexico and never be found.

Update: It looks as if the plane did crash due South of where he bailed-out.

Update 2: The plane this joker trashed was worth about 1.5 million! Maybe he could have helped his financial situation better by just selling it rather than letting it fly into the ground.

Just need to move the ticker by one.

Looking at the dashboard today I noticed Six Hundred and Sixty Six posts. Yikes! Need to just add one and stop tempting fate.

Global Warming News

According to the AP:

Anticipation is growing for the "Elfstedentocht" or "11 Cities Tour," a national event where speed skaters race along a 200-km (120-mile) course beginning and ending in the northern city of Leeuwarden. This year marks the 100th year since the race began and if held, the tour would be the first in over a decade.

If it happens a bit more in the next few years, maybe instead of saying it is becoming more rare for temperatures to be cold enough, they will say it used to be rare. It has only been cold enough for the tour 15 times in the last 100 years and this year is one of them.

The shin bone is connected to the knee bone...

On Friday I took a spill while jogging and skinned my knee. Now, on Sunday my lower back hurts.

My question is: Did I actually hurt my back when I fell? Or is it just that my hurt knee has been keeping me from bending at the knee and so I have strained my back by bending at the waist in the last couple of days?

I think it is the latter of these options. My neck and shoulders on one side were sore on Saturday, but not my back, so any fall-related wrenching was showing itself by one day later.

This would all be very academic, but it snowed last night and I am going into a shoveling with some concern.