Sunday Run

I did the above run except I came back on Birch Hill Road--which is the way I had planned on going last year, but I got lost and took a wrong turn. I don't think it changes the distance by any significant amount.

On Long Island

Visiting our newest nephew this weekend. Two big events so far: We brought the dog, this is her first road trip. We finally made a count of the number of overpasses on the Merritt Parkway, 40.

Looking forward to a nice jog on Sunday--it is very scenic here in Locust Valley.

On the way and right after crossing the Throg's Neck Bridge, Surenna kept asking why they call it Long Island, when it is a penninsula. She wasn't happy with the response, "They call it Long Island because it is an island".

VRWC II

I just want to get out-front with this before someone else claims credit.

Remember back in the Clinton years, when there was one scandal after another? There were a couple of narratives to explain this:

--Clinton had serious ethical and self-control issues.

OR

--Vast right-wing conspiracy

Anything that works once will be tried again. So, I (and fellow conspirators, to be named later) hereby take credit for every gaff, scandal and travesty to come with the Obama presidency. We will start by planting falsehoods that are so believable that they overwhelm reality and replace it and hence make it true. Just like we did with Clinton.

Accidental Science Fair Project

Our Roomba is having a battery problem: It runs for about 5 minutes and then is out of juice. When it was new it would go for a long time--like you would get bored with rescuing it from carpet tassels and shoelaces before it ran out of power.

I figured that the best course would be to do a deep discharge on the power pack and then recharge it to see if it works better.

I was at a loss at first about how to discharge it: The machine will not run at all when the power is low, and I didn't want to just short out the leads...What I finally did was connect jumpers from the battery to probes in a glass of salt water. I could tell it was working because I was seeing bubbles forming around the electrodes under water.

This got me thinking. What if one were to do this in a closed environment, so that pressure could build-up? At some point, I would expect the pressure to cause the electrolysis to stop. This would be easy to measure with a pressure gauge. What would be (if any) the relationship between voltage and pressure?

Safety: Yes, I realize that a high pressure mixture of oxygen and hydrogen with electricity in the mix, could be an explosive combination. This would suggest that the total size of the apparatus be kept small. An added benefit would be that equilibrium would be reached sooner as well.

Seems almost like yesterday

Back when I was dating my (now) wife, my sister came to visit us with her (then) husband and newborn baby. Two days ago this nephew, now at a university, "friended" me on Facebook.

Seems like the blink of an eye. Not the parts where I waited in line at the DMV, but lots of the other stuff really flew-by.

My youngest new nephew is about the same age as the one in college was when I first met him.

Fuel test...

I should be able to go for a month or more on one tank of gas, but I am not sure if I ever have because I never kept track. Till now.

I usually only drive into the office three times per week and it is 10 miles each way. This is 60 miles. My car gets just under 30 miles per gallon and holds about 13 gallons. I should therefore be able to go 5 weeks if my only driving is for my work commute.

I filled up the car on the 9th of February and will update this post next time I fill-up. Update: Here it is, March 10th and I still have around 1/4 tank left.

Sunday Marathon Training--Late edition...

I did my usual 19 miler on Sunday. It was crazy warm, in the 40's, so I really had to take advantage of it. I improved the pathetic time of last week by 7 minutes, but I would still like to take another 13 minutes off before April.

Not Spiced Pork And Ham

Yeah!

Since Sunday, Blogger had tagged my blog and made it unavailable till now. Now that it is back I suddenly have nothing (other than this) to post about.

Places to see

If I ever visit Tokyo, I want to tour this place: It is called G-Cans and it is composed of tunnels, pumps and tanks for the storage of excess water in the rainy season.

I would have taken a picture, but was too hungry

After getting back from Costco early this afternoon, I was ready for lunch. An avocado I had gotten a few days ago got ripe prematurely and so I had to eat it now or it would end up being thrown out. We always keep corn tortillas on hand and we had a small amount of roasted chicken and a little bit of cheddar cheese.

I layed-out three tortillas on an oven safe plate, then added shredded cheese and then chicken. The oven was baking and so I let the plate bake for a bit and then switched it to broil. Once it was all melty, I put on the slices of avocado, some tomatoes, scallions, then a dollop of sour cream and finally a lot of Tabasco sauce

It was a colorful and pretty dish but hunger overcame me and so there is no photographic evidence.

Twittered but not posted

I ran a horrible pace for the 2nd half. The first leg--south on 27 down to 225 took 30 minutes. The second leg--from 225 to Lowell Road in Concord took 54 minutes. Then North to Carlisle center took another 40 minutes. The final leg took about 47 minutes. I got passed by a woman in the final leg, but found that I had it in me to go faster and stayed with her for half a mile till our paths diverged. Then I slowed right back down. I think after a dozen miles or thereabouts, one just looses the will to push hard.

Icicle

A pile of ice below a big icicle.

Sunshine + Ice

The Icicle of Damocles.

The mirror-immage of Cassandra

The Goracle

Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as "unified national smart grid" the way he once did "no controlling legal authority" -- and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.

Cassandra had the power to tell the future, but the curse that nobody would believe her. Gore is cursed with always being wrong about the future but he has the power to make everybody believe his wrong predictions.

Sunday Marathon training

86 minutes a couple of Wednesdays ago and 85 minutes today, so that is progress however slight. Last October I was able to run this route in 78:30 but that was ideal conditions--not the 20F of today.

Not sure if I should be pleased or disappointed...

Yesterday I was musing on radiocarbon dating. (Yeah, well what do you daydream about in the shower?)

The idea behind the technique is that carbon 14 is constantly made in the atmosphere and decays at a known rate. So the ratio of carbon 14 and carbon 12 in living things will be about the same as in air. But things which are dead will slowly loose their carbon 14 and so you can see how long they have been dead from how much carbon 14 is left.

The thought I had was that if the concentration of CO2 varies over time, then either depleted carbon is being added to the system or enriched carbon is being taken out of the system. So, assumptions about the past ratios of 12C/14C could be wrong. Just as an example: If we add carbon to the atmosphere by burning coal, we are adding exclusively 12C since coal is very old and all the 14C has disintegrated.

It turns out that someone has thought of this already: Hans Suess. So, this can be looked at in one or two ways. If nobody had thought of it already then either the idea has no merit (I didn't consider something important) or it is genius. Since it has already been thought of, it does have merit but is unremarkable since others have already come up with the same idea.

Karate Girl

Dahlia has been practicing her Karate lately, since she has her yellow belt test today.

She will have already passed or failed by now. Hopefully, passed as she is very sensitive and will take it hard.

She practiced moves by having me pretend to choke her. And then she would escape with a series of hits. It is too cute: She looks so harmless, but her little hits were really effective.

Update: She passed! Yellow belt karate girl! High Ja!

Thank you Mr. President

It would have been so easy in the dark-days of 2006 to have pulled the plug on Iraq. The Iraq Study Group Report gave plenty of bipartisan cover, the Democrats held Congress etc. President Bush doubled-down and found a way to win the thing.

--Now 28 million Iraqi citizens have a chance at freedom and democracy.

--Our military has shown itself as unbeaten and unbeatable.

--Our enemies have seen that our days of giving-up are over.

This one thing has shown what true leadership is: Doing what is right even when all the panjandrums, pundits and public disagree.

Thank You Mr. President

You were right.

I Pledge...

To take celebrities even less seriously than I already do (if that is possible).

For a full deconstruction see iowahawk.

Skiing on the bike path

Happy birthday Jemma!

A few minutes old.

Last Summer on the Seattle monorail.