Training Log Archive: barb

Did I mention that David measured the speed of sound in Physics class recently? They did it with tuning forks and cylinders.

With Doug, in Larkspur

To stairs & back

Here's why I'm not exercising: because I'm lazy.
How I'm spending my time, just to reflect on it:
LOTS of work - way more than in previous years. Work is fun, intense, good - most of the time. Always something to think about.
Hanging out with my family some, including watching some movies. Occasionally friends.
I'm mostly keeping up with my journal editing responsibilities, and other volunteer work in the scientific research community.
Some orienteering-in-schools.
Reading books - lately, books that Isabel has been reading, and Bronte/Austen. When I feel overwhelmed by guilt about the things I'm not doing, I have been successful recently at keeping those thoughts at bay by thinking about the plots of some of those books.
The occasional project like gardening or working on Dad's book (excerpted below).

There are a lot of things I'm not dealing with in a timely way, but maybe over the holidays???

From "Grandpa's Stories", by my dad (D. Stanley Moore):


Army comrades of the Communications Reconnaissance outfit of Bad Aibling, Bavaria, Federal Republic of Germany: twins Darwin and Delwin Morris of East Jordan, Michigan. Salzburg, Austria. 1954.



Statue of King Wenceslas in Wenceslas Square, where the 1989 Velvet Revolution brought Václav Havel to power. Prague, Czech Republic. circa 1994.

Wenceslas

I signed up for three years in the Army in the downtown Minneapolis federal building during the Korean War just ahead of the draft. Two of the three Christmases I was in the Army I was home with family for the holiday. One was after basic training and a short stint at the Vint Hill Farms station outside Washington, D.C. Another was after 46 weeks of Russian study at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. But the third Christmas was in Bavaria, a world away. I was unlucky to draw the Christmas Eve trick: a trick was Army lingo for shift and had nothing to do with jokes. The Communications Reconnaissance outfit, as it was called, operated around the clock to intercept Russian tank and air traffic in both voice and Morse code. My job was to search the radio bands by turning the knob to see if I could catch a Russian pilot talking to another pilot or to ground control, or a tank commander talking to headquarters across the iron border in Czechoslovakia. All I ever got after turning the dial for a year was, “How do you read me?” in Russian.

But this Christmas Eve I was turning that knob again and regretting that all the other tricks were on their way up the hill to the little baroque church in nearby Bad Aibling. They would be having fun singing the Mass and a lot of Christmas carols. And they would probably be singing Silent Night, because that carol was composed long ago at the last minute in a little town nearby when the organ broke down and the organmeister had to compose a simple song that everybody could sing a capella. But here I was turning this knob in an effort to get the enemy to talk. As midnight approached, suddenly all the frequencies seemed to go dead or produce only a little static. Then, to my growing astonishment and delight, Christmas carols began to come in on every frequency from all over the world in a dozen different languages. The Czech carol, Good King Wenceslas, was among them. On the way home after the trick was over at midnight, I fancied I was the king’s page walking in his heated footsteps and searching the cold dark for that one bright star.

Roads were clear enough to bike, slowly.
A few months ago I was in the Broadway Bicycle Repair shop and asked if they had any studded tires; I just wanted to see what they looked like. Oh, they were studly: gnarly ebony treads with sturdy carbide studs. As I told the guy, I experienced a sudden urge to wear leather. It sure would be nice, when there are a few inches of ice and snow on the streets, to race around on a bike.

Here, you try it - do you see what I mean? Feel like wearing leather?

And, I found some fine cold weather riding tips. (perm link to the winter tires article)


Don’t step off bike on ice! Your newfound ice invincibility with studded tires does not extend to your shoes.

C • biking in winter 2

yowza
The snow is nice to shovel, thanks to it being below freezing..
We need to improve the arrangement of things out back of the house. The composter needs to move; it's right in the way of getting to the chickens. I think during the snowy part of the winter we should keep the chickens in the garage; they're not interested in going out in the snow anyway. We need a door into the chicken garage that opens inward so we don't have to worry so much about keeping it clear of ice and snow so we can open it. And we need to grade the yard differently around the garage; it's all several inches higher than the garage door for some reason. Sucks.
I shoveled all the snow from the driveway out back to the neighbors, since we can't really put the snow pile where we used to, due to the chicken fence.
And of course it's still coming down...
Dave conveniently left last night to go ice climbing and will return late tonight. David helped a little with the shoveling, but then his hands got too cold. I suspect he wasn't moving quickly enough to warm up. I need to be a more effectively hardass mom. Right now I'm just an ineffectively whiny mom, I think.

Izzy and Lizzy helped me put vaseline on the chickens' combs and wattles to protect them from the cold. (They can freeze.)

Snow fort in my shoveling pile:


The garden in winter:


David's new bike:


Democracy Symposium panel:

Recommended:
"Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature" by Robin Brande.
Isabel is reading it. Written for teens, easy read.