Winter Olympics

After competing in my own "winter olympics" at Sugarbowl ski resort near Lake Tahoe, in which I crashed too many times to even call it funny, I returned to my beautiful Oakland apartment for some rest and relaxation today catching up on chores, errands and TIPOANTD. (Things I Put Off And Need To Do) This last item included everything from washing dishes to rearranging the old stuff I keep stored in boxes on the balcony to doing the laundry. As a reward for my work, I then treated myself to 2 hours of olympics on TV tonight. I did enjoy the men's downhill slalom, won by the Austrians, and the women's "Super G", also won by the Austrians. Seems the Austrians do just fine in skiing. I'm curious if Arnold still cheers for his home country or has he cut off all his ties now that he has angered his hometown of Graz with his decision to let convicted California drug dealing murderers be executed?

Anyways, I wanted to cheer for America, I really did. But after all the "Bode Hype", I just can't get real excited about that so-called ski superstar of ours. Anyways, he bombed on the runs, "bombing out' being the operative word (merely "bombing" in ski slang would have meant he was really fast). I was less interested, but nonetheless watched, some of the ice dancing. That was actually a pretty interesting event to watch, if somewhat long (like 5 minutes a pair). I'd like to mention a few things about that event:

1) is it just me or does the TV network purposefully hire really feminine-sounding commentators to narrate that event? Why can't they get normal people? People that drink beer and sometimes mess up pronunciation and don't gush all over some couples outfits and choice of musical accompaniment? Speaking of which, they should do the same for the snowboard broadcasts and toss out all those adolescent, surfer sounding people they have doing the broadcast now.

2) is it just me or are the "winning" moves in the ice dance usually a form of imitated sex? Let's look at this picture of the winning Russians as an example:

See what I mean? All that's missing is a good old pelvic thrust and their ecstasy would be complete! I believe I did see some pelvic thrusts in the French pair's dance (forgot their names).

3) is it just me or are the selection of sound track accompaniments to the ice dance just absolutely awful? Is dancing to French cabaret music on the ice is supposed to be elegant? Or techno-infused tango? C'mon! Can't you just pick some nice classical music like Debussy's "The Swan" or maybe a Broadway tune like "Don't Cry for me Argentina"? In fact I think all the skaters should skate to the same music. That way the audience could tell the pretenders from the performers apart a little easier.

I know your answer: it's just you. Well, think of a different answer please because though I'm wrong half the time, I'm not wrong all the time!

p.s. I plan to apply for a spot on the Olympic Ice Dancing judging committee in 2030. Hope it's in a nice place and they still pay off the judges then! :-)

p.s.s. for your amusement I included a new post on the topic of Olympic sports on T.V. Please take a moment to complete it. There is even a "curmudgeon" entry for all you people who come here just to logon to spam my guestbook and call me names.

Bombs and more Bombs

Hearing a lot about the "new nuclear threat" in Iran in recent weeeks in the news I dedided to inform myself at my local library. I eventually ended up borrowing a rather large and voluminous book titled "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes. I still have to return it to the library and it's been 3 weeks. This book goes into great depth describing the Manhattan project as well as the whole history of atomic research. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that a background in quantum mechanics would have been helpful advance knowlege for getting through this book. Nevertheless, my less scientifically inclined mind was still interested by a lot of the historical aspects. Did you know, for instance, that our government spent over $2 billion dollars in 1945 (not adjusted for inflation) on developing the A-Bomb? Or that most of the lead scientists who played a part in the bomb's development were either Hungarian, Jewish German or from other countries? Or that we developed huge sprawling industrial complexes in remote places like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, or Hanford, Washington (which now has apparently become a Superfund Cleanup site) to extract the required "ingredients" (mainly enriched Uranium, and a derivative "new" element Plutonium)? That was besides the thousands of workers who were working at Los Alamos and even in Chicago (does "Fermilab" ring a bell?) A true national project.

I'm not going to argue that this wasn't a good thing that we developed the bomb and not somebody else. There was, after all, this little problem called Nazi Germany which was threatening to build the same bomb (a threat which turned out to be empty). Still, if you read this book, you will probably come to the conclusion, like I did, that we did not really need to use the bomb on Japan to get them to surrender. From the bombs we used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 300,000 Japanese were killed, either within minutes of the blast, or soon after from radiation. For that we got "faster" surrender. You can argue that this faster surrender saved American lives. Undoubtedly it did. But the facts as laid out in the book by Rhodes show that a large part of the reason we used the bomb... was because we spent the money, we developed it, we tested it and so we wanted to use it. You have to imagine there were many, many, months and years of labor on the part of thousands of scientists and laborers required to test the design, to build the nuclear accelerators, the develop and operate the plutonium production, the explosive components and of course to test the bombs themselves. Then you can understand why there was such pressure to use those bombs. And that to me is the whole sad thing about the military industrial complex. We spend the money and the effor developing the weapons. So, naturally, we want to use the weapons. It's like having a 4x4 Toyota Tundra, and never taking it off the road. (it's just an example, I have nothing against trucks)

Considering all the effort that goes into developing and testing nuclear bombs, I am amazed people can develop these bombs in places like Pakistan and India. Granted, most of the knowlege how to build the bomb is now documented and can probably be implemented by any fairly sharp team of physicists. But to get their hands on enough enriched Uranium and then to actually build and test and explosive device is no small feat. My bet is that Iran will not get there for awhile, especially now that the mullahs are taking over their universities. And if they do, their facilities will probably get bombed by Israel, which is another little war we can all look forward to watching on the news. Not that I'm anxious to see it happen.

Anyways, I thought this book was interesting enough to write about, and since I am my own editor, that's just what I did. Doubtless I've either bored you by now, or convinced you more than before that I really am a left-wing Californian. Well Yee-haw, I'll save my rants against the Bush administration for a later time. Got to get packing for this weekend's ski trip, which takes me Sierra bound again. Me and a buddy are going up to Donner summit, and from there who knows where. Hope this time my chains don't break!

Winter activities - Chinese New Year

Ski (ca. 1755)
[from Old Norse skith, stick of wood]
Wintersport: One of a pair of narrow strips of wood, metal, or plastic curving upward in front that are used especially for gliding over snow. The word is also used as a verb, to ski, when a skier glides on skis for traveling or as a sport.

Cross-country skiing is the recreation with one of the greatest demands for energy and involves rates of 15 kilocalories per minute, or even more, for long periods.

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This weekend in addition to trying to recover from a flu bug - I'm feeling hot as I type this - I got together some equipment I hope to use during the upcoming weekend, when I make a trip up to Donner summit ski area and stay for a couple nights in a Sierra Club owned ski hut.

Actually, the idea for this weekend came to me awhile ago. I had intended to do some cross country skiing in Wisconsin over Christmas, and even lugged my skis home like one of those people going for vacation to the Rockies (in fact I was asked upon arrival back in Oakland, "How were the mountains?") Well, as those of you who live in Wisconsin know, ski has been less than plentiful in recent years, at least not in consistent form, and true to this trend, I got "rained out" of any ski opportunities this past Christmas. So, this weekend up in the Sierras is supposed to be my "make-up" for the missed opportunity. I have all the X-C equipment ready including my Norwegian "Torr" and "Bloet" ("dry" and "wet") wax. My buddy Jon who will be accompanying me suggests that we also try a day of downhill skiing (he snowboards). We will be in the general vicinity of Lake Tahoe. As reported previously here, and ONLY here :-) I can also down-hill ski. Not that you would know it looking at me. So, yesterday I picked up some used downhill skis for 40 bucks from craigslist from a guy over in S.F. with an accent that sounds like he's Crocodile Dundee's brother. He was selling the skis for his wife, who was selling them for a friend. So he gives me the skis, and I after giving them the quick once-over, give him the money. He looks at my money and says, "so is this the prize you agrade on?" Just wanted to give an example of the Aussie accent, an accent I could get used to. Well, it turned out these skis were not such a steal after all, because today I found out I have to get the bindings re-mounted, meaning the things that attach to your boot, because the former owner of these 188 cm K2 skis wore a size 8 or 9 boot, and I wear size 10 1/2. So that took up some time this weekend. But hopefully it's all worth it. I intend to try skiing like that French guy Antoine whatever his name in the men's downhill come Sunday. I've got his form memorized: crouch low, shift your weight using your butt, arms out front and be like a rocket. Yeah, that'll be me. Look out Sugarbowl resort! Well at least I'll save the $30+ ski rental fee.

The other thing I did this weeekend was watch the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. I was raised on PBS and I remember on Sesame Street or one of those shows they used to show Chinese New Year's parades and I was actually scared of those dragons. To be honest, yesterday's Parade was kind of a letdown, maybe because I still have those old memories of watching it as a child. It was actually more interesting getting to the parade and back. First was the horrible traffic on the way over (see picture below). I would have taken public transport, except I wanted to pick up those skis I mentioned above. Once I finally got to the City, I parked well away from the parade in a free spot and walked part of the way down California and Sacramento Avenue. Later I hopped on Bus Route Number 1, which runs down Sacramento. The bus was packed. In front were mainly what appeared to be the Chinese crowd (even the bus driver was Asian but I don't think Chinese) and in the back more or less the other tourists like myself who probably go to Chinatown once a year for the New Year parade. Actually I could go a little more often. It is an interesting place. Lots of little hole in the wall shops selling fresh vegetables and fruits (even at 6.30 p.m. on the Saturday of the parade), plastic toys, Wontons and soup, firecrackers, Chinese dresses, dishes, healing medicines, soap, teas, and you name it. And all built onto some of the steepest hills in San Francisco. I posted a couple pictures below of what I saw.

This is what faced me on my way over to San Francisco from Oakland. Mind you, this is 5.30 p.m. on Saturday ... glad I don't have this commute!

When I finally got there, I got to see most of the parade. Probably this was the highlight, unless you count seeing the S.F. mayor Gavin Newsome as a highlight.

The Cingular Parade float - "raising the bar". Ha! I did not really appreciate this "commercial" aspect of the parade. There were also floats from a big Bank, Cathay Pacific Airlines, and more companies I can't remember.

This is a view of Chinatown, all decked out in anticipation of the crowds of tourists in town to see the New Year parade.

California Optimism

Time to get Gael's face off the front posting. You all might get confused and think I'm good looking as he is. Well, I am, but not in the conventional sense. Har har.

Anyways, my topic tonight is California optimism. It amazes me sometimes how positive people are here on the West Coast. I always knew that Americans are by nature optimists and positively inclined. It has precedent. We beat the British, we built the atom bomb, we sent a man to the moon. But Californians top even this optimism and "positivism". First off, people out here rarely criticize eachother publicly, and when they do, it's usually couched in terms that makes you feel just a little less glowing. For instance, when I screw up, my experience with "a regular boss" is he / she would say something like "you were a complete fool" or "don't do that again". Or, worse yet, they freeze me out for a while, and then complain to me weeks or even months later about this or that "problem" that came up (this was the habit of my old German boss, good guy though he was, he never was up front with me like I wished). In California it's totally different. If you have a bad moment, people react by telling you "that's ok", and "you'll do it better next time". Absolutely blows my mind sometimes. I should feel lucky.

Second, Californians will laugh and find funny absolutely anything that is humorous, and many things that aren't, on just about any occasion. I know I am generalizing. It just strikes me sometimes when I am sitting around being my usual introverted self in a room full of high-spirited Bay Area residents, that I am somehow different. This for instance happens when I attend my local "Toastmasters" club once a week. I've been part of this organization for about 3 years now. The whole excercise is public speaking, and going "out of your comfort level" in front of a crowd of 20-30 people. Anyways, I do it, partly out of intellectual curiosity (you hear very interesting things during these speeches), partly out of a feeling of obligation (don't want to quit the club just yet). The thing is, at least here in Oakland, when I go to a TM meeting I am sometimes practically assaulted by extroverted people. Hey , it gives me one more thing to work on myself.