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 It was a brilliantly sunshiny day, and the temperature was around 37 degrees F, so Jim and I decided to go paddling in a part of the Genesee River near his place that was “open” (for some value of open). Our usual partner in crime, Stephen B, was busy with family stuff. When I arrived, the floes were pretty dense, very thick, and roaring down the river at about 1.5 miles per hour. I kind of wish I’d brought my Looksha instead of banging up my Thunderbolt. The Looksha is a stronger, heavier boat, plus if I’m going to damage a boat, I’d rather damage the one I’m not going to be racing. Jim paddles a big heavy downriver boat for just that reason.
Trying to get in on the slippery bank, I managed to soak both feet, which is not good. Then it was hard to get turned upstream without going out into the main flow of floes. But we were able to sneak up stream by staying tucked in close to the near bank. Then after a while the ice jammed in on our side of the river, but the other side was very clear of ice for over half the width of the river. We ferry over by turning perpendicular to the current and allowing ourselves to drift downstream as we pick our way across. We ended up repeating this process a few times as the river snaked back and forth. If you choose the right point to cross in a gap between floes, you don’t even lose much paddling time.
The banks are high, and so we’re enjoying the bright sunshine but are protected from whatever wind there might be. It didn’t take long for my feet to warm up, and with my PFD on I didn’t even bother with the anorak I’ve been wearing on the colder days. (I got a really nice paddling jacket for Christmas, but it was one size too small so I’ll have to wait before I get to paddle in it.)
With the river flowing so fast, we paddled up for about 55 minutes, and down for about 25 minutes. On the way down, my feet started to get cold again – Jim said that cold feet are often the deciding factor for how long you can paddle in the cold, and he recommended that I get some neoprene wet suit boots or something. But even cold feet couldn’t diminish my feeling of how great this was. Even a bad day paddling is better than a good day in the gym, and this was a good day paddling.
Originally posted at Rants and Revelations
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The rain stopped just as we arrived and started up pretty much as
we set off home.
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http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=2611 I looked at my watch. It couldn't only be 8.30pm. It must be at least midnight by now. But no, the evening was still reasonably young. My theory of relativity (that time moves more slowly when you spend it with your relatives) was once again proven right.
Not that I hadn't been having a good time. I had eaten and drunk until my skin started to burst at the seams and I had bantered with my nearest and dearest, helped with the washing up, played parlour games and even had a little sleep and yet still there was a good four hours until bed time. |
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Regarding the Great Copenhagen Summit of Fail:
World leaders have decreed that they will limit the rise in temperature of the earth to no more than +2oC.
Could they please explain to me (with my degree in physics) how they will persuade the Supreme Being(s) who regulates the temperature of the sun to play along with this? Or are we in the territory of HUGE UNOBTAINIUM SUNBLOCK SHIELDS and other such fantasy implements? |
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http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=2610 Driving home for Christmas and the conditions were not too bad on the whole. Some of the surrounding fields had a covering of snow, but the M4 was ice free and the traffic was not as bad as I had feared. I only saw the aftermath of one accident. It didn't look too serious, though the car that I passed was being lifted on to a truck and had a serious scrunch around its rear passenger side wheel. No one would have got hurt, but it wouldn't have been a great start to the holiday for the driver. |
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Dec. 25th, 2009 @ 11:53 pm
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Merry winter thing peoples! One thing about religion, it is good for bank holidays. Yay no work until the 4th! |
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I'm off to get paralytically drunk pleasantly merry in memory of the season.
Best wishes to all, and see some of you on the 29th.
The 1995 Margaux Grand Cru beckons - see you later...Current Mood:  tiddly |
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[2.136] The priests told me that Asychis
succeeded to the Egyptian kingdom after Mycerinus. He built the
eastern gateway of the sanctuary of Hephaestus, which is the most
magnificent and by far the largest. All the gateways have figures
carved on them and countless other marvels of construction, but this
eastern one easily outdoes the others. They said that during his
reign there was a severe financial recession and so a law was passed
that a person might use his father’s corpse as security to take out a
loan. There was a rider to the law, however, to the effect that
the lender also became proprietor of the whole of the borrower’s
burial plot, so that if the mortgagee refused to pay back the loan, as
a penalty neither he nor any other member of his family could have
access on their deaths to burial in the family tomb (or indeed in any
other tomb either). They say that Asychis wanted to outdo the
Egyptian kings who came before him, so he built as his monument a
pyramid made out of bricks, and had the followed words chiselled in
stone on it: ‘Do not compare me unfavourably with the pyramids
of stone. I surpass the other pyramids as Zeus surpasses the other
gods. For I was made out of mud, which was collected from a pole it
had stick to when the pole was plunged down into a lake.’ So
much for Asychis’ achievements.
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From Eynsham today, to Edinbrr. The main roads were all clear, though there was a lot of snow beside them in places. There was a fair amount of fog around Brum, and patches later. A little snow briefly fell on me a few times on the A8 and M8, but not so it stuck. It is a balmy 0C here tonight, up from -12 last night; my car is filthy and is parked on what I presume is still slush. I'm slightly gutted by having filled the tank at Tebay for 113.9p/l, then passing Gretna (40 miles up the road) and seeing the first petrol in Scotland - still motorway services so you'd expect a gouging price - at just 103.9p/l...
There's a photo en route I wish I could have stopped to take. There is a particular pair of hills up in the Lakes in the vicinity of Tebay which the M6 snakes between. I don't drive the M6 all that often, but I remember them, and this time I saw them illuminated by the fading sun behind me. I can't quite articulate why, but there was a particular sense about them today, more so than before. (The fact that I've recently been reading up about Japan and picking up the vaguest sense of the notion of kami may or may not have something to do with this.) |
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I) The only reason I'm *still* in Maryland (as opposed to leaving for LA on the 23rd or 24th, getting used to the new apartment, buying books for the term, and experiencing what I can back there before break) is that I need to undergo my colonoscopy on the 30th.
II) Over the past few days I've been able to relax and recover a bit, go to the gym a few times (thanks to Christmas, New Year's Day, and the colonoscopy, the only way to maintain my workout schedule was to work out BOTH yesterday and today), get my swine flu shots, revised my poster presentation (for the AMS talk in January; I had to revise some stuff that wasn't true and make a new 'slide' for my new discovery), and remain more or less isolated from the rest of humanity (besides my parents; remember, there's pretty much no one I knew from before still around as everyone has pretty much moved out in the eight years since HS graduation - except that I DID run into my middle school guidance counselor at the gym yesterday)... though my brother WILL be coming tomorrow instead of having to work in SF over ALL of break.
III) One of the more frustrating things is not being able to progress on my work; not only am I not hearing anything online (say, from my advisor), but I can't even get the textbooks I'll be using next quarter until I actually return to LA (and not on that day because everything in the uni will be closed)! Hopefully when I DO meet with Garnett on January 5, things will clear up a little bit, but I don't even know whether I'll still be a student a year from now!
IV) Within an hour I'll go with my mom to watch New Moon (and make fun of it, just as we did for Twilight last year) which should be an experience... |
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I fairly often have cause to go form King’s Cross to Waterloo (and subsequently back again). Usually I take either the Victoria or Piccadilly line and change onto the Northern Line at Warren St or Leicester Square; is one of these likely to be reasonably reliably quicker than the other? Or is there some quicker route still I could take?
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They are now advertising Google Chrome on the tube. |
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There will be a birthday party for me:
* Black tie preferred (but optional. fancy dress also encouraged as an alternative.)
* At my house (Cartesian Heights, Sherbourne Close, email for directions)
* 8pm til late
* Sat 9th Jan. (My birthday begins at midnight)
* There will be food, drink, etc. Presents not necessary, but drink and snacks helpful. Everyone is invited, but if you're not sure, please email. Other halves welcome.
You can also comment at http://jack.dreamwidth.org/607847.html using OpenID.  comments so far.
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Dec. 24th, 2009 @ 10:17 am
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Happy Christmas!
You can also comment at http://jack.dreamwidth.org/607544.html using OpenID.  comments so far. |
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A few days ago I lost my sunglasses. I knew I still had them when locking up my bike, and that I didn’t have them when I went outside a few hours later, but they weren’t in their usual location in the pocket on the front of my jacket and there was no sign of them on the floor or ground anywhere I’d been in the intervening time.
I did without for a couple of days, which wasn’t exactly ideal with the sun reflecting off snow or damp roads.
Then:
( Read more... ) |
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http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=2609 Oooh, but hungover. That's not good.
Along with having to cancel my bank card and oyster card - bad luck thieves/person who found the cards where I dropped them/me when I find the cards somewhere in my house - I also had to record a podcast with Andrew "Oin Stoin" Collings. You can't hear it yet. It's a spare one that we're gonna put out in early January when I am away on holiday. |
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So there's this online climbing forum I read a lot (but don't post to often), where I'm not out as trans, and like lots of forums they have a sort of "general discussion" forum. One topic comes up, about women and numbers of sexual partners, and someone opens the thread with a nice post about the double standard behind regarding a man with lots of sexual partners as successful and someone to emulate, yet a woman in the same position is generally considered dirty, of lower morals, not someone to emulate, etc..
So I read on, and am pleased to see lots of posts expressing a similar sentiment - that this is a misogynist double standard, and then I see this:
Sex is all about the moment not the past ( health and STD's and sex change operations aside that is)
For fuck's sake! Apparently I can't get away from it. *sigh*
Originally posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/219268.html - you can comment here or there. |
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http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1266
| Piled Higher
& Deeper by Jorge
Cham |
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www.phdcomics.com
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title:
"Chipping in" - originally published
12/21/2009
For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!
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