Jimmy Mo Mhíle Stór

A friend introduced me to this beautiful Irish song, Jimmy Mo Mhíle Stór. It just gets better with each listening.

The title translates poetically from Irish to "Jimmy My Thousand Times Beloved." Some translate it to "Jimmy My Thousand Treasures," which is an attempt at direct translation, but doesn't really make much sense. Or they drop the word mhíle altogether, and wind up with "Jimmy My Treasure," which is rough, but at least accurate to the original meaning of the phrase, if not precise.

The song is a monologue by a girl whose love has gone to the sea, and she waits every day for his return.



This particular rendition is my favorite of the ones I've heard. It is sung by Kathleen MacInnes. Her performance is incomparable. The song is a waltz, but the musical phrasing is constantly adjusted throughout the song, following the lead of the singer. Ms. MacInnes's voice has a genuine, natural quality that gives the song a vivid sense of personality. Her phrasing is deliberate and unchained, following the voice of the sea, or a desperate, inconsolable young woman who refuses to believe that her Jimmy is lost. Nothing in the song's lyrics actually suggest he is lost, but the very fact that she's lamenting his absence, and he at the mercy of the sea, urges you to that conclusion.

Somali wild ass born at Zoo

Yes, that is an actual headline from stltoday.com today.

"The St. Louis Zoo welcomed its first newborn Somali wild ass."

Whoohoo! I'm looking forward to a wild ass birthday party!

Word puzzles

These sentences are all grammatically correct. A friend of mine introduced me to the Buffalo buffalo one, and I found the rest in Wikipedia...

This sentence demonstrates lexical ambiguity. See if you can work it out before you read the Wikipedia article.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

This stream of words lacks punctuation. See if you can insert the correct punctuation to make sense of it.

James while Jon had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

And these are examples of Garden Path sentences:

"The old man the boat."

"The man who whistles tunes pianos."

"The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi."

Jason Bredle

I am exhibiting signs of early-onset Bredlemania, and I have Jason Bredle to thank for that. I have been practically glued to his work, what I can find of it on the Internet, ever since I discovered it on Friday.

I first learned of him while scanning through the online content of the Missouri Review. There are three of his poems posted there. His prosaic style and brilliant sense of humor captivated me. I immediately started scouring the Internet for more. Found his website, which pointed me to his blogs, which are hysterical, found Aurora Borealis Beard Fire Party, which made me laugh and enjoy the outstanding wordplays and rhythms, found The Crossfire, the Breathtaking Explosions, O, which is so complex, and so efficient in every line, that I haven't even found halfway of it yet, and then I found The Idiot's Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico.

This last one is probably the most intense, although I am probably only saying that because I haven't fully parsed any of his works yet, but this one I am starting to crack the shell of, and it is everything you could hope a work of art is: it is moving, it is sad, it is funny, it is refreshing, it's challenging, it's musical, it's weird, it's exciting, it's devastating, it's demanding, it's actually easy to relate to. It's all of these things and more.

A work of art is best when it entices the audience to explore it, and as they explore it, they are rewarded at every layer with new insight, emotion, and a feeling of intellectual accomplishment.

Bredle opens the poem with an ostensibly humorous stanza, which disarmed me into thinking this would be a fun piece, like the ones I read in the Missouri Review.

Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes

Note how the last word of the last line pulls you into the next stanza, while also providing a funny nonsequitur. There is plenty more to say about this stanza, like the surreal impression of someone checking the Bible every few seconds for anything, let alone the possibility of new information that wasn't already there, or the use of in media res, and there may be something going on with the s sound there, but I haven't figured it out yet, and the break on the second line is curious. Broken on the period, the rhythm is perhaps too conventional, makes the stanza soft, but...

My point is actually that even though I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of this poem, it is written so exquisitely, that I can't hold back from blogging about it already. It suddenly hit me today as I was re-reading it for the Nth time, o no, is he contemplating suicide? He has before? Is he grappling with his belief in God? Remembering someone who has died? Did they commit suicide? The language goes back and forth, creating paradoxes, I guess such is life, he is confused and, as the reader, I feel the confusion, and yet... The title of this poem is ...Faking Your Own Death... Is he joshing me? That would be kind of humiliating because I am really feeling empathetic for this author the more I am reading this, but perhaps the humiliation is intentional, like he feels it too. He can't believe his own thoughts, and feels astonished by them. He writes...

I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,

harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.

Ah, I have a lot more reading to do on this poem before I feel comfortable with my understanding of it, but I can surely tell you that it is art of an exceptional quality.

I checked Left Bank Books, but they didn't have Bredle's book, Standing in Line for the Beast, so I had to order a copy. Should be here before the week is done.

Wondergrrrl

Jason Bredle is a clever man, and he's into Unicorns, and stuff. Wondergrrrl is one of his blogs. You will not regret reading every entry in it. I recommend you actually start at the beginning.

The Washing of the Hands

I used to wash my hands less, but now I wash them more. Life can be such a wondrous journey.

This is a photo of my actual hands being washed. I felt compelled to wash them after changing the cat's litter. I think it raises some interesting questions: Am I washing my hands, or are they washing each other? Do other people refill their Softsoap containers, or do they just buy new ones? How exactly did I take a picture of my own hands? Is this appropriate content for the Internet?

I look forward to your comments.

International Violence Against Women Act

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I would like to urge anyone who reads this to take a moment to support the passing of the International Violence Against Women Act. It is a senate bill that would help to promote the equality of women around the world.

Use the Amnesty USA website to send emails to your senators urging them to support it, if they're not already co-sponsors, and if they are co-sponsors, thanking them.

If you prefer a more personal approach, please do write your senators letters to the same effect. Either way, it is important that we spread the philosophy of human equality to all reaches of this planet, especially those horrific places where women are treated as less than human.

Guatemalan Women

There was a documentary on the Documentary Channel a few weeks ago called Killer's Paradise, and I strongly urge you to watch it. It is on again tomorrow night. It details the current situation in Guatemala regarding the killing of women. It is an atrocity of an unimaginable scale. The documentary is chilling.

3,000 women and girls have been killed in Guatemala since 2000. Nearly all of the murders go without an investigation, and for the ones that are investigated, the forensic and investigative methods employed are horrifically inept, and they often boil down to a pile of languishing paperwork. There have been 20 convictions from 2001 to 2006.

The police themselves have been implicated in several of the murders, rapes, and mutilations.

One story is told by a father whose daughter was kidnapped from in front of their house. The neighbors ran over to tell him what happened, and offered him their car to chase the kidnappers. He and his son tried to search for them, then went to the police station to report it and ask for assistance. He tells how he begged them to send out an APB, put up road blocks, anything, and they treated him with complete disdain. Then he and his son went back out looking for her. Hours later they came back to the police station and asked if there had been any news. The sergeant looked at him and said, "What missing girl? You have not filed a report."

No woman is safe in Guatemala. If a dead body is found, the woman is presumed to be a prostitute, and nothing is done. The injustice is so far beyond imagination, it is difficult to comprehend. The streets are crawling with rapists and murderers who openly admit what they have done. They practically brag about it.

The United States has sent forensics experts to Guatemala to train them on how to secure a crime scene and collect evidence, but nobody applies what they have learned, and the Guatemalan government does not provide funding for investigative resources.

The Senate has recently, on March 10th, passed a resolution expressing sympathy for the families of those who have been murdered, and to "encourage" and "urge" the Secretary of State, the President, and the Attorney General to assist the Guatemalan government in establishing law, order, and justice, with respect to these atrocities. We can all pray that it will help.

Some blogs on Amnesty USA have entries that tell more stories.

Miller, Vonn, Ligety Making it Happen

If you have not been paying attention the the Alpine Skiing World Cup, it is time to wake up and smell the victory! Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, and Ted Ligety are three Americans who are tearing up the World Cup circuit, and showing the world what US racers are capable of.

Miller and Ligety both grew up with access to fairly large mountains, but Lindsey Vonn grew up racing at Buck Hill in Minnesota. It's a relatively small hill that has produced many great US females, including Kristina Koznick, and more recently, Sterling Grant.

I'm getting off track, but I mention Buck Hill because it is a small hill, like our own Hidden Valley. On Saturday, we had a former Hidden Valley skier, Robby Reid, come to visit us. He is now the conditioning coach for the Norwegian National Ski Team (maybe you've heard of them). One of the things he stressed with us was that most of the Norwegian racers come from around Oslo, where there is nothing but small hills, like Hidden Valley. You don't need a big hill to build great racers if you know how to use what you have. In fact, Aksel Lund Svindal came from a small town 25 km north of Oslo, and he won the overall World Cup title last year.

So I guess what I'm saying is big time skiers can come from small hills. People like Vonn and Svindal prove it. Watch out!

Anyway, getting back to topic, Miller and Vonn lead the men's and women's overall World Cup standings by relatively comfortable margins (about 160 each), and Ligety just took the red bib for GS (meaning he's #1 in Giant Slalom).

Julia Mancuso is 7th in the overall points standings for women, which is outstanding, and Resi Stiegler is 39th, even though she hasn't raced since getting injured in December. She had already collected 111 points in slalom by that point. Watch out for her next year!

Ligety is in a tight race with Raich and Moelgg for the GS title, but if he can pull it off, he will accomplish what he set his mind to do at the beginning of the season. He said he wanted to focus on winning the GS globe. Let's hear it for setting a goal and making it happen!

If Miller can wrap up this season with the overall title, it will be his second, pushing him up the list of overall globe winners to join Stephan Eberharter and Lasse Kjus, who also had two overall globes.

If Vonn can tie it up, she will be only the second US female to win the overall title. The first was Tamara McKinney in 1983. A notable difference is that Tamara won hers in the technical disciplines, slalom and giant slalom. Lindsey is a speed specialist, and in particular, she is the standard for women's downhill, utterly dominating that discipline with 755 points! The nearest competitor is Renate Goetschl with 448.

Lindsey's downhills this season go: 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 5th, 1st, 2nd, 1st. Yeah, I call that utterly dominating. I'd like to also mention that she is totally hot.

Here come the Alpine World Championships!

The St. Louis Jesuits

The musicians at my parish, St. Margaret of Scotland, are so amazing, and fun to listen to, that they've actually made me rather fond of church music. Of course, if you go to church regularly, and you're a fan of music, you're going to eventually have some favorites, and I have several, but I've never gone out to actually purchase church music.

OK, so I guess you've figured out by now that I have recently purchased some church music. Yes, I actually bought a bunch of MP3s off of Amazon. I can pick and choose the songs I want that way, and don't have to buy a whole album. I credit St. Margaret's excellent Music Ministry. I walk home after mass singing the songs to myself, like We are Called, and We Remember.

For my family, growing up, it was songs like "Though the Mountains May Fall," "All the Ends of the Earth," "Sing a New Song," and "Lift Up Your Hearts." And now comes the reason I write this blog entry. It turns out all these songs I have just mentioned, and many others we liked, have a common set of authors. They are called the St. Louis Jesuits, and I just learned this today while surfing through Wikipedia.

Additionally interesting to note is that I now live about two miles away from SLU's campus. The music has gone full circle with me.

All those songs were brought to our parish when I was growing up in St. John Bosco parish in West Virginia. They were brought by a group of three guitar-strumming women who would vigorously belt out these great tunes with their 70s guitar straps and their capos. Their arms would swing fast and hard, interposing an extra strum here and there, and you could really feel the energy coursing through the pews. You always walked out of church with an extra kick in your step on those days. They would come during the summer weeks when Deanery Camp (church camp) was happening... or was it Camp Tygart? One of those.

So as I'm looking up all those old favorites online, and discovering that they're all written by the St. Louis Jesuits, I'm also finding that there is apparently a significant portion of conservative Catholics who feel that their music is "liberal" and inappropriate for mass. Ha! Their popularity has suppressed "the authentic sound of Catholicism." Are you kidding me? No, I am not. These people believe that Catholic mass should be accompanied by latin polyphones and Gregorian chants. I guess that's what they believe is the "authentic" sound of Catholicsm. Mmmkay.

You know, I think those guitar women were wearing sandals. Oh my gosh, were they... liberals!? Gasp! What would Jesus think!?

So, obviously I'm going to speak against that kind of draconian approach to liturgical music. Especially given that I have so many fond memories invested in the "liberal," "inappropriate" music of the St. Louis Jesuits. So here it is: why can't you have both? It's not like you can only have chants, or only have guitar pickin'. Shouldn't the music for each mass be chosen to suit the message of that mass? So if it's a meditative message, use meditative music. If it's a message of being called to service, sing We are Called. If it's a message of joyous celebration, then get to strumming that guit-fiddle!

One last thing before I wrap up this rant. I like to find out who composed each song that's being sung in church. It's just something I do. I notice that we sing a lot of music by Marty Haugens and David Haas. It turns out they are probably the two most prolific liturgical music composers for Catholic and Lutheran service in the past 50 years. The thing is, there are again some people who believe there should be a moratorium on their music. What!?

On the website for the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas, they quote a priest saying "What a shame for a young person to grow up thinking that Marty Haugen is the traditional music of the Catholic church!"

What young person grows up not knowing about historical Catholic music? That sounds like a failing in his education, not Marty Haugen's or David Haas's music. If you dislike a piece of church music that much, don't sing. It's just a song, dude. I don't like them all either, but I mean get a life.

One final thing... of all the songs I purchased today, one recording stands head and shoulders above all the others: Hosea (Come Back to Me) by Steve and Sarah Bell. It is outstanding. All other recordings I purchased were lacking in quality, musicianship, or just sounded too... um safe, I guess. There seems to be a pretty significant need for quality production in this genre. I like a more contemporary sound. I would love to hear Clannad cover some of these tunes. Could you imagine? Or Alison Krauss with Union Station. That kind of thing.

Connecting a Motorola V3xx to Linux

I'm using Gentoo Linux, and I have a Motoral V3xx that I want to manage, so here's what I do. You can't use the same steps you find in other places for V3s and V3xs, because they use the p2k protocol, but the V3xx uses p2k05.

1) Change phone to data connection mode
- Open phone, go to main menu -> Settings -> Connection -> USB Settings -> Default Connection -> Data Connection

2) Download and compile p2k-core. Good luck finding it if that link doesn't work, because it's not a very popular package, but it is the only one I could find that supports p2k05 for Linux (and that support is actually pretty alpha). The author, Sandor Otvos, doesn't appear to be interested in using a Sourceforge or Savanna site. Frankly, his website is barely navigable, so if you can't find it, don't know what to tell you. Hopefully more Linux mobile phone management software will be forthcoming.

3) Create a phone group, if necessary, and add your account to it. This is for security. If you don't care, skip this step, and omit the OWNER and GROUP parts in the next step, and change MODE to "666".

4) Create /etc/udev/rules.d/99-motorola-v3xx with the following content (all on one line):

BUS=="usb" SYSFS{product}=="Motorola*" KERNEL=="ttyACM*" SYMLINK=="mobile" MODE=="660" OWNER=="root" GROUP=="phone"

5) Verify cdc_acm and uhci_hcd modules are either compiled into kernel, or loaded

# modprobe cdc_acm uhci_hcd

6) Plug phone into computer via mini-USB connection

7) Type "dmesg" to verify that phone was detected. Should see this:

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
cdc_acm 4-2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

8) Verify /dev/ttyACM0 was created:

# ls -l /dev/ttyACM0

9) Execute p2k-core. If all goes well, you'll see something like this:

# p2k-core
V_1.0 Commands: exit,conn,info,seem,file,fold,mode,help,list
Shell commands and command history (up/down arrows) also works.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Search for Motorola Test Command.
Search for Motorola Data Interface.
Found Interface: Motorola Data Interface
Interface 00 is claimed by kernel driver: cdc_acm
Interface 00 is detached from kernel driver: cdc_acm
Inteface number: 01, Endpoints: 81 01
Switching to P2kmode (cca. 2-3 sec)
Search for Motorola Test Command.
Found Interface: Motorola Test Command
Inteface number: 01, Endpoints: 82 01
This is P2k05 phone.
P2k:>

Good luck. Although I can get connected to the phone, I've not been able to make p2k-core upload files for me. It says it's uploading, but when I rescan the file system, there's nothing new there. Just sending those bits off the end of the plank, I guess.

If you can't get it to connect, try connecting to the phone using simple AT commands in your favorite terminal program (like minicom), and troubleshoot from there as you would a regular modem. If the /dev/ttyACM0 file isn't being created, check that the 99-motorola-v3xx file syntax is correct. If it's off, there will be messages from udevd in /var/log/messages complaining about it. If it's correct, unplug the phone, put udevd into debug mode, tail the messages file, and plug the phone back in:

# udevcontrol log_priority=debug
# tail -f /var/log/messages |grep udev &
(plug in phone)

Lindsey Vonn Tied for Overall Cup Lead

Lindsey Vonn (nee Kildow) is now tied for the overall World Cup title in alpine skiing. And at 24, she is just getting warmed up. She now shares the title for most downhill victories by an American with Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves. The last, and only, US female to win the overall title was Tamara McKinney in 1983.

Bode is also leading the overall World Cup title for the men. They say he's racing smarter this year, being patient in the slaloms, which paid off big in the combined compeititons, leading him to take the combined cup earlier this season. He's currently tied with Bennie Raich for sixth on the all time win list among men!

So both overall World Cup title leaders are Americans. Last time the season ended like that was in 1983 when Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney both took the overall titles.

Frisky Dingo

Episode 4 of Frisky Dingo: Best Episode of Anything Ever.

It has everything. Every single line is pure gold. Every character is developed. I think I've watched it about 6 times now.

"My God, the sheer genius of it," cries Killface, at the unveiling of Watley's Antfarm Keyboard.

I can't believe how well put together this show is. I wish I could put some video up here, but copyright infringement, blah blah.

This is the first episode that Watley says "I like to call it Lost Wages," referring to Las Vegas, to which Xander immediately chuckles, "Nice." Those lines are repeated in later episodes, as Watley recycles that pun again and again. Xander never gets tired of it.

Awesome-X and his posse of robotic soldiers, the Xtacles, who he actually thinks are robots, even though they're in fact real men in robotic suits, track Killface to an ostensibly Chinese dry cleaner, Mao, whom Killface convinced to front $64k to have a coupon for his laundromat printed on the back of the Annihilatrix postcards, which were supposed to announce the Annihilatrix to every inhabitant of Earth. They were misprinted, by the way, reading 'Welcome to You're "Doom"', which caused Killface extensive shame and embarrassment. As Awesome-X interrogates Mao, who's actually a young white man disguised as an Asian in order to qualify for a minority business loan, which injustice Awesome-X is preparing to kill him for, he says to him, as Mao negotiates for his life with coupons,

"I'm going to need a few more. More, like a whole box more, and the villabouts of the wheran Kelly."
"You mean 'the whereabouts of the villain Killface'," chimes in one of the Xtacles, through the radio in his helmet,
"Did I just say 'the villabouts of the wheran Kelly?'"
"Yep," the Xtacle replies.
"'Cause I think I've been doing that a lot lately. I wonder if it's a tumor."
After a brief pause, the Xtacle responds, "I know a good cancer doctor."

Adult Swim has just started airing reruns of Sealab 2021 (last night, I think), which was the predecessor to Frisky Dingo, and also created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, and is a great show, but not nearly as good as Frisky Dingo, although Debbie DuPree is hotter than Grace Ryan, for some reason, IMHO.

Beef Daube Notes

The Beef Daube recipe has held up exceptionally in the refrigerator all week, and I haven't tired of it in the least.

Favorite method of consumption: served over chunks of toasted French bread.

Andy on Jasper Johns

Another Andy Warhol video, but they are so funny.



According I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews : 1962-1987, Andy goes on to say, "He does this great thing with chicken. He puts parsley inside the chicken." I'm going to have to check that book out.

Andy Being Andy

I first saw this clip in a video about Andy Warhol my art teacher (the inimitable Mrs. Roselyn Leary) let me borrow in High School. I had forgotten about it until I was looking up Andy Warhol on Youtube... here it is:



Hehe. Uh, no. Uh, yes. One of the best interviews ever.

Also worth pointing out are these little Velvet pearls found...

Live footage of Venus in Furs being played in front of a group of now-famous, but nonetheless hilarious dancers. The guy w/the whip is Gerard Malanga, a regarded artist in his own right. Not sure about the dude w/the cigarette in his mouth doing what looks to be an early precedent of the Elaine Dance.

Nico and Lou performing Femme Fatale live!!! Nico is brunette in this footage, which was kind of a surprise for me. I think it suits her.

Adventures in Beef Daube

So I had this 3 lb. bottom round sitting in the refrigerator for two days, and I figured I better do something with it quick. I got online and typed "bottom round" in the search bar at cooks.com, and got a lot of hits for pot roast, sauerbraten, and beef daube. Ah... beef daube. I remember enjoying it at a French cafe in Kirkwood, MO. The cafe was aptly named Cafe Provençal, since it specializes in Provençal cuisine. So I figured I'd give it a try...

I settled on this recipe as my main direction, called Daube Bignami. I cut the roast into large pieces, and followed the recipe, substituting garlic powder for chopped garlic because I didn't have any fresh garlic. I used about half a bottle of Red Bicycle merlot I had on hand, and covered w/about two cups of water. I let it simmer for about an hour, filling the house with a nice wine-food smell, and then I started taste testing the broth.

I must say it was pretty bland. I hadn't added any salt yet, so I added about a tablespoon of kosher salt and let it simmer for another 10 minutes then tried it again. Eh, getting better, but not there. I started leaving it uncovered so it would reduce into something more bold, but it was still not getting there. Finally after about 2.5 hrs of reduction, the meat was getting so tender I was afraid to let it go any more, so I took the meat out, into containers, and into the fridge, and then proceeded to reduce the broth more aggressively.

All the while I'm doing this, I was studying my calculus, like a good boy, and sipping on my Vernors ginger ale. Vuuuhnuhs, as I like to call it. Mmmm... it's so good. I'm sipping some now. But at the time I was remarking how well it played with the taste of that broth. So I decided what the hell, that broth is lame, so I'm going to throw a couple pieces of ginger in there. I happened to have some crystallized ginger on hand. In go two pieces, and a little white pepper.

As I'm waiting for that flavor to be incorporated, I'm looking at the spice rack, and I see that tin of lavender that I never get to use. Well, lavender is everywhere in France, from what I understand, and this is a French dish, and lavender is often a flavor in French wines, I think... so... what the hell.

In goes about a teaspoon of lavender... 30 minutes later... mmm! I mean mmm!! Finally managed to turn the corner w/this dish. I think I'm onto something here.

OK, it's been reducing down to almost nothing, and it's gotten very thick, just where I want it. I've cut off the heat, and stirred it well, and now it's just steaming off a little more, and I'm going to pour it over the meat that's already been removed to the plastic containers in the fridge, and let that mellow overnight. I have a feeling tomorrow's lunch is going to rock!

PS: After posting this, I went to Google to find a picture to put up with this post, and quickly learned that lavender is actually one of Provence's primary attractions. Ha! Just type "provence" in Google's image search, and see that about half the pictures that come up are fields of lavender. Imagine that. I also searched for "beef daube lavender", but found only one beef daube recipe that calls for lavender, so maybe it's like a secret ingredient or something... seems like it would be more of a standard for the consummately Provencal dish.

The picture I've posted here is of an actual lavender field in Provence. I wonder if the lavender I have came from there.

Concerning the Grasping and Releasing of Things

When I feel particularly ordered, I grasp and release things in a certain way, precisely, and completely, then I roll step from room to room, effecting a gliding motion, and bound up and down the stairs on the balls of my feet.

Drinking a glass of cold water is a special ritual in this mode, where every sip is a carefully measured action, tipping the glass to a locked angle, then back to level with the floor, the meniscus coming to rest perpendicular to my spine, and placing the pitcher back into the refrigerator is swift and mechanical, but the liquid moves only a minimal amount.

Sit, stand, roll step to the kitchen, switch the light on, perform the chore, switch the light off, walk back to the dining room table, place the glass neatly on the table, sit down with correct posture, take the pencil into my hand, and resume calculations.

Alpine Racing: Distilled

With his win in the Super Combined at Chamonix, France, Bode has taken the overall title lead in the FIS World Cup! Go Bode!

Watching Bode take the carousel turn in the downhill portion of the Super Combined, the following thought occurred to me:

There are two necessary criteria for a winning run, and everything else that you do is essentially in support of them: carving each turn cleanly, and taking the tightest line.

These two things are completely dependent on each other as well. You can carve the cleanest turns in the field, but if you're not taking the tightest line, it's pointless. Likewise, if you're taking the tightest line, but spraying out like crazy, you're not going to win.

Carving a clean turn means you carry every bit of energy possible that you put into the turn with you into the next turn. If your edges release in the slightest bit, you are losing energy.

Everything else you do with technique is performed in order to make those two things happen. For instance, balance and rhythm are required to properly manage your center of mass, in order to keep those edges carving. Likewise, you may be physically incapable of holding your edges through the most direct line, so may be forced to round out the turn by initiating it early, in order to carve cleanly.

Note that it never makes sense to sacrifice a clean turn for a longer run between gates. A racer is constantly gambling, trying to determine when waiting any longer before initiating the turn will result in a messy turn. If you're not gambling, pushing yourself, letting those skis run as long as possible between turns, you're not going to win.

The better you can hold your edges through a turn, as your line tightens, the faster your run will be. Given that each racer's weight varies, which means that the momentum produced as the racer slides down the hill varies, and how well the skis are sliding (the tuner's problem), and also how well the racer utilizes the rebound of the skis to generate further speed in the turn... given all those things equal, the winning run comes down to the lowest combination of energy lost in each turn and distance from start to finish.

Yes, I am taking a break from studying my calc III right now, so everything is reduced to an equation in my mind at this point...

Macy's Credit Card Ripoff Revisited

Well, just got off the phone with Corinne at Macy's Credit Services, and she informed me that because I didn't opt out in the first 30 days, it is too late. I explained that I didn't realize I had the account in the first 30 days.

I'm not really sure this fiasco is blog worthy, but I leave it posted as a cautionary tale.

She said there was really nothing she could do. I tried to calmly blurt out that if I could not be given a satisfactory resolution to this situation, I would be filing a complaint with the BBB and the MO Attorney General's office. The words sounded rushed, and I think I took a slight breath in the middle of the sentence. I really don't like threatening people, and for some reason in that moment I had difficulty detaching. I was trying to be both personable with Corinne, and firmly stand up for myself against the Macy's corporation.

I was careful to keep my FM voice, and to let her finish speaking before I spoke. Things like that go a long way with people when dealing with a stressful situation, and people like Corinne have to deal with these situations all day long, but she wasn't mean.

She explained that the two-account system was described in the documentation sent to me, and I responded by asking her if she thought any sensible person would be able to determine that they were given two accounts on a single card by reading that fine print.

After a brief waiting period she came back on the phone and said that it turns out I can still be opted out of the Visa card.

And there was much rejoicing.