Spending an evening at Principal Park

Linda and I had tickets to go see the our Iowa Cubs play again. As a bonus, we had an extra ticket and invited Joel to go with us. The weather was great and the Cubs played well against the visitors from New Orleans. In the end, the home town boys prevailed five to one.

Saturday morning funnies

This morning as most, I started my computer, went to my My Yahoo! page and saw that Joel had posted new entries on his blog. The three most recent posts were titled "Self Cleaning Underwear", "Citizenre", and "Mercury Joe."

I couldn't resist a post about self-cleaning underwear and learned that this was not a trick or clever play on words but that the United States Air Force has developed a way to make fabric somewhat self cleaning; the soldiers could wear the same clothes for weeks at a time without ill effect, sometimes even helping clear up certain skin conditions. Evidently, one aspect of the treated fabric is that it has antibacterial capabilities. The article talked about how this technology could easily translate into the fabrics for people in the food preparation or medical fields.

The CitizenRe post was about a new solar energy program that didn't spark much interest for me.

Mercury Joe, however, turned out to make me laugh and I have to do my part as Time's Co-Person of the Year and share it with you.

These guys (did I really have to tell you it was guys?) are sending GI Joe into "space" in the style of the historic Mercury flights of the early 1960s and, in classic guy fashion, inviting the world to "Hey, watch this!" Being a guy and knowing that those three words are often ticket to the front row for very unexpected and sometimes catastrophic events, I visited their site and watched their videos. I was not disappointed. These guys do a very nice job of telling their story in video and stills photos of their sparkling successes and their smoldering failures. I also learned that GI Joe is not their first astronaut. Like the Mercury flights, before sending up an action figure man, they ran initial tests with ... Gumby!

Historic note: The kinda scary looking guys in the photo at the right, you've probably heard of most of them. I got this picture from a government website. They're our first astronauts going through survival training in the Nevada desert.

Wednesday Night Pizza

Last night, Joel and I returned to our old ways by going out for pizza on Wednesday evening. The server even remembered us and our usual order! Though I usually like to try different things from a menu, there is something nice to being known.

After our tasty meal, we roamed about dispelling the myth that Sonic had left the area, seeing the new developments at the newest mall community in the area, and returned home to visit Marlene during the Hawkeyes game.

At work, I had overheard conversation that there was only one Sonic burger joint left in the Des Moines area. Last night, we saw two and can accept that there are more.

The Jordan Creek commercial village is certainly growing. Besides the central mall building, there are bigbox stores, shopping centers, and tiny, upscale "main street" areas with residential capacity. Living at the mall... how much better could it get?! Not really what I'm looking for but, for some, I can understand the appeal.

Marlene is an avid follower of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and really enjoys being able to focus on the games. Our arrival did not bode well. When I asked Marlene if, from her English major mind, she could provide me with an example of a gerund phrase, she knew what kind of evening lay ahead. I am pleased and mightily impressed that she was able to provide an appropriate response to my question; I only know that because I just looked it up. The game did turn out to have an exciting but disappointing conclusion when the Hawks lost a close one at Illinois.

After the game I called it a night and headed on home.

For the grammar curious:

First and foremost, a gerund is the form of a verb, but it is not a verb. Second, it is a noun. And finally, it ends in "ing."

For example:
The story is the same for high-tech farming.
STORY is the subject. IS is the verb. FARMING is the object of the preposition FOR. An object is a noun. A form of a verb that ends in ING and acts as a noun is a gerund.

Can you beat a blog? Informative, somewhat entertaining, and educational!

"I'm goin' fast!"

Tuesday evening, Joel had a hankerin' for a Wisconsin burger so we opted out of our regular pizza outting. Not quite up to the feast that is the Wisconsin burger experience, I went with a smaller, lighter sandwich, saving room for B.Y.O.B. night at the theater!

Unfortunately, the theatrical options were not that appealing so we chose instead to go back to Joel's and watch Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby. Not to miss out on B.Y.O.B., I got a bucketful to go. The movie lived up to the goofy spoof of the NASCAR experience that Will Farrel could produce. A pretty good time and whetted the appetite for more NASCAR news.

With just over seven weeks to go until the Daytona 500, I visited the NASCAR website and saw "72-year-old Hylton plans to enter '07 Daytona 500" headline. Wow! "The cars -- and track -- have changed quite a bit since James Hylton's first Daytona 500." ... um... yeah! Evidently a quality driver in his time scoring 140 top five finishes, he's now eleven years older than Dave Marcis was in 2002 when he drove in the biggest race of the NASCAR season. He'll be driving the 58 this time; 48's gonna be busy defending his titles as champion of both the 2006 Nextel Cup and Daytona 500.

Pizza... and a movie!

After our regular pizza dinner, this evening Joel and I headed over to see the World War I movie, Flyboys. Though somewhat predictable, this action feature never lost my interest. There were several tried and true characters and stories brought together with some very good airborne footage and the occasional twist. I'm guessing that the vast majority of the flight sequences were computer generated but it wasn't distracting; much like the launch footage from Apollo 13 from overhead, no way could a camera be there but it was a great shot and helped convey the feeling. I took a look at what my favorite movie website had to say and people were generally favorably impressed, especially the costuming and the action sequences. Evidently, a number of historical inaccuracies were shown but the film met my expectation as entertainment.

Virtual Reality Radio Control Plane

My friend Joel recently posted information about a Canadian who installed a video camera on his radio controlled plane and then flew it around various locations. That video is very cool and certainly conveys the vision you'd expect to see looking out the front of an airplane. An added dimension to this is that he's flying the plane by watching that video on some sort of virtual reality goggles. The next step apparently was to add gyroscopic sensors to his viewing goggles and install a panning camera in the cockpit of the plane. Now, when he turns his head, the camera moves independent of the plane and let's him sightsee... and, thanks to recording, share the views with us. Very fun idea! Click here to visit Joel's site and get the links to the video.

Shoes ... and Pizza!

Today I made my first financial commitment to the marathon. I've found that one of the keys to having a successful and enjoyable (yes, enjoyable) experience is good equipment... primarily shoes. In my past distance walks I've worn Brooks Addictions. This evening, I tried on the Brooks Beast and really like the feel. There's a huge difference between my five year old Addictions and these cushy new Beasts. The first pair I tried on were functional but a bit short in the toe; in hindsight, I remember our coach saying that our shoes should be roomy enough in the toebox that we could play the piano with our toes. I never really felt that agile but I did get a sense of what he was saying. Another interesting aspect of these shoes was a sensation of a fulcrum just behind the ball of my foot. As my weight moved forward, it felt like I was rolling over a small mound and propelled forward into the push-off of my stride; a nice sensation. I took the advice of my salesman and went up a half size and am looking forward to my next walk.

With new shoes secured, I proceeded on to enjoy an excellent pizza out with Joel. Off and on over the last twelve years, Joel and I have made it our practice to get together once a week for pizza or Wisconsin burgers often followed by a movie Marlene, his wife, would not likely want to see. This evening, we enjoyed a tasty sausage and pepperoni pizza at our current favorite pizza house and ultimately wound up at his house watching news talk TV with Marlene. All in all, an evening well spent, in my book.