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Today marked the beginning of my third CrossFit week. I have come to realize that there are three characteristics of the program that will keep me coming back.
- First there is the group. It helps me to have a set of peers who are subjected to the same torment. It builds a community, or maybe misery just loves company. As an added bonus they are interesting people of all ages and walks of life.
- Second it the workout of the day (or WOD). Previous workouts for me revolved around the same thing every other workout, with an "arms" day or a "legs" day. Now I don't even have to think about it, I show up, there is a list complete with warm-up and rep count. And it will always challenge me, no matter how fit I am. Why? Because of point three.
- That third point is the tracking of data. Maybe I've been in school for too long, or maybe it is the engineer side, but I like the numbers. Points, time, whatever. If I log it, I can track it. Given time, I'll see the improvements. A quantifiable justification for all the work. Plus, it will always be a challenge because it is a delta comparison. Always calculated as the difference from n-1.
Today wasCrossFit warm-up x3 10 each of Sampson Stretches Over Head Squats Pushups Pullups Situps Back Extensions, "Good Mornings",or "Supermans" WOD For Time: 21 Thrusters 115# Run 1600m or Row 2K 15 Thrusters 115# Run 800m or Row 1K 9 Thrusters Run 400m or Row 500m I did the rowing and less weight, but at least it was a starting point, and I will get there. Tags: fitness
Current Mood: tired
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For those of you on the lookout for signs of the apocalypse, I have one for you that may or may not be mentioned in Revelations. I joined a gym today. Well, it was bound to happen after my annual physical last week. Really it was a combination of factors, including the doctor visit, general restlessness, and the years of sitting in front of a computer. Now was a good time to start, since some of the PhD work is leveling out. This way I can get my body in shape to match the take-no-prisoners-killing-machine that my mind has become. Or something like that. The gym is in Fort Collins, called Emergent Fitness, or EmerFit (though the shortened name reminds me of some sort of seizure). The guy running the place ( Chris) has a number of Crossfit classes every day, and in spite of his demonstrated desire to kill me on the first day, I think I'll be back tomorrow. Current Mood: sore
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The National Academy of Engineering has listed the grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. You can even go to their web site and vote for which you think is the most important challenge to meet in the next 100 92 years
They listed challenges in four areas: sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living.
- In the area of sustainability, they identified challenges in environmentally friendly power, nuclear fusion, capturing carbon dioxide, countermeasures for nitrogen cycle problems, and providing acess to clean water.
- For the area of health, "reverse-engineering" the brain, computer catalogs of health information, and developing new medicines.
- The section on vulnerability covers a counter to the nuclear threat, sustaining the aging infrastructure of cities and services, and could potentially include the improved medicine challenge mentioned earlier.
- For the joy of living area, challenges in personalized learning, improved virtual reality, securing cyberspace, and my personal favorite, engineering the tools used for future scientific discovery.
While I have to agree that these are all noble pursuits, and these would really solve some of the major problems we currently face, I really feel like it is a bit short sighted. If you look at the list of the greatest engineering achivements of the 20th century, I really doubt anyone would have even hit half that list when making predictions in 1908. I would say we are in for things in this century that are barely on the radar for anyone at this point. Current Mood: optimistic
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If I had an observatory at my house, I would be out there all the time. If I had big telescopes at my house, you would have to pry me away with a crowbar. People would be sick of hearing me talk about the stars and planets, and they would run and hide every time I got out the pictures.
But alas, it is not so for everyone. As reported in the Independent, Pope Benedict XVI is moving the observatory off the grounds of his summer residence.
Science is to make way for diplomacy at the Pope's summer residence, with the dismantling of the astronomical observatory that has been part of Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, for more than 75 years. The Pope needs more room to receive diplomats so the telescopes have to go.
Moving it to make more room to receive diplomats? I think the stars would be more interesting, but nobody died and made me Pope. Tags: photography, science, travel
Current Mood: sad
Current Music: They Might Be Giants: Why does the sun shine?
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Every once in a while, an e-mail comes through that reminds me that I work in a strange place. And ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rjlippincott reminded me that I should share these things with you. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ _ From: LAB MANAGER Sent: Yesterday To: EVERYONE THAT WORKS WITH TISSUE Subject: Missing Liver If anyone is missing a liver, it’s in the RF Ablation lab with Tony’s name on it. Current Music: Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb
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As my google homepage was kind enough to point out, the lego brick turns 50 today.
The 50 year anniversary is for the little plastic brick, not the company. The company itself was founded 76 years ago as a wooden toy company.
The LEGO history began in 1932 in Denmark, when Ole Kirk Christansen founded a small factory for wooden toys in the unknown town of Billund in the south of the country. To find a name for his company he organized a competition among his employees. As fate would have it however, he himself came up with the best name: LEGO – a fusion of the Danish words “LEg” and “GOdt” (“play well”).
LEGO has re-released one of their original sets, the Town Plan, in honor of the occasion. One thing that has really amazed me about LEGO bricks (besides the whole best-toy-ever angle) is the level of control they have on the tolerances for each brick. They are made from ABS plastic, which has a shrinkage of around five thousandths of a millimeter for every millimeter of dimension of the part. According to LEGO, thier tolerance is one thousanth of a millimeter. Too small and the parts won't come apart, too big and they won't stick together. To get that across billions of bricks, and across 50 years of technology changes for tooling, and across all the hurdles of mold design and lifespan, that is pretty impressive.
Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: Three Dog Night: Stuck in the Middle with You
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