I wrote this in 1997 and found it in my old pre-blog Web 1.0 archives. I decided to republish it here because, you know, I could. Some of it may even be relevant today.
Before blogs we did this kind of thing in wysiwyg tools (FrontPage 97 for this piece) and then FTPd to a web server.
The original page is still on the web but it is not known to Google. Astonishingly it's in the Wayback Machine.
I usually share my blog posts to Pinboard, and from there some creaky old services create tweets and an archive on kateva.org/sh. Not this post though. This post is purely for the search engines. Here I will reveal knowledge lost to humanity. As far as Google can tell, it's not available anywhere but here.
I have been through 3-4 kinds of cross-country ski binding -- 3 pin, something with a post that went straight up (Salomon?) and then bindings I thought of as SNS (in fact they are all SNS Profil, the first version of SNS). I have SNS Profil bindings on 3 "classic" skis all between 25 and 38 years old. All work quite well and, given the limited present and worse future of Nordic skiing I've no reason to replace them. (I'd buy skate ski gear if Minnesota winter were not dying, but I invested in a Kona Wo fat bike instead.)
Which brings me to the point of this post. The bindings work, but after 40 years or so the boots have disintegrated. I needed to either replace the bindings on 3 skis (does anyone even do that on such old gear?) or find SNS boots. Problem is Salomon stopped making SNS boots sometime in the past decade. They are an obsolete proprietary system that was replaced by NNN (and probably more modern proprietary variants too). I might be able to find used boots, but that's a long slow process. Happily, in this one area, Google still works. I found a new pair of Salomon R/Pilot Combi (Combi because they are supposed to work for classic and skating) boots from Boulder Nordic Sport and had them shipped to my home in Minnesota. Despite being marked as US size 10 they were EU 44 -- really US 10.5. Even then they are bit on the generous side, but they fit me well enough. I think Solomon made biggish boots.
They also fit my bindings. They came with a tiny manual that actually describes what ancient discontinued Salomon boot fits which binding types. This is information that can be found nowhere else -- but even this obscure manual is misleading. So here is an enhanced version:
SNS PROFIL boots with 1 bar at toe -> SNS PROFIL bindings
SNS PILOT boots (1 bar at toe, 1 under ball of foot) -> SNS PROFIL bindings and SNS PILOT bindings (in other words, all SNS)
PROLINK boots -> PROLINK or NNN bindings
NNN boots -> PROLINK or NNN bindings
The Salomon's site for my R/Pilot Combi boots says they have 1 rail, but in fact they have two rails. Which fits their name. They do seem to fit my old Profil bindings, just as this old web page says (emphases mine):
... Some of the boots that use the Salomon SNS Profil binding include Salomon, Atomic and Hartjes...
... Salomon also makes SNS Pilot bindings, and while Pilot boots can be used with a normal Profil binding, normal Profil boots cannot be used with Pilot bindings. There’s an extra hinge thingie on the Pilot bindings that attaches to the center of the Pilot boots and there’s no attachment point on the Profil boots...
In short, if you have SNS bindings, the "Pilot" boots should fit them.
PS. More on these old obsolete gear from the "binding confusion" page:
There are two main versions of the SNS Series, the Profil and the Profil Pilot ... the black, extra hinge attachment plate in the middle of the Pilot binding.
... There’s only one cross bar on the SNS Profile and two cross bars on the Pilot. The Pilot system was intended to help stabilize the boot for skaters but I like it better for classic style striding as well.
There is both a manual and automatic version of the SNS Profil. The difference between the two versions is you physically have to open the manual styles by lifting up on the toe piece of the binding and the automatics you can simply step in to attach and use your ski pole to push down the release button on the toe piece to step out of them....
... Salomon also has the Propulse binding, which promises greater kick, but as far as I can tell, it accepts all SNS Profil boots...
On the 9th of August 2009 I wrote a post on at the start of my 51st year. It included an estimate that I was at "70% lifetime strength”. That was an improvement over June of 2008.
I figured it was downhill from there.
I was wrong though. Four years later, in April of 2013, I started doing CrossFit. It’s enlightening to look back at what I wrote then:
… I now do CrossFit twice a week; that's about as much as I have been able to safely handle. I currently need 3 days to heal between each session. Between sessions I do my usual 2 hours of bike commuting one day a week...
...After five months, despite my back strain injury, St Paul CrossFit has worked well for me. I haven't developed much visible muscle, but I'm significantly stronger and I can handle more exertion. My weight didn't decrease until about month 4, since then I dropped 8 lbs and am close to my optimal weight.
The net effect is that physically I perform and feel more like I did at 44 than at 54. That's a big difference; if I feel at 62 the way I was at 52 I'll be content.
I'm not as keen on CrossFit as some but I enjoy the people, the exercise, and the game of staying within my limits … I'll probably go to three times a week when ice and snow stop my bicycle commute...
… At 54 I'm into managed-decline rather than improvement, but at 34 I'd have been tempted. CrossFit workouts are intense -- and I'm not sure five or even four workouts a week makes sense for most 35+ bodies…
Six years later I would frequently do CrossFit five times a week, and I usually managed four times a week. At age 59, six years after starting, I amazed myself by surviving a 300 lb deadlift. That’s warmup weight for a strong middle-aged man, but it was a lot for me.
I've had several weight lifting and gymnastic personal records in the past two years. “Managed decline” didn’t happen at 54 after all -- despite being hit by the familial arthritis train at age 56. In retrospect, while my physiologic maximums had been declining for decades, there was more head room than I’d expected. I just started living closer to that maximum performance level.
But we know how the story ends. We know what 85 looks like. There’s a steep descent ahead.
I think I’ve started that run. Over the past few months I’ve been more fragile, prone to old injury patterns, healing more slowly. I didn’t make my 8/1/ Bar Muscle Up goal (still training though).
My peak performance has met my downward trending physiologic limit.
They probably met in May of 2019 - 3 months ago, but I only got the message last week when a minor back strain passed all my usual fitness tests — and got suddenly worse on a warmup lift. The rules changed.
I greeted this understanding with the mature wisdom of an Old person.
Hah, hah. Not really. I wanted to cry. I was crying on the inside. For a day or two anyway.
Now I have to figure out the new rules. I’m off CrossFit until after my early September Maah Daah Hey mountain bike trail ride — I need to be as rehabbed as possible until I’ve done that trip. So I’m doing my training rides, my rehab weight lifting (my strict pull-ups are 50% improved, also working on a new bench PR!), started swimming again, picking up more inline skating.
I’m studying my Supple Leopard book.
When I return to CrossFit (9/9/2019 is the plan) I can max on the cardio and the body weight reps and I can keep training for my maybe-never-bar-muscle-up, but it will be months before I let myself do serious weights. I have to figure out the new rules.
Maybe next year I’ll do my first triathlon.
Update 12/6/2019
So this week I set new lifetime best weight lifts in clean & snatch, front squat (17 lb increase!) and back squat. More than I’ve ever done before. I was also just 5lbs short of my PR for bench press. Aced every 1 rep max test over 5 consecutive days.
The back? After 6 weeks it was 80% better, after 10 weeks 100%. I think it was a posterior L5/S1 disk — that resolved.
The bar muscle up? No, not quite. But today I was agonizingly close. If I’d piked forward I’d have made it. By far the best ever.
I do not understand all this.
Update 2/3/202
In 2018 I met one of my two CrossFit Life Goals (tm) - 10 consecutive dubs (hit 42 in a wild fluke the other day). Only took me five times as long as anyone else I know.
The other goal is the Kipping Bar Muscle-Up. So that’s on the list for 2019. I’m also planning an IMBA “Epic” mountain bike trek — the Maah Daah Hey, but that’s mostly about showing up and moving my feet. The Bar Muscle-Up may be impossible, so it’s more interesting. (Watching Paoli video I should be able to do it now [1], but that’s now what I’m feeling!)
I’m putting my training notes and references on this page.
Examples
Movement notes
Some of the best tips came from a post in the CrossFit Physicians Facebook group.
For the pull up & over the bar. Pick a spot on the floor in front of you. Your goal is to stare at that spot all through the first part of the kip and the initiation of the transition into the hollow position & first part of the pull. At some point, as you pull your hips up to the bar, you're going to lose that spot from your vision (it's unavoidable - the head tilts backwards), but your goal is to see that spot again as soon as possible. The instant you don't see the spot anymore, your sole focus is to find it again. This will help you with the speed necessary to execute the transition. Actionable cue: "find the spot".
Training programs
Some of these are for the (ring) muscle-up, the bar muscle-up is considered to be harder
Training exercises
[1] Well, not now exactly. My left biceps is strained, so I have to rehab that first.
Update 2/3/2020
I posted the first version of this on Dec 27, 2018 and I succeeded on Feb 3, 2020.
It took me over 13 months. At one point, probably June 2018, I bet my 17yo daughter I’d get it done by my 60th birthday on Aug 1 2018. If I’d succeeded she owed my $10. If I failed, I would pay her college.
Emily and I are paying her college.
In August 2018 I was feeling kind of bleh and this looked impossible. To my surprise I started to recover in October and have been getting stronger over the past 5-6 months. Maybe the protein and creatine shakes helped. I also started doing more CrossFit for weird (but good) family reasons — 4-6 a week instead of 3-4 a week.
I didn’t end up following any of the programs above. I just worked on pull-ups whenever I could and I practiced with bands. I could do BMUs with a “green and blue” (green is BIG), then the sequence went like this (typically 3 at a time, the first is usually hardest):
- 1/9/2020: single black band 3 consecutive
- 1/20/20: red and blue then thin red, orange, blue
- 1/22: blue+thin red+orange
- 1/29: blue and 1 orange
- 2/3/20: During a “max MU in 4 minutes” WOD I started with blue, red, and orange bands and in about 4 sets of 3 I dropped bands until I did 3 with two thin orange bands and then one with no bands. When I actually succeeded it didn’t seem that hard. Timing is key.
The most useful advice I was given was "wrap your hands as far over the bar as possible. It's basically a 'false grip' maneuver that you've probably seen on the rings, just on the bar.” I didn’t really understand it at first, but it means having wrists above the bar when you start. I had note understood how hard I had to grip the bar and lever myself up.
I hope I do more, but in terms of my goal I only had to do one.
I awoke last night sweaty and anxious.
I was dreaming about the kipping muscle up; a move that still eludes me.
Which is nuts. I am an old man. Acrobats do this stuff in their sleep. Even when I was young I didn’t aspire to being an acrobat. CrossFit is invading my dreams…
Maybe it’s because the regular workouts have become normal. I was 53 when I started 3.5 years ago, now after a few hundred workouts even handstand pushups don’t seem that exceptional. After the first year I did 70-80% of the “women’s Rx”. Now as an older guy I sometimes do the “men’s rx” — and I usually do at least the women’s. I started out going twice a week, now I do 3-4 CrossFit workouts and 2 light workouts at a typical gym while my 17yo does his Tae Kwon Do. (Plus hockey, mountain biking, inline skating, etc)
It’s hard to remember when tattoos and workout music seemed novel or when I thought big guys would notice how puny I am (that’s truly funny, but there you go).
I once thought it was kind of amazing to do CrossFit as an old man. Now it seems like something anyone with decent knees can do. It’s just a matter of scaling. Do 1/5 of the weight and half the reps. Do regular pushups instead of handstand pushups. Use bands. It can mostly be scaled. It’s hard to get around truly bad knees though.
So what sticks now are the things I suck at, skill moves like double-unders (I’m absolutely the world’s worst) and the muscle ups (bar and ring).
CrossFit is fun. It’s safer than walking around Saint Paul — our drivers are distracted dolts. Good gyms like Union Fitness - CrossFit Saint Paul will make you feel your money is well spent. Lots of slots for a flexible schedule, great peers, great coaches. Done with care CrossFit will fix your sore back (once mine was worse than yours). Exercise doesn’t control weight in clinical trials — but they’re not sending people to CrossFit. CrossFit will control weight if you have any kind of diet control. You don’t have to move to the Twin Cities (though you are welcome) either, there are good gyms in small towns and big cities now. You can find one near you.
Give it a try.
If my familial genetic arthritis holds off (big if) I now don’t see why I can’t be doing CrossFit into my 60s and 70s. Sure I won’t lift as much, and maybe I’ll never do a muscle up, but I’m good at scale. CrossFit ain’t the fountain of youth, but it’s as close as we can get.
I like inline skating. I started in the 90s a year or so before it peaked, and I’ve watched it decline since. I still skate, as does my #2 son.
It’s fallen a long way. The last time I skated I noticed young children staring in amazement, some asking their mothers what I was doing. Our lovely night skate expired five years ago.
Sports have fashions of course, and inline skating has issues. It needs dry conditions and smooth surfaces; bicycles are far more versatile. If you don’t wear wrist protection, and you skate often, you have a good chance of breaking your wrist (wrist protection drops the risk, it doesn’t eliminate it). Pavement is not kind to skin. Head injury risk is probably higher than with non-peleton road biking.
So it’s not hard to see why it might fade. Skateboarding has many of the same issues, and it’s not doing well either.
On the other hand, inline skating (“rollerblading”) is fun. To me it’s a cross between downhill and nordic skiing — two great sports. It’s no good in the rain, but it doesn’t need snow. It’s an easy way to get around; when I dropped my car off for tire repairs today I skated home from the garage. It’s painful when you crash every few years, but it’s easier on the knees and hips than running or even mountain biking.
I think there’s another factor.
I blame sealcoating. Sealcoating is the application of a mixture of petroleum products and fine stone to asphalt road surfaces. We didn’t always do sealcoating, it grew rapidly in the 80s and 90s. Now most streets undergo sealcoating every 8 years in Saint Paul MN.
Sealcoating has environmental issues, but it does extend the lifespan of city streets and trails. It’s not a problem for cars or bikes.
It’s a problem for inline skates though. Sealcoated surfaces are miserable to skate on for at least 1-2 years. They get tolerable after 4-5 years, but then they get coated again.
Once sealcoating became universal it got much harder to find smooth and fun surfaces to skate on.
I think sealcoating is what truly killed inline skating.
See also.
Adult ice hockey is a new hobby. Unsurprisingly there are lots of adult no-checking leagues in the Twin Cities, JMS Hockey is the one I went with. Actually, I should say “we” went with. My #1 son is 18 now, and he is the first identified special needs adult hockey player in our league. We play on the same line — he plays at the top range of the “lower level” games and I’m at the bottom. After more than 10 years of managing his hockey teams and even becoming a level 1 coach (no skills required) I finally got off the bench.
Despite growing up in Montreal when Les Habs ruled hockey I’m a lousy hockey player. Fortunately I’m not a bad skater, though lately somewhat knee impaired. So I’m trying to pick up some stick handling skills.
This blog post is where I’m going to put the video links and references I like — largely from HowToHockey.com [1] and a UK(!) Hockey Tutorial I’ll update it over the season (assuming I last).
Basic snapshot and wrist shot (because this is so embarrassing right now)
Most basic shot, what I’m learning now. When learning face the puck.
Quick shot taken when skating to net, face the net, puck to the side.
[1] There are many books and videos on mountain biking skills. Hockey players don’t generally do that kind of thing.
There was a competition underway when I first visited CrossFit St Paul; it had pounding beats, tattoos, (relatively) young people. Something new for an old guy. I felt dorky, but I'm good with that. I decided if I lasted a few months I'd have something worth sharing -- one old guy's experience with the relatively new fad of high intensity workouts.
Four months and one back injury later, I'm still at it. My initial exposure was misleading; I'm usually the oldest person in my regular classes -- but often not by much. There's one guy who might be about 60; he's a lot stronger than me. I'm getting used to the beats, and even wearing short socks and semi-fashionable gym shorts -- though my shoes aren't the right tech. Contrary to my initial impression my CrossFit classes are about half women.
So why did I start with CrossFit, how has it worked for me, and what's the downside?
I started because 50 is not the the new 40. It is same as its ever been -- early old. Among other things that means getting noticeably weaker from year to year. For me it also meant calorie restriction took as much muscle as fat. I need to keep up with my kids, so I needed a lot more exercise.
No problem -- I like exercise. Not running mind you -- I've not done that since undergrad days. Lots of other stuff though - cycling, swimming, nordic skiing, hiking, hockey.
Problem is my version of 54 comes with a lot of family obligations, not to mention (still and for the moment) a job. My life is good, but rich. The only thing I can cut out now is sleep -- and I need more of that. So I needed lots more exercise, but I had only a couple of hours to spare.
So that's why I took a look at CrossFit five months ago. Group psychology to drive effort, coach driven but cheaper than a private trainer, no contract, extreme variety, enough danger to keep me awake (more on that later), lots of sessions I can fit into a packed and variable schedule, facility directly on my weekly commute, engaging franchise owners - it was a good fit.
Ok, Andrew, it was also because you kept bugging me about it.
There was one other motivation - a big one. I didn't believe the late 90s reports that significant exercise delayed dementia onset, but the evidence has continued to accumulate. I suspect it's not as beneficial in humans as it is in animal studies, and I suspect it works better for some genotypes than others -- but it's all we have. Nothing else makes much difference. I need to keep my brain until my youngest is in college - 8 years from now. So moe exercise.
I did a private "on boarding" -- extra cost but it let me work around my schedule and my health status. I learned I was even less fit than I'd expected. After I joined the regular program I experienced three phases over 4 months. In the first phase I had remarkable muscle soreness, which led me to wonder about bursts of apoptosis. In the second phase my muscles did better, but I was limited by my poor endurance. In the third phase I was able to run a few miles for the first time in 30 years, and I was no longer always the slowest or weakest participant.
Sometime around the last phase, I had my first CrossFit injury - a back strain. I'm familiar with that problem, and the rehab routine went well. I'll get back to the injury bit.
I now do CrossFit twice a week; that's about as much as I have been able to safely handle. I currently need 3 days to heal between each session. Between sessions I do my usual 2 hours of bike commuting one day a week, 1-2 hours of inline skating with my #2 son, and 40 minutes of conventional Cybex workouts with my #1 son, focusing on back, abdomen and some base arm strengthening. Time spent with #1 son is considered family duty, so the new regime added about 2 hours to my week. I made that up by spending less time writing on my blogs, I manage my writing compulsion by microblogging with Pinboard, PourOver and app.net.
After five months, despite my back strain injury, St Paul CrossFit has worked well for me. I haven't developed much visible muscle, but I'm significantly stronger and I can handle more exertion. My weight didn't decrease until about month 4, since then I dropped 8 lbs and am close to my optimal weight.
The net effect is that physically I perform and feel more like I did at 44 than at 54. That's a big difference; if I feel at 62 the way I was at 52 I'll be content.
I'm not as keen on CrossFit as some but I enjoy the people, the exercise, and the game of staying within my limits. My two sessions a week are well worth the $135/month I'm paying; I'll probably go to three times a week when ice and snow stop my bicycle commute.
Which brings me to injury risk, and Jason Kessler's CrossFit experience ...
Why I Quit CrossFit (Jason Kessler)
On my very first day of CrossFit, I threw up. It happened my second day, too. And the third. And pretty much all of the first month...
For the next three years, I squatted, pulled, pushed ...
… CrossFit was unlike any workout I had ever done before. It throws out the traditional-health-club model of machines and isolated exercises and replaces them with a whole-body approach rooted in the real world. Calisthenics, Olympic lifting, and gymnastics combine to form a workout that emphasizes ten basic physical skills: cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, strength, speed, coordination, power, accuracy, balance, and agility. Every day, a new workout (called the Workout of the Day, or WOD) is written on a whiteboard, and everyone in a class completes the same workout no matter what fitness level they’re at.
... Your typical CrossFitter wants to zap his fitness tank down to zero by the end of a workout. He’s not content to be just sweaty — he wants to collapse into a heap on the floor...
…. quickly amped up the frequency of my visits from three to four, then five days per week. Without even realizing it, I became that evangelizing asshole who makes people think that CrossFit is a cult...
… Not everyone gets injured to the point where he has to get knee surgery, but I did. I also developed a chronic shoulder injury that to this day, eight months after my last CrossFit workout, is still a constant reminder ... the penalty for not executing movements with perfect form, but I’ve come to believe that having perfect form 100 percent of the time is literally impossible...
Jason was lifting an awesome amount of weight but even for less ambitious athletes the injury risk is real - largely because of the focus on technique-critical Olympic style free weight lifting and on continuous improvement. At 54 I'm into managed-decline rather than improvement, but at 34 I'd have been tempted. CrossFit workouts are intense -- and I'm not sure five or even four workouts a week makes sense for most 35+ bodies.
My gray hair means I get gentle encouragement that I can use or ignore, but younger, keener people could get in trouble. I think CrossFit could do a better job of teaching early recognition of injury and ways to respond to it. Since we pay based on our use rate there is a bit of a perverse incentive at work here, but the St Paul franchise has added Yoga and other lower intensity programs that can round out 2-4 high intensity workouts.
For me the risk feels less than pickup hockey (head, knee, face, laceration) or serious downhill skiing (knees), but a bit higher than inline skating (head) or road biking (cars -> infrequent but serious injury). In other words, it's in the risk range I'm used to, even though it's higher risk than traditional gyms or high intensity Pilates. Honestly, for me, managing the risk is part of the appeal. I suspect as CrossFit evolves, however, there will be tracks that deemphasize the riskier weight maneuvers and more focus on early response to injury.
Will I still be doing CrossFit at 64? It seems unlikely, but it's not impossible. I'll let you know.
Update 9/23/2013
Still enjoying CrossFit and staying injury free, but I do wonder if our gym is a little atypical...
Getting Fit, Even if It Kills You - New York Times 12/2005
... For his first CrossFit session, he swung a 44-pound steel ball with a handle over his head and between his legs.. ... That night he went to the emergency room, where doctors told him he had rhabdomyolysis, which is caused when muscle fiber breaks down and is released into the bloodstream, poisoning the kidneys. He spent six days in intensive care.
... The short grueling sessions aren't for the weekend gym warrior. The three-days-on, one-day-rest schedule ... "Murph," a timed mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and then a second mile run. (A weighted vest is optional.)
Mr. Glassman, CrossFit's founder, does not discount his regimen's risks, even to those who are in shape and take the time to warm up their bodies before a session.
"It can kill you," he said. "I've always been completely honest about that."
... "If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks," he said.
I rather doubt I'll be doing "Murph" in this life, and I like 1 day on, 2-3 days of something else. Good thing I've never run into "Coach" Glassman.
I wasn't at the very first Minneapolis Friday Night skate, but I remember Allan and Mike ...
Inline Skating (Rollerblading) Resource Center - Starting a Night Skate
... Mike Merriman and Allan Wright started the Minneapolis Friday Night Skate in 1998. More or less following the strategies above, the Minneapolis FNS was instantly successful with several dozen skaters the first evening. Participation rose dramatically with publication of a full article in a local paper, appearance by Allan on the local news station (the weatherman joined him on skates), and taping of the event by another television station. By the second year, the skate had reached levels of 150 skaters each time....
From the above page on starting a night skate you'll get to Zephyr Adventures, Allan still owns it and runs tours.
I think I joined in 1998 or 1999. I do remember the excitement; 100 skaters is a lot in Minneapolis. The skate varied over the years, but it usually looked something like this:
In the early years there was a hint of anarchy to the skate. Even then we were Minnesotans and not kids besides -- so it was only mildly improper.
Allan was dashing and charismatic, so it's not surprising that attendance declined after he moved on. Perhaps more importantly, inline skating popularity peaked in the mid 90s. By the early 2000s we were fortunate to get 30 skaters, but that was still an excellent number.
Even in 2009, when family obligations kept me away from most of the skates, I loved it. The Stone Arch bridge, the spiral trail to Gold Medal Park, the seamy side of Hennepin, flying through Loring in the moonlight, waving to the crowds on Nicollet, watching the best skaters do leaps down the stairs, swooping down the hill and past the Nicollet Inn...
Things go away. By 2010 I'd stopped going, the numbers were too low. Bill F stuck it out through 2011, but sometimes he was the only skater. This year his FNS web site went offline.
One day, perhaps, inline skating will make a comeback, and maybe someone else will do a Friday Night Skate. Or perhaps it will pass into the history of Minneapolis, remembered by very few people.
And this one blog post.
Today there are 182 1 star reviews of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4. If you haven't started the series, even if you've digested the first book, I urge you to read a few. For example....
... GRRM will end up breaking our hearts. He is notorious for not keeping notes and "writing from his mind". So unlike Jordan, who had extensive outlines, notes and ideas for a future ghostwriter to work from in the event of his untimely death, GRRM may leave nothing but an unfinished series...
... The book is filled with plodding, excruciatingly descriptive chapters about the ASOIAF world that don't do much to move the plot forward. Half the chapters consist of characters traveling from point A to point B, or they feel like info-dumps. What happened to the story?...
... feel really ripped off and abused by this book. It is truly awful - not only dull, but positively unpleasant. I started to wonder if he was having a miserable divorce while writing it, because he seems suddenly to have it in for women. So many of the women characters in this book are the same: scheming, mean, controlling, lewd b------. It's the same idea, over and over.
He's awful in what he has happen to the two positive female characters in the book. Everything is negative and horrid in this story. There is no one to root for, not even a couple of characters who were very appealing in the other books.... ... He actually admits in the preface that he had trouble with the book, wrote it far too long and so cut it in half, with all the good characters left out of this one!!!!! It's worse than that - he didn't put much plot in it either...
It's rare in Amazon land to find such a long series of reviews that express my own feelings so well. This series is the Turkish Delight of the fantasy genre -- tasty at first, then vaguely distasteful, and finally calling for an intervention. By the time I got to the fate of Brienne I needed a long shower and a lot of fresh air. Yech.
If you dislike books, and especially series of books, that start without an end in mind - then skip Fire and Ice.
You have been warned.
Update 4/15/12: The Dance with Dragons reviews are equally scathing -- and rather brilliant in places. For example ...
So here is a release schedule, with my estimated projections into the future, giving George 5 years to complete each future volume:
Part I, Vol 1 (A Game of Thrones): 1996Part I, Vol 2 (A Clash of Kings): 1998Part I, Vol 3 (A Storm of Swords): 2000
Part 1.5, Vol 1 (A Feast for Crows): 2005Part 1.5, Vol 2 (A Dance with Dragons): 2011Part 1.5, Vol 3 ... 2016 (Climax in Meereen)
Part 2, Vol 1 .... 2021 Dany reaches Westeros)Part 2, Vol 2 .... 2026Part 2, Vol 3 .... 2031
Part 3, Vol 1 .... 2036Part 3, Vol 2 .... 2041Part 3, Vol 3 .... 2046
The series will never be finished.
The streets were clear today, the sun was up, and the temperatures were the 20s (F). A fine day for a bicycle ride in Minnesota's year without winter.
Next winter I'll probably buy winter bike shoes and studded tires and plan to ride year round.
That's how short term adaptation works in Minnesota, where climate change is already personal. We'll be doing a lot more over the next few decades.
Beyond that, given current trends, the prognosis is poor. I'm relatively sanguine about that. I mean, if we can't figure out something simple like CO2 emissions, then we weren't going to make it as a sentient species anyway. Might as well get it over with.
That's probably a century away though, lots of time for billions of us to experiment with short term adaptation. So, for the Twin Cities, what can we expect from our winters over the next decade? In particular, what can we expect in terms of Real Cold (RC, temp < 5F), Skiable Snow (SS, >8" base), and Skateable Ice (SI)?
Of course I don't really know. But that won't stop me from making some half-educated guesses. I expect winter in 2021 to be rather like this winter. That is no RC, no SS and no SI.
Between now and 2021 I expect 3-5 weeks total of Real Cold. We will complain bitterly -- because we'll be unused to it. I expect 3-4 winters of SS and 5-6 winters of SI.
That means we really can't rely on outdoor ice skating, sledding or nordic skiing. On the other hand, we can't dramatically reduce our snow clearing capacity because every year or two we'll still get dumped on. We can't plan on winter road work either, but some years it will be possible. Some years an exurban commute will be fine, other years it will be intolerable. We'll still have to pay for alley snow clearance -- even for years when there isn't any snow to clear.
That's a big change. I can't estimate the economic impact, but I suspect the unpredictability will mean increased costs (but also more jobs?) from 2011 to 2023. After that, as snow accumulation becomes truly infrequent, costs will fall.
It's easier to predict what we'll need to do to adapt to an unpredictable winter. We'll do what Portland does. That means more community recreation centers with indoor soccer, indoor tennis, indoor golf and indoor swimming (all of which will increase our CO2 emissions). It means even more year round bicycling, perhaps with winter adapted bikes (corrosion-proof drive chains, internal gearing, wide studded tires, etc). Maybe more arenas ($$) and refrigerated ice rinks. St Paul and Minneapolis will invest more in clearing bike trails. Probably more of us will take holidays in other states ...
Any other thoughts on near term adaptations for Minnesota winter?
See also:
I particularly appreciated today's Salon article by Bill McKibben:
Our yearly nordic ski event has run aground. Today's City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation newsletter wins the brave face prize...
... With minimal snow and warm temperatures last week, today and more predicted for this week, the Loppet has moved all festival events to Theodore Wirth Park...
... Obviously, everyone involved wishes that this winter was more winter-like. But we at the Nordic Ski Foundation are truly excited for this weekend. With a shorter loop, spectators will have ample opportunity to cheer on their favorite skiers. All the action will be in close walking distance - with all the things you love about the Loppet right at Wirth Park. This will be the one weekend when the community can celebrate a real Minnesota winter...
... a hiking Luminary Loppet allows for more interesting terrain and a more woodsy and intimate experience. Hikers will enjoy over one thousand ice luminaries, the Ice Pyramid, the enchanted forest, fire dancers, hot cocoa, maple leaf cookies from Canada, s’mores, and, new this year, a ten ounce pour of Surly beer...
I imagine weeping Loppeters pounding Surly while drafting this email.
Not coincidentally, NASA has released a wonderful and terrible animation of 130 years of global temperature variation. It's easy to see how I caught the Nordic bug in the 1970s -- a colder than average time in North America. Temperatures rise and fall around the world -- cold during WW I, warm during the Great Depression. Then, in the last 30 years, the world changes.
We'll still get snowy winters of course. Last year was fairly warm in The Twins, but it was wonderfully snowy. This year is warmer, and much drier. Maybe next year will be in between.
We'll be adapting in ways big and small. Last week my family took a 3 day Nordic ski vacation at Mogasheen Resort on Lake Namekagan near the home of the Birkebeiner and the resurrected Telemark Lodge. We picked the optimal date for snow cover -- and we got what might the only 4 days of top-grade skiing they'll have. This week it's melting.
So next year we'll look at making two reservations. One at Mogasheen, and a fallback near the Keweenaw Peninsula's Swedetown trails or up Minnesota's far Gunflint Trail. We're also going to have to learn how people in Iowa and Missouri make it through their long, dull winters. Tennis anyone?
Surly Long Haul Trucker
... A touring bike’s job is to go the distance and then some, in relative comfort, while carrying you and your gear...
... Its low bottom bracket and long chainstays provide comfort and stability, and those long stays increase heel clearance when carrying packed panniers....
... We gave it ample tire clearance for larger tires (larger tires soak up a lot of road static) with room for fenders too. The frame’s tubing is thicker-walled and larger-diameter than standard road and sport-touring frames, and this pre-tunes it for the weight of cargo. And it’s got braze-ons for everything you’re likely to need, from racks to water bottle cages to spare spokes...The owner/retailer had kitted it out with everything. Surly racks front and rear; wide enough to clear the big cantilever brakes. Front rack dual lights. Three or four water bottles. Giant fenders with rubber flaps. Naturally it had a kickstand, the sign of a don't-give-a-damn serious distance rider.
I've bought four Yakima Steelhead bike mounts over the past decade; all through REI.
All four have broken plastic locking tabs. It's not a rare problem ...
Yakima Steelhead Bike Mount Reviews:
... the red plastic locking tabs are complete junk. I have six of these racks and three are broken, three I don't dare remove from the crossbars as they are about to fail. Yakima support will gladly send me replacements for a mere $54 per rack .... [Yakima's] choice of such a cheap plastic and unwillingness to replace at a reasonable cost has me shopping for Thule...
and
Amazon.com: Anonymous' review of Yakima Steelhead Fork Mount Rooftop Bicycl...
... I had Steelheads many years ago and when I needed a rack for my new car I decided to get another set.... Over time, exposure to the sun has caused the red plastic levers to crumble to pieces, and Yakima Customer Service told me that I would have to buy an entire replacement head which is about half the cost of a new mount. ... Luckily, it can be fixed with a stainless worm screw hose clamp threaded through the slot and around the head to keep the halves together. It doesn't look as nice but it's probably stronger than the original design. It would get 5 stars if Yakima provided service parts for the heads...
The plastic degrades in sunlight.
I'm going to take all four to REI and see if they can get more out of Yakima than their customers can.
Yakima has failed two major tests.
One is that they have known for years that they have a flawed design -- but they haven't fixed it. A second is that they have not offered a low cost replacement program, or a trade-in program to a fixed design.
I expect that from low cost brands, but Yakima is a premium brand. I expect more from them.
Buy Thule instead.
Update 5/26/11: Yakima failed, but REI reminded me why I carry an REI VISA card, and why I've been a member since we made fire from rocks. I paid $100 each for the two racks REI has purchase records for. Turns out I bought the "new" ones in 2003, which is as far back as their electronic purchase database goes. If I can find receipts for the old ones they'll pay for those as well. Considering the age of the racks it would be greedy to claim for all four.
REI rules.
High intensity interval training (HIT) is a popular fix for people with more drive than time ...
What’s the Best Exercise? - Gretchen Reynolds - NYTimes 4/17/11
... High-intensity interval training, or H.I.T. as it’s familiarly known among physiologists, is essentially all-interval exercise. As studied in Gibala’s lab, it involves grunting through a series of short, strenuous intervals on specialized stationary bicycles, known as Wingate ergometers. In his first experiments, riders completed 30 seconds of cycling at the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four minutes, the volunteers repeated the interval several times, for a total of two to three minutes of extremely intense exercise...
The approach seems promising, since most of us have minimal time to exercise each week. Gibala last month published a new study of H.I.T., requiring only a stationary bicycle and some degree of grit. In this modified version, you sprint for 60 seconds at a pace that feels unpleasant but sustainable, followed by 60 seconds of pedaling easily, then another 60-second sprint and recovery, 10 times in all. ‘There’s no particular reason why’ H.I.T. shouldn’t be adaptable to almost any sport, Gibala said, as long as you adequately push yourself."
The NYT likes Dr Gibala, his prior study was featured in a 'Well' blog post of June 2009. The regime sounds a bit faddish, but I do like the idea of a solid workout over 20 minutes (10 minutes out, 10 minutes back). It is well suited to inline skating, bicycling and nordic skiing.
I can see doing this kind of HIT once a week in addition to my other exercise routines. The 'River road' near our home would be perfect for this - few stop signs, limited traffic. I'll look for find a cheap timer I can tape on my handlebars. It's also pretty easy to convert this to indoor (still have a vintage Nordic Track!) when the weather is bad.
I did my first TCBC ride in 12 years tonight. The kids are getting old enough I can take a Dad Night every few weeks; soon they'll be strong enough to join me on these kinds of rides. (I do summer Minnesota Inline Skate Club skates with my middle son, but I often tow him. Harder to do on a bike unless I buy a tandem -- which I'm considering.)
TCBC has the most rides in the metro area, especially the B/C rides I like. (It will be a while before I'm a B rider again; their B rides get pretty fast.) It's not the only recreational club [2] though. Aside from the outre Black Label Bike Club (no local site, that would be inappropriate) there is the Hiawatha Bicycling Club [1], the "Easy Riders" (I've seen them, but can't find a web site), the fitness/performance oriented Ride and Glide [3], The Twin Cities Bicycling Meetup and Twin Cities Social Cycling (meetup).
TCBC is by far the largest and oldest of the recreational road cycling clubs, the other may come and go.
[1] Lower key, often lower pace - but possibly in retirement. Their Javascript heavy web site doesn't appear to work in modern browsers; I wonder if was done using an old version of FrontPage.
[2] There are at least a half-dozen racing clubs, probably twice that.
[3] They do pacelines. I think TCBC only does pacelines on A and some B rides.
From the Jan 2011 MN North Star Ski Club newsletter (emphases mine) ...
“Ted Wirth’s hiking club is on its last legs” This was a Star & Trib article on October 26, 2010 describing the decline and demise of a 90-year old Minneapolis Municipal Hiking Club. It peaked at about 500 members and apparently had a full program of 88 hikes in 1928, for example. One member described her first hike in 1934 as starting at West 54th Street and Penn Avenue South (where Settergrin’s Hardware has been for 100 years), going into the “countryside” and ending at Lake Calhoun.
Currently, the average age of its Board is 84. The article summarizes that the club is victim of aging membership and changing exercise habits. Is this pertinent to our North Star’s with our aging membership and gradually declining numbers? Along with the two previous NS Presidents, I wonder what we can do about this?
The "Ted Wirth" referenced in the Strib article lent his name to one of the best of many excellent MSP parks. Ninety years is an impressive record; most of the recreational clubs I've known had lifespans in the 10-30 year range.
I wonder what they the MMHC did right. Google didn't turn up any tips on what makes for a long-lived club. A lot of people would like to know the answer, not least the evidently shrinking North Star (nordic) Ski Club.
Maybe The Atlantic or The New Yorker will assign someone to survey long lived clubs and ask them how they both recruit new members and retain the faithful core (excluding university associated organizations of course. It's easy for them!). I'd buy that issue ...
Once upon a time tobacco companies distributed abundant free samples. It's a good business model when you're selling an addictive product.
This holiday the kids have been piling up iOS games on their phones, mostly at $1 each. Since FairPlay DRM works on an iTunes/account basis, each app goes to four (soon five) iOS devices.
At 20 cents/app/phone this looks like a heck of a bargain -- but appearances are misleading. Increasingly the apps are entry points to a series of in-app purchases [1]. The real price is a cumulative sum; I'm guessing the average cost is more like $5 than $1. iOS games are rediscovering the Philip Morris business model.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing - for games. It means we can try quite a few games, and only spend money on those we really like.
It's certainly not a bad thing for experimental economists! The App Store is a wonderful model for exploring pricing strategies ...
[1] I don't know how FairPlay treats these. Are they tied to a particular devices or to the account? I suspect the former, which means the FairPlay redistribution (our five devices) becomes a feature, not a problem.
David Pogue writes today about affordable, bigger-than-pocketable, cameras with reasonable ISO 800 images. That made me think about how the digital camera market breaks down at the end of 2010. There are about 5 markets left today, cameras like the Canon G series are being replaced by these newer cameras.
The first category is dead. Why buy an ultra-compact when you own an iPhone 4 or the equivalent?
So that leaves 4 "camera" categories for 2011-2012. The middle two occupy the same two niches that have existed since the 1960s ...
The last category is the interesting one. We've been expecting the MILC for the past decade, so it's hardly a surprise. Manufacturers are now ready to chop the prism and the mirror. By 2012 Nikon and Canon will have MILCs that work with their current lenses, and low end SLRs will fade away.
More than the SLR is at risk; MILCs can be much smaller than the an SLR. That doesn't leave much room for the "rangefinder". So by 2017 we'll have only two categories;
Next year I expect to replace my 4-5 yo Digital Rebel XT with a 2011 model that bloody well better shoot ISO 1200 as well as my current camera shoots ISO 400 [1]. That will almost certainly be the last SLR I'll buy.
[1] More pixels means I can use less optical zoom, so larger F-stop, so the overall light sensitivity per end-image pixel is greater than the ISO difference alone. Needless to say, I'm not impressed with megapixels. I want photons.
