End of a Season, 2007; and Head of the Charles

The Pioneer Press has this story today about our Masters Women's 4+ that went to Boston to row on the Charles River:

St. Paul / Minnesota rowers win Boston regatta
Pioneer Press Article
Last Updated: 10/22/2007 08:22:59 PM CDT

Richard Chin

They were up against a team that won a silver medal in the Olympics in Barcelona, but it was rowers from the St. Paul-based Minnesota Boat Club who came out on top of the prestigious Head of the Charles rowing regatta last weekend in Boston.

The Minnesota boat - rowers Jacqueline Hamilton, 40, West St. Paul; Michele Bassett, 41, St. Paul; Patti Koehler, 39, St. Paul; Susan Weeks, 46, Hudson, Wis., and coxswain Erika Twedt, 29, St. Paul - took first place in the women's masters four race, in which the rowers have to have an average age of 40 or older.

They beat 22 other boats in the 5-kilometer race, including the 1992 Olympic veterans who took first place last year at the Charles River regatta. The Head of the Charles is the biggest and one of the most prestigious rowing regattas in the world. The Minnesota boat came in second last year.

"We've been gunning for them. We've been training our hearts out," Bassett said.

I'm so very happy for these guys - they worked extremely hard this fall.

And on that note, I'm also excited because after this morning's practice (when the girl in front of me came off the water with frost on her baseball cap - which probably means I had frost on mine, too), our coach announced that today was the last 5:30am practice of the season. It's getting too dark and too cold (see frost comment above), and a couple other reasons. I'm so excited! We only have one more Saturday morning practice, and then I'm done. Back to the erg room for the winter.

Soil Nail Launcher

I read an interesting article the other day about how World War II technology is being used to stabilize earth around highways in flood-damaged southern Minnesota. A company called Soil Nail Launcher, Inc. uses an air cannon first developed in 1945 to fire nerve gas against Nazi forces. The launcher originally could be used to fire the gas canisters a distance of 7 miles. Now, outfitted to fire 20-foot steel rods into the earth to help stabilize the area, the launcher shoots these rods at speeds of 220mph. Once these rods have been put in place on the grid (of three feet apart, horizontally and vertically), then a concrete-like or mortar substance or natural grass system is used to keep it together.

I don't know why, but I think this is a fascinating use of old technology. At times I think that all the technology from the 40s and 50s is outdated since we've expanded upon it so much, if not out-right replaced it. But then a story like this comes along.

One of the reasons it's being used in southern Minnesota is because to get fed'l relief $$$ for the flooded areas with slope failures, the repairs must be done from already-owned right of ways. This equipment has been performing from the highways themselves, and cuts down on environmental costs (since there's no need to go off-road with heavy machinery for prep work or stabilization). Add to it the fact that they get the job done much more quickly than manual methods, and costs 30-50% less than manual methods, this seems like a pretty ingenious method to re-use technology.

From their website:

The Soil Nail Launcher is a declassified British military cannon that can accelerate a 1.5 inch diameter, 20 foot long steel bar to 220 miles per hour. As these high speed projectiles enter the earth, a shock wave is generated at the tip that causes the soil particles to “jump away”. The bar enters the earth without significant abrasion. The soil particles then collapse onto the bar, providing surprisingly high pullout resistance -- many times greater than for driven bars and rods.

The Soil Nail Launcher is typically mounted on a tracked excavator. It can be mounted on about any vehicle or crane basket frame. It weighs about 2 tons, making it portable and able to reach remote locations.

About any type of bar can be shot into the ground. We can use solid steel, threaded bar or hollow bars that can act as drains and also provide tensile capacity. We can galvanize the bars. We can shoot fiberglass nails. We can pump grout into hollow bars to add capacity and strength. We can
add mesh and plates to a Launched Nail array or spray on a shotcrete facade.

My favorite line from their website is the one about it weighing "2 tons, making it portable..." For some reason, that makes me laugh.

To read more about it and see a pretty cool picture of it hanging over the ocean, check it out here.

Manhattan's

So, in addition to going to see David Sedaris, NPR Commentator, Essayist and (most of all) humorist (who, yes, I'll agree, is rather leftist, but I still enjoy quite a bit of his work - in the same vein as Garrison Keillor: if you can get over his politics, he can be a great storyteller), my friends and I went to Manhattan's, a relatively new restaurant downtown Minneapolis. It was rather good. The picture on the dessert page of the lava cake should show you exactly what I thought of the place: delightful. (And yeah, that lava cake tastes as good as it looks.)

David Sedaris: Humorist

“I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.” -David Sedaris

I am rather excited. I am going to see David Sedaris give a lecture this evening.

Things that are Just Plain Wrong:

Camouflage Kilts. Also, women dressed in Renaissance garb that doesn't fit properly or hardly covers anything. But really, it's about the men wearing kilts made out of camo. Kid you not. And since it's such a horrible image stuck in my mind, haunting me weeks later, I looked one up on the innernets and thought I'd scorch your eyeballs, too.

I went to the Renaissance Festival a couple weeks ago with my cousin. We had a good time. Half of my entertainment involved watching the crowds. Who are these people? Who voluntarily dresses up like this? To some extent I was entertained, and to some extent I was rather disgusted by all the debauchery prevalent there. But it was definitely the best place to gnaw on a big ol' turkey leg.

Cacoepy, n.

Today, my word of the day from yourdictionary.com is "cacoepy." "Cacoepy" means "incorrect pronunciation." I am baffled at the thought of a word meaning incorrect pronunciation that is hardly pronounceable itself, but then I realized the cleverness of it. And because of "cacoepy" I also discovered another new word, one closely related to "cacoepy" but not to be confused with it: "cacology" which means "bad choice of words." That last one I can pronounce, and should probably be applied very frequently to my grammatical usage.

WOTD from yourdictionary.com:

Word of the Day: Cacoepy (noun)

Pronunciation: [kæk-'o-ê-pee or 'kæk-o-e-pee]

Definition: Incorrect pronunciation.

Usage: Occasionally, we need words we have long since abandoned or that have abandoned us. We may be facing a period in our history now when we need to retrieve "cacoepy" from our lexical attic. "Cacoepy" is not to be confused with cacology "bad choice of words." The antonym of
"cacoepy" is orthoepy "the correct pronunciation of words." "Cacoepistic" is the adjective form of today's word and a person who often mispronounces words is a "cacoepist.

Suggested Usage: We think that such a ten-dollar word (the legendary "fifty-cent word" adjusted for inflation) as today's ought to be reserved for those who consistently get it wrong. "The Cacoepist-In-Chief mispronounced word after word, even making up a few, leading one newspaper to ask 'Hain't English his Native Lingo?'"

Etymology: The first part of today's word comes from the Greek kakos "bad." The PIE root is kakka- "to defecate." Words like "poppycock" and "cacophony" have their origins in the same root. The second half, -epy, is from Greek: epos "song, word." Its PIE root is wekw-, which also
turns up in "vocal," "voice," "invoke" and "vote."

You know October is going to be long when you've already been eating Candy Corn, the most delicious Halloween candy ever, by the bagful for 2 weeks.

And it's only October 9th. Halloween is still three weeks away.

This freakishly humid weather will be the death of me.

The only thing keeping me sane all summer long through months of hot and humid weather with no air conditioning at my place was the thought, "Fall will be so nice."

WHERE IS FALL?!?

I am going to go insane if this 91% humidity continues. I don't mind 80+ temps, as long as the dew point isn't a mere three degrees below it (for instance, weather.com says that it's 71 right now, dew point 69 and humidity of 91%. It also says that it "feels like 71." No, I'm sorry, weather.com. It feels like 97 degrees when the humidity is that high.

I would like fall to start now, please. Sure, the leaves may be turning, but the weather sure doesn't seem to be - or more precisely, the humidity is as bad now as it was through all of June, July and August PUT TOGETHER.

This is the State of Hockey

Just like last year, I went through the drive-thru rally yesterday morning. And then they won their opener against Chicago last night! Yay! A Minnesota sports team to cheer for (that doesn't make me cringe, like the Vikes, or the Gophs, or the Twinkies...).

Patina

This is my favorite store. I buy everything there. OK, they don't sell food, but I'd buy tongue-in-cheek groceries there if they sold that kind of thing. The stuff they do sell, I buy there. My latest favorites are the luggage tags and the Shakespeare Insult Mug. Their cards are classics, like this one. Patina's my new Target: I walk in to get one card, and leave at least $50 later.

Head of the Des Moines 2007

The Head of the Des Moines was on Saturday, and it was a good day. I only rowed two races (scratched the third due to a slight boat mixup - we had more rowers than boats), which was actually really nice. It was extremely windy - it felt even windier in Des Moines on the river than it did on Lake Superior in Duluth. My boats came in third place in both races. But even better, our club took home the overall points trophy.

Emily, Kim and me, lounging around before our races

Charlie and me moving the "noviciate" oars down to the water

Masters' Women's Quad - L to R: Kirsten, Me, Heidi, Leah

Me, testing out what Emily's medals would've looked like if they were hanging from my neck...I promise I didn't actually choke her (though it kinda looks like it here).

Various members of the Minnesota Boat Club, proudly displaying our trophy and some of the medals our team won

More pics from HOTDM 2007

Womens' Masters' Quad (Take 2) - L to R: Kirsten, Me, Heidi, Leah

Mixed Novice 4+

If you look closely, I think I practically carried more oars and shoes than I actually rowed (ok, not really. But I am carrying oars in these last three pics.)

Novice Women's 8+

Another shot of the "Noviciates" launching on the dock. They claimed second place on Saturday in their 8+ race!