Thursday, February 26, 2009

End of a series

This has certainly sparked a free flow of information! I must admit I had not even considered the whole "they mean to win Wimbledon" angle. Troubling to say the least. I now have a heightened awareness of thought screen helmets and lots of good information for obtaining the materials for the helmet as well as tips for making a helmet which will be effective (removal of helmet before application of the awl seems especially good advice). The information strikes me as so valuable that I have decided to reprint excerpts:

1. Prepare for a fight.

2. Have a locked cabinet.

3. Make the helmet quickly.

4. Secure the helmet with tape or string.

5. Don't be lured out of your current location by the aliens.

6. Make small holes in top for hot climates.

7. Wear the helmet as often as possible.

I like number 4, secure the helmet with almost any kind of tape or string wrapped around the helmet several times to prevent the aliens from removing the helmet if they manage to get close to you.

I am guessing this is a use for duct tape that didn't make it into those 1,000 uses for duct tape books that sold so well around Christmas time a couple of years ago.

Here is the final picture, the last image I was able to capture of the horde before they reboarded the mothership and disappeared from view:My title for this last one is: "General Meade arrives at Taneytown Road".

Thank you all for participating, this has been a reminder of how much fun this can be sometimes. Bicycling will be resuming shortly and the return of two wheeling means the return to active status of Gzmoohoo.

Special thanks to Marz, the last previous custodian of the alien horde (and the radio transponder) before they began mysteriously appearing on our bookcase. Visit his website, listen to SkyCarp music. The music is free, music wants to be free, and remember always that art is hard work.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tin foil hats

Volpots' comment teems with information of vital significance to all readers. Now that's the kind of information I'm talking about.Nantes and Caen both failed to pick up the win they needed to ease their concerns at the bottom of Ligue 1, drawing 1-1 at the Stade de la Beaujoire. Caen scored first only to have Nantes' Christian Bekamenga square matters just before half-time. Nantes finished the game the stronger, but were unable to get a winning goal and lie four points above the relegation zone, two above Caen.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Aerial photo?

To tell the truth, even I find this more intriguing than French football.Keep in mind, however, that FC Nantes plays every week and I throw news about them up here only a couple of times a month.

Anyone interested in details of this past weekend's home game against Caen?

Monday, February 23, 2009

Target? Target?

Careful with that kind of talk around the aliens.Which aliens seem, by the way, to still be increasing in number. And now that you mention it, I too notice the whole prime number thing.

And now one of them is standing up on the rock!!!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Gopher women's hockey team wins league championship

Many readers will know that TOPWLH and I are also fans of the local University women's hockey team. Despite having had excellent teams for each of the past three seasons the team has not been able to win a championship of any kind. Last night the senior class removed this minor blemish from their hockey careers by capturing the Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular season championship.That glass thing nearly invisible on the ice in front of the team is their championship trophy. I think for ice hockey the league might want to consider something more visible. But probably the trophy will end up looking just fine when placed into a cabinet with other trophies.

The post season begins next Friday with the first round of the league championship tournament. The Gophers are the number one ranked team in women's college hockey and will be hoping to use the post season to add additional honors to this year's list of accomplishments.

Today's photo was taken from a lower angle but it is instantly apparent that the crowd continues to grow.Maybe it is just the angle but somehow the whole scene seems to me to have assumed a more ominous aspect.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Perhaps everyone should stand back

Long ago before there were computers I used to play board games. An at the time popular subset of the genre was war gaming and a subset of the subset was re-enacting historical events.

The publisher of the games we played most often was Avalon Hill. One of the company's first successful games was Gettysburg. I am not sure exactly which version of the game we played but I do know that it got played a lot.

One of the principles of games of this sort was the concept of victory conditions. The games could already be long and if you had no way of determining when and how you had won the possibility existed of the game lasting forever. One of the victory conditions of Gettysburg was that the Confederate side could win by killing General Meade, the Union commander. To do so required the Confederate side to overwhelm the Union army. Killing General Meade meant you had won the battle.

Another of the principles of re-enactment is that you do not necessarily begin the game with all of your pieces. For example, in Gettysburg, the Union would begin the game in the town with enough troops to probably be successful in getting themselves organized into a defensive position. The Confederates begin on the north side of the board with enough troops to probably drive the Union out of town to Cemetery Ridge and the hills just to the south. Reinforcements arrive throughout the game and are entered onto the board according to a reinforcement schedule spelled out in the game rules.

I don't remember which of the three originally dreamed up the idea, whether it was Nagel or Mr. Wold or Doctor John, but one of the the three, in the umpteenth playing of the game, noticed the fact that General Meade, not present on the board at the beginning of the game, arrived early in the morning of day 2, entering the game along Taneytown Road. Furthermore, at the point of his entrance into the game, Meade had virtually no troops actually supporting him. Instead he moves, usually without difficulty, to the Cemetery Ridge location which his army actually occupied in July 1863, and which by this point in the game is crawling with Union army units.

The next time the game was played the Confederate army made no attempt during the first day to engage the Union force, instead doing an end run around the town. This seemed a catastrophic misplay as it seemed likely that allowing the Union to occupy the town AND the hills would result in a defensive position which would be even stronger and more successful than the historical position. The Confederate side seemed doomed. Doomed that is until, too late, the Union side noticed that the Confederate army had deviated from historical re-enactment and had instead massed itself in an offensively and defensively inferior position along Taneytown Road. The underprotected General Meade arrived as scheduled during the night and was more or less immediately slain. Victory for the Confederates.Stay with me here, I promise to tie this all together.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Early rising leads to detection

This is a little disturbing.At first I thought the green deal was maybe just Mr. Green from Clue. I checked in with my small critter expert, Marzalvane Volpots. Marz provided the useful information that the green deal may be some sort of radio transponder.

I am proceeding cautiously in keeping with the Skycarp Method as recommended by Monsieur Volpots.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Recharged

I just happened to have recharged the batteries on one of my cameras (one of the ones that has rechargeable batteries, perhaps needless to say) and I was carrying it around. I was lucky enough to get a picture of this little critter. It was on top of our bookcase.I don't know what it is. it doesn't look like anything I have ever seen before. I will be keeping an eye out.

Monday, February 16, 2009

President's Day

20 days to daylight saving time.

Bicycling will resume shortly.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valenciennes 1:1 Nantes

In the 24th round of Ligue 1, FC Nantes went to Valenciennes and captured the essential road point by playing to a 1-1 draw with relegation zone Valenciennes FC. Valenciennes remain in the Ligue 1 relegation zone. Victory would have cut the gap between the teams to three points.

Valenciennes scored first and led at the break 1-0. Nantes levelled the score on the hour on a break. Christian Bekamenga played the ball forward to Croatia striker Ivan Klasnic. Klasnic had to take on two defenders but managed to free himself for a shot on which the keeper had no chance. In the photo above, Klasnic (17) accepts the congratulations of his teammates after his goal.

By capturing the away point Nantes was able to remain 6 points free of the relegation zone even as they lost spots in the table, now lying 14th.

Bicycling will be resuming shortly.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

32 days to daylight saving time

Norm the Northern. Norm the small Northern. Herman the HammerHandle.I am sure we will all be fishing soon. Except perhaps for the person who in this photo is wearing fuchsia. Her facial expression does not indicate that this experience has induced a life long love of angling, she doesn't look like a fishing enthusiast to me.

That is fuchsia, isn't it?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Odds and ends

This is supposed to be a bicycle blog. I have already posted this picture once this winter but here it is again: Two of the best bicycles on the planet, one of steel, one of carbon fiber.The first stirrings of the season are beginning to show up here.

I did a little bicycle maintenance. Actually I got my chain checker out and made a chain wear measurement to decide if bicycle maintenance was needed. The chain seems still OK, no maintenance contemplated at this time.

I updated my software. I prepared the spread sheet on which I will record mileage for 2009. This mostly involves transferring data from BikeLog08 to BikeLog09 but as is usual there was a small amount of redesign of the spreadsheet necessary. The software update also created an opportunity to check BikeLog08 for mileage on the current set of tires. I have nearly 1,600 miles on the current set of Michelin Pro2Race (endorsed by Gino). I decided not to change the tires even though that mileage is near the usual change point. I inspected the tires and they still seem "pretty" good so instead of a change at this time I will begin the season on tire watch.

But the largest news of the weekend is that FC Nantes has taken a huge step towards respectability with a convincing win at Le Mans on Saturday. Yoann Poulard and Frederic Da Rocha scored in the second half to lift Nantes to a 2-0 road victory against their Loire Valley rivals and in so doing boost the team up to 12th place and what is going to have to be referred to as "mid-table". The season is only just past the midway point but Nantes, the Ligue 1 newcomers, appear to be leaving the relegation zone firmly behind at last.