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This year I have been attending the opera, attending the opening night for both Madama Butterfly and The Pearl Fishers for Opera Colorado. And while the opera is entertaining, mostly it just gives me an excuse to wear my kilt.

You’ll notice I’m the only guy in this picture. That’s because my friend Neil faked two weeks of pneumonia in order to get out of it. But don’t ask him, he still claims it was legit.

As an added bonus, and because I have done this in a past life, and because it is also set to opera, I give you a production of VDOT Opera:

I know this blog has become a never ending stream of videos and comics lately, but this is too good to share. Maybe it rings true to me these days because I just recently added myself to the ranks of the iPhone users.

I love my phone. I hear that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, but if anyone wants to tell me their favorite iPhone app in the comments, I wouldn’t mind!

I see that a book based on the Last Lecture of Randy Pausch was released a while ago.

While it something that I would not mind reading some day, I really only mention it so that I can link to the YouTube video of the lecture Pausch gave for the Last Lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Watch the whole thing, you will be a better person for it. The insights and clarity are not often available like this.

Well, we made it to 2009, albeit a second later than normal. Looking back on 2008 there were lots of good things mixed in with the not so great.

2009 will, without a doubt, be another “good news/bad news” year. The main focus for me this year is to finish my dissertation and graduate (finally!). So there will be lots in this blog about writing (both the dissertation and the associated journal articles). I am sure there will be all the things that strike my funny bone, and the science-y and family things, so it won’t bore everyone to tears.

From Abstruse Goose

Best wishes for 2009 to all of you!

Well, I have been remiss in updating the blog recently, though I have lots of good reasons. Actually they all boil down to one: I have been too busy to post.

What have I been up to? Here is the summary in five lines:

1. Working like mad to finish my last semester of classes (only three weeks to go!).
2. Installed new optical tables and workbenches in the lab (I’ll do a virtual tour one of these days).
3. Took the Professional Engineering exam at the end of October (I think I passed, but will know for sure in late December).
4. Working out at Emerfit doing the CrossFit thing (the longest I have ever stuck to a workout plan, including basic training!).
5. Any remaining seconds in the day were filled with family stuff, and sometimes sleep.

Just to keep you entertained until I have more time to post interesting things, I point you to The Periodic Table of Videos, put together by the University of Nottingham. Check it out, if only for the great hairdo of academia (you’ll know it when you see it).

For example, here is the Cesium video:

There are lots of great videos on their site.

OK, you bunch of slackers.

I sent out the e-mail. I posted it on my blog. Told you all about the great causes that it will benefit. You know, things like the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project. That’s right, the group that helps those that volunteered to defend you and got severely injured in the process. I also mentioned the good karma it would produce, just in case.

I even gave you a link to my page on the charity site, where you can see progress to date. Have we noticed the lack of progress?

I know what you are waiting for. You need someone to sweeten the pot! So here you go. El Hefe at Emergent Fitness, a.k.a. Chris, has offered a prize to the person that raises the most money for the event. It is an iPod shuffle that is engraved with the Fight Gone Bad III logo. So here’s what I was thinking:

This of course requires two things:

1. Out of all the participants from EmerFit, I have the top dollar amount for donations.
2. Out of the multitudes that are going to donate to help me, you have the top dollar amount for donations.

Remember, if someone beats you out, you can always add to your donation!

Even if you already have an MP3 player, don’t you think a shuffle would be great for your own fitness excursions? Plus, I will ship it to you for free, even if you live in Brazil!

Now how can you beat that?

Ahem, now click here please.

P.S.- The “Bleg” in the title is not a typo, just a combination of Blog and Beg. I don’t know where I saw it first, but thought it was fitting for this post. Kinda makes you want to donate, doesn’t it?

Alright people, it looks as if I am now signed up to do a CrossFit workout for charity. The causes are Athletes for a Cure (to support protate cancer research) and the Wounded Warrior Project (to support and aid our service men and women who are severly injured in service to our country).

The workout is “Fight Gone Bad” and there are plenty of examples of it on YouTube.

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We’ve used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (Reps)
3. Box Jump: 20″ box (Reps)
4. Push-press: 75 pounds (Reps)
5. Row: calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

So how about it? Ready to donate? Here’s my page on the charity site, you can donate there. I have a goal of $1200, so feel free to forward this to everyone you know. These are both good causes, they will do good things for your money. Knowing what I know about most of you, the additional good karma isn’t a bad thing either.

Have you donated yet? Get on it!

It has been about six weeks since I joined Emergent Fitness, so I figured it was time for an update.

I think six weeks is about the longest I have really stuck with an exercise program.

Today we did the CrossFit Total, a “benchmark” of sorts for strength. You can find a video of it here (not of us obviously).

The CrossFit Total consists of three attempts of each of three different lifts. First is the back squat, second the press, and finally the dead lift. All three are demonstrated in the video link above. You take your one rep max for all three, add them up and you get your CrossFit Total score. Today I ended up with the following:

• Back Squat: 205 lbs
• Press: 155 lbs
• Dead Lift: 300 lbs

…for a total score of 660. Now I haven’t ever been enough of a gym rat to know if those weights are good, bad, or indifferent, but on the up side it means I just blindly put them on the internet for the world to see. I think if I had it to do again, I would have pushed the weights a little higher. I made all three attempts in all three lifts, so I suspect that means I should have gone heavier in each case. I think I could have done more in the back squat and the dead lift, but pressing 155 was about right at my limit for today.

My main goal for today was to get a benchmark score that I can compare to in a few months to see what kind improvements there are. So I guess I accomplished my goals.

Today I also brought the elder resource drain offspring to the gym with me. I never realized that a CrossFit gym is really just a playground in the eyes of a 5 year old. I think he completed over 1500 meters on the rowing machine when totaled across the times he was playing on it. They did a scaled down CrossFit Kids workout at the end of the lifts, so he got to participate a little before we ate and went home. He was asleep in the car before we left the parking lot, so I guess CrossFit wears him out too.

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.

For those with clear skies tomorrow night, there will be a total lunar eclipse at 8:01 MST. It should last about 50 minutes or so, and will be visible in North and South America, Europe and Africa. The moon won’t disappear, but will turn red in color due to the light coming off the Earth’s atmosphere. Check it out if you can, next one is December 2010!