Mix of work and play

We have really been enjoying getting to spend some time outside with a variety of activities lately.  One evening we headed out on a bike ride together and it was just a gorgeous evening.  What little wind there was was blowing from the east so we took a different route than usual which included a few hills but some beautiful Flint Hills scenery.  After our biking we stopped at Sonic for dinner since it was 50 cent corn dog night-- do we know how to have a good time or what?  There were a few other cyclists at Sonic who told us about the best routes to ride in the area so we have lots of new rides we can do over the next few weeks.

The next evening Regional track was being hosted three blocks away, so of course we had to go.  It was raining lightly off and on made it a perfect track meet day for runners at least.  I am informed that throwers don't appreciate wet conditions.  Arthur enjoyed a few hours of discus throwing while I watched track events.  My brother is a track coach at one of the schools that were participating so he hung out with us some off and on between getting splits and yelling at his athletes.  I love a good track meet.

Alex asked me (Arthur) to insert some thoughts here about high school athletics.  While she is a physical therapist and thus much more informed on such issues, I think she is looking for a testimonial from a former high school athlete to concur with her point.  Whatever the case, as I was watching the discus throwers, I was shocked at how weak they were.  That may seem a strange thing to say about track athletes at least good enough to be taken to a regional meet, and indeed, the manifestations of weakness I saw would not normally be called weakness, but so much of the balance issues, poor throwing posture, and improper mechanics are signs of weak, or at the very least, unbalanced musculature.  

Now don't get me wrong.  About everyone I saw throw could probably bench press his body weight or better, but something that you learn about living with a physical therapist and having an interest in athletics is functional movement screening, a sort of testing that can be done on an athlete that indicate how balanced his body is and whether he can use his strength functionally; a much better indicator of athleticism than what he benches or his 40 time.  The strength and conditioning coach for Stanford University's football team is really big on this, and his unique training regimen has a lot to do with the success of that program over the past several years.  (Alex: Arthur read this article about Stanford and asked if I had ever heard about Functional Movement Screening.  Oddly enough I happened to be a secondary author of a research paper that was recently published looking at normative values in runners of different age groups for the Functional Movement Screening test.  This was my topic for my capstone research project in PT school).

All that to say that watching the discus event, I saw those concepts on full display.  I do not know if I would be a successful throwing coach, but if I were in that position, I think I would tell my athletes before the season began that before they would be allowed to throw, they would have to meet certain strength goals.  I don't even know if I'd be allowed to do it that way, but teaching throwing technique to someone who isn't strong enough to perform the technique is a waste of everyone's time.  It's like trying to teach calculus to someone who hasn't had algebra.  Anyway, those were my reflections at the track meet.

Saturday morning we headed to my parents' home for the weekend.  You know your parents have gotten over being empty nesters when they decided to leave town the same weekend their kids are coming to visit.  I guess a weekend at a condo in Branson was a good deal.  When we arrived in town I took Arthur to the town's science museum/coffee shop.  The owner is a 92 year old man who was the former high school science teacher.  When he retired he started a science museum.  (I think his wife probably told him he couldn't keep all of his equipment, experiments, etc in their basement and he needed a building.)  You can get a cup of coffee for 75 cents as well as look at the WWII memorial displays he has.  The tour started with him telling us about his B-17 getting shot down over the North Sea and he and one other man were the only ones from the crew to survive.  Then we move to the demonstrations about electric currents, Model-A alternators, Tesla coils, etc.  Arthur can explain more.  He did spend a little bit talking about how much of science is "unseen".  You can't see electrical currents or magnetic fields but you can see the effects.  It is very similar to faith-- you may not "see" God but you can see the effects all over creation and individual lives.

Arthur again to talk about the museum.  It was awesome.  Most of the experiments were meant to teach younger children, but some were thing that I, as an electrical engineer, had never seen.  He had  a display explaining how cathode ray tubes work, which was fascinating.  CRT's were used for several years in electrical equipment like oscilloscopes before equipment went digital.  We have several CRT oscilloscopes at work actually, and up to this point I did not know how they worked.  That display and his demonstration helped me fit the final pieces together.

After our trip to the museum we spent most of the afternoon in the garage working on finishing our table-  the main objective of the weekend.  After a final round of sanding we cleaned everything off and started the process of pre-conditioning the wood and staining it.  I mentioned a few weeks ago that every couple should go kayaking or canoeing in pee-marital counseling.  A patient recently told me that if a couple can survive a home improvement project together that should also be a good indication of the health of the relationship.  I think we did a fairly good job working together.  Arthur was in charge of using steel wool between coats of poly and making sure the legs and base were done.  I took the table top and the edges-- divide and conquer.

In between each coat of poly during the weekend we had to let it dry for 2 hours so we had a lot of time to sit back and relax as well.  We spent a while reading some of my favorite books about a fictional church congregation that in some ways was so true to real life.  We caught up on some tv.  I picked and stemmed some strawberry.  (It can't be May without picking strawberries.)  There was a good mix of work and play.

Monday morning after our last coat of poly was put on the table we got the bikes out and biked to the next town over.  It was a wonderful morning (we have hit the jack-pot lately on good biking days- except for the bike ride where I had to ride in the rain for 4 miles but we won't count that).  Our turn-around point was a coffee shop that many of the ladies from the church I grew up in work.  We got vanilla bean chai freezes which really hit the spot before riding back home.  Altogether it was 24 miles which is probably our longest ride of the season so far.  On our way home we stopped by the cemetery to pay our Memorial Day respects with a jar full of peonies and took some of the back roads home just enjoying a drive through the country together.  Omnia Vincit Amor.