Listening to National Public Radio during my drive this morning (as I normally do) I heard the last installment of a series running on the Morning Edition program – the audio diary of a young dentist in Iraq detailing his daily struggle to live in Iraq.

The previous 4 installments ranged from the jubilation of Iraq’s win in the Asian Cup Football tournament to his feeling over his parent’s insistence that he leave Iraq – and them – for a country where being a doctor will not get you killed.

The final chapter was aired this morning – Iraqi Dentist Learns of Torture, Death of Friend. A good friend of his is abducted and ransomed. $70,000 is the fee, which is negotiated down to $20,000. Not a paltry sum by any means, and one that must be scrounged from neighbors and family members. The ransom is paid – an unthinkable action if it were to happen in the United States – and after a week or more of waiting to hear from the kidnappers… his friend is dumped in a local market, beheaded, tortured and broken.

Just imagine for a moment living in such a world. A world where doctors live in fear and grown men are snatched from the streets by gangs of men. NPR reported that 650 Iraqis in August alone were killed in Baghdad in this manner.

In the end, the dentist attempts to leave Iraq for Jordan, but upon landing in Amman, he is denied asylum and is put on a plane back to Iraq, where he is forced into hiding, where he remains today.

All of this serves to remind me that despite my own personal struggles – I am blessed in comparison – and it strikes me like a hammer every time I think of it.

Team Holey Calamity represent!

Back at the end of August, Power Creative hosted it’s first-annual Cornhole tournament to benefit the Light the Night Walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We raised some $2000+ dollars for the cause – thanks to the 40+ two-man teams that signed up. A bracket-style tournament thus ensued with 13 different cornhole sets set up on Power’s campus. Fried chicken and sweet tea was served and we had a good old time.

Wait a minute… CORNHOLE?!

For those of you who don’t know what this is… it’s essentially horseshoes with beanbags (filled with corn). You throw at a hole in a 2′ wide, 4′ long board with a hole in it, 27′ away. Three points in the hole, one point on the board. It’s a tailgating/NASCAR thing. I had long eschewed it, but it’s a simple game to learn, hard to master. Like bocce!

l to r: Me, tossin’; Jackson Cooper and Jennifer Zink; The Winners! Andy Stillwagon and Glenn Goodman

I partnered up with Charlie “Chadillionaire” Dillon and thus was formed team “Holey Calamity” (from Handsome Boy Modeling Schools’ So… How’s your girl? album). I even fashioned my own cornhole set (from these printable cornhole plans!) with our team logo (see shirts above). We’d only played cornhole once or twice before, but we managed to take 2nd in the tournament! It was great fun and I’m looking forward to it again next year for sure.

Photos: 2007.08.30 – Cornhole at Work Gallery

Our friends, Chuck and Danna Pearsall, have welcomed their second child, Anna Catherine Pearsall, into this world yesterday at 12:45 PM. 7lbs, 19″ long. Congratulations, Pearsalls! May this childe be as lovely as the first.

I do love a good bike-ride (as mentioned earlier), and Kelly and I have been more active on two wheels lately. In fact (we are now entering what literaturists call an “aside“) I competed in my first-ever triathlon (swim, bike, run) at E. P. Tom Sawyer Park (view the results), and it was great “fun” – mostly because I’ve never swum or biked competitively before, and I enjoy doing both.

In any case (he said, leaving the aside), Kelly and I have been riding in Mayor Jerry’s Healthy Hometown Hike and Bike twice a year for the last couple of years. The Hike and Bike now has the honor of being the “the largest non-competitive community bike ride in the United States with some 3,000+ riders. This past weekend, we rode the 2007 Labor Day edition of this ride, and as per usual it was a casual affair involved cyclists of literally every stripe.

The Mayor has done a great job making Louisville a more “bike-friendly” place over the past few years – with events like the Hike and Bike and with laws that put bike lanes into all road projects. Louisville is also blessed to have an active and avid cycling community with one of the “most progressive cycling clubs in the MidWest” leading the charge. In short, cycling’s outlook in Louisville is pretty bright.

If there is one sour thing I have noticed with my increasing (but still fairly minor) involvement in cycling is this: rage and hostility between cyclists and drivers. And mostly from cyclists to drivers!

Perhaps it’s to be expected. Cyclists on the road are smaller, slower, largely defenseless and generally misunderstood. It’s natural that they’d bristle at a perceived wrong – and they’d be right to be defensive. After all there have been some celebrated incidents of late – one involving a death on the Second Street bridge and another with pizza mogul “Papa John” Schnatter being hospitalized in a road-rage incident. Both of those and many other incidents are borne out of one thing: ignorance.

It’s all too easy to get bent out of shape when someone cuts you off or passes by too closely. It very well could be your life if you are the one on the bike. But too many times have I seen an inappropriate response by a cyclist to a driver – and by inappropriate I mean “an action that will not serve the cyclist in the end”. This could be, but is not limited to: flipping someone the bird, yelling at them or calling the cops. Those are things that I’ve never witnessed, though. I have witnessed other actions that I still think are inappropriate, which I lump into the following statement: “generally being a self-righteous ass”. No, that isn’t going to help cycling. In fact, it will only further the stereotype that riders on tricked-out bikes in skin-tight gear that are hollering in the passenger window of a car about traffic laws are holier-than-thou aristocrats that believe they are endowed with some sort of civic blessing.

But, like I said, it’s reasonable to understand someone to be defensive to the point of cruelty when riding a bike. It’s maybe 200 pounds of bike and rider versus 3000 lbs of car and driver. The cyclist is the loser, always. To that end, cyclists are very aware of their rights – it’s the only defense they’ve got out there. Many (though certainly not all) drivers see cyclists as a nuisance and will give them little quarter on the road. These are the ones that require care. And by “care” I do not mean a tongue-lashing or a rude gesture. Flaunting your knowledge of traffic laws never got anyone anywhere in a relationship – and before you get a chance to think “what does dating have to do with the road?”, I’ll tell you it’s everything. Every little “hello” wave and every little “Good morning” you give to someone on the road betters the relationship between that driver and cyclists in general. Every angry confrontation at the stoplight does neither any good.

Cycling is headed in the right direction here in Louisville, headed by a cycling-friendly government and the interest of a number of great and impassioned cyclists. Don’t take a step backwards by being a self-righteous jerk. It’s a big world filled with a lot of people who don’t know cycling as well as you do, and in the end you’ll make more friends with honey than vinegar any day. I know this because I like the cyclists who are friendly and dislike those who aren’t – and I am a cyclist.

Kelly shot me a text message today that said it all:

i has a blog

She’s been kicking around the idea of doing an Ironman Triathlon for a while now – and she was a volunteer for the Louisville Ironman that was held last weekend. She’s been really struggling with whether she should do it or not, especially after working the medical tent and seeing what people look like after some 16 hours of physical exertion. It’s pretty intense! But, oddly at the same time the Ironman is very, very seductive.

I wandered down to the finish line on Sunday and it was extremely exciting and worse still – inspiring! Families cheering on their athletes, people breaking down into tears upon finishing, people collapsing into the arms of the legion of volunteers. I’ve been to marathons before and have completed a half-marathon, but I’ve never, ever seen anything on this level of commitment before. And now, it would seem, Kelly is leaning towards doing it… and that scares me a little.

Kelly and I have done “sprint” triathlons- .5 mile swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run – and those are OK. We both finish in under 2 hours. But an Ironman is something completely different. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full marathon – 26 miles! The time cutoff is about 17 hours. That’s longer than most people are awake on any given day.

Kelly’s other option is to do a half-Ironman distance, which I personally think is a better choice, given her relatively short experience with triathlons – but you know you can’t keep Kelly down when it comes to being healthy. It’s a special kind of crazy, I think.

Whatever her decision, you can track Kelly’s progress here: Wanna Tri Some?

Synopsis: Norweigan FM Pirate explains his buriable transmitter from 30 years ago while inside his homebuilt cat-cage (complete with hamster wheel). A fascinating contraption! He is nutty as squirrel poop, and I love it.

To Conquer the Air -
Skyward – Autobiography of Bird
Tesla – Man out of Time
Wings of Madness
Executioner’s Current
Into The Wild
Into Thin Air
Hell’s Angels
Moneyball
Three Nights in August
Ball Four
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Living Dolls

Kelly called just a bit ago to tell me that Rolando “Chip” Cheng (someone I knew peripherally in high school and college) jumped to his death yesterday morning in downtown Louisville. The Courier-Journal reports: Man who jumped to his death identified.

I encountered Chip at first from my experience on Eastern High School’s Quick Recall team – he was a student a Manual High School (where Kelly went to High School). Manual, being the magnet school that it was, was to be feared, but I seem to remember Chip being one of the heavyweights on a team of heavyweights.

This scenario is unfortunately all to familiar to me, having learned of the death of another brilliant mind shortly before Christmas, three years ago – Ben Edelson. Another genius with a troubled mind crushed under the weight of things they kept all too private.

I can’t pretend to have known Chip to the same level I did Ben, but the similarities are enough to send that pang directly into my gut. Chip’s own words (update: a local copy of his UofL blog) cast a more frightening shadow – one of paranoia, confusion and ramblings I’ve only ever read from someone in a state of advanced mental torment. Be advised that it does lead all the way to the end, giving us a window into his state of mind.

Further: fraterfamilias.blogspot.com

That question is answered by Dr. Charles Dillon of the League of Science in the Monkey Interest.

The monkey in question is Slingshot Monkey, a wonderful contraption with surgical tubing for arms that you fire from your fingers. No monkeys were harmed in this experiment. (He had a tinfoil helmet). The speed was measured by a HotWheels Radar Gun, which are currently $15 at your local, neighborhood Target. Gonna use it one some of my soaring machines as well, I think – I might take it apart and modify it for range.

Oh, and the answer to today’s question is 12 MPH. (Monkeymiles per Hour)

Side fact: Banannon is the chemical ingredient that makes bananas taste like bananas.

Oh, hey, how are you?! Haven’t seen you ’round the Fat Burger in a while, maaaan… I heard you been hangin’ round with those dudes!

I don’t know what all that’s about, but yeah dang I been busy as of late. I’ve got to set down this load in digi-print, so here goes – I’ve got all sorts of stuff going down in town:

I helped to develop and launch a thing for GE called Confessions from the Kitchen with my Flash guy Geoff. Real interesting project, that (in the “saying” sense of the word).

Also, I trained for and ran the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon (13.1 miles). I had this crazy idea that I could do it in 2 hours, and by some aligning of fates, I did it. 2 hours, 35 seconds. I never, ever could have done it without the determination and love of my lady KELLY. I owe her a lot for getting me to that point.

I’ve also been a model-building fool this winter. I built an Apogee handlaunch plane (my first-ever bagged wing), finished my Wind Dancer electric sailplane, built and flew a Redwing electric wing, built an XP-5 discus-launched glider, and am currently finishing up a prototype discus-launched glider for Denny @ Polecat.

Delving deeper into my R/C soaring passion, I’ve been tapped to write the NATS News coverage for the soaring events at the 2007 AMA/LSF Nationals! I’d apparently impressed a few people when I did my coverage of the World Soaring Masters back in September. I’ll be writing daily articles and shooting photos. Really excited about that!

Furthermore, I’ve signed up to tow F3J at the NATS this year! F3J is a class of soaring event that is internationally recognized, and there are “World Championships” held every two years. While most of soaring is an individual affair, F3J a team effort requiring a manager, pilots, callers (people who tell the pilots what is going on) and towmen, who actually pull the plane up into the sky. The 2007 League of Silent Flight / AMA Nationals in Muncie (aka “the NATS”) is hosting an F3J competition this year, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.

I’ll also be travelling in June to the 2007 Polecat Challenge, one of the best handlaunch soaring competitions in the country! And currently, I’m trying to aid Bruce Davidson in his attempt to claim the highest handlaunch in the world!

Continuing the aviation theme, my brother (who recently served OJ Simpson twice in one week at his restaurant, because some people just don’t care for OJ) and I took my dad up to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum up in Dayton, Ohio for his sixtieth birthday (May 6th)! I love that place, and we all had a good time…

Did I mention I’m coaching the softball team at Power Creative? How nuts is that?! Our first practice is TONIGHT.

I need to get things done!