Just like Riding a Bike

Owen — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 23:50:34 +0000

I’ve been putting the old saying “It’s just like riding a bike, you never forget” to the test this weekend, having avoided that particular activity for the last 20 years. I’m considering buying a bike and doing some riding as a more air-cooled form of summer exercise, so I rented one this weekend to regain some basic ability. So far the results have been mixed as to whether it’s possible to forget how to ride a bike: it only took me 45 minutes riding in circles around a parking lot to regain some ability to balance, turn, and stop, but the ground sure does seem further away than when I was twelve. Goal for tomorrow morning: relax my death grip on the handlebars and hopefully end up not feeling like I’ve been bench-pressing weights all day, as I do right now.

Update: moderate success. I certainly feel less trashed this evening than I did yesterday, after riding for somewhat longer today. I even saw one person on the trail that I was probably more skilled than. Of course, he was about 7 and using training wheels.

Seen while washing dishes

Owen — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 01:34:34 +0000

Ice on a puddle? No, it’s salt crystals I found this morning in the bottom of my sphaghetti pot. A little bit of salty water had dried up leaving these crystals behind. There’s several interesting things about the image to me: it demonstrates very well the idea of domains – crystals started at various nucleation points and grew out and met each other. It’s also interesting to see different growth behaviors in different parts of the pot, probably depending on drying rate and salt concentration. In some areas you have long linear crystals; in other areas the growth is more compact. Most of the crystals branch at 90 degree angles, but a few grow in a more spidery pattern. (Somewhat reminiscent of patterns you get in diffusion limited aggregation simulations.)

fishsoup » Etc

Just like Riding a Bike

Seen while washing dishes