Thursday, September 30, 2010

 

* eat pasta with red sauce
* teach derby lite
* agility practice

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Buyer's Guide to Ankle and Foot Booties

booties

When I finally learned to lean into the turns, I had to start wearing ankle booties because rolling on the side of my right foot was giving me a blister on the inside arch of my foot. The booties reduce friction, so your feet don't rub—so, no blisters. I wear them on my bare feet, under my socks.

Which means, by the way, that my booties are my worst-smelling gear by far. I think, though, that wearing them over your socks defeats the blister protection, though I know some people do. I hand wash my booties at least every week, emphasis more on "at least every week" more than hand wash. They're quick-drying, which is one of their performance features; but as it happens, it's also a handy care feature.

So far as I know, ankle booties are made by Ezeefit Sports, and they come in three different thicknesses depending on what you need. They make full foot booties, too.

[ETA 4/16/11: You know what, I have started wearing the booties over my socks and still get good blister protection and they don't smell so much.]

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

 

* dinner at Mon Lung with sweetie man
* write sodium nitrate article

Monday, September 27, 2010

Work/Play: HOBBY

Okay so, "work that is play" is something that is done as a means to an end that is an end in itself.

We will call this HOBBY.

As I once said:

Now to my mind, the near and far corners of this taxonomy are easy enough to grasp & the middles can get away from you a little bit. There is a difference, to my mind, between work that is play and play that is work; perhaps it isn't a very important difference, or maybe it is (4/8/09).

There may be a bit of confusion, too, between my term HOBBY and the word hobby, which more commonly connotes something that's done for relaxation as opposed to one's regular work. So let's look at how HOBBY differs from WORK using our terms as defined. They both begin as something that is done as a means to an end, and what does that mean?

The most obvious work that is a means to an end is the thing that you do for a living, where the end is to get you money to buy you things as the Beatles said. And as I've said, the things that I've done for a living have been about that and just that. Work for me has always been WORK, which I'm trying to change. But this is a monolith to me, I need to look at something a little less intimidating.

So, back to cooking. I cook so I can have something to eat, as a means to an end. Sometimes it's a little bit more than that, but mostly it's just that. If I'm making a perfect little simple pasta dish, I enjoy the process of getting together my three ingredients and doing a little bit of neat knifework and washing my knife and my cutting board while the vegetables are sauteeing so that the kitchen's back to clean by the time I'm ready to eat. I really like that. Anything more involved than that, though, I get overwhelmed by the process and all I want is my damn food, and it's WORK to me. I said all this already; but do you see that thin slice where cooking is HOBBY to me? I'm still doing it as a means to an end, but I enjoy the process a little bit. And you know, some of my best friends actually like to cook and might even say that cooking is a hobby of theirs. But would they want to cook for a living?

Because I would like to write for a living. But besides that, I think that writing is first something that I do as a means to an end. I write to produce something that makes me visible to myself and to others. I don't think I've ever stated it as clearly as that. I don't know if this makes me exceptionally honest or just a lower order of writer, or maybe I'm an exceptionally honest lower order of writer. I don't have pretensions to art, I'm not that particular about how I'm visible. I don't care about writing the Great American Novel, a gear guide is fine with me. Second, I just like to write. Which is to say in sum, I do it for the result but I do also enjoy the process. So, writing is definitely a hobby of mine.

So there's an idea around the word hobby—an IRS definition, actually—that it's work you don't get paid for. Whether or not you get paid isn't what defines it, though. It's a variant of work because it's productive, it produces something that you could get paid for. If I got paid to write, it would still be my HOBBY because I would still enjoy the process for itself. Whereas if I had to cook for a living, I would run amok with a kris in my teeth. This is not theoretical, because I actually am starting to make a tiny amount of money writing; this is what I'm doing the three days I'm not at work, I'm writing articles for Livestrong and also the Pioneer Press. And the Windy City Rollers website, which I don't get paid for. Not to mention this blog, and the monetization thereof.

In an ideal world, we would get paid for our hobbies. Or for play, which is coming up next. And I don't mean in your dreams when I say ideal world, I mean that the idea is to get paid for our hobbies. But part of this is picking something that you would enjoy doing a lot of, as an end in itself.

I'm a lot less confused about this than the last time I wrote about this, which is something.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Fall Food Plan

I never did put my fallen apart summer food plan back together, because the weather changed and I didn't have to figure out how to make myself like salads again. What is up with that, I used to love salads. But then, I used to love salads with chicken. It's not that I never eat chicken, but I really only want to eat meat as an exception and not as a rule. But now I can have soup, I have my favorite creamed vegetable soup and curried vegetable stew recipes and I will try to think of some new recipes for fall and winter.

BEFORE
complex carbs &
light protein

IMMEDIATELY BEFORE
simple carbs
 
WORKOUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER
simple carbs &
light protein
AFTER
complex carbs &
light protein
BETWEEN
complex carbs &
heavy protein

Immediately before/after means within 45 minutes, before/after means within 1-3 hours, and between means more than 3 hours before or after workouts.

Complex carbs and light protein before workout

Here's a preview of my brilliant new pasta strategy: first, cook two boxes of pasta. Eat that dinner's pasta with your favorite jarred sauce, and put the rest of the pasta in the fridge. I say two boxes because I eat whole wheat pasta, which comes in twelve-ounce boxes to make the price seem comparable to regular pasta in sixteen-ounce boxes. If I ate regular pasta, I would just make the one sixteen-ounce box. It should be more pasta that you would think of eating in a night. Whereas twelve ounces of cooked pasta is more than the two of us should eat, but then that little bit of pasta that's left over, you think, well, I'll just finish that up. Then you don't have any leftover pasta for the brilliant second part of the strategy, which is that you make a simple sauce with olive oil, garlic, and whatever vegetable you want to eat that week, and throw in your leftover pasta. So see, you only ever dirty one pot at a time! Am I the only person so lazy to think that this is genius? Plus you get to eat actual vegetables, and not always jarred pasta sauce. Which is where I was headed, believe me. And this tiny amount of cooking is just about my speed: I feel like I can be creative, stop and smell the garlic and so forth.

Before Saturday and Sunday morning practices, I'm back to oatmeal with banana, sliced almonds, and silk. I find that oatmeal burns quickly enough but lasts longer than simpler carb breakfasts like pancakes or even smoothies.

Simple carbs immediately before/during workout

Still good with CocoOJ2O during practice.

Simple carbs and light protein immediately after workout

Still good with Raisin Bran with Sliced Almonds (and Silk) before bed.

Complex carbs and light protein after workout

Finishing up with Banana Fruit Smoothies for breakfast. New fall smoothie TK!

My new favorite breakfast place after Saturday morning practice is Feed, fried green tomato eggs benedict nom nom nom...

Complex carbs and heavy protein between workouts

Deli meat and cheese sandwiches for lunch, and apple with peanut butter for snack at work, and soup for lunch at home. Not as obsessed with snacks when I work at home, which is an interesting datum.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Fall Fitness Plan
  prescrimmage

Build: Extensive Endurance and Speed Technique

Same basic plan as preseason, five practices per week. Even more doable now that I'm down to two days of work per week. (More about this later but it's not like I'm sleeping the other three days, I'm writing now. Which takes up all the rest of my time, but not in the same way as work.) The progression is in the type of practices coming up, I see a lot of speed and jammer practices ahead. Also what we're doing at Fury practice is nicely going along with my mad plan, which just goes to show that I'm on the Right Team. Or well, that this is a pretty basic training plan that I didn't make up myself.

On my off-work days, I've started sunrises again. Sunrises are very simple sun salutations with some strength exercises added. I pretty much didn't do any strength work during preseason, it's hard to fit it in when skating starts. So now seems like a good time to start it up again.

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
bike
SLEEP
sunrises stretches
SLEEP
bike
SLEEP
sunrises stretches
SLEEP
bike
SLEEP
sunrises stretches
SLEEP
bike
PLAY
Second Wind
season end 10/3/10
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
League
bike
HOBBY
HOBBY
 
WORK
bike
HOBBY
bike
WORK
bike
HOBBY
 
bike
PASTIME
PASTIME
Hillcrest
HOBBY
bike
HOBBY
 
PLAY
Fury
HOBBY
bike
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
League
HOBBY
 
bike
PASTIME
PLAY
League
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
bike
SLEEP
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
bike
SLEEP
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Buyer's Guide to Knee Gaskets

gaskets

Knee gaskets are neoprene sleeves that you wear under your knee pads to give your knees a bit more stability and support.

After wearing Pro-Tec Street knee pads for about a year, I added Gladiator knee gaskets under them and felt the combination was definitely better. For the price of Pro-Tecs plus Gladiators, of course, you could get comparable protection with heavier duty knee pads like Rectors or 187s. I still wear Gladiators under my Rectors, though. I tried them without and worried the whole time that they were about to slip. I did size my Rectors with the gaskets included, so perhaps they're a bit too big without.

The other brand of knee gaskets that I know about are TSGs, which have an aluminum insert that goes up the side of your knee for extra support. The aluminum bit, though, eventually pokes through, and it's not polite to have metal protrusions. TSGs are especially recommended if you have weak or injured knees.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

 

* make pasta with zucchini and caramelized onions
* eat pasta
* write sleeping better article
* lose sleeping better article to system crash
* talk morosely to no one in particular

Monday, September 20, 2010

Work/Play: WORK

Where were we, "work that is work" is something that is done as a means to an end that is a means to an end.

We will call this WORK.

Examples help with definitions. The example I used before was doing my taxes, because it's something that I do as a means to an end (having my taxes done) that is a means to an end, period. Oh and, is not fun. I hate doing my taxes. This is a helpful example in that my hatred for doing my taxes is as pure as it gets, but it's not helpful in that it's too cut and dried and taxes, like Christmas, only come once a year, so just deal with it. Eventually I'm going to get to the part about ideally minimizing WORK in your life, but I'll tell you ahead of time that it's not going to be entirely eradicated or transformed: there are going to be some things in your life that you hate. That you have to do. That's just how it is.

But it's easy to make decisions and take action about things that you know you hate: I can pay somebody to do my taxes, or I can suck it up and do them. Where this exercise becomes more helpful is in areas that aren't so black and white, being that the end point is, in case I haven't told you, to weed out extraneous activities from your life. So let's talk about how I feel about cooking, which I'm okay with. I used to be pretty into cooking in my previous life, as a matter of fact. At some point though, I switched from being a live to eat type to being pretty strictly eat to live. Or really, eat to play derby. Right there that says cooking is something that I do as a means to an end. That is, sometimes, if I can get it done in fifteen minutes or less, an end in itself. Whereas last weekend when I woke up early to make tofu scramble for me and the sweetie man and it was forty minutes until I got my breakfast, it became crystal clear to me that I now definitely regard cooking as WORK. As if it wasn't already clear that I have already mostly whittled cooking out of my life. And there isn't anything wrong with cooking, which isn't pure evil like doing taxes. It's just that, for me, it's a means to an end that's hardly ever an end in itself, and that's just sort of thing that should be trimmed.

What's more problematic is work, whatever you do for a living. If what you do for a living is WORK, it's a problem just because of how much time it takes up. A third of your life is too long to spend on something that you only do as a means to an end. And yet, we must eat. I'm in a weird position right now, because of the situation with my sister, where work has been mostly whittled out of my life. And now that I'm working less, just as a side note, it feels closer to being an end in itself, just like cooking less. So let's say that, sometimes, a simple thing that you can do to transform WORK into something else is to do it less. That doesn't solve the making a living problem, which more requires that you can find something that you can stand to do—by which I mean enjoy— for a good chunk of time. Which leads to the thing that I've been doing on the three days that I'm not working, but that's the next chapter.

Friday, September 17, 2010

 

* drink water
* do sunrises
* shower
* drink smoothie
* submit pumpkin patch article
* write sodium carbonate article
* make creamed carrot soup
* eat creamed carrot soup
* submit sodium carbonate article
* change wheels: Sugars
* hunt for 80s clothes
* street team at Whole Foods
* change wheels: Fusions
* eat tacos
* watch Connections

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Fall Fitness Plan Preview

I believe in training plans, but then I believe in training and I believe in plans; so that was a love child waiting to happen. But anyway, as you know, I like a weekly schedule that's good for about six to eight weeks. So that's more or less eight training phases in a year, ideally following each other in some sort of narrative. Or they will, hopefully, this year, because last year was like being shot through a cannon: fast, and mostly in the dark.

Or I guess like Robinson Crusoe being shot through a cannon, I've landed on the beach with a soft poofft! and have commenced taking notes for my NFT guide to the island.

Since last season ended, it's been like this:

June-Julyoff seasonbreakinjury resistance
muscle activation
August-
early September
preseasonbasemoderate endurance
blocking technique

I don't know if it's going to happen like this again, I only got a break because I wasn't invited to practice with Second Wind at the start of the travel season. I really liked my break, it was totally beneficial to crosstrain. It's been hard to fit that in during preseason, because I also need technique on skates, like, a lot.

Preseason ended with a bang, and a whimper, with last Thursday's speed practice led by Larry and Pom, followed by a five day break. I'm expecting prescrimmage to pick up where that left off:

late September-Octoberprescrimmagebuildextensive endurance
speed technique
November-Januaryscrimmageprepeakintensive endurance
pack awareness

I adapted these training focuses for skating from Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training For Runners: A Revolutionary New Training System to Improve Endurance, Speed, Health, and Results. Injury prevention comes from strength training, and muscle activation comes from plyos. Moderate endurance pretty much just means back to skating, and blocking technique is, uh, blocking technique; it involves a lot of basic skating skills, though. Extensive endurance means endurance at moderate pace. Speed technique is going to be about making my form as efficient as possible, or else intensive endurance, or endurance at sprint pace, is going to suck. Pack awareness is playing well with others, which is to say playing the game.

I mean, that narrative makes sense to me. But I'm not wholly in charge of my training and will catch as catch can, and probably won't write about WCR's training plan in detail. But I figure what I can work on independently during warmups and write about, also adapted from Fitzgerald, is proprioceptive or body position drills, which is sort of my specialty anyway—

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

 

* drink water
* do stretches
* wash up
* wash dishes
* drink smoothie
* write pumpkin patch article
* eat peanut butter sandwich
* talk morosely about pumpkin patches with sweetie man
* watch Babylon 5
* milkshakes and glory at Earwax
* Fury practice

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Summer Pastime Wear

summer play wear

Otherwise I spent the entire summer in this pair of cargo shorts, and the other pair I got in tan, and one of the, I dunno, dozen black perfect camis that I went crazy buying about five years ago. And my Birkenstocks, also very old. What. I like to be comfortable!

Sometimes I dress up and then I usually wear, um, cargo shorts and one of my surgered t-shirts. Eventually I will post some t-shirt surgery tutorials, but the weather's already changing and I might not get to that until next year...

Monday, September 13, 2010

Work/Play

work/play taxonomy in development

The thing that I've hugely worked on over the years is making the most of my time, because what you make of your time is, basically, your life. But all that means to me is doing more of what I want to do in any given week, because I trust that being guided by what I want to do will produce a good enough instance of life—to be added to all the other instances of life being produced by everybody else in this big experiment— and a week is a nice-sized piece of time to deal with.

A way that I've developed with a little help from my friends for dividing up what I want to do is this work/play taxonomy that I wrote about in an earlier life, from which this caveat still holds:

Now if you're a grasshopper type, try not to think in terms of play as fun and work as not fun; and if you're an ant type, try not to think in terms of work as productive and play as unproductive. Play and work can both be fun, and can both be productive. Play can be unfun. Work can be unproductive, god knows. (I'm an ant-type, in case you hadn't figured that out.) So we're going to erase those meanings from these terms, but also we're going to acknowledge that we can still see the erasure cloud, so to speak, around them (4/2/09).

With that in mind, we're strictly defining our terms as follows:

work is something that is done as a means to an end
play is something that is done as an end in itself

Now we make a table:

  that is workthat is play
Work WORK
something that is done
as a means to an end
that is a means to an end
HOBBY
something that is done
as a means to an end
that is an end in itself
Play PLAY
something that is done
as an end in itself
that is a means to an end
PASTIME
something that is done
as an end in itself
that is an end in itself

So this is asking you to think more rigorously than I'm doing this thing that's supposed to be fun and it isn't fun, is that play that is work? even though the end point of this exercise is to lead you into a life that's the most fun possible for you. Fun is just not that graspable of a concept, I actually think that fun tends to fall apart the more it's grabbed at. Tiny pieces of fun that you pick out of the carpet is broken fun. These tools will get you the big, good pieces of fun, plus it's fun to use tools.

But back to the erasure cloud, I think it's true that things that you do as an end in themselves tend to be the things you think of as fun; but, these things can also be productive. Productive is important because, well, you make something from that. Like you know, a living. Now, making a living isn't the only thing. But it's a big thing, it takes up the biggest part of your week. If making a living is fun for you, you're golden. I think lots of people do have this figured out, I'm still working on it for whatever reason. But you can also use this to parse out the other parts of your life that aren't making a living, which I am avoiding calling "work" for now; the other things don't take up as much time as, okay, work, but they do add up. And remember, the game is making time for the things that you want to do the most.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Raisin Bran with Sliced Almonds

raisin bran with almonds

So this is my go to post-workout snack, Wild Harvest Raisin Bran with sliced almonds. I'm not picky about brands, I actually usually get store brands because they're cheaper. Store brand raisin bran is disgusting, though, and might even be the reason that I used to think raisin bran was disgusting. I mean, Wild Harvest is a store brand. But fancy! The flakes don't get soggy in milk, or in almond milk in my case.

(The sliced almonds don't come in the raisin bran, I add them separately.)

Thursday, September 9, 2010

 

* eat pasta
* speed practice
* talk grimly to Helliot
* eat cereal

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Buyer's Guide To Wheels

There are so many wheels to choose from, and no single wheel that's going to work for all people, and for that matter, there's not even a single wheel that's going to work for a person on all surfaces. Just understand that there are four basic specs for wheels: diameter or height, width, durometer or hardness, and hub. Understanding these specs pretty much unlocks the mystery of wheel shopping, and lets you decode what any given wheel will do for you and your circumstances.

Diameter (height)
The typical diameter of a derby or quad speed wheel is 62mm. Quad art wheels, just for comparison, are typically shorter than that; and for further comparison, inline speed wheels are very tall. These are very different wheels, but they serve to illustrate the general principle: a bigger diameter (or taller) wheel gives a longer roll and more power or speed, and a smaller diameter (or shorter) wheel gives a shorter roll and more maneuverability or agility. So inline speed wheels are the fastest, you pretty much stick to the long track and skate fast. Derby wheels still allow for speed around the short track and also for quick maneuvering through the pack. And art wheels are the most agile, the better to do all those fancy moves with. But as I said, that's just to illustrate the general principle; you're not going to swap between inline and derby and art wheels; there are only a few derby wheels taller or shorter than 62mm, and it's not something that you have to think too much about.

That said, there are taller outdoor wheels—e.g., Radar Pures are 66mm—where the longer roll helps cover more distance. And incidentally, taller diameter wheels also provide a smoother ride for rolling over pebbles and twigs, or Tootsie Rolls if you're in a parade.

And also, there are a few shorter indoor wheels—e.g., Radar Tuner Juniors and Atom Jukes. Tuner Juniors were originally developed for kids, who have shorter legs than grownups. Shorter legs means a shorter stride, and that means less power to get your wheels rolling; and a shorter wheel, which has a shorter roll, needs less power to get rolling. In other words, it's easier to get up to speed on a shorter wheel though the top speed is less than a taller wheel. Okay now, think back to the art wheel: shorter also means more agile. This is what some people thought, How much top speed do you need around a short track? When you also want to be juking and zigzagging across the track? That's the theory behind shorter wheels in a nutshell. Is it right? That's not the question, the question is whether it's right for you.

Width
Generally speaking, quad speed wheels are either wide or narrow. Wide is roughly 44mm, and narrow is roughly 37 mm. The general principle about width is, a wider wheel has more surface area and therefore more wheel in contact with the ground than a narrow wheel. From there, it's all trade-offs: with the wide wheel, you get more grip/power/stability but more wheel to move around so perhaps less agility. With the narrow wheel, you have less wheel to move around —i.e., more agility— but you also have less wheel on the ground, so perhaps less stability or perhaps less power. And again, what's right for you will depend on your skill and style as a skater.

Durometer (hardness)
And now, let's talk turkey about durometer. Durometer measures the hardness of the wheel; it's the number followed by the letter A. Skate wheel durometer is all measured on the A scale; there are other letter scales, but they're for other things that don't have to do with skating and therefore we don't care about. The higher the number, the harder the wheel; the lower the number, the softer the wheel. What you basically trade between the two are speed and grip/stability. A harder wheel offers more speed and less grip, a softer wheel offers less speed and more grip.

Incidentally, I try not to use "grip" interchangeably with durometer. I mean, I fail sometimes. But I try to think of durometer strictly in terms of wheel hardness or softness, and grip as how well you stick to the floor. Durometer contributes to grip, along with any number of other factors such as wheel width, wheel hub, body size, skating skill and style, and the surface being skated on.

Skating surface is probably your starting point for figuring out what durometer of wheel you need: a slippery floor needs a softer wheel, and a sticky floor needs a harder wheel. And you adjust from there: the lower you skate, the harder wheel you can get because your grip comes from your good form, newer skaters who haven't developed leg strength can get help from softer wheels, lighter bodies need softer wheels than heavier bodies, and so on.

Hub
Last but not least, your two main choices for hubs are nylon or aluminum, with hollow or hybrid hubs promising the best of both worlds.

As with plates, nylon is light and aluminum is strong. And for hubs this again means that nylon hubs flex a little bit, and aluminum hubs don't flex. And again with the trade-offs: that little flex actually gives you a little bit of grip around the turns. But also that little flex gives up a little bit of power; whereas if the hub doesn't flex, it all goes into the spin for more speed. Keep in mind that the amount of flex and how it affects your skating depends on your body weight, too.

Just by the way, aluminum hubs are really hard to get bearings in and out of. Not a performance issue, more of a mental health issue.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Screenprinting
 print shirts

silkscreen about to be printed

I got my screen and squeegee from Blick Art. I figure I'm going to mostly if not always use an 8x10 screen, so I got a squeegee to fit that. You can also use a folded up piece of cardboard as a squeegee.

This is the second half of the screenprinting process, printing your shirts. I will have a post later on about making a screen with the medium-tech screen filler method. But for now, let's say you have:

  • your shirts to be printed
  • a piece of cardboard that fits inside your shirts
  • a prepared screen
  • screenprinting ink
  • a spoon
  • a squeegee
  • hangers
  • an iron

Here I have the screen that I made to print the back of my scrimmage shirts. I'm always thinking about t-shirt designs, but this is by far the most useful screen I've actually made. Unless I'm going to print a lot of the same shirt for, like, my team, I don't ever really want a dozen of the same design, and it's not worth making a screen for just one shirt. But I have to put my name and number on the back of all my scrimmage shirts—well actually, Fury usually scrimmages in white. I guess I could just use a sharpie. But like I said I sometimes have to play black, and white's the only color that sharpie shows up really well on. So also if you scrimmage in blue or red. Anyway, I've used this screen quite a bit.

First, lay your shirt on a flat surface to be printed. Put the cardboard inside the shirt to keep the ink from bleeding through.

Position the screen where you want it on your shirt.

Scoop a spoonful of ink on the screen, and pull it across the top of the screen. The amount shown in the picture was maybe a little too much: too little ink and it will print too lightly, too much ink and it will print too thick.

Drag the ink down the screen with the squeegee, making sure to press the ink all across your design. A few passes in all directions usually does the trick.

Carefully lift the screen off the shirt. Put the screen down on some newspaper. If you're printing multiple shirts, be careful about smudging the ink on the backside of the screen because that will smudge your other shirts.

Put the shirt on a hanger, and then pull out the cardboard. Hang the shirt up to dry. It will be dry to the touch reasonably quickly, if you didn't use too much ink. I usually let it hang for 24 hours to fully dry before the last step.

As soon as you're done printing, thoroughly wash your screen and your tools. If the ink dries, it will be stuck for good. If it dries on your screen, you won't be using that again. I scrape as much of the ink as I can back into the jar to be reused, then rinse everything pretty much clean with a lot of water. Then I wash it all with dish soap and a sponge.

Finally, using a pillowcase as a scorch cloth, iron the shirts at the highest setting recommended for that fabric for about three minutes. This sets the ink so it will hold up for repeated washings.

Monday, September 6, 2010

 

* drink water
* shower
* wash dishes
* eat pancakes
* eat ice cream and potato chips
* rewrite Livestrong article
* eat spaghetti with clam sauce
* blocking practice
* eat cereal

Friday, September 3, 2010

Banana Fruit Smoothie

201008006_smoothie

I developed this smoothie recipe back when Filter used to be in the Flatiron building. By spying on the counter folk, I saw that all they put in their smoothies was a banana, some frozen fruit, and a little bit of liquid; you used to have your choice between orange or apple juice. No dairy, which I always thought you had to have in a creamy-type drink.

I didn't start making my own smoothies until this summer, until after I got this awesome Bella Cucina Rocket Blender Platinum Edition that Bellatrix recommended. There's something about this that works better than a blender. I have an antipathy to blenders, I know that's weird. I really dislike washing them. Also I don't think they blend smoothies very well, they always seem to leave a few frozen chunks of fruit behind. I think because of the upside-down design, everything blends more smoothly in a rocket blender. Then you unscrew the blade, and you drink right out of the cup. Less dishes, and everything's really easy to wash and doesn't pile up in the sink. Totally worth it to get the one that has the two cups, too.

frozen fruit
banana
half a container of coconut water
   or just cold water
1 Tbsp flaxseed, optional
1 Tbsp flaxseed oil, optional

For best results, put the frozen fruit in the cup first—two-thirds of the cup is a good amount. Break up a banana and put that on top, and pour in enough water to cover the frozen fruit. Coconut water has been a little hard to come by and I need it more for my workout drinks, so I've been using just water in my smoothies and it's fine. Add flaxseed and flaxseed oil, if desired. I use milled flaxseed, which can go right in there. If you have whole flaxseed, you probably want to grind it first in a coffee grinder.

Screw on the cap, and stick the cup on the motor base; so now the soft banana is on the bottom, which helps get your smoothie going versus having the frozen fruit jamming it up. Blend for 30 seconds, then take it off the base and give it a little shake to get anything that's stuck on the top of the cup. Blend for another 20 seconds or until the smoothie is churning freely from top to bottom.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

 

* eat pasta and bread
* scrimmage
* jammer practice
* eat cereal with almonds and silk
* watch Babylon 5

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Buyer's Guide to Bearings

How I got my bearings. Ha ha.

My first skates were Riedell R3s, which come with Kwik ABEC-5 bearings. At the time I understood so little about gear that I only ever caught snatches of people's advice about what to get. Having heard that ABEC-7 bearings were de rigueur-er for better skaters, I went to Jodi at Orbit asking for ABEC-7 bearings and being careful to say it exactly as I'd heard. Like speaking a foreign language from an index card, and what followed was like when you ask a French shop lady where the bathroom is: you get a tumult of conversation that you in no way understand, but you smile and nod. The upshot was, I walked out of the Orbit skate shop with two boxes of Bones Swiss bearings that cost more than my skates. And they're great bearings, I have been happy with them ever since. So I don't personally know a lot about bearings, because right from the start I got this one great set of bearings that's probably going to last for the rest of my life.

Well actually, I do skate outdoors on Kwik ABEC-7s that I got for free as a door prize. I had a set of ABEC-1s and the set of ABEC-5s, but I gave them away to other people to use for outdoor bearings. So those are all the bearings I know, I like the Swiss Bones the best for their performance and they're also easy to clean. Instructions for cleaning bearings TK!

Bearing size

Briefly, bearings fit on the axels of your plates. PowerDyne plates—the plates that Riedell skates are built with— have 8mm axels and take 8mm bearings. Certain fancy plates, like Snyders and Roll-Lines, have 7mm axels and take 7mm bearings.

Bearing rating

Bearings are commonly ABEC-rated from ABEC-1 to ABEC-9, which is a rating of the bearing's precision. The higher the rating, the more smoothly the bearing rolls. Smoother is theoretically better, because smoother means that the bearing is easier to push. Higher-rated bearings don't exactly roll faster, they roll more per push. So you can either skate faster on the same push, or you can skate the same speed with less push.

ABEC-1 or ABEC-3 bearings are usually sold for outdoor skating. Bearings get dirty pretty quick outdoors, and a dirty high-precision bearing isn't exactly high-precision anymore. So definitely do buy a separate set of bearings for skating outdoors, and definitely don't spend a lot of money on them.

A typical Riedell beginner skate package for indoor skating will include Kwik ABEC-5 bearings, intermediate packages will include ABEC-7, and advanced packages ABEC-9. The lower-rated bearings are theoretically "brakier" and easier for less advanced skaters to manage speed. Then in theory, you upgrade as you become more advanced and more able to manage your speed.

Something to consider, though, is that the ABEC rating system is not specific to skating, but generally applicable for a wide range of industrial applications with the highest-precision bearings—that's ABEC-7 or ABEC-9—required for machine parts that spin at 20,000 RPM, whereas your skate bearings spin at about 2,000 RPM. Which raises the question whether higher-rated bearings are going to make a difference for your skating.

This is the case that Bones makes in their article ABEC vs. Skate Rated, which is worth a read. Bones makes a wide range of well-reputed bearings, basically Reds and Swiss with variations like Labyrinth (sealed to keep bearings cleaner), Six (six ball bearings instead of seven, supposedly faster and easier to accelerate), and Ceramics (lighter, harder, and stronger than steel bearings).