fun with kids

So much fun to be had.

I'm a big fan of parenting and having fun with your kids. I saw a bumper sticker that said "Focus on your home" and I think there is a lot of good that can come to that. A friend of mine, whom I have very high respect, Charles Ivey, said "Be sure to not forget to focus on your own back yard". Charles did great things for our nation and it was nice to hear that someone like him had a local emphasis too.

Ok, enough philisophy...what are fun things to do with your kids?

I love to play the recorder with my daughter Bryanna. Recorders are super cheap on ebay or amazon and there are tons of songs to be gotten from the internet. The songs we've been focusing on lately are hot cross buns, Ode to Joy (Beethoven (interesting use of this song in Get Smart (it was used to trigger a nuclear bomb by Kaos (the bad guys)), twinkle twinkle, amazing grace, silent night (some fun high notes to learn on a recorder), scarborough fair (one of my favorite simon and garfunkel songs), brahms lulluby (some tricky low note combinations for me), yankee doodle, jingle bells, when the saints go marching in. Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring is my nemesis...high notes, low notes, timing: all this makes for a challenging song (and practicing this song makes all the others seem easy). We play just a few minutes a day max. For hard sequences, we play slow and break them down to smaller sequences to learn the pattern.

I love to read with my 2 year old Tallula. We also play some fun interactive games together (Arthur, Sesame Street, Dr. Sues, Blues Clues...a lot of these games are old and can be bought used for really cheap on amazon or ebay). This morning we had fun watching a few episodes of Pingu. If you have never heard of Pingu, you are in for a real treat...tons of episodes available on YouTube. My brother swears they don't speak a real language but I notice that there are dutch subtitles on some of the episodes...do you know if they are actually speaking a language?

My father sang to me when I was a child. I loved this. I try to sing with my kids too. There is a wonderful book full of children's songs that I love to sing to Tallula: A Treasury of Children's Songs: Forty Favorites to Sing and Play by Fox, Dan (can get used for cheap from Amazon).

A friend of mine showed me a sterling engine...wow, those are cool! Bryanna and I built a thermoacoustic stirling engine (from a kit). If you have an easy explanation of how these works, I'd love to hear from you. I believe Los Alamos have spent millions (maybe billions) studying these things. Our engine is totally awesome and was used as part of a fun skit Emmett and I performed at the St. Francis on Christmas Eve lunch called Juggling Physics (which included 'interpretive juggling' of the four states of matter (electrons were simulated with rings and they were flying fast by the time we got to the 4th state of matter, plasma).

Yesterday Emmett and I were learning about simple projectile motion in flash. There are so many cool resources to learn how to program flash on the internet. With the internet being able to fly across international borders with ease, it's delightful to learn wonderful things from all the creative minds in other countries. For the simple projectile motion, Emmett and I empirically derived that around 45 degrees is the optimal angle for a given speed to make a projectile fly the farthest (and this was translated to baseball where if you want to throw the ball as far as you can, aiming for a 45 degree launch angle would get the ball the furthest).

Here are some cool physics tutorials in flash:
http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/840/1/Simple-Projectile-Motion/Page1.html
http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/742/1/Physics-in-ActionScript-30/Page1.html

Now here is a super cool program to learn more about physics:
http://www.crayonphysics.com/ (and with cross over, it works on a Mac)

2008 US Sailing Team Racing National Championship

The US Sailing Team Racing National Championship for the Hinman Trophy just concluded at the Hinman Yacht Club. This is a special year since it's an ISAF Team Racing World Championship qualifier as well. Enjoy the podcasts below for a recap of what happened and why all these team racers won't forget the great winds and hospitality of Erie Yacht Club (if you want high resolution video of any of these, you are welcome to email me at dude1@apple.com ).

1) Silver Panda
2) West Kirby
3) Tannery Loungers
4) Tap n' Go


Why are Amanda Callahan, Elizabeth Hall, Lisa Keith and Clay Bischoff synchronizing diving into the water? Did they just win for the third time in a row?


Check out some of the awesome boat handling that Panda has while gybing.


Why is Erik Stork doing a back flip off the back of his V15? Did he and his team just qualify the the 2009 ISAF Team Racing World Championship?



part 1

part 2

part 3

Listen to a recap of Sunday's racing (including the quarter, semi and petit finals) from the encyclopedia of team racing: Ken Legler.


If you are interested in competing in the 2009 championship next year, here is a preview from Tom Dewayne.


Rip Hale comes from Martha's Vinyard, home of some of the finest sailors in the world (including Nevin Sayre).


Listen to Eric Stork talk about how he and his team did on Saturday



Matt Knowles is the youngest member of the US Sailing Racing Rules Committee. He was also an umpire at the Hinman. He was Harvard's #3 skipper for Team Racing Nationals when it was at Navy. Listen to the inside scoop on who knows the rules better: Dick Rose or Dave Dellenbaugh.


Amanda Callahan told me that Tom Brady was sailing this weekend at the Championship...I asked her who Tom Brady was and what kind of boat does he sail...


If you hiked as hard as Colin Merrick and Amanda Calahan, do you think you could beat them in a team race?



Is Adam Werblow, the head coach of St. Mary's College (aka Sail Maker's College) a turkey? Let's hear what John Vandemoer, new head coach of the Stanford Sailing Team, has to say on the subject.


The lovely colors of pink and blue.


Stanford Alum, former 470 sailor and current College of Charleston head honcho, Alice Maynard joined the umpire team this weekend. Listen to what her thoughts are on getting more women team racing as well as match racing in the USA.


John and his little sis' Katie Stork hiking hard...


An awkward moment where Amanda Callahan wanted to play with my balls...I gave her my juggling clubs instead :-)


Colin Merrick & Amanda Callahan and Pete Levesque & Liz Hall going fast while leading 1, 2 in the finals.


Bruce Hebbert, a premiere umpire from the UK was part of our umpire team. As a former Navy man whose favorite color is Oxford blue, learn the proper way to say 'leeward' in the UK.


Check out Clay Johnson surfing in the light stuff.


Clay Bischoff/Lisa Keith and Colin Merrick/Amanda Callahan lead Tannery Loungers in the Semi-Finals


Colin Merrick feels the racing rules of sailing don't clearly define when a tack is complete. In fact, the racing rules of sailing don't appear to have a definition of tacking at all. Why is this a problem? The ISAF Rule 42 interpretations rely on a notion of when a tack is complete. If tack is not defined, how can one define when it's complete? If one reads between the lines of rule 13 and the ISAF rule 42 interpretations (specifically ISAF Rule 42 Basic 6), one can guess that a tack is complete when a boat is on her new close hauled course...but there is not case or appeal that specifically states this that I'm aware of.


Listen to Amanda Callahan talk about the racing.


If you tacked as well as Adam Roberts, do you think you could help your team win the ICSA Team Racing National Championship in Team Racing?


A brief panoramic of the racing scene at Erie YC. I found Erie to be a very low stress place to host a regatta. The Hinman is a major event of dramatic proportions (arguably the largest US Sailing National Championship) that had to house 18 umpires! That's a lot of umpires! 17 teams (17 x 6 people = 102) camped or found lodging near by. With all these people, as well as a world class PRO and announcer, clubs can be nightmares to park, feed or provide hot showers. Erie YC, in my opinion, did not miss a beat and provided warm hospitality to all. A venue I highly recommend if people are looking for hosts of other events.


Listen while Charlie Enright explain his hail of alley-oop.


Words from the Commodore of Erie YC, Dave Arthurs.


The lovely conditions off Erie YC provided for some speedy reaching on legs 2 and 4 of the course.

Watch how NYYC Silver Panda rounds the leeward mark.



Gavin O'Hare, Hinman regatta Chairman, talks to us about the historic aspect of our sailing venue and the etymology of the name "Misery Bay" and the origins of the term "Don't give up the ship".


Bruce Hebbert, world famous umpire and one of the original authors of the Team Race Call Book has always said the WORST thing an umpire can do is drive through the finish line. Listen to Bruce's wife, Amanda, set us straight on this topic.


Gybe like a girl...check out how 470 world champion Erin Maxwell gybes.


Here is Erin Tacking.


Yes, it was windy enough to flip...


Erie YC has some beautiful wooden boats.


John Pratt does not do 'stinkin' podcasts...except for me...check this podcast out as it's definitely one of my favorites!


The author enjoying a relaxing juggle of machetes between races...

If you are interested in last year's coverage of this event, you are welcome to check out:
2007 Championship Coverage

more podcasts will be posted as time permits...

Cal Cup Aug 2 - F4 fins, Junior clinic and tons of breeze

Photo of Mike Percey worshiping his new F4 fin. The first Cal Cup of August was in extremely windy conditions at Coyote Point where the ebb and over 30 knots of breeze made for some very dramatic conditions. Listen to Ben Bamer talk about the hot new SF Bay area fin for formula racing: the F4

F4 Fin MP3 interview with Ben Bamer

Emmett explains why there was no racing

The CalCup started earlier in the day with a wonderful junior clinic and board repair clinic at Crown Beach in Alameda. The wind was very light at Alameda and awesome for teaching young people. Jane Moreson had invited Cal Adventures to attend the clinic and it was great meeting with them as they teach a great deal of juniors throughout the summer. The clinic was at Crown Beach, a post for Boardsports school (another location for excellent windsurfing instruction in the SF Bay area). President of US Windsurfing, Jim MacGrath, supported the clinic too...thank you Jim! While few juniors showed up, we did have a few people out in the light breeze having fun. The wind proved to be too light for racing so the racing fleet drove over to Coyote for some killer breeze.

vacation

my family and i went to martha's vineyard for the east coast junior windsurfing championship, the mad river valley of vermont and boston. we had a terrific time.

ECJWC

The East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championship was a huge success!

Yellow

photo by emmett mcdonald
From Scuttlebutt:
Bryan McDonald has taken the "yellow jersey" theme to the extreme! (Scuttlebutts 2600 plus)

Bryan serves as Chair of the recently created US SAILING Windsurfing Task Force (WTF).  The WTF's  long-term goal...to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in Olympic Windsurfing...means building a broad base of competitive junior windsurfers. To that end WTF's immediate goal is to ensure the success of the upcoming Junior Windsurfing Racing Camp to be held immediately preceding the East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championships.

The Championship is being held as part of US SAILING's USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival (JO) on July 16 in Vineyard Haven, MA.       http://www.vhyc.org/Windsurfing%20Championship%20Page.html .
Bryan's yellow suit (appropriate size, of course) would look great on the E. Coast Junior Windsurfing Champion and might start an even more colorful new tradition!

Rounding out the WTF are Nevin Sayre, Dan Weiss, and Susan Epstein.

Susan (for the WTF)

Cal Cup supports youth Windsurfing development

The June 21 Cal Cup (a northern California windsurfing regatta series) featured a combination of the St. FYC's techno windsurfers and interested youth racers. Bryan McDonald and Paul Heineken presented on youth windsurfing to a variety of kids who are interested in Windsurfing and were in town preparing for the upcoming US Sailing youth championship at SFYC. One of the youth was Cody Shevitz, who qualified to represent the US in the ISAF Youth World Championship.