Thursday, March 20, 2014

Silent Running

20140320 pencast pt1

20140320 pencast pt2

Scribbled with a Pilot Knight fountain pen, kitted out with an Italic nib liberated from the squiddy Pilot Plumix. This took a grouchier turn than I intended, but it is true that I spend about 20-25 hours per week making my wife a track widow, the poor thing.

Our meets are pretty low tech, doing all our registration on paper, starting with black-powder blanks, and recording times with paper tape and numbered popsicle sticks. At the high school level, they are far fancier (and bigger-budget) with electronic shoe tags, video cameras to record finishes and the like. There's certainly a place for higher technology, and maybe some day we'll sign in children all marked with QR codes and hand scanners. They're all facilitating technologies, though -- there's a need they are filling. I'm still unclear on the need for the second screen strapped to my wrist, determining if I'm dancing or not, and offering to look up the song for me online.

4 comments:

Bill M said...

Nice hand writing.

I never like running until I hit the track team in High School. I was a distance runner and I still run almost daily a couple of miles.

As much as I always enjoyed music I never like walking, running or bicycling with things in my ears. Remember the fellow running on the beach lisening to his iPod? Like 99% of all people who wear those or similar devices, they play them way too loud. He was hit and killed by an airplane.

This week 2 people were killed by a train because they were running withe headphones on.

TonysVision said...

99% of the time outdoors I prefer to keep my ears tuned to the ambiance. However, I find if i stick an audiobook in one ear (leaving the other tuned for the sound of landing airplanes) i get out on my 10-mile cycling loop more often.

Great handwriting and nice work with that italic nib. Whenever I use one things don't work out so well. Perhaps if i used lined paper - yeah, that's got to be it.

And good on ya for fostering kids being active outdoors.

notagain said...

Ha - a smart phone is what you make of it. 90% of my use is listening to old time radio and playing Words With Friends. It's nice to have the map when we get lost, and to pull up a groupon at dinner. I didn't get a mobile phone at all until talking was no longer its primary function.
Also Bill, we get those stories too and I never understand having it so loud. My sounds are only up enough to hear them. I can still hear conversation around me, so hearing a train would be no problem. Any louder would be uncomfortable, wouldn't it?

Rob Bowker said...

My teenage track days were an escape too. From school mostly. A free study period would see me and a couple of others either on the track, jumping into pits or hitting the hills for cross country running. It was still school, but on your own terms.