Socks

I've always loved wearing socks. When I was little, I would rather wear socks around the house than go barefoot. I also would rather wear socks outside than shoes. This probably bothered my mom because I wore them out so quickly. I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of fine socks. My whole mission, people gave me socks for presents. I think that's the standard gift in Korea, because I got a whole lot of them.

I like to always have nice thick socks that don't have holes in them. Once a sock even hints that it could become a transparent mesh of fine string (you know what I'm talking about, right?) I get rid of it or stuff it in the far reaches of the drawer so that there is no possibility of accidentally donning it in a rush. I like to think that if I keep my socks nice, my shoes won't be as stinky.

So, with this background in mind, as Bill Nye the Science Guy would put it, "Consider the Following":

When a new pair of socks is born, it is a clean slate, fresh, unpolluted, and each sock is fairly symmetric about its center line (the line that runs from heel to the gap between your 2nd and 3rd toe, counting from your big toe). However, after one or two times of wearing the sock, it begins to develop a personality of its own. Some socks get dirtier due to rain, mud, sand, etc. The main way in which they distinguish themselves though is by which side of the sock "relaxes" to accommodate the big toe. A difference between a right foot sock and a left foot sock can be evident after just one wearing. This, of course, is almost entirely dependent on which foot you wear the sock on for the first time. So, in order for me to thoroughly enjoy my socks every day, it is imperative that my right socks be grouped with a left sock when they are folded. I can't stand to wear a left foot sock on my right foot because there is tons of space by my littlest piggie while it should be snuggled in tight to the foot by the sock. It is easy to group rights and lefts on church socks and socks with designs on them, but my wife, Shanna, refuses to go through my plain socks and match them up for me when she does the laundry. She simply dumps them all into my drawer as individual socks, which forces me to fish through the drawer each morning until I can catch me a lefty and a righty.

Somebody out there has to have some sympathy for me, right? Or is this something that labels me "strange"?

Old Narocut

I've been reading through some family history information that my grandma gave me, and I had the idea to make blog posts that tell some of the stories I've come across. This one is one of my favorites. The story takes place in Grantsville, Utah. It is a story about my great-great-grandmother (I think) Genevieve Wrathall Orr, who is referred to as grandmother in the story.

"One particular warm Sunday afternoon, Grandmother had been left at home to care for Aunt Eva [her sister, I think] who was the baby at that time, the rest of the family being at church, when an old Indian named Narocut knocked at the door. Narocut was known to be very mean, and the children had alwas been told to give him what he wanted, so as not to arouse his anger. Grandma was horrified when she saw him standing there. He started asking for food, which she gave him. She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost time for church to be out, for which she was very grateful. The Indian asked for other things, and then he demanded that she give him the baby. Grandmother was terrified but she remembered the counsel her father had given them, and realizing that the Indian couldn't get far before church dismissed, she gave him the baby. He started going West and of course passed by the [church] meeting house. The man who was standing at the pulpit saw old Narocut hurrying down the street with the baby. He notified the people in church, and Grandfather with other men there, hurriedly overtook the Indian and the baby was soon resting safely at home again."

I like the story because it's so foreign to me to think that just an old Indian man would walk up to somebody's house while the parents weren't home and demand to be given a baby. A person who does that today goes to jail. I guess that's something that people just had to deal with in the last 19th century West.

Tour de France Conclusion

Sorry everyone, especially Bruce, for not finishing my coverage of the Tour this year. Seems Bruce thought that a giant UFO came and abducted all of the riders sometime between my last post and the finish of the race, or something like that. But it turns out they did finish. I just thought that nobody was following the posts due to the lack of commenting. Not that you need to comment or anything, but I see a 0 comment sign to mean that nobody is interested in the posts. Anyways,...

Wow, the last post I did was the team time trial...That was like 3 weeks ago at least. Anyway, Contador, the favorite for the race made a breakaway on an uphill mouontain top finish and just burned up to the finish line. This was very soon after the team time trial. That move put him in first place overall. Armstrong didn't get a chance to really challenge him on that though due to the fact that when Contador made his first accelleration, Armstrong was stuck with a slower group and he didn't move up for the reason of giving his teammate an advantage. This initial gap on Armstrong that Contador earned set up the most exciting part of the tour in my mind though. After losing a substantial chuck of time on Contador, Lance made a huge acceleration and charged solo across a gap of abouut 45 seconds. It was amazing. The announcers were going crazy and I was really excited. Armstrong caught up and joined Contador and a few others in the lead group. Then right at the end, Contador made another charge and took the win, but not by too much. Enough to put him in Yellow for the remainder of the tour though. Armstrong made a solo charge across a gap on one other occasion during the race. It was amazing.

In the Alps, the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, did as they promised and brought their "A" game. They made attempt after attempt to crack the leader Contador and other challengers, namely Lance Armstrong, Bradley Wiggins, and Andreas Kloden. They succeeded gaining time on all but Contador. Armstrong may have been able to keep up, but again, since his team leader was with them he played the teamwork card and didn't help the other challengers catch back up with Contador. Andy and Frank actually took over 2nd and 3rd place for a day or two. Andy hung on to second place overall and he won the White Jersey, denoting the best young rider in the tour. I think he won it last year too. I'm not sure what age, but the white jersey goes to the top placed rider under 25 or 24 or something.

Armstrong bounced back in the individual time trial and clinched 3rd place overall. Bradley Wiggins of Garmin Slipstream I think got 4th, though he may have only gotten 5th. Wiggins used to be a sprinter in the velodrome. Reigning gold medalist in several events in track racing and he was a big surprise in this years tour. Franco Pellizotti won the Polka Dot Jersey and is the King of the Mountains for 2009, meaning he earned the most points for being the first over the high climbs on each stage. Thor Hushovd won the Green Jersey for Best Sprinter. This seems weird because Columbia's Mark Cavendish won literally every sinlge sprint finish at this years tour. That is an amazing feat. Never was he beaten, and only once this whole year has he failed to win a group bunch sprint. However, he was penalized some points for moving off of his sprinting line in one finish, which blocked another rider from passing him. Hushovd made a daring solo attack to gather up the mid-race sprints on a particularly long and hilly stage, so he does deserve the green.
Well, that's all for this year. Congrats to all of the riders including Beppu who is the first Japanese rider to ever finish the Tour.

Clapping with Myself. (And Another Kid)

This story is dedicated to Isaac Selin, my little bro who's serving a mission right now. Some of you will know why. Others will not. But it's a pretty funny story anyways. Don't worry though Isaac, I'll copy it and send it in an email to you too.

So, on Independence Day we went to the concert on the west lawn of the Capitol Building. Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, Sesame Street characters, and other musicians were present. We were seated on the lawn so that the stage was off a little bit to our right side and about 100 yards in front of us. We had to wait out on the lawn for about 5 hours from when we got there until the concert started. I noticed a family sitting in front of us. They had two boys maybe the ages 6 and 9. The real reason I noticed was because the 6 year old had his shirt off and was always complaining and fighting over the umbrella they brought to shade them from the sun. We ignored them, played some games and waited for the concert to start.

About 1/4 of the way through the concert after a song or video or something, I finished my applauding and waited patiently for whatever was to come next. I hadn't noticed the abnoxiously long clapping that was going on...Wait, I get ahead of myself. I didn't hear any clapping that sounded out of the ordinary. But I did hear the 9 year old in front of me turn to his dad and say, "Dad, did you hear that? I was the last one in the whole crowd to clap!" And with that challenge, I proceded to clap once, loudly, and very noticibly so that the kid knew that he was no longer the last one. He stopped talking, looked back to see who did it, turned back facing forward (to hide his anger, embarassment, and fear) and then clapped again.

I clapped again.

(You could tell that he was getting pretty annoyed)

He clapped.

I clapped three times.

He clapped.

I conceded defeat for the time being.

I didn't bother challenging him again for a little while, because I knew that he would be on the lookout for whoever had played that nasty trick on him before. I layed low until about 20 minutes later after the Sesame Street gang had sang their songs. As the applause died down, I looked forward to find the boy. There he was. I could see him preparing his hands to clap as soon as everybody else had stopped. This was my chance.

I'm pleased to say that my applause did not die down with the rest of the crowd. As the silence grew, there was only one sound wafting throug the air. The steady "Clap...Clap...Clap..." of my hands rang to the Capitol and back. "Clap...Clap...Clap..." I continued, seeing the boy still waiting for whoever the morn was that kept on clapping. "Clap...Clap...Clap..." He was really getting worried now. He didn't know what to do. He thought whoever it was would keep clapping through the next song, thus negating his attempts to be the last clap. "Clap...Clap...Clap..." I kept on going. I was determined to win this showdown. I didn't care if I made the kid cry. "Clap...Clap...Clap..." I wasn't paying attention to all of the other spectators who were turning their heads my way. This was none of their business. Between you, little kid, and me.

"Clap...Clap...Clap.."

I would've gone all night if I had to. Unfortunately, my wife stopped me. And sure enough, as soon as I stopped, he clapped, and that was it. Best two out of three. I got beat in a clapping contest by a 9 year-old. To him there is only one thing I want to say,...

"Good Form Jack! Good Form!"

I Must Have OCD

So I normally do these little things like count the number of steps in each staircase I ever walk on and keep my school books stacked smallest to tallest on my desk. You know, I'm very certain about the way some things should be done. I just found another thing that I've begun doing.

I look at license plates and try to find patterns in them. Over the past few days, I've been noticing myself looking at every license plate I pass while I walk Shanna to and from the bus stop every morning. Today I found something interesting, at least to me. Out of 74 license plates that I was able to look at and read, 67 of them featured either the letter X, K(which looks awfully similar to X), or J. So that's about 90.5% of the cars on my street with a Virginia license plate. The pattern only occurs on Virginia license plates. If I included all of the Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York plates, the percentage would go way down. So, if you move to Alexandria, VA and get license plates, 9 out of 10 times, the plates will have an X, K, or J on it. I think this post solidifies my status as nerd.

These Guys Are Good!

I missed a day in my Tour de France coverage, and it was a good day. Yesterday the stage was very windy and the last portion was very flat. There was a long break away by 4 riders from the very start of the race. They led by as much as 13 minutes, but that lead was reduced significantly by the 25 km to go mark. It was shortly after this mark where Team Columbia HTC made a break. They had their whole team setting pace on the front of the peloton and made a huge acceleration with about 18 km to go. The move caught more than half of the racers sleeping, only 25 or so managed to make escape from the group and chase down the 4 leaders. The windy conditions made it impossible for the rest of the group to follow and a huge gap opened up. Among the lead group was Lance Armstrong, Fabian Cancellara, Thor Hushovd, and Mark Cavendish. The riders quickly caught the 4 leading riders and blazed their way to the finish. In the end it was an amazing sprint finish with Cavendish beating out Thor Hushovd at the finish. That win was Cavendish's 15th win out of 18 sprints this year. That is amazing. Another amazing part of the day is that Armstrong, by securing a place in the break away, pulled himself up to number 3 in the general classificaion. I may have spoken too soon yesterday in saying it'd be hard for him to place this year.

Today's stage was the team time trial, new this year, which was reinstated after a 3 or 4 ear hiatus. Armstrong, in pre-race interviews, stated that he thought that his team (Astana) had a great shot at winning the race, meaning that Armstrong could move up even further in the GC. But at the same time he was a bit reserved about predicting that he would be riding in yellow tomorrow. The team time trial is a really fn event to watch because each team goes as hard as they can, sometimes even losing their own riders off of the back of their group. The fast speeds also meant a lot of accidents today. The most impressive ride of the day I would say goes to Garmin Slipstream who rode most of the stage with only 5 team members, the minimum number of riders that must cross the line to stop the time. Doing this, they still posted the 2nd fastest time. The story of the day however has to be Team Astana and Lance Armstrong. By winning the stage and beating Cancellara's team by 40 seconds, Armstrong moves up into a tie for first place in the GC!! Amazing! Although the yellow jersey was awarded to Cancellara due to a few tenths of a second difference, Armstrong shares the top time and position with him. I definitely didn't expect Armstrong to do so well. I don't think anybody did.

Then for team Astana, they hold places 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 in the GC. 7 of their riders in the top 20. Of course this will change over the rest of the race, but they rode an amazing time trial. These guys are really good!

Cav does it again

Today's tour stage featured no changes in the top ten of the general classification. It did however feature the first two crashes of this year's race. Frank Schleck, one of the two brothers from Luxembourg, went down but was able to rejoin the main pack for the finish. I have been a pretty big fan of Frank and Andy Schleck ever since last year when they rode a very quality tour. I hope that they do well this year too.

One thing that I didn't mention in yesterday's post is that with Alberto Contador from Spain, team Astana, claiming 2nd place in the general classification, Lance Armstrong may find himself riding in a supportive role protecting Contador during the tour this year and not being able to have the blessing of being the team's most protected rider. He knew this coming into the tour, and I hope that he does well in whatever capacity his team needs him.

Today's stage ended in a mass sprint and I don't think that anybody is too surprised that Mark Cavendish from team Columba High Road won that. George Hincapie from the same team, a long timme veteran of the peleton, hinted that Mark Cavendish is the fastest sprinter in pro cycling, and that if he is delivered well to the sprint he will win most of the time. I agree. Of all the races I've seen this year, whenever Cavendish is among the leaders in the last half kilometer, he wins. It's really pretty amazing that he wins so frequently and consistently. Way to co Cavendish.

The Tour is Here

Well, another one thing that I am looking forward to this month is the Tour De France. As some of you may know, stage 1 was held today as an individual time trial in Monaco. Fabian Cancellara, one of the favorites of the race, held off almost the entire Astana team to place first and take the first yellow jersey of the race. The real news of this opening stage is not only Cancellara's win, but the fact that of the racers, Astana holds four of the top 10 positions. Alberto Contador(2), Andreas Kloden(4), Levi Leipheimer(6), and Lance Armstrong(10) from Astana had great showings today. Whether or not Lance Armstrong will be able to perform througout the race is still unknown, but he had a good start today. I'm glad to see one of my favorite riders, Levi Leipheimer, on the leaders board as well.

I'll try to update daily throughout the race, so you can all know at least what's going on with the race. Enjoy.

Book Review: Escape from Lucania

Escape from Lucania: An Epic Struggle for Survival by David Roberts

This was a book I just grabbed off of the shelf because I tend to enjoy reading about real life events, and especially about struggles and accomplishments. Escape from Lucania follows two young men on a trip to the Arctic in order to conquer North America's tallest unclimbed mountain at the time. They had spent the previous year in the area developoing maps of the uncharted territory (it was the 1930's) and surveying the mountain. The seemed to have everything worked out, but the next summer was plaguedd with warm weather which prevented their pilot from making but one trip, dropping them off in the wilderness. From there, the boys struggled up the slopes of Lucania, leaving everything behind that they didn't need including one of their sleeping bags and a huge square cut out from the bottom of their tent. After summiting Lucania, their real struggle began as they found themselves unexpectedly short on food and 100 miles from the nearest help.

Like I said before, I really enjoy the true account type books, and this like any other really caught and held my attention. Everything seemed real and the author really covered his bases interviewing all types of people for the book including most importantly the two men themselves. I enjoyed worrying and struggling with them boys as they made their way out of the mountains. I give the book a rating of 2.5/3 Enjoy it.

The Giro 2009

Hello people, It's been a while since I have posted on this blog, but to see some of the posts I have made on our family blog you can visit superselins.blogspot.com. I'm going to probably bore some of you out there. (Out of the 5 people who check this blog, on a good month) Recently UniversalSports.com has shown every stage of the 21 stage road race live online. On a side note, Universal Sports seems like a cool website, and they routinely show live sporting events of olympic sports like swimming, cycling, track and field, etc.

I was able to watch a few stages of the race and follow the standings througout. Lance Armstrong ended up in 12th place overall. Pretty good out of the hundreds of riders. Levi Leipheimer finished 6th. The top five were all very capable and decorated racers, including the 2008 Tour De France winner, Carlos Sastre.

The final stage was an individual time trial, everyone riding alone, which I usually like to watch, but it was raining and the riders were taking it easy so as not to slip. The race was led by Dennis Menchov of Russia by 31 seconds going into the final stage. As he approached the finish (only about 3 minutes away) this happened: (sorry it's small and you can't see well because of the trees)

There is an even better video on Universal Sports, but I couldn't embed it. The other video is pretty wicked, and it looks like it hurt a lot. He had a big wound on his leg I think too. Anyway, It's really amazing to me, and kind of funny too, how from the second he hits the ground he's maneuvering to get up. And once he gets up, he's running to his bike. It's also crazy how quickly the guy jumps out of his car and gives him a new bike.


All in all, it's only about 10 seconds from when he crashes to when he's on a new bike riding again. In the end, Menchov finished 41 seconds ahead of the 2nd place finisher in the general classification. So, he preserved his victory of the Giro. Another pretty amazing thing is how far he slides on the wet cobblestone. He was going about 50 km/hr when he fell (31 mph). If he had fallen any differently, he could have broken a number of bones. Lucky guy.

Anyway, it was a pretty exciting finish to the race. This man has guts...and a sore hip.