Chris and I headed over to Wildcat Lanes tonight for Buck Night. We were both bowling way better than we have in the past few weeks. It would have been more fun with more people, but I can’t complain too muich. We both bowled well above our league averages, and I set a new high game of 223 with a series of 551! I still can’t believe more people don’t show up on Saturdays.
Man, I want one. I don’t even know when they’re being released in the US or how I will manage to trade my old one in. Rest assured, I’ll figure something out.
On a totally unrelated note, someone plans to make Family Guy video games. Can I please be Stewie on a quest for world domination? Level 3 can be the death of Lois.
Edit: Here’s a video comparison as well as some close-up pics. That thing looks sweet.
I first saw this question posed in the Math discussion folder at work (back before the Classifieds where restricted). Then today a story from The Straight Dope (original here) showed up on Digg where there was a pretty spirited discussion about it. Simply put:
A plane is standing on a runway that can move (think of some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the wheel’s speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?
The answer seems obvious: the conveyor will keep the plane stationary, no air will move past the wings, thus no lift will be generated, and the plane will stay on the ground. The plane can’t just jump into the air. It sounds simple enough, and this was my take on it for the first few minutes I pondered the question. But the first assumption this argument is based on is wrong. All I needed was for some to frame the situation a certain way and I saw my mistake. The plane will not stand still relative to the ground.
We got about 4 inches of snow yesterday in Madison. The good news is that it wasn’t very cold, so it was almost nice. Of course, I haven’t tried driving to work yet…
I thought Jon Stewart did OK as Oscar host last night. He was funny as always, but didn’t get the big laughs I was expecting. I’m not sure if he nervous, facing the wrong kind of crowd, missing some of the sight gags possible with his 3 giant screens from The Daily Show set, or just trying too hard – but he never seemed to really connect with the audience. It’s a shame, because he’s one of the smartest and funniest guys out there. I don’t think it helped that ABC’s intro clip portrayed him as the guy they went to when no one else was willing to host (even if it was funny). Which reminds me, I’ve gotta set the DVR to record The Daily Show this week.
I haven’t seen any of the movies up for best picture; we seem to be in a movie drought lately. I can’t remember the last time we went to a movie in the theater, and we’re probably not getting our money’s worth out of Netflix in the last couple of months either. Still, I’ve heard quite a bit about the movies and I was glad to see Crash take home best picture, mostly because everyone was convinced it would be Brokeback Mountain.
Now I’ve really gotta get to work and hope my customers leave me alone so I can get some real work done.
We’re back in Chicago at the Ramada for the night. I’ve got several posts and some photos to put up, but I’ll do it later. I have a feeling I’ve missed a lot while we were gone. All I’ve really heard about recently are the Olympics and the port management contract going to UAE.
All good things must come to an end. We’re just passing over Cuba on our flight back to Chicago. Unfortunately, our honeymoon had a pretty lackluster finish. We woke up yesterday morning to rain and this time it didn’t dry up quickly. It rained most of the morning and stayed overcast until early evening. The worst was the wind, which forced them to close down all water sports for the whole day. Since we had planned on snorkeling in the morning, the weather pretty much blew our entire day.
We did end up meeting a few older couples in one of the hot tubs, and I wound up playing sand volleyball with them for most of the afternoon. It was fun, but I definitely would have preferred to be doing something else and I’m sure Amber was bored just watching.
The way our schedule worked out today, we had time to go snorkeling this morning, but because we had to have our bags packed and be out of the room by 11AM, it just didn’t seem feasible to keep out swimsuits and a change of clothes. We spent most of the morning watching other people have fun.
All in all, it’s been a pretty sweet trip, and we’re definitely looking forward to going back sometime in the future.
The second tour we chose involved a jeep excursion followed by a trip up Dunn’s River Falls. The tour was operated by the same company as the canopy tour, and this one didn’t disappoint.
Our jeep seated eight people total, plus our guide, Peter. Fortunately, he’s one of the few Jamaican’s we encountered off the resort who spoke clear English. After we picked up some other people, Peter took us up into the mountains, through some small communities and onto a large cattle ranch. Along the way we stopped several times so he could explain Jamaican history and culture, as well as show us specific plants and landmarks. He also took us off road at unexpected times. The roads themselves are bad enough, so we’ll probably be stiff tomorrow.
Some of the things we learned:
The last part of our tour involved climbing up the falls. I’m not talking about hiking to the top for a nice view, but climbing straight up the middle as the water swirls around you. The guides made everyone form a human chain which is helpful at times, but mostly just annoying, because a lot of the people weren’t as nimble as we were. It was pretty fun, but a little chilly. Since we didn’t have anything but flip flops, we had to rent nasty aqua shoes out of some ladies car. That sucked, but it wasn’t enough to tarnish the rest of the trip. All in all, another really fun tour, and well worth the extra cost.
Today we headed over to Sandal’s Ocho Rios. There’s a free shuttle about every hour and we wanted to check it out. It was nice, but definitely not as nice as Dunn’s River. They have seperate little villas as part of the resort over there so things are a lot more spread out and a little more secluded. Here, most everything is located just off a large central plaza with two pools and lots of lounging space.
While we were over there we took a spin on a Hobie Cat which was pretty fun, so we’ll probably try and do it a few more times before we leave. We also had lunch at a buffet over there, but it wasn’t much different than anything here. Unfortunately we lost our chance to go snorkeling today by going over there. We’ll have to make time for it either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday.
Anyway, after seeing what the other resort was like, we were really glad we ended up where we did. It seems to be a slightly younger crowd (we’re still some of the youngest) and it definitely seems to fit us better.
Wednesday evening the staff set up a guest and staff talent show. There’s a team of people responsible for entertainment, so they were the main acts, but there were a few other members of the staff from behind the scenes and a few guests that performed as well. There was one really good rendition of Collide by Howie Day; it was pretty strange to hear those sounds coming from a Jamaican band and singer but it was very true to the original. One guy played a pretty mean sax, and there were a few guests who had some singing talent.
There was one act that just stuck out as the worst of the night. This woman willingly got up on stage and totally butchered At Last. A don’t think she hit a single correct note for the whole song, yet her friends were all cheering her on to be louder and crazier. The worst: when the song finally ended and everyone felt obligated to clap and cheer when no one in their right mind could have enjoyed her performance. A few more drinks and I might not have noticed. Despite the low point, it was a fun evening and one of the only events setup by the staff that we’ve attended.
We had initially dismissed this idea because it wasn’t cheap, but after further consideration we decided we just couldn’t pass it up. This tour is kind of hard to explain, but definitely a once in a lifetime experience. When I first read the description, I assumed they had rigged up some rope bridges and things between the tops of trees and you just walked around above the ground – it turned out to be a lot cooler than that. They had multiple platforms attached to the hillside and some trees, but to get between them we rode ziplines.
First, we got in a bus and rode the majority of the way up a mountain which was somewhat of an adventure in and of itself. We got to a little pavilion and the tour crew outfitted each person with a harness, helmet, and some caribiners and pulleys I don’t know a name for. After a short hike down we had a safety briefing and we were off to the first platform. There were about six guides on the crew, so a few went across to the next platform, while others stayed back to hook up each persons equipment to the cables. Since they did everything for your, there really wasn’t much chance of any problems.
There were a total of nine sections, with one really steep part, and one vertical drop. Amber was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but after the first and second sections, she was feeling a lot better about it. Then we came to the steepest drop, which was a little scarier than the rest. The way they had things rigged up, they could easily control the speed of our descent. Amber was third and she made it down with just a scream. When it was my turn, though, I don’t think the guy below was ready for me. The platform was wrapped around a tree and wasn’t very wide, so I ended up hitting the trunk pretty hard. Luckily, I had my legs in a good position to absorb the impact with my feet. It was a pretty good jolt, but I wasn’t hurt. I think the guy felt pretty bad because he asked me if I was OK about four times before he let me go.
The vertical drop was pretty funny. They let the first few people down nice and easy, but when Amber got up there, they let her free fall the majority of the way and caught her a few feet above the ground. After watching her go, I was ready for it.
The last section was something over 600 feet and even though the ride only lasted a few seconds it was pretty sweet. I was able to snap this picture of Amber as she came down the line.
They snapped a few pictures of each of us, and put them on CDs along with a video of what a trip down the line is like. Here’s a taste. Anyway, the other people in our group all agreed the whole thing was pretty crazy, but totally awesome. One couple even bought us each a bear when we were finished!
Edit: Pictures in the Canopy Tour set.