The Official Site for the Lackluster Goings-On of Michael Kaiser
Archive for February, 2010
I See Your Starship is as Big as Mine
Feb 24th
I haven’t talked about Star Trek lately. I probably don’t talk about it enough in general. Paramount should offer of a network of Star Trek blogs like StarWars.com does, then I could talk about it every day. Oh well. I could probably make my own network (I’m sure I could, actually) but the upkeep cost would be too insane for me to handle, probably. Anyone want to give me money? *chirp* *chirp* Alrighty!
I was watching the latest movie again recently aka the best movie ever produced based on the worst plot ever written, and I decided I like the design of the Enterprise more than I did initially. I dig that it’s essentially the NCC-1701-A with more interesting nacelles. I like all the doohickies and gizmos that move around when they are about to go to warp. Check it (sorta):
So curiosity got to me, and I went to the killer site Ex Astris Scientia to see if it had any information on the size of this sucker and how it compares to other Enterprises that have come before. Of course there was, but apparently there is some debate amongst geekdom as to exactly how big the new design actually is. The producers and digital designers seem to think it is 700 meters, while nerds ways cooler than me who can analyze these kinds of things seem to think it’s about the same size as the original.
So now I want to see them all lined up! So below is every Enterprise variation I could think of (not counting “possible future” stuff), and I’m sticking the new Enterprise in twice, one for each theorized size.
SCALE: 1 pixel = 0.5 meters
 |
NX-01 NX-Class 225 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701 (pilot) Constitution Class 289 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701 Constitution Class 289 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701-A Constitution Class (refit) 305 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701 (Abrams) Constitution Class (?) 366 Meters (?) |
 |
NCC-1701-B Excelsior Class 469 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701-C Ambassador Class 526 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701-D Galaxy Class 642 Meters |
 |
NCC-1701-E Sovereign Class 685 Meters |
|
NCC-1701 (Abrams) Constitution Class (?) 718 Meters (?) |
Yeah, I’m going to say I like it in the 300 meter range myself, if only so that it doesn’t dwarf all the supposed “more advanced” ships that came later…er…or will come later. However the movie works. Anyway, like the refit the best, I think. Still dislike the Sovereign the most. It’s just too flat. Looks like a hot rod, not a flag ship.
Pre-Race Warm-Up
Feb 17th
Can’t have a plan without a goal, so for my first half-marathon, here are my two goals, in order of priority: A) finish the entire thing without stopping or walking; and B) finish two hours or under.
The first goal is fairly obvious, I’m not running a half marathon if I don’t actually run it. I can definitely walk 13 miles now, and could probably walk/run 13 miles too. So the challenge is to run the whole thing. That’s top of my list.
The second goal is fairly arbitrary, I guess. I Googled, “What’s a descent half marathon time?” and two-ish hours seemed to be the consensus for first timers. So two hours seems like a nice even number. I don’t care as much about this goal as I do the first one, however.
Can’t meet a goal without a plan, so I went to RunnersWorld.com and used their handy dandy training tool to calculate out a gradual 16 week plan that ends a week before the race and gets me up to being able to run 13 miles in 2 hours and 3 minutes. (I’ll try and shave off the 3 minutes on my own.) I was supposed to start this plan on Tuesday, but I didn’t factor in that there would be nobody working at the gym I wanted to sign up for on President’s Day, so I am a day behind. However, since I only have to run three times this week, I still have plenty of week left. I started this morning. So far so ACK!, but more on that later.
Here’s a fun before-and-after comparison. My cholesterol has always been crap. Even when I was working out religiously, it was borderline crap, so now that I’ve been a sloth for a good year or more, I was curious as to how horrific it had become and decided to have it checked right before starting this little working out endeavor. Here’s the results:
| Component | Value | Standard Range |
|---|---|---|
| GLUCOSE, FASTING | 93 | 60-99 mg/dL |
| LDL, GOAL <160 | DESIRED | |
| CHOLESTEROL | 297 | <239- mg/dL |
| TRIGLYCERIDE | 355 | <199- mg/dL |
| HDL | 48 | >40- mg/dL |
| LDL CALCULATED | 178 | <129- mg/dL |
Hmm…should I be dead?
It’s a Race!
Feb 11th
So I went to the San Francisco Giant’s 2010 Fan Fest last weekend. Yes, I’m into baseball now, and no it’s not because I have a son, and yes I’ve never been into sports before and it doesn’t make any sense to suddenly like it and blah blah blah. I’ve heard it all already, thanks. At least I keep it separate so as not to annoy everybody. More on that soon.
ANYWAY, the point is, while I was there I came across a booth for a Giants related running event thing, and since I’ve been feeling like Fat Elvis again, I took a flyer and decided to make a goal out of it. So officially, I am running a half marathon for the Giant Race on Saturday, June 12 at AT&T Park. There was a 5K option as well, but I did that last year and I wanted to do something with a bit more difficultly, as I barely trained for the 5K and still managed to get through it. I don’t think one can half ass training for a half marathon. I can’t anyway. I’ve put in many miles in the past, but I’ve never run 13 in one stretch before, so it should be a challenge. My goal is to hopefully keep it under two hours, but finishing in general would be good!
I “get to” run one way or the other, but if you’ve always wanted to donate to Project Open Hand, you can do it via me though this handy little page they set up for me. I’m not really sure what happens if I get donations made in my name though.
Labor & Delivery
Feb 2nd
While I have never been a part of another labor, and while I wasn’t the one actually laboring, I gotta say The Dude seemed to arrive here relatively easily. Here’s how it went, from what I can recall of the whirlwind:
The Girl jinxes us by commented around bedtime how it would be so great if we could get a full nights sleep and go into labor after 9am the next day. She then starts having contractions about 20 minutes later. They are about 10 minutes apart and by 10:30 they are about 2-3 minutes apart and we are calling the advice nurse, who tells us to come in.
We get to the hospital about 11:30 and she’s still contracting about 2 minutes part and she’s dilated 2cm. The nurses hum and haw about whether we should be officially admitted and suggest we go for a walk around the hallways for 30 minutes or so.
We walk for 30 minutes and come back and The Girl is now 6cm dilated. The nurses now seem to get slightly panicky about how fast she’s progressing and proceed to get us a room real quick.
By 2am The Girl is 10cm dilated and her mother arrives just in time to witness the initially pushing. But The Dude is still too far up so the NP tells us to chill with the plan of trying again in 30 minutes.
About six “30 minutes” later, they start humming and hawing about possibly giving The Girl some pitocin to make The Dude spit out faster, which he apparently hears, because he decides it’s time and three pushes later and he’s out.
The Girl and mom get gushy, I take pictures and make phone calls. The Dude doesn’t cry as loud as staff would like so they run a few checks on him, but in the end, he’s fine and just doesn’t like to cry that loud because he’s too cool for school.
And that was the birth experience. Again, I didn’t go through any of the pain, but all in all it still seemed pretty easy to me. After all the possible complications you learn about when pregnant, I was fairly surprised (and happy) that nothing bad happened.
The End Result - All 10 Fingers and Toes
People keep smiling at me and nodding knowingly like I just joined some club they’ve been a member of for decades, asking me questions like “so what’s it like having a new baby at home?” or “wasn’t the birth the greatest day of your life?” and I nod and say vaguely what’s expected, but really I have no clue. I’m assuming these people are all speaking in hindsight or something, because for me it all seems very surreal still. He’s cute as hell, but I have no idea who this little guy is, even though I’ve been waiting for him for what seems like a decade.
It blows my mind when I think on it and remind myself that he is 50% me. I’m curious to see what form he will grow into, as right now his features still consist of buttons and squishiness. Who’s eyes will he have, how tall will be? People are already saying he has my feet, which is hopefully not true. Otherwise, sucks to be you, little guy!
