Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Somehow Mark and I ended up on the subject of weird stuff you can listen to on a short wave radio. One of my favorites are "numbers stations". Below is an excerpt from a wikipedia article on the topic....

Numbers stations generally broadcast artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters. They are in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually female, although sometimes men's or children's voices are used. Evidence supports popular assumptions that the broadcasts are used to send messages to spies. This usage has not been publicly acknowledged by any government that may operate a numbers station,

Normally I would throw this into the "look out for black helicopters on the horizon" conspiracy theorist trash can....but about a year ago I actually heard a Spanish numbers station on my radio. I wouldn't have believed it unless I heard it myself. Is it really for spies? Who knows....but you have to admit its a little weird... Want to hear one for yourself? Click below for a Cold War era recording in German...

HINT: you need to be patient and let the "weird" music play through before you hear the voices.



Below is a recording of a different English station...



The Conet Project is a CD containing recordings of various numbers stations. The Wilco album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" is named after a famous numbers recording. I couldn't find the complete version on YouTube but I did find a snipit at the beginning of the compilation recording below. You should recognize the voice from a song on the album.



I think the music and sounds are just as weird as the actual voices.

Break It Down...

A week ago last Monday I was practicing barspins at the skatepark. I crashed and twisted my left ankle. It was pretty painful for the first couple of days and I couldn't put any pressure on it. By Thursday I was able to hop around the house. By Friday I was feeling better. During the next few days I went shopping at Home Depot, rode my bike to the beach for a swim, put a couple of new screens in our kitchen windows, cleaned up the back yard, went to the mall with Michelle, helped my neighbor move furniture, and climbed around the backyard on a ladder hanging the lanterns.

I couldn't help but notice my foot was still painful. Yesterday I visited the doctor for an unrelated reason and told him about it. He x-rayed my ankle and guess what? I broke the end of a bone in my foot!

I visited a specialist today who told me there isn't much we can do for that bone. He recommended a "foot brace" which will help keep my foot straight and flat while I move around. He didn't want to put a cast on it so it looks like there isn't much to do besides sit around for a month or so and take it easy.

This is the first time I have broken a bone during my 40 years on this planet. There is always time for a first.

On another note, I recently learned how to do one handed 360's...that's a first too...and enough to make anyone smile!

Lights Up!

Earlier we mentioned we how we created some new lanterns for the backyard out of colanders. A couple days ago Michelle and I hung up the new lanterns. We like the way they look...especially at night. We'll post some night photos as soon as possible.

Mike Aitken

I found another video of my favorite rider....I know I already posted about him earlier this month but I really like his style, haven't seen this video before, and figured if I put it on my blog under his name then I could easily find (and watch) it again...which I know I'll do. I love this footage...


Mike Aitken from FITBIKECO. on Vimeo.


Oh yeah...here is another version of the same footage I posted on the blog entry referenced above....but higher quality. The site where I borrowed this from titled it "you don't need to do tailwhips".....that pretty much sums it up.


Mikey Dew Tour from FITBIKECO. on Vimeo.

Weather & The Night Sky

I have always been a big fan of the Astronomy Picture Of The Day (APOD) website. Every day (for years!) they have posted a new picture along with an explanation by a professional astronomer. You can spend hours viewing and learning about different features of our sky. I suggest you take a look.

Recently they posted a time-lapse video of the night sky taken in Australia. I love how the clouds move across the sky. Take a look. Clicking the four white arrows in the lower right corner of the movie should make it display in "full screen". What do you think the moving lights are? Answer is below the movie. Can you find the brief flash from a communications satellite at 1:50?



Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.



ANSWER:





The moving lights are fishing boats, cargo ships, and cars, depending upon which scene you are looking at.

Danger Mouse

Its time to mix things up...I've been listening to roots reggae (along with some other stuff) for awhile and its time for something different. I bumped into a guy named Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and was impressed with the variety of music he has been involved with. This includes:

• Gorrilaz - (he helped produce an album)
• Gnarls Barkley - (he was in that group)
• The Roots - (he collaborated with Black Thought)
• The Black Keys - (he helped produce an album)

....then he decides to collaborate with Daniele Luppi, an Italian composer, to create an album called Rome.
 He used the music from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns (including Clint Eastwood's "Fist Full Of Dollars") as an inspiration. He went as far as using some of the original performers who recorded the music for the early Clint Eastwood films. He also used the lead singer of the White Stripes for vocals. Follow this link to hear one of the popular songs from this album.


I heard he is now working on an album with U2. Danger Mouse seems all over the place... I like that. Follow this link for more on Danger Mouse.

500 cc's

Some say the late 80's and early 90's were the golden era for Grand Prix (GP) motorbike racing because of the competitive spirit that existed between the following racers:

• Wayne Rainey
• Kevin Schwantz
• Mick Doohan
• Randy Mamola

These racers, along with a few others, had many classic duels on the racetrack. One of my favorites is the last lap of the 1991 500cc race at Suzuka City, Japan. Kevin Schwantz is 34, Mick Doohan is 3, and Wayne Rainey is 1.



The passing is heart stopping!

Lighting Up The Yard

Michelle and I are replacing the hanging lights in our backyard with colanders. We found five different shapes (actually one of them is an aluminum pot that I drilled holes in....but don't tell anyone). Today we painted them different colors. Its hard to tell in the photo below but the one on top is dark brown. Tomorrow we will install the light bulbs and hang them. I'll post some photos as soon as they are installed.

Happy B-Day Michelle!

Michelle and I have been chilling out for her birthday. We shopped for colanders at the swap meet, ate some oysters, and laid around the backyard under the avocado tree. Blue skys all day then some whispy clouds came in later. A wonderful day with my beautiful wife!

Red Sky At Night, Sailor's Delight...

The BBC posted a cool article on six common "weather nursery rhymes". The article includes what they mean and the science behind how they work. My favorites included:

• "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning" (As a child, I learned this one as sailor)
• "In the morning mountains, in the afternoon fountains" (storm clouds growing in the morning may lead to rain in the afternoon)
• "If a circle forms 'round the moon, 'twill rain or snow soon"
• "Cold night stars bright" (cloudless nights are exceptionally cold)

Below are three nursery rhymes I remember from some of my books on sailing:

• “Wind before rain, set sails again - rain before wind, bring her in”
• “First rise after low, foretells a stronger blow” (refers to how some of the windiest conditions occur after the barometer falls, then starts to rise again)
• “Mackerel skies and mares’ tails, make tall ships carry low sails” (refers to how certain cloud patterns are indicators of high winds or stormy weather)

Hotwire It

The truck wouldn't start this morning and I had a feeling the alarm was dead. Doug at San Diego Auto Repair said to look in the steering column for a wire that been bypassed...and splice it back together. I did it and was able to start the truck! Opening the door without turning off the alarm still makes a lot of noise and you still need a key to start the truck, but the alarm "ignition kill" was malfunctioning, and has been eliminated. The more I know about car alarms the more I don't trust them.

It Feels Good

There are a lot of different ways to ride a bmx bike. None of them are wrong...just different. Some people do what I would call "X-Games" tricks which are highly technical and involve flips and whips.

There is nothing wrong with this...and there is no way I could do any of it...but it never really looked too fun to me. In other words, I never look at one of these photos and say to myself "I want to go do that".

Other riders follow a more traditional style. When I first saw the photo  of the person doing a one handed 360 (see below), I thought "man that looks like it feels good". I think that may be a little hard to explain....but the feeling that the photo gave me was my inspiration for this post.

It also made me think "I want to do that"...which I did yesterday at the skatepark for the first time. It wasn't as cool looking as this one..but it was good enough to give me that rush.

When it comes to contests, the x-games style wins every time....except for one famous example. Mike Aitken, known for a more traditional style, won the 2008 Dew Tour Dirt Finals in Salt Lake City and never did a tail whip or a back flip. I always felt this was an example of an underdog winning by doing what he loves to do with a lot of style and finesse, and not someone winning by doing a technical trick that no one else has mastered yet.

Many people feel that technical tricks like flips and whips are a result of progression, and that this is worthy of winning a contest. Maybe so, but I do what I do (surf, jump bikes, etc..) because I enjoy it, not because I can "one up" someone else. That's why I prefer Mike's style over the others... and probably why I don't really like contests in general.

Surf contests don't always rely upon "unique tricks" but they do have "priority rules"...and some successful contestants use strategies to keep their opponent from catching the best waves. Where is the fun in that?

Watch Mike's winning runs at the Dew Tour below. Now this is something I wish I could do...

Cat Days

Michelle took this photo of Jack chilling in the back yard yesterday while we were getting ready for today's bbq.

Ranching It

I'm sitting in the back of a real estate agents BMW waiting for the Scripps Ranch 4th of July parade. We'll be bbqing later at home....lets get this show on the road!