My wife and I are heading to Arkansas to join friends for the celebration of a significant wedding anniversary. It's a day to get there, a day to celebrate, and a day to get home again.
Blogging will resume on Monday, God willing and the crick don't rise.
Peter
Apparently exoskeletons (frame sort of things with an electric motor that one wears to augment muscle power) are becoming more and more popular in the fitness culture. The New York Post reports:
E-bikes gave cyclists a major boost. Now, a wearable robot wants to do the same for your legs.Meet the exoskeleton, a battery-powered gadget that straps onto your body and promises to make running, hiking and everyday movement feel like less — or more — of a workout.
Robotic exoskeletons have been used in medical rehabilitation for decades, helping people practice walking following illness or injury.
Now, companies are bringing lighter-weight versions to the consumer fitness market, with ambitions that go beyond restoring mobility: They’re helping healthy, active people move farther, faster and with less effort.
There's more at the link, including closer examination of various models.
I think it's a given by now that exoskeletons help recovery from injury, allowing one's muscles to get back into training without over-exerting themselves. However, what about someone like me with ongoing, permanent pain issues?
A particular problem for me is that if I start walking, I'm already at a baseline level of pain. The further I walk, the greater the pain becomes, forcing me to walk ever more slowly until eventually I have to stop - and, if possible, sit down - until the pain reduces to a manageable level. At that point I can start walking again, but inevitably the pain comes back, and the cycle repeats. I can't walk for more than 5-10 minutes before I have to stop. I doubt I could cover half a mile, even including frequent breaks, without having to quit, or use a mobility scooter or wheelchair.
Does any reader with a "pain problem" like that use an exoskeleton to help? Could they extend the period one can walk until the pain increases to an unbearable level? I've been looking for feedback on that, but so far haven't found any. If you, dear reader, can provide information from your own experience, or know where to find it, I'd love to hear from you in Comments.
Thanks in advance.
Peter
I'm sure all of my veteran readers know of Skippy's List: "The 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army". Some examples for those who haven't encountered it:
7. Not allowed to add “In accordance with the prophesy” to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me.
10. Not allowed to purchase anyone’s soul on government time.
18. May no longer perform my now (in)famous “Barbie Girl Dance” while on duty.
29. The Irish MPs are not after “Me frosted lucky charms”.
33. Not allowed to chew gum at formation, unless I brought enough for everybody.
34. (Next day) Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody.
Go read all the rest at the link.
Friend in cyberspace and meatspace, fellow author and blogger, Tom Rogneby, has now added his own extensions to Skippy's List. Examples:
3. Tom is not allowed to tell the Bundeswehr liaison officer that he has moral issues with doing gas chamber training at a German base in Bavaria.
8. Tom is not allowed to whistle the James Bond theme while walking across Red Square.
15. Tom is not allowed to sign a flag-rank officer’s government BMW sportscar out of the motor pool for a nighttime run across Stuttgart and back.
I giggled all the way through, remembering some of the "war stories" Tom has exchanged with the other vets of the North Texas Troublemakers (and honorary members from elsewhere) during LibertyCon. Go read them all for yourself.
Those veterans' story-telling sessions at LibertyCon have gone on for years at each annual gathering. You could see in the faces of some listeners that they thought we were making up most of them; but then, one of us would say something to totally jar them out of their disbelief, and make them realize that "Holy s***, these guys are for real!" It's a lot of fun to see that reaction. For example, I served in the South African armed forces way back when. I once told the tale of tracking a Soviet submarine across the South Atlantic. This produced visible skepticism from my audience . . . until a former US Naval Flight Officer among our number took up the tale. He described getting orders from Norfolk, VA to take off at once if not sooner, fly to point X, and drop a sonobuoy pattern. He landed it right on top of the same submarine we'd earlier advised Norfolk was on its way there. Neither the US officer nor I even knew the other existed until a couple of decades ago, when I began telling the story and he exploded, "So it was you who dragged us off our scheduled assignment that day!" We both still laugh about it. Small world, small transatlantic war skirmish unpleasantness . . .
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I'm sure many of my readers have heard of comedian and musician Rob Paravonian. From his Web site:
With the mind of a comedian and the soul of a musician, Rob Paravonian seamlessly fuses sharp comedy performances with top notch musicianship. This perfect blend is evident everywhere from his viral Pachelbel Rant, his observations on popular music, to his well-crafted original songs.
Rob’s act is accessible and he works with minimal profanity so there are few limitations on where he can perform or where his albums can be played. He regularly works comedy clubs and cutting edge venues in New York, as well as cruises, all-ages venues and corporate events.
For those who don't know his Pachelbel Rant, it's coming up on its 20th anniversary of going viral next month. Again, from his Web site:
In November of 2006 I uploaded a video to the relatively new site YouTube and it’s hard to imagine what my life and career would be had The Pachelbel Rant not become as popular as it did. Looking back over 20 years I’m grateful for the fans it helped find me, the friends and peers it helped me connect with, and the opportunities it opened up.
If you knew me before YouTube, or are a fan of the Dr. Demento Radio Show, you probably know that the Pachelbel Rant is even older than 20. It was a bit I started doing shortly after moving to New York and it was a regular feature of my sets at The Big Bad Music Show at Catch a Rising Star. An audio recording from Catch made it onto my 1998 CD American Cheese, simply titled “Pachelbel,” and it got played on Dr. Demento in 1999, making the Funny Five in the summer and the Funny 25 at the end of the year.
I had a few other songs make it onto Dr. Demento in those years so I didn’t realize the unique potential the piece had until YouTube came along. And I didn’t know what to expect from posting it, videos of over 5 minutes were rare in those early days.
In 2006 I recorded video of a bunch of live shows to get the most current version of the ever-changing and constantly updated rant. I chose to upload the version from a show at Penn State because the audience was really energetic and, most importantly, the audio turned out really good. (For you tech nerds: I used an Audio Technica wireless lavalier mic, omnidirectional. I think I chose the make and model because Doug Stanhope recommended it in a newsgroup)
In the first few weeks of YouTube it got a few hundred, then a few thousand views. These were the days before social media allowed people to blast out posts to millions of people at once so word spread more slowly and organically. I plugged it on my blog and on MySpace (ahh, wistful sigh for MySpace), but it was when YouTube chose it as a featured video on their front page that it really took off.
A lot of college students started finding the video, either having it sent to them by friends or finding it on a site like College Humor. One of those college students was the granddaughter of George Carlin’s manager, who sent it to her dad and grandfather with the suggestion that I could fill in for Carlin’s regular road opener, fellow guitar comic Dennis Blair. That led to me opening about a dozen shows for Carlin between 2007-2008, which led to opening for Lily Tomlin in 2009 at the MGM Grand.
I enjoy his music precisely because he keeps it clean. He doesn't need profanity or innuendo to be very funny indeed. Congratulations to him on the two decades of success sparked by his Pachelbel Rant. Here's the original 2006 version.
You'll find more of his music and comedy at his YouTube channel.
Peter
