Friday Five

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?

Several choices:

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre
Mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað

"Football is rugby reinvented by Frederick Taylor" -- Gareth Morgan

Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor --
Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas!

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven't graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?

Obviously no, never having been a senior in high school. I like to think it would be Marx's "Hitherto the philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?

NO1 BEAR

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?

I have a decanter with "Heinz Manufacturing Excellence" engraved on it.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?

My former secretary suggested "Here lies John Gilks; pretty bloody obviously dead". She also gave me a sweatshirt for Christmas one year with "Its pretty bloody obvious" printed on it.

An experiment

The last few days it has just been too damn cold to run plus I was concerned about the rather treacherous conditions underfoot. Today it is a relatively mild -9C, next to no wind and snowing so i decided to try an experiment. Borrowing an idea from Running Club North of Fairbanks, Alaska, I fitted my old running shoes with #8x1/2" hex headed sheet metal screws; six in each shoe more or less where studs are on a rugger boot.

Wearing the modified shoes, a Coolmax T-shirt, Coolmax socks, running pants and jacket that are stretch polyester with wind shell on the front but not the back, ski gloves and fleece hat, I went for a moderate 20 minute run. Underfoot conditions included packed snow, not so packed snow and pavement ranging from bare but wet through varying mixtures of ice, snow and slush. The shoes were great. The only terrain that was tricky was the softer snow which was like running on soft sand; not difficult but tiring. The socks were great; warm, dry feet throughout. The rest of the outfit was adequate for the conditions but significant wind or any colder would be grounds for an extra layer.