Miscellaneous Comments

General discussion of skirt and kilt-based fashion for men, and stuff that goes with skirts and kilts.
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Sinned
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Thanks Tom & B&B, yes I feel the time is right. The job can get quite physical at times, lifting heavy rugs, furniture and boxes. But mostly it's just getting tiresome going in even though it is just 4 days a week. One item on my bucket list is to learn to play the keyboard but it just looks a very daunting task. I can read music as I learnt to play the cornet in my early teens. I guess that I need to find a good set of course books with appropriate exercises. I have an electronic keyboard emulating a sophisticated ornament so come the New Year I'll be giving it a go.

Joan and I have discussed crossing the Irish River sometime so you never know. But travelling by boat is not my forte as I easily get seasick. A journey by ferry to Belgium during a particularly rough sea and I spent more time over that porcelain effort.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Hi Dennis,
Irelandshire fortunately is populated with souls whose love of our year-round climate prompts them to go elsewhere as frequently as possible and people like yourself who don't like getting tossed about on the Ocean's Wave are well catered for.

Enter Michael O'Leary, stage left. He has big harps painted on the tails of aircraft like there was no tomorrow and Aer Fungus paint Green Shamrocks in opposition.
Between them they are not at all averse to taking on board foreign nationals such as yersel' and leave the aforementioned Ocean Waves some 6 miles straight down, giving passengers a brief look at the Sun before once again plunging down through the eternal murk to land at Dublin, Cork, Shannon or wherever and the taste of the Ould Sod is in the air before you get to the baggage reclaim.

Starting learning keyboard from scratch as an adult isn't easy, but a prior knowledge of notation will be very advantageous. My piano lessons started on my 7th birthday and I'm still at it daily, although my decreasing stamina prevents me giving it anything like the time I used to, so the harder stuff isn't attempted anymore. It does keep the fingers nimble, though.

Tom
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Sinned
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Hi Tom, I think for the foreseeable future I will wind down to 4x4 evenings, my minimum contract. What concerns me is just giving up work and having only sedentary hobbies to fall back on. At least my wife has some respite from me and I get some physical activity apart from the gym. As for getting over to Wetland, well, it is on our list, don't know when. I'll let you know.

As for the piano, my fingers are still nimble so I'll search out a reasonable tuition course. It's not so much associating finger positions with keys - it's accommodating the flats and sharps. I know I used to deal with it when playing the cornet but that was 50+ years ago.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Dennis,
They say that if you don't have an ear for music don't try playing the violin. Without frets, orchestral stringed instruments require your left hand to make every note.
Likewise the cornet must have been the very devil to play, requiring you to major on oral embouchement gymnastics to produce every note, so a keyboard ought to be a doddle in comparison.

Not that it's a retirement activity, but being quite hopeless at all ball sports I resorted to bum-shoving boats to get my ticker going...and my dander up, too, so twice weekly on the water and another few times in my garage loft torture chamber I still engage in galley slavery with usually eight other like-minded geriatrics. When asked what competitive rowing is like, the correct reply is: 'It's like bangin' yer head off a wall...It's lovely when you stop.'

Tom
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Kirbstone wrote: Sun Nov 06, 2022 9:15 pmWhen asked what competitive rowing is like, the correct reply is: 'It's like bangin' yer head off a wall...It's lovely when you stop.'
And if you ever make it over to the Colonies for the Head of the Charles again and I can get my backside somewhere close, and you hear a strong baritone roar, "Row you Old Collegians, ROW!" you'll know where it came from.
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I used to play 5 a side football with my 3 sons and a couple of their friends until my early 50's. Until I went to run for the ball one time and I didn't just feel my hamstring go, I heard it. It took ages to heal and I diplomatically retired. I have thought about taking up walking football, though. Much less strenuous or dangerous to one's health. As for rowing, it looks too much like hard work. The rowing machines at the gym feel more like torture devices. I keep having a go now and again to remind myself why I stay away from them.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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The thing about rowing is that it is A/ non-impact, B/ non physycal contact and C/carried out while seated. These three factors cushion one from injuries and the sport can be pursued well into great old age (e.g. 80+ in my case).

Other sports which enjoy this cushioning are Chess, Cards, Cycling and Caoneing/Kayaking. The former two do nothing for your tubes & ticker, but the latter two certainly do, with the added advantage that you sit facing forward & can see where you are going. The caveat with cycling is traffic, of course.

I purchased my rowing machine at age 49 while I was in Germany. I still have the same one, 31 years later and over those years its performance monitor has chronicled my gradual performance decline over that period. The seat and Performance monitor have been updated of course and the hidden elastic shock chord which returns the handle to base was replaced once. For me it's been a wonderful machine.

Tom
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I take your point about impacts so will persevere more with the rowing machines at the gym. Cycling isn't so bad in York as it's fairly flat, for a City it's quite small in area and traffic isn't so bad. In my early teens I used to do a lot of running and only low fitness stops me now. So cycling, rowing ( at least on land ) and running. York has a strong rowing tradition but I look at the young, lithe men and my flabby torso and think, "Dream on."

In my teens I used to play a lot of bridge and chess.
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by Kirbstone » Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:46 am

The thing about rowing is that it is A/ non-impact, B/ non physycal contact and C/carried out while seated. These three factors cushion one from injuries and the sport can be pursued well into great old age (e.g. 80+ in my case).

Other sports which enjoy this cushioning are Chess, Cards, Cycling and Caoneing/Kayaking. The former two do nothing for your tubes & ticker,
by Sinned » Mon Nov 07, 2022 5:25 pm

In my teens I used to play a lot of bridge and chess.
As an old wood-pusher I've got to defend chess: A few of us has-beens gather in our home to exercise our synapses on the board; we call it our Alzheimer's Prevention League! I'd also venture the percentage of chess players that will support diversity in dress is higher than most sports -- just look at the number of openings we have! :king:
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Faldaguy wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 4:45 am
by Kirbstone » Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:46 am

The thing about rowing is that it is A/ non-impact, B/ non physycal contact and C/carried out while seated. These three factors cushion one from injuries and the sport can be pursued well into great old age (e.g. 80+ in my case).

Other sports which enjoy this cushioning are Chess, Cards, Cycling and Caoneing/Kayaking. The former two do nothing for your tubes & ticker,
by Sinned » Mon Nov 07, 2022 5:25 pm

In my teens I used to play a lot of bridge and chess.
As an old wood-pusher I've got to defend chess: A few of us has-beens gather in our home to exercise our synapses on the board; we call it our Alzheimer's Prevention League! I'd also venture the percentage of chess players that will support diversity in dress is higher than most sports -- just look at the number of openings we have! :king:
18? 19 if you count immediately resigning!
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I play chess regularly with a few known suspects. I also play both club and house bridge regularly and after a lengthy session of either I'm not in the least puffed !
In total contrast if I sit on my 'erg' (rowing machine) and set out to do 5Kms at, say, 22 strokes-per-minute, split time about 2m 10-12secs/500m my pulse rate will creep gradually up until by about 3,500 meters it's threatening to exceed 160 Bpm (beats per minute). My anaerobic threshold is somewhere around 167'Bpm.
That means that above that value you are getting into oxygen debt and will have to either stop & rest or back off, let the split time stretch out to 2min 30secs +/18-19 strokes per min., and the pulse rate will drop off to somewhere around 150.
Alternately you can push yourself, watch the pulse rate climb into the 170s-180s, get tunnel vision coming up to the 5Km mark, note the time taken and enjoy a prolonged wind-down.. 15 Spm/ split time 3mins + for about 1Km. (All figures appropriate to a geriatric rower, me.)

Then the endorphins (feel-good-glow) kick in.

To put that into perspective, a young blood of say 24 years old will kick off at 28-30 strokes per minute, split times around 1m 30 secs/500m., drive his pulse rate well over 200 bpm sustained and continue on to 10Kms. He'd probably be a demon chess player, too.

Tom
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Hmmm! the thought of a meet, on a boat somewhere in Irish water appeals! more so now I only have about a month left as a working man!
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Faldaguy wrote:
I've got to defend chess: A few of us has-beens gather in our home to exercise our synapses on the board; we call it our Alzheimer's Prevention League! I'd also venture the percentage of chess players that will support diversity in dress is higher than most sports -- just look at the number of openings we have! :king:
by howardfh » Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:34 am


18? 19 if you count immediately resigning!
Howard, Howard, Howard....

I see you are NOT a wood pusher: I suspect your calculation was thinking an "opening" is the number of possible moves by the White player solely on their first move -- in which case you were close -- no horseshoe -- as there are 20 possible moves, and your insightful one of resignation; however, in Chess the "Opening" is more or less the first 10 moves of the game, and that is 10 by both players.

However, so we don't tax our synapses quite so far, the most accurate mathematical calculation for just half of those 10 moves -- five for both plays, comes out to: 69,352,859,712,417 :?: :!:

Yes, that is 69 Trillion +

Now, if that represented persons -- a mere one in 10,000 and we'd have the entire globe skirted! :D
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