Thursday, April 19, 2007

A la piscine Atlantique

Update: I like Sushine's Creations' tutorial for template piecing even more than the first instructions I posted about below.

Ok, the templates and fabric scraps are on their way to Linda in New Jersey. Thank you to everyone who commented or emailed expressing and interest in them, and I'm sorry I can't send a package to each of you. If you want to try the technique yourself you can find instructions here and a very nifty hexagon generator here.

Beyond that, I don't have much to say today. It's been too dark for photos, so I'll leave you with this amusing tidbit:


The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim is one of my favorite events in New York. Participants swim all the way around Manhattan (28.5 miles!), yet the event gets very little press coverage and almost no viewers. I've watched the race and volunteered as a race official, and it's one of those awe-inspiring, chills-down-your-spine events. I admire the athletes as well as the organization itself, which teaches children to swim and helps to call attention to water quality around the island.


Anyway, the foundation's most recent newsletter included this amusing bit:

Google Maps

When you think of open water swimming, Google probably isn't something that comes to mind. But it turns out that the search company's ambitions for open water swimming may be even bigger than its goals for the web. Just check out these directions from Boston, MA, to Le Havre, France, as provided by Google maps:



For those of you who don't want to do the math, Google is assuming an average pace of 12:03/mile for nearly a month. By contrast, the fastest finisher of the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim averaged 13:45/mile, and swam for just six and a half hours. Maybe we need to rethink this whole "marathon" title...


(photos and quote from Manhattan Island Foundation)

And now I'm off to run errands. On dry land, thank you very much.

4 comments:

  1. That is quite possibly the funniest thing I've read in a while. I love it when programmers have a sense of humor.

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  2. that is just brilliant! I love the small detailed directions then the whopping three thousand plus mile swim.

    I have to confess to never having heard of the Manhattan Marathon Swim it sounds an amazing event.

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  3. hey, i just came across your site while looking for crafty things here in new york. i like the casual style in which you blog about life and knitting. thought you might like to know about a williamsburg bar i recently reviewed called "stain" that has promotes the knitting and crafting communities:

    http://uncoolkids.com/reviews/2007/04/17/paintstain/

    i'm not affiliated with stain, i just thought it might be something you'd be interested in attending on a monday night or blogging about. anyway, i just signed up for you RSS feed and i look forward to reading more entries.

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  4. Hihi. You also get this when you do the route planning from Munich to New York with Google. It also says "Swim across the Atlantic".

    Diana.

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