LUNA-TICS TEAM ROOM: Year-round "Looney" fun.

[Kona2]

Woohoo! Midnight Sun (aka Cathie) has earned her antler lights ...

Woohoo! Cathie has crossed the 200K milestone, and is adding new meaning to Northern Lights with the addition of antler lights to Midnight Sun. She's earned her Holiday pin from Concept2, and continues to earn Concept2 donation dollars with each pull of the erg handle. Well done !!

[Kona2]

Another rower meets the Concept2 donation milestone... and frees a reindeer!

Teammate Peter H's alter ego is The Stig, after the Top Gear character. Peter H has lived in several countries and is currently back home in Rotterdam, NLD. Rotterdam is a pretty busy place, definitely a major commercial center. Wiki says "Its strategic location at the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta on the North Sea and at the heart of a massive rail, road, air and inland waterway distribution system extending throughout Europe is the reason that Rotterdam is often called the "Gateway to Europe". Up until 2004, Rotterdam was considered to be the world's busiest port...until it was passed by Shanghai. Of course, I thought about "being Shanghai'd" and wondered where that phrase came from....seems that in the 19th century, getting kidnapped and being forced to work on a ship usually headed for Shanghai...was the origin of the phrase. Urban dictionary says one of the current meanings of being Shanghai'd is posting something on a forum only to discover that someone else had posted the same thing moments before.....I think we've all been there.

Rotterdam was bombed heavily in World War II. This resulted in the city being known as The Destroyed City for a time, and the wind coming in from the sea was fierce. During the 1950s to the 1970s, lots of rebuilding went on. Rotterdam is now known for its use of strategic architecture to greatly reduce the wind. In honor of this cutting edge architecture, Peter H's reindeer is Wind Dancer.


Congratulations, Peter H, on earning the Concept2 donation and freeing your reindeer, Wind Dancer !

[Kona2]

Well, I'm out of the game again The pain is back with a vengence. I have fallen several times as my right leg has buckled. I went to pychiscal therapy yesterday and was told very sternly-no rowing, no running, no lifiting.....etc. What really brought it home is that I had no reflex action in my right leg (the therapist apologized as see hit harder and harder with that little rubber hammer, trying to get a reflex action) and the tests showed much less muscle strength in the right leg. The good news is that it is probably not a disc problem, but probably a misalignment of the hip and pelvic bones which is putting pressure on the sciatic nerve. So, I am spending alot of time lying on my stomach with an ice pack on my back. More physical therapy scheduled over the next two weeks. For now I will enjoy rowing, vicarioulsly, through monitoring the great efforts of my teamates
Good luck to all.
Da Do Ron Ron

Yikes, Ron! You've contributed a lot. Vicarious is good ! Just make sure that it's not a silver hammer they're trying to use on you....

[bg]

Well, I'm out of the game again The pain is back with a vengence. I have fallen several times as my right leg has buckled. I went to pychiscal therapy yesterday and was told very sternly-no rowing, no running, no lifiting.....etc. What really brought it home is that I had no reflex action in my right leg (the therapist apologized as see hit harder and harder with that little rubber hammer, trying to get a reflex action) and the tests showed much less muscle strength in the right leg. The good news is that it is probably not a disc problem, but probably a misalignment of the hip and pelvic bones which is putting pressure on the sciatic nerve. So, I am spending alot of time lying on my stomach with an ice pack on my back. More physical therapy scheduled over the next two weeks. For now I will enjoy rowing, vicarioulsly, through monitoring the great efforts of my teamates
Good luck to all.
Da Do Ron Ron

oh no....sending lots of healing/healthy thoughts....

[Kona2]

Another rower meets the Concept2 donation milestone... and frees a reindeer!

Whoop, whoop and hooyah! I've made my first goal of the day...which was to get reindeer Mercury out of the stable. Have chosen the name Mercury in honor of Mercury-Atlas 6 program and Friendship 7, the John Glenn vehicle sent out to orbit the earth in 1962. My second goal of the day is to finish off the 5,375 m that remain so that I can reach TEN million lifetime meters. So, stay tuned....

[Luna]

Another rower meets the Concept2 donation milestone... and frees a reindeer!

Whoop, whoop and hooyah! I've made my first goal of the day...which was to get reindeer Mercury out of the stable. Have chosen the name Mercury in honor of Mercury-Atlas 6 program and Friendship 7, the John Glenn vehicle sent out to orbit the earth in 1962. My second goal of the day is to finish off the 5,375 m that remain so that I can reach TEN million lifetime meters. So, stay tuned....

Way to Row K2

[Kona2]

Wowzer, I sure took my time getting through that million from 9 to 10....but it's done! Hooyah!

[Restless]

Wowzer, I sure took my time getting through that million from 9 to 10....but it's done! Hooyah!

Huge congrats Kona2, on the 10 million lifetime meters! (and freeing your reindeer)

Congrats to all the new reindeer being set free. We are up to a lot of them running, or flying around now

Ron, very sorry to hear that the pain is back, sending wishes out that it gets better.

-Rebecca

[danwho]

Get well soon, Ron. Wishing you all the best for your physical therapy.

Congrats to Mercury, and all the other new reindeer, and milestone achievers. No surprise that the Mercury team has proven once again to have "the right stuff."

Thanks for my reindeer name. It is almost certain that my ancestors go back to the village of Wickwar (also known by non-beer drinkers for its church and old Roman bridge), but I haven't been able to take it back that far. And far more capable people have tried. Visiting Wickwar and its brewery are definitely on my bucket list.
A hearty Ho Ho Ho from the Christmas Cracker.

[Kona2]

Another rower meets the Concept2 donation milestone... and frees a reindeer!

Robert H is a cyclist and a kayaker and a rower and...and...he's a busy guy! I'm pretty sure that Newark Valley is close to the Finger Lakes district of New York, and is certainly close to many biking, cross country skiing, jogging trails...including a few Rails to Trails sites (yikes - watch your bike speed limit on a couple of those). Bon Ton Roulet means "let the good times roll", and it's also the name of a 7 day cycling event in the Finger Lakes area. Lots of farmland, historical sites....so whatever exercise you're pursuing, there's good times to be had!

Congratulations, Robert H, on earning the Concept2 donation and freeing your reindeer, Bon Ton Roulet !

[Kona2]

Reindeer games....



Day 16 or 17 of 33....

Concept2 donation $$$ from entire rowing universe = $ 5,964.28 (this was from early this AM)

Concept2 donation $$$ from our team = $ 173.39

Billions of meters being rowed all over the world....cool stuff !

Season meters as of 219/365 = 94,533,231 m

Total meters on the day = 591,277 m

Oars in space (participation) = 38 percent

MILESTONES...Bragging Rights...Celebrations:

4.1 MM bg
700 K Dennis
450 K Jay R

Thanks, everyone, for rowing with us!

Tim P m
Raoul 5,383 m
Fritz 5,440 m
Chuck E 6,000 m
David T 6,000 m
Stephen W 7,000 m
Harold 7,600 m
Nataliya 7,990 m
Anita 8,000 m
Marie 8,000 m
Marty 8,000 m
Bernie 8,017 m
K2 8,287 m
Karyn 8,347 m
Andre 8,378 m
Jane 8,500 m
Dana 9,215 m
Jim 9,443 m
Tony m
Baz 10,000 m
Jeff P 10,000 m
Rebecca 10,000 m
Zander m
Nathan 10,026 m
Greg C 10,290 m
Danno 11,000 m
Ted 11,000 m
Ronnie m
Dan W 11,695 m
Cathie 12,000 m
Michelle 12,000 m
Sam 12,000 m
Minnie 12,127 m ....she's back!
Roger 12,277 m
Tammy 12,277 m
Teresa 12,284 m
Tim G 12,500 m
Rosi 13,000 m
Tom M 13,000 m
Dennis 13,500 m
Kristine 14,000 m
David A 14,710 m
Peter H 15,000 m
Laurie 15,142 m
Brian M 16,384 m
Ron 16,944 m
Jay R 17,554 m
Jay 18,000 m
Ed 20,000 m
bg 56,623 m

[nl07695]

Rotterdam was bombed heavily in World War II. This resulted in the city being known as The Destroyed City for a time, and the wind coming in from the sea was fierce. During the 1950s to the 1970s, lots of rebuilding went on. Rotterdam is now known for its use of strategic architecture to greatly reduce the wind. In honor of this cutting edge architecture, Peter H's reindeer is Wind Dancer.

Hi Kona2,

Thanks for the great motivator to get to the 100k. I was wondering since 70k what my reindeer will be named. And you couldn't have named it any better. Ofcource Wiki is a great source and I found some "nice" areal shots of my city, just before, right after the war and current which I had to show...

Each picture is shot from about the same angle and contains the same landmark that survived the war out townhall. This building together with the central postoffice next door were of strategic importance to the German invaders. It contained the cival registry and the communication lines of the city.

Just before:


Right after:


And a couple of years ago:


Thanks for the great motivation

Peter H

[bg]

Wowzer, I sure took my time getting through that million from 9 to 10....but it's done! Hooyah!

woooo hooooo and congrats :}

[Luna]

Wowzer, I sure took my time getting through that million from 9 to 10....but it's done! Hooyah!

Way To Row 13013

[Kona2]

Another rower meets the Concept2 donation milestone... and frees a reindeer!

Most of the images of the Earth seen from space are a view some call the Blue Marble. A day or two ago, NASA released a composite satellite picture (images were compiled in April and October) of the earth at night...and they're calling this one the Black Marble. “Artificial lighting is a excellent remote sensing observable and proxy for human activity,” says Chris Elvidge, who leads the Earth Observation Group at NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center. Social scientists and demographers have used night lights to model the spatial distribution of economic activity, of constructed surfaces, and of populations. Planners and environmental groups have used maps of lights to select sites for astronomical observatories and to monitor human development around parks and wildlife refuges. Electric power companies, emergency managers, and news media turn to night lights to observe blackouts."

Black Marble
World View

Stay with this bunny trail for a minute or two....I'm always amazed at how much open space, farmland is still present in some regions of North America - especially when viewing some of the concentrations of artificial lighting from space. Doing some reindeer "research" (how can you call a quick look up of items research?!), especially on our reindeer from New York and Massachusetts, is giving me some new thoughts. There is a LOT of open space and farmland...and some well planned trails, land trusts, in many places. One of the discoveries about Sherborn MA, home to David T, is that there is a vast network of connected trails called the Bay Circuit Trail that runs through Sherborn, and provides the Boston area population with some outstanding outdoor opportunities for water activities, biking, equestrian activities, etc. Seriously impressive.

Bay Circuit Trail

Back to the reindeer naming. The trails give many opportunities for some great reindeer names, but keep getting drawn back to the satellite imagery. In honor of the first satellite to circle the Earth, David T's reindeer is Sputnik!

Congratulations, David T, on earning the Concept2 donation and freeing your reindeer, Sputnik !