exercise ball chairs

Here I thought I was so smart sitting on this ball. Little did I know there are these weird ball chairs out there. They're on Amazon and Target and all sorts of fitness equipment sites. They are kind of like a round frame with feet and a back that hold a ball in the middle. Here are some pictures:

http://www.isokineticsinc.com/category/ex_ball_chairs

Blizzard

We are having a spring blizzard out there and it's about time. We get most of our snow in March and April and highly depend on it for our water for the year. This year has been unusually dry and we haven't had much snow at all. But last night it started and is supposed to last for a day. This is great, wet, snow-man snow. The wind has picked up in the last hour so now it is really howling out there.

I haven't gone out in it yet except to get the newspaper but I took a few pictures through the windows. So far there are about 6 or more inches but it is blowing around now and starting to drift.

The last picture is Spooky nested next to the wood stove. He's so black I had to underexpose the whole picture to get any cat detail. He knows a good place to sleep when he finds one. I feel like joining him there.

Update on the ball

One thing about the ball - if you get up quickly, say to reach for something, and then sit back down, you'd better make sure the ball is still there. I landed on the floor before I learned this lesson. The ball had meanwhile traveled across the room.

the ball

I read a story about a teacher somewhere who decided to replace all her students' chairs with exercise balls. The net effect was less fidgeting, more exercise for the kids and generally happier kids. I thought why not try it myself. I have chair problems. I've gone through several generations of office chairs and eventually got a kneeling chair which has worked well. But now it's upholstery is going bad and the cushioning is not great anymore. So I got a ball to try.

There was a problem however. I picked the wrong size. I got a huge ball - big mistake. It took a while to pump it up to the required 92 inch circumference. As it got bigger and bigger and bigger and I kept measuring and pumping I began to realize that maybe I'd made a mistake in choosing the size. Finally I got it up to the 93 inches and then I took it up to my desk. Well, I couldn't fit it thorough the doorway of my office. No matter how hard I squeezed it wouldn't go. All I could do was deflate it. After getting it down to about 74 inches I was able to get it through the door.

It's a bit mushy now to sit on now. I have been rolling around on it for a few days. My legs seem happier and I do tend to bounce and roll on it as I sit here and work but it does require a little strength. I found my back muscles were working in places where maybe they don't usually get much action. So it's got to be doing something good- at least it's a sort of exercise or whatever? Who knows- time will tell.

Almost spring

Now that its March, and the time has changed, a person can still have some daylight to enjoy after 5 o'clock in the evening. I certainly appreciate the longer almost-spring evenings. It's been unseasonably warm and we are in desperate need of rain or snow, but the longer twilights have been quite pleasant.

Eurasian Collared Dove

When we moved here in the 80's, doves were not overly abundant. You could hear Mourning Doves in the morning, and now and then you would see some around sitting on wires in the evening. Over just the last few years doves have gotten more and more common. This winter it was not unusual to see a couple dozen feeding at the bird feeders and sitting in groups in the trees and shrubs nearby. Wondering why there was this sudden influx of doves, I decided to do a little research. It turns out that all these new doves are Eurasian Collared doves, not a native species. They were introduced into the Bahamas in 1975 and have been spreading north. They spread across parts of the lower southern United States by 1998. By 2003 they had reached as far as western Nevada to the Canadian border and to Virginia in the east. So some time between 1998 and 2003 these birds arrived here in Colorado and have become more and more prevalent ever since. Every morning a few of them sit in the sumac trees sunning themselves. This is one of them. They are named for the dark band across the back of the neck.

Record Heat

Yesterday's high was 72. This broke all existing records for this date's temperature going back to when temperatures were first recorded around 180 years ago. It is bizarre. It should be cold and wet and occasionally snowy for the beginning of March. It is terribly dry. There is a severe fire danger warning for the whole Front Range. There may be a cold front this weekend. Everyone is hoping for some moisture. Things are sprouting but there is no water.

Arson

The Golden West flour mill was set afire last Saturday night. The flour mill has been empty since 1979 and there were plans to turn it into a transit station development. The two suspects are a 17 year old male and a 17 year old female. Teen taggers and the homeless used to hang out there. The fire department worked hard and got it out but the main building is gutted. It was a wooden building with a masonry exterior. Part of it was ripped down for safety reasons. Here's the after, and a before. I really liked this place with it's funky old buildings and old equipment. Now they are thinking about whether to tear the building down. Sad.