Pretty much every time I see an old person in a walker, I see tennis balls attached to the rubber caps in order to make them glide easier. In fact, I can’t recall a time when I have seen a walker without these standard tennis balls. I find it a little remarkable that these generally bland, grey walkers are all customized with the bright yellow-green tips — a fashion statement I’m sure most people using walkers would not choose apart from the utility.
Several months ago, I thought of the great idea to design bland tennis ball-like objects to provide walkers with a more subtle fix to this prominent problem. Procrastinating as usual, it wasn’t until today when I actually decided to look into this problem. It turns out that several other people have observed this dilemma, even to the point of doing the exact same thing I am doing right now.
Of course, there are a few solutions, such as exchangeable tips and whatnot. My favorite solution comes from the most reliable source of useless old person devices, Dr. Leonard’s. The Tennis Ball Walker Glides are tennis balls designed to save you the danger and 30 seconds it takes to cut an X in two tennis balls, all for only $20 ($17 if you order right now!). Thanks, Dr. Leonard, for providing a pointless solution to a problem nobody cared to address.
Since I am now making a 45 minute commute twice daily, I’ve been listening to a lot of music on my iPhone. This is usually a good thing in every respect, because it gives me the opportunity to appreciate the music I have spent years collecting. There is, however, one thing that consistently annoys me — and I’ll admit, it’s kind of a nerdy and picky thing.
One of my favorite songs is Sax Rohmer #1 by The Mountain Goats. In fact, it’s currently my default ringtone. The problem lies here:
Most 4/4 songs accentuate eighth notes on each downbeat, creating a 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 feel. Sax Rohmer #1, in contrast, accents in a 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2 pattern — a musical twist that I always appreciate when it pops up. It reminds me of Dave Brubeck.
If this is something I always appreciate, why does it annoy me? Well, the problem lies in the fact that my natural rhythm of walking coincides nearly exactly with the length of a dotted quarter note, or the length of a “1-2-3.” Four years of marching band in high school plus many more years of musical training practically require me to walk in step with the most prominent beat I feel.
Because the eighth notes are patterned as 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2, this means that every third step I take must be one eighth note shorter in order to land the next foot at the same time as the downbeat. It means that with every third step — which, being an odd number, means that it alternates feet — I have a gimp.
In my mind, this is a very prominent problem. Of course, there’s always a simpler solution.
Okay, I haven’t posted in a while. Things have been pretty lazy for me, but I’ve filled them with activities other than blogging, so don’t you worry.
In lieu of updating things about my life, opinions, and whatever, I will post two pictures of one of the crazier things I have seen in the past week.
That’s right. Crazy Chinese guys were swimming and diving in the freezing water, doing laps from the edge of the lake to the point where the ice is still standing.