Month: July 2006

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Why this picture?


I’ve been using a version of this photo that I have on Facebook in my profile on Blogger. Evidently, Blogger has installed new software that limits the url length of your profile photo to 64 characters and my Facebook link exceeds that. When I inser the photo in this post, it gets uploaded to Gary’s Blogger server and I can now link my Blogger profile to the photo on Gary’s server.

FWIW – the girls, from left to right, Vanessa Fiore, Ashely Schlosser, Susan Kim, and Taylor Baker, are all students hired as Bacardi girls here in State College. They appear at various bars and functions here in town to promote Barcardi products (usually not quite dressed as well though) and were doing such at the martini contest.

Now that that is out of the way, here’s a complete recap of my surgery todate.

The surgery went exceptionally well and everything was super…. but only for about 24 hours.

The surgeon was right. I was able to walk out of the clinic without any problems. I even stopped by the golf course Thursday afternon and went to the Spikes game Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up with a little soreness behind the knee but nothing that was at all a problem. I was even telling people that my left knee (the one that was operated on) was feeling better than the right one (and that was the truth).

Then all of a sudden things changed.

I was crawling on my floor. monkeying around with one of my backup computers, and then got up. Getting up was a little awkward because the knee didn’t have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t particularly notice anything pop or pull as I got up but as soon as I put weight on my left leg, the knee hurt like hell. The knee quickly started to hurt and swell. I pretty much became immobilized – I couldn’t put ANY weight on the leg at all without excruciating pain shooting through the knee. I very quickly put myself to bed (the only moving that I would do around the townhouse was confined to inching along on my hands and butt). And the pills didn’t seem to do much to help the constant pain in the knee. My ambitious plans for the weekend suddenly went all to hell.

For the next 24 hours I really didn’t get much sleep.

Things started getting better by Sunday. The constant pain started to come under control and I could switch my pain medication from Vicodin for pain to ibuprofen to address the inflammation in the knee. I was also frequently icing the knee to try to control the swelling. By late Sunday afternoon I was able to get around the townhouse pretty well by leaning on things and using my walking golf cart (bottom floor of the townhouse only) and a seven iron as crutches.

Today was even better. I’ve been able to find a couple of comfortable positions in bed so I can sleep well. The swelling in the knee has come down considerably. The knee can pretty much bear my weight without any shooting pains. I can now walk around the townhouse without having to hang on things to maneuver. I no longer have to butt hop up and down my stairs as I can safely scale them one step at a time. I also no longer need to improvise crutches (although I am continuing to use the seven iron as a cane – more of an emotional support than anything). And most importantly, I was finally able to stand up long enough to take a shower!

I’m going to try to start bringing my life back to normal in the next couple of days. My stitches come out Wednesday and my objective is to make our men’s golf league Wednesday night… as a spectator only. I’ve given up on my original plan to play – my playing plans are to be ready to play Wednesday a week with maybe a practice round that Tuesday. I’m bummed that I missed the Spikes games this weekend but the way that they are playing I evidently didn’t miss much. I do plan on making the Spikes game this Thursday though.

That’s where things stand at the moment.

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A Narrow Escape

We had some crazy weather here in NH on Friday night. Severe thunderstorms paired with winds at 55+ mph didn’t mix well with the repairs being made to Portsmouth’s North Church Steeple. The entire steeple and the scaffolding came crashing down at about 6pm. No one was injured and my car narrowly escaped being completely totaled. Check out the video on this newscast. My car is BEHIND the Jeep that was ruined and next to the black truck.

http://www.wmur.com/newsarchive/9595276/detail.html

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Larry’s knee (an insider’s view)

Home from surgery and resting. Everything went well. I walked out of the clinic without a problem. Here are some photos tsken off of the arthoscopic camera as it paraded around inside my knee.

Right in the middle of this shot, you can see some of the fraying cartilege.

Here is clearly a frayed loose piece of cartilege floating around getting in the way of normal knee movement.

In this shot, you can see the tool on the right which has just gone in and zapped, chopped, pureed, or something the loose cartilege piece and sucked it up.

On the right center of this shot you can see how the cartilege has been noticeably worn away.

Here’s all sorts of crap floating around in the knee (I believe the bubbles are actually generated by the tool doing its job, they aren’t typically there).

In this last shot, the tool in the lower right corner has just finished snipping away at the cartilege between 5 and 6 on the clock dial. The thing looks like PacMan the way that it snips away at the cartilege. I think the idea is to create a cleaner non frayed edge to the cartilege.

The doctor actually gave me a 15 minute cd video of the operation as seen through the camera that these still were taken from. It’s quite fascinating to watch. If Gary has enough room to host a 0.5 GB file, I’ll send him a copy and we’ll upload it for all to watch. It sure beats the simple old xray that I got the last time I had my knee operated on 40 years ago.

I feel really good. The pain is quite minimal, probably less than what I have been normally experiencing. I’ve got a bunch of Vicodin tablets that he prescribed for any pain but I currently don’t see any need to take them. There’s a Spikes baseball game tonight and I’m really tempted to go, I feel so well. The doc said I was cleared to go to the game tomorrow but I didn’t even think to ask him about tonight. He did say to take it easy today but I’m figuring sitting in a seat at a baseball game can’t be all that much of a strain. The game isn’t until 7:00 so I have a while before I have to decide.

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Going under the knife (and more golf)

Today’s the day that I get my knee scoped. Surgery is scheduled for 12:45. I’m told it should take about 45 minutes and that I’ll be walking out of the outpatient facility by about 3PM. I purposely scheduled the operation for a Thursday in the hopes that I could avoid missing any of my Wednesday night men’s league golf matches. My surgeon said I should be back on the golf course within a week so I’m hopeful I can play next Wed night.

Speaking of men’s league golf, my partner, the previously blogged Lanny Sommese, and I had an almost legendary match last night. We play nine hole matches with two points available on every hole, low net wins a point, high net loses a point (we keep league handicaps according to USGA rules and play the matches at an 80% handicap).

Our match was a big one for the league standings. We were in seventh place and were playing the fourth place team who was just 3 points ahead of us in the standings (you get two points for a win, one for a tie).

Lanny and I started poorly and were down 6 points after five holes (for the math challenged, that means there were only 4 holes or eight points left so we were in a pretty big hole). Coincidently though, Lanny and I hold the league record for the greatest comeback when last year we rallied from the exact same 6 and 8 deficit to win by one. We almost did it again.

We won two points on the sixth hole of the match, halved the seventh hole, and won two points on the eigth. That left us down two with one hole to play. Last night’s matches were a shotgun start and our match had started on the ninth hole, so we were finishing on the eighth hole.

The eighth hole is the #1 handicap hole on the course. From our tees, it’s a 576 yard par five with a small stream that runs down the left side of the fairway for the last 250 yards. Because it’s the #1 handicap, three of the guys in the foursome were getting strokes on the hole. Our opponents, Roger (6 handicap) and Bill (4 handicap), had honors. Roger hit a good drive about 210 yards down the middle of the fairway. Bill pulled his drive along the treeline to the left but it wound up safely in the rough about 230 from the tee. Lanny (11 handicap) hit a perfect drive about 240 down the middle. I (16 handicap) was up last and caught my ball very thin, failing to clear a hill in the fairway that crests at about 180 yards off the tee.

Then. for my next shot, I absolutely smoked my hybrid three iron hitting it about 220 yards to the dead center of the fairway about 190 out. Roger was up next and hit a decent five wood about 10 yards inside of me. Bill made a great save out of the rough and hit a rescue club to about 130 out. Lanny pulled a three wood just left of the stream ending up in the rough about 150 out.

I was up first need to come up with a shot. I responded, hitting the same hybrid club 190 onto the green but a decent way from the hole (the pin was tucked inside the bunkers on the left and my shot ended up on the far right side of the green). Roger, feeling the pressure, pulled his five wood slightly and wound up in the left bunker protecting the front of the green. Because Lanny was getting a stoke I encouraged him to not get suckered into going pin hunting saying that all we probably would need was a ball on the green and two putt to pull out a tie. Playing strategically, Lannie hit a 7 iron to the fat of the green but because he was coming in from the left angle, it travelled to the far right. The green is also two tiered and Lanny’s ball rolled up onto the second tier while the pin was down in the first tier.

That put the pressure squarely on Bill. We now had two balls on the green – in net two because we were both getting strokes. His partner, while also lying net two, was in trouble in the greenside bunker. Bill, playing without the benefit of a stroke on this hole was still 130 yards out. He rose to the occasion and hit a beautiful shot right at the flag. The ball checked up about 12 feet below the hole.

The pressure was now on Roger to come up with a decent bunker shot. He also executed well with his ball rolling about 10 feet from the hole. Both of our opponents putts were makeable but by no means easy. Now the pressure was back on us to get down in two. I had about a 50 foot putt that I hit real well – it ended up about 3 feet below the whole. Lanny was next with about a 45 footer but with much more of a challenge than I had because he was on the upper tier and was going to have to carefully roll the ball along the ridge and just have it gently fall down toward the hole. He executed perfectly and the ball nestled two feet from the hole.

The pressure now went squarely back to our opponents – and they finally blinked. Bill just missed his birdie put by an inch and tapped in for a five. Roger failed to get his par saving putt down and tapped in for his six. That meant that either Lanny or I needed to make our putts. I calmly drained mine for a net birdie, then Lanny did the same with his, giving us two points and tying the match.

The comeback was great because we did it by playing well not by having our opponents hand the match to us (Bill shot a 39 for his nine and Roger had a 41). We managed the tie because Lanny and I shot two over par for the last four holes which included the two hardest holes on the nine.

Yet as satisfying as the tie was, it should have been a victory. We should have gotten at least one point on the hole that we tied during our comeback. Lanny had a five foot putt for birdie that he and I misread and I missed a three foot putt for par. If either of us makes those putts we win rather than tie.

Still, we’ll take the tie given how futile things looked standing on tie of the sixth hole of the match down six to one of the better teams in the league. The point that we earned managed to move us up one notch in the league standings. We are now in sixth place.

I’ll update all on my surgery later today.

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Big Golf Weekend

I’m going to try to defend my Toftrees Cup Senior Club Championship (the Toftrees Cup is our handicapped championship competition) on Saturday and Sunday. Last year I won with a net 5 under, going 68-71 for a 139, and I won by three strokes. It’s a fun time because the competition takes place from the senior tees which we ordinarily never play.

This will also be the first time in a month that I’ve tried to play 18 holes on consecutive days so I’ll be curious about how my knees will hold up. I’ve cut my rounds back to about 1 1/2 a week and its really helped. I played 18 yesterday in a practice round and my knees felt the best they have for a month. I shot an 88 for a net 72 and that’s without making a putt on the front nine so I’m optimistic that I can give my title a good defense.

I think I may pull a Tiger and leave the driver in the bag on most holes. I’ve got a 20 degree Cobra Baffler hybrid that I can hit over 200 yards and I may go with it since the course plays much shorter from the senior tees than it does the normal tees.

As a frame of reference, Our senior tees (5571 yards, rating 68.1, and slope of 129) are about the same as Old Orchard white’s (5731 yards, rating 68.7, and slope of 127). We have five sets of tees and normally I play either the white (6259, 71.4, 133) or the blue tees (6553, 72.3, 135) so you can see there will be a considerable difference from what I typically play (PS – I almost never play the black – 7062, 74.3, 138 – I’ve learned my limits 🙂 ).

I used the hybrid yesterday during my practice round and showed that there’s no par four that I can’t get inside of 150 yards with the it. There is one par five that would be reachable in two with the driver but its a slight dog leg right and it would be easy to hit a driver through the dog leg into the woods so the sensible play would be to not use it there either. That’s the 17th hole so I will keep the driver in the bag in case I come to it on Sunday and need an eagle. 🙂

As usual, I will keep all updated on my results.

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This Old House… is MINE!

Hello All,

I thought I’d drop a quick note to let everyone know (if my mom hasn’t already) that I recently purchased my first home. Unfortunately, I don’t have a digital camera otherwise I’d post a picture. I may be able to send one to Gary or Larry to post by emailing from my cell phone. I never seem to have much luck with the picture posting thing. The best part, however, is that my new address is as follows:

Shannon Hill
31 Hill Street
Dover, NH 03820

How about that!

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Arts Festival Roadrace Photos

Found some old Arts Festival 10 Mile Roadrace photos taken in my running days.

Here’s Randy Woolridge with my ex-wife, Denise, and I before the start of the race in July of 1983. Notice the horns on my headband. Even then I liked to attract attention to myself.

Here are shots of Randy and I as we are finishing the race. If Randy seems to be more in stride and moving a little faster than me, it’s no optical illusion. Randy got pretty serious about his running and ran in a few marathons every year including about 10 times in Boston where I often accompanied him (TO Boston that is, once we got there, he did all the running).

Here’s Randy and Dennis Gildea replacing precious bodily fluids post race. Dennis was the writer for the Pennsylvania Mirror article that I linked to in a previous post (also one of the instigators of the Phi Psi 500 Hall of Fame hoax). He is now a professor of journalism at Springfield College in Springfield MA.

Here’s a post race shot of Randy Woolridge, Heather Carmichael, Katie O’Toole, and somebody whom I don’t remember.

First a little remeniscing about Heather. When I was in my running prime, I ran in several major road races around the country. For a few years in a row, Tod Jeffers and I would golf out way down to Atlanta for the Fourth of July and then run in the famed Peachtree Road Race, the largest road race in the country. 1979 happened to be one of the years that Tod and I ran the race. The day after the race, on our way out of town Tod and I picked up the Atlanta Constitution to read all the race stories. The talk of the race was the young unknown female runner from New Zealand who had won the women’s title.

This race attracted the top runners in the country. Famed marathoner Frank Shorter won it in 1977. Mary Decker was the women’s winner in 1978. Craig Virgin and Greta Waitz each won three Peachtree titles. But the 1979 female winner was an unknown recent high school graduate from New Zealand named Heather Carmichael. It turns out that Heather was a protegy of Arthur Lydiard, a famed New Zealand coach and trainer of legendary New Zealanders like world record miler Peter Snell. Here’s a story noting how Lydiard had prepped Heather and her teammate Karen Petley, who place third, for the Peachtree. When Heather won the race, nobody knew who she was. By the time the papers came out the next day, a couple of enterprising reporters had been able to piece together some info on her including the fact that she was headed to Penn State on a track scholarship. Tod and I immediately bemoaned the fact that we hadn’t known that the day before figuring we probably could have used that to our advantage somehow.

Scene shifts to four years later. By this time, Heather is a senior at Penn State and she’s renting a room in Randy’s house (which naturally now makes her good ole buddies with Tod and me). Unfortunately, injuries had derailed her Penn State career. She was a track All American as a freshman, taking 6th in the NCAA Indoor 5000M and 5th in the NCAA Outdoor 3000M races (she still holds the Penn State 3000m record). But as a sophomore stress injuries had taken a toll on her body and she was forced to drop from serious competition. That didn’t stop her from running in fun races from time to time including this Arts Festival race which she won handily.

The other women in the picture is Katie O’Toole. Katie is a long time friend of mine. I knew her when she was a student here at Penn State in the early 70s. She is one of many who has never left town. She is the host and writer for the award winning Penn State TV show “What’s in the News”. I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned Katie in the blog before, probably when I was talking about my long time friend former Penn State football player and Katie’s husband, Gary Gray. Or, if not then, then when I was talking about UncleLar “nephew” Penn State soccer player and Katie and Gary’s son David Gray (Note: Elliot and Chris, because they are Facebook friends of mine, can check out David and the rest of the Gray clan – Ali, PSU grad living in San Francisco; MoMo, student at Southern Cal; John, freshman at Penn State, and Claire, junior at State College High).

Hope you all enjoyed the old photos. Now if I could only drop forty lbs and get back to that weight. 🙁

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Arts Fest Roadrace

Traditionally, local road runners celebrate the Arts Festival with a Sunday road race. The race is now a 10K event coupled with a 5K fun run but in its early days was a much more demanding 10 miler. It’s been a long long time since I ran it but it used to be one of things that I always looked forward to. Once I got past the Phi Psi 500 in April, the next running event that I looked forward to was the Arts Festival 10 Miler.

The race was actually one of the first things that really bonded Tod Jeffers and I. I’ve related to many the story of how Tod and I met before the Phi Psi 500 (I’ll save documenting that story for another day) but I’m don’t think I’ve told too many in the family about our Arts Festival races.

The very first Arts Fest race was held in 1976 and was a large 10 mile loop that started and finished on campus. When I showed up at the start of the race in 77, Tod was the honorary celebrity starter for the event. When Tod saw me warming up before the start, he ran over and said “Are you actually running in this thing?” When I responded affirmatively, he said “Well if you can do it, I can too.” He then added that as soon as he started the race he was going to rush home, change his shoes and meet me out on the course.

Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the race, Tod pulls up behind me in his car, parks it and jumps out. In those days, Tod didn’t have a pair of real running shoes but he changed into a pair of “sneakers”. At this point we were two miles into the race and far enough out of town that he could just leave his car parked on the side of the road. That left eight miles to go – and if you aren’t a regular runner eight miles isn’t an easy thing to pull off.

I slowed down a little in order to not stress Tod too much and things went well – for a while. After about another 4-5 miles, Tod was in noticeable pain. When I asked if he was OK, he said he was having trouble with his legs rubbing together and chaffing. I told him that was typical and that I and many runners put vaseline on our legs to avoid that. That immediately started Tod thinking.

At the time, the race course ran through a little small town just outside of State College called Houserville. Many of the Houserville residents were outside on their front lawns supporting the runners as they ran by. Tod spotted this old couple sitting on their lawn chairs right outside their front doors and turns to me and says “wait here a second”. Tod ran up to the couple and politely asked if they had any vaseline available. The old man pulled himself out of his chair, disappeared into his house for a minute and reappeared with a BIG jar of KY Jelly. Tod dipped his hand into it, slapped it on his thighs and rejoined me (I had been jogging in little circles in front of the house waiting for him). He remarked to me “I took one look at the couple and just knew that they had a bunch of petroleum jelly around”.

The jelly worked wonders and Tod bounded forward with newfound energy. That newfound energy lasted about a mile or so and then he started dragging again. I will give him credit though. He did manage to gut it out and finish the race though but he was really hurting. He actually missed work the next morning for the first time in over 10 years when he was so sore that he couldn’t even get out of bed.

That experience did turn Tod into a more serious runner though. From then on he started training a little more seriously and he and I would run the Arts Festival 10 Miler every year.

That leads to another Arts Fest story. While Tod and I would run every year we weren’t very serious about it. We would always show up at the start of the race with a cooler of beer and hydrate with a beer before the start (Tod and I subscribed to the George Sheehan theory of beer being the perfect replenishment fluid for runners). After a couple of years of the 10 mile loop, the course was changed to two laps around a five mile loop. That worked perfectly for Tod and I because we could now stop at our beer cooler after 5 miles and down another beer before continuing.

In those days the race was dominated by a former Penn State runner, Greg Fredericks who was a two time Olympian. Greg would run away with the race every year and used to have to find new ways to motivate himself. One year, Tod and I, as would be our norm, completed the first five mile loop right around our standard 43-45 minutes. We stopped, had a quick beer, chatted with our girlfriends and took off for the second lap, leaving sometime around the 46-47 minute mark. By the time we finished it was sometime a little after the 90 minute mark.

When we asked who had won the race, we were told that Fredericks won in a runaway as usual but that he wasn’t happy with his finish. The first thing that he asked as he crossed the finish line was “Where’s Fall and Jeffers?” When told that we had just left, he responded “Damn, I wanted to lap them”. Greg’s fastest time for the 10 mile race was 47:37 but this year he was a couple of minutes off that pace.

Here is a report on the race the year that Greg Fredericks set his personal record time. The article is by another friend of mine Dennis Gildea who some in the family may remember from my wedding. He’s the guy who wrote the story “Mr Fall of Fame” and was one of the instigators of the Phi Psi 500 Hall of Fame hoax pulled on me (second generation Fall Family members will have to wait for another time for me to detail that incident). Dennis sums up how we all approached road running in those days when he ends his article with this quote

Quite a bit more can (and will) be said about this race, but it will not be in today’s sheet by your Mirrow track scribe. Your Mirrow scribe finished 102nd in 69:10 and then got on the business side of several Tuburg Golds to replace the precious bodily fluids that seeped out of him over the 10 miles.

My running days are far behind me now. Given the current condition of my knees I will be ecstatic if I ever reach a point where I can just walk eighteen holes of golf again. Nevertheless it was fun reminiscing about the old days.

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Arts Fest Poster


The Arts Festival promotes itself with a collectible poster that is a work of art in its own right. For the past thirty years, the poster has been created by Lanny Sommese, a Penn State graphic design professor and an internationally known poster artist.

Here area some of Lanny’s past Arts Festival posters:

And some other examples of his award winning posters:


Coexistence: A Bridge To Understanding

Coexistence is an annual traveling exhibition started in Jerusalem dedicated to spreading the message of diversity and acceptance. Lanny is one of only three artist to have more than one poster in the exhibition. Here is his other one:

Click on the photos for the poems that go with the artwork.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet won first prize in the International Triennial of Stage Poster in Sofia Hungary in 1995.

No!

No! is part of the Library of Congress’s Witness and Response collection of materials related to the tragic events of 9/11.


HELP

HELP is Lanny’s contribution to the Hurricane Poster Relief Project, an effort dedicated to raising funds for Hurricane Katrina victims.

By now it should be evident that social consciousness plays a big role in Lanny’s art. Lanny teaches his students that their art should first and foremost have a message to convey. In this article about design heroes, one of Lanny’s former students says

The approach to graphic design was conceptual, always about communication, and always with an idea.

Why this sudden interest in poster art you might ask?

Because, in addition to being a famed artist, Lanny is also my partner in the Toftrees Men’s Golf League. While my knee probles have severely limited the amount of golf that I play (I’m down to a round and a half a week), I still make sure I get my 9 holes in on Wednesday nights. So far, Lanny and I have managed to have a decent season in spite of my injury. Halfway through the season, we currently sit in 7th place out of 24 teams.

Lanny has had an interesting life. He went to college on an athletic scholarship to play basketball at the University of Florida, last year’s national champions. I first met Lanny in the early 70s here at Penn State. At the time, Lanny had quite a reputation as a lady’s man and most certainly did not fit the image of a staid college professor. Quite the contrary. He was recently divorced and was often seen with a beautiful girl on his arm.

That’s all changed now. He’s quite settled down, happily married, albeit for the third time, and raising two cute young kids. Here’s a photo of Lanny (he’s in the red tie) and his wife Kristen (she’s the blond). Of course, the fact that she’s a former student of his and younger than his first daughter only adds to the Lanny legend. That age disparity also leads to his grandchildren actually having an aunt and uncle younger than them.

Lanny’s first wife, Donna Gibbons, actually appeared in one of my all time favorite movies “About Last Night” starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore (pre boob job when she was a cute youngster). “About Last Night” really captured the Chicago singles bar scene in the early 80s. Several scenes in the movie took place in Mothers on Division Street just across from my favorite Chicago haunt, the Lodge. If you remember the movie, Donna Gibbons played Alex, the older women who seduces Rob Lowe.

This seems like a good place to end this post before I start telling Lodge stories. I will make sure to update everyone on Lanny and my’s performance coming down the stretch in our league.