Table Tennis

The Asian American employee network at Pioneer sponsored a table tennis competition this week. I did not participate in the tournament last year, but decided on a whim to do so this year. Fortunately for me, Donglong Liu consented to be my doubles partner. Unfortunately for him, I unexpectedly got a cast on my foot three days after signing up.

As might be expected, my mobility was limited and I turned out to be more of a liability than an asset to Donglong. In our first match we went up two games to none, but our opponents came back to sweep the final three games and were victorious in the match.

Here you can see me warming up with Donglong. His arm and the ball are both blurry because he hits it very fast! If you look carefully, you can see the cast on my left foot showing under the table.

Casting around

After a year of treatment for heel pain with no real improvement, my podiatrist recommended immobilizing my foot for 30 days. My options were a cast on my foot or bedrest for a month. I thought bed rest sounded great, but it wasn't very practical!

Actually, this is the second cast on my foot. The first one was extremely uncomfortable. I tried to tough it out, but after five days experienced what I can only describe as a bout of claustrophobia of the foot. I literally couldn't stand to have the cast on my foot for another moment. I tried cutting the cast, but ran into two problems: I couldn't reach to my foot very well and my tool (wire cutters) were not up to the task. So I went next door and told my neighbor, Steve, that I was going crazy and needed his help removing the cast right away. He brought out his heavy duty metal snips and did the job. Afterwards he said that he has helped a lot of neighbors with a lot of things, but this request was a first for him!

My relief was short-lived. I went back to the doctor's office the next day for another cast. But I insisted on more padding to avoid a repeat of the first experience. So far the second cast is an improvement. But I still have three weeks to go ...

As you can see, I don't let my immobility stop me from exercising. I am working with weights even if I can't walk, run, or bike. So here I am in workout clothes at the fitness center at work. Check out the muscle in that right leg! No wonder the cast on my other leg was so tight.

Lots of zeros

Large numbers fascinate me. I think this started as a child with my interests in dinosaurs (millions of years ago), the speed of light (unbelievably fast), and the distances in the universe (one light year is nearly six trillion miles). It continues today, but now the context is often something like the federal budget deficit or the cost of waging war.

Here is how I make sense of large numbers. First, consider the ordinary paper clip, which weighs about 1.4 grams. One million paper clips weigh nearly 3,100 pounds, or over a ton and a half. The number "one million" is very large when you envision a ton and a half of paper clips in your office. But the number "one billion" is much larger; one billion paper clips weigh more than eight Boeing 747 passenger jets. And the number "one trillion" is almost too large to fathom. This many paper clips would weigh more than four Empire State Buildings.

Next, consider a penny, which is 1.55 millimeters thick. A stack of a million pennies would reach nearly a mile high. A billion pennies would reach from Des Moines along Interstate 80 a little ways past the Utah-Wyoming border; driving at freeway speed (75 miles per hour) it would take almost thirteen hours to drive that distance. And a trillion pennies would reach around the earth nearly 39 times or between the moon and the earth four times. And I don't think I can drive that far.

Finally, consider time. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. This is a number I can grasp. One million seconds is just over 11.5 days, or a week and a half. So each month sees the passing of almost three million seconds. But a billion seconds is almost 32 years. With luck, I might reach the ripe old age of three billion seconds. But I'll never reach one trillion seconds; this is nearly 32,000 years.

So I get a little concerned when I hear that the federal deficit has reached the trillions of dollars. From the US National Debt Clock:

The Outstanding Public Debt as of September 19, 2008 is $9.7 trillion. The estimated population of the United States is 304 million, so each citizen's share of this debt is nearly $32 thousand.