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Your Sochi Viewing Guide: Local Athletes


With the Sochi Olympic games beginning this week, here are the local athletes that I will be keeping an eye on. All of these athletes have some connection to New York or Vermont.

Name     Sport
Lowell Bailey    Biathlon
Time Burke     Biathlon
Annelies Cook     Biathlon
Hannah Dreissigacker     Biathlon
Susan Dunklee     Biathlon
Nick Cunningham     Bobsled
Jamie Greubel     Bobsled
Steve Langton     Bobsled
Erin Hamlin     Luge
Aidan Kelly     Luge
Chris Mazdzer     Luge
Matt Mortensen     Luge
Jayson Terdiman     Luge
Tucker West     Luge
Billy Demong     Nordic Combined
John Daly     Skeleton
Nick Alexander     Ski Jumping
Peter Frenette     Ski Jumping
Nolan Kasper     Skiing – Alpine
Andrew Weibrecht     Skiing – Alpine
Sophie Caldwell     Skiing – Cross Country
Andy Newell     Skiing – Cross Country
Ida Sargent     Skiing – Cross Country
Liz Stephen     Skiing – Cross Country
Ashley Caldwell     Skiing – Aerials
Hannah Kearney     Skiing – Moguls
Devin Logan     Skiing – Slopestyle
Kelly Clark     Snowboarding – Halfpipe
Alex Diebold     Snowboarding – Snowboardcross
Jacquelin Hernandez     Snowboarding – Snowboardcross
Lindsey Jacobellis     Snowboarding – Snowboardcross
Hannah Teter     Snowboarding – Halfpipe
Ty Walker     Snowboarding – Slopestyle
   
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Remembering the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics


The moment the U.S. Mens Hockey team defeated Finland for the gold medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. (Photo courtesy of Russ Considine. Click image to see full-scale.)

Whenever the winter Olympics come into view, I always remember the excitement of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Although, like most, I only watched on TV, the excitement of those games is not easily forgotten by those who watched.

That’s why I’m happy to pass along this link: http://www.lakeplacidwinterolympics.com/.

It’s a personal reflection, with pictures of the 1980 Winter Games, by Russ Considine, who was there as a photographer.

Russ grew up in Huletts Landing and has some unique shots and great recollections. It’s worth the entire read. Perhaps it will bring back memories for you too.

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Official Song of Team USA 2014: “Everything Will Change” by Gavin DeGraw

Multi-platinum selling musician, singer-songwriter and current Grammy Awards nominee Gavin DeGraw closely collaborated with the United States Olympic Committee on his song Everything Will Change, which appears on his most recent album Make a Move, which debuted today. The collaboration includes a music video set to DeGraw’s song, featuring competition and training footage of more than two dozen Team USA athletes as well as sound bites from figure skater Jeremy Abbott; Paralympic alpine skiers Heath Calhoun and Alana Nichols; short track speedskater J.R. Celski; freestyle aerials skier Emily Cook; alpine skier Stacey Cook; and long track speedskater Shani Davis.

“I grew up watching the Olympics, and it’s a dream come true to have had this opportunity with Team USA,” said DeGraw. “I think the song fits because so many of us can relate to that desire to do what you love, put it down for a minute, then make that decision to get back on that horse, because life is really all about following your passions – sport, music or otherwise – and, in essence, that’s the pursuit of happiness for me.”

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Interview with Annelies Cook, U.S. Biathlon Team


Annelies Cook will compete in the Olympic biathlon in Sochi.

I recently had the chance to interview Annelies Cook, a biathlete from Saranac Lake, while she was in Italy preparing for the Olympics. The Olympic biathlon is a marriage of cross-country skiing and shooting. It became part of the Winter Olympics for women in 1992. Yesterday, Ms. Cook was officially announced as part of the U.S. Biathlon team.

Below is my interview with her.

As you wrap up the days before the Olympics, what are your goals?

At this point, there are only three weeks left until we head to Sochi. I have one more world cup this weekend and so far, I have not had the competitions that I would like due to some illness and some muscular issues that are now resolved. I think it is important to continue keeping my confidence high and executing my race plans in the same way that I would in Sochi. Hopefully this week is a positive experience! After that, we have two weeks of training where we are going to do some volume so that our base doesn’t disappear and after that we will start peak training. That includes more rest and very high intensity intervals. After that, it is just recovery and staying healthy! My goals are to go into the Olympics feeling good and confident.

What goes through your head while competing?

There are LOTS of things that go through your head but they usually depend on how you are doing. If I am having a challenging race, I have to focus on the positive and the process of the race- technique and things like that. In a great race where you feel aggressive and things are going well, you get this kind of high feeling where the pain almost feels good and you can welcome it. Then, it is easier to focus on catching the girls ahead of you and you don’t feel hesitant to go for it.

What will be unique for you about the Sochi Olympics?

Well first of all, it is my first Olympics so it will all be unique for me. The entire world starts to pay attention during the Olympics. While biathlon is the most popular here it is only during the Olympics that people from the U.S. pay attention to biathlon. So there is a lot more media attention and excitement. One of the biggest goals is to keep things as normal as possible during the Olympics. There is a lot more security, there is a lot more pressure, and there are athletes from many different sports around. It will be quite exciting.

The Biathlon is a unique sport, what should your fans be watching for as your Olympic event(s) unfolds on TV?

The fans should be looking for the way that the pressure on the shooting range can transform the outcome of a race. Imagine skiing as hard as you possibly can and then standing at the shooting range with 10,000 people standing behind you cheering for each hit and knowing that if you hit all of your targets you can be a gold medalist, but also knowing that the person you are competing against has the same pressure. In this way, one miss can be the difference between an Olympic champion and tenth place. In biathlon, anything can happen.

Any words for you Adirondack fans?

I hope you have an exciting time watching all the athletes from the Adirondacks competing! Almost every sport is represented by someone local and it is a time to feel really proud of our community.

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Email to the Editor

Hello,

My name is Svenja Wichmann and I am researching an art project that aims to explore and establish interrelationships between several places named Dresden in the United States and the City of Dresden in Saxony, Germany.

I am a postgraduate student in Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden (Germany) and gained the stipend of the state of saxony in 2013 for my postgraduate studies. Since I am currently living in Dresden, Germany I plan to travel to the United States in September 2014 to visit Dresden in Maine, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Kansas.

Any information you may provide about historical or current connections and relations between your Dresden and other places named Dresden in the United States or Germany would be helpful for me. I am looking for stories, friendships, personal experiences, historic and present events, visits to Dresden, family history, political connections and anything else that may cross your mind. I am interested in stories, pictures, reports or numbers of the past and present Life in Dresden.

I would highly appreciate your help in finding any related information for my research. Please forward my contact to anyone who might be interested to share his or her experience or thoughts about Dresden.

Thank you very much in advance for your efforts! Please let me know if you have any further questions about my project.

Yours faithfully,

Svenja Wichmann
wichmann.sv@googlemail.com

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Bits of Everything

Magic Salt on Lake George Streets

Denton publications spotlights the village of Lake George using a new substance instead of traditional rock salt on local roads.

Lindsey Jacobellis: Olympic Profile of US Snowboard Hopeful for Sochi 2014

Bleacher Report profiles Vermont snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, with a video of her agonizing 2006 Torino loss.

Saturn and its Moons in Holiday Dress

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has some amazing pictures of Saturn and its moons as seen by the Cassini spacecraft.

Retired Saratoga Racehorse, Metro, Pays Medical Bills By Painting

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Now For Some History: World War I


This picture appears to show Washington County soldiers headed off to World War I.

It was given to me by Don Hart. Don’s wife, Pamela, is the granddaughter of Ruth Foote. Ruth was the sister of Earle Foote of Huletts Landing. Taken if front of what was then the Whitehall Armory, the name; H. Sullivan is written below the man sitting in the middle.

A larger version of the picture can be seen if you click on the above image. If anyone can identify any of the other soldiers or provide more details about the photograph, I’d appreciate hearing from you.

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Saranac Lake Man Makes US Olympic Luge Team


Left to right: Chris Mazdzer (Silver), Felix Loch (Gold), Dominik Fischnaller (Bronze) after the December 6th World Cup men’s singles luge at Whistler, B.C. Mazdzer finished in second place. (Picture courtesy of International Luge Federation.)

Chris Mazdzer, a luge sled racer from Saranac Lake, secured his place on the US team for the Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia that open in February while competing in Winterberg, Germany at the end of November. I was able to ask Mr. Mazdzer some questions after he finished in second place on December 6th at the World Cup men’s singles luge at Whistler, B.C.

Mazdzer, who hails from Saranac Lake, should be back in the North Country for the holidays. The USA Olympic luge team nominees were recently announced but Mazdzer’s top finishes in World Cup races guarantee him a spot on the team. He will use two World Cup races in North America in December and four in Europe in January as a warm-up for his second Olympic games. Mazdzer is a veteran of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, where he finished 13th.

Below is my interview with him.

How do you feel knowing that you’ve secured a place on the 2014 Olympic Team?

Knowing that I have already guaranteed a spot on the 2014 Olympic Team was an incredible sense of relief. The sport of luge is timed to the thousandth of a second and most race fields are within a second of the leader. There are variables that can happen and situations that can arise when sliding down a mile long ice track that can easily drop an athlete back towards the back of the field. Securing a spot on the team has allowed me to focus more on the process as opposed to the result. I can now think “how can this track help me prepare for Sochi” as opposed to concentrating specifically on that track.

As you wrap up the World Cup events before the Olympics, what are your goals?

My specific goal for the World Cups leading up to the Olympics is to be ranked in the top 12 athletes. During the Olympics the top ranked 12 athletes will go first in the order and this is a significant advantage. If there is any kind of precipitation or warm weather the first athletes will have the fastest ice and an overall advantage.

What goes through your head while competing?

I would have to say that there are three components to this question. First, about 10 to 15 minutes before the actual run I am constantly doing pre-run visualizations and going over exactly what I am going to do. I find that during this step I am nervous, excited and sometimes feel uncertain as to what exactly is going to happen. Second, about 2 minutes before I go down I clear my head and try not to concentrate on the run because when going down the track everything happens so fast that if you are thinking you may be reacting too slow. Finally, when going down the track I am focused 100% on every little detail that is happening, I am just trying to let my instincts take over and focus on keeping good position and reacting to how the sled feels underneath me. In total, I find that I try to build myself up so I can feel the adrenaline kicking through my body, focus on exactly what I have to do and then try let everything go and be in the moment.

What will be unique for you about the Sochi Olympics?

The Sochi Olympics will be unique for me in the sense that this time I will be the highest ranked US Luge athlete competing. In Vancouver I had two experienced teammates that helped guide me through the process and take the pressure off. The role has been reversed this time around and I will be the experienced athlete at the Olympics for luge.

Any words for you Adirondack fans?

I first want to thank everyone who has supported me over the years and also want to tell everyone to go out and enjoy the Winter. The Adirondack’s are one of the only places in the country the breathes Winter Olympic Sports and I want to encourage every child and adult to go out into the winter and have fun !!!

Chris, I can safely say that we’ll be rooting for you in the 2014 Olympics!

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NASA Space Telescopes Find Patchy Clouds on Exotic World


Kepler-7b (left), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (right), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. The cloud map was produced using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT

Things have been rather slow lately, but I saw this on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s website and found it rather interesting.

PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system, a sizzling, Jupiter-like world known as Kepler-7b.

The planet is marked by high clouds in the west and clear skies in the east. Previous studies from Spitzer have resulted in temperature maps of planets orbiting other stars, but this is the first look at cloud structures on a distant world.

“By observing this planet with Spitzer and Kepler for more than three years, we were able to produce a very low-resolution ‘map’ of this giant, gaseous planet,” said Brice-Olivier Demory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Demory is lead author of a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. “We wouldn’t expect to see oceans or continents on this type of world, but we detected a clear, reflective signature that we interpreted as clouds.”

Kepler has discovered more than 150 exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, and Kepler-7b was one of the first. The telescope’s problematic reaction wheels prevent it from hunting planets any more, but astronomers continue to pore over almost four years’ worth of collected data.

Read the whole press release here.

It looks like the ending credits from Star Trek: Into Darkness aren’t that far fetched after-all.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-W6XIWOiMA

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A Visit to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania

September 11, 2001 has been chronicled by many, but the Pennsylvania field where so many heroic people died on Flight 93, fighting against terrorism, is a place which now has national significance.

One of my resolutions from this past year was to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, PA. On a trip to Pittsburgh on a clear December day last year, I was able to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial. On this 12th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, I thought it fitting to share my pictures from that visit.

Below are my photos with captions (click to see full-scale).


As you exit the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you immediately find yourself in the mountains of Western Pa.


The road is a quiet country drive through the mountains. This shot was taken looking south toward the state of Maryland.


The sign for the Memorial from the road.


Once you enter, the road continues for about a mile into the Memorial.


A timeline of the events that occurred on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.


The crew and passengers aboard Flight 93.


The Memorial was originally a mining operation. On the day of September 11th, there were workers on heavy equipment working on the site.


The area surrounding the Memorial as it looks today.


The visitors center is located near the parking lot. One walks from the visitors center into the Memorial.


The names of the victims are inscribed on the Memorial.


The actual crash site is off-limits but can be seen from the Memorial.


The stone marks the spot where Flight 93 crashed. The area without tall grass shows the flight path.


The crash site.


The walk back to the visitors center.

Eternal rest, grant unto them O Lord
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.

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President Obama’s Statement on the Boston Bombers

“One thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not — cannot — prevail. Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed. They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized. They failed because we will not waver from the character and the compassion and the values that define us as a country. Nor will we break the bonds that hold us together as Americans.”

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The Boys of Summer are Back Tonight


The view from the Orioles dugout at Camden Yards in Baltimore.


Another view looking toward home plate and the visitors dugout.

(Click pictures to see full-scale.)

This evening is the official opening of the 2013 Major League baseball season. It’s always great when baseball season starts up again because you know that summer is getting close.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Ireland

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Recently, Huletts resident, Ed Briody, was in the Emerald Isle visiting his cousins. These pictures are from county Cavan, in the vicinity of Cavan town. Ireland’s majestic green countryside can be seen in all of these pictures. Many thanks to Ed for taking these and passing them along.

Click on all the pictures to see full-scale.