Brian Kowald's Blog

Brian — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:55:35 +0000

aha! Gotcha - Paradoxes to puzzle and delight by Martin Gardner

One of my favorite books about paradoxes and puzzles is by Martin Gardner, who died May 22, 2010 at the age of 95. I saw a news story in our local paper. Why our paper I thought? It turns out that he lived here in retirement fromn 1979 to 2002. I read this book years ago and only recently tracked down a used copy on Amazon. Who would have thought that back around 1995 I would be reading a book by an author who lived where I would move to 8 years later?

Half Marathon

Brian — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 01:41:27 +0000

Ran my fist half marathon (13.1 miles) today. It wasn’t fast, at 2 hrs and 20 minutes. I had to walk a little uphill during the last mile, but I managed to finish.

More on FaceBook

Brian — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:24:06 +0000

Read more on FaceBook. I post more things there:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1394103323

Olde Towne Christmas

Brian — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:05:56 +0000

Went to the Annual Olde Fashioned Hendersonville Christmas downtown tonight. They had hot apple cider, cookies, music and carriage rides. Since we waited patiently in line while the horses took a break, we were near the front and got to ride in the carriage instead of the wagon.

Christmas Carriage Ride

Alex goes to College

Brian — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:44:05 +0000

Alex moved into his dorm room at NC State.

Carowinds

Brian — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:21:54 +0000

Went to Carowinds yesterday. It’s a nice amusement part in Charlotte. It was great! There weren’t hardly any lines because the weather was forcast to rain all day, but it hardly even sprinkled.

The Hurler at Carowinds

Hunter has a car

Brian — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:09:30 +0000

Check out Hunter’s car. Its a Toyota Celica.

Hunter's Car

Back from Robot Regional

Brian — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:56:49 +0000

Last weekend was the First Robotics Regional competition in Clemson, SC. This year we came in 30th place out of 44 teams. Didn’t get to play in the finals. This is a picture of the team lined up at the player station:

Ready to Play

Its Snowing!

Brian — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:33:44 +0000

Haven’t had snow like this in a while. Its probably snowed 3-4 inches by now. Here’s some pictures:

Tree in my front yard

Truck under snow

Ice Cave

Brian — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:42:14 +0000

Itâ€™s been good and cold the last couple of weeks, so we decided to climb the mountain behind our house to visit the “ice cave”. Itâ€™s not really a cave, just an indentation where some big rocks stick into the mountain. Water drips over the face of it and in the winter it freezes into icicles. I havenâ€™t seen them reach all the way to the ground before: