M.C. ESCHER

Some staircases are harder to climb than others.

It is clear that that there might be unique challenges if one lived in M.C. Escher's world of RELATIVITY.  from Wikipedia:

Relativity is a lithographprint by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in December 1953.  It depicts a world in which the normal laws ofgravity do not apply. The architectural structure seems to be the centre of an idyllic community, with most of its inhabitants casually going about their ordinary business, such as dining. There are windows and doorways leading to park-like outdoor settings. All of the figures are dressed in identical attire and have featureless bulb-shaped heads. Identical characters such as these can be found in many other Escher works

The stairwell in the building in which I live thankfully is much more straightforward,  the distance from the ground floor to the top floor, which is home to the fitness room is 25 floors.   Yesterday, Monday, 25 May...25 floors were traversed by me.  This is a personal achievement which makes me extremely happy.

There have been a few occasions when I had previously tried to simply go from the ground floor up to the 12th floor where I live. Religiously observant Jews do not use electricity on Shabbat (Sabbath) and although I am not a traditional religiously observant Jew who follows this custom, yet there were a few times when I wondered what it would be like if I was.  How would I manage to get home without the elevator?  It was likely more than one year ago when I climbed the twelve flights a two or three times. It was not easy, I had to stop multiple times along the way to catch my breath and by the time I entered my apartment I was completely weak-kneed, out-of-breath and practically ready to collapse.  That experiment was not completely successful.

I have been a Shabbat dinner guest at the home of friends of mine that are religiously observant Jews who do follow the laws of Judaism much as they are prescribed in the Torah (First Five Books of Moses, Old Testament) and when I walked with them back to their apartments after a Friday evening service, it was embarrassing how challenging walking up just 4 flights of stairs to their homes could be for me.

Since these experiences were my frame of reference for STAIR CLIMBING before this weekend began - it is easy to see why I was concerned, actually somewhat petrified that I was going to have a very tough time hiking HALF DOME in October.

As I wrote yesterday, I still expect this hike to be very challenging.  Now I have confidence that I will be able to rise to the challenge. (In fact, I need to be able to rise 4800 feet for this challenge!) This blogger, who clearly is a bit daft, could not wait to attempt the 25 floor walk-up on Monday after successfully walking up and down 13 floors on Sunday.  My workout for Monday took place at 1:00AM  - particularly early on Monday morning.

I entered the elevator and in order to get to the 25th floor - I rode down to the ground floor.  I exited the elevator and WALKED UP 25 FLOORS.  I was a bit winded when I arrived.  I rested for about two minutes and proceeded to the ELLIPTICAL MACHINE for my 32 minute workout.  After finishing on the elliptical machine, I WALKED DOWN 25 flights of stairs back to the ground floor.  Then I took the elevator back up to 12.

TIME WALKING UP 25 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS,  GROUND FLOOR TO 25:       4 MIN,   6 SEC

TIME WALKING DOWN 23 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, 25 TO GROUND FLOOR: 3 MIN, 21 SEC

It will be interesting for me to see how much I can imrove on these times as I progress.  Perhaps at some point I will attemept to walk up, walk down and REPEAT.  We'll see... There is no sense in overdoing it.  For the time being, I will be satisfied with one round trip periodically.

MONDAY MENU
breakfast  Steel Cut Oat Meal w/prune, two poached eggs, two slices turkey bacon  505 calories
lunch        spinach salad w/mushroom, tomato, hearts of palm, beets   28 almonds    589 calories
dinner      spinach salad w/mushroom, tomato, hearts of palm, beets, slice bacon
                 chicken broth, 4 ounces Black Angus, honey nut & banana granola          829 calories

total calories consumed  1923 calories

CALORIES BURNED

ASCENDING 25 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 4 MINUTES              60 calories
ELLIPTICAL MACHINE 32 MINUTES                                  496 calories
DESCENDING 25 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS 3 MINUTES            20 calories

total calories burned  576 CALORIES

MONDAY NET CALORIES   1347 calories

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My list of favorite artists is likely a list of just one entry.  Ever since I was a Junior in high school, M.C. Escher's artistic interpretations have captured my imagination.

The art world can be a funny place....
Here is a New York Times story from 2006

A Pollock Is Sold, Possibly for a Record Price by Carol Vogel

Published: November 2, 2006

The Hollywood entertainment magnate David Geffen has sold a classic drip painting by Jackson Pollock for about $140 million, art experts with knowledge of the transaction said yesterday.

 This so-called painting, "No. 5, 1948" measures approximately 4 feet by 8 feet.  in 2006 it sold for $140,000,000?  Really?