NAF UTILITY,  LANCE ARMSTRONG

I have not been doing things of major significance these last few days. Mainly trying to get up to the mark on my welding skills, ready to start work on my three wheeled pedal-cycle. I have been calling my configuration a 'tadpole' but saw the other day that it was being called a 'Y form' bike, because not only does it have a fat front and a narrow tail ... like a tadpole, but the frame is 'Y' shaped.

Because I have been studying the way in which air columns oscillate to give different sounds in flutes and organ pipes, I have put together a composite table of NAF data showing fingering, wavelengths and frequencies presented against a picture of the relevant piano keys and musical notes. Just felt it might be of use to any other NAF players/experimenters, so I have inserted it below.

 

 Click to Enlarge Image

The 'Lance is a druggy' whingers are wasting our time on the sports scene again. What a ridiculous state of affairs! The guy has won his races, been accused, tested, and cleared. Let's just leave it at that! Are we going to go back in time and look for ways to steal the glory from  Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Jack Nicklaus, Muhammad Ali and all those greats from the past, just because we can't believe anyone could be so good without using drugs? Who's to say they didn't anyway!
If the best tests available have failed to confirm Armstrong's use of any performance enhancing chemicals lets just drop it and focus on today!
In any case, isn't it time we lost this sick addiction to pulling down the great and the famous and sensationalising their slightest transgression? We destroyed Tiger and killed Princess Di. Isn't that enough?

Sales and Selling.
I realised today that I'd given little thought recently to one of my key areas of interest ... sales and selling.

Many years ago I was deeply involved in sales training for one of the major office equipment corporates. Whilst I owed my own skills to a very training oriented business systems company in Birmingham (they gave all sales people 12 weeks of residential training!), I was dissatisfied with most current approaches to training and understanding of the process of a sale.
In the early '60s most sales training in the UK was based on a series of training films by an American couple called Richard C. Borden and Alvin C. Busse. Their approach was probably based on 1930s thinking and was totally unsuited to the needs of sales people at that time in England (the early 60s).
Bordern and Busse built their sale around a series of steps that you had to be adept at performing if you were to become a 'supersalesman' (no political correctness in those days) ... Attention, Interest, Demonstration and Analysis ... AIDA. Every other training program I could find in those days seemed to be similar ... teaching you the things you had to do to 'get the prospect to buy'!  I was pretty dismayed ...  the focus of all of them and the focus of most of our sales recruits was on what you had to do to the prospect, rather than ... which had been my own approach as a salesman ... what was happening in the prospect's mind . 
It seemed clear to me that if I wanted to turn out well trained professional sales people I had to engender a major shift in their thinking: "Stop thinking about what you are doing to the prospect — focus your thinking on what is happening in the prospect's mind. Concentrate on the stages through which you can guide his thinking on his path towards experiencing, for himself, the great benefits your product has to offer him".
More about this later but eventually, with a group of like minded people, a new way of thinking about the sale and the 'prospect's progress' took our national team to the top of the company's sales productivity world wide, it enabled us to become super accurate in sales forecasting and eventually to develop new concepts in bottom-up planning and matrix management that were light years ahead!

Well today I took my wake-up coffee out onto my back verandah and there was the skeleton of a two person kayak sitting on my back deck!
It had been delivered by a guy I met at the local rubbish dump ... we had got into conversation about fitness and I told him that the one thing I need for next summer is a kayak. I cycle heaps ... good for the lower body ... add kyaking and I'll be getting upper body fitness too. In fact, I may start a new event for oldies — Pedals and Paddles.So he had this uncovered frame for a wood and canvas kayak.and donated it to my fitness cause.

As I said ... it's a two person craft. 15 feet long and quite broad in the beam. So it should be easy to paddle and quite stable for fishing from.

Of course, now I will have to get going and cover it. Some issues here because in 'my day' we always used duck canvass with a few coats of enamel over a filler coat. I understand that today other coverings , like dynel, are used and often coated with epoxy or such like. Actually I'm still tempted to stay with canvass and paint but I'm ready to be convinced if another method will keep the weight down.

I haven't mentioned it before but one of my current projects is to build a three wheeled pedal cycle for my old age. It will be a recliner (the pedaller lying rather than sitting) and will have two wheels at the front and one driving wheel at the back. Obviously this project will involve a bit of welding, a skill I don't have. So my first phase will be to learn to weld. Thin walled tube ... which is one of the hardest welding tasks. Going slow on this one, but I'll win in time!


Here's another adaptation for my flute ...

It seems that at the moment I'm calling for help from other people, rather than contributing much wisdom to bloggery.
I guess that's probably a good switch for me to be making. It was once pointed out to me that I was too self sufficient and needed to call for help a bit more!
Can anyone help me pin down a homoeopathic remedy for colic in a new born baby?
One of my daughters has a new baby daughter who is suffering badly from colic after feeding. I prided myself on my knowledge of homoeopathics (yes that is the right spelling!) but none of my reference sources are very helpful on this topic. I have sent her a recipe — with variations — for 'gripe water' but nothing homoeopathic.

I have just finished adapting the Welsh song Myfanwy for my NAF . . . simple but nice. What do you think?

I have been trying to find the name of a piece of music that I think would be cool to play on my flute. I usually like to listen to a piece in audio before adapting it.

Can anyone help by naming this very well known music?

I have decided to change the direction of my blog significantly.

Since I last posted here I have become involved in learning to play a North American Indian Flute which was given to me by a very dear friend who lives in Australia.

The NAF (as it's called), for those who haven't come across it before, is a flute adopted by North American Indians as a love flute. As far as I can discover, it was first introduced to the Indians by European fur trappers (probably French) in the 1500s and has since become a part of most tribes' tradition. 
It is a simple straight wooden flute with 5 or 6 holes and has a range of about 17 half-tones.
Whilst traditional flutes are not tuned to any specific key and are played to pentatonic scales, many of us like to play conventional European music as well as simulating Indian music.

For my own purposes, and those of my friend in Australia, I have been rearranging, transposing, and adding fingering for European Folk Songs, popular tunes (not contemporary) and classical pieces to fit this flute's range and functionality.
It was suggested to me that there may be other people interested in my adaptations. I will therefore, from time to time, feature them on this blog.
I don't know if I am breaching copyright law here, even though my adaptations are not published for profit, but if anyone has an issue with any piece I will withdraw the work in question.

There are a few other things to bear in mind:
• NA Flutes are hand made, often by amateurs, so although the fingering I show works on my flute, you may need to modify it for your instrument.
• I am just an amateur dabbler, so you experts please forgive any lack of accuracy in layout, timing or use of symbols
• I welcome any suggestions, either to correct stuff I post, or in terms of music I could adapt.
• My flute is tuned to E and has five holes so the key signature and fingering are specific to those factors.  The Fingering is of course universal applicable to most 5 hole NAFs.

NAF MUSIC #1      Brahms' Lullaby

ACNE GONE IN 10 DAYS ABSOLUTELY FREE

This is such an important post for so many teenagers and other acne suffers. A 100% certain cure for everyone. Absolutely no costs involved. I want you to benefit from the truth. The drug companies don't want you to know ... Acne is an ailment that only occurs in nations where high carb, low fat diets have been promoted.
New scientific research has proven that your acne will be gone in about ten days, just by following these guidlines:
1. Use normal fats like butter and lard instead of margarine and cooking oils (except some pricey ones like olive oil
2. Use full cream milk instaed of low fat ones
3. Cut right down on white breads, and rolls (No hamburgers! or subs)
4. Eat as much meat as you can afford (vegetarians just don't be so daft ... you are damaging your brains!)
5. Make 'low glycemic' fruit and vegetables and nuts your mainstay foods

I will post again with more detail on low glycemic or low GI foods within a few days. Till then, google "Low GI"

Rejuvenation and Nutrition

Most people seem to think of nutrition as concerned with providing energy to keep them going in the next few hours. Like filling up the tank of the car for each day's journey. In reality that's only a small part of the role that nutrients play.
Every hour of your life your body tries to replace (with absolutely perfect new cells) about one billion dead or failing cells among the trillions that constitute your blood, bones, muscles and organs.
You are made up of about 100 Trillion cells and every one of them needs to be replaced over a period of some 7 to 10 years. (I should point out that some scientists don't believe brain cells are replaced, but recent research challenges that)
That's such a massive number that most of us can't get our minds around it. Try counting the blades of grass in 380,000 rugby pitches, or the number of seconds in 3 million years ... that's about it!
I said the body 'tries' to replace a billion cells every hour, because, if the correct nutrients are not there, your body can't do it. It will use what it has to rebuild the most critical cells and leave others in a sub-standard state. Result? A deteriorating body, growing old faster than it should and needing drug/medical intervention to keep it going.
Many leading health experts across the centuries have said in one set of words or another "You are what you eat". Conjures up an amusing world in this KFC/McD/BK world eh?
Not funny though ... if you don't provide your body with the right nutrients, not only will you be low in energy and brain power today, you'll be a health cripple, kept alive by pharmaceuticals for much of the rest of your days, instead of living from birth to death in abundant, vibrant health.

Is Obesity the result of Malnutrition?

For some years now I have been researching data related to the decline in nutrient values in our food sources. For example the potato over the last 50 years has lost 100% of it's vitamin A content, 57% of it's vitamin C and 28% of it's calcium according to Canadian research! Bananas, tomatoes, peaches and most other vegetables and fruits tested show the same massive declines in nutrient levels. So our bodies can't get the same micro-nutrients with the same levels of consumption. We may have to eat twice as much food to get the minerals and vitamins our bodies crave! Guess what though ... in general the carbohydrate and fat levels in our foods have not declined! Therefore even those of us who don't eat junk food have to eat far more fat-making mass to get enough vitamins and minerals to metabolise it properly and to support good health.
Today, the only way to be slim, have healthy shining hair, good teeth and skin is to find another source of true-food nutrients, cut down on normal food sources, and exercise heaps!
Yes, I do believe that the obesity levels in developed nations is one of the results of mal-micro-nutrition.
But where can we find supplemental nutrients that are not synthetised from rocks and earth in a chemical factory?
I'll let you know when I find out!

Are all diseases a result of cell malfunction

For many years now I have felt that malfunctions in organs or systems must be based on cellular disfunction. In other words, if every cell in the body is functioning at 100% there can be no illness.
This is where my concern with cell replacement lies. There are various estimates of how many cells there are in the body but lets take the conservative 100 trillion ... more cells than the number of blades of grass in a paddock 14k square!
If, through lack of nutrients, the body is not able to perfectly replace dead or dying cells, the cellular structure of the body will be degraded, progressively over time, so that many dis-ease conditions will develop. The immune system, which is already under stress from environmental and nutritional pollution will also fail to perform to an optimum level and all of mankinds 'normal' degenerative dis-eases will develop.
Diabetes, lupus, cancer, heart disease and colonic failures are a few of the obvious ones but my bet is that every disease has cellular malfunction at its root.

Are You Dying Too Fast?

Of course, we're all dying ... but most people today are dying much too fast.

Medical intervention can extend the time it takes to die but by the time we demonstrate a recognisable medical condition we have already gone too far down the path for drugs to do much to turn back the clock.
Most people in developed nations are in a state of Progressive Health Decline.
In a healthy body that is being supplied with enough of the right nutrients in the right quantities and is being exercised adequately, billions of old and dying cells are replaced every day with perfect replicas. So that over a period of time day by day every system and organ in the body is rebuilt or completely rejuvenated.
For most of you this is not happening. Your body is not getting adequate supplies of all the nutrients it needs or the exercise necessary to keep the tissues well supplied with oxygen. So, denied adequate nutrition, your body can only replace old cells with substandard or defective copies instead of maintaining perfect cellular structures.

It is almost certain that your body is not being rebuilt day by day as it is designed to be. It is not being rejuvenated, your cells are not being perfectly regenerated.

You are already unwell. Every day brings you closer to the time when your functions and systems will show symptoms that can be recognised by a doctor as a condition requiring medical help. By then it's too late for drugs to do much more than give you extra years of unhealthiness!

Yes, you probably are dying too Fast!

— I will make posts from time to time to explain more about health and nutrition —

Are School Teachers too Specialist

I has worried me for some years (my last family of 3 daughters are just a few years out of school) that teachers seem to be specialised in their subject rather than being specialists in teaching.
Teachers at all levels must be teachers first and foremost, subject specialists second. Whilst at higher levels at university super-specialist knowledges and skills are needed and therefore some inadequacy in teaching skills may have to be accepted, this cannot apply at lower subject levels.
Time and again I see evidence that children at secondary level are not understanding simple basic elements of mathematics and english. These are not difficult skills to teach, so why have our teachers so frequently failed to teach them?
As an educator and trainer in business subjects for many years, I believe the answer is simple.
The basic assumption that seems to be applied by our childrens' teachers is that if a child doesn't learn, it's the child's fault (or maybe the parents').
Sorry teachers... The learning outcome is the teacher's task. Failure to learn means failure to teach! Measure your performance as a teacher by only one criteria. The performance of the child under your teaching.
No excuses are appropriate. I can see no reason why every child of normal (not identified as deficient) intelligence cannot pass all basic secondary school exams. The differences between levels of intellect should only create differences in performance above the pass level.
Time spent answering 'Questions' on Yahoo anly serves to underline this problem. Many kids who can formulate really effective pleas for help are unable to answer easily taught english and maths questions.

Self-Hypnosis

Self-Hypnosis, or Auto-hypnosis, a series of techniques that originated mid last century has been receiving strong revivals and further development in recent years. It is at the core of so many effective 'self management' and self awareness concepts that have been developed across the years (it's even linked with the 'Magic" of the Hawaiian Kohunas)
Many high acheivers in the sports and entertainment worlds use some or all of the techniques. Visualisation, for example, is used to preset the mind and body to acheive a given outcome.
A book published in the 90's by two US Doctors clearly explains the techniques and provides guidance on developing and using them.
Self-Hypnosis, Brian M Alman & Peter T Lambrou, 1992, Brunner/Mazel, Inc. NY.

Come on Experts ... Blinkers off!

The experts have been proven wrong so many times in the history of science and technology that when I hear them claim that something that does work can't or that there is no scientific support for it I just want to shout "don't be so lazy, so unscientific … don't reject it out of hand, don't just test it with your existing science … explain to me why it does work! Then I'll consider you a scientist!"
Cases in point are Homoeopathy, which can't work according to current scientific knowledge and Cold Flow which is now acknowledged to work, but was denied by so many of our leading scientists for more than 20 years.

The trees must feel such joy

Yesterday, I came across a photo I had taken of a magnolia blossom in my garden this spring and was reminded of a thought I had at the time
'Oh how wonderful to see the first springtime buds and flowers on the trees and shrubs! But have you ever thought what joy the trees and shrubs must feel when after a long, cold winter sleep they suddenly wake and spread their first leaves, display their first blooms?

New to Blogging and Blog design

Gosh! Well I got here. Guess my next task is to study modern html to do something about the boooring page design.
Obviously, nothwithstanding mighty Google's promise that it's real easy, it's not.
Unless I am a bit deficient!
Next task is to see what I can do with Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw!
Dare I say "Watch this space?"