This Times piece on archers interests on a few levels:

• An amazing number of archers are at one time or another plagued by "target panic," a condition in which they can't help releasing the arrow as soon as they see the bullseye, or they are unable to release at all.
• The condition seems similar to the 'yips' in golf.
• The affliction is so feared, and its causes so nebulous, that almost no archers will admit to having it, and in archery households they dare not even speak its name.

Suggested solutions range from changing stance or grip to shooting at blank targets for weeks at a time. This situation brings up a lot of questions for me, such as: With certain tasks, can practicing too much make you worse? Have we become so competitive that to avoid being broken by it we have to trick ourselves into forgetting that we are attempting anything?

From the article: '“Do not focus on results,” he said. “When you focus on results, it builds anxiety. And anxiety is the kiss of death.”'

As I read this I remembered feeling similar things while shooting archery and pitching softball when I was younger, but I'm sure these were much more amateur versions if related at all. I wonder if the vulnerability to it has to do with certain types of muscular movements. In archery for example, you build up and maintain great tension as you draw the string, then twitch your fingers to release.

Also, I would really like to find a way to get back into archery.

There was a story in the news a few weeks ago about a Chinese racewalker who was banned for doping. My first reaction was, racewalking? What? And someone is doping to be better at that?

Amazingly, Racewalking has been an Olympic event of its own since 1906, almost the beginning of the modern games. Here are videos of people racewalking. As the Seattle PI notes, it looks a lot like people rushing to go to the bathroom.

How do they make sure people walk and don't run? They have to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and they have several judges to monitor the walkers. If they commit three violations, they're out. Also, the main events in competition include a 31-mile walk.

Whenever the Olympics come around, I wonder, how do people get into these events and decide to devote so much to them? It's one thing to be a swimmer or a skier and at least compete in a couple of events, but how versatile is a...luge-ist? Can they cross over to the bobsled?

Over two years later, via my man Kottke, I finally get an answer to my question about flooded fields in San Francisco bay that I saw from an airplane.

Turns out they're salt evaporation ponds, and the colors are caused by different forms of algae that grow in different salinity conditions--the red ponds are the saltiest.

I also just got a great song title/travel idea from that article: Useless Loop, Western Australia.

Twice now, a raccoon has poked its head into our open living room window from the fire escape of our fourth floor apartment.

We were sitting around talking with our friends Mike and Eve when Mike, seemingly responding to a comment, instead shouted "OH MY GOD THERE'S A RACCOON!" I jumped up from the couch and looked out to see its tail as it trudged back down the stairs.