I'm the Chairman of the Bored

Thank you so much to all of you for your well wishes on my interview this weekend. :D It went really well, but they're going to interview a few more candidates this week. They're looking for a Jack (or in my case, Jill) of all trades, and the company is willing to send the new hire to school to learn the necessary skills to do the job. So as long as no one they interview has more checks in the "I already know how to do that" column on the required skills list, I think I may have a pretty good shot. :)

Today's obligatory shot of the Saint.

There was one NHL news story this morning that I thought you might find interesting. Over 100 NHLers are using this summer to test out Thermablade's heated skate blades. This is how the $300 skates work:

Thermablade heated blades are designed to maintain a consistent temperature of approximately 5 degrees Celcius using a small battery and a microprocessor stored within each skate blade holder. The warm blade acts to increase the thickness of the water layer, at the molecular level, between the blade and the ice surface, dramatically reducing gliding friction and starting resistance for skaters. The advanced mechanical design of the product also contributes to a 50% reduction in skating vibration, resulting in improved edge-feel.

The inner workings of a Thermablade skate

On-ice performance benefits include improved acceleration, smoother glide, tighter turns, increased speed out of turns and more precise stops, plus significant physiological advantages such as a reduction in heart rate, increased stamina and less fatigue over the course of a hockey game.

(Click here for an in depth explanation if you've never heard of Thermablade skates before.) I already knew how the skates functioned, but I was curious why the new blades actually work, so I looked for and found a quick explanation of The Science Behind Ice Skating by Kohl Linsberg:

Ice is not inherently slippery, it is several scientific facts that cause it to be slippery and allow people to skate upon it.

When skating, one is not actually skating on the solid form of water, ice, but water in its liquid form. The reason for this is that ice will melt when pressure is applied to it, because according to experimental values, is that the greater the pressure on a substance, the lower its freezing point will be.

Oh man, I miss hockey...

...A person's weight is not enough to melt sufficient ice under their own shoes, thus the ice skate was invented. The ice skate puts the weight of the skater on a very small area, thus the sharp skate blade, which causes the ice under the blade to melt because the persons weight is sufficient to melt the ice in that area. This allows the skater to glide on a layer of water between the blade and the ice. Thus, a skater's blade does not cut through ice, but melts through ice to allow a skater to skate.

Interesting stuff, eh? News in Hockey land is slower than Britney's recovery, so here's some more stuff I've been saving. (We may have a problem soon, though... My supply is dwindling - FAST.)

Friend of The Show Lauren H. sent in this article about what Jordan Staal and his NHL brothers have been doing to pass the summer months.

(L to R) Jordan, Jared, and Mark are turning baseball into Staalball.

Earlier this month, Friend of The Show Apple L. shared this photo with us. Good Friend Vanessa D. and her daughter spotted this truck on Easter on the highway in West Virginia:


And now it's time once again for TSCS's Quote of The Day:

"This is the only thing that has seen more parties than us."
~ Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, about the Stanley Cup

(Thanks to Lauren and Vanessa for the help with today's post.)