Mohican Training Run

I had another great run at Mohican yesterday. Nick and I were supposed to meet up and run the Red and Green loop. However, there were a few last minute changes (ask Nick for details) :) and we decided to do "Plan B" and run with the Forget the PR 50k runners. Rob had scheduled a familiarization training run for the runners of the upcoming race. Everything, worked out great, and I was happy we resorted to the Orange loop! I'll probably end up doing Red / Green blindly at the 50 miler this summer. (?)

Michelle, Nick, Sorry?, Paul, Cheryl,
Me, Mark, Rob, Traci (I think), and Don

I knew this was going to be a fun run for me because we were doing the Orange loop backwards. I've ran the Orange loop 3 or 4 times now and I've always run it the other way coming from the Covered Bridge, up and around to Campground A. This time we met at the Campground A area and headed up into the forest to the Covered Bridge. Looking at the map below, we started at the 'Start / Finish', ran to Aid Station #1 (which I missed), then to Aid Station #2, then back to the 'Start / Finish'.


I woke up at 4:30, piddle-farted around in and out of consciousness til about 5:30, when I officially woke up. Of course, I made my coffee. Then I scarfed down a quick bagel and headed up to Mohican. We all met up and started off for the trail at 8:10. Immediately I was right in the middle of the front runners and the "back of the pack" runners. It was kind of nice to be running by myself actually. I mean, I do it all the time, only this time I was at the beautiful and trecherous Mohican running by myself. This run actually built my confidence up and I truly feel I could come up here and run it by myself anytime now; at least the Orange loop. :)

There were a few times where I crossed paths with Nick and I saw Rob once or twice as he was going between the two groups. However, I was not relying on them to tell me where to turn. Typically, I rely on one of them or Kim to keep me on course so I don't get lost. This time, I knew to just follow the signs for "MTB100"; they are posted at most places where the trail splits.

Somehow, I completely missed the Hickory Ridge aid station. I thought I had been running for a too long at one point and knew I had passed it. All the sudden I run up on Nick, and asked him about it. He said it was about 2 miles back. Apparently I turned left when I should have turned right or something. The good news is that I got a little extra distance in. We synced our watches and I had 7.4 miles and he had something like 7.2. Whatever, I didn't need a refill or a break by that point anyway. It felt good to just be out on the trail running.

More time goes by and more trails are consumed. Then, by about about mile 11, I'm starting to bonk. I went reaching for my other gel pack, only to realize I had only brought one gel pack! Unfortunately, I had consumed it at mile 4. I was sure I packed 2, but apparently not. This meant that I had to go 4 more miles with no fuel and I was on empty. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

As I rolled up on the Covered Bridge I saw Nick for the last time and he pointed me to the (obvious) water jugs. :) I filled up my two water bottles and headed down the Hemlock Gorge Trail. This is a beautiful trail that follows the Mohican River for about 2 miles. Absolutely gorgeous... and pretty technical at parts. This meets up with the North Rim Trail which goes along the Camground A site. I think I might have screwed this route up because I remember there being a really steep climb on the end of this section. However, I didn't see that at all on this run. I think I know where I screwed though, so next time I'll be sure to keep going strait instead of turning right. Besides, I was spent on this one anyway and McDonalds was calling my name. :)


After my run, I stood around to talk with Mark Carroll for a while. He and I talked about various races and our goals for 2009. Mark was there on my very first Mohican run (along with Nick, Kim, and Rob). I'll never forget it! I showed up for a 15 mile run with a bunch of people that I'd never met. I had never heard of organized trail runs before that run. The only way I found out about that particular run was because I had subscribed to Trails and Tribulations podcast, and one of the hosts of that show was Kim! Somehow, I found her blog and she posted something about a training run up at Mohican. I thought... what the hell, and the rest is history. It was great to see Mark again. Apparently, we've crossed paths at a few races (Pinckney Trail Marathon & Indian Run 60k) and we didn't know it until afterwards. :) Great seeing you again, Mark!

Before heading home, I stopped at McDonalds and devoured a BigMac value meal in record time. When I got home, Jen and I took the girls up to Blackhand Gorge and we walked 2 miles while the girls rode their bikes. What a perfectly perfect day!

Culligan Testimonial

Update: Tuesday March 24th (the next day)
Let the record show that my blog entry was discovered by a manager at Culligan this morning, named John. He called and spoke with Jennifer for quite a while about the two incidents. He was very professional and handled our problem rather well. John offered a lot of advice for Jennifer on what to look for when considering the used Water Softener (ie. Was it left out in the cold for an extended period of time? Things like that..). He did say that the water softener that we have now is out dated and he understood why the other "Culligan Man" that came to fix it couldn't fix it. Thank you, John!

Jennifer hadn't read this post yet and was astounded that I even posted the problem on my blog at all. I guess this shows that there is power in blogging. My plan worked... perfectly in this case. Had I not posted this entry, we would still be upset about yesterday's experience. However, as it stands now, John is going to get to the bottom of it in hopes that it doesn't happen to someone else in the future. Kudo's to John for finding my entry and handling it so fast... I guess I've done my duty as a consumer / blogger. :)

Anyway, I've updated the text below to remove some (not all) of my emotion about the two incidents. The facts are still there, but the anger has been "piped down" a bit.

Outcome: Culligan is OK by my book. :)

Original Post (minus the anger)
I'm not one to speak negatively of those (persons or companies) that don't deserve it. However, I think it's fair to post a review (good or bad) of our experiences with the Culligan company. We've had 2 incidents with them and both times they have ended with us being dissatisfied or (just recently) insulted.

Our first experience involved a Culligan man coming to our house to service our water softener. We waited for days for him to come out and fix it (no problem), but when he got here, he looked at it and told me he did not know how to work it... it was too old or something. I know it's old, that's why I called you. It's a Culligan water softener for crying out loud! Instead, he spent about an hour trying to sell us a new one. The reason I called him in the first place was to "fix" our water softener, not to sell us a new one. When he left, Jennifer and I were dumbfounded and didn't know what just happened. Nothing was accomplished at all and we were still left with a broken water softener. What the Culligan man didn't know is that I called him because I didn't want to bother my Uncle (who knows how to work on it). I called my Uncle after all and had him come and fix it.

Today, Jennifer calls to get information about a softener that she found in an advertisement. She wanted to know if it was going to be adequate for our needs and so forth. I listened to the conversation from Jennifer's' end, and Jennifer was extremely polite (one of the reasons I love her so much). However, the lady on the other end (the Culligan Rep) was very rude to her and treated Jennifer like she was an annoying nuisance. Jennifer had enough and finally said "Thank you. Good bye" and hung up. She was pretty fired up after she hung up the phone, and rightfully so. She told me how the lady was talking to her and how she was responding to Jennifer's questions. Unreal!

Here is a note for all people in the 'service' field:

Be Nice! Be Professional!

Here's what should have happened:

Incident #1: When the Culligan man came to our house to fix our water softener, he should stopped and realized that he was "the guy" to fix it. If he didn't know how to fix it, he should have called back to the Culligan headquarters (or whatever) and asked for assistance from someone that knew how my particular model worked. If nobody there could have fixed it, he should have found a way to fix it or referred me to someone that could fix it. The absolute last resort would have been to say "I don't know, good luck" and then walked away from it. Instead he turned to a "salesman" role...

Incident #2: When my wife calls you for information about your products, be nice to her and try to help her. Don't insult her and be mean to her. Who knows, her husband may be a blogger and he could post a negative testimonial about her experience with your company. It could even get indexed on a search engine and found one day. (?) *

* Updated: It worked! After only 1 hr, my post was the #1 search result on Google for "Culligan Testimonial"...

Training Progress and New Shoes

My training is moving forward. This week is proving to be very good, but man... last week was a horrible week of training. I think I accumulated a total of about 20 sloppy miles all together. :(

While I could rattle off a bunch of excuses to myself about why I didn't get them in, the reality was that I simply didn't make time to get out and run, and avoided getting my miles in when I had the free time. I procrastinated until the last possible hour every day and by the middle of the week, I felt overwhelmed. I tried to cram in my miles and this led to a slight pain in my right heal come late Sunday night when I was trying to do my long run. I put my long run off all day on Sunday until it was about 8 pm and the sun was going away for the night. I got my water bottles filled and even went so far as to create a playlist of various podcasts. After I had procrastinated long enough, I headed up to my hill on the back of my property to run in circles for a few hours. About 4.5 miles into my 20 miler, my right heal started hurting really bad, so I listened to my body and hobbled back down to the house. I was pissed at myself because I knew why it hurt; my training was sucking.

So, whatever... I put last week behind me and this week is a new week. On Monday I felt good, so I decided that this week, I'm gonna keep to simple flat surface running to prevent the foot from really getting injured. It's worked as far as I can tell. All this week I avoided the gnarly terrain and focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. I'm back baby. :) One thing I did notice from doing all this pavement pounding is that I'm in need of new shoes again. I know because my knees and hips are yelling at me.

Tonight, I went to FrontRunner and treated myself to a new pair of trail shoes. I tried on all kinds of shoes and decided to get the ASICS Gel-Trabuco® (Black/Onyx/Mustard). It was a toss up between these and the North Face Chin Scrapers. These ones fit the best and had more mesh to let my feet breath. I've never owned a pair of ASICS and I'm surprised at how light and fluffy they feel. :)

FrontRunner Testimonial
Also, I realized tonight that I will be a lifelong customer of FrontRunner. My last 4 pair of trail shoes have all come from here, and each time I go in, my experience is better than the time before. Tonight sealed the deal for me and they will be getting my business as long as I'm buying shoes and as long as they are in business.

Of course, I've tried purchasing my shoes at other running stores, but I always wind up back at FrontRunner. They always take their time with me and custom fit me into the shoe that is perfect for me. It helps that they are all avid runners in there and each of them are extremely knowledgable and outrageously friendly. Last time I went in I met a guy named Mike and he remembed me by name tonight. He said "Yeah, you're Luc the trail guy". I was totally shocked that he remembered me! This time I dealt with an older guy named Kevin and we sat and talked for almost an hour. If you've never been there, I encourage you to give them a try. They're all high class people... Tell them "Luc, the trail guy" sent you. :)

Anyway, I'm anxious to get my new shoes dirty tomorrow. I'm taking a run with an old friend who decided she want's to get into trail running. I'm gonna treat her to a slow tour through Marie Hickey trail.

Oh yeah, I'm heading to Mohican again on Sunday to run the Red/Green loops with Nick again. We're hoping we'll have more success this time, than we did last time. If you're free on Sunday, you should come join us. It's supposed to be beautiful this weekend; great time for a trail run.

Pearl Jam - Ten

Store | Pearl Jam - Ten Club: "2008 TEN SUPER DELUXE EDITION"



Jennifer, I hope you're reading this because I really want it. :)

Self-taught programmer from Shoreline now cutting-edge game developer

It's nice to see a non-violent game getting high recognition from the gaming community. I'm not a gamer, have never been a gamer, and probably will never be a gamer. It surprises many of my friends that I spend so much time on the computer and don't play games. Odd, yes.


Anyway, this caught my eye because this guy was a self taught programmer who "made it". I have some friends that wish they could write code. Well, here's proof that you can. You may have to get a make over first, so that you can look like one of us, for example this (John Edwards) has that look. :)

Read on: Self-taught programmer from Shoreline now cutting-edge game developer | Seattle Times Newspaper

GE | Plug Into the Smart Grid | Smart Meters

I love my family so much, but there is a serious issue going on with our energy consumption. I literally walk around all day and turn off lights behind my girls. If someone walked into a bedroom at 8am, the light would still be on at 5pm, for no good reason. It's sad really. :(

Jennifer and I's "song" is "Every Light in the House is On" by Toby Keith. I want that song played at my funeral, because it is literally the story of my life. It goes like this:

Every light in the house is on
The back yard is looking like the crack of dawn
The front porch looks like runway lights
Kind of like noon in the dead of night.

Anyway, while I was going through my blogroll yesterday, I read about this Smart Grid technology by GE.

Here is a quick video that shows an overview of what it is:


What caught my attention was a new meter that you can hook up to your house that literally lets you see how much money is being spent at any given second of the day by a little display unit inside your house. This is totally what my family needs! Here is a link to all the information: GE | Plug Into the Smart Grid | Smart Meters

Mohican Fun

Today was a fun day. I woke up at 4am (after a 2 hour "nap") and got ready to head up to Mohican State Park to meet up with Nick for a 21 mile trail run. We were going to run the Red/Green loops. We had planned on meeting around 6:30 so that we could drop off some water and feul at various spots around the forrest. I left the house around 5am so that I wasn't late.

Torrential Down Pour

It poured down rain the whole way up. I was wondering what the hell I got myself into as it rained harder and harder the further north I got. I arrived at Campground A around 6am, so I still had 30 minutes before Nick would be there. I tried to catch a quick cat-nap, but that didn't happen.

Placing Drop Bags

Nick showed up and I hopped in his car so we could go to the various drop off locations before we started our run. This is where things got interesting. :) We dropped off some water and brownies at Rock Point, and then headed to the Bridle Staging area to drop off a couple of bottles of water. All the sudden, Nick's car jolts and he is stuck. I mean STUCK! He put his car up on a cement culvert that was surrounded by thick juicy mud. We tried to get him out and saw that was going nowhere, so he said a few choice words and then hopped in my car so we could get started on our run. It was around 7:15 at this point and the sun would be coming up soon. Oh yeah, it was still raining pretty good.

Rainy Start

We started from the Covered Bridge and ran up the Red loop in the dark with our flashlights. About 2 miles into the run, the sun was peaking out and the fog was rising. The trails were very soupy and sloshy. It was perfect! When we got to the Bridle Staging area, we tried a few more things to get Nicks car unstuck since we had some daylight now, but to no avail. We didn't do anything but cover ourselves in mud.

Red Loop Mud

We trekked down the course and made our way to a river crossing which was pretty damn cold, but fun. We were completely soaked by this point (head to toe). The goal was to stay moving at this point because the weather was dropping, but the rain was still steady. This means that you only stop when you have to otherwise, hypothermia would set in. Each time we stopped for even a minute, the cold would get into my bones and I would start to shake profusely. Once we got moving again, the blood would start flowing and I would warm up though.

Rock Point

We decided to cut out run short so that we could have enough time to call AAA to get Nick's car unstuck. When we got to Rock Point, we completely destroyed some yumalicious brownies that Nick brought and then decided to skip the Green loop and just run the Red loop back to the Covered Bridge. As it turned out, this was the best thing to do all around: it was cold and pouring, we were not well dressed for the weather, his car was stuck-stuck, and I wanted to get home and hang with my girls.

Done

We trudged back to the Covered Bridge and finished our run at only 12 miles. It was a hard 12 miles though if that counts for anything. :) Anyway, I changed into some warm/dry street clothes and we called AAA. While we were waiting on the truck, we headed to McDonalds and ate like we hadn't eaten in weeks. We each got a Big Mac meal and I barely remember tasting it; I think it was strait to my stomach and bypassed my mouth. So good!

Nick and I had a great time, despite the car problems. It was fun sloshing through all the thick mud and just getting out in the elements. We'll be doing this again soon!

Training on the Trails

I'm still diligently training for the Forget the PR 50K. This week was a down week and I only did ~24 total miles. It was kind of a nice change of pace because toward the end of last week, I was feeling pretty beat down; I'm sticking to the "10% rule" but I was just getting burnt out. I was ready for the break. So this last week was 100% easy Blackhand Gorge running. I posted some cool pics that I took from my runs this week below:

Marie Hickey - Snow Covered

Marie Hickey - 30 Feet Above Licking River

Chestnut Trail - Hill From Hell

Chestnut Trail - All Alone

So anyway, as I'm moving into my last 6 week surge of miles, I'm due for some different variety. This week, I'm hoping to get down to Dillon State Park and learn some of those trails to get away from my mundaine mileage at Blackhand Gorge. I love Blackhand Gorge, but I only have 3 real options for mileage and I need more. I don't like running on pavement that much, and since most of my 2009 race schedule is all trail races, I really need to put my training in on the trails, not the road.

I'm scheduled for a 22 mile long run this coming weekend and I'm hoping get up to Mohican and run with some trail buddies on the Red / Green loop. Rumor has it that they're awful purdy. I'm also planning to get in a few long night runs this week as well, because I got some new reflective gear along with lots of new energy jelly beans, shot blox, and oodles of different flavored gel packs. I'm anxious to try some of the new stuff out; silly but true.

Something else I'm looking forward to this week is a family hike. Jen got online and bought a new Sherpani hiking backpack for us to use this summer to haul Daizi around the woods in. As soon as it's warm enough, we're gonna take a big family hike up at Mohican to see Lyon Falls, or down at Hocking to see Old Man's Cave. We're all real excited about getting out and active (and muddy) as a family. :)

I also realized this week that I need to loose about 20 - 25 pounds fast. Hopefully before my 50 miler in June. I'd like to loose about 10 pounds before April 19th (Forget the PR 50k), but we'll see... I've noticed a pattern recently that my knees really hurt after running any distance on pavement. I guess slamming 210 pounds down on each leg over and over and over for hours at a time could do that. Ideally, I'd like to be down to 185 -190 by June 20th. Again, we'll see... Not only for my race, but also for myself and my girls. I kind of commited myself to it tonight at the dinner table when I told Jennifer and the girls that "Starting tomorrow, Daddy is eating healthy." I got no reaction from anybody, but I meant it. :)

Oh yeah, on our little shopping excursion this week (when I got all that cool stuff), we all ended the night at this nice place called Hoggies Barn and Grill up @ Polaris and it was AWESOME!! We all gorged on way too much food and had a blast. Below is a pic of Lizzie and Jazzy drinking their first bottle of Rootbeer at Hoggies. Daizi had milk, of course.

Steven Seagal

I know there are a lot of tough dudes in the world, but Steven Seagal is still a hillbilly bad-ass in my book:



He makes kicking butt look easy and kinda fun actually.

Calling All Nerds

I am officially in the market for a new dev machine. :) My current machine is a 2.21 GHz AMD Athlon 64 (3400+) with 2.71 GB RAM, but it is slowing down and I cross my fingers every time it boots up. My hard drive is full and it just has too much crap on it. I always hibernate my machine because if I boot it up from scratch, it takes about 10 minutes before I can do anything with it. Yes, I admit, I miss my old DD MacBook Pro sometimes. :)

I'm considering reformatting this drive (my current dev machine), but instead of setting it back up as my main computer, I'd like to install Windows Server on it and run TeamCity and SubVersion and stick it in a corner. That way I can keep it running and develop from the laptop or the (new) desktop and check-in changes from either. Not only that, but Jen wants me to setup a place where we can store pictures on and access at anytime... easily. Currently, all of our pictures are on an external hard drive that is connected to my work machine. This means that I have a share on my work machine and she can only get to the pics when it's on. Even then, she has to go through hoops inside Picasa to get access to them (using a mapped drive).

The fact is that my machine is ~5 years old now (hard to believe), and I know there is a lot better hardware these days for a fairly small amount of money. I'm looking for a multi core machine with Vista (yes, I said it) that just screams and is built for a multi-tasking geek like myself. Any ideas?

Facebook and FriendFeed

I did it. I broke down and signed up for Facebook. Here's my profile: Lucas Hardbarger

So many people have asked me if I had a Facebook account and I always said I'm not into all that; I just like blogging and sharing crap with friends. Honestly, I just didn't want to have one more thing to check online. Well, now I do. On Monday morning I woke up and was checking my email before starting the day, and my Mom had sent me a link where she joined Facebook. I clicked on it and just created an account to see what it's all about... that opened the flood gates, because immediately I got invites from oodles of people I haven't talked to in years. I'm totally amazed at how many people are on here. It's just a cool way to interact with people (friends or not) in a very "non schlont(?)" way. :)

So anyway, now that I've established a new web area, I went hunting for the best way to tie it all together. I have online areas all over now and want an easy way to tie them into a single cronological feed. It's crazy that now I have a problem wondering where to post a thought. What is the web coming to when this is a problem!? For example, I could be sitting at taco bell waiting on taco's or I could be sitting at the dining room table waiting for the girls to finish brushing their teeth. Should I post my thought on my twitter? Should I put it on my blog? LinkedIn? Facebook? FriendFeed? Google Share? etc...? I found the answer tonight... Any.

I'd always heard that FriendFeed was the way to go. Scott is a big user of FriendFeed, but I never really "got it" until tonight when I went digging for a solution to my madness. FriendFeed is the answer. It's the one place where all the services come together. Facebook is for more for interacting with friends with a feature which includes sharing online content. For example, I'll use Facebook to see what people are up to, who they become friends with, who's wall they wrote on, what application they installed, etc... Whereas FriendFeed is more for aggregating and sharing online content (photos, blog posts, twitter updates, etc.. (59+ different services)) with friends or anybody that wants to see. Here is a good definition of Facebook vs. FriendFeed: FriendFeed is For Sharing and Facebook Used to be About my Friends

The moral of my story: Facebook is fun. FriendFeed is necessary.

Mohican Trail Run Report

It's official. I'll be running my first 50 miler this summer. I just signed up and I'm super excited. Now I just have to make sure I train smart and don't overdue it. Yesterday's run got me pumped up for the upcoming events at Mohican this spring and summer. I ran two new courses yesterday (the purple loop and a new section for the Forget the PR 50k. Both were absolutely beautiful.

I got up at 6am and got held up looking for my keys, I finally resorted to just taking the van instead. So already I was a bit late getting out the door, and then of course I got stuck behind a few Amish buggies on my way up. So, I arrived at the covered bridge at 8:02am and was officially late. When I parked the car, I saw everybody posing for the picture below. :) Immediately, I put on my gloves, taboggin, turned on my watch and started running.


We started off on the purple loop and climbed up little Lyon Falls. It was beautiful. After there, everybody kinda spread out and I found myself in the middle. After about a mile after the falls, I was officially lost. I must have turned up a deer path or something because I saw everybody way ahead of me on the road, but I was way up on a rock cliff and couldn't find my way down to them. Luckily, I saw Kim and Debbie running along the road and I yelled for "HELP!" :). Kim got a pretty good laugh out of it, and I did too. :)

I stuck with them for a good while until we got on a section of the run that Rob mapped out for the Forget the PR 50K. It was a nice section and was EXTREMELY muddy. I loved it! After I ran ahead of them for a while, I found that I was lost yet again. :) This time, I ran across Rob, Mike, and Michelle. Boy was I glad to see them. My instincts told me to just hang out for a minute and wait, glad I did because I would have wound up running all the way around the lake. :P

On the return leg, we followed the purple loop back around and then we ran into big Lyon Falls, and it was spectacular. I'd seen pictures of it on others blogs and after I ran past it I realized that I'd seen it before. However, it was from the other angle and on the last mile of a 20 mile training run with Rob (so, I was 1/2 out of it then). :) Regardless, it was really cool and I look forward to seeing it in the spring with all the colors. I may take the family here someday as it's actually a very small hike from the covered bridge.

Debbie, Kim, and I all got back to the covered bridge. Debbie headed on home while Kim and I trudged along to the orange loop. This is one of my favorites at Mohican, but probably because I've done it so many times. Each time I come to Mohican, I usually find myself treking down the Orange loop. It's long and it's really pretty. A few times I got ahead of Kim and when there was a cross road in the path I would hold up so I could ask her which way to go, she's been out here a lot more than me and knows them pretty well. About half way through, Kim and I decided it might be best to cut down a path to head back to the covered bridge. She was getting short of breath, and I was getting short of time to get back to my girls for Valentines day. It was already noon and we still had a few hilly miles to get back to the cars. This is where things got a little fun... :)

Kim thought she knew a shortcut down to the river, so we took a little few mud slide down some hills to a creek. That creek turned into another creek, and then another. :) We were climbing over and ducking under fallen trees and sloshing through freezing cold water for a few hundred yards. We were pretty wet by the time we got back to the main path. It was a lot of fun though. Kim sure knows how to make a trail run fun. :)

Here is an overview of my run yesterday. The first 1/2 mile didn't record due to clouds and all the trees. Remember, I was late and it didn't have time to find my location. :)


We got back to the cars around 1:15 or so and I headed home. This was a fun run and I can't wait to get back to Mo and try the Red/Green loop next. Rumor has it that it's got a few river crossings and pretty scenery. Fun times! I think I learned that I need to really learn the paths around Mo, because without the help of my running buddies, I'd probably still be out there looking for the covered bridge. :) Thanks guys!

Blackhand Gorge Trails

As I promised in a previous posts, I'm posting my Blackhand Gorge Sunday map. Every path was accounted for, so if you ever wanted to visit the nature preserve, this map will give you an idea of how of the different paths look.

Warm Weather Wunning

Yeah, I am really digging this weather, even with the wind. Monday I didn't run. Tuesday, I was able to squeeze in a 4 miler and loved it. Wednesday I ran 6 miles down at Blackhand Gorge, and today I was able to get about 5.5 miles in before the girls got home from school. I'm taking a break tomorrow and might do a small hike with the family (weather permitting). This weekend will be lots of fun, as I'm meeting a bunch of my running buds up at Mohican State Park for about 18 miles of muddy trails. I can't wait... and yes, I know it's Valentines day; Jennifer already reminded me. :)

So far, my training for the Forget the PR 50K is going great and I can't wait to start off my 2009 running season with my first ultra belt buckle. Tonight I realized that I had better get my name on the list for the Mohican 50 miler or I will have to pay more after Sunday. Oh yeah, Kim just posted info about a new Trail Marathon in Ohio this fall that I will be signing up for as well. If you can't tell, I'm excited to have warmer days on the horizon. I'm getting stir crazy and can't wait for warm weather wunning (as Jazzy would say).

Oh yeah, and it's only fair to admit that Jazzy kicked my butt tonight in Wii Fit Distance Running. We worked up a pretty good sweat while Mommy, Lizzie, and Daizi all watched. :)

My Distance Running Trick

Some days I really dread going out and getting my runs in. Once I get out and start moving, I'm always glad I follow through with it. This week, I realized that I have a little trick that I use (subconsciously) to break up my long runs into manageable distances. I might as well share it. I know, I know... you're welcome.

The Trick
I typically take whatever the mileage is and divide it by two. Then, I simply focus on that number during my run. This is very easy to do, and it makes an epic run seem much smaller and more enjoyable. It's easiest to appreciate this algorithm on the "out and back" runs. So on a 6 mile out and back run, I feel like I'm almost done with my run when I hit the 2 mile marker. I know that once I get to 3 miles I simply have to turn around and go back. It's that easy.

The beauty is that this doesn't just work on the out and backs either, I use this technique on my "city tour" runs too. Tonight I was scheduled for a 16 mile run. Rather than focusing on the number 16 and counting up mile by mile, I cut it into two small legs. One leg was going to a 9 mile leg (think 4.5), and the other half of my run was a 7 mile leg (think 3.5). Doing this makes it much easier for me to stay motivated during my run. Breaking it up into these small manageable numbers lets me trick myself into thinking such distances are "easy".

My first leg involved an out and back from the YMCA, almost to Granville, then turned around and come back. The second leg was a big 7 mile loop around west Newark. For me, it made my run very simple, I ran 4.5 miles toward Granville, and then turned around and headed back to the car. Once I got to the car, I resupplied and set a new goal of 3.5 miles, then took off running again with the 3.5 number in my head. When I got to the 3.5 mile marker (which was actually 12.5 miles at this point), I simply focused on shuffling my feet back to the car (which was (pause for calculation...) 3.5 miles away).

So there you have it, that's my trick. The next time you dread doing any run, just cut it in half and head out the door. Hope this helps somebody; it works very well for me.

Thank You, Tim Moffatt

I woke up this morning and heard the news that Tim Moffatt, the President of Data Dynamics, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Tim was the one that hired me at Data Dynamics, for he saw something in me during my interview that I didn't see at the time. I have forever been grateful for his belief in me. He helped me believe in myself, and even had a few heart-to-heart talks with me about how to be who I want to be. He always showed me a lot of respect... with the exceptions of his crazy and (sometimes) offensive humor. That was just Tim though. :) I was very sad to hear of the news this morning. 

Rest in peace, my friend.

Keith posted a nice tribute to his passing on Farpoint's blog: Component Industry Loses a Leader

Google Desktop (in your favorite browser)

Google is on top of it when it comes to using the browser as your work station. Google Gears is a big piece to their puzzle too. Here is a cool video that shows how using your Gmail account works when your internet is disconnected (Google Gears required of course).

Ultra Training in the Snow

Yeah, yeah, yeah... :) I haven't posted any news lately with my training and I guess people really do care about how it's going. Actually, I've been keeping up with my training very well lately. I've reluctantly moved back to 3rd shift over the last few weeks which translates to "I've been busy as hell". Regardless, I'm finding time to get my runs in and I'm still doing pretty good with my pushups. The only difference is that I'm only squeezing in my training where I can. Last night (for example), I ran 5 miles on the treadmill @ 3am. The night before that, I did 3 miles at 4am.

I had a "Blackhand Gorge Sunday" this past weekend. This is where I ran from my house down to Blackhand Gorge, and then hit every trail that Blackhand Gorge had to offer, and ran back. When I upload my workouts to BuckeyeOutdoors, I'll update my post with a link to the map. I went out trying to do 20 miles, but bonked about mile 13 and called it a day after only 17 miles. I hadn't been sleeping good before my run, so I think that had something to do with my performance.

The best part about my run was that it was freezing cold, so when I got home, my girls all gathered around had fun playing with my beard. It was a huge block of ice and they thought it was the coolest thing. :) Even though I bonked early, it was a good training run for me. I really got to see how much work I have yet to do before MO.

I'm scheduled for 14 miles tomorrow and 8 on Sunday. Oddly, I'm looking forward to them both.

Trapper Jazz

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the girls have the day off of school. I'm down in the basement working, and Jennifer tells me a funny story. Before you can appreciate the story, you have to know a little fact about our farm: We are constantly fighting with coyote's out here. Grady (our dog) keeps them away for the most part, but they are a very real threat to our goats.

So any, Jazzy makes a little mound of snow with her hands and then comes to the back door and tells Jennifer the following:

"Mommy, I made a coyote twap... Now when the coyotes come thwough ouw yahd, they'll twip on the snow, then Gwady can come and eat them." - Jazzy (5 yrs old)

Perfect!

Obama Era Press Conferences

Found on twitter: http://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1116626675

I felt it was worth sharing. :)

Forget the PR, Mohican 50k

My good buddy, Rob, has coordinated a new race this year called "Forget the PR, Mohican 50k". Today, I found out that I'm able to run it after all!!

Long story short: I signed up for the race on the first day of registration, because I was so excited about it and failed to check my schedule, to make sure that I could actually run it; I got ahead of myself. A few weeks after I registered, I learned that the race date was the day after our check-in date at Disney World down in Orlando, Florida. That wasn't going to work. :( Well, when I got back from CodeMash this afternoon, Jennifer and I sat down and were just talking about everything and we decided that we couldn't really do the Orlando thing due to our finances, etc... As much as I hated the fact that we couldn't take the girls to Florida this summer and see Mickey, I was (secretly) excited to be able to run the race after all. :)

Rob, COUNT ME IN!! I can't wait to get my first ultra belt buckle!

CodeMash 2009 - Day 2

Today was a bit rough after drinking with the geeks and then fighting my bout with insomnia last. I woke up at 7:30 and headed down for breakfast. Eric Meyer gave the keynote this morning about how "Javascript Will Save Us All". It was pretty interesting and he provided a lot of useful information on how people are able to get around various problems faced on the web today with a little bit of Javascript. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and caught myself dozing off here and there.

I decided to head back to my room for a "quick nap".

About 4 hours later I woke up. I ran down to the lunch hall to see if I could catch a bite to eat real quick, and I did. My lunch consisted of watermelon and cookies. :) After lunch, I went to see "A Programmers Guide to User Experience" by Josh Walsh. It was very informative and it gave me some ideas on how to approach some of the problems I'm currently facing with a project I'm working on. Josh clearly knew what he was talking about.

From there, I attended James session on "Practical Data Visualization", which looked very familiar to say the least. :) James did a great job and I think the others in the room did learn a thing or two on good charts vs. bad charts. Well done sir. :)

After James' session, I v-lined it for Dustin Cambell's session on "Multi-threading Mojo with F#". I've seen Dustin talk about F# in the past and he is a very good speaker. He get's everybody in the crowd involved and has a great sense of humor about what he's teaching. He showed off some pretty amazing stuff with the various asynchronous features that F# has to offer. The amazing thing to see was how much code it took to do the same thing in C#. Crazy difference.

The giveaway session was pretty funny and Joe Wirtly didn't win anything this year! :) He's won the main prize the last two years (of all the people here, he won). Ironically enough, this year the main winner was sitting at his table. I plan to sit next to Joe next year... Save me a seat please Joe. :)

Anyway, after the giveaway, James, Raji, Mike, and I all ate down at the restaurant before they had to all go their separate ways. I came up to my room, researched some stuff, chatted with Jennifer for a while, then did my 4 miler on the dreadmill, and then chilled. That's where I'm at now... TNT has some pretty good movies on and I have all my stuff packed waiting for the morning. CodeMash 2009 is in the books. Great event!!

CodeMash 2009 - Day 1

Well, I arrived at CodeMash last night right before the roads got bad. Found my old DD family immediately as I walked in the door (James, Mike, and Phil). They helped me move my drums in (thanks guys) and then we headed out to get some dinner. I ended up eating WAAAAAY too much and wound up refunding my dinner later that night into the porcellan bucket. I suffered from some insane insomnia well after that ordeal and didn't get to sleep until after 3am.

I wanted to wake up early and get in my 3 miler, but ended up sleeping in til almost 7:30am (alarm clock "am/pm confusion" issues). Since breakfast was almost over, I just grabbed my room key and headed down to the dining area to get in on the feast. Breakfast was excellent and I made sure I didn't over indulge this time. :)

Venkat Subramanium keynoted here at CodeMash this morning and he was a great keynoter, I laughed a lot and learned a lot. The first session I attended after that was 'Introducing Prototype and Scriptaculous" presented by Leon Gersing (aka: FallenRogue). He talked about using Javascript utilities (namely Prototype and Script.aculo.us (as well as various references to JQuery)) and I must say that it was very informative. I couldn't find any gleaming reasons for me to switch from my focus of learning JQuery to using these though (thoughts?)... I think I'm full speed ahead on my endevor to master JQuery. (Sorry Sergey) :)

The next session I attended the "Developing for Microsoft Surface"computing by Jennifer Marsman and... "Joe" from VectorForm (sorry Joe, great job though) :) It was very cool. They showed how all the pieces work together to provide the rich experience, including the way that real world objects can be recognized using a new type (infinitely unique) "bar code" pattern. Jennifer Marsman sat down and even took an old WPF sample app and converted it to a Microsoft Surface app using simple RegEx find/replace in the XAML, and had it running on the Surface in less that 2 minutes (literally). This is not recommended of course, but the fact that they CAN do it says that it should be fairly easy to get geeks using it. After the session, I went out and tinkered on one of them in the hallway. They are very cool to play with, but that's about it for me...

After that, we broke for lunch and then I headed to the "Adobe Flex with MVC Frameworks" session by Robert O'Malley. Unfortunately I thought it was something that it wasn't and I wasn't understanding anything that he was talking about. I think the session assumed that I was familiar with (at least) one of the technologies that he was talking about, and I wasn't. :( I turned to Mike and we went out into the hallway and geeked out on our laptops instead and talked about some programming issues we were both struggling with. Much more funner?? IMO. :)

The next round of sessions, I chose to attend the "Functional Concepts for OOP Developers" session by Brian Webber and it was pretty intense. It was well done, but it covered a lot of different functional syntaxes (namely Haskell) and functional concepts (namely these) that I simply wasn't familiar with (YET). I was able to "keep up" for the most part with my understanding of how implementing the same object oriented concepts would work, but the talk was a little more involved than I thought it would be, to say the least. 

For the last session of the day, I headed over to see the "Microsoft Virtual Earth Now in 3d" session by Aydin Akcasu. The last talk I saw from this guy included a Wii remote sending data to a C# app that (in turn) controlled a robot bird (that flew) the he let people fly over the crowd using bluetooth to send commands to it... again, using a wii remote. Talk about cool!? Anyway, this session Aydin showed people how to EASY it was to embed rich 3d mapping technology into existing apps with absolutely zero effort (3 lines of HTML, that's it); here is the page he built to give his talk with, right click and view source to see what I mean. Basically, Microsoft Live Maps offers a free mapping technology that lets users (ie. anybody that has a web page) expose an interactive 3d world (think Google Earth... but...) inside a web browser. To extend it and make it do things, simply create buttons with javascript to call methods on it. Beautiful! At the end of his talk, I went up to shoot the breeze with him and he showed me this cool 3d mouse called SpaceNavigator that he used to fly around the (virtual) world with. Very slick!

Dinner was damn good, then I hit the gym to get in my 3 miler before attending the jam session. The jam session was really cool! I only played a couple of times, but I did got to rock out with Carl Franklin, Brian , , and . It was a very bluesy mix this year. Last year was mostly acoustic and low key for the most part; whereas this year was ampliphied crowded and bluesy. Carl rocked out like a true entertainer, and I got to see Dustin Cambell jam on a guitar too (that dude is good). Corey Haines brought his harmonica and guitar again this year, and he played some really cool stuff (major talented musician). Surprisingly (maybe not?), there were a lot of poeple playing instruments this year, and it was much more "the norm" this year than last year. This was awesome to see. CodeMash is so cool. Plus I think they're starting bring out the good musicians (marketing ideas guys, Jim, Jason, Jeff,..). :) 

I ended the night with a bunch of geeks down at the bar. We discovered that Raji loves to buy drinks for people, just don't ask him for water... :)

Dark, Wet, and Quiet Long Run

I wanted to wake up and get my run in early today so I could spend my day being productive.As it turned out, I suffered from some pretty bad insomnia last night and we had company most of the day. By the time I was able to get out the door and head to town, it was already 4pm and I had to go to WalMart first. Around 5pm, I got my car parked at the YMCA, put on all my reflective gear, grabbed some drinks and gel packs, and headed down the road. 

It was cold, rainy, getting dark, and I couldn't wait to get started. Turned out to be a great and stress releiving run. I pretty much covered the upper west quadrant of Newark, Ohio. There were a few parts that had me creeped out, but it was my own mind playing tricks on me. :) While I was up in the rural area, it was just black at time and I was running all by myself in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone (again, it was raining). Anyway, it turned out to be a great run and I'm excited to be back to running agian. :) My break from distance running was too long. 

Bush's Gas and Oil Companies Met Their Match

Here is a cool story that someone sent me that I feel deserves being shared: Democracy Now! | "One Man’s Bid to Aid the Environment"

Thank you, Mr. DeChristopher!

JetBrains ReSharper vs. DevExpress Refactor! Pro

My good buddy, Sergey left me some comments on my blog post about Refactor! Pro and that is what finally made me try out ReSharper. I get so comfortable using what works for me that I don't look around to see what might be better... familiar?

Almost everybody I know uses JetBrains ReSharper, and they all give me that confused look when I tell them that I use the DevExpress Refactor! Pro product. I never ventured outside of my bubble of comfort to see what I have been missing until last week. Why fix what isn't broke? So anyway, I finally installed ReSharper and disabled my Refactor! plugin. I'm slowly learning the keystrokes for refactoring and generating code, and it's getting easier. I felt so backwards for the first few hours, and spent a lot of my time inspecting the menu options to see what is available and how to use the features that are available.

There are a LOT of features with this product and I must admit that it's pretty overwhelming at first. It has taken some getting used to, but I'm starting to be productive with it. Rather than remapping the shortcuts to be the same as Refactor!, I'm forcing myself to learn ReSharper shortcuts to give it an honest attempt. So far, my favorite feature of this product is the 'Clean Code...' function (keys: [Ctrl][E],[Ctrl][C]), the 'Refactor' function (key: [Alt][Enter] (equivalent to Refactor! [Alt][~]), and most importantly the feature rich scroll area with warnings and errors.

To be 100% honest though, there is nothing that ReSharper is offering to me yet that I can't do with Refactor! Pro. I probably only used about 40% of Refactor! Pro's featureset, but I used the crap out of them. Plus I really enjoyed the UI experience in Refactor! Pro a hell of a lot more than I do from ReSharper. The guys at DevExpress made sure they didn't bother me with unecessary prompts as I coded and I miss that while I learn ReSharper. Simple things like renaming variables, reorganizing parameters, and auto cleaning my code should not prompt me with wizard dialogs, it should just work.

For now I'm still evaluating and will continue to give ReSharper an honest effort. I'll use it until my evaluation expires then decide. So far Refactor! Pro is still my choice, but ReSharper is creeping up as I use it more and more... :) I'll post more later as I continue to use it.

My Running Resume

I started this crazy running thing as a new years resolution to "get healthy" for 2007. As a result, I found that I love running.

That first year I did a bunch of 5k's and really enjoyed being outside in the elements while I trained for those races. Later in 2007, I ran my first trail race and immediately fell in love with the brutality of trail running. :)

My new years resolution for 2008 was to run a trail marathon, so I did. And then I ran another... and then I ran a trail ultra marathon, just to prove (to myself) that I could. I finished my 2008 year with a great (road) marathon PR of 4:27:31. I would have never guessed that!!!

The the best thing about each race I ran this year was that I outdid myself on each one.

1. My first marathon took me 6:52 minutes to finish.
2. My second marathon took me 4:57 to finish.
3. My ultra marathon took me almost 8:30 to finish.
4. My third marathon took me 4:27 to finish.

I'm setting my sights for farther distances for 2009. This summer, I want to try a 50 miler, and if I survive that, I'll look for a 100k (~62 mile) race in the fall. For now, I'm just building my base back up since I've let is slip since my last marathon. I needed a break honestly, but... 2009, here I come!

My 2008 Review

Well it's here, the last day of 2008 has begun and is about to end. I just wanted to get a quick post out to say that I had a great year!

What cool happened this year?

• I traveled to Siberia (details)
• I turned 30 (details)
• I ran my first marathon (details)
  
• I introduced the world to Data Dynamics Analysis (details)
• I ran my second marathon (details)
  
• Tent camped with my family at Michigan's Upper Penninsula (details)
  
• I changed jobs (details)
• Spent a lot of quality time with my family
  
• I became an ultra marathon runner (details)
  

Now that 2009 is about an hour away, I think it's time to set goals for the year so that I stay happy and driven. I'll post my resolution (merely for my records) shortly...

jQuery

My eyes have been opened!

I've heard a lot about jQuery in the last few years, but was too stubborn to try and figure it out.

I thought it was not for me; I barely did any web development.
I thought it was something that only pertained to elite web developers.
I thought it was probably too complex to learn... let alone use.
I thought it was just a fad.
I thought way too much.
I thought wrong!

Tonight I was chatting with a buddy of Skype and asked him how to get around a problem I was facing in my web app. He turned me onto the jQuery site and praised how useful it was. Of course, my immediate reaction was a cringed and I thought "damn, now I have to try and learn this thing".

Man, was I wrong; there isn't much to learn at all! I simply went through the 5 minute tutorial on how it works and I'm up and running with a killer javascript API.

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

If you have ever used javascript (or html even), download this and add it to the top of your page html header section. Period. Thank me later...

Be sure to go through the tutorial: How jQuery Works - jQuery JavaScript Library

Thanks Ivan!

DevExpress Refactor!

As most of my geek friends know, I'm a huge advocate of DevExpress CodeRush with Refactor! Pro add-in for Visual Studio. I honestly feel lost when coding without these two tools and they are the first thing that I install on a new box.

It's a great product. However, I never understood why they named their product "Refactor!" with the exclamation point. I always thought it looked out of place with the exclamation point after it, but they trademarked it and everything... Well, tonight I was going through some nasty code that I'm working through and saw a set of methods that I needed to fix, so I highlighted them and pressed [CTRL]+[3] to create a region and then I typed "Refactor!".

I get it now.

CodeMash 2009

I CaN't WaiT!! Jason just posted his excitement about the session list for CodeMash 2009! I must say that it is very impressive. This event kicks ass! This year will be very different for me, as it's the first time ever that I'm going as an attendee rather than an exhibitor. The first year, I took my family, last year I went with my DD family and had a blast. This year, I'm going solo! No family, no booth, and no last minute presentation changes to worry about with James. I never minded hovering around the booth talking about Data Dynamics great products, but there was that whole "look professional" aspect to it.

This year, InfoPlanIT is sending me and I'm free to not worry about anything for 3 full days. I will be wearing un-tucked street clothes and I'm going this year to just learn, learn, learn. My latest project at InfoPlanIT has got me doing a lot of web development these days. I've been trying to learn the best way to build customizable enterprise business intelligence web portals... from scratch. The session list at CodeMash is very impressive and gives me a lot of different opportunities to learn from (Ruby, Silverlight, Flex, F#, and so on..).

If you are into technology and can talk your employer into sending you to CodeMash, then, by golly, do it! This is the hippest event in the midwest and you will get your money's worth, ten fold! Not only in the value of the sessions, but also in the fun factor, I mean it's an indoor water park!?. When you're not hanging out with geeks talking about code, your jamming out to Rock Band or screamin down the slides at the indoor water park. Oh yeah, you can also learn about the latest and greatest technologies in the industry by some of the smartest people in the industry.

So there it is! Lots of .NET, Silverlight, Flash, Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, F#, you name it... there's even sessions on developing applications for Microsoft Surface computer and the iPhone. Excuse the huge link, but I'm that impressed with where it takes you. :) I'm going with a wide open mind this year and not restrict myself to any one topic. Hope to see you there! Oh yeah, did I mention I'm taking my drumset again!? I told you this event kicks ass!

Recycling

Tonight, Jennifer and I went to town to recycle our cardboard, magazines, newspapers, plastics, and drop off some clothes at the Goodwill. I realized tonight that recycling should be less stressful and made more mainstream and easier. I know this sounds selfish and lazy, but it's true. If you want to recycle, you have to make the conscious effort and either go to some recycling drop off location (like Jen and I do), or get with your trash company and get on a "recycling plan".

Recycling should be a mandatory and free service for every trash company in the US. The ideal solution would be for me to throw all of my trash (milk cartons, newspapers, beer bottles, pop cans, food scraps, etc..) into a single bin, just like I do today. I would take my trash down to the road once a week (again, just like I do today). The trash company comes and puts it in their truck, and compacts it down just like normal. Once all of the garbage gets back to the company, they run the garbage through some magic machine that gets out all of the aluminum, all of the metal, all of the plastics, papers, iron, copper, leaves, grass clippings, clothes, shoes, wood shavings, glass, , etc... Once all of the different materials have been sorted out, there would only be a handful of actual trash that would ever make it to the landfills.

I know it sounds far fetched, because it really is. However, I feel somebody needs to step up with some ideas to start making baby steps with the garbage that people just pitch. I drive by landfills every now and then and just cringe sometimes. Trash companies should try to start thinking of a way to (somehow) sort out what is recyclable vs. what is trash, rather than just packing it all together and unloading it into the ground. People are lazy by nature; I mean, I know Jennifer and I are. Making recycling an effortless process is key in my opinion.

If a new company came into town claiming they were working to resolve this problem, I would pay 2x more than I do today and make the switch.

Google Maps Update

I logged into Google Maps today and saw that they had subtly changed their UI. I really like the new concept of their navigation controls on the top left, as well as the draggable Google dude. Before I wasn't too keen on the whole "Streets View" button. It felt like I had to make the decision up front as to whether or not I wanted to view peoples houses, etc... It was interfering sitting at the top with the other views (Maps vs. Satellite), but didn't really 'fit'.

The new UI allows the user (ie. Me) to find the address I want as I would normally, then when I get to where I want to go, I can then decide where I would like to see 'Street View' simply by dragging the little Google dude onto the map. If there is no image available for that area, it will show up, "Image not available" and that's it. It's simple and elegant.

Eventually, I could see Google integrating Google Earth functionality on their site (using Flash or something) and I can't wait for that day! Until then, I'll just keep checking their site, recommending it to everybody I know, and wait impatiently for more updates. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to do so.

Thanksgiving 2008

I ate. A lot.

Guitar Hero: Tool - Vicarious Drum Off

Too cool not to share!

GO BUCKS!!

This is how I picture it all going down today. Notice that Ohio St. is on top of Michigan St...

This picture was taken in Chicago where Michigan Avenue crosses Ohio Street.

View Larger Map

I just had to take the picture because IDOT put Ohio Street is on top of Michigan Avenue. :) PRICELESS!!

YellowPageGoesGreen.org

YellowPageGoesGreen.org: "Movement Against Unsolicited Phone Book Delivery"

Movement: ...stopping the madness.

Ok, who's idea was it to print a 1,000 page book and send it to every American whether they wanted it or not? Jennifer and I get 2 or 3 a year and we end up throwing them away or giving them to people that need one. Back in the day, it may have made sense. However, today most of us use the internet, or our iPhones, or some digital address book to keep track of phone numbers. I know 95% of the time whenever I need to find a phone number for "donatos near newark, ohio" or some random company, I just Google it! I get the number in sub seconds. Honestly, I haven't used the phone book in quite a while because I'm usually near the internet. Besides, everybody that is "in the book", can be found "on the web" anyway (duh).

I've decided that Jen and I can live without the book; I haven't told her yet though... so. (?) I'll just explain that I "did it for the children", and it'll be cool. :)

I'm anxious to see how it will all play out:

• Will I be able to keep a comfortable lifestyle without the book?
• When I tell Jen about the big news, will I get the "you did what" w/ complimentary eye roll?

and (most importantly)

• Will my effort really help save our planet?

I guess the reason for my post is to say this: If you get the Yellow Pages and/or White Pages, then please know that they have websites. You can take advantage of technology, de-clutter your house, and save a tree. I took the plunge. Stop relying on "the book" and just use "the web".

Thank you Corey Haines (aka: Trucker Dude) for the tweet!

Oh yeah, another way everybody can help save the planet is by switching to your 'trees' theme in Gmail. :)

My Stellar Funk

Stellar Work
I'm kicking ass at my new job and I've just recently (last week) began implementing Data Dynamics Analysis into our product suite at InfoPlanIT. It's very exciting and everybody seems to really like it. I'm learning a lot in the mean time as the requirements are forcing me to really focus on the "architecture" of the solution rather than just the end result. I learned my lesson the hard way when the last version got convoluted with "quick fix" code everywhere. We decided to just hold off on refactoring the old solution and give 100% focus to the new (DDA) solution instead. I'm pumped about getting this into the customers hands; they're gonna flip out when they see this new pivoting chart thing! :)

Stellar Side Project
Ben and I are still grinding away on the BuckeyeOutdoors plugin for SportTracks as well (details). This thing is turning out to be really slick and our beta testers are real excited about it. Even Steve Runner is using it and rumor has it that he loves it! :) Ben is great to work with, he takes ideas and considerations very well and it's been a pleasure to work with him. We've become pretty good buds in the meantime, so it's a win-win-win. We are expecting to release the V1 product of the plugin within the next couple of weeks, so for all my running readers out there stay tuned for a slick plugin!

Funk Running
I've been in a deep funk lately in regards to my health and my passion. I've only been running about 3 times a week and they're not the ones that leave me feeling like I'd gained anything with them (no speed, hills, intervals... just nice jogs). Since my stellar PR @ the Columbus Marathon, I've been lounging around and just "recovering" for the last month. :) Today I got out and did a nice 3 mile trail run in the snow and it rejuvinated me to get back outdoors for the winter. Call me crazy, but I love running in the cold weather.

Funk Blogging
I've also been slipping on my blogging. I've had some people email me to see how I'm doing and I realized that blogging was really the only way that some of you know what I'm up to. :) Even more so now that I never leave the house. I've totally lost touch with reality and society since I'm working from home full time. I actually have a huge backlog of post ideas that I want to blog about, so I may start picking them out one at a time and get back into my groove.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Busy, lazy, and happy. :)

SNR Russia Blog

Back in June, I told you about a new blogging buddy of mine, Scott, that was traveling to Novosibirsk for business. He was directed to my blog by a friend of his and he quickly caught up with the blog and became a reader.

Just last week, Scott began his journey over to Russia and he is staying in Akademgorodok (the same place I stayed) while he teaches at the Novosibirsk State University. He has been through the Moscow Airport (though I think he went through a different one than I did). Regardless, he has been blogging about his visit and I must say that it's fun to read about his experiences, and see pictures of buildings and places that I visited.

If you get a chance, head over to the SNRRussiaBlog and read up on his daily experiences.

Remembering Heather Pick

A beautiful young wife and mother died today after a 4 year battle with breast cancer. Heather Pick was a news anchor for Channel 10 News in Columbus, Ohio. Jennifer and I watch the news every night @ 11pm. We switched to Channel 10 News when Chris Bradley transferred from Channel 6 (he's an awesome weather dude) and we quickly got to know all of the Channel 10 News team very well. It is as if we lost a friend too. :( Here is her full story: http://www.10tv.com/live/content/station/stories/2008/11/07/heather_pick.html?sid=102

Today I was outside on the tractor getting ready for our bonfire and I came inside to ask Jennifer a question. I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and she told me that Heather Pick died today. I couldn't believe it! She was so young and pretty and full of life that nobody would ever guess that she was fighting the terrible disease unless she told you. She was a very strong voice for breast cancer awareness and did a lot for the community.

My thoughts are with her family and friends. She has left behind two young children and a loving husband. I didn't know her personally, but I must say that I feel as though I knew her simply from watching her on the news every night for the last few years. We will miss you Heather!!

Channel 10 is dedicating the whole day to her memory and it is very touching... Her early passing makes me (again) realize how short our time is on this planet. :(

Forget the PR 50K

I just signed up for the first ever Forget the PR 50K at Mohican State Park this morning. Today was the first day to sign up and I did it while I was eating my breakfast. Let the training begin! :)

My good buddy, Rob, is the coordinator of this race, and he has put his heart and soul into it. :) Rob grew up running through the Mohican State forest, even as a kid. He's also participated in the Mohican 100 mile race a few years as well. So it's only fitting that he organizes his own race here. If you're into running beautiful trails in the woods for a couple of hours, then go sign up. It's going to be a great trail run!!

Congratulations Rob! I'm looking forward to this race, and can't wait to get my first race buckle.