Hahaha Money and Effort

Hmmm, what's on my mind? It's a little frustrating that annual raises are so unrelated to personal effort. Manager's get a pool of money allocated to raises for your entire department, so if you've got a great team, it may be difficult to get a decent raise...

Thomson's great about that and it really doesn't seem to be "I get more if they get less", but it's still a lot easier to pull a few extra bucks via sites like rentacoder.com. I'm looking into doing a little side contracting. Does anyone use a site like rentacoder.com?

Another Blog Question

Just a quick question: Is anyone enjoying the new mixed content in my blog? Would you like to continue seeing embedded video, or should I keep it text-only?

Baby Annabelle Can Sit Up!!

Ooooh! Look at what Annabelle learned to do the other day! (http://youtube.com/watch?v=h-zdXahkZ9I)

Annabelle in the Snow

Yesterday, Cheryl and I took 'lil bug out in the snow in her pink ewok suit. It took a fair amount of time to truss her up, but she was patient. As she lay watching us prepare for the cold. Movement was a distant memory due to the massive number of layers she was wrapped in, but that was ok; Mom and Daddy were obviously up to something interesting...

The first wall of cold took her breathe away and brought out a very cute poutty lip. She blinked the snowflakes out of her wide-open eyes and started to look around, gathing info regarding her new and highly modified surroundings.

We set her down so she could stand in the snow, but she really didn't like that idea. Annabelle: buuuuuWAAAAAH!!!!!
Me: Yipe!! Ok, ok, let's go fly around some more... cute lil kiddo.

Baby Annabelle is Adorable!!

Food and Fun

I love food. I love fun. Thursday-Today was all that and more. Four solid days of Thanksgiving with over 60 family members brought warmth to my heart as the contagious smiling of my baby brought joy to all involved.

Food can really make a difference (as can sleep). Over the past two weeks, I've enjoyed a steak, prosciutto wrapped mozerella, chocolate cake, home-made macaroons, assorted cookies, 2 pies and a cheese-cake. Oh, that was all at work. The feasts at home were far more grand.

It looks like my band is getting together for a show around New Year's Eve. I'm looking forward to playing with everyone again. The Kitchen Sinks have a powerful chemistry. The opposite of the black, stinky kind. That's Joe's kitchen sink...

I'm still riding my bike. The black ice made it a bit of fun the other day. Whenever there was a strong wind, me and my bike would drift about in the lane like a leaf. I've removed the toe-clips for the winter, and purchased myself a nice, light (but waterproof) set of boots. They work best when you're not pouring water into them from the top (or riding through 1ft of standing water built up under the RR bridge).

If you read this, leave me a comment with your favorite passionate music band. If you have a song in mind, list that too. Right now, I'm thinking of 'Hysteria' by MUSE.

Baby Video

Be the first to check out the fresh new clip of baby Annabelle on my Facebook. I'm happy with my new camcorder and still on the verge of exploding with excitement about my baby girl!!

New camcorder? Yes indeed!! I purchased the $140 Aiptek A-HD. The mic is terrible, there's no hardware buffer (so pans skew) and colors are oversaturated, but it still exceeds my needs. It's small enough that I can carry it in my pocket (which is where it lives), and it's cheap enough that I don't have to be completely paranoid about where I take it and how I handle it. PERFECT!! Since the video is in 720p, I find myself downsampling the footage I take all the time. It's been hard for me so far to wrap my head around the possibility that I would want to record at a lower resolution than I can because I rarely need the ability to pan and zoom around in my shots... then comes the issues involving the editing and rendering of such ridiculously high quality video... bleah!!!

My standard video workflow at this point is:

1. Copy the video off the SD card to my secondary computer
2. Use SUPER to re-encode the file to an MP4 (from a h.264 AAC-L in a .MOV container) 'cause Sony Vegas 8 doesn't like the A-HD
3. Copy the rendered files to my video processing machine
4. Apply audio filters
1. Audio
1. Compress anything above -5 at 40x (the mic peaks a LOT, it's way too sensative)
2. Increase the gain on 4KHz+ by 4dB
3. Decrease the gain on 500Hz- by 4dB
   
5. Add a soundtrack
6. Burn the resources to DVD

All told, it takes about 15 minutes of manual work and 2-4hrs of automated work per filled memory card. If I just take downsampled video in the first place, I can just copy the card straight to DVD and not worry about converting and such... oh the dilemma this causes!!

Anyhoo, Annabelle is worth it, and the clip I posted today was well worth the price of the camcorder. Life rocks!!!

Ouch! School Buses Hurt

I've had a variety of accidents involving traffic while commuting on my bike. Usually, this involves moving traffic, which generally doesn't hurt to badly because I'm moving as well and I've only had 1 head-on, but after the initial bump, I was in the air for that one (and hitting the ground isn't bad).

Today, I got cut off by a school bus while I was trying to change lanes. I slowed down, then cut behind the bus to get over to the next lane. Just then (good 'ol murphy) the bus stopped abruptly as the driver had missed the fact that the light was red. I glanced off the rear bumper of the bus with such force that my handlebars broke off, my wheel got demolished, and the trunk attached to the back of my bike ended up in the intersection. I also caught some of the bus. My shoulder took the full impact, knocking me off my bike, in the air, and landing me flat on my back. Fortunately for me, the SUV behind me was able to brake quickly enough to avoid running me over. Parts of my bike were scattered for 20-30' from behind the bus to the intersection. I picked myself up, quickly collected the pieces of my bike, then hobbled to the side of the road where I reassembled my bike. I made it in to work only 10 minutes late, searched for 20minutes to find a first aid kit, then treated my wounds and started the day. My socks are a little bloody. My shoulder and ankle are swollen. Overall, I'm doing quite well. If the bar-ends on my handlebars hadn't been there, I would have received a debilitating wound as my fingers were crushed at 23 MPH against the bus' bumper. Thank God for small favors.

The moral of the story is: Don't underestimate the affect of differential velocities.
-or-
When traveling fast, the bigger object wins.
-or-
Bar-ends aren't just for looks.

Quick NOTE

If you're interested in receiving my blog posts via E-mail, add your address to this group: http://groups.google.com/group/davidsblognotifications

Side note: Sprint, Verizon or TMobile?

Sprint
Pros: Unlocked phones, cheap data, cheap plans, early evening calling
Cons: ...

Verizon
Pros: Excellent reliability
Cons: ridiculous plan cost, terrible data, slow custom phone OS

TMobile
Pros: Good internetwork communication, Home Hotspot, WiFi calling
Cons: Plan costs, few available features

Thoughts? Preferences? Trials? Tribulations?

Christmas Presents

It's usually very difficult to buy Christmas presents for me. If I know what I want... I get it myself. Well, this year I have a very LARGE want that I can't just up and get for myself (so money would be a good gift this year). I want to get a camcorder to record the daily cuteness of my little girl and snippets of daily life that people may find interesting.

What does that involve?

• Panasonic SDC-HD5 ($700 after employee discount)
  
• Vegas Movie Studio Platinum ($130)
  
• 2x Class 6, 8GB SD Memory Cards ($60 each)
  
• Battery of Ridiculousness ($170)
• VW-PT2 or Similar Portable HardDrive w/ SD Quickcopy ($150-200)

Summary:
Essential parts: $1k
Essential parts+: $1.2k

What do I get with all this? Family videos that will last.

Baby Baby Baby!!!

Oooooh my word. I have the most beautiful child I have ever seen. She has a smile that will liquify your heart and make it come out your eyes... hm, maybe I should jump on that. Maybe I could get some HD video of her and use it for heart transplants... far less painful. ;)

So, what is it like to be a father? WHY DOES EVERYONE ASK ME THAT?!?!?!? It's like breathing. It's natural, feels good, and if not controlled properly, ends up giving you a really hard time. Annabelle is beautiful and happy. She's the happiest baby I've seen. She doesn't cry through hiccups, she tolerates a fair amount of jostling when we're changing her diapers (which I then have to rinse out because they are cloth), and, just like her papa, she LOVES the outdoors. She can be pitching the worst fit ever, but take her into the sun and BOOM... happy baby.

She's doing all sorts of cute baby-type stuff. Her delicate (and amazingly well-formed/intricate) hands are always exploring. She touches my face and smiles, then wiggles a little and clenches, then opens her tiny little fist. I took her out to the bushes in the backyard and played with the leaves for a while in front of her face, then she, with great effort and many failed attempts, reached out and took hold of the branch, then wiggled it a little and withdrew, staring at the magic of our typical greenery.

When I stroke her head, or touch her little nose, she smiles with her papa's big smile to let us know that we're doing a good job. She eats a lot... every 4 hrs or so. It's amazing.

Also amazing is the number of times she pees and poos. Somehow, 1 oz of milk turns into 15oz of waste product. Friggin amazing. Another thing that is amazing, is the fact that I don't mind the stinky poos smell, nor did I have a hard time helping Cheryl deliver. Blood, poo, pee, and other bodily fluids associated with birth and babies really don't bother me. All this time, I thought blood was my issue, but it turns out it's the sterile smell of hospital plastic. Since we had the birth at home, I had no problems. I even cut the umbilical cord myself.

Sleep isn't an issue either. She sleeps like I did all the way through my homeschool experience. Tons of high energy activity followed by a nap... repeat all day and through the night. I've been getting plenty of sleep at odd hours and feel better than ever!! (Though I'm not sure how this is going to work once I have to work around Thomson's "core hours".) I may just need to extend my lunch period for a mid-day nap...

It's a Girl!!

http://ultimadj.googlepages.com/birthannouncement

Kickit!!!

Seriously, you guys rock. I love all the comments you've been responding with both on the blog and via e-mail. I feel like I'm still connected to you.

Here's a nifty UI enhancement for those of us using windows XP: Royale Noir Theme for XP

Cheryl has been nesting recently. The apartment is BEAUTIFUL! Everything is in its place. I have so much space to move around. Our relationship is at a peak right now. Last night while we were cuddling before bed, Cheryl told me that she felt like our relationship had really blossomed over the last few weeks. When I thought about it, it was incredibly true. We're still like honeymooner's. I think about her on and off all day, same with her for me. We do each other cute favors, get gifts and can't resist a quick kiss or caress here and there. I get to go out with the boys and I get to spend quality time with Cheryl and our couple-type friends. Sometimes we'll be relaxing and talking in the living room and my cup will just overflow with a spontaneous explosion of joy with a magnitude that simply makes it impossible not to dance. You know... the kind of joy that gives you goosebumps, butterflies and makes you smile like a 2yr old with a shiny toy car.

I'm really looking forward to the birth. Baby is coming soon. Very soon.
Check out the birth announcement page here and sign up for the e-mail list if you want to get the announcement.

One last thing. I LOVE MY NEW BIKE!!! I just trued the rims, cleaned the chain, switched the rear tire for the winter, added a suspension seat-post, added a gel-seat, and installed a mirror on my helmet. All told, it's a beautiful thing...

Oh yeah. I used to have the worst squeaky brakes ever. I read online about how to properly install brake pads and sure enough, the squeak is gone. To get rid of the squeak, you have to use a toe-in alignment. When you're adjusting the brake pads, put a piece of cardboard or folded paper under the rear of the brake pad. (The rear of the brake pad being the side that touches the rim last as the wheel is rotating...) That 1 mm gap causes grit to get cleaned off the rim, giving you better braking power while preventing chatter (which causes the squeaking). Nifty tip, eh?

Bible Blog

I've started a blog for my own stupid questions regarding my study of the christian bible. I wasn't sure that I wanted to share this because I feel foolish... unable to come to a conclusion myself...

Plus, this opens me up for a world of self-worth issues as people can debate or mock my core beliefs.

Anyhoo, in hopes of saving time and getting a wealth of input to curb my lack of wisdom, please check out: http://davidlikesthebible.blogspot.com/

Follow Up

Props to everyone for their excellent comments.

This is a follow-up to the post:
"Obedience is better than sacrifice. -Thoughts?"

My Thoughts:
If we're talking about government, obedience is better than sacrifice unless it is morally compromising. You hold a higher accountability to your family, humankind and depending on your commitments, God. That doesn't mean you can't lobby against the rule.

If we're talking about deity, again, obedience gets you where you want to be faster than ignorance followed up with sacrifice. It's the same principle as chiropractics, or managing a 401k.

Obedience never comes without sacrifice, but the sacrifice to atone for disobedience (prison, penance...) generally costs more than obedience to begin with.

And that's what I think about that. :)

Pandora, Good God!!!

If you like music and you aren't already a member, you HAVE GOT TO GET AN ACCOUNT ON THIS SITE: http://pandora.com

Whoa

A month since the last post! Wow... how does that happen?

Since my last post I have:
1 Been harangued for biking on the road
2 Contracted a BAD case of poison ivy
3 Restored the family computer from iminent death
4 Switched to Linux at home
5 Attended a wedding
6 Went camping 2x
7 Traveled every weekend
8 Not attended church

Man, is my life exciting or what?
Before you get up in arms for me not replying to all your wonderful comments on my last post wait... I'm going to reply after I get this all out.

So the other day (as you may know by now, everything I talk about is either coming, today, or the other day. The other day could be yesterday or last year... I have no sense of time.) I was biking home from work when I noticed a car was following me abnormally closely. I glanced back and moved even closer to the edge of the road to allow him to pass. He didn't pass, not did he change lanes. I figured he was just fine with doing the speed limit (I was doing ~33mph and the speed limit was 30, but most people do ~40). After about 3 miles of this (following about 10ft off my rear tire) he sped up, passed me and shouted something. I couldn't tell what of course. People never seem to realize that you can't hear anything but wind at 30mph on a bike. He flew by and got stuck in traffic about a mile later. I approached him rapidly and stopped next to his car to see what he had to say. (Yes, I'm a scrapper at heart. People usually back down when they realize their tin box doesn't cut them off from the world as well as they thought.) He said, "Get the H*** off the road. You should be riding on the sidewalk." I reminded him that it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk. He responded with the indignant scrunchy face,"Well it's illegal to get hit by a car too." I replied, "Actually, it's illegal to hit me with a car." He made the scrunchy face again and I was off.

So, I went mountain biking with some old friends. It was a killer ride, ripping through trails that are scary even to walk. A few days after our ride, poison ivy... I was camping, so I didn't have the supplies I needed to treat it properly. By the time I got home, my legs were oozing blood and pus. I searched the web for any remedy possible while considering burning my legs off. After trying many different things, here's what finally fixed it:
1. Shower and wash the area with dish soap (Don't take a bath!! The urishoil will get all over you if you do.)
2. Pat yourself dry, then use rubbing alcohol to draw the oil out of your skin
3. Let the alcohol dry, then rinse the area
4. Use calamine to stop the itch and prevent oozing
5. Wear new clothes, use fresh sheets, fresh pjs, fresh everything every day

When I started these steps, I got rid of the bad part in only 4 days!! The last time I had poison ivy, I went to the doctor, got steroids and still suffered for 2 weeks.

More to come...

Obedience is better than sacrifice.
Thoughts?

What a Vacation!

Wowwww! Cheryl and I just got back from a 9-day vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Nassau, Bahamas. Check out the photo gallery here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ultimadj/FtLauderdaleAndBahamaVacation

Some of the highlights include:

• Antonino's Pizzaria (The incredible 2.5 foot calzone)
• Being within 2 ft of an Alligator (no fence)
• A room at the resort that was bigger than my apartment
• Hard Rock @ Hollywood
• A pool with a WATERFALL
• Ft Lauderdale, Miami, and South beaches
• Snorkling and swimming with 1000+ fish (Including a Lion Fish, Puffer Fish, Needle Fish, Sea Anemonies and all sorts of other fish I don't even know the names for)
• Winning a dance contest on the cruise ship
• A shade of blue that I've never seen before in my life (deep ocean)
• And sooooo much more!!!

Can you understand?

I'm starting to think that I'm speaking geek. 'Geek' is a language developed by people in specialized cultures to more concisely convey terms that are known too all in that sect.

Today, I had someone approach me about a scholarly paper I wrote regarding asynchronous error handling strategies for services implementing diverse input methods including bean managed transactions, the avoidance of resource starvation and failover strategies for scalable production systems. They said, "I have come to the conclusion that it will take someone with a great deal of skill to read this document." Everyone seemed to follow the presentation easily enough... perhaps they were just quiet because I'd lost everyone.. :/

Later that day I had a meeting for one of the projects I was on and we were discussing how to get around a particular implementation shortcoming and I tossed in a not about using RMI/RPC. Everyone stared at me blankly. One person said, "Whatever that means," and the meeting continued.

I'd really like to have a tape recorder running 24/7 so that I can play back what I said when people completely misunderstand/don't comprehend what I'm saying. Gah!

Another interesting 'ism I found out about was my work 'tude. I'm overly happy at work because I get to hang out with great people that I'm happy to just be around. When it comes down to business, apparently I have a very worried face, or a very creepy blank stare. Too bad there are no mirrors at work.

Yesterday I was hangin' out at the Avery's making fun sounds with my band. You HAVE GOT TO HEAR OUR NEW STUFF. Seriously, it's going to blow people away. I almost cried it was so good... it gave me the goosepimples. One of my favorite moments from the evening was when Mike (in charge of keeping us moving in the right direction) started recording and Tim was still messing around on his guitar. "Tim! Pay attention." Well, not only did Tim snap to, everyone else popped up, eyes front. Haha! Everyone was in their own little zone.

Hrm, you probably had to be there for that to be funny. :P

I'm on facebook people! If you are too, add me! I send out invites now and again for cool activities. :D

Hahaha! Confrontation

I'm frustrated with people who go about things in the way that Dilbert does in this comic: http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070617.html

Got a problem with me? Approach me! I'm not in the habit of tearing people's limbs off unless they are bad drivers with bad attitudes.

With that said, this weekend rocked!!!

Nate and I biked from my parent's house to Brie's to the disc golf course and back again covering .

Here's the approximate route we took:

Route on Google Maps

See the turquoise line on the map here:

More precise route on myMaps

It was a grand day filled with odd movies, much excercise, Super Smash Bros Melee (BOOYAH!) and other such great activities that imply great times. :)

Yesterday was the first father's day that I received gifts from. Both sets of families got together for barbeque and the the kind of fun you look back on saying "those were the days" that only family can provide. I'm still glowing! :D

Who Beat Me in My Sleep?

This morning when I got out of bed, I couldn't help but wonder who beat me all night while I slept. I thought I was sleeping, but I was really taking a beating... all night. I'm exhausted and I feel like I weigh 573lbs. This compounds the fact that I am ahead of schedule and therefore have to wait til my meetings for the other things I want to be doing now.

This is funny because last night, I had so much energy that I was having the time of my life playing basketball til late after completing a church workday to prepare the main meeting hall for new carpet.

Did I mention that power tools are fun? (Yes, all day I've been jumping topics this rapidly.) I got to take a sawzall to a large, rusted, metal feeding trough, reducing it to plates of scrap. It was an intense battle involving 4 saw blades, glowing shrapnel, a refrigerator and a large dumpster. Wheesh!

I'm still psycked about facebook. I love my friends and the ability to be in touch with them!

Facebook is Exciting!

Facebook is really exciting! Especially for me, right now. Everyone I know, all the people whose lives I had a vested interest in that I thought were completely lost to me have been piling in with friend requests! I'm completely blown away!

The most exciting categories of people thusfar are
- Interesting, intelligent, or professional people that I didn't think wanted me around
- Friends that I'd loved dearly that have fallen through the cracks or moved away
- Friends that have been in the area but haven't had similar interests

I'm really excited that facebook can be such a tool for getting people together. I feel that I am once again close to being surrounded by the people I dearly want to be associated with and learn from. Canoe trips, picnics, parties... all are only a click away. I'm overjoyed!

Other notes from the past few days:
- My keys were stolen along with a stereo from my church while I played basketball. Keys are expensive... 70 bucks a pop for each of my rf keys, not to mention car cylinders for my wife's toyota (no anti-theft) grr...
- Ghost Rider was the worst B movie I've seen to date.
- Brie and Pizza are a combination that can make any day rock
- Waking up with Cheryl is still one of the best feelings known to me
- I love my job! I'm past configuration nonsense and on to better things!

Data Recovery Master!! All your byte[] r belong to us!

Yes yes, once again I have recovered data from a dead on delivery hard drive. This one was particularly challenging because the more I used the drive, the worse it got.

When I got the drive, it couldn't be read. Blast. I popped it out of its enclosure, dissasembled my laptop and popped it in. Then promptly realized that I missed a screw and went to remove the drive... it... stuck... AGHAGAHGAHGAHAHGGAHAGAHA! Stupid 'almost' form factor drives AGH! With great anticipation I wriggled and buffeted the drive for nearly 15 minutes before I could remove it. I will NEVER forget a single screw again.

When I started up the computer I got the typical error message that causes all in IT to despair... that's right... corrupted ntos...

So what then? SpinRite diagnosis of course! A quick scan showed that the drive was in poor shape with multiple physical damage areas. Ooof. This eliminates all of the Stellar suite (my favorite data recovery tool). Refreshing with sprinrite isn't an option either because you can hear the scraping... bad news.

And so he realized that his typical recovery arsenal wasn't going to cut it. Off to the everpresent crawler of the web he went with high hopes and eager spirit.

Hey, this is my blog! Keep your digital comments to yourself.

Ok Dave. *computer snickers* I hope you like the blue screen, it's my NEW favorite companion.

Oh brother! Upgrade or something *lays the smackdown on computer: ctrl+alt+SMACKDOWN*

Where was I? Oh yeah google.. I searched for a linux livecd with windows networking capabilities and local NTFS rw. The first result took the cake by far, I highly recommend getting this tool for emergencies if you don't have it yet: http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

A little zsh manipulation and I was off and running. The data streamed off the broken drive onto my stable desktop while I slept (between 3am and 7am). When I woke up, I burned the 18 gigs of data to DVDs and scooted off to work.

Booyah! I can even recover laptop hard drives! To think that the person had been quoted at $800 for what I did in one evening. Wait, maybe I could do this on the side...

Do you or does anyone you know, have data recovery needs? (Lost/deleted files, corrupt hard drives, dods)?
What do you think? Could anyone benefit from this service?

P.S. Does anyone know of a good way to create polls?

XML Editors

I'm looking for an XML editor with the following features to replace XMLSpy 2005:
- code-assist (xml from DTD, schema, xsl)
- a nice grid view (or good xPath support)
- easy auto-format
- XSLT preview/debugger
- Eclipse integration (optional but prefered)
- XPath 2.0 support (optional)
- Configurable parser (optional)

Here's what I've got so far:
XMLPad: Great auto-format, good code assist (doesn't know about xsl: namespace attrs), xslt preview, nice highlighting (large file support?)
Eclipse WTP & EE tools: Good highlighting, extensive auto complete
eclipseXSLT: (untested) good XPath/xslt support

What do you use for editing XML? Do you like it?

Anything you can contribute will be greatly appreciated!

2nd Year Anniversary

Photos from our second year anniversary are up!
http://picasaweb.google.com/ultimadj/JohnsonAnniversaryNumber2

The pot-roast is finished. :(

Today I finished the pot-roast I made two Fridays ago. I've had it every day for lunch at work since then. I love pot roast. It's amazing how far 6 lbs of pot-roast can go for just one person. Granted, I've had pretzels, carrots, a protein bar and assorted goodies with each meal, but still, cook once, eat 10 times... how can you go wrong?

What a Weekend!

I've traveled every weekend for the last month or so. I'm lovin' it! The fresh air, scenery, and faces have left me in a state of "My cup is full and overflooooowing! Yes the Lord loves me! I'm as happy as can be. My cup is full and overflooooowing."

Cheryl and I took a trip over to Ogdensburg so she could attend my counsin's wedding shower. Cheryl rode down with the ladies and I drove Allan over later in the evening. The trip up was a lot of fun. (Every trip is a lot of fun now that I have my TomTom ONE portable GPS navigation system.) One of the legs of our drive went through Canada. Conviniently enough, we had our passports because we intended to go to the indoor waterpark in Ottowa the next day. We had no issues going into Canada and expected none coming back into the states less than an hour later...

Well. We rolled up on customs. The guy asks for our passport and I shuffle through the passports that I had in my bag (we were brining the girls' passports to them because they left them behind) and passed mine and Allan's over to the officer. In retrospect, that wasn't a great idea... The eyebrows went up and we entered the "RED ZONE". "What did you do with the other people?" he asked, suddenly suspicous of the quantity of luggage in the back seat. I told him where we were going and why I had the extra passports. He was still suspicious, but he took it and ran the cars plates. "Um, whose car is this?" he questioned, again suspicious because I certainly wasn't the Cheryl Johnson it was registered too, and I'd already been 'caught' with multiple passports. I told him it was registered to my wife and passed him the registration. He looked at it, looked at the plates, crouched into a defensive stance and stated "the plates don't match the registration" preparing for a judo chop to my neck or something equally as painful and undeserved. I laughed a little and started to sweat as I frantically searched the glove compartment for the new registration... Aha! there it was, hiding at the bottom of the mess of insurance papers and gas receipts. After that, we were allowed to pass with little adieu. Phew!

The rest of the weekend was basketball, canoeing, and EXCELLENT conversation, the likes of which I have missed dearly in the past few months. I'm really starting to question the church I'm with because I realized how useless I feel given the hold on my activities, and the lack of challenge in the absence of good iron.

I also realized that I'm still just as funny as I used to be, it's just an odd sense of humor that the people in my current vicinity don't particularly appreciate. Ah well. Good thing being dull dones't make me less of a person!

I'm Fast!!

Yesterday, I ran my first footrace. I didn't prepare. I didn't train. I biked 12 miles to get there and 17 miles home afterward.

Here's the link:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114876327314207992279.000001127b564eb78c315&om=1&ll=43.085345,-77.671108&spn=0.020686,0.040169&t=k&z=15

There were 10,000+ racers in this particular event. When we lined up on the 4 lane road, there was a solid quarter mile of ridiculously healthy bodies in front of my, and another 1/2 mile of not as ridiculously healthy bodies behind me.

An air-horn blared, signifying the start of the race.I waited nearly a minute to actually start moving as people ahead of me spaced out a little. I went maybe 40ft til I hit the traffic jam of hot bodies perspiring due to the 90 degree weather with 80% humidity. After we got through the jam, people started whizzing by me. I had a hunch that I would later see these same people as they got tired. The thundering sound of race shoes pounding the pavement was truely incredible. The rubberized thud repeated itself for the duration of the run. By the top of the hill on the first quarter mile, I could already start to hear wheezing and panting. I smiled as I commended myself for not following the ridiculous pace of the people that were now 10, 20, 30, 50 yards behind me. The sound of sport shoes against the blacktop was all you could hear. There was no cool breeze, no cheering, just the look of desperation from people that had gone too fast too soon and the confident yet dispassionate sway of the runners that actually had what it took. We hit the water distribution at the first mile and I desperately attempted to get a few sips while still running, then poured the remainder of the cup over my head as I lept forth with a new vigor from the refreshing drink. Another 50 yards and I'd wished that I hadn't poured the water on myself. It was so humid that nothing evaporated. The water stayed, insulating my from the cool that I needed to continue. I perservered. "2 miles!", yelled an official from the sideline. I started to wonder if I should have stuck with my buddy who was now far in front of me. I've never run myself to exhaustion before, so I had no idea how to pace myself. This is nothing like my 18 mile run to Scottsville with a loaded backpack, but I am wary of tiring myself. I continue getting faster. Another water table, good! This time I attempt to gulp the water, but it goes down the wrong pipe!! Cough hack, gag, stumble, need air! agh! Cough cough, still running. Lips turning blue. *COUGH* Phew! the last of it! I drink what I can of the highly chlorinated water and press on. My legs feel a little wobbly from the lack of oxygen, but they soon recover. "1/2 Mile left! Go for it!" (How far is that? I dunno. Better keep up my slow pace.) I'm now whizzing by people left and right, I'm having no trouble breathing, actually, I'm not even breathing hard... Uh Oh! I can see the finish line! Man, I shoulda started sprinting at the 1/2 mile mark. I'm now diving through the crowd at my top velocity. I passed nearly 400 people in the last quarter mile. "Whoa, what a strong finish", I hear from the sidelines. I smile to myself and think about how much faster I could have gone for the race. My heartrate only got high for my sprint, and at a measly 1/4 mile sprint, I'm still not breathing heavily. My time is marked and I notice that there are not many people ahead of me. Actually, I can see the head of the line. I make my way back to the tent and record my time. I'm elated to find that I've come in 3rd!!!
From there it was beer, hot dogs, and friends aplenty! I don't run for exercise, I hadn't run for at least two months prior to the event, and I've never been in a race before. Just WOW!! It was sooo much fun!!

It was a good end to the week and definitely made up for my hospital stay last week. (I was in the hospital having horrible tests that I won't describe because it's probably TMI for 14 hours overnight last week because I was losing blood rectally. NOT FUN)
Another quick note: I went to Vermont for a quick anniversary trip with Cheryl. We did all sorts of excellent activities like toured the Norman Rockwell museum, mountain biking, kayaking, swimming and enjoying the fresh mountain air. Pictures to come!