The Ride Home with Rosey

I can't believe that it has taken me this long to put something on the blog but there seems to be less time for blogging with a live-in girlfriend :)

Here are pictures from the trip:

• Mammoth Caves National Park
• Road Trip through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri (Misery), Kansas and Colorado
• Rocky Mountain National Park

Rosey and I had an incredible time together on the way home from Alabama. Here is a quick synopsis:

• I flew in to Alabama on Friday night, went on a short bike ride through Rosey's neighborhood (down and then back up a killer hill) and then had dinner with Rosey's Mom at Jim and Nick's Barbecue.
• On Saturday morning we got up had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel (which Rosey affectionately refers to as the Ass-Crack Barrel) and then drove to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.
• On Sunday we went for a short bike ride through the park where we saw a rabbit running away from us alongside the road. It was so frightened that it ran itself right into a tree stump and completely knocked itself out. It was one of the funniest and saddest things that I have ever seen :)
• Later on Sunday we rented a canoe and paddled 7 miles down the Green River in Mammoth Caves National Park.
• Even later on Sunday we went on the River Styx tour inside of Mammoth Caves. It was incredible to be walking through what used to be a massive underground River. The tour actually went down deep enough in the cave to where the river is currently flowing.
• Monday morning we got up packed up camp and drove through Kentucky, Illinois and Misery to Kansas. We stayed at the Hampton Inn (they have awesome beds!) in Lawrence, KS. I was ecstatic to discover that Lawrence had both a Perkins Restaurant and a Culvers Frozen Custard restaurant. We also discovered a kick-ass mexican place called On the Grill. Because of the three restaurants and the fact that we were tempted to stay an extra day in restaurant just to continue eating, we dubbed the area the Bermuda Restaurant Triangle.
• Tuesday morning we decided to sleep in and really take our time getting out of Lawrence. We wanted to enjoy our nice bed at the Hampton and have plenty of time to eat at Perkins and Culvers before leaving. After eating, taking a few pictures and stopping by Walmart to grab some additional camping supplies, we finally got back on the road at one in the afternoon. I still can't believe that we got started that late, but we had a lot of fun in Lawrence and it felt good to just take it easy.
• We drove all day through Kansas which was unbelievably windy. Our gas mileage sucked. But we did eventually make it through to Limon, Colorado where we stayed the night. After spending the previous night at a fairly nice hotel we decided to stay at the cheapest cherry-popper hotel that we could find in Limon. Fortunately there were plenty to choose from. We stayed at a bright pink hotel called the Safari Motel. The room was actually pretty nice considering how cheap it was.
• On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning both we unhitched a couple of Rosey's bikes from her truck and went riding through Limon. Tuesday night we just did a short ride through town to the Subway at the T&A truck stop. On Wednesday morning we did a slightly longer ride through the country side. It felt awesome to get out on the bike after spending so much time driving in the car.
• We managed to get back on the road at a decent hour (before 9AM) and made it through Denver and into Rocky Mountain National Park in the early afternoon. We did a short 5.6 mile hike up to Loch Vale before going to the Grocery store in Estes Park to stock up for the next couple of days.
• On Thursday morning we followed the advice of an 0ff-duty ranger and decided to hike up to Chasm Lake on the east side of the park. The ranger, whom we spoke to on the shuttle on the way back from the Loch Vale hike, gave us some good advice. He said, "You're always either having fun or building character". The hike up to Chasm Lake was a little bit of both. It was one of the most beautiful hikes that I have even been on in my life, but it was definitely challenging. The hike started at 9500 ft. above sea level and ended up just shy of 12,000 ft. above sea level at a huge lake in a hanging glacial bowl. It was wicked cool. We were actually hiking up above the clouds. We spent about an hour at the lake where we ate lunch and then laid back on the rocks and watched the clouds form and then disperse overhead. After lunch I read Rosey some poetry by Pablo Neruda. The whole experience was awesome!
• On Friday morning, sore and tired from the previous days adventure, we packed up camp for the last time. We drove through the park out the West entrance so that we could experience just a little more of the park on our way out. After a very long day of driving we finally arrived back in Spanish Fork shortly after 7PM.

This was the abbreviated version of our story. I would like to put something more detailed up eventually, but for right now I just wanted to get something up there for everyone to see.

Just Struttin' Along

Here is a recording of me playing the jazz song, "Just Struttin' Along" on my piano. It's not a terribly complex song, but you have to remember that I only started taking lessons in January. I think that I've come a long way from struggling to play Jingle Bells :)

An Evening Stroll Up Timpanogos

A took a short hike up timpanogos tonight. Here are my pictures.

Cleaning Out My Closet

As I was cleaning out my closet to make room for Rosey, I decided that today would be a good day to get rid of all the clothes that no longer fit me. It turns out that this was pretty much all of the clothes in my closet :) I took a picture of everything stacked on my bed before delivering it to DI. I must have had 2 dozen pair of jeans and slacks, a dozen pair of shorts, countless shirts, several winter coats and some snow pants and bibs.

By the time that I was done, all that was left was two pair of jeans, two pair of cargo shorts, some board shorts and half a dozen t-shirts. Hmm, I think I need to go shopping :) At least there is plenty of room in the closet for Rosey now :)

Recycling Frustration

On the morning of January 1st 2005 I looked around at all of the empty beer bottles left over from the night of New Year's Eve festivities with Marci's in-laws and decided that I just didn't want to throw them away. It seem like such a waste to put that much recyclable glass into the trash. So, I decided to start collecting recyclables with the eventual plan of actually recycling them.

Shortly after that I called up the Spanish Fork city manager and inquired whether or not Spanish Fork had a recycling program. I was and still am almost embarassed to live in a city without a recycling program. When I lived in Wisconsin recycling was just part of your regular trash pickup. I was pleased to discover that Spanish Fork was renegotiating it's waste management contract and were hoping to include recycling services in the new contract. Unfortunately, this was going to take about six months.

I decided not to be discouraged, and I just started accumulating trash bags of glass, plastic and aluminum in my garage. Six months came and went and although there was some mention about the possibility of a recycling plan in one of my monthly utility bills nothing ever came of it.

It has now been a year and a half since I first started collecting recyclable garbage in my garage. I probably have a dozen trash bags filled with various glass, plastic and aluminum containers. I want very much to get rid of them out of my garage. This morning I decided that I'd had enough and went on a quest to find a place to dispose of my recyclables. This proved to be a much more difficult task than I could have imagined.

It was trivial to find a place that would recycle aluminum but very difficult to find places to take the plastic or glass. There were a couple of places in Salt Lake that sounded promising but none of them were open on Saturdays. Damnit! In the course of my googling I discovered that Provo actually has a curbside recycling service. I dug a little further and found out that Provo also has a place to drop off recyclables at their yard waste processing station just down the street from Novell.

So, I loaded my car with all of my garbage and headed off to Provo. When I pulled into the site, it wasn't obvious where the recycling drop off was. I spoke to the redneck attendant and asked him to point me in the right direction. He replied, "Well we do have that big blue thing over there, but I don't really know what it's for. I don't give a shit what you put in there." It turns out that big blue thing was meant only for recycling computer paper.

Can it really be that difficult to recycle glass and plastic in Utah County? In deperation I drove around Provo hoping to stumble across some big recycling dumpster that I knew didn't really exist. I drove past the Provo city offices, I drove past BYU, I drove past the Springville yard waste recycling center and then I finally drove past the Spanish Fork city offices before finally admitting defeat.

I was awfully tempted to just drive by a dumpster and unload my garbage into the trash. Was it really worth all of this trouble to recycle? The thought of unloading those bags of garbage back into my garage was killing me. In the end I decided to stick it out just a little longer. I couldn't stomach the thought of holding on to all this stuff for a year and a half only to end up throwing it away in a regular dumpster. Monday I'll call around in Salt Lake and find a place to recycle my garbage. I'll also be calling Spanish Fork city to harass them about not following through on their recycling plans.

A Life Told in T-Shirts

In order to make some room for Rosey in my closet, I decided to retire my Harley T-Shirt collection (very few of which actually fit me anymore) into the closet in my spare bedroom. I took a couple of minutes and catalogued all of my t-shirts as I moved them. It was fun to reminisce about all of the cool places that I've been on my Harley (and a few that I haven't been but had friends or family send me shirts).

I'm So Excited!

And I just can't hide it. There are only 9 more days until I get to see Rosey again. It has been a long and painful 3 weeks since the last time that we saw each other. It has been so painful, in fact, that we decided that we just can't do this again in July. So, instead of going out to visit Rosey next weekend, I am flying out and driving her back with me :) We are going to take our time and have a little mini-vacation adventure as we pass through Texas and New Mexico on the way home to Utah. It's weird to think that I will have a roommate in less than 3 weeks. I'm so excited! I guess this means that I've got some house cleaning to do this weekend :) And yes, Dad, this means that she will be here to meet you in July.

My Breaking Point

I found my breaking point on the bike last weekend. I had this crazy idea that I was going to ride the Nebo loop. The entire loop is a 92 mile ride with a good 30 miles that climb a winding mountainous road. I made it about 20 miles into the ride before my legs just couldn't take any more. I rode from my house in Spanish Fork and stopped a couple of miles above the Payson Lakes campground. It made for a 40 mile roundtrip. The total elevation gain was about 3500 feet (Spanish Fork sits at about 4500ft. and I stopped just about 8000ft.). Actually, I felt like I could have pushed forward another 20 miles through the mountains, but I knew that I wouldn't have the strength to ride the 50 miles back home once I got to the other side. I need to reattempt this someday with a support vehicle waiting for me in Nephi so that I can catch a ride home if I don't have the energy to continue.

My Compulsion

I have a problem. I am forming an addiction to riding my bike. Yesterday I rode nearly 70 miles in the course of commuting back and forth to work, and a 'short' recreational ride that I did on the way home. 70 miles. For fun. I rode 13 miles into work, 16 miles at lunch, 16 miles on the way home (via a different route), and a 25 mile sidetrip up the right fork of hobble creek canyon.

What's even worse is that I purposely choose rides in which I will be climbing monstrous hills. Hobble Creek Canyon is essentially 12.5 miles of uphill (of course that's followed by 12.5 miles of downhill). I remember not so long ago when I rode 60 miles for the first time and thought that I was going to die afterwards. My, how things have changed :)

Weekend Update

I have neglected my blog over the last week or so, so I thought that I would give a blanket update of my life in a single post:

Salsa!
I started a Salsa dancing class with Lisa on Thursday night. I've been wanting to take some dancing lessons for a while so when Lisa invited me to join her it seemed like a good opportunity. Ideally, I'd prefer learning to salsa with a girlfriend rather than a sister, but I'll take what I can get. I rode my Harley to the first night of class and I can safely say that I was the only one there wearing combat boots. Believe it or not combat boots are not the ideal shoes for learning to Salsa. I may have to dig up a different pair of shoes for next week's lesson. Unfortunately, I'm going to be dancing solo for my next two lessons. Lisa snuck off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks leaving me without a partner.

The Phone
It is inexplicable, but I have spent over a dozen hours on the phone with Rosey over the last 4 days. It's particularly strange because both of us claim not to be 'phone people' and yet we can't seem to hang up. On Thursday night we talked for 5 hours until nearly 3 in the morning. Saturday night (after talking twice earlier in the day) we talked for three hours until 2 in the morning. It's a good thing that Rosey has a good cell plan with free nights and weekends :)

Gaining a Roommate
On Thursday night as Rosey and I were discussing her plans for moving to Salt Lake I brought up the idea of living together. On the one hand it seems terrifying to move in so quickly, but on the other hand neither of us could imagine living apart once Rosey lived out here. We didn't arrive at a conclusion on Thursday night but after letting it simmer for a couple of days we decided on Saturday for sure that Rosey will be moving in with me when she moves out to Utah in July. I know it's a little crazy but we just decided that we wanted to have an adventure and that we were willing to take a risk.

The Visit
I will be flying out to Alabama one more time in June to visit Rosey before she moves out here. I fly out on Friday the 16th of June and come back on Monday the 19th. The plan is to rent a Harley on Saturday and spend the day riding and camp overnight in some place that I can't remember the name of right now :) On Sunday we will return the Harley and switch gears to riding non-motorized bicycles through Northern Alabama. Sunday night and Monday we will probably just kick back and recover from our weekend adventure.

The Move
Rosey is planning on moving out to Utah in mid-July. The plan is that I will fly out to meet her in Alabama and then we will drive back together. I'm planning on taking a week off of work and turning it into a mini-vacation. We are going to hit Big Bend National Park, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands National Monument and Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the drive back. I'm excited, it should be a lot of fun!

The Book
When I wasn't on the phone with Rosey this weekend, I was reading, "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku, one of Rosey's favorite books. It's a physics book that provides an introduction to higher dimensional space. It can be a bit heavy in parts but it has been a really interesting read for me. One of the things that I really like about Rosey is that she challenges me intellectually. My brain feels like it actually needs to work to keep up with her :)

Stuart Falls
Although I spent most of the weekend in a lethargic state in protest of the cruddy weather, I did manage to get off my ass on Saturday afternoon to go hiking with Owen and Kim. We hiked out to Stuart Falls above Aspen Grove in Provo Canyon. Stuart Falls is one of my favorite hikes. Last summer I hiked it several times a week to build up my stamina for hiking in Glacier National Park. I also snowshoed it several times this winter. I had dragged Owen out to Stuart Falls on a previous occasion, but this was Kim's first time ever. It was a pretty good time even though we were hiking in cold weather and a slight drizzle for part of the hike. I put some pictures up here.

Timpanogos Cave
On Monday I was invited to spend the morning and afternoon 'celebrating' Memorial Day with my friends Dale and Bethany. We did a short hike up to Timpanogos Cave and went on the cave tour. Despite having been through the cave on numerous occasions before I still always enjoy it. Although I have to say that the tour guide that we had today was not really the best. She wasn't horrible, but she just wasn't as personable as some of the guides that I have had in the past.

I hiked most of the way up and the entire way down with one of Dale's two kids on my shoulders. It amuses me to carry extra weight when I hike now considering how much weight I've lost over the last year. I could've carried both of Dale's kids at the same time and still would have been lighter than the last time that I hiked up Timpanogos :) Here are some pictures from our hike.

Wipe Out

I totally wiped out on my bicycle on my way back from lunch yesterday afternoon. I was pulling back into the Novell parking lot when I noticed that the sprinklers were on up ahead of me and were doing a pretty good job of watering the pavement. Most of the parking lot is paved with asphalt except for a small patch right in front of building H that is smooth concrete. I was approaching the building from the South and needed to make a hard left to get to where I parked my bike on the West side of the building. This took me right over the patch of smooth, wet concrete. I've had trouble here before on my motorcycle when the pavement was wet so I slowed way down on the bike.

I was probably going 20 MPH when I pulled into the Novell parking lot and slowed down to a good 10 MPH as I was approaching the wet pavement. Well, apparently I didn't slow down enough because as soon as I turned my handlebars, my bike went flying out from beneath me and my body slid a good 6 to 8 feet on the concrete. Ouch! The most embarrassing part was that there were a good half a dozen people standing in front of the building who witnessed the whole event. They all rushed over to see if I was OK. Fortunately I was. My head did hit the ground but it was little more than a light tap. I had enough forward momentum that it was really more of a slide than a fall.

After taking a couple of seconds to regain my composure I hopped back on my bike and rode the rest of the way to the side of the building. I didn't do any major damage but I've got some small patches of road rash and a couple of bruises today.

Living the Dream

I had an incredible weekend with Rosey in Alabama! The photos are here.

What surprised me the most about meeting Rosey was that I didn't get nervous at all; not even when I got off the plane in Birmingham. When we finally met it was like I had known her forever and this wasn't really our first meeting. In fact, I was so comfortable around her that I think that it made her a little uncomfortable at first :)

We talked alot. We laughed alot. We even laughed about some of the things that we talked about. It amused us both that we were comfortable enough to talk about a number of things that were atypical for 'first date' conversations. Even when we weren't talking it was just good to be in each other's company.

Our drive up to Bankhead National Forest was one such occasion where we didn't talk a whole lot but were still comfortable and just enjoyed being together. It was a beautiful day, my iPod was cranking good music through the stereo, and we just sat holding hands and enjoying the passing scenery and the warm sunlight beating down through the windows of Rosey's Silver Rodeo.

Holding hands was something that we did a lot of over the weekend. In fact it seemed like hardly a moment went by where we weren't touching each other in some (totally innocent :) way. I loved that; I'm a very kinesthetic person.

Kissing was another thing that we did a lot of. We must have kissed a thousand times. It almost got to be a problem. On several occasions, we were just about to head out somewhere when we would 'accidentally' get locked in embrace and inevitably get distracted from our original plan :)

Camping in Bankhead National Forest was awesome. We backpacked in several miles alongside the Sipsey River, sometimes hiking in the river itself. We setup camp at a spot on the bank of the river where we could hear a waterfall in the distance. There were a ton of waterfalls. Well, Rosey called them waterfalls, I called them water trickles :)

Rosey did all of the packing for the trip. It was almost amusing to me (in an endearing sort of a way) how thorough she was. She thought of everything. She actually bought me a special pair of shoes for hiking in the river and a head mounted flashlight for hiking the trails at night (both of which came in handy).

Ironically, after all of that preparation, there was one thing that we actually forgot to pack in: the cooking kit. So, we had a sterno stove and plenty of food but nothing to cook in :) Fortunately, Rosey had packed enough snizzacks (snacks) to last us an entire week. So we didn't starve by any stretch of the imagination. Rosey was still a little disappointed by the oversight. She had worked so hard to prepare a 'perfect' camping trip only to have her plans thwarted by a delinquent cooking kit.

It's hard to pick a favorite moment from the weekend, but I could at least throw out a few moments that would be competitors were I to make such a distinction. It would be one of: laying with my head on Rosey's lap on the rocks behind the 'waterfall' above our campsite, taking an impromptu 'shower' beneath the waterfall up the hiking trail from our campsite, cuddling beneath the sheets in the tent and wasting away the morning talking on Sunday, or giving and then receiving a full body massage on Sunday night back at the hotel in an attempt to relieve our sore muscles.

When we talked later in the weekend about how the other person differed from our expectations going into the weekend I told Rosey that she was pretty much exactly what I had expected. I wasn't disappointed or caught off guard in any way. I think that's why I was able to feel so comfortable around her.

It almost freaked me out how closely Rosey matched my 'dream'. The only bad thing about that is that the whole weekend felt like a dream. Had she differed from my imagination it would have dragged me back down to reality and grounded me a little. But she didn't. It felt like I spent a weekend living inside of my own dream.

I suppose that in the grand scheme of things that there are worse problems to have than living in your dreams :) Nonetheless, I am hoping to be able to snatch Rosey from the ether and pull her down into my everyday life where she can keep me company. Or maybe I'm looking at things the wrong way. Maybe what I need to do is to find a way to elevate myself into the ether to join her.

Sweet Home Alabama

Well after nearly 7 weeks, I am finally flying out to Alabama this afternoon to meet Rosey. I'm not nearly as nervous right now as I expected to be. I'm sure that it will hit me like a ton of bricks when I get off the plane in Birmingham. We're probably just going to hang out tonight, but tomorrow we're getting up early and heading off to do some backpacking in Bankhead National Forest. I'm excited, this will be my first overnight backpacking trip. Well, I suppose that I should start packing.

Before and After

I have wanted to post some before and after pictures for a while but I've been waiting for 'after' to actually happen. Well, it hasn't happened yet, I still have more weight that I want to lose, but I thought that it would be fun to post these pictures anyway. So, here goes:

In just under a year I have dropped a little over 100 lbs going from 325 down to 222 and lost 10 inches from my waist going from a size 46 to a size 36. Wow, that's a lot of weight.

Although I have slowed down a little I am still very active and am hoping to lose another 20 to 25 lbs. At this point I am no longer actively pursuing a weight goal. I am simply eating well and exercising regularly and hoping that the weight will come off naturally as my body finds a new equillibrium. So far it seems to be working.

Hiking Hobble Creek

Went hiking with Marci and Malina in Hobble Creek Canyon on Saturday. Here are some pictures.

Assault on Sundance

For years I have driven the steep and twisty road up to Sundance and passed cyclists chugging their way up that seemingly interminable hill. I always thought to myself, "What a bunch of bad-asses". Seriously, you have to be in pretty good shape to tackle a hill like that. I secretly wished that someday I would be in good enough shape to bike up Sundance. Well, today was that some-day.

I started this morning at my house in Spanish Fork, rode through Mapleton, Springville and Provo to the mouth of Provo canyon where I started to climb up to the turn-off to Sundance and the Alpine Loop. I did take a quick pitstop at Vivian Park to relieve some fluids and replenish others. Once I got on the Alpine Loop Road, I just started chugging. It wasn't necessarily pretty... I had to kick it into my lowest gear and I was leaving a trail of sweat behind me. But I did it!

In fact, not only did I get to Sundance but I continued up the road another 3 miles, past Aspen Grove to the parking lot for the Timp hike. I probably could have ridden further but the road was closed. Coming back down that hill kicked ass! I was going so fast that it was almost a little frightening at times. I don't normally ride with a helmet but I brought one along today precisely because I knew that I was going to be cruising down this hill. Of course, at the speeds that I was going I'm not sure that the helmet would have done much good.

I was pretty damned proud of myself on the ride home. My legs were sore and I was riding a little slower than usual, but damnit, I held my head high :) And just then when I was feeling like I had conquered the world, a car full of kids drove by and shouted, "Fatass!" as they passed. I know that I shouldn't have let it bother me, but it kind of hurt my feelings. I was more than a little pissed off. Eventually I calmed down though and decided to take it as a brutal but valid reminder that as far as I've come I still have more to go.

Oh, by the way, the ride total was 60 miles today. It wasn't the longest ride that I've been on but it was one of the most challenging ones.

Three Hundred and Fifty Three

Three Hundred and Fifty Three. That's the number of emails that have been sent back and forth between Rosey and I over the last 37 days. It's nuts, but I love it.

Who is Rosey? Rosey is one of the most incredible girls that I've ever met. We were introduced through Yahoo Personals. She is currently living in Alabama but is planning on moving to Salt Lake in the near future. She posted her personals profile in Salt Lake in order to meet some people before moving out here. Neither one of us started off looking for something more than friendship, but we instantly clicked and could tell that there was a possibility for something more.

One of the first things that caught my attention about Rosey's profile was her love of the outdoors. She is really into biking, hiking, kayaking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, camping... basically anything outdoors :) If that were the only thing that we had in common I would have been really impressed, but there is so much more. The next thing that really got me interested was that, in her profile, Rosey mentioned that she was really into Physics, Philosophy and Eastern Religion. She is a frighteningly intelligent person.

In one of our early emails we were discussing the Tao Te Ching. I had mentioned that I had read it but that I was underimpressed by the philosophy contained therein. Rosey countered with some very interesting insights into the nature of nihilistic belief systems. I was incredibly impressed but I began to wonder to myself, "What if she is all intellect and there is no lighter side to her?".

Just as I was pondering that question I received a new email from Rosey entitled "Cheesy Poofs". I bust out laughing immediately before even opening it. She had sent me a video of herself doing an impression of Cartman, a character from the cartoon, "South Park". She definitely has a lighter side :) From the Tao Te Ching to Cheesy Poofs in 30 seconds or less... seriously, how cool is that?

Our list of similarities and compatibilities is really pretty long. We frequently have moments when we are talking to each other where we really get freaked out because one person will say something that totally mirrors how the other person feels about something.

The thing that I probably love best about Rosey is her ability to dream. She is capable of imagining her life different than it is now and is taking the necessary steps to bridge the gap between the real and the imagined. She sets goals and then follows through with them. This is evident both in her plan to move out to Utah and in the fitness goals that she has set for herself. I love that about her.

So far Rosey and I have only spoken via email and over the phone. We haven't actually met in person yet. However, that is about to change. The weekend after next I'm flying into Birmingham, Alabama to meet Rosey for the first time. Will the sparks fly? I don't know for sure but I'm hopeful. If we have even a tenth of the passion for each other in person that we have in our emails then I am sure that things will go spectacularly.

Rosey is such an amazing person that I seriously wonder what the hell I've done right in my life to deserve a shot at being with a girl like her. I'm not going to let that shot go to waste. Wish me luck! :)

Non-Competitive Ride

Several people have asked me about this so I thought that I would clarify it here. The 100 mile bike ride that I did on Sunday was a non-competitive ride. That means that there wasn't a winner and there were no places assigned to individual riders. I believe that most of the participants think of it more as a personal challenge to be able to complete a 100 mile ride. The wind and the rain made it an even greater challenge than it would normally be.

A lot of people have also confused this Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride with the Ironman Triathlon. I am not certain whether or not the two events are affiliated in any way. But this was just a bike ride and certainly was not a triathlon. It might be kind of fun to train for and participate in a regular triathlon but I'm not sure that I'd ever want to do the real Ironman triathlon. It sounds way too grueling.

St. Paul's Most Wanted

We had a little excitement this morning before leaving Jame's place. Chris and I were packing our bags and just about to leave when James stopped talking mid-sentence dropped his glass of water on the counter and started running full speed out of the house, down the street and into the woods. Chris and I just gave each other funny looks and wondered what the hell just happened. A couple of minutes later James emerged from the woods and explained that he had seen a couple of kids running out of the house across the street carrying several bags of stuff that obviously was not theirs. James called 911 and within two minutes the street was lined with cop cars. Within four minutes there was a K9 unit sniffing out tracks in the woods. Within 10 minutes they had arrested the two little punks that had broken into the house and were hauling them off to the police station. Way to go James! It turns out that these kids had been responsible for several break-ins in the neighborhood over the last couple of weeks.

Ride Photos

We didn't get a ton of photos but the ones that we did get are posted here.


By the way, the bike in the foreground of the picture does not belong to any of the three of us. It just happened to be sitting there.

A Hundred Miles Of Rain

It was cold, it was wet, the wind was fierce, but I rode hard and took no prisoners. The most difficult part of the ride was fighting the wind. There was a 20 MPH wind blowing from the East all day long. Unfortunately nearly 50 miles of the ride was riding directly into the wind. There were several times when the wind was blowing so hard that I had to stand up on my pedals as if climbing a hill just to keep enough forward momentum on the bike to prevent falling over.

The gear that I bought did a reasonable job of preventing me from freezing in the 45 degree temperatures all day long but it didn't help much to keep me dry. In the first 5 miles of the ride my socks were soaking wet and shortly after that everything else was as well. Surprisingly that didn't bother me so much as long as I kept moving. It was only when we stopped that it really became a problem.

The adverse weather conditions actually caused a lot of grief for the event organizers. It was taking everyone significantly longer to complete the ride than they had planned. We started riding at 8 in the morning and I didn't finish until nearly 5 PM. James finished a little after me closer to 6:30PM and Chris was having technical difficulties so he dropped out near the 75 mile mark.

The three of us had ridden together for most of the day but at the 65 mile mark I split off and wanted to open it up on my own for a while. It was actually kind of fun to test my legs out on a road bike. On that last 35 miles I was really riding hard and passing people like they were standing still. Not a single person passed me on that stretch of the ride. I'd like to think that I was just riding like a madman, but it could be that all of the really strong riders were already in front of me.

I have to admit that I was a little bit of an asshole at one point during the ride. I was climbing a fairly large hill but was taking it really easy because I didn't want to get too far ahead of Chris and James. A group of bikers came chugging past me riding in formation. As they passed the lead biker looked at me with contempt for going so slow as if he were saying to me, "You have no right to be here". It kind of pissed me off.

So, I let them pass and then decided to show them what I was really made of. I started pedaling at my full capability, easily caught back up to them, paced the leader for a couple of yards, gave him a dirty look and then went flying past him without even breaking a sweat. When I got to the top of the hill I turned around and came back down. I probably could have passed them a second time but I didn't want to rub it in that much and I wanted to get back to riding with Chris and James.

Unfortunately no bad deed goes unpunished by Karma. A minute after coming back down the hill I got a flat tire and had to stop. Luckily James had a spare tube and all of the right tools for getting flat swapped out. We were back on the road in a couple of minutes.

That was the first of 3 flats that I had while riding. The second happened after I had split off from Chris and James. Unfortunately I was not bright enough to think to carry a pump or spare tube with me when I left. So, I stopped another biker and used his pump to put a little air back into my tire. I knew that it wouldn't last forever but I was hoping that it would at least get me to the next rest stop in 6 miles. I got about 5 miles before the tire had so little air that I couldn't continue. Fortunately a guy from a local bike shop (they were all there manning the race) happened to drive by and helped me swap out a second tube. This time we found a big chunk of glass embedded in the tire.

All in all I really had a lot of fun. The weather did make it a little grueling but it wasn't too bad. My month of training definitely paid off for me. I wouldn't have survived the ride if I had just shown up without any training all. I might have survived in fair weather, but not with the crap that we had yesterday.

On The Eve Of My Challenge

I am blogging live from St. Paul, Minnesota the night before the 100 mile Ironman bike ride. There are a total of 5000 people that are joining me on my quest tomorrow. I'm excited. The only thing that is dampening my enthusiasm is the fact that the weather forecast is calling for light rain and strong winds all day tomorrow. Luckily we were able to make a stop at the bike store tonight and I picked up a bunch of rain gear for the ride. I figured that it was best to be as comfortable as possible tomorrow as I ride. Wish me luck that I don't get too soggy or cold!

A Requiem For A Dream

I usually try not to post about overly personal matters on my blog but since a number of you have been riding along with me on the Holly-Dan roller coaster for the last six months I thought that I would give an update...

I am sorry to say that after six months of chasing a dream that the dream is finally dead. It's funny that it comes at a time when things looked like they may have had a chance at improving. Holly had finally decided to stop living with her x-boyfriend and to get a place of her own. I'm sure that I will be criticized by some for the timing of my decision.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. There wasn't a fight, things weren't going particularly bad. But it had been over two months since I had last seen Holly. That wasn't for a lack of me offerring to come visit her or to fly her out to visit me. But she always seemed to have other plans preventing us from spending time together.

Over the course of the last two months spent alone I began to imagine what the next 2 years of my life would be like with Holly. As hard as I tried I couldn't imagine a future for us that was markedly different from what the last 6 months has been. I imagined a number of really good weekends ahead of us. But I also imagined those weekends spent together separated by periods of several months spent apart. I imagined myself constantly wondering how Holly felt about me and whether or not things were going to work out.

What I finally decided was that I didn't want to spend the next two years of my life that way. I knew that this decision meant giving up on an awful lot of good times that Holly and I could have had together. But it also meant foregoing an awful lot of pain, confusion, frustration and waiting.

I informed Holly of my decision via an email message. I know that's a little cowardly, but I have had such a hard time really communicating with Holly over the phone. I knew that to get out what I meant to say that I really needed to get it in writing. It has been over a week and I still have not gotten a response from Holly. Is it because she is so pissed off at me that she doesn't want to respond? Is it that she cared so little for me that she doesn't want to take the time to respond? I really don't know. But that was exactly the problem. I never knew what Holly was feeling.

Holly is an incredible person and I may never again in my life meet someone that I'm so passionate about. But, damnit, I'm going to try. And if I am lucky enough to find that person, maybe, just maybe, they will feel the same way about me.

I am the ass kicker-er, not you

The plan for my ride today was to do the same ride around the backside of Utah Lake that I did a couple of weeks ago, only this time I was going to add on another 20 miles or so and end up my sister's house in Orem. That would bring the ride total up to 80 miles and represented about 80% of a full loop around Utah Lake. However, I was feeling awesome and hauling ass on the bike today. So when I got to my sister's house 2 hours earlier than I had planned, I decided to just keep riding and finish the loop. So, my ride total for the day was close to 100 miles (Map Point officially says 96.4 but I don't believe it). James, Chris... I have but one thing to say to you: Prepare yourselves for an ass kicking :)

P.S. - Bonus points to anyone besides Master Fob that knows the reference behind the title of this post.

Impulsive Music Shopping

I stopped by Best Buy on Friday night and picked up four new CD's. Two of them were planned but the other two were total impulse buys.

I bought:

• Evanescence, "Fallen" - Great album. Amy played this for me last week. I had heard some of the songs before but never realized who the artist was until she played it for me.
  
• Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around" - I've been meaning to pick this up for some time now. I got it mostly for Johnny's rendition of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" and Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", but I really like the whole album. Holy Crap. Yesterday I wore spandex biker shorts and today I'm listening to Country music. Who am I?!?! :)
  
• KT Tunstal, "Eye to the Telescope" - I loved the single, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree", but didn't really plan on buying the whole album until I noticed that Best Buy was selling it for $7.99. I figured that I couldn't go wrong with that kind of price. It's actually a pretty good album.
• Various Artists (Compiled by Fischerspooner), "The Other Side: New York" - This was a total impulse buy. I was actually looking for some Ferry Corsten but they were out. I felt like I needed to feed my recently rekindled techno affinity, so I started browsing through some of the other albums in the techno section. I recnognized Fischerspooner and the album sounded pretty cool so I bought it. The jury is still out on whether or not this one was worth the money that I paid for it. I like some of the songs, but others are really strange.
  

Zion

I ran down to Zion today to do some hiking. I hiked the Observation Point trail. It starts at Weeping Rock and works it way up 2200 ft over 4 miles to a plateau overlooking the canyon floor. The view was spectacular. Because of the recent rain, the clouds were still hanging pretty low and it was like I was nearly hiking in the clouds.

On my way back down from Observation Point I noticed a fork in the trail that said, "NPS Boundary - 2.5 Miles". The trail wasn't on any maps that I had ever seen before and is not otherwise mentioned in any of the park literature. "NPS Boundary" didn't sound all that exciting, but I couldn't help but wonder what hidden secrets were to be found on this uncharted trail.

Could this be the elusive "secret ranger hike" that Chris and I had speculated about? I had to find out for myself. So, I hiked a 5 mile roundtrip to find out that the trail indeed led to nothing more than the edge of the park. In case you are wondering, it's a big barbed wire fence. Now I know :)

I brought my iPod with me on the trip but I forgot to bring the earbuds. So, it didn't really do me any good while I was hiking. It was kind of scary to be left alone with nothing but my thoughts for 6 hours straight. No good can come of that :) I spent a lot of time thinking about Alabama. Go figure?!?! :)

The pictures are here.

Man In Tights

I never would have imagined that I would do this, but I actually bought and wore (out in public no less) a pair of spandex biker shorts. They come with a nifty padded butt and crotch and that makes me feel a little like I'm wearing a maxi pad. But it does help quite a bit to keep my butt a little more comfy. What do you think, is it a sexy look for me?

While at the bike store I also picked up some clip-in pedals and shoes. It's hard to tell yet how much difference they make because it was really windy out today as I was riding. The wind was so strong that it was hard to tell whether or not I was riding more powerfully.

For some reason I was really afraid of forgetting to clip-out when I came to a stop and falling over sideways. But they really are pretty natural to use. The only difficulty that I've had is getting clipped in fast enough from a complete stop when I need to quickly cross a busy street. I'm getting better though. Another couple of days and I'll probably forget what it was like to ride without them.

Eureka!

I completed my second training ride this morning. I rode 72 miles from my house in Spanish Fork to Eureka and then back again. The most challenging part of the ride was a 10 mile stretch of road that goes up and into mountains to get to Eureka. I thought that freakin' hill was never going to end. But I kicked it into low gear and just kept hammering away until I finally made it.

When I finally got to the summit I did something that wasn't too bright. Instead of stopping in Eureka, I decided it was way too much fun going downhill, so I overshot the town by a couple of miles. That was a great idea until I realized that I had to turn right back around and ride back up it :) Speaking of downhill... cruising back down that 10 mile downhill section kicked ass.

Towards the end of the 72 miles things got ugly. I had plenty of energy left in my legs (which surprised me considering that my knees felt like they were going to explode when I woke up this morning), but my ass was in an indescrible amount of pain. It didn't help that my seat had worked it's way loose and the nose of the seat kept digging into my crotch and applying pressure where pressure really shouldn't be applied. I guess that will teach me to bring tools along on my next ride.

I saw quite of bit of wildlife on the ride; albeit most, or rather, all of it dead. I thought it slightly ironic that most of the carnage was accounted for by bunny rabbits (wild jackrabbits). How fitting for Easter Sunday (It is Easter today isn't it?). I also saw several several dead dear, skunks, birds and even a few cats and dogs. Seriously it was kind of gross.

Romping through the Devil's Garden

I couldn't resist the warm weather today so I got up early and drove down to Moab to do some hiking in Arches National Park. No trip to Arches is complete without a hike to Delicate Arch, so I payed homage to our great states' license plate adornment before exploring new territory in the Devil's Garden. The Devil's garden trail is pretty cool. It takes you down into a maze of Sandstone fins where there were just a ton of Arches.

The highlight of the day was when I decided to go off trail at Private Arch. I crossed through the arch into the canyon separating two fins and decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I could find a better way back to the trail than the way that I came. So, I started to tread up canyon. That worked well until the canyon walls got so narrow that I couldn't fit in between them anymore. There was a section of about 30 feet that I had to traverse by propping myself between the two canyon walls with my hands pressed up against one side and my feet on the other (there is a technical term for this in canyoneering, but I can't think of it now). Fortunately, I made it out alive and without injury. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get any pictures until after I was safely out of the canyon. Oh well.

I had an interesting experience while sitting atop double-o arch. I had climbed up the backside of the arch and was perched a couple of hundred feet above the ground. From my perch I could see a young couple (early 20's) that had wandered off trail and thought that they were hidden behind some rocks. They were totally making out. I felt kind of guilty for watching but, hey, they were totally oblivious to my existence and besides it was all PG rated anyway. The moral of the story is that it made me kind of jealous. No, not of the girl. It made me jealous that I don't have anyone to have a redrock romance with.

Here are my pictures.

In Training

I rode 60 miles on my mountain bike today. I rode from Spanish Fork to Lehi via Santaquin and the backside of Utah Lake. It was long, it was grueling, but I did it. I'm just kidding, it really wasn't that bad. I could imagine riding another 40 miles after stopping for lunch. It was really my ass and not my legs that did me in.

My plan had been to stop by the bike store yesterday to gear up before riding today. I wanted to get some new pedals that I can clip into, biker shorts, a biker jersey, and a helmet. But, the bike store was out of the pedals so I decided to wait until next week to gear up. The moral of the story is that I must have looked out of place while I was riding today, because a Sheriff's van actually pulled up alongside me and asked if I wanted a ride. I was kind of offended :)

Although this is my longest ride, it's not my first day of training. I started riding my bike to work on Thursday of last week. It's about 15 miles each way and then an extra 10 miles if I ride at lunch. So, that's 30 to 40 miles a day of riding that I'm getting in. Unfortunately the weather in Utah in April will prevent me from doing this more than a couple or 3 days a week... but every little bit counts.

My Own Private Opera Performance

I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Capitol Theatre on Saturday night with Owen, Kim and Pam. As we were driving up to the theatre I was talking to Pam about the opera. It turns out that Pam actually sings opera. This, of course, piqued my interest as I have been starting to get into opera myself lately. I asked Pam what her favorite opera was and she listed a number of operas but said that one her favorite songs was Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot.

Pam tried to describe the song, saying that it was fairly popular and that we would probably recognize it if we heard it. Jokingly, I told her to sing some of it to us. I say that all the time to people that are trying to describe a song to me and nobody ever does. I don't even really expect anyone to sing when I ask them to; it's just a joke. Most people sing so horribly that they would never even consider singing in front of other people.

Well, Pam apparently didn't think I was kidding and she actually starting belting out opera as we were driving along I-15 on the way to Salt Lake City. Oh my God, she had such an incredible voice. It was beautiful. It only lasted 15 or 20 seconds, but it was still probably the highlight of my evening... and that's saying alot considering that it was a pretty damned good evening.

Lest any of you (one of you in particular) get the wrong impression I would like to clarify that Pam is LDS and I wouldn't really consider pursuing a relationship with her. But she was good company for the theatre and I have to admit that I was terribly impressed by her voice.

My New Car

Well, I did it, I bought a new car this weekend. It's a 2007 Toyota Camry LE. Yes, a 2007. It's so new that it's actually from the future. It won't even start to depreciate until next year.

I didn't really plan on buying a new car this weekend. I had originally planned on waiting a couple more weeks. But, I was out Cross Country skiing with Marci on Saturday morning and afterwards asked if she wanted to stop by the Toyota dealership to take a look at the car that I was thinking about buying.

As we were driving over to the dealer, Sheila, my salesperson, called me on my cell and told me that they just got in some new 2007 Camry LE's for me to look at. I test drove a 2007 Camry LE and then a 2007 SE (a souped up sportier model with a V6) and then a 2006 LE. I decided that the SE was more money than I wanted to spend and that there were enough things that I didn't like about the 2006 LE to make it not worth the killer deal that I could have gotten.

That left me with the 2007 LE which I really liked, was incredibly comfortable to drive, and was reasonably priced. But most of all it just felt like it fit me. The Passat was undoubtedly a fancier car but it just didn't feel like it fit me as well.

So, I informed Sheila that of the 3 Camry's that I had test driven I liked the 2007 LE best. She misunderstood me and thought that I said that I was ready to actually buy the 2007 LE. She told me to come on inside and that we would run some numbers. Just as I was about to correct her and let her know that I wasn't really prepared to buy that day, I thought to myself, "What the hell? Why not buy a new car today?". And so I did :)

More Car Shopping

I continued my car shopping saga today. I took an hour or so and went over to the Brent Brown Toyota dealership to take a look at a Corolla and a Camry. I decided pretty quickly that the Corolla wasn't for me. I wanted something a little bigger and a little fancier. I actually took a look at two Camry models. They had both a 2006 LE and a 2007 SE. The '07 SE was much fancier and was a better comparison to the Passat. But the LE was a really comfortable and nice car. I'm going to wait until I can take a look at a 2007 LE but the Camry is definitely a strong competitor to the Passat.

It was interesting to compare the experience between the two dealerships. They were definitely much friendlier, lower pressure and had better service at the Toyota dealership.

• I waited nearly 15 minutes to talk to a salesman at the VW dealership. And when one came it was some guy who came up from the used car lot not even one of the regular new car guys. At the Toyota dealership, I still had to wait while they paged someone, but she showed up within 20 seconds of being paged.
• The guy at the VW dealership didn't want to let me leave and pretty much told me that he wouldn't deal with me except in person. The girl at the Toyota dealership was totally laid back and relaxed and wasn't pressuring me to buy right then at all. In fact she almost seemed to be working on the assumption that I wasn't going to be buying that day.
• In general the guy at the VW dealership took his sweet time to do everything. He didn't really seem to value my time at all. The girl at the Toyota dealership, when she couldn't find the keys to one of the cars that I wanted to look at, actually ran back into the office to get them. I generally got the impression that she valued my time and realized that I was the customer.
• The Passat that I drove seemed to having trouble with it's automatic rain detection system. The wiper blades kept turning on automatically even though there wasn't a drop of moisture on the car. The frustrating thing was that there was no way of turning them off. I can understand something going wrong on the demo car, it happens to me all the time when demoing software. The thing that bugged me, is that the salesman says, "Oh yeah, I forgot this was the one that has that problem with the wipers". If he knew about the problem ahead of time, why didn't he just have it fixed?
• When I tried to email the VW sales guy for more information (since he didn't email me like he said he was going to) my email bounced with an invalid email address. The email address I was using was right on the business card that this guy gave me. That is just so unprofessional.
  

Car Shopping

Last week my Cavalier started making funny noises again. I've finally decided that it's not worth putting any more money into fixing this car. So, I've begun the long and arduous process of shopping for a new car. My short list right now is as follows:

• Volkswagon Jetta
• Volkswagon Passat
• Toyota Corolla
• Toyota Camry
• Honda Civic
• Honda Accord

I actually stopped by the VW dealer today on the way home and test drove both the Jetta and the Passat. I really, really dig the Passat. The only question is whether or not I really want to spend 30K on a new car. There's no doubt that I could afford it, but the question is whether or not I really want to. I could buy a Corolla or Civic for half the price and find plenty of other ways to spend the 15K that I saved. On the other hand, if this car lasts me for 10 years like my last one did, I would just as soon have a nice car for the next ten years of my life and not one that I settled for.

I was previously harboring delusions of owning an SUV so that I could haul toys around, but I've pretty much killed that idea. I've decided this winter that there aren't any toys that I use frequently enough that it would work out to buy them and store them rather then just rent them a couple of times a season. Besides I never really liked the idea of having to drive an SUV to work every day. It would make me feel dirty.

Drunken Debauchery

After a long day of working in the tech lab at Brainshare on Monday I was able to kick back and relax at the Messaging Architects Brewfest on Monday night. Every year at Brainshare, The Messaging Architects rents out the back room at Squatters Pub and Brewery and provide free beer and food for all in attendance. It's a great party. This is actually only the first year that I have attended Brewfest in Salt Lake City, although I did go to the Brewfest at Brainshare in Barcelona.

I think that I may have gotten a little over-zealous with the free beer this year. Before I even realized it, I had drunk way too much. My first clue was when I wasn't able to walk straight anymore. My second clue was when I started eating Macaroni and Cheese off of Kim's plate with a knife (that's more challenging than you might imagine). My third clue was when I was urinating in public behind a dumpster in downtown Salt Lake while talking on my cell phone to Holly. At least I was outside. I stopped counting after the third clue... but needless to say there were plenty of others.

Fortunately for me, Owen and Kim were along and they offerred to drive me back to Spanish Fork. That was probably a good idea considering that I couldn't walk straight. I'm smart enough that I wouldn't have tried to drive even if Owen and Kim weren't there, but I probably would have ended up sleeping in the parking garage that night instead at home in my comfy bed.

I Am Ironman

I have accepted a new challenge in life. On April 30th, I will be joining James and Chris on the Minnesota Ironman 100 mile bike ride. This will be a real challenge considering that I have previously never ridden more than 50 miles in one day. I plan to start training next week after Brainshare is over. My plan is to start riding to work at least 3 days a week (30 miles roundtrip) and then to bike at least 50 miles per weekend until the end of April. I'm psyched. This is going to kick ass!

Snow Falling in Zion

This coming week is Novell's annual Brainshare convention. We have customers and partners flying in from all over the world to attend. A couple of GroupWise partners flew in a couple of days before the show and decided to do some hiking in Zion National Park. Several of us from the Provo office joined them for what turned out to be a very unique Zion hiking experience. All in all there were 8 of us: two from the Netherlands, one from Germany, one from Bulgaria, two product managers from Provo, the son of one of the product managers and myself.

I knew that we were in trouble when I checked the weather on Saturday morning and discovered that there was a 100% chance of light snow pretty much all day. It's not often that the weathermen feel confident to predict anything with 100% surety. We decided to press our luck and hike anyway. I, being the eternal optimist that I am, decided to hike in shorts. After all it was nearly 50 degrees in the morning before we started our hike. Weatherman be damned, I refused to believe that it was going to snow.

As we started our ascent up to angels landing there was a light drizzle. It was actually still warm enough that it wasn't a problem. Considering how hot I normally get when I hike, it was almost refreshing to hike in shorts in near freezing temperatures. This may very well be the first time in my life that I haven't sweat profusely while hiking.

By the time that we got to Scout's lookout. the light drizzle had turned into a near blizzard. Seeing the snow fall in the canyon was incredibly beautiful. It is the second time that I have seen Zion in the snow, but the first time that I've seen it while actually hiking.

Despite the beauty, the snow added a certain element of danger to the hike. The snow made it way too treacherous to hike the rest of the way to Angel's Landing from Scout's lookout. It also made the descent back down Walter's Wiggles somewhat harrowing. I think that Svetlin had it the worst. The shoes that he was wearing had no traction whatsoever. He mostly slid all the way down the wiggles.

The Magic Flute

I have survived my second foray in the world of Opera. Not only did I survive, but I rather enjoyed it. Last night I went to see Mozart's The Magic Flute at Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. I was rather surprised at how funny it was. I was also surprised how pretty German can be when it is sung rather than spoken. The Queen of the Night in particular had an incredible voice.

Speaking of sung languages versus spoken ones, I was a little disappointed that all of the spoken parts in the opera were actually in English. It was a little disorienting for the dialogue to be in English and all of the songs in German. Even though I don't understand a lick of German, it feels like it is betraying the original material to have the spoken parts in English.

I suspect that the English dialogue was not the only way in which the opera had been 'modernized'. There were a number of comedic references in the opera which, although they could have just been coincidental, seemed to be referencing some modern themes. For instance, at one point in the opera Papageno has just found Parmina (sp?) but is separated from her by a great enough distance that they are having trouble hearing each other. So, Papageno pulls two cans connected by a string out of his knapsack and throws one end to Parmina. Once Parmina has her end of the device firmly planted against her ear, Papageno asks, "Can you hear me now?"

I know this is a little juvenile but I was amused at the title of the opera. For some reason it kept reminding me of "American Pie". Every time I heard the phrase "Magic Flute", this line kept popping into my head: "This one time, at band camp...". Now that's a magical flute :)

See, that's what I love about me: I'm cultured enough to go to the opera, but white trash enough to compare it to "American Pie".

A Busy Weekend

I had kind of a crazy weekend. It went like this:

Friday:
* Come home from work
* Eat dinner (no time to cook, so I made a quick wrap)
* Practice Piano
* Work Out (Chest and Back)
* Met Jay in Salt Lake for Pool at Fats (I got my ass kicked... bad!)
* Home by 1:30AM

Saturday:
* Cardio Workout
* Made (and ate) Breakfast
* Went in to work (working on a side project)
* Came home, ate a light late lunch (didn't want to eat too much since I was going out to dinner late).
* Practice Piano
* Work Out (Biceps and Triceps)
* Met up with Owen, Kim and Amy at Famous Dave's in Midvale for dinner (Mmmm, ribs and really, really large glasses of beer).
* Went to QuickWits (improv comedy group) at The Comedy Circuit in Midvale.
* Home by 1:30AM

Sunday:
* Cardio Workout
* Made (and ate) Breakfast
* Went in to work for a couple of hours (still working on side project).
* Met Amy to see Ultraviolet (There were some good parts, but overall the movie sucked).
* Went to dinner at Marci's house where I discovered that I was unwittingly being setup with one of Marci's and Lisa's old roommates, Pam. Yeah, they forgot to mention that when they invited me over to dinner.
* Left dinner early and did my weekend chores: grocery shopping, laundry and dishes.
* Cooked some Sweet and Sour Pork and then stowed it away in tupperware so that I had leftovers to eat tonight in between work and my piano lesson.
* Practiced the Piano
* Did NOT workout (I don't lift on Sundays)
* Went back over to Marci's to play some scrabble. Really, I went over to Marci's to catch up with her since it's been a long time since we've had time to just sit down and chat. The scrabble was just a bonus... although I got my ass kicked :)
* Home, in bed and passed out by 11:30PM.

Web 2.0

I cringe every time that I hear a management or business type utter the phrase, "Web 2.0" or toss the buzzword AJAX into a conversation as if they really know what that means. Using Asynchronous JavaScript And XML to dynamically modify the DOM of an HTML document to present an interactive user experience via the web is admittedly cool. But it's cool in a hacked together, "we're making the best of what we have available" sort of a way. It drives me nuts that people are actually considering building the future of their rich client applications around these hacked together technologies.

Have you seen how much HTML, JavaScript and CSS is necessary simulate a fairly standard UI widget like a tree view? It's ridiculous. And even more ridiculous considering that there are dozens of other technologies that already exist with very mature and rich UI and widget toolkits. It makes me laugh a little when I hear people talk about the latest features of some Web 2.0 application that they have just played with: "Wow, it supports drag and drop and context menus and tabbed views". Did everyone forget that these features have been a staple of desktop applications for at least the last 10 years?

So why is it that Web applications are becoming so popular? Why is "Web 2.0" is being touted as the next big thing? Behind all of the hype I think that it comes down to the fact that web applications solve 2 core problems that are often overlooked in Desktop programming:

1. No install required. All the user needs to run the application is a Web Browser and a URL. When the application is upgraded, the user instantly sees the new version the next time that they hit the URL. Think about how easy it was to 'upgrade' to the latest version of Google Maps as opposed to the latest version of Microsoft Office.
2. Universal Access. Web applications can be accessed from any computer, anywhere in the world with a web browser and a connection to the internet. There are no files, settings or software that are installed locally on the computer that you are running the application from. Wherever you are, your data is right there with you. It doesn't even matter if the computer that you are using to access the application is running a different operating system than you normally use. The web application does not care.

Those sound like pretty good things. So, why shouldn't we be excited about turning web application into the face of our rich client applications? Here are some things to consider:

1. Limited desktop interaction. Because the application runs inside of the browser it has a limited ability to communicate with your desktop or other applications. For instance: Do you wanna drag that file from your browser based email client onto your desktop? Well, you can't. Because one, the HTML platform does not allow for that kind of interaction and two, even if it did you would be violating all manner of security policies to allow the browser to write data to the local disk.
   
2. Bound by the browser window. Have you ever right clicked on something in a web application near the edge of the window and then been really confused when the context menu popped up behind the edge of the window rather than on top of it. Because the all HTML is rendered inside the browser window your entire UI is contained within this box. Why?
   
3. Connection Required. How do you read and write email on a flight from LA to Hong Kong using a browser based email client when you don't have a connection to the internet? Simply put, you don't. This may be decreasingly important as more and more of the world becomes connected, but until that time, this is still something to consider. Now, I've heard ideas kicked around about running a local webserver to serve up the Web Interface from localhost when you are disconnected. That's a novel idea but doing so really violates the whole benefit of web applications (i.e. that the application is available through nothing more than a web browser and that no software or data is required to be installed on the local PC).
   
4. Clumsy and Inefficient UI programming. Of course this isn't something that the end user cares about but it bugs me as a programmer. Why should I have to hack together a list view using a milllions of div elements when I can just use a list view widget from a UI library. Even as AJAX toolkits evolve and list view widgets are made readily available through AJAX UI tookits, it still bothers me that the computer has to work 100 times as hard to hack an HTML document to behave like a list view than it would to just render a native list view.
5. Web applications violate browser usability. A web browser is one of the most familiar pieces of software in the world. It is this very fact that makes web applications tempting. Every computer user in the world understands: back, stop, reload and bookmarks. The problem with Web 2.0 is that it violates nearly every one of these concepts. The back button doesn't work to get you to a previous state in a web application because you didn't travel to a new page to get you into the current UI state; you simply modified the DOM of the existing page. Stop often doesn't work, because many times most of the data is being requested asynchronously after the page 'shell' has been loaded from the server. Reload and bookmarks don't work because both of them are URL based and as previously noted, the UI state of the page is not persisted in the URL.

So what is the answer the here? I imagine a future (and I know that I'm not the only here) where applications are written using rich programming languages and UI toolkits, run locally on the desktop (instead of in a browser window), but are dynamically launched from a URL where the most up-to-date copy of the application always resides. Instead of hacking a document formatting language (HTML) to build applications, let's fix the problems in our existing application building languages to allow them to reap the benefits of the lessons that we've learned from web applications (i.e. Zero footprint install on local computer, automatically updating and central access to data).

Leather Jacket

My new leather jacket arrived today from Ithaca, New York. There is really nothing terribly special about the jacket that would require me to order it from Ithaca, New York other than the fact that Harley Davidson apparently discontinued this jacket this year. Lucky for me the dealership in Ithaca had one left in my size on their clearance rack. I like it because it is plain, simple, classic and reasonably priced (which must be why Harley discontinued it). It's also identical to the one the I already own only it's two sizes smaller.

Beat

I'm not sure what came over me this morning, but for some reason I thought that it would be a good idea to ride my bike (Gary Fisher not Harley Davidson) from Utah Lake to Vivian Park in Provo Canyon. The round trip total was about 30 miles. It may have actually been a little than that since I had to find a detour around a part of the trail that was closed for construction. Although most of the trail was clear, I was riding through snow and ice for the 2-3 miles of trail between Bridal Veil Falls and Vivian Park. It was a good ride but now I'm pretty beat. My ass hurts, the muscles in my legs are crying, and the rest of my body just feels like melting into a puddle of ooze.

A Friendly Reminder

I tend to be a much more agressive driver on my motorcycle than I am in my car. OK, I'm man enough to admit it... I can be a real asshole driver on the bike. It might have been me that flew by you on freeway doing 100 MPH and passing you on the shoulder. It might have been me that passed you by driving in between lanes of traffic. Why do I do this? I don't know really... because I can? When I see people give me dirty looks, I shrug and think that they would probably do the same thing if they could.

As bad as I am year round, things are probably at their worst in the Spring. After suffering through several months of withdrawl from road lust, I feel like I need to make up for lost time. So, I drive a little faster and a little crazier.

I was doing about 20 over as I was coming down Hwy 6 this morning in Spanish Fork when I noticed that there was a Police car coming up the hill from the other direction. He didn't look like he was a traffic cop, but I still thought it best to ease onto the brakes just a little. Just as this thought passed through my head, the police car flipped on it's lights. "Ah, shit", I thought to myself. "I'm going to get a speeding ticket".

I slowed down and started to pull over waiting for the cop car to turn around and bust me. As the cop car passed, he signaled to me to slow down by moving his hands in a downward motion. He proceeded to pass, turned off his lights and then just kept going. I had been spared a speeding ticket. The near-ticket encounter scared the 'fast' out of me for about another 300 yards, at which point I opened the throttle back up and did 90 or 100 all the way to work.

Belated Cross Country Ski Pics

These pictures are from the weekend before last when I went cross country skiing with Brenda, Marci, Suzette and Steve. We had a blast even though we were just tooling around the golf course at Homestead Resort. It was freak'n cold... about 9 degrees when we started out in the morning. And yet, by the end of the day, I had stripped down to nothing more than a t-shirt and was still sweating profusely. God I love being me :)

Winter In Utah

God bless winter in Utah. In the last 3 days, I have ridden my Harley all over Utah Valley, played a round of frisbee golf at Provo Bicentennial Park and rode my mountain bike through Provo Canyon. And all of this in FEBRUARY! It kind of makes me think twice about ever wanting to move back to Wisconsin.

Desert Star Wars

I saw "Star Wars Episode MDCCLXXXIV - Sequel to the Prequels that were the Sequel" last night at the Desert Star theatre in Salt Lake. George Lucas, faced with declining revenue at Lucas Films and a poor public image, decides to hold a Star Wars convention in Salt Lake City (that's in Idaho right?) where he will unveil his next trilogy of films. What trilogy you ask? Well, even Mr. Lucas doesn't know... but he'll figure something out before the convention. Just then he stumbles across a screenplay written by one of his interns in the writing department.

The screenplay, written as a class project, fills in the gaps and plotholes between episodes 3 and 4 and, of course, ends with the violent, gory and long anticipated death of Jar Jar Binks. Problem solved! Add in a bunch of over-the-top special effects and ridiculous dialog and there shouldn't be any problem turning this class project screenplay into a new trilogy. The only problem is the timing. The new trilogy occurs between episodes 3 and 4. Episodes 4, 5, and 6 really should have been 7, 8 and 9. Unfortunately, it's too late to change them now. George decides to deem the new trilogy episodes 3 and 1/4, 3 and 5/8 and 3 and 7/16.

The real action of the story unfolds at the Salt Lake Star Wars convention where local Utah Star Wars fanatics (and one accidental trekkie) come to fawn over Mr Lucas and his fantasy world. As you might imagine, the intern is none to happy that Mr. Lucas stole his screenplay. Egged on by the mysterious evil emperor, he decides to take revenge on Mr. Lucas at the Salt Lake Star Wars convention. The intern, dressed as Darth Vader, kidnaps one of the convention attendees dressed as Queen Amidala and threatens to blow up the convention center with his "nu-cu-lar" device.

Will Queen Amidala be rescued by her friends, Luke, Leia and Obe Wan? Will George Lucas save the day or be exposed as a thief? You'll have to see it yourself to find out :) I love Desert Star. Most of their parodies (and this one is no exception) are kind of silly and over-the-top, but they are genuinely funny and just plain good fun.

I Can't Feel My Legs

I couldn't fight the urge anymore and rode my Harley in to work today. Yes, I rode the bike into work. In February. I know, I'm crazy :) It was a warm and wonderful 25 degrees for the 15 miles between my house in Spanish Fork and work in Provo. It should warm up to the low 50's by the afternoon and I expect that the ride home should be much more enjoyable.

President's Day Music Picks

Here are my music picks for the weekend:

• Matisyahu - King Without a Crown - Jewish Reggae. Gotta Love It. Master Fob, Chris, I think you would both dig this artist.
  
• Daniel Powter - Bad Day - Love the video. Love the song. Holly, I think that you would like this one.
  
• Erasure - A Little Respect - This song has a viral quality. I heard it in an episode of Scrubs and had to get it :) I'm warning you... don't listen to it.
  

Hearing Voices

Something that you have to account for in professional software development is that your software may be used by people with disabilities. Many government agencies will not purchase software that is not "508 compliant"; i.e. doesn't work well for users with disabilities. Blind computer users, for instance, use special programs that will read the text on the screen for them.

Fortunately, I don't have to write the software that reads the screen. I just need to make sure that the user interface that I design and code will work well with the screen readers. Unfortunately, it is really easy to overlook certain problems in the UI because the problems aren't visible just by looking at them. Instead you need to "listen" to the UI like a blind user would to figure out where the rough spots are.

I spent a good portion of yesterday tracking down one such bug in our address selection dialog. I installed JAWS to read the text on the screen for me as I navigated through the UI with my keyboard. It always amuses me to have my computer talk to me... although I think that it would get old really quick.

Have you ever wondered what it would sound like to send an email if you were blind? Listen to this audio clip if you would like to find out :)

Lesbianism

I found this in the comments of someone's MySpace account and just about died laughing. Master Fob, I thought that you would particularly appreciate this :)

To My Dreamgirl Valentine

Here is a short video serenade (no barbershop, I promise) for my Dreamgirl on Valentines Day. Happy Valentines, Holly!

Sundance

Holly and I went skiing this weekend at Sundance. Neither or us had ever been skiing before. Here are the pictures.

This Post Has No Inherent Purpose

This post has no inherent purpose. Rather, it serves the secondary purpose of displacing my last post, "I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty", from the top of my blog :) I thought the pictures were pretty funny at first, but now they are starting to disturb me a little bit.

I also noticed that none of my posts currently displaying on my front page, other than that one, have pictures of me. I wouldn't want someone incidently stumbling onto this page to get the wrong impression of me :) So, here is a picture from my snowshoeing trip last weekend to balance things out a little.

I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty

Don't ask...

OK, feel free to ask, just don't expect a good explanation.

Cheap Tricks in C++

I came across an interesting bit of C++ code today as I was helping a co-worker troubleshoot a compiler error that he encountered while attempting to upgrade the compiler that we use for our build process. Here is the code (which has been modified drastically for the sake of clarity):

template<class T>
void *AllocateGroup(IAllocator *pAlloc, int count)
{
  void *pData = pAlloc->Allocate(sizeof(T) *count);
  for( int i = 0; i < count; i++)
  {
    new(&((T*)pData)[i]) T();
  }
  return pData;
}

What really confused me was that we were calling 'new' but totally disregarding the result of the memory allocation done by new. It also confused me at first that we were both calling the IAllocator and using new. What was going on here? As far as I could tell we were leaking memory, except that when I examined the disassembly no 'call's were actually being made. I was confused.

T in this particular template instantiation was a MyObject. This is what the MyObject class looked like:

class MyObject
{
public:
  void *operator new(size_t size, void *p)
  {
    return ::operator new(size, p);
  }
}

The operator new had been overloaded to take a void pointer, but as far as I could tell it wasn't doing anything special with it. It was just passing it along to the global operator new. The breakthrough occurred when I realized that the global operator new does not take 2 parameters. That meant that we were overriding operator new somewhere. I did a search across the codebase and indeed found an override of operator new deep within the bowels of our toolkit. Here is what it looked like:

void *operator new(size_t size, void *p)
{
  return p;
}

What the hell? An operator new that does nothing other than return the parameter that was passed into it? And then, all of the sudden, things began to click into place. This operator new was designed specifically to do absolutely nothing. The original code in the template function actually did the memory allocation using the IAllocator and then was looping through each member of the array and forcing the constructor to be called by using this goofy no-op version of operator new.

I want to know who dreamt up this egregious hack. The funny thing is that there is a much simpler way to solve the problem with much less goofiness. If the MyObject class was modified to look like this:

class MyObject
{
public:
  void *operator new[](size_t size, IAllocator *pAlloc)
  {
    return pAlloc->Allocate(size);
  }
};

then the template function could be reduced to this much simpler and easier to understand block of code:

template<class T>
void *AllocateGroup(IAllocator *pAlloc, int count)
{
  return new(pAlloc) T[count];
}


Music Spree

I went on a music shopping spree this weekend and picked up 4 new CD's at Best Buy on Friday night. I got:

• Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
• Gavin DeGraw - Chariot
• Jem - Finally Woken
• Linkin Park - Meteora

Although I am happy with all my purchases, I would say that Meteora was my best buy. The sound of Linkin Park is best described as a mix between hard rock and rap. Their music tends to be a little angsty, but I've been in an angsty mood lately. They've got a beat that is addictive and I love the sampling that they do (particularly in "Lying From You" and "Nobody's Listening").

I was a little worried about the Gavin DeGraw CD. I like the songs that have been played on VH1 but I was worried that the rest of the album wouldn't be that good. I have been pleasantly surprised by the rest of the album and dig the alternate versions that come on the bonus CD.

I bought the Jem CD almost entirely on blind faith in Chris' reccomendation. After listening to the whole CD I realized that I've heard a number of the songs (or at least bits and pieces of them) before in various movies, commercials and TV shows. I particularly like the song, "They".

Tao Teh Ching

I finished reading the Tao Teh Ching this weekend while I was getting my oil changed at Expressway Lube in Spanish Fork. It could be that I just haven't attained a proper state of enlightenment but I wasn't all that impressed by the book. I felt like Lao Tzu spent as much time extolling the virtues of the Tao as he spent actually explaining the principles of the Tao.

I had an English professor in college that did the same thing. He spent half the semester talking about how much we were going to get out his class. He told us how previous students had told him that his class had changed their lives. I was excited at first. After all, if an English class could change my life for the better, then I wanted to be part of it. As the semester wore on, I began to have my doubts. If the professor was actually going to change my life before the semester ended he was going to have to eventually stop talking about how he was going to change my life and actually start teaching me something.

What I got out of the book was that the Tao was about leading a simple life and finding happiness in your everyday life. While I agree with this as a general principle, I felt like Lao Tzu took the concept too far. Here is a passage (#26) that particular disturbed me:

Therefore, the Sage, travelling all day,
Does not part with the baggage-wagon;
Though there may be gorgeous sights to see,
He stays at ease in his own home.

In my opinion, life is all about exploration and adventure and finding beauty and "gorgeous sights". To advocate not seeking "gorgeous sights" is like telling someone not to live.

Despite some general disagreement there were a number of passages in the book that I agreed with and enjoyed. Here are a couple of my favourites:

Passage #9

As for holding to fullness,
Far better were it to stop in time!

Keep on beating and sharpening a sword,
And the edge cannot be preserved for long.

Fill your house with gold and jade,
And it can no longer be guarded.

Set store by your riches and honour,
And you will only reap a crop of calamities.

Here is the Way of Heaven:
When you have done your work, retire!

Passage #11

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.

We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.

Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.

Cleaning House

I didn't make any plans for today so that I could spend the day preparing my house for company later this week. About midway through the day it occurred to me why I hate cleaning so much. It's because I take about 3 hours worth of work and stetch it out over 8 hours. I get easily distracted and take lots of "breaks".

The ironic thing is that if I just worked nonstop for 3 hours I wouldn't have to set aside an entire day for cleaning. And if I didn't have to set aside an entire day for cleaning then I would probably do it more frequently. And if I cleaned more frequently it wouldn't even take 3 hours to do a thorough job of cleaning. Ah, if only I were a wiser man.

Breakin' the Law

The law was thrice broken today on the Ohana Utah (minus Lisa) snowshoeing trip out to Stuart Falls.

1. When we pulled onto the road that goes up to Sundance, there was a big flashing sign which read, "Chains, Snow Tires or 4 Wheel Drive is Required By Law". We kept on driving anyway.
2. When we pulled into the parking lot above Aspen Grove we were in a U.S. Forest Service Fee Area. We didn't pay the fee*.
3. About a half mile up the trail there were big warning signs prohibiting us from going any further on the trail under the penalty of a $1000 fine and 6 months in jail. We went anyway.

Breaking the law is cool :) The hike was awesome because there was no one else on the trail except for us. We were snowshoeing through deep, powdery, virgin snow... we deflowered the virgin snow.

* I have an annual pass but I just forgot to display it in the car before we left. We did have a ticket when we came back, but I just wrote my annual pass number on the ticket and dropped it into the pay box.

So Long Sallie Mae

Or in case you have trouble reading the small print:

Dear DANIEL L CHRISTENSEN,
Congratulations! This is your official notification that you have completely paid off the student loans starred(*) below.

Hurrah!

I actually made the final payment just before Christmas while I was in Hawaii. However, the "official notification" didn't arrive in the mail until today.

A Poem That Doesn't Rhyme

I'm doubting my endurance.
Will I cross the finish line?
And even if I do,
Does the finish line care?