Another example…

…of google doing me right.

500 / the golden ratio

Organs R Us

Spring is rapidly approaching and apparently for me that means a return to running and potentially other endurance sports.  I’m now committed ($960 registration fee committed) to running the relay in April.  Last year it was a ton of fun, and we’ve managed to keep much of the team together for this year, so I expect it will rock once again.

Our “goal” last year was pretty simple: finish and have fun.  I doubt that was ever explicitly stated, actually.  Having finished once before, and in a time faster than any of us predicted, I expect this year the notion of a “goal” will be more tangible.  First to mind, of course, is to improve on last years time (27:12:30).  I think we can definitely do that.  But in looking over the results and at some of the returning teams, I see quite a few with whom (in my mind at least) we established a healthy potential for rivalry.  So in addition to self-improvement, I’m hoping we can pick off a few of those that finished ahead of us. =)

As a matter of  circumstance, I’m responsible for organizing some of the pre-race administrivia, including the mandatory fund raising.  I can’t help but wonder about the economics behind fund raising.  It seems the most arbitrary of contracts: “I promise to do X if you agree to give money to organization Y, whose cause is unrelated to X.”  In reality, I think X and Y are both in need of attention, and it’s more manageable to sell their respective messages when packaged together.  =)  Too cynical!

That said, Organs R Us is a fantastic cause, completely irrespective of our racing objectives.  If you are willing and able to, please donate!  (Heck yeah we want to raise $60,000!  Let’s do it!)

A Week of Mild Devastations

Uncov called it quits a couple days ago. Between uncov and the Persai blog I’ve pretty much become a fanboy of Ted and the Persai team — I’m pissed that he’s calling it quits. Then again, I’m actually a bit thankful because being a fanboy of anyone/thing is the last thing I want to be.

The other devastations in no particular order included the recessing economy, job related ilk, general ineffectualness, and Heath Ledger’s death. Meh… let’s just fast forward over this week.

That was impressive…

So, after reading the winners of the crunchies, I decided to check out WordPress. I’m pretty excited! For a long time I have wanted to find two things in a blog:

1) The ability to import/merge all my failed attempts at blogs on various other sites.

2) Open ID.

I don’t know about the potential for Open ID (nor do I really know why I think it’s so necessary), but it was mindless to import the three ‘blogs’ I’ve kept at livejournal and blogger. I also appreciate that WordPress keeps a policy of making it just as easy to export all of my entries. Maybe none of that is extremely innovative… so fine, they just caught me at the right time with the right feature. Kudos!

Update: WordPress supports Open Id. Boosh! And as it turns out, blogger and livejournal do as well, so not a great reason to switch. Oh well! =)

Another 9 Month Hiatus

I’m not sure my other hiatuses from extracurricular activities were 9 months, but they’re typically long.

So what was the reason? At first, I’m tempted to blame injury. I hurt my foot in the Napa Valley Marathon and subsequently took a solid month and a half off from any kind of endurance sports. The injury was the kind of repetitive use injury that I am susceptible to, foolishly over training as I do. My guess is, given how long it took to heal, it may have been a stress fracture. Anyway, my 9 month fallout with endurance training wasn’t directly due to this injury. After all, 8 weeks after the NVM I was better and participating in “The Relay” just fine (That was a fun event and I’m hoping to organize a team to do it again this year). Ultimately, the reason I fell out of endurance training was rock climbing. I’ve been climbing 3-5 times a week since May and it just did not mix well with endurance training of any kind.

Anyway, tomorrow morning, 10 miles at 10am…

iPhone

Well I’ve had an iPhone for about an hour now, but I can’t use the damn thing because it’s being asynchronously activated. And the only information I have is that they will send me an email when it’s finished being activated… wtf? It’s kind of a real chafe because presumably my other phone’s sim will be deactivated when the activation process is finished. Thus, if it doesn’t finish and I decide to go get some dinner without taking both phones, I may end up without the use of a phone. Oh noes! I’m being pretty impatient right now, but it’s hard not to be — it looks so f’in cool. =)

So my membership at Cole Valley Fitness expired a little while ago and since my situation has changed since the last time I made the decision, I had the opportunity to reevaluate my options. I went with a climbing gym that’s down in the mission (kind of in between where I work and where I live). So far it’s a lot of fun. It’s basically about 10x better than what I had before, for the same price. Check it out: Mission Cliffs.

I tend to stick to the bouldering — I like short-bursts-of-”excellence” over the endurance required for sport climbing (is that even what it’s called). I suck compared to virtually everyone there but it’s definitely tons of fun.

Finally, if you ever used to use allofmp3.com, I suggest you check out mp3sparks.com. Basically it’s an “invite only” version of the same exact thing before they were cut off… TOTALLY SWEET!

Flurry in PC Worlds Top 100

F yeah I am! Check it out. And talk about auspicious placement. I won’t dwell, but it’s awesome to be on this list.

The ultra-low carb diet continues, but I don’t think for long. It appears that I am in ketosis (not to be confused with kemmer), but contrary to what I thought, am constantly lacking energy. Even walking the six or so blocks from the MUNI station to the office is laborious.

Yesterday, after nearly a year of being convinced that I would never do so, I joined Mission Cliffs climbing gym. Outdoor climbing still doesn’t sound very appealing to me, but for whatever reason, this week I’ve been compelled to do the bouldering problems at the gym and I can feel myself getting hooked… I’m going to chase that feeling.

Finally, *tonight*… while everyone else is embarking on their three-day weekends, I plan to 1) play ddr, 2) see either Paprika or Pirates III, 3) Work on Flurry. I’m pretty damn excited.

Running

Two weekends ago I ran in The Relay as part of team “6 Dudes with 12 Boobs”. We ran an awesome race (results), plus we raised a very respectable amount of money for the cause.

Two months ago I ran the Napa Valley Marathon and, despite some injuries, finished the race (4 hours and 28 minutes still counts as “running”, ok? =P).

Tomorrow is the Bay to Breakers 12k. June 9, I'll hopefully be running the Lake Tahoe Relay. And Finally, July 29 is the San Francisco Marathon.

I should be on a diet rich in carbohydrates, right? But over the last week I've consumed fewer than 50g. What's the deal??? Don't call it Atkins… or South Beach…. cause it's the… Carb Nite Solution! Why? No good reason, really. Curiosity mostly. After having many conversations with the author of Carb Nite, I'm genuinely intrigued by the process of ketosis and am now keen on inducing it on my own body… at least for a few weeks. “Most medical resources regard ketosis as a pathological state associated with chronic starvation.” Haha…

Update

So. How was that for a year hiatus? It's shocking when I realize how drastically different my situation is now when compared to my situation circa my last “post” (May 26, 2006… now private due to the excessive amounts of emo therein).

Shortly after that post — on June 1, 2006, I believe — I packed up a small subset of my belongings into the Stealth and headed cross country to San Francisco. I arrived on June 4th and subsequently spent the next month crashing on a friend's couch while I looked for jobs and an apartment. By July I was all set living in the Cole Valley and working at… drum roll please… Broadlane, Inc. I know, what? Anyway, it was B2B development with a lot of Java and all the other technologies that I didn't really get to use in a strictly academic environment, so not a completely worthless endeavor.

Fast forward 9 months. As fun as it was/is living on a decent paycheck in a city like San Francisco, Broadlane was fast becoming tiresome and unsatisfying (where's my equity incentive??). Sparing the details, I now work at Flurry, and life is amazing.

Yes, you can expect many shameless plugs and encouragements to use Flurry from now on. Basically, our mission is to facilitate communication anywhere to anyone… anyhow! For now, this includes any or all of your email addresses and RSS feeds on almost any mobile phone.

Have at it.