Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sept 7-24: Running & Cycling in 2 States, Yes I'm Still Alive

3 friends and I ran in he USMC Mud Run and it was a blast. We ran for fun, so don't look for us on the medal stand. We had 4 goals and we met them:

  1. Have fun
  2. Function as a team (stay together)
  3. Negotiate every obstacle
  4. Finish
Checkout the pictures directly on Flickr if you don't like embedded reader below):

I did not dry up and pass away. Just been doing 80+ hour work weeks and have simply not been able to get to tertiary tasks like blogging by few exploits. Man, the times they are a hopping at work and in the market. It is hard to believe the mess made by the financial industry. The whole derivative thing and the practices that surrounded and really hurt the market. And after listening to This American Life's show #363: The Enforcers, I agree with McCain in that "Cox should be fired." In the show, several snippets from meetings with Congress are played wherein Cox is asked questions like: "Do you need more people, larger budget?", "Do you additional legislative help?", etc. All with an eye towards enforcing and shoring up the financial industry. Cox seemed to think everything was fine and soon announced that the temporary fix was to explicitly restrict naked short selling for 19 organizations. Naked short selling was already illegal.

I loaded the 2.1 operating system for the iPhone and now one of playlists will not lists the shows that show up in iTunes and on the iPod. The shows are on the iPhone (the playlist is a playlist of playlists). The playlist is on the iPhone. But, the shows are not in it. Gees!

I had a server running from my house that got hacked. I couldn't figure out what exploit was used and how. I searched based on what I saw on the machine and found nothing. Given that I have so little time and that files seemed to be intact and passed virus scans, I simply sucked off the files I needed and reformatted the drive. I feel so violated. I hope the hacker got his jollies.

I learned about Firebug, a plug-in for Firefox and it just rocks. I lets you see all the definitions associated with displayed web page. It's awesome for debugging what css tag is governing the a particular element's display and such. Lot's more than this there.

I checked my cholesterol on September 14 and it was 169! Yeppee!

I listened to these podcasts:

From these podcasts, I heard several points I intend to follow up on once I have time:

  • Need to checkout Findbugs.
  • Mark Rolston's line "looks like the technology underneath" which isn't a compliment and is a concept for consideration during software design
  • Two major java programming frameworks (not presentation layer like Struts, MVC, etc.)
  • EJB's evolution pace and its impact on EJB adoption and the emergence of rebel frameworks (spring, hibernate, etc.)

Data

September 24, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.19 Miles
Time: 57:38
Heart Rate: 146
Pace: 9:18
Weather: Clear
Temperature-78°
Humidity-40%

September 23, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 27:37
Heart Rate: 152
Pace: 9:12
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temperature-78°
Humidity-52%

September 21, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Crestline-Shades Creek Loop
Running
Distance: 11 Miles
Time: 1:39:10
Heart Rate: 150
Pace: 9:00
Weather: Clear
Temperature-77°
Humidity-52%
Route

September 19, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Blythewood, SC
Running
Distance: 6.22 Miles
Time: 54:45
Heart Rate: 147
Pace: 8:48
Weather: Clear
Temperature-62°
Humidity-80%
Route

September 17, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Blythewood, SC
Running
Distance: 6.06 Miles
Time: 55:56
Heart Rate: 150
Pace: 9:13
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-68°
Humidity-90%
Route

September 16, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Blythewood, SC
Running
Distance: 3.11Miles
Time: 28:18
Heart Rate: 142
Pace: 9:05
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-74°
Humidity-93%
Route

September 14, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek-Crestline
Running
Distance: 13 Miles
Time: 2:07:41
Heart Rate: 144
Pace: 9:49
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Temperature-76°
Humidity-79%
Route

September 13, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.83 Miles
Time: 1:22:08
Heart Rate: 133
Speed: 17.41 mph
Weather: Clear
Temperature-77°
Humidity-74%
Route

September 12, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.26 Miles
Time: 58:37
Heart Rate: 158
Pace: 9:21
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Temperature-79°
Humidity-74%

September 10, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.22 Miles
Time: 58:43
Heart Rate: 141
Pace: 9:26
Weather: Clear
Temperature-71°
Humidity-87%

September 9, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3Miles
Time: 28:15
Heart Rate: 143
Pace: 9:24
Weather: Clear
Temperature-70°
Humidity-90%
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Sunday, September 07, 2008

August 29-Sept 7: Running & Cycling in Alabama, Florida, & Texas

Yep, I have been traveling a bit. The family and I went to Seagrove Beach, Florida for Labor Day. It was a very relaxing good time. Our five year old son fully appreciates the beach and doing things together now. It was awesome to spend time with him. He just finished mastering riding his bicycle without training wheels and we did a 3.2 mile ride with him. He did great. We swam, played games, and found shells. Despite Gustav's threatening arrival, we had great weather until Monday, September 1, 2008 when the beach basically disappeared.

I spend nearly all of the work week in Dallas, Texas with colleagues from all around the world. I met some really smart people with gregarious personalities that were heavily into technology, a situation made for me. We are working on some exciting stuff touching on social networking, cloud computing, and software-as-a-service (SaaS). Definitely, cool.

I listened to these podcasts:

Despite traveling a bit, I didn't listen to many podcasts. I am in the middle of reading some architectural treatises on object orientation; Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John M. Vlissides; and Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen. That plus 60-70+ hour work weeks just ain't leaving any time.

Data

September 7, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Running
Distance: 13.1 Miles
Time: 2:07:21
Heart Rate: 138
Pace: 9:42
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-66°
Humidity-94%
Route

September 6, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.85 Miles
Time: 1:19:41
Heart Rate: 136
Speed: 17.96
Weather: Raining
Temperature-74°
Humidity-91%
Route

September 5, 2008: Dallas, TX
Near the DFW airport
Running
Distance: 6.14 Miles
Time: 56:54
Heart Rate: 142
Pace: 9:16
Weather: Clear
Temperature-69°
Humidity-81%
Route

September 3, 2008: Dallas, TX
Near the DFW airport
Running
Distance: 6 Miles
Time: 56:32
Heart Rate: 141
Pace: 9:24
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-73°
Humidity-87%
Route

August 31, 2008: Seagrove Beach, FL
Seagrove to Seaside Beaches
Running
Distance: 13 Miles
Time: 2:02:04
Heart Rate: 145
Pace: 9:23
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temperature-77°
Humidity-89%
Route

August 29, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.21 Miles
Time: 58:10
Heart Rate: 143
Pace: 9:21
Weather: Clear
Temperature-70°
Humidity-90%
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Thursday, August 28, 2008

August 19-27: Running & Cycling in Birmingham

Work is consuming life and making it difficult to do anything else. I am learning LifeRay portal, velocity and working way through some good OOAD and Java Serverfaces stuff. Meanwhile, my lists of things to do, my proverbial pile, seems to just keep getting higher and higher. Guess that is what happens over time and there is no escape. Most of it is fun, just wished could move at a pace that felt normal instead of beyond what seems reasonable. But, a lot of folks I talk to seem to find their jobs the same way. Guess it is just what we have done to ourselves. Produce, produce, produce.... have more stuff, make more money, work...work...work...don't rest, don't slow down, work...work...work...work....

Anybody got some cheese for that whine!

I have been keeping up with my workouts though and here's the latest podcasts I have listened to:

Data

August 27, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.19 Miles
Time: 57:56
Heart Rate: 144
Pace: 9:21
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Temperature-70°
Humidity-94%

August 26, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 27:37
Heart Rate: 153
Pace: 9:12
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-73°
Humidity-94%

August 24, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Running
Distance: 12.84 Miles
Time: 2:05:42
Heart Rate: 144
Pace: 9:47
Weather: Overcast/Rain
Temperature-73°
Humidity-94%
Route

August 23, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.27 Miles
Time: 1:22:04
Heart Rate: 133
Speed: 17.42 mph
Weather: Light rain
Temperature-73°
Humidity-84%
Route

August 22, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.2 Miles
Time: 1:00:30
Heart Rate: 146
Pace: 9:45
Weather: Clear
Temperature-76°
Humidity-58%

August 20, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.3 Miles
Time: 1:00:45
Heart Rate: 145
Pace: 9:38
Weather: Clear
Temperature-70°
Humidity-70%

August 19, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 27:02
Heart Rate: 139
Pace: 9:00
Weather: Haze
Temperature-73°
Humidity-79%
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Sunday, August 17, 2008

August 12-17: Running & Cycling in Birmingham

A busy, but good week. I finally bought an HDTV, a 37LG30, a 37" diagonal LCD at 720p. We had an Olympics party last night and the wife wanted a good viewing. We went with the this model because it was available, fit in our cabinet, and had a better picture that comparable sized TV's we looked at. So, far, so good. The party went well too.

Adam Curry has basically turned the Daily Source Code into conspiracy theory central. What a shame! I miss the tech talk and just general all around notes about his life. This conspiracy crap, for me, is just noise. But, it is his show and I have a fast forward button.

Work has me diving into more low level code than I get to which is exciting for me. So, I'm learning more directly about JavaServer Faces, Dojo, and Ajax.

I listened to these podcasts:Data
August 17, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Running
Distance: 13.1 Miles
Time: 2:02:09
Heart Rate: 145
Pace: 9:18
Weather: Haze
Temperature-67°
Humidity-76%
Route

August 16, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.75 Miles
Time: 1:21:08
Heart Rate: 133
Speed: 17.56
Weather: Haze
Temperature-72°
Humidity-73%
Route

August 15, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.27 Miles (new route into "The Villages)
Time: 58:41
Heart Rate: 1150
Pace: 9:21
Weather: Clear
Temperature-67°
Humidity-87%

August 13, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.16 Miles
Time: 58:25
Heart Rate: 146
Pace: 9:28
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-70°
Humidity-88%

August 12, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 28:30
Heart Rate: 143
Pace: 9:30
Weather: Scattered clouds
Temperature-73°
Humidity-81%
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Sunday, August 10, 2008

August 5-10: Running & Cycling in Birmingham & South Carolina

Sunday, I took off for Blythewood, SC via Atlanta. I drive for 3 hours to just the other side of Atlanta, then drive the rest in the morning on Monday. I worked all week in Blythewood, SC. We have a user conference coming up and it always makes for a few intense months just prior to its conductance. So, here we go! While I was there, I practiced a fireman's carry in preparation for the Marine Corp Ultimate Challenge Mud Run in September. I did well once I figured it out, but not until I dropped my team mate once.

Adam Curry continues to go off on conspiracy theory. I am currently listening to a This American Life podcast, The Spokesman, that involves a blogger that was in one of the trains blown up in London. Some conspiracy theorists starting attaching her, verbally. They even contacted her family including death threats. Said she was part of MI-5 and such. This conspiracy crap is a whole different thing when someone who was really there and saw the body parts of people is accused of lying about being there and seeing it. But, she learned the hard way that you can not shake the convictions of many of these folks. It smells like a lot of religion to me. I am convinced of the truth based on my reasons and any contradiction to those rules must be snuffed, by God! Too bad this happens to people. As far as 9/11 and the London train bombings being inside jobs, I don't understand why folks can not just believe that extremists really did it and would love to do it again. They really hate western society and actively plot to do this crap. It's real!

I sold my original iPhone on eBay for a good amount, yeppee. I ship it tomorrow.

I listened to these podcasts:

Data

August 10, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Shades Creek-Crestline
Running
Distance: 13.11 Miles
Time: 2:04:32
Heart Rate: 146
Pace: 9:29
Weather: Clear
Temperature-71°
Humidity-68%
Route

August 9, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.75 Miles
Time: 1:21:09
Heart Rate: 136
Speed: 17.56
Weather: Clear
Temperature-69°
Humidity-65%
Route

August 8, 2008: Blythewood, SC
Community Road
Running
Distance: 6.12 Miles
Time: 56:11
Heart Rate: 148
Pace: 9:10
Weather: Clear
Temperature-74°
Humidity-93%
Route

August 6, 2008: Blythewood, SC
Community Road
Running
Distance: 6.1 Miles
Time: 57:32
Heart Rate: 152
Pace: 9:25
Weather: Clear
Temperature-75°
Humidity-94%
Route

August 5, 2008: Blythewood, SC
Community Road
Running
Distance: 3.22 Miles
Time: 29:40
Heart Rate: 145
Pace: 9:12
Weather: Clear
Temperature-75°
Humidity-87%
Route
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Sunday, August 03, 2008

July 22-August 3: Running & Cycling in Birmingham, & Vacation

What a busy 2 weeks! I ran a few times, went on vacation to Walt Disney World, ran some more, and bought the new iPhone since last blogging here.

I bought the new iPhone yesterday. I asked one of the Apple geniuses how to move my address book from the old iPhone to the new one. He told me to swap SIMs to get contacts moved using the Import from SIM feature. It didn't work. Instead, I simply plugged the new iPhone up to computer and it asked to restore from backup, I said yes! I had seen somewhere on the net while checking on getting the new iPhone, that I should sync before going to the store and I had done so. Well, this worked beautifully. I did get the proverbial loss of about 6 podcasts as I have described in the past. I had to associate these entries in iTunes with the files I downloaded manually. I also lost my library while at Disney and had to manually recover that too. iPhone rocks. iTunes sucks and rocks. By the way, my old iPhone is for sale on eBay (see picture).

I listened to these Podcasts:

I went to Disney World and had a smashing good time. I ate badly. I didn't exercise. I had so much fun with my son it was amazing!

And before I forget, Motionbased is having trouble syncing with my Garmin Forerunner 305 again!

Data


August 3, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek-Crestline
Running
Distance: 14.2 Miles
Time: 2:26:12
Heart Rate: 147
Pace: 10:17
Weather: Clear
Temperature-74°
Humidity-79%
Route

August 2, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.7 Miles
Time: 1:21:42
Heart Rate: 141
Speed: 17.41 mph
Weather: Haze
Temperature-80°
Humidity-81%
Route

July 24, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain State Park
Cycling
Distance: 23.7 Miles
Time: 1:25:19
Heart Rate: 134
Speed: 16.67 mph
Weather: Haze
Temperature-85°
Humidity-57%
Route

July 23, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.18 Miles
Time: 58:39
Heart Rate: 148
Pace: 9:29
Weather: Haze
Temperature-77°
Humidity-79%

July 22, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 28:36
Heart Rate: 143
Pace: 9:31
Weather: Clear
Temperature-80°
Humidity-60%
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Sunday, July 20, 2008

July 15-20: Running & Cycling in Birmingham

A friend of mine, Prince Whatley, crewed for Sarah Lowell at the Badwater Ultramarathon this week. The results tell the story of the distance, participants, and times without the details. But, Prince talked about his experience during this Sunday's long run. It sounded extremely interested and like he had an experience he will never forget and one that is rewarding. He is pictured behind her in several of the pictures (he is wearing the patriotic shorts).

I have taken on a new task at working looking into how to use social networking. This is an interesting phenomenon occurring on the web and within computer science. So, I am thrilled at the assignment and hope I can squeeze enough time into it to do it justice. It is rapidly changing and still emerging.

I tried Reformer Pilates after my ride on Saturday. I felt it in my core and legs on Sunday. I liked the class, but with so much time spent on running and cycling each week, I will be focusing on free weights for most gym workouts.

I listened to these podcasts to these week:

Data

July 20, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Running
Distance: 11 Miles
Time: 1:47:59
Heart Rate: 138
Pace: 9:49
Weather: Haze
Temperature-74°
Humidity-76%
Route

July 19, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain Park
Cycling
Distance: 24.27 Miles
Time: 1:27:58
Heart Rate: 128
Speed: 16.55 mph
Weather: Haze
Temperature-72°
Humidity-73%
Route

July 18, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.2 Miles
Time: 57:06
Heart Rate: 144
Pace: 9:12
Weather: Haze
Temperature-69°
Humidity-78%

July 16, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 6.21 Miles
Time: 58:16
Heart Rate: 141
Pace: 9:22
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temperature-75°
Humidity-58%

July 15, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Running
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 27:24
Heart Rate: 137
Pace: 9:07
Weather: Clear
Temperature-64°
Humidity-84%
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Sunday, July 13, 2008

July 8-13: Running & Cycling in Birmingham

I got my first "real" bicycle ride this week with my friend Edd. Of course, I nearly caused him to crash. He said "we will turn left up ahead". He meant the next row in the parking lot; I thought the road passed it. He was on my right and started to the left. I kept going forward. Well, we both nearly went down, but didn't.

The Rev. Jackson quip caught on tape this week reminds me about how much it just rubs me wrong to hear such mean comments from those that portend to be a leader especially with a label like "reverend". There was nothing edifying in his comment. Gees whiz!

I listened to these podcasts to these week:


In a world so small, I got an IM message from a friend that is in Iraq. We chatted for a bit and I mentioned that I have a cousin there as well. My friend is in the Air Force, and my cousin is in the Army. The branches of our service call the place where my friend is two different names. I didn't know precisely where my cousin was serving, only that he was in Iraq. Well, they are in fact in the same place and after I introduced them electronically, they have now had lunch together.

What a small world!

Data

July 13, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek-Crestline
Distance: 12.93 Miles
Time: 2:06:25
Heart Rate: 143
Pace: 9:46
Weather: Clear
Temperature-77°
Humidity-84%
Route

July 12, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Oak Mountain Park
Cycling
Distance: 19.78 Miles
Time: 1:10:37
Heart Rate: 132
Speed: 16.81 mph
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Temperature-79°
Humidity-82%
Route

July 11, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Neighborhood
Distance: 6.21 Miles
Time: 55:27
Heart Rate: 155
Pace: 8:55
Weather: Overcast
Temperature-74°
Humidity-87%

July 9, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Distance: 6.18 Miles
Time: 56:46
Heart Rate: 140
Pace: 9:11
Weather: Clear
Temperature-76°
Humidity-82%

July 8, 2008: Birmingham, AL
Brownell-Shades Creek
Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 27:38
Heart Rate: 138
Pace: 9:12
Weather: Clear
Temperature-72°
Humidity-84%
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