Inspired

MOVED!

2009-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

The blog has moved to its new home at www.adamedgerton.com/blog!

Tour of California Stage 2: Awards Etc.

2009-02-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Here's the scene after the race.

A small part of the crowd watching the awards at the finish line. I managed to squeeze my way up pretty close on the right side of the stage.

Cycling TV personality Bob Roll looking perturbed about something.

Close to far, Francisco Mancebo (KOM leader, sprint leader), Robert Gesink (best young rider), Levi Leipheimer (overall tour leader), and Ben Jacques-Maynes (most courageous rider).

Jacques-Maynes giving an interview.

Levi wondering where his wallet has gotten to, or something.

Levi: "Do I really have to go up on stage again for the fourth time today? Well at least I get kissed by you for winning."

1st (Thomas Peterson), 2nd (Levi Leipheimer), and 3rd place (Michael Rogers) for the day's stage.

Stage winner/babyface Thomas Peterson.

Peterson getting interviewed on Versus.

Lance Armstrong's race bike surrounded by other Astana team bikes.

Peterson eating pasta after the press conference.

Tour of California Stage 2: The Finish

2009-02-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

After hitting some slow-moving traffic on highway 17 into Santa Cruz for what looked to be a minor landslide (yeah, it had been raining that much), I made it to the finish with a bit of time to spare. Here's some pictures from the finish.

What's everybody looking at?

Oh, we're watching the race on the bigscreen.

I found a spot right on the railing about 250 meters from the finish line. Then we had an instantaneous downpour.

Perfect spot to watch the finishers come in.

Oh sweet, we instantly moved 50 meters closer to the finish! The signs were set up wrong.

They should be here any minute. I've got a lot of people's attention because I'm following Twitter updates and can announce Levi rode away and caught the break and should be coming in first.

And sure enough, Levi coming through first, with Thomas Peterson on his wheel.

Levi knew Peterson was going to take the win on this one by coming around at the last minute, but he wasn't concerned with the stage win - he just wanted to be in the overall leader's jersey at the end of the day.

Best shot of Levi (Leipheimer, that is) on the day.

Headed for the line.

Barely 20 seconds later, the first chase group comes in.

This group is led by David Zabrieski.

Lance Armstrong, another Astana rider, and Kim Kirchen a little further back.

Robert Gesink from Rabobank right in the middle of this one.

Frank Schleck, Grisha Niermann, Astana rider on what must be a backup bike (no race #), and Ivan Basso.

Second chase group comes in.

Floyd Landis (far) and Gustav Larsson.

The remaining riders came in scattered groups, with the remnants of the peleton 17 minuted behind the leaders. Definitely a brutal day on the bike.

Still to come, the awards ceremony and some other odds and ends:

Tour of California Stage 2: The Morning

2009-02-17T21:01:00.001-08:00

Here's some shots from the morning on Tunitas Creek Road, the day's first big climb. The pictures are in chronological order, so if you're not particularly familiar with pro bike racing, this will give you an idea of just how much race support there is. It almost seems there is a car/truck/motorcycle for just about every rider in the race.

The KOM (King of the Mountains) point at the top of the climb - points are awarded to the first riders up the climb on each major climb, the overall points leader is the King of the Mountains. Where is everybody?

Did I mention it was raining rather hard?

A good hour before the race comes through, the support vehicles and team cars start going by. here's a Jelly Belly team car.

This is about as crowded as I thought the climb would be. You'll soon see how mistaken I was.

Motorcycles showing up... race must be close.

Hmmm... we've got a bit of a crowd.

Car with speakers blasting the race announcer... now the race has to be really close.

Police cars trying to keep everyone back to give riders some room. One of them came over his loudspeaker and said something to the effect of "Watch out, I don't drive very well!" to the amusment of all.

TV Motorcycle.. they've got to be coming around the bend!

Sure enough, there they are. This was a 10 man break several minutes ahead at this point.

An interesting flash hit off someone else's camera.

Stephen Cozza leading the break.

Grisha Niermann (right) and Thomas Peterson (the day's eventual stage winner) in the break.

Then come the break's support cars. Here's Garmin Slipstream.

Team OUCH (yeah, plenty of jokes to be made there) team car.

And of course, one of the famous Mavic neutral support cars.

Several minutes later, here comes the peleton.

The peleton led by Tyler Hamilton and other members of Rock Racing.

The majority of the 130 odd racers were in this group.

Including none other than Mellow Johnny on the wheel of one Levi Leipheimer.

The pictures almost make it seem like they just keep coming, but the entire large group passed in well under 30 seconds. Probably closer to 15.

Then began the groups chasing to get back with the group. Riders may have crashed, had flats, gone back to team cars, be lousy hill climbers, etc. so teams will drop back to help their riders get back in contact with the peleton. Here's crazy strong sprinter Mark Cavendish getting hauled up the hill by teammates.

Then comes the race director. If you're behind the race director, you just might be in trouble.

Followed by more team cars - such as Team Columbia's.

Cervelo Test Team.

And Rock Racing.

Then come the stragglers.

Brett Lancaster has a bike I'm envious of, but I'm not envious of his position riding in cold, wet, windy conditions trying to catch the main field.

Then I headed back up the hill in a hurry to get back to the car, but not so much of a hurry that I couldn't stop to get a picture of just how many people lined the course.

Oh wait, more stragglers! The course and conditions resulted in a lot of riders slipping off the back of the race.

And the last rider up the hill, followed by probably another twenty vehicles, including a "sweeper" van that was denoted with handbrooms attached to the front.

Everyone waiting around wondering if anything else is coming up the hill. Didn't you see the sweeper van?

The footrace back through the mass of cars began my journey to Santa Cruz.

And in case you missed it, Mellow Johnny is Lance Armstrong's nickname. Better take another look, huh?

Race Report

2009-02-16T21:16:00.000-08:00

When I planned out my day around the race today, I knew there were plenty of question marks and uncertainty as far as potential roadblocks to being where I wanted to be when I needed to be there. As far as the technical details went, today was perfect. I arrived on the climb at Tunitas Creek Rd. early enough to stake out a good spot. The climb was packed with hundreds if not thousands of people by the time the race came through - and it was probably one of the most remote sections of the course. It was pouring hard and I spent the morning soaked, but it was well worth the wait. It was extremely exhilerating to be on a packed climb with people going crazy cheering on these racers with everyone involved soaking wet. Definitely the atmosphere I was hoping for.

After the race came through I immediately headed south and got to Santa Cruz about an hour ahead of the racers. I was lucky enough to get a spot right on the railing at the 200 meter mark before the finish line, right when the sprint wind-up generally happens. Even more random was running into Karl (from the UO team) who ended up only feet away from me before we noticed each other.

The racers came flying through - Levi Leipheimer did his superman thing and broke away from the pack, caught the disintegrating breakaway, and then dropped them too. Except for Thomas Peterson, the stage winner, that is. So now Levi is the overall tour leader.

I took 550ish photos today, so that's just a little teaser of what's to come. I'll probably have one or more posts in the near future of nothing but pictures, but no time to sort and adjust tonight.

The photo report is mixed. Of those 550 photos, probably about 100 are of the actual racers racing, as was to be expected with the short amount of time I had to see them go by. The beer cup lens hood/plastic bag cover surpassed all expectations and drew a ton of attention and compliments, including a lot of really impressed photographers who had real hoods on their cameras. The lighting on the climb was much too dark for my liking, but I mostly made it work. In the finish area, I had a nasty shadow/sunlight combo, but I got decent shots there as well.

The one problem was that I was almost too close - with racers coming less than 10 feet away at high speed, even with my best efforts panning at 1/200th of a second on the climb and 1/400th of a second at the finish, my camera's autofocus became its weakness. I doubt I could have done better manually, but often it just couldn't quite keep up with how fast I was taking pictures. That said, I did get a number of really nice, clear shots and a number more where the speed of the racers makes for a good photo, in spite of the fact that they're not quite crisply focused.

I'm going to have to do some race number lookups to determine which soggy racers I got pictures of (they all kind of look the same with rain gear on) but yes, I did get pictures of Lance. I won't spoil everything, but if you're a cycling fan I've got a couple more goodies coming too. Stay tuned!

Overall, the day was extremely exciting and everything I was hoping it would be.

Improvising

2009-02-15T19:36:00.001-08:00

With this horrendous weather we're having in California, I realized that my simple "stick the camera in a plastic bag" solution wasn't going to address the problem of rain getting on the lens and mucking up the photos of the race tomorrow. I figured a hood might be my best bet, but after checking out the only camera shop I could find that was open on a Sunday, I was out of luck. They had a hood for my lens, but it was $40 and was an off-brand accessory. I set about trying to think up what sort of improvised hood I could come up with, when Joey's friend Andrew stumbled upon the answer: red drinking cups usually synonymous with alcohol consumption!

Rather than using a bag for the camera, I rigged up the hoods for both lenses and decided to attach and tape a bag to each lens to make sure there will be no leakage between the hood and the bag. Now I just need to run to the store and get another bag for the second lens. That way I'll have both lenses as options tomorrow.

The last few days in pictures

2009-02-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

Friday night: Cooking dinner

Saturday afternoon: The new camper has arrived.

Sunday morning: flew on the Oregon themed plane.

Sunday mid-day: Arrival in San Francisco

Sunday afternoon: Mac party

Sunday afternoon: raining cats and dogs

Sunday afternoon: still raining

Cutting Branches, Snapping Shots

2009-02-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

One of my regular assignments from my aunt and uncle has been pruning trees on their property. At this point, after 8-10 trees, I'd consider myself a near-expert. So yesterday and today I decided to tackle the big tree. Here's the pile I ended up with:

And the highest branches aren't even cut yet.

Today's weather was similar to what's forecasted for the Bay Area next Monday, so I spent some time adjusting camera settings and taking some test shots panning on cars going by. I'm sure I weirded out a few passing motorists by taking pictures of them. Don't worry motorists, I didn't actually want your photo.

It looks like at ISO 400-800 I can get away with 1/125th of a second for objects moving under 20MPH and 1/200-320th for approximately 30MPH. It creates a nice minor action blur while maintaining clarity. As far as zoom, the 70-300mm lens is only useful if I'm at least 30-40 feet away. Any less than that and the 18-55 is my only viable choice. Wondering what on earth I'm talking about? The Tour of California next week, of course!

Big weekend plans

2009-02-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

It started as an idea planted in my head a mere four days ago (thanks Mike!) - the Tour of California is coming up, you're unemployed and free to travel, and California isn't that far away...

That in combination with hearing of recruiters at the finish line of stage 2 got me at least considering the possibility of finding my way down there.

Talking with Joey the other day really solidified the idea, and I decided I wanted to go.

I set about looking for transportation options, but after no rideshare options appeared and train/greyhound options took the better part of a day each way for absurd prices upwards of $200, I was about ready to write it off. Until I checked airline prices, that is. Kayak.com is a great resource, just so you know. Round-trip flight to Oakland for $170 with an hour and a half travel time. Now we're talking.

That price sounded just about right, and it sounded even better after I calculated my tax refund (read: not being claimed by anyone else as a dependent makes a HUGE difference when you don't make much money). I booked the flight leaving early on the 15th and returning late on the 17th and will be crashing on Joey's very familiar couch.

So then I set about viewing options... and the best I came up with was hopping the BART to the Daly City stop and walking a couple miles to the beachfront highway the race goes by.

It's a decent viewing spot with a slight grade that would be considered a hill if it weren't for the fact that we're talking about professional cyclists. 3% won't be enough to slow them down. I decided I really wouldn't be doing myself justice.

I started looking into car rental options, but quickly became frustrated as renting a car while until age 25 is far too expensive. Then I found another option: rent-a-wreck. Not a nice rental car by any means, but cheap, and only a $5/day under 25 charge. As long as it can manage to drive 150 miles or so, we're good.

So now I'm in the process of planning my viewpoints during the race. I think I'm going to try to make two different stops - one at approximately mile 52 at the top of the biggest climb of the day, and then head to the finish line in Santa Cruz. Now I just need to double-check road closures and where to find parking.

And of course, I'm bringing my camera. I need to get some practice getting clear shots of fast-moving objects in the next week. And as much as I'd like to be able to shoot in RAW, I think I'm going to have to go back to Jpeg for the race due to the massive number of pictures I'll be taking within only a minute or two. The buffer just can't handle more than 6-7 RAW+Jpeg shots in a 15 second period. I'll likely be taking upwards of 100 in a two-minute period. I'll just need to make sure I've got the camera set perfectly before the race gets there. Let's hope there's a break off the front up the hill.

Here's a link to the full course profile

Exciting times. More to come!

Reimagined

2009-02-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

So if you checked out the blog between Friday and now, you will have hopefully seen my new website. As is the case with everything in the times of modern technology, that website was already far too obsolete as of oh... this morning. Here's what it looked like:

And this:

And this:

Not bad, right? Right - for a fourth grader with a mouth full of cookie dough ice cream!

So I spent a good number of hours this afternoon whipping something new up, and I'm pretty pleased with what I whupped. I'd take it a bit further if I had access to flash and some other fancy web programs, but as it it'll do.

So once again, check out www.adamedgerton.com (that's right, my own domain!) to see it.

If for some reason you see the old page, you probably need to clear out your cache. That or type in www.adamedgerton.com/index.html.

Techificationally Speaking Part 2

2009-02-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

Hey look, my very own webpage!

Or at least the start of one. It's got a little ways to go.

Techificationally speaking...

2009-02-05T21:27:00.001-08:00

Today was one of those days that was really productive, but with not much to show for it. I spent all day building an greater online job-hunting presence, which included:

-Creating a business card and profile at BusinessCard2

-Creating an online CV at VisualCV and submitting it to various companies through the site

-Creating a profile on JobFox

-Reading strategies on personal branding and online social resume formats

This, in addition to the normal job hunting routine which includes:

-Checking Linkedin job listings
-Checking Craigslist jobs for a bunch of different metro areas
-Doing a bunch of different job term searches on indeed.com
-Checking the sites of 15-20 local companies that I'd like to work for in search of new job listings
-Looking at several different outdoor industry job sites
-Searching through my ever-increasing list of nationwide companies I'd like to work at for new job listings
-ideally finding maybe one (2-3 if I'm lucky) jobs to apply for

Throw in catching up on the news, social media websites, and online ad/marketing publications and my day is pretty much full.

Two things

2009-02-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

Both ads.

First, my vote for most entertaining ad of the Super Bowl. Not necessarily the most memorable, or the funniest, but an amazing job of creating personality for two anonymous subjects. The fun party atmosphere and total aloofness of the commercial had me laughing and and wanting to go joyriding with them on the moon. Too bad their ride got jacked. Check it out.

Bridgestone Joyride

The other is unrelated, but is a great ad from Heineken that I saw the other day.

Walk-in closet

And wasn't the game today great? It's too bad the last 20 seconds ended up somewhat anticlimactic.

80 Miler

2009-01-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

You know it's a good ride when...

I did about 80 miles today on Team Oregon's Saturday ride. We went out and rode once around the Banana Belt course, which included some hard efforts. I can't believe how good my legs feel considering I've only been back on my bike for a week. That and my endurance is much higher than I expected it to be. There's already some jump in my legs, so now I just need to do some interval work to get ready for the accelerations common in races and some more long rides to expand my base a bit.

Keeping Busy

2009-01-29T20:44:00.000-08:00

It's been an enjoyable past two days. Yesterday Cousin Jessie and I headed downtown where we proceeded to do nothing and everything all at the same time. We walked through Chinatown and into the Pearl District. We perused Powell's Books for a while, and ended up at a shop called Cargo in the Pearl that sells all sorts of rare imported antiques and other various imports. Things such as chairs made from tires.

And brightly painted stools.

We toured the financial district for a while and decided to cross the river to the Lloyd Center area of town. I wished I had my camera (the nice one) with as the lighting on Portland made for the most interesting views of downtown I've ever seen. It was a mix of dark storm clouds, blue sky, rainbows, etc.

Downtown Portland was covered in sunlight through a tiny hole in the clouds, while dark clouds loomed in most every direction.

Last night I headed to a meeting for the local cycling team I'm joining. I've paid dues to get all the team discounts and such, and I'll buy a kit as soon as I'm sure I'll be around to race. For now, it'll be a good group to ride with. The goal is to be race-ready in a little over a month. Check out the team - teamoregon.org.

At the meeting I randomly ran into Kennett whom I hadn't seen in a while (from UO). I'm not sure why I didn't think about the fact that he'd be there, since I knew he was on the team and in the Portland area. It was good to catch up a bit.

Today after some morning job hunting, I headed over to the Mucha household to play some Boggle with Joey's mom. I'm infamous around there for being the only person to have ever beaten her at Boggle. No wins today, but I did manage to tie twice. Then I was introduced to Quiddler, which is somewhat like a combination of Rummy and Scrabble.

This afternoon I headed out for a ride to take advantage of the sunshine. I headed up Skyline, which I knew was a good sized climb, but I had no idea what exactly to expect. For those familiar with Eugene's riding, I'd compare it to a mix of Fox Hollow and MacBeth - on steroids. It's not constantly up, but it just keeps going further and further up as you go, resulting in some amazing views, and snow still on the sides of the road.

You get high enough up on the ridge that you can see into Washington all the way to Mt. Saint Helens and beyond. Looking back at one point, you can see down towards downtown Portland some 15-20 miles away with Mt. Hood directly behind it. The clouds were sitting low today, so it was a little odd to be above them.

Tonight I'll catch up on last night's episode of Lost, and then...

Me, minus the personality

2009-01-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

This was my remedy for my mood earlier. I created a list of all my skills, experience, and knowledge (that I could think of in an evening) of various degrees and semi-organized it. What I ended up with is a list of things that I would generally consider myself more knowledgeable/experienced in than your average person. The actual level of each may range from simply proficient to expert, but all of them are things that contribute to who I am and could be talking points in an interview. The list could be subcategorized many times more than it is, but that would make it much longer than it already is. It lacks all personal attributes, characteristics, morals, and everything else that creates my personality. Instead, it's just a list of everything I've picked up along the 23 year journey of my life so far that still seems at least somewhat relevant today. For example, I was a really good shot with a Super Soaker way back when, but what good is that today? If you read through it in detail, you'll probably get a chuckle or two, and probably even learn some things about me you didn't know. Without further ado,

Actually wait - another comment: it's interesting how interconnected technology and the internet are to my life. Now, without further ado,

Skills, Knowledge, Experience:

Online experienced with
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
Google Analytics
Gmail
Hotmail
Yahoo
Digg
Blogger
Wordpress
Flikr
Youtube
Hulu
eBay
Amazon
Craigslist
Html, xml, css literate
keywords, tagging
Firefox
Google Chrome
Safari
Internet Explorer
Flash
Geocaching
General social networking
General web 2.0
Email list maintenance
Website maintenance

Software experienced with
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Access
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft Visio
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Bridge
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Acrobat
Gimp
SPSS
RAW Image editing
HDR image creation
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Mac OS X
Basic Unix
P2P Protocols
iTunes
iMovie
CD/DVD burning

Technology knowledge
Computer sourcing and building
General troubleshooting
Computer hardware
Device compatibility
RAID
Networking
Wireless networking
iPhone
Blackberry
File extensions

Sports experience
Cycling – competitive road, recreational MTB
Runner – race experience
Golf – 6 years approx handicap between 10 and 15
Fencing – competitive
Tennis – recreational
XC skiing – recreational
Downhill skiing – recreational
Soccer – recreational
Ultimate Frisbee – recreational

Creative outlets
Photography
Digital SLR
Photo Manipulation
Writing
Copywriting
Resume Design
Blogging
Photoblogging
Trumpet
Graphic design

Marketing knowledge/experience
Direct consumer interaction
Grassroots marketing initiatives
Brand/logo design
Brand image/recall/response
Brand continuity
Event marketing
Advertising and promotions
Retail marketing
Consumer behavior and psychology
databases
PR and paid news
Sports marketing and sponsorship
Marketing life cycle
5 Ps
Agency-client relationships
SEO & SEM
Marketing metrics
Viral marketing
Guerilla marketing
Permission marketing
Direct/email marketing
Employee brands
Marketing plan creation

General Business knowledge
Six sigma manufacturing
Annuities and Perpetuities
Time value of money
Break-even analysis
Business calculus
Management styles
Business organizations (matrix, etc)
Annual reports
Market analysis
HR/OSHA/Labor practices
Management versus leadership
Product life cycle
Basic accounting – credits, debits, depreciation, AR/AP
Union labor
Budgeting

Operations highly knowledgeable of
Golf Courses
Hotels
Bike shops
Bike manufacturers
Cycling teams
Shoe/sports apparel manufacturers
Media organizations
Web startups
Marketing and advertising agencies

Games good at
Poker
Hearts
Spades
Sudoku
Boggle
FPS
3PS
RPG

Misc. Education
Geography
US politics/government
Classic literature
World/US history
Basic Calculus
Algebra/Trig/Geometry
Physics
Basic German
Economics

Publications/Online regularly read
Businessweek
Wall Street Journal
Economist
New York Times
Ad Age
Google News
Wired
Huffington Post
Seth Godin
Tech Crunch
Technorati
Gizmodo

Manual Skills
Luggage Handling
Caddying
Oversized vehicle handing
Cooking
Bike building
Basic woodworking
Landscaping
Hauling heavy objects

Other knowledge and proficiencies
Travel logistics
Navigation
GPS
Knowledge of many US cities
DOT regulations
Animal attack survival
Alaska
Typing 50-70WPM
Reading 60-100PPH dependent on reading material
Thesis writing
Bibliographies
Can read music
Heart rate/threshold training
Calvin and Hobbes
Dog care and training
Job hunting
Green technologies
Laundry

Networks connected to
UO Cycling team
OBRA
Team Oregon
Event Marketing/marathon
Business School
American Marketing Assn
Honors Business College
Family

Moods Like the Weather

2009-01-27T16:37:00.000-08:00

Today hasn't been a particularly good day. I woke up to a bit of a change when I noticed fresh snow outside, and I felt somewhat excited to go drop off a resume and cover letter for a company that I can hopefully make some connections at (They have their own internal cycling team, how sweet is that?). I froze in the frigid weather on the way there and back, but hopefully it will amount to something in the future.

I came back and spent much of the rest of the morning and afternoon submitting my resume to several other job sites I hadn't yet, submitted an application for a couple of retail positions, and then checked the news. December unemployment info is out, and it's bad. Highest unemployment numbers the country has seen in decades. 9.0% in Oregon last month before the Intel cuts. I'd guess it'll be 10% or higher for January.

For the first time since I started job hunting, I got really down over how lame being unemployed is. I'm not even that concerned about job pay or benefits as long as it's enough to get by on. Right now, I want something constructive to do that ideally uses my college degree that I still have a ways to go on paying off. I'd take an unpaid position at a company for several months to prove I'm a valuable asset if it meant good experience and would lead to an actual job.

I'm staying busy enough, but right now my constant state of flux doesn't allow me to feel at all settled. I don't know whether to build a new social network here since I don't know if I'll be around long. I just paid dues for a local cycling team, but I'm not sure if I'll actually be around to race with them. Then again, if I remain unemployed this could be my best training and racing year ever. I dunno.

The cold, wet, dreary Oregon winter day outside fit the mood pretty well.

Oh well. I suppose bad days are a necessary evil. They stand out in stark contrast to my normal very positive self and if anything motivate me to do something to fix whatever is wrong. I just need to figure out what else I can be doing.

Tomorrow I pick myself up and dust myself off and keep going.

Ode to Boxer Briefs

2009-01-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

They have a confused identity
Part restricting and part free.
Often covered by pants,
Ideally free of ants,
Boxer briefs are just right for me.

Your resume is so sharp, it cut me.

2009-01-26T16:23:00.001-08:00

Seriously, look at that thing, it's beautiful:

The perfect balance of white space and text. Just enough color to catch the eye. Bold in all the right places. Enough action-oriented bullet points to take down a one ton grizzly. No fat - all meat. Revised and edited so many times any spelling and grammatical errors fled in terror. Power words. A constant state of flux - never the same on any two days or for any two jobs. It probably even glows in the dark!

If I were someone in HR, I would hire me based on that resume alone.

So Close!

2009-01-25T19:59:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday while taking Harry (the dog) for a run, something odd and out of place caught my attention as we ran past the backyard of a house in the neighborhood. I backtracked a few steps only to see an owl staring straight back at me in a tree perhaps 15-20 feet away. I froze for a few seconds trying to process exactly what I was seeing, before cautiously walking back out of sight and immediately bolting the two minutes back towards the house and my camera. It was one of those I NEED this photo type of moments. I raced back hoping it hadn't moved from its perch. It seemed relatively content just sitting there, so other than the squirrel that didn't like its tree being taken over and was being vocal about it, I figured there was a decent chance it wouldn't move.

I got back, and this was the scene.

The red circle is approximately where the owl was perched, and the blue squared is how much of the frame it would have filled with my 300mm lens.

I thought it may not have gone too far, so I searched around and actually found it in the same tree, just much higher up and behind plenty of branches in relative darkness. This made focusing and getting a decent exposure a pain.

I did manage to find one clear angle at it (other than the dense foliage in the way).

So as best I can figure out, it's a barred owl. Which mostly makes sense. Searching online, it's the only one that looks similar, but it's primarily a more eastern owl that has only recently started expanding its range into Oregon and Washington. Do you concur, parents?

It was very close to being a dream photo opportunity, but I just missed it. I run by there fairly often, so I'm going to have to keep my eyes open.

You choose.

2009-01-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

What should I blog about?

Give me a subject, and I will write it.

Oh, and my trip to Eugene followed by two days of riding my bike back to Portland was fun.

A little too much hype?

2009-01-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

This is going to sound a little odd, but as Obama prepares to be sworn in as president some eight hours from now, I worry that the country is making too big a deal out of the inauguration. While the event is certainly historic and exciting, the media frenzy and commercialization surrounding the event seems a bit much.

When I attended Clinton's 2nd inauguration, it was a big deal in my life. That entire trip to DC/New York/Philadelphia as a 5th grader is still very fresh in my memory. The inauguration, however, is not one of the most memorable moments. Granted, 5th graders aren't usually terribly excited by speeches and can think of things more fun to do than standing around for hours in cold weather - but I'm glad I was there and would certainly appreciate it more were it today.

This time around, everyone seems to feel the needs to get in on the day. Every major TV station is not only covering the event live, but most have hours and hours of "pregame" where they'll undoubtedly repeat the same thing over ten times trying to fill airtime. It's a little early in the morning to be playing drinking games, but I'm sure you'd be well on your way if you simply drank every time you heard the word "historic" uttered. Yes this event will be historic. I hope Obama gives a moving speach tomorrow that will be remembered among the great presidential speeches. The problem is that history usually runs its own course on its own time, and in this case everyone is forcing this to be a part of history. It's still what it's always been - a swearing in, some formalities, and a parade, followed by DC letting its hair down for a night of partying. Don't spoil the moment by making too big a deal of it.

I'm extremely happy for the countless African Americans who have waited for this day their entire lives. I'm happy for every Obama supporter who finally gets to see an extremely long election process come to fruition. I'm happy for our new president. I could do without 14,000 hours of TV coverage for an hour long event. I laugh at the 2800 different Obama t-shirts and 288 bottles of Obama wine (even though it's from Oregon). I shake my head in disbelief at the Obamarella and Obama bedside lights.

Who knows, maybe the massive amount of money being spent in relation to the inauguration will accidently give the economy the kick in the pants it desperately needs.

As for me, I'll be wearing my Obama underwear and "Yes we can" slippers first thing tomorrow morning while I eat my Obama-shaped pancakes watching picture-in-picture-in-picture MSNBC/CNN/ABC coverage on all new inauguration news that has broken in the last 6 hours prior to the event. Then I might actually go back to being sane while I watch the actual event.

Shooz

2009-01-17T16:43:00.000-08:00

Likely the last free pair of Crocs I'll ever receive:

A photo walk

2009-01-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

I think the photos I took on a walk today are some of the best I've ever taken. I spent much of my time focused on macro photography, with some other odds and ends thrown in.

And Some HDR:

Key Words

2009-01-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

In the last month, here are the top keywords (ordered high to low by number of hits, ranging from 18 to 1) that have landed people on this blog from Google:

"adjectives starting with m"
"adjectives beginning with m"
(Apparently I'm not the only one that can't think of very many)
"vibrating belt and Dallas"
(Uh...)
"interesting adjectives"
"migratory marketer"
(Ok, I'll give them that one)
"rick davis, portland, or"
(Undoubtedly a combination of several different posts having absolutely nothing to do with one another)
"rock racing"
(I may have mentioned them once, which apparently is enough)
"Vibrating Belt"
(Really? This was a couple months ago. And they're a joke!)
"Adam Edgerton blog"
(Hurray! Even if it is only one hit!)
"adjective running child"
(Once again, a mashing up of several different posts)
"Merry Marketer"
(At least this person spent a whole four minutes on the site rather than immediately bouncing)
"Portland Oregon Sneakerhead"
(Seems fairly apt)
"Road trips from Phoenix to Flagstaff"
(I wouldn't call myself an expert, but it is a trip I've taken)
"food movie"
(Well, I do like food. And movies, for that matter)

It would appear that my random post subjects that fail to fall under any one theme have unsurprisingly made it really difficult for Google to catalog my blog. Using the tags section on each post for locations also probably doesn't help. Nor does my blog's current state of name-in-flux syndrome. Not that I'm really that concerned with drawing in people who are actually looking for my blog. It's linked from every major online social network I'm connected to. Plus I kind of like drawing in people who are searching for something completely menial that my blog has nothing to do with.

Routine

2009-01-15T00:11:00.000-08:00

After a week in Portland I'm starting to feel settled into a bit of a routine, for better or worse. A typical day begins around 8:00-8:30 with a run. Then I'll get back, eat Cheerios, and begin searching the dozen or so job sites I'm frequenting for new postings. After doing this combined with some research and brainstorming about companies to apply to directly, It's about lunchtime. I'll have a bit to eat and get back to job hunting, usually focusing on writing cover letters and submitting actual applications in the afternoon. Around the time my aunt and uncle get home, I finish up for the day and socialize a bit. Dinner is next, followed by anything from a movie to watching a bit of TV to reading a book to messing around with my camera. Late evening I'll watch some TV in the basement while stretching and doing some weights/balance ball exercises. Bed usually around 1AM. Rinse and repeat.

There are a few exceptions, including last night when I went over to a different aunt and uncle's house for dinner followed by American Idol. And Friday nights have been designated as the night I cook dinner with my aunt. We're experimenting with various Thai and Asian dishes.

Still, I need to get outside a bit more, see some friends in the area, and explore Portland. I'm also in the process of planning a long weekend trip to Eugene and Corvallis, probably to occur the weekend following this one.

I've got enough applications out now that I'm waiting patiently for an interview call. I've gotten a couple no answers already, including what I thought my best shot might be at the company I was recently working for.

I need to get one of my bikes.

Going RAW

2009-01-12T23:35:00.000-08:00

So I finally added RAW as a file format my camera saves with. I'm not sure why it took so long, other than I had to get around to installing software to make full use of the format's potential. For those who don't know RAW, it's a format that saves all the details of the photo as captured by the camera's sensor before any additional settings (such as white balance or noise reduction) are applied. This allows you to go back later and make any changes to the image that you would otherwise not be able to if you set those extra settings prior to taking the shot and only saved as a jpeg.

This means that this otherwise badly underexposed shot...

can be mostly salvaged without having to resort to contrast and brightness manipulation.

Oh, and I also decided to create my first HDR image. It's really a shame that I picked such a boring subject, but at least I don't feel bad for spending very little time adjusting it to make it look good. Look at the top of the window. Yikes.

Just a big kid

2009-01-11T23:15:00.000-08:00

I spent much of yesterday playing with my cousin's son whose grandmother (the aunt I'm staying with) regularly babysits him. Legos were the name of the game, and I fulfilled building requests for a Star Wars-like spaceship, R2D2, and C3P0. Eventually the spaceship gave way to a larger space ship that was nearly 2 feet long.

R2 was an especially big hit. There was a bit of a tantrum when R2 had to stay when it was time to go. Not to worry though, R2 is currently sitting on the fireplace mantle waiting for his return.

My personal project of the day started out with a wheeled-vehicle of some sort. I wasn't sure where I was going with the idea, until I decided it had better be a jet-driven car. I added a couple jets. I quickly got completely carried away and decided that this needed to be the most overpowered jet car ever, so I crammed as many jets onto it as possible. I only stopped when I ran out of jet-like pieces to use.

32.

A Few More

2009-01-10T23:36:00.001-08:00

Way too much fun.

2009-01-09T23:08:00.001-08:00

Sneakerhead

2009-01-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

Well if I wasn't already into shoes before today I guess now I'm immersed. Shoes and running technology has definitely been the theme of the day. I started off the day with a walk in my running shoes to really feel out how they fit me. Then I spent a while reading articles online about running stride, gait, and common gait problems. Then I watched videos online of various running and walking gaits (plus 3d models and renderings - isn't the internet great?).

Then I had lunch.

Then I headed over to Portland Running Company, where shoe fitting expert Rich was very helpful in answering questions that my morning cram session had brought up. I watched some in-person gait evaluation and shoe fittings. I talked running with Rich whose fastest marathon time is 2:23, which is only 50 minutes more than my fastest HALF marathon time. He was able to inform me about his particular reasons for recommending certain brands and shoes and clarified the very different purposes of shoe design and insole design.

Then I had lunch. Wait...

Based on all this learning I determined that a while back on the tour the Mizuno rep that looked at about three strides I took before figuring out which shoes would be best for me actually knew a thing or two. But wait, there's more. After all this, I went back online and started doing some research and rote memorization on running shoe lines and their various features.

Ah, the life of a job hunter.

WARNING!

2009-01-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

This is a public notice of removal from my "Some Favorite Blogs" list to the distinguished authors of "Crisscrossing the US" and "etc." as seen on the right column of the page. While I hold your persons in highest esteem and regard, I must insist upon unlinking your blog (the most brutal and hurtful of blogging-related actions) unless new content appears therein thereby breathing new life into your wonderful yet stale creations.

"If I could leave you with one thought, remember, it wasn't me. They are trying to make me an escape goat. If I am fired, I swear to God that every little piece of copier paper in this town is going to have the F word on it. The F word. You have one day.

...one day for what?

Thats... they always give an ultimatum."

Eagles, Running, Stupid Children, The Weather...

2009-01-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

EAGLES

We saw them!

RUNNING

On average 5-6 days a week for the last month. Usually 3-8 miles per run, with some intervals, slow endurance, and high pace involved. This has been complemented by fairly vigorous (spell check wanted me to say viperous, which also sounds really cool) core and upper body workouts plus lots of stretching. This will come in handy in the future for things such as being race-ready on a bike, running 10Ks and Half-Marathons, chasing down purse-snatchers and other miscreants, and even running from the occasional barracuda that has sprouted legs and decided to take up being a carnivorous land-dweller.

STUPID CHILDREN

It's not completely their fault. I had the thought as of late (and have actually considered this dating back before the movie Idiocracy, in all its mediocrity, brought the subject to light) of what happens if our current child-bearing rates continue. I can't speak for all countries, but in the US it seems that there is a ratio of IQ to children, with higher-IQ couples producing less offspring on average than their idiot counterparts. This makes complete sense, with smart people rationalizing that less children means better upbringings and more financial security, while stupid people can't figure out how to not get pregnant every 9 months. This, combined with the general class and income-gap associated with intelligence, means that if this trend continues there's the possibility that the percent of humans living below the poverty level will increase dramatically, as will the overall dumbness of everyone.

The question, then, is as a self-proclaimed smart person, am I obligated to find a smart girl and produce as many smart offspring as possible in my remaining decades of life? Or should I go the standard route and have 1-2 children that I can support and hope they manage to take over the world? Or do I abstain from little devils all together out of fear that the number of stupid people they'll have to deal with in their lifetimes will simply be unbearable?

THE WEATHER

Saint George, Utah has seen dramatically more snow and cold temperatures than usual this year.

Portland, Oregon recently turned into a wintery (tire chains not optional) wonderland, and I hear it's snowing again today.

The temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska was -52F this morning. Glad I'm not there.

The midwest is a popsicle.

What is going on this winter?

AND THE ...

While in Portland Oregon, how should I prioritize the following? (Also known as: Who actually reads my blog in Oregon?)

A - See all the aunts and uncles in Portland

B - See all the aunts and uncles South of Portland North of Eugene

C - See all the friends and relatives in Eugene and figure out what to do with all my stuff stored there

D - See all the other relatives not covered by A, B, or C

E - Become a hermit and take up napping as my primary hobby

Sunset

2009-01-03T00:05:00.000-08:00

What do you know? The puzzle is actually finished! After putting hundred of pieces in places where they didn't seem to fit but did anyway and driving ourselves crazy matching single pieces against the box picture and working our way through the leaves that made up a good chunk of the entire puzzle, it's complete.

Now what? Do we frame it? Put it back in the box and donate it to some poor unsuspecting family that doesn't know what they're in for? Burn it (as I suggested recently)?

Tonight as I was cooking dinner we finally got the sunset that I'd been hoping for in order to have a chance to pull out the camera and see what sort of colors I could pull out of the clouds. I ran outside while dad tended the stove and snapped 20 quick shots.

And for some reason or another I was feeling like a project tonight so I decided to mess around with a picture of my brother. After several different renderings, this is what I ended up with. My brother is a big fan (obsessed?) of the Green lantern, so it fits.

The original:

I realized today that while I'm pleased that I've managed to continue blogging about pretty much nothing since wrapping up the tour, I'm not writing as much as I once was, and I kind of miss it. While I'm a little more creative with a nice camera, I felt one of the strongest points early on was simply whatever I happened to be writing about and how I wrote it. I'll have to get back to a bit more of that.

Portland and the unknown in T-minus 4 days.

Flagstaff-Phoenix-Vegas Road Trip

2009-01-02T12:27:00.001-08:00

Who else is excited for The Office to start airing new episodes again in a month?

A semi-spontaneous road trip to Phoenix occurred New Years Eve Day. Ian wanted to get to Phoenix and couldn't find a ride, so I gave him one and decided to see what sort of adventure came my way.

We took the route east around the Grand Canyon past Lees Ferry and the Vermillion Cliffs to Flagstaff.

Ian was excited to see the large piles of snow still present in Flagstaff, as this means he'll be able to go snowboarding every weekend now through the end of the season.

On the way to Phoenix, I spent a while messing around with the new telephoto camera lens taking pictures of license plates, road signs, and the sunset while my brother drove.

In Phoenix, I met up with Heidi (friend from the Crocs tour) who was working at the Tempe Block Party and managed to get me in free. The Block party is listed as one of the top 10 New Years Eve parties in the country - stretching many blocks through downtown Tempe.

I spent some time playing video games...

Had my choice of some 30-40 different concerts...

Watched some heavily branded motocross freestyle jumping...

And of course, watched fireworks.

On New Years Day, I headed back home via Las Vegas. On the way I stopped at the Hoover Dam. The new bridge over the canyon is pretty impressive, and will ease traffic congestion considerably. Coming from the East I had no wait, but traffic from the West was backed up nearly 10 miles all the way to Boulder City.

In Vegas I met up with Joey briefly and caught up for a few hours.

Then I headed back home and took the parents out for a brief stargazing trip, complete with a few shooting stars.

Zion Followed by a New Toy

2008-12-29T22:16:00.001-08:00

Today we spent the day hiking, sightseeing, and exploring in Zion National Park. I continue to learn more about my camera with each use, and today I had fun with a bit of messing with depth of field, intentional underexposure to capture a maximum number of color tones, and manual focusing.

I'm not sure what was interesting, but the photo sure is.

An understatement.

Good hang time.

Look for the really sloppy 30 second photo editing. You can even see it at 25% resolution.

After arriving back home, my main Christmas present that shipped 2nd day air finally decided to show up after 7 days. Thanks Mom and Dad (and Aunt Mary)!

70mm from 8 feet away

Some zoom between 70 and 300, didn't think to look.

300mm

Much more fun with this new lens is sure to follow. I'm looking forward to being able to mess with depth of field to a much greater degree. This captivating photo of a chair is looking very artsy, for example.

Snow Canyon Mayhem

2008-12-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

Today we spent a good chunk of the afternoon hiking in Snow Canyon. We explored three different trails, and spent time messing around in sand, sliding on and breaking ice, and climbing.

1 week

2008-12-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

It's official. I've been in the same location for more than a week for the first time since June. No stir craziness yet. I've been keeping busy though.

In the last few days I -

absolutely dominated at hearts:

Learned that people can be conned into believing anything, including that Diet Coke is actually hydrating. Then again, if you're already a Diet Coke drinker you've probably had the wool pulled over your eyes for a while now. Aspartame. Nasty stuff. Still, this is a lousy excuse for marketing.

Helped get the puzzle closer to completion. We finished the fairly hard section, the frustratingly hard section, and now all that's left is the part that makes you want to pull your hair out. We're working with a deadline now as well, since I think we're using the big table for Christmas dinner.

Learned that a new genre now exists for books: the sniper novel. Right up there with romance, mystery, and self-help, you have a major category that until now has been overlooked. There have to be at least a dozen novels out there that would qualify.

Created a sweet new instrument out of a wrapping paper cardboard roll. It sounded worse than a dijireedoo and made my lips hurt. And all those finger holes that were supposed to create different notes? Mostly for show, it turns out.

Promptly destroyed it.

Had our traditional oyster stew and croissant Christmas eve dinner

Learned that brothers make good footrests

Until they attack you with their super-bright camera phone flashes.

We opened gifts on Christmas Eve this year. The haul includes fig newton bars, chewy granola bars, oyster crackers, and generic brand corn flakes. Missing this year are the Christmas gift staple Nature Valley bars, Cheerios, and Cheez-its.

Quote of the evening:

Mom: "I'm probably the only person in the world who gets a lava flow for Christmas."

Hurling snow. Bovine staring contest.

2008-12-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

Dusting off the Camera

2008-12-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

It's been less than a week since I brought out the camera, but it feels like a month. I figured it was time I took a few more pictures. The first few are for the people who would like a better picture (literally) of what the xeriscaping project is looking like so far. Still to go is finishing off the watering system and adding rocks and a lava flow. The rest are from a hike we took this afternoon.

Uh, rocks?

2008-12-19T23:14:00.001-08:00

After some Swedish pancakes for breakfast, we went and made off with a massive rock that my parents had been after for months. With permission, we slid it off the property of the nearby aquatic center under a fence and loaded it in the back of the truck. Then we booked it back home like bandits after a stop at the library. I was anxiously awaiting a certain package, which thankfully showed up in the early afternoon...

So now I have my new toy and my transition from PC gamer geek to Apple fanboy is nearly complete. I already appreciate the simplicity of the file structure of the Unix based operating system. Everything is rather straight-forward, and it makes transferring everything between laptops fairly pain-free. it's nice to transfer everything off the old laptop and still have 200GB free. Now I can really go crazy with the camera.

My time with the Macbook was brief in the afternoon, as we had other work to be doing. We're pitching in with the whole xeriscaping project going on in front of the house (and eventually the back). Today, we took rock mixed with dirt, leaves, twigs, and more dirt...

and turned it into just rocks!

This involved a screen and water, several hours, and lots of mud. Yesterday was playing in the snow, today was very much getting dirty in the mud.

I know, it's really captivating stuff, huh? Going from writing about exotic locales to writing about dirt and rocks... I'll post some pictures of the partially-landscaped area to at least give some perspective for the seemingly mundane work.

Why is Life so Delicious?

2008-12-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

Sticking snow in Saint George? I didn't think so either. But we had a couple inches last night, and it was fun to watch the neighborhood kids playing in it, potentially for the first time. It sounds like it hasn't snowed like this in a decade.

We already had plans to go skiing today, but the forecast for snow and a huge storm passing through made the prospect all the more exciting. We left Saint George early in the morning and headed Northeast to Brian Head Resort. Saint George's elevation is a little under 3000 feet, and the base of the mountain is over 9000 feet, so we went up the entire way there. It was still snowing vigorously this morning and the interstate and back highways were blanketed in snow and ice. Days like today are what our Subaru was made for. I'm glad my parents kept it.

We got there this morning to find that there was still a massive blizzard going on and winds were too strong to go all the way to the top of the hill, so we messed around in bitter wind chill and blinding snow on the lower slopes for a while. It's rather difficult to ski/snowboard well when the lighting and visibility is such that you can't see the terrain you're going down.

I skied, Ian snowboarded. He's holding poles because I needed hands to take the picture.

Then they opened one lift to the top when the sky suddenly turned blue, and up we went. I realize that this picture doesn't look particularly blue-skyish, but just go with it.

The view from nearly 11000 feet is stunning, especially with all the surrounding terrain being several thousand feet lower.

The afternoon was all about finding powder. Growing up skiing in Alaska, the best we usually got was hard-pack, icy slopes. This was the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with over a foot of fresh powder in the last 24 hours. Some runs that hadn't been groomed yet this year were covered with 2-3 feet of nothing but powder. We had to learn a slightly different style of getting down the hill with all the fresh snow. Steep slopes became our friends, flatter slopes our enemies that liked to pull us under and bring us to a stop.

And of course with that learning curve comes a crash or two. It's the softest landing ever, but the downside is you have to dig yourself out of the hole you create just to get going again. I cracked up for a good 5 minutes as I watched Ian get unstuck from this one, only to start out goofy and miss the narrow packed trail before falling into powder again at slow speed.

I had two good crashes on the day. The first was when I somehow sunk in a ski tip going across several other people's tracks in deep powder. I face planted pretty nicely and was confused to find myself on my back. At least one somersault must have taken place. This was still during the stormy part of the morning, and I initially couldn't tell which way was up the hill and which way was down. Nor could I figure out where one of my skis went. I spent several minutes digging for it before finding it. Next time I'm selecting skier level III instead of II so they don't pop off so easily.

The other fabulous crash also involved losing a ski, but this one in a slightly more original manner. I was skiing in deep powder near the edge of a run and was noticing little 3-4 foot tall Pine trees sticking out of the snow. I was dodging them easily until one snuck up on me when it was too late to avoid. I figured I could glide right over it since only 3-4 inches were sticking above snow, but I wasn't thinking about the fact that my skis were actually below the surface a bit. The tree ripped my right ski off and I spent a few moments ragdolling down the slope in a most comfortable fashion.

All that skiing and crashing and getting unstuck was a nice way to burn off some energy.

Now off to some sort of exciting evening adventure, such as playing cards or watching a movie or working on a ridiculously hard puzzle where all of the pieces look the same (and there are 2000 of them). Seriously, someone must have felt particularly evil the day they decided the entire bottom third of the puzzle should be a bunch of fall-colored leaves.

Oh, and the post title? That was my brother talking about cereal this morning.

Snow Day!

2008-12-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

We've got a good 3-4 inches of snow in Portland, with more potentially on the way and a week of freezing weather to go with it. Not that I haven't seen snow recently... and I suppose I am from Alaska, but it is still exciting since this much snow in Oregon is a rarity. We used the day to sit around drinking tea, eating homemade rolls, playing Hearts and Rummy, and I even prepped for my interview in the morning a bit.

It should be a lovely time tomorrow morning scurrying around trying to get to my interview. As it snowed today, the weather got colder and it transitioned from melting to freezing, which means there will be a nice layer of ice on everything tomorrow. I'm taking public transportation, which is probably more reliable than driving would be. Wish me luck. If nothing else, it'll be some good interview experience. Then it's off to Saint George, where the forecast is snow! I think there are already plans to go skiing when I get there.

Right Place, Right Time

2008-12-13T23:11:00.000-08:00

The more time I spend in Portland, the more I feel like it would be a great place to call home in the near future.

I mean, how can you beat free Starbucks...

Unique Salvation Army Bell Ringers...

Friendly Chewbaccas (and cousins, for that matter)...

Frozen people (flash-mob style)...

(The pictures really don't do it justice, since it's basically taking a freeze-frame of frozen people)

Even the anti-Church of Scientology people joined in the fun.

Voodoo Donuts...

Saturday Market (which for some reason also happens on Sunday, in spite of the name)...

Tuba Christmas...

A dragon tuba?

Nike Town (both figuratively and literally)...

And we just went downtown to do some random Christmas shopping.

Top that off with some Thai food and Will Ferrell and you've got yourself a rather enjoyable day.

Notable Places Visited

2008-12-13T23:05:00.001-08:00

Same as the sidebar column, only now in a post to save for future reference.

Denver, CO December 11
Boulder, CO December 10
Albaquerque, NM December 9
Las Vegas, NV December 3-8
Bakersfield, CA December 2
Redding, CA December 1
Portland, OR December 1
Seattle, WA Nov 25-30
Eugene, OR Nov 23-24
San Francisco, CA Nov 21-22
Bakersfield, CA Nov 20
St. George, UT Nov 19
Flagstaff, AZ Nov 18
Albaquerque, NM Nov 17
Dallas, TX Nov 16
San Antonio, TX Nov 12-16
Eugene, OR Nov 6-11
San Antonio, TX November 5
Houston, TX November 4
Birmingham, AL November 3
Staunton, VA November 2
New York, NY Oct 29 - Nov 1
Morristown, NJ October 27-28
Washington, DC October 21-26
Pittsburgh, PA October 20
Detroit, MI October 15-19
Grand Haven, MI October 14
Chicago, IL October 9-13
Omaha, NE October 8
Cheyenne, WY October 7
Elko, NV October 6
San Jose, CA October 1-5
San Francisco CA September 26-30
Reno, NV September 25
Lincoln, NE September 23
Philadelphia, PA September 16-21
Baltimore, MD September 15
Washington DC, September 9-14
St. George, UT September 4-8
Washington DC, September 2-3
Virginia Beach, VA August 27-31
Charleston, WV August 26
Chicago, IL August 21-25
Milwaukee, WI August 20
Minneapolis, MN August 19
Missoula, MT August 18
Seattle/Bellevue, WA August 14-17
Portland, OR August 11-13
Eugene, OR August 8-10
Bend, OR August 7-8
Park City, UT August 3-6
Copper, CO August 1-3
Boulder, CO July 31
Fort Collins, CO July 30
Omaha, NE July 29
Newark, NJ July 27
Webster, MA July 27
Worcester, MA July 25-26
Boston, MA July 22-24
Dedham, MA July 21
New London/Mystic, CT July 21
Mendham, NJ July 20
New York, NY July 17-20
Princeton, NJ July 16-17
Allentown, PA July 15
Jim Thorpe/Lehighton, PA July 15
Toledo, Ohio July 14
Pleasant Priarie, WI July 10-13
Chicago, IL July 9-10
Louisville, KY July 9
Nashville, TN July 6 - 9
Atlanta, GA July 1 - 6
Portland OR June 30

Some things I've learned...

2008-12-11T23:13:00.000-08:00

- Every hotel has HBO, but it's whether or not they have Comedy Central that makes the difference.

- Credit cards are anything but secure. Pretty much anyone can use anyone's card.

- Trucks carrying bees are not supposed to stop for gas during the day.

- You don't use the "J" key on your keyboard as much as you'd think.

- Parking large vehicles is a pain pretty much everywhere.

- Always listen to your instincts. You don't have to act on them, but it's usually a good idea.

- Finding new things to explore is much less about where you are, and much more the state of mind you're in.

- The distance between coasts becomes shorter each time you drive it.

- If you act like you're know what you're doing, people will rarely question you.

- A negative split is when you run faster as the race progresses. This is good.

- It's really easy to just talk to people.

- Someone needs to franchise Chop't nationwide RIGHT NOW.

- Asking everyone a question about something you already know the answer to is lame.

- College was a long time ago. Last month was a long time ago. Last event was a long time ago.

- Close friends only become closer when you have to travel to visit them.

- I want a mountain bike.

- The whole "East Coast mentality" isn't as pronounced as West Coasters make it seem.

- When driving a truck, reading every road sign is useful, if not absolutely necessary.

- The longer you travel, the less important "where" becomes.

- Keeping a blog can result in keeping sanity.

- It gets darker a full hour earlier on the eastern side of a time zone than it does on the western side of the same time zone. Duh.

- A job, a purpose, and financial security breeds self-confidence.

- I met a ton of people in college, but I got to know far too few of them.

- Happy is simply a state of mind. You don't need a reason to be happy.

- I shop for clothes like a girl.

- The iPhone is the most useful tool I've ever owned.

- Unless you like burning a hole in your wallet, 2.5 star hotels are as high a ranking as you'll ever really need. You go up to 3 stars and everything from food to internet costs extra.

- Avoid the 1 star hotels though.

- And the 5 star was pretty nice.

- Base part of your tip calculation on whether or not your server can keep up with the rate at which you consume water.

- Swimming is like other aerobic activities except you can't breathe very well.

- Running is actually kind of fun.

- I'm incredibly lucky to have found and gotten this job.

Statistics

2008-12-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

In the past 5 months 11 days*,

- 35,000 miles driven
- 400 miles walked on foot
- 150 miles run
- 200 miles biked
- 1.5 miles swum
- 19 tour events worked
- 73 different stops along the way
- 56 cities visited
- 37 states visited
- 57.5 Million Subway Sandwich stops
- 18 thousand other fast food stops
- 9 times ate at Chop't
- 4 times ate at Yumm
- Total food spending: $3,200
- Total other bill spending: $0
- 15 different public transit systems utilized (DC Metro takes the cake)
- 139 blog posts
- 2000 camera phone pictures
- 900 SLR pictures
- 9 Apple stores visited
- 3 truck break-downs
- 50+ weigh station stops
- 4 truck inspection warnings
- 3 parking tickets
- 0 other tickets
- 0 accidents
- 4 arguments with union workers
- 17 near-arguments with union workers
- 42 hours spent sitting around waiting on union workers
- 50 tons lifted
- 1 back injury
- 1 times overslept
- 12 VIP areas entered
- 4 race entries comped
- 164 times realized that I had an awesome job

*Many figures are accurate. Many others are estimates. Still others are completely made up.

That's a Wrap

2008-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

While this blog is not over, the tour officially is as of today. The events are done, the trucks delivered to Crocs in Boulder after a washing and detailing...

Final reports are in, exit interviews taken, expense reports ready to be sent... now all that's left is a night in Denver and a flight out to Portland tomorrow.

We dropped the trucks off at the Crocs truck graveyard, or at least what I was hoping would more resemble what I imagine a truck graveyard would be. I was thinking dark lighting, snow covered vehicles, and frowny faces on the trucks themselves. It would have been the perfect setting for the tagline "where good Crocs trucks go to die." Instead, this is what we got:

Way too sunny, not enough snow, and the trucks don't look very somber. Plus a bunch of the trucks aren't there right now. Oh well, it's what I've got to work with. Croc 1 and 2, I'll miss you both for your great views and good turning radii and stupid breakdowns. But not that much.

Tonight is the last hotel night, tomorrow the last day on per diem. I'm headed to Portland for a long weekend to see some family and friends and to ace a job interview, and then from there it's off to St. George for Christmas with the family - I still have a little while before I've officially been in the same location for more than a week for the first time since June.

There is still another tour-related blog post or two up my sleeve, but then this blog will certainly not cease to exist. It will be... something. I'm just not sure what yet. But never fear all you regular blog readers. You'll be getting a fresh dose of something. It may well even be more creative and interesting than my posts of late.

A project I plan to tackle is to re-read the entire blog (138 posts) this weekend. I expect it may take the better part of 4-5 hours. I wonder how many hours I've spent writing...

Winter Has Arrived

2008-12-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's more like winter was already here and we've just arrived in it. Luckily, the trucks do surprisingly well in ice and snow. We didn't even need the tire chains through the pass today.

All that salt and snow and ice and freezing rain really decorated the truck nicely.

But we made it all the way to Boulder, and we even washed the trucks on the way, so now they're all nice and sparkly again.

Also of note, we went to Half Fast Subs, which was as amazing as it was last time I was in Boulder. We have arrived at our final destination. Tomorrow, we'll leave behind the trucks that have been our home for the last 5+ months.

Going out with a bang

2008-12-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

Our final race day brought cool weather and overcast skies, resulting in a spectacular sunrise.

It being our final event and final race day, it's also hopefully the last time I have to wake up at 4AM in the near future. The race started off with a bang, as they shot off a full fireworks display at 6AM as the race started. I'm sure it was greatly appreciated by all those who were sleeping in nearby hotels (though who are we kidding, if you've gone to bed by 6AM in Vegas you must have called it an early night).

The race itself was populated with many more characters in costume than normal, including numerous Elvises. Stephen was one of them, and somehow or another he ended up running in a skirt that said "The King" on the back. Along the way, he and his other Elvis friends (specifically the Elite Racing girls) took numerous pictures and even watched a mid-race wedding take place.

This picture of Stephen's is of particular note because it's pretty much just awesome. It wasn't posed, and he didn't have to retake it 20 times to get it right. First try, and this was the result: Bekah flying through the air while rocking out.

After the race I made it a lazy afternoon. I got a few necessary tasks out of the way, including a nap. Then Molly and I went to see Mystere, the Circe du Soleil show playing at Treasure Island. It was excellent. It combined sheer athleticism with grace, beauty, showmanship, humor, and plenty of completely random moments as entertainment between acrobatic sets. For those who haven't seen a show, I highly recommend it. While I had many favorite parts, my favorite had to be early on when a single male gymnast/acrobat/person capable of doing seemingly impossible things pretty much flew around over the audience holding on to a single cable.

After the show, we headed to Mandalay Bay to say goodbye to Stephen. We headed up to miX, a new lounge/bar at the top of The Hotel (Mandalay Bay's newest addition). It's 64 stories up, and provides a stunning view, complete with a balcony area overlooking the strip.

This morning we dropped all the shoes, apparel, and remaining merchandise at the Crocs outlet store storage space in Vegas.

It was a very, very large number of shoes, and the truck I drove today was pretty much empty after the shoes were taken out (all the marketing stuff is in the other truck). This made things interesting in the windy conditions on our way to Albaquerque. Instead of the normal scenario of feeling like you're in a big truck getting blown around by gusts, with less weight in the back I felt like I was in a large truck with a sail attached to it. We drove through a tiny snowstorm, but we're in the clear at the moment for our morning departure from Albaquerque. I'm curious to see what the weather will be driving into Colorado tomorrow.

All out in Vegas

2008-12-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

Vegas so far has been filled with so much work, fun, and games there's been no time to catch up, until now. Since my last post, we went for our final team dinner at an extremely nice restaurant called Mesa Grill at Ceasar's Palace. It's a Bobby Flay restaurant, and we made the decision with Nate very much in mind since it was originally his idea way back when to go there. So Mike (Q employee who worked the golf tour and is helping us out this weekend) and his girlfriend and Molly and I had an amazing dinner. I shared a wild mushroom quesadilla and an Anaheim Chile Relleno with Molly, and for an entree I had Ancho Chile Rubbed Chicken. I'm not going to go into details about the flavors, partly because I don't really know where to start. Everything was a perfect blend of flavors that complemented each other to perfection. Simply an outstanding meal. I paired it with a Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, which was one of the best beers I have ever had. A $60 meal, but worth every penny, especially since I didn't have to pay for most of it.

After that, Mike and I went to play some poker. This was the plan, but playing at Ceasar's Palace was not. The minimum buy-in was $100 with a maximum $500, so we bought in at $100 and found ourselves immediately being bullied by bigger stacks at the table held by some Vegas locals. I was all-in within the first 10 hands, and luckily won the hand, but the game started out extremely intense. I was really happy with how I played, and I was up $200 at one point after several good hands and several even better bluffs, but then I lost $80 on a hand after losing several smaller hands and decided to walk away up $100. Fun times. I had two different full houses and an Ace-10 stright after the flop. Plus I sucessfully bluffed a 10-2 with absolutely nothing to play off of on the table.

After the expo yesterday, we started off the evening with some rum and Coke at the hotel, and then we went out to explore and see what sorts of interesting gambling we could find. We played a wheel game (not sure of the name) that is a great game to play while drinking since it requires very little thought and even less skill. We played a few slots, and then went back to the wheel. I lost at every game, but somehow managed to only lose $15, which is mostly thanks to having won one bet of 40-1 on the wheel game.

Today's expo was my final day of expo work, and it was nice to have the forklifts load our booth straight out to the finish line area, which saved one full round of loading and unloading compared to many weekends. However, because it was union labor it still took several hours longer than it needed to. Tonight is very low-key since we have to leave the hotel at 4:30 tomorrow morning, but tomorrow night should be fun. Molly and I are going to the Circe Du Soleil show Mystere which I expect to be blown away by, and then after that Mike and I have talked about going to find another poker table where I'll play the rest of my winnings from the other night and either leave Vegas completely even or up even more.

Since I've been busy having fun, I haven't taken many pictures while we've been out. Here are a few random ones.

A fountain filled with cranberries

Stephen posing with a pair of Crocs at Mario Batali's restaurant (Batali has his own signature Crocs)

Standing under a lion at MGM Grand

A Volcano at Rainforest Cafe

Waiting around for our stuff to be moved into the expo hall... and waiting... and waiting...

A bunch of Elvises running around the expo. A bunch of them will be running in the morning as well

Tidal Wave

2008-12-04T09:48:00.001-08:00

So I'm not sure exactly what I did, but I had 150 unique visitors to the blog yesterday. I usually get 15-20. And there was no particular rhyme or reason from looking at analytics - people viewed all sorts of different posts and came from all sorts of states and countries. Cool beans.

A Few Vegas Photos

2008-12-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

Life, Luxury

2008-12-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

So as I'm posting this, Molly has just posted her rendition of the same post. She'll tell you it was her idea, but it was most definitely my idea. I only get to steal one of her ideas a day, and I already used it up copying her on a burrito purchase at Taco Bell. Plus, I was the one who pushed for the 5 star hotel in the first place. So my post will be way better anyway. I went to the effort of pulling out the nice camera just to make sure of that.

I was starting to wonder if there was really much of a difference between 4 and 5 star. Yes, there definitely is. That was apparent about two seconds after walking into the room.

So, we're at the Trump Tower Vegas. They went as far as using real gold in the coating of the windows.

We arrived at our rooms on the 34th floor, only to find what looked like one room...

But no, it's just semi-connected rooms that are removed from the hallway, likely to reduce noise of passer-by.

When you walk into the room, it's a very pleasant sight and nice decor overall. It's when you start to look at the details, however, that you get excited.

In the bathroom, you have about 18 different mirrors, including one above the jacuzzi tub.

A glass "stall" of sorts for the toilet, plus look closely and you'll see the TV in the mirror!

A stone shower stall...

Nice cabinetry, a kitchen, LCD TV....

Tea kettle and blender. (margaritas anyone?)

Lit closets with plush bathrobes.

Small living area, where you can even pass the time by playing tic-tac-toe,

Standard abstract artwork to bolster the whole elitist feel...

And of course, the room's other perks would be pointless without a TV remote cover.

There's even a doorbell and electronic lights instead of door hangers for "Do Not Disturb"

With all this, it's tempting to just not leave the room...

But this is Vegas. There will be lots of getting out of the room.

That's it. The 1-5 star hotel ranking experience is now complete (at least until I make it to Dubai to try out the world's first six star hotel).

Only in Oregon

2008-12-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

...will you find a scene like this. Well, probably not just in Oregon, but this really defines Oregon weather. Driving South on I-5 yesterday, this was the view to the West:

And the view to the East at the same time:

The last two days have been very manageable days, and after a stop in Portland to pick up some stuff that needs to get to Crocs HQ, we're now in Bakersfield, a mere 275 miles from our final event of the tour in Las Vegas. Molly and I just got back from seeing Australia (why not? After all these thousands of miles, it was a short hop across the pond!), which was enjoyable. I liked the sensationalized style of the film, and it's long, but not quite too long.

Also of note, our hotel has some random decor that I think at one time or another may have been it's fitness equipment. This exercise bike must be decades old...

and I got to see one of those fat shaker things for the first time in person. I have no idea what they're actually called or what they were supposed to do (besides make you lose weight magically), but it's still amusing. Hurray for passive fat loss!

I've looked it up and no one else seems to know what they were called either. Vibrating belt machine is about the best I've found. The sad part is that apparently people still get taken by this one today:

The end of the tour is very much in sight now. A little more than a week from now, I'll be heading back to St. George for Christmas, and from there everything is very much up in the air.

Why the Residence Inn is the Best thing ever.

2008-11-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

We're staying at a Residence Inn again tonight (Marriott) and though I already knew I liked them, tonight has just confirmed that they are my favorite hotel chain out there hands down. They're designed as a long-term stay hotel, which is absolutely perfect even for short stays with our roadie lifestyle. The rooms are great (all suite-style), they have a good selection of TV stations, free internet, free full breakfast buffet, coffee and hot water for tea always available, and all sorts of other things.

Tonight since checking in, I've worked out in a fully equipped fitness center, swam laps in a pool that's actually long enough to swim laps in, relaxed in a hot tub, had several cups of tea with honey, and surfed the net while watching Comedy Central and eating complimentary in-room popcorn.

If all that's not enough, you can even rent a fish to keep you company.

Lately

2008-11-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

Turkey day was great. It was nice to have a day off between setup and the expo, greater to eat some home-cooked food, and greatest to catch up with relatives I haven't seen in a while. I saw my Great Aunt Annie (who hosted), and Ashley (second?) cousin who I hadn't spent any time with for probably a decade, plus other semi-distant relatives.

The last two day have both been long expo days, particularly with reduced staffing available for the event. I did, however, have time to venture out into the fray of Black Friday. My theory regarding Black Friday is that it originally started out as a popular shopping day, but is now actually a manufactured marketing ploy. Companies and the media have repeatedly reinforced the idea that you're supposed to shop the day after Thanksgiving to the point that it's almost becoming a tradition. Not that I have a problem with that - I think it's good marketing. Just realize that if you're feeling compelled to shop it's probably because some company paid money to put the idea in your head.

Friday night I took a stroll to check out the lights after the official Christmas tree lighting. The most impressive has to be the 5 story star on Macy's.

With the long expo days, it's been nice that we're provided with VIP passes that get us into the hospitality room on the top floor of the hotel.

There were all sorts of sandwiches and munchies.

Load-out from the expo tonight went fairly smoothly given that there was one freight elevator for dozens of vendors and very few parking spaces. I made my own parking space.

After packing up, we went over to the Seattle Center and set up most of our area for tomorrow's finish line. We finished by 10, which isn't too bad considering there are only two of us.

A Little Lot Better

2008-11-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

So today has pretty much been awesome. After my last post, I headed out. I

- Got to know Ryan from Crocs a little better

- browsed at J.Crew, Gap, and Nordstrom Rack for a while

- Unintentionally wore the perfect conversation-starter: my Oregon beanie. Everyone wanted to talk this upcoming weekend's civil war game.

- Met a guy named Jeff who talked to me for a while about savethechildren.org

- Headed to Pike Place Market

- Listened to a guy play "Oh, Chrismas Tree" on a saw. Oh, the irony.

- Got to throw a crab!

- Watched the sun set

- Met a one-armed guy named Elvis and gave him my remaining 57 cents in change.

-Browsed books at Elliot Bay Book Company

-Gave directions to a lost couple

- Had a peppermint mocha at the original Starbucks

- Tried out the Blackberry Storm. It's absolute crap - the touchy-click screen thing feels cheap and the user interface is disappointing at best

-Talked to my parents on the phone. Happy 31st anniversary Mom and Dad!

And to follow all that fun up, I had pretty much the perfect workout in a really nice hotel gym.

- 30 minute run
- 15 minutes stair climb
- 15 minute elliptical
- 15 minute arm/shoulder weights
- 15 minute core workout
- 30 minute lap swim
- 15 minute hot tub soak

I feel good.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Sign

2008-11-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Though the Westin Seattle is a nice hotel in general, the best feature of the room by far continues to be the excellent view. I like sitting at the desk doing work just for the view.

Anyway, so far today has been a fairly typical expo set-up day, only with less staffing since it's just Molly and I from Q now. Lots of rides in freight elevators...

And walking around back rooms in the hotel...

I haven't had the best day so far... not that there's anything in particular wrong. I'm just a little sore, cut and bruised from set up. I wasn't particularly looking forward to this afternoon, partly because I don't have a whole lot going on and I feel like I have already explored much of Seattle in the past. I'm also feeling the fact that the end of the tour is very near, partly because there's no longer really a team to hang out with, and Molly just took off until Friday with her family. So anyway, all that added up to me being a little downtrodden on the way up the elevator to my room after set-up UNTIL....

BELGIAN CHOCOLATES!

I don't know where/who they came from or why they are in my room, but I found them nicely wrapped sitting on the desk when I came in. Houskeeping hasn't even gotten to cleaning yet, so it couldn't be them. They are delicious! And now I feel motivated to go out and do something fun. Yeah, it was probably just hotel hospitality staff doing their job, but don't ruin the moment! As far as I'm concerned, they showed up magically as a sign that I'm stupid for being down about nothing. Now to go conquer the world!

Seattle Evening Stroll

2008-11-25T22:39:00.000-08:00

I took advantage of clouds lighting the skies above Seattle combined with some recent rain to go take some pictures at night. I continue to be impressed by this camera, and I've found I really enjoy shooting in the dark. There's something about the warm colors you get from a slight overexposure that is very satisfying. The first photo is the view from my hotel room. Pretty spiffy.

Pretender

2008-11-24T22:36:00.000-08:00

It was really neat to see Lake Shasta for the first time yesterday. It was not so neat to see just how low it is.

And of course, Mt. Shasta.

Last night I went to the movies with Rachel. I'm not staying with them this time around in Eugene. Instead, I'm staying at the Red Lion Hotel - the one that was right on the way to the grocery store from my apartment. Anyway, I thought the truck in the foggy lit parking lot was worth a picture. When I parked, it was surrounded by cars. When I came back, it was looking a little lonely. And cold.

Then we dropped off the truck and went to Dough Co, a Eugene late night staple. Their calzones and cookies can always be relied upon for some delicious nourishment.

Today, instead of seeing anyone or doing anything, I've stayed in. I left the hotel briefly for some Hawaiian Time for lunch (scrumptious!), and then again at dinner for a brief stroll to Borders and Cafe Yummm (toothsome!), but other than that it's been a day at the hotel. Sounds lazy huh? WRONG! I applied for 4 more jobs, updated my iPhone software, found several more jobs to apply for, followed up on two jobs I've already applied for, listened to some new music, worked out, and blogged!

My computer screen has looked like this much of the day.

I definitely agree with my mom that far too many of these applications require you to send a resume and cover letter and then also an application that basically includes a good chunk of the stuff found in the resume and cover letter. Just look at the resume! I've put far more time into that than into your application. Mine is really attractive looking anyway. Much more so than your clunky online application that tries and miserably fails to extract information from my resume.

SF Revisited

2008-11-23T13:17:00.001-08:00

What on Earth is this thing? I got passed by it heading towards Vegas from St. George. It was very loud, looked home-made out of numerous pieces of sheet metal, and seemed to be styled after a sports car/tank/airplane combo.

Anyway, after a fairly uneventful stop in Bakersfield, CA we proceeded on to San Francisco, where I immediately met up with Joey to do some work. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I sat in his office with him for several hours on Friday night brainstorming how to monetize his company's product. White-boarding ensued.

After that we went out in North Beach/Chinatown and met up with Erika, and acquaintance of Joey's. I'm not sure when/why this picture happened, but it's kind of interesting. It almost looks like a movie on the LCD screen. We went back to Joey's for some poker, and Joey proceeded to fall asleep so we stole all his chips.

Saturday we headed out for a quick 9 holes of golf at Golden Gate park. It's a surprisingly nice muni course with views out at the Pacific Ocean through the trees. The ninth hole we kept hearing nearly everyone that teed off yelling fore, so we decided they were particularly bad and we would make sure to not hit at anyone. That mentality of course led me to put my first shot left of the narrow fairway right at #1's tee box. Joey did the same. I think it must just be bad hole design.

After golf, we went back to my hotel for a bit to take a cat-nap and get Joey some shoes. He'll now be rocking lime green Santa Cruzes. Then we went to a football watch party for the OU - Texas Tech game. The game wasn't even close, but the company was interesting. It was a group of 20 or so people, nearly all of whom work for tech startups. It's a little odd to use all these various websites and then meet the people who actually work for them. Digg's marketing manager was even there.

After a brief Guitar Hero rock session, we headed out for the night. The highlight was seeing a Tesla roadster in person in the Marina District. For those who aren't familiar, this is a brand new $100k+ fully electric sports car that has insane acceleration. Only 30 or so have actually been produced and sold, so seeing one in person is a rare experience.

Today we're currently on the road to Eugene, where it will be interesting to play visitor to what was until recently home. We're staying at the Red Lion Inn, which is right next to where I used to regularly grocery shop.

Catching up with the fam

2008-11-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday after arriving in Flagstaff I met up with my brother at NAU. He's busier than I've ever seen him, which is a good thing - fraternity, school, dorm life... We went for some supper at Red Lobster. Tuesday shrimp special. Yes, there's totally a creepy oversized hand thing going on here.

After dinner he had a last-minute fraternity meeting come up, so I went back to the hotel for a bit and then re-met up with him at his dorm and proceeded to hang out and catch up and meet various friends until well past midnight. On one hand, I miss dorm life. On the other, the insanity of the dorms and never getting anything done isn't particularly appealing at this point.

My brother continues to be hilarious in his own quirky way. His nickname is "Smooth" and he had some great stories ("I'm sorry, Taco Tuesday ends at 11." "But it's still Tuesday!"). He proudly posted his restraining order against a certain ex on his room door. Long story.

After catching some shut-eye, I set out around the Eastern edge of the Grand Canyon to get to St. George. Along the way, I spent time enjoying the amazing views and utilizing my camera.

I took the time to explore the area at Lees Ferry, the Northern end of the Grand Canyon just past the Glen Canyon Dam holding back Lake Powell.

The canyon is much smaller here, but it's really interesting to see the bright green Colorado River in a small canyon, knowing how quickly that small canyon turns into a massive one just miles downriver. (It's not a small canyon per se, but scale-wise it has a long ways to go to become "grand" worthy.)

The Vermillion Cliffs were also intriguing. It looks like there's a ton to explore in that area when I've got time in the future.

The oddest part of the day was starting at 4000 feet after leaving the canyon area and driving up into a national forest (don't you usually drive down to find more vegetation?) at 7000+ feet. Here's a view on the way up looking back towards the cliffs and the beginning of the canyon.

The road for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon branches off in the forest - I was severely tempted to drive to the North Rim, but was a little concerned about running low on diesel and being able to find a good station, given our recent experience with bad diesel.

After driving through the Kaibab National Forest, you descend right back down into rocky desert.

Tonight has been low-key hanging out with my parents. They saw the truck, I saw the changes in the landscaping, and we had sherbert.

And since the post topic is family, I should mention that our (middle-aged) puppy Pepper whom I miss dearly is living it up with his newly adopted family in Alaska. Clamming, tent camping, rolling in smelly things... I'm jealous.

Seriously... what could be better than getting wet and rolling around in the mud?

Floor Tectonics

2008-11-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

FIGURE 1

Here we have the early stages of a convergent boundary with a subduction zone. As the figure illustrates, one plate of flooring is beginning to move underneath the other, resulting in an uplifting of the "mantle" flooring. Luckily, there is no volcanism involved or Nate's feet would be toast.

FIGURE 2

In figure 2 one can see a divergent boundary. This active rift zone is the root cause of much of the other tectonic floor shifting going on in the 20' by 20' known as Crocgaea.

FIGURE 3

In figure 3 we have a great example of a right-lateral strike-slip flooring fault.

FIGURE 4

Figure 4 presents a striking visual of the effects of a continental collision convergent boundary. The simultaneous uplift of both flooring plates results in a pleasant little hill we'll call Mt. Crocmore.

FIGURE 5

Figure 5 shows further development of the divergent boundary responsible for all the hubbub. Here we nearly have two separate continents. This large trench could give the Grand Canyon a run for its money if it were to scale. Don't get confused though - the Grand Canyon was created by water, not foot traffic and stiff carpet.

FIGURE 6

In figure 6 we have complete and utter chaos, with multiple floor plates doing whatever they please with no particular order or scientific theory. I think this might be something like how mountain ranges form. There would be two peaks here with a nice little pass through the middle.

Maybe a river would run through it.

It would also be the logical place to build an interstate freeway.

And in the winter it would probably snow, since they're mountains and all.

And since you've got an interstate and mountains, obviously a resort and ski area and golf course and reservoir would pop up.

Ok. I'm done.

Running Around

2008-11-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

So, some catching up...

The expo. The expo was held in the Alamodome, which was by far the largest venue for a Rock and Roll event. It was necessary, however, as 30,000 people signed up for the race. The expo was absolutely packed, especially on Saturday.

There was a long line for our survey (at one point it wrapped around two sides of our booth), and several times there were so many people in the Crocs area you could barely move. We had some record-breaking numbers this weekend, and overall from a work standpoint it was a good event.

Saturday night we headed out for our final team dinner. We walked along the riverwalk for a while, which reminds me a bit of New Orleans Bourbon Street, only with a canal down the middle and a little more tame.

I also walked over to the Tower of the Americas, which is basically a less intesting knock-off space needle. It even has a revolving restaurant at the top.

We got to the Italian restaurant, where we proceeded to have great food and horrid service. We sat waiting for our table, which sat open for a half hour before we were seated. Then we waited for 10 minutes before we were brought water. Another 15 minutes elapsed before our drink orders arrived. The appetizers and salads took long enough that we worried the entrees would arrive before them. And we asked for more bread three times before getting it. Finally, Molly and Lyndsay ordered a pork tenderloin to split, and they were brought a steak. Granted, a really good steak. All the food was great. The service was just so dismal it was almost comical.

I got an entry into the half-marathon Sunday morning, so Molly (who was also running) and I met at 6:30 to go catch a shuttle to the start line for the 7:30 start. The race organizers hadn't planned for the shuttle demand correctly, and we weren't able to board a shuttle until 7:10. We got to the start area at 7:30, and we figured the race had been postponed because there were still many people who were on shuttles behind us. Wrong. I found out the elite wave had just started and I was in corral #1. I proceeded to run the length of 32 corrals to get to corral 1 as the runners left. Good warm-up. With my heart rate at 195 from racing down to the starting line, I got off to a faster start than I probably should have, but overall I ran a very steady race.

My goal time was 1:35:00 after having run a 1:39 in Philadelphia with very little training. I averaged a 7:08 pace after 5K, 7:02 after 10 Miles, and 7:06 overall, resulting in a finishing time of 1:33:03. Success!

The training paid off not only in getting faster, but also in recovery. I wasn't as sore yesterday or today in comparison with after Philadelphia. Still hobbling around a bit, but if I wasn't it would mean I didn't run hard enough.

After the race we packed up our finish line set-up and said goodbye to Lyndsay who flew out to go home before starting her job for the coming winter months at a ski shop.

Then we drove north to Dallas where we got to see the new apartment of Nate and Whitney (his girlfriend). He started work today, so it was an extremely fast turnaround between jobs for him. We said our goodbyes, and this morning Molly and I got started on a long 650 mile drive to Albaquerque, New Mexico. About 300 miles in, my truck started to lose acceleration like it has done many times before, and after several more incidents we were worried that we wouldn't be making it without some repiars. We put some new fuel in the truck and tried to get it going on the road again. Sure enough, we made it the last 200 miles on new diesel fuel without incident. At this point we're thinking/hoping we got a bad tank of fuel from a station in Texas.

Assuming the truck decides to cooperate tomorrow, we'll go to Flagstaff, where I'll get to see my brother for the first time since August!

Food (Movie) Food Food Food!

2008-11-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went with Lyndsay and Molly to a Mexican place for lunch (what else would we be having in San Antonio?) The place was called La Margarita, and fittingly enough we had margaritas and puffy tacos. Yum.

We're staying at the Residence Inn again, so we took advantage of the free dinner food and drink (boxed wine). After dinner - actually, hold that thought. Earlier we decided that we wanted to see the new 007 movie coming out this Friday, so we made plans to watch the previous one first since the new one coming out follows up on the last one. I decided to go to Blockbuster and rent it, and instead came away buying the movie. It was on sale for $9.99, which seemed like a steal compared to $4 for rental, plus having to fill out a membership form to rent, plus having to return the movie. So, after dinner, we watched the movie again. It's a good one, and I hope the next one is as compelling a story and well acted (with some good action and explosions on the side).

This morning Nate and I went for a run and explored the famous San Antonio riverwalk area, which really isn't a good place to run. The paths kind of stop and start, and there were plenty of stairways to add some cross-training to the mix. Regardless, it was a good run and a decent way to see some of the city.

For lunch we had more Mexican. This time the place was Rosario's. I had enchiladas with rice and beans and fajita chicken with fresh tortillas.

Then we went to set up for the expo that begins tomorrow. That went pretty much as normal, except after finishing we worked on the project of moving everything we don't need for Seattle into one truck so that we can leave one truck in Vegas while Molly and I take the other to Seattle. Had I mentioned that both Nate and Lyndsay are done after this weekend? Sad times!

We took advantage of the free snacks and drinks again tonight (pretzels and beer)! I took full advantage, as the bartender was an enabler and kept offering me drinks. Four beers later with a nice buzz going, we went off to find some dinner.

Wanting to make sure we don't wear the Mexican food out, we went for barbeque at The County Line. It couldn't quite compare to Nashville BBQ, but was still excellent, and came complete with a riverfront view and a mariachi band working its way around the dining room.

Why all the focus on food in San Antonio? Partly because I love Tex-Mex, and partly because while the atmosphere in San Antonio is nice, there really isn't a ton to see or do. Not that free drinks and great food and movies is anything to complain about.

Travel Day

2008-11-11T22:47:00.000-08:00

Back in San Antonio. Hotel Life again.

Would have been lucky in Vegas. $7.77 airport purchase.

Rode the plane. Three of them. Obligatory token window shot.

Awesome Portland Landing. Big crosswind. Can't normally see the runway out the window while landing. Did today. Examples here. Not quite that extreme. But still. Fun times in a smaller plane.

Complete sentences? Don't need them.

Don't knock the blog!

2008-11-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

That's right Mr. Joseph "The Cat" Mucha. Sure, blogs may be SO 2004, but really I'm writing a book - a travel journal - more than anything. I'm doing it for me. And only me. Any pleasure you get out of reading it... well good on you. Sure, I have a certain appreciation and understanding of Web 2.0 (and could even see myself working in tech), but I have no use for videos and embedded objects when eventually I'm going to store it to look back on.

As for blog humor, I crack myself up. If I'm not smiling or at least feeling introspective when I blog, I'm doing it wrong. The humor is in the subtle references, the ironic moments, the inside jokes, and hopefully in my prose if I'm writing well. Read deep. You'll find it.

I love you Broseph. Here's your shout-out. Go suck a widget. And find me a job while you're at it!

Work Day

2008-11-10T19:08:00.000-08:00

Today has been all about jobs, and the pursuit thereof. I spent a good chunk of time revamping my resume and now have what I feel is nearly a fresh, polished working version. Or five. I have so many slight variations on my resume it almost becomes confusing to remember which is the most recent. It ends up changing slightly for nearly every job I apply for anyway, so close to finished is about as good as it ever gets.

I then proceeded to search for jobs to apply for. One thing is for sure - there are less jobs than there were in June. There are less than there were a month ago. Another trend I'm noticing is hiring freezes... career site listings for large companies with zero open positions. I'm coming into this search expecting it to be anything but easy, but I have decided on a strategy. I'm not going to settle. Not yet at least. Instead, I'm focusing on a slightly longer-term goal of a top school MBA and will look for positions that can get me closer to that goal. This job has allowed me to save enough to stay afloat for a while, so at least for now, I'm aiming high.

I also spent a while on the Businessweek website, which prompted me to put into words a thought I've had for a while but haven't really thought out regarding Obama. Part of what impressed me so greatly about him and his campaign was the marketing that went into it. Obama has become a brand, and a great one at that. To supporters and even some people that opposed him, he has a very symbolic element that embodies hope and change - an element reinforced vigourously by his campaign's ads and his speeches. Of course, Obama also ran the best internet campaign of a presidential candidate in history (though I suppose there haven't been that many since the internet's coming of age). His campaign seamlessly merged social marketing and voter-pull strategies to fully engage younger voters, and younger voters responded by, believe it or not, voting! As a whole, Obama's brand stayed extremely clear for the entire duration of the campaign. He never went off-brand, and a big part of what helped that was his refusal to go negative.

Here's a link to the Businessweek article.

Now for some time away from the computer screen.

Are you speaking whale?

2008-11-09T23:03:00.000-08:00

Last night I went out for a slightly more tame evening than the previous two, and I made the rounds between campus and downtown. The Eugene bar scene is still pretty much the Eugene bar scene (not to say that's a bad thing).

Today I went to lunch with relatives, and then did my duty as a cycling team alum and helped with their Mac Court cleanup fundraiser after the basketball game. It's not the most interesting nor fun task, but given my past experience as team president and the difficulty of getting people to show up to help out, I figured I'd sign up to help Ivar out.

Then I went for dinner at Chris and Karey's house. Lots of good conversation, including Chris describing an "Olympic sandwich" he had in a bike race this summer where he found himself between Levi Leipheimer and Santiago Botero, both of whom placed well at this year's Olympics.

After dinner Chris and I went on a run. It was my final semi-long run before I'll hopefully be doing the race next weekend. Most of the run was at a fairly easy pace, but I did push it for a mile or so and like to think I made Chris hurt a bit, in spite of how ridiculously athletic he is on a bike.

After the run, Leeann came over and I was treated to a bassoon/flute duet.

That's about it in this neck of the woods. Another day in Eugene, and it's back to life on tour.

It (almost) never rains at Autzen Stadium!

2008-11-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I managed to get myself a ticket for the Oregon Stanford football game. Thanks Dick!

I took time to stop by Life Cycle, Club Sports, the B School, and other campus hangouts.

While retracing my steps through my undergrad degree, the feeling I thought might hit me while in Eugene definitely did. I went and watched On The Rocks (a capella group) with relatives and felt like everyone around me was much, much younger and in a completely different situation than myself. School already feels like a long time ago. Looking backwards made me ponder forwards and what exactly my path might be. I've been feeling recently that while the whole find a career, get married, have kids, retire, die thing is all good, I don't always feel necessarily has to be for me (especially the dying part). I've been feeling rather entrepreneurial as of late, and I think I just need to refine my passions. I definitely want to get an MBA, but I also feel like traveling, exploring, and potentially doing some sort of something humanitarian (Peace Corps-esque?)

Anyway, back to yesterday. I had some great stew and dessert with relatives, and tried some Apple-flavored alcohol Rachel brought back from Germany.

Next up it was off to bowling with a trio of cycling team couples (I played seventh wheel). We had a great time, even as they proceeded to be gossip-mongers (the guys especially). Apparently people can read into my blog easier than I think.

We had a close battle the second game, with everyone doing equally badly. The quote of the night had to be an exchange with Mike - one that would only happen with a group of cyclists. Somehow the fact that I haven't been shaving my legs came up, and Mike said (with much emphasis), "You have hairy legs? Ooh, let me see!" (I show a calf) "Wow, Nice!"

After bowling I met up with Rhett and we went to Rennies, where the cheesy bacon fries complement alcohol very nicely.

And if that wasn't enough, we made the 3AM Burrito Boy run as well.

This morning I lounged around before going to the football game. I was debating whether to sit at the 50 yard line since that's where the ticket was or sneak my way into the student section because it's more raucaus and I had friends there. I decided on the student section option. Standing up sounded better anyway - less surface area to get rained on. The new online student ticket system makes it even easier than before for non-students to get into the student section. Students get an arm stamp, so after I went through the gate, I found some random person with a fresh stamp and had them transfer it across onto my arm. It comes out backwards and a little smeared, but given the fact that it was rainy I just had to pick a moment where the stamp-checker was busy and he barely looked at it.

I met up with Karl and saw a few other friends. Karl immediately pointed out the new big-screen in the stadium. I was really impressed with the way they've managed to make it much more versitile than the old one. And I'm a nerd.

The game itself was good, mostly because it was close. The play was sloppy on both sides, and there were too many turnovers to count, but the scores remained close the entire game. It rained hard for much of the beginning of the game and most of the second half, and part of me wished it was a blowout so I could go get warm, but the game was only decided with 6 seconds left when Oregon went ahead 35-28 with a touchdown. Definitely an exciting ending. The game was only the fourth time in the last 16 years that it has rained during a game at Autzen.

After the game I went and jumped in the hot tub to get warm. Then I went with the cousins for some shopping, which randomly turned into cologne smelling because I made a comment about wanting to get some at some point. Right now is not the most opportune time, however, because I don't want to carry a glass bottle around with me on tour.

We had Cafe Yummm for dinner, and now I'm about to go out again for the night.

P.S. Stephen says that I'm selfish with my responses and that I should tell everyone that. I'm not even sure what he means, so I'll let him elaborate.

R-R-R-Random

2008-11-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Lyndsay and I spent a good chunk of the day shopping in San Antonio.

It's amazing to see how the iMac has evolved from a clunky large plastic box.

And ladies, Sawyer has his own fragrance line! Now you too can smell like... dirt, and not showering, and...

And of course, Under Armor does a fabulous job of stating the obvious. Coldgear: for when it's cold.

This morning we dropped off the truck for service before heading to the airport. I couldn't help but notice that this is almost exactly what our truck would look like were it not for the large box on the back.

Also of note, how ironic is it that California Pizza Kitchen's express airport kiosks don't serve pizza?

Today I read Three Cups of Tea cover to cover during my various flights. I had no idea what I was in for and was amazed at Greg Mortensen's life story and his impact on children and villages across the globe. Thanks for the lend, Molly. It made me feel like I could certainly be doing a lot more than selling plastic shoes to runners.

Upon arriving for a longer-than-need-be layover in Portland, I definitely felt a little more at home.

And somehow or another, due to the massive number of people I want to see this weekend, I found myself drinking with Rhett two hours after I stepped off the plane in Eugene.

Also visited the old stomping grounds a bit, and I expect I'll be back again throughout the course of the weekend. Burrito Boy at 3AM is an absolute must.

Seen so far in my first 4 hours in Eugene:

Rachel
Kat
Leonor
Ivar
Rhett
Matt
Aaron
Benton

Still to see:

too many to list

I think my anxiety for coming back to Eugene fearing I'd find myself out of place is gone. I have a lot more left here than I thought, even if school here is starting to feel like a distant memory.

Yes we can!

2008-11-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

We have elected a new president, and I'm extremely excited and hopeful because it's Barack Obama. It's been an emotional ride, and I am very pleased to see that polls have been accurate and the American people have not let themselves down.

It's a surreal experience to see the outside-chance candidate that you picked as the person you wanted to see in the White House 20 months ago when he first announced his candidacy finally win the election. With many notable events in recent history being disaster, war, and terrorism, it's a very welcome change to have this defining moment in history be such a positive one.

From here, I expect Obama is someone who will live up to the person he campaigned as - that is, he'll be a president for the people who truly wants to unite government for the better. He'll be a rational decision-maker, a great international ambassador, and a stellar leader.

Any guesses on what breed of puppy he'll be getting his girls?

In other news, CNN now has holographic interviewees. It's a little, um, awkward.

Oh, Shiny!

2008-11-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

After a 600 mile day with some ups and downs and lots of beautiful fall colors, Lyndsay and I ended up in Birmingham, Alabama. Along the way, something new happened. After four months of traveling this tour, we stopped at a rest stop.

I'm amazed it took this long. Then again, when you have to get fuel every 200 miles you don't really have to stop more often.

I decided I wanted to get lost in a movie, so we went to get more lemons and then ended up at a movie theater. It was there - at the ticket booth, that my day was made. I decided to pay with cash, and I was handed back three shiny quarters as change. I thought they looked rather new, so I turned them over, and behold...

They're Alaska state quarters! Don't ask my why exactly this got me so excited, but it was exactly the pick-me-up I needed, and Lyndsay can attest that I think I literally jumped up and down out of excitement. I can remember when the first state quarters came out way back when and how far off the Alaska quarter minting seemed. Now it's here. Where has all that time gone?

Yeah, that's right. Lemons.

Whoops forgot the title

2008-11-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

This morning we contemplated getting arrested for the sake of marketing (and a great handcuffs photo op!) but decided against it. Instead, we waited around in Brooklyn for the race to start to pass out cheer signs and free stuff. I took the opportunity to wander down to the waterfront and take a few pictures of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The runners came by in three waves (we'd forgotten about this, which made things confusing when the racers coming by had slowed to a trickle and then another massive group showed up).

...yeah, don't ask.

It's quite the change going from big city New York to Staunton, Virginia. Not that Staunton is the middle of nowhere, but it sure feels like it after having more restaurants in a one block radius of the hotel than I could eat at in a week. My whole eating schedule was off today, so I went looking for dinner at 10:30PM and stopped at several different places that would have been open in the city but were very closed here. Even Taco Bell wouldn't let me walk through their drive-through. They insisted I drive through, even after I pointed out very clearly that my 12' tall truck would cause massive property damage should I try. I didn't bother illustrating my point.

I ended up at a hybrid gas station/fast food restaurant called Sheetz.

Nothing particularly remarkable, except for their touch screen ordering system. Pure brilliance. Bright colors, easy to use, and a perfect way of luring customers into spending more money. You start off picking your main item (chicken sandwich) and then the next screen is add-ons (tomatoes $.15, lettuce, $.15) - ok so I just spent $.15 more on tomatoes. Still a cheap sandwich. Next screen - add cheese for $.30! Ok. Fries? Nope! You sure? Pretty sure. Ok, well how about upgrading your sandwich size and getting 20% off a drink? Uh... no thanks. A smoothie then? Well, maybe... For a limited time only, add whipped cream for free! No thanks. BUT IT'S FREE! No, thanks. Fine, your sandwich is $1.99 and the add-ons bring your meal to a total of $1,900.83. Please pay the cashier.

It's so much more effective than the low-morale fast food worker asking if you'd like to super-size your meal.

It was certainly not the best food, but given my hungry state it did the job.

In other news, I now have a good sense of orientation and layout in many of the country's biggest cities, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Philly, Atlanta, Washington DC, and San Francisco. That should come in handy in the future. As of now, we're done with the biggest cities this tour.

I suppose it's simply that I'm very well-traveled within the U.S. after the last few months, but I find myself valuing certain aspects of travel time much differently than I would have a few months ago. Things such as, say, hotel check-in process. When you're staying at a hotel once for a trip, the check-in is fairly insignificant. When you're checking into your 50th hotel in 4 months, the ten minute check-in process versus the 30 second check-in can make or break your overall opinion of a hotel. Note to hotel front desk staff - hurry!

Let's see, what else?

Stephen is off to some magnificent European cruise.

The election is in 2 days. I expect to have the truck radio tuned to the news all day while driving.

I'm coming to Oregon this Thursday, where I will proceed to spend the following extended weekend 1) working out and hanging out with the cycling team 2) seeing some family 3) changing out some of my stuff in storage 4) going to a football game 5) finding some job leads hopefully 6) seeing other friends 7) checking out the old stomping grounds 8) insert other fun and exciting activities here.

Brooklyn is pretty much what I pictured it like. Lots of brick buildings and porches and small shops.

Six states today (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia) and tomorrow brings a new one - Alabama!

NYC Haloween

2008-11-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Haloween in the big city

2008-10-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

So far my New York Haloween experience has consisted of...

-a 40 year old slicked-back hair superman riding the subway
-Several Lara Croft Tomb Raiders
-Sarah Palin and a Caribou
-hundreds of other costumes

...and the best yet. A caravan of hydraulic-lifted lowriders driven by, among other things, a scary clown.

After my expo shift this morning I headed to the South Ferry Terminal, where I learned that you have to get there several hours early to get a ticket to Liberty and Ellis Islands. Since I couldn't do that, I hopped the free Staten Island Ferry and got to make some more use of the new camera.

New Toy

2008-10-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

First up, I put together my Photsynth of Times Square. If you've got a PC and don't mind installing a browser plug-in, check it out. It looks like the image below, only you can click and drag to view a 360 degree panorama generated from 30 separate images.

See it here!

Anyway, to get into the city without obscene parking charges for our trucks, not to mention the hassle of driving/unloading/reloading our trucks in New York, we rented a cargo van and packed our gear for the weekend into it. We were able to do this because we have a very, very tiny space and no finish line presence at this event.

The back of the cargo van, loaded with random stuff and people riding illegal-immigrant style.

New York Style pizza. So far, I've tried chicken tomato, pepperoni mushroom, ravioli, buffalo chicken, and margarita pizza slices.

It's ironic that in such a massive city, everything is so tiny and cramped. Here is our hotel room, taken standing in the shower. There's hardly room to unpack bags, and it costs $340 a night per room.

And our 10'x10' expo setup. Nearly as large as the hotel room. Half-way through the day, the radio station booth next to us packed up and headed out for the day, so we removed the railing seperating the booths to allow for better flow through the booth. It's still very cramped.

And FINALLY! I have my camera. It's great. Image stabilizing lens, wide angle and macro lenses, three filters, a bag, and lots of other odds and ends.

I had to let the battery charge a while, so I only made it out to test the camera out around dusk. I spent a while using a colorful storefront to test out various image settings, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, etc. to see what the camera can do. I was really impressed, and as I got a little more used to using it, I found myself for the most part using manual settings rather than auto modes to get the results I wanted. I took 180 pictures in about an hour, and many were various shots of the Empire State Building (also to test out settings for the most part).

Here's a good example of image quality (click to enlarge on all these for full appreciation - still much smaller than actual image size)

Monochrome!

And a different angle in the dark on the way back to the hotel.

And in following with the pizza theme...

Cold, wet, and not miserable

2008-10-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

This morning Molly (AKA iPhone addict) and I rode the train into Manhattan. When we left Morristown, it was chilly and raining a tad, so I figured it would probably be about the same in the city.

But when we got into the city, we found cold, hard rain, and small rivers in the streets. Molly split off to go explore and I wandered while formulating a plan. I had a raincoat, but that did me very little good when five minutes after stepping off the train I was caught unawares by a fast moving bus that hit a large puddle next to me and soaked me pretty thoroughly. Being wet this early into the day didn't bode well for trying to stay warm.

As a result I quickly found myself shopping as an excuse to get inside and stay warm.

I visited the Hershey's store, where the air smells like candy, but not because of the candy. Instead, they appear to have invented some sort of candy-smell fragrance that they fill the air with. It was a little nauseating.

I spent a while wandering Times Square marveling at the pinnacle of American Advertising and consumerism. I also took a panoramic set of pictures, which I intend to try to merge via Microsoft Photosynth to see how it turns out. For now, this one gives a good idea of what I was seeing.

It continued to rain hard, and my wet feet were making it difficult to stay warm. My hands were getting numb to the point of stiff joints, and I began contemplating scrapping the day and taking the train back to the hotel. I found my second wind when I found a New York style pizza place and had some scrumptious food that warmed me up both figuratively and literally.

I was reinvigorated and decided to follow through on my original plan to visit downtown Manhattan. I found a subway station, and learned through trial and error that red markers on the trains do not mean red line trains, they mean express trains. I quickly realized my mistake and managed to get off the subway at the last stop before crossing into Brooklyn.

Which coincidentally was at Union Square Park. This would have meant nothing to me, but earlier in the day while watching MSNBC I heard about the NBA Tipoff '08 event going on at the park. There wasn't much to it.

I walked 10 or so blocks (still in the rain) back over to the correct subway line.

After arriving downtown, I walked several blocks to see ground zero as it currently stands. The entire area is currently under construction, but the gaping hole and memories from 2001 are rather overwhelming.

The world financial center directly next to the former twin towers location has a viewing deck of sorts, where I noted that most people looking out over the scene seemed to feel the same weight of what happened hanging over them.

The financial center itself has beautiful architecture, and I stuck around long enough to watch a bit of a live musical performance (behind the palm trees).

I walked out to Battery Park, and quickly decided it was not the place to be. It had stopped raining, but a fierce driving wind was coming off the river and immediately chilled me and my still wet feet to the bone.

I stayed just long enough to snap a poor picture of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (never fear! The camera is coming this weekend).

From Battery Park I headed across to Wall Street, where I followed part of the architectural tour of downtown that features buildings such as the New York Stock Exchange.

And I noticed the variety of stores that I couldn't possibly think of going into without dressing up much more. These must be strategically located for impulse buys after a good trading day.

Downtown also has much narrower streets than uptown, which makes for a very different atmosphere.

Brooklyn Bridge!

And the Wall Street Bull, feeling neglected. It looks much happier than I'd pictured it (I thought it looked angier).

After my stroll through downtown, I headed back uptown. Unfortunately, the wind seemingly followed me. I went back to some shopping, though more this time for the sake of shopping than of staying warm (that was just the necessary and welcome side-benefit). Something seemed to be going on at the Empire State Building, as it had been surrounded by eight or more fire trucks. I didn't stick around to investigate.

While shopping, I tried on numerous items but wasn't sold on anything enough to actually buy it, save for a pair of jeans that I've been shopping for for several weeks now.

I met back up with Molly, and we rode the train back into New Jersey.

We ate Thai for dinner (odd being the only ones in the restaurant at 6:00PM, but it seemingly wasn't as a result of bad food or service).

After a torturous final cold walk back to the hotel, I finally took off my still wet shoes and socks and cranked the heater up.

On a completely un-related side note, remember way back when I visited the Boston Beer Company Brewery and they were having people vote on two new beers to have one go into production? The one I voted for won! Look for Sam Adams Blackberry Wit in stores in 2009. Perhaps the even better part is that I got to try their coffee stout, which will never enter production.

Tomorrow we'll have a logistical adventure getting ourselves and our stuff to the expo set-up in Manhattan in a non-traditional manner. More on that tomorrow.

Revisited

2008-10-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

On our way from Washington DC to our next event in New York City, Molly, Lyndsay and I stopped through Princeton, New Jersey. Since Molly and I enjoyed ourselves the first time through and found some local gems, we decided to go with what we knew. I had another sandwich from Hoagie Haven,

And then we had ice cream at the Bent Spoon again. I found myself in a chocolaty mood, as I ordered ice cream consisting of a scoop of dark chocolate, double dark chocolate, and mint chocolate cookie. Excellent.

Princeton had a nice feel in the summer, but it's a great atmosphere to experience fall in as well. The colors of the trees changing combined with school being in session and fresh fall air made for a pleasant experience.

We're staying in Morristown, NJ prior to heading into New York, and after we arrived at the hotel I hunkered down for a while and set to work searching job sites (with less success than I might have liked) and read a bit. As of 10PM I finally got hungry, so I went to see what I could find. Molly had warned that food options near the hotel were sparse, and I quickly found that to be true. Plus it began raining about the time I headed out. I thought I'd found at least a decent solution when I saw Burger King, but,

Instead, I ended up at Cluck U Chicken, which was surprisingly good. I had some mac and cheese and a buffalo chicken wrap which was extremely spicy and really good.

They feature a hot sauce called 911 sauce. You have to sign a waiver before being served wings with it, and the waiver includes such stipulations as that you agree to not touch your hands to your eyes or any part of your body until you wash them after you consume the sauce. Serious stuff. I opted out, at least for tonight.

It's interesting having a public blog that can be read by anyone and everyone, and at the same time occasionally want to write things to remind yourself, but only privately. I've considered various ways of doing this within the blog, and have occasionally added seemingly obscure references or odd titles as personal memory triggers. If you see something confusing on the blog, there's about a 50% chance it's something only I'll get, and about 50% chance I'm just in a random sort of mood.

I want to write a post using nothing but metaphors. I also still plan to do some stream of consciousness at some point... problem is I never bring my laptop with so if that is to happen it will probably be while in my hotel room.

Confidence is the coldest of weapons.

Here's a puzzle for you. Don't spend more than five minutes on this one if you're not making any progress or you're wasting your time.

1-6-1
2-1-1
5-3-67
2-3-10
1-1-4
3-1-7
3-1-2
1-3-2
1-3-3
3-1-7
1-1-4
1-2-16
1-2-4
5-1-7
6-2-2
1-1-4
6-1-3
7-1-6
7-8-1
7-3-1
1-1-4
8-2-1
9-1-2
9-1-2
9-3-63

And even if you do figure that out, it's still cryptic! I know, I'm cruel. Tell you what, if you figure it out email me or facebook me or twitter me or something and let me know you cracked it, and I'll fill you in on what it means. I really hope, for your sake, you have a life and don't even attempt this time-waster. It took me long enough just to encrypt it.

Moving at the speed of life

2008-10-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

This morning we set up in the marathon finisher village area, which coincidentally was also right near mile one on the course. I got to watch the runners come by today, which didn't happen so much in Chicago since we were swamped giving out free stuff for our grassroots efforts there.

Nate and his mom ran the marathon, and they finished in just under four hours, which is great considering he's coming off of a stress fracture and hasn't run more than a half marathon in several months.

I also appreciate that when the marines do something, they go all out. Take for instance road closures. Where any other race would have put up fencing, cones, and barriers, the Marines used school buses, police cars, and armored FBI trucks to block roadways.

We had a successful day and a very successful weekend in general with new records for data capture, lots of ice baths, and good numbers all around. The finish area was packed today, but many of the people there were simply waiting for a metro train.

Almost everyone in this picture is waiting to get on the metro. The wait was likely for the better part of an hour (if not more) just to get down into the station. I'm glad we had a two block walk back to the hotel.

After wrapping up at the finish line area, Molly and I hopped a metro train (it wasn't so packed at this point) to go see Perry and Megan and their new 1 month old, Parker. On the way, our conversation ended up, among other things, on the sense of time this job brings with it. I have done ten times more in the last four months than in any other four month period of my life, yet it's flown by. I don't know where the time has gone, yet event one or two events ago feel like they were months in the past. Overall, I think it's a really good thing. While at the end of the tour it will feel like it was over very quickly, I've certainly been busy enough to not feel like half a year of my life has disappeared. Anything but, really.

Perry and Megan are doing well, and are surviving the chaotic schedule that comes with a newborn. We went for some Mexican for dinner and enjoyed catching up and sharing some laughs.

Speaking of nothing in particular, I figured an update was in store for anyone who is confused as to how I've been typing the letter J recently. Well, the key is gone, but the little rubber pad is now back in place and can still be pushed down to record a keystroke.

I wonder which key will go next.

Endorphin High

2008-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

The last two days have mostly been consumed with working the expo, but today was my afternoon off so I decided to go for a long run as part of my training for whatever half-marathon I can run during the remainder of the tour (likely San Antonio). I set off expecting some rain, but I ended up facing a torrential downpour for nearly 4 miles, and hard rain for much of the rest of the run. I found out what it's like to run with lead weights for shoes. Given the rain, wind, and extra water weight, I felt great and was really happy with the run. I ended up doing about 12.8 miles in an hour and fourty five minutes, with an average pace of just over eight minutes. Compared to how I felt after running the half in Philadelphia, I feel great today. A little sore, but I've definitely come a ways from running that half untrained. I ran miles 7-9 at a pace just over 7:00 per mile, and I feel like that should be manageable for a half marathon if I continue training in the meantime.

During the run while getting pounded by rain and spray from passing cars, I experienced what many runners would refer to as the runner's high. As I was soaked to the bone running through 6 in deep puddles, I felt completely happy and at peace with the world. The endorphins kept kicking in for a few hours after the run, and I was feeling rather bubbly as I rode the metro back to the expo and perhaps a bit too energized when I got back to help break down our booth, as the coworkers were a little more worn down than I was.

Lyndsay stared off into space...

While Molly dozed against the wall tops.

At least we get to sleep in tomorrow! Instead of getting up at 4AM as normal, we'll be able to get up around 5:30 and walk two blocks from our hotel to set up our tents. That will be a welcome change.

WARNING: Tons of pictures!

2008-10-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today I started off the day by hopping the Metro over to the national mall area. First I checked out the Smithsonian sculpture garden. One sculpture I saw last time I was in DC but had to check out again is this one:

It's designed so that it appears to be a 3 dimensional house no matter what angle you look at it from. It moves as you do. Artwork such as this is really great.

And then there is artwork consisting of random cubes of metal stacked oddly...

I feel like I could have come up with that. If I make a sculpture of wooden spheres stacked on each other can I get it put in the Smithsonian sculpture gallery too?

My favorite part of the sculptures was actually watching the elementary schoolers on a field trip where their assignment appeared to be to draw what they saw, but throwing gravel and asking if they could climb on the pyramid occupied much of their time.

Next up I headed into the National Museum of Natural History.

I chilled with the dinosaurs for a while. T-Rex is looking toothy as always.

Most people are creeped out by the thought of big dinosaurs eating them, but to me, it's all the little guys that I don't like. Seriously, if you have a T-rex chasing you it's obvious you're in trouble, but if you have a bunch of these little guys sneaking up on you -

You can expect to be nibbled to death. It's like in movies with robots where the big evil robots always have little tiny helper robots that don't just kill you outright - they torture you while killing you by methods such as mini-saw blades, electrical shocks, mini-rockets, etc. (think back to the Transformers movie last summer, crappy as it was).

While living with dinosaurs may not have worked out so well in the survival category, the ice age may not have been much better. This dude doesn't look like he would have been very friendly.

And wouldn't it be awesome to live in a coral reef? It's a party under the sea!

A lot better than chilling with this guy in the depths of the ocean.

One of the more important (if not obvious) principles I live by...

Though I suppose there are many ways that could be interpreted. I just try not to be the prey that manages to fall on a tree right in front of the predator (don't tell me it actually hauled that thing up into a tree).

Look at this guy! He's managed to evolve to the point where he has a trunk built into the side of his shell for storing... stuff. And to get access to his spare tire!

Completely unrelated to the animals, I also saw the Hope Diamond. You know it's some serious bling when the camera can't even capture the diamond because it shines too brightly.

Also of note - I'm pretty sure I was the only guy in the room. Oh, girls and their diamonds. And they all wanted to know how much it was worth.

Girl: "I wonder how much it's worth!"
Guard: "It's priceless. Too valuable to put a price on."
Girl: "Yeah, but, it's gotta be worth you know, a ton of money!"
Guard: "Priceless."
Girl: "I'll marry you if you turn the other way while I steal it!"
Guard: "Not like I don't get that a hundred times a day."

Next up I headed to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Disclaimer: If you're not an art person, you may as well skip the next section.

One of their main galleries at the moment is works of Georgia O'Keeffe contrasted with photography of Ansel Adams. Here's O'Keeffe's "Manhattan"

And here is George Washington as partly painted by Gilbert Stuart. He didn't finish it (nor the matching portrait of Martha) which actually makes the two paintings more famous. Also of note, this is the painting that the Washington head on the dollar bill is modeled after.

Another interesting gallery was of Herblock's various political cartoons featuring presidents. I thought this one of the economy going to Hell in a handbasket was very fitting for the times.

Another gallery, titled "Ballyhoo!: Posters as Portraiture" was pretty much what it sounds like. It featured various posters (some older, some newer) as portraits.

This is the first time I've ever seen Lance Armstrong's signature in person.

I still don't get modernism.

A custom Steinway & Sons piano commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt.

Finally, an interesting work of contemporary art. This one features outlines of all 50 states in neon light tubing, and in each state TVs of various sizes replay footage of historical events and cultural aspects each state is known for. This one gave me a bit of deja vu, as I'm 99% sure I've never been here before, yet it seemed oddly familiar.

After exploring the two museums, I met up with Nate and Molly for lunch at... wait for it...

After lunch (The Steakhouse - romaine, cherry tomatoes, grilled onions, steak, and blue cheese dressing), we headed to the national archives. Nate's main motivation was to relive more parts of National Treasure after our Philadephia experience, but I mainly wanted to see the important documents and revive memories of visiting the archives back in 1997.

The Declaration of Independence hasn't fared particularly well, but "In Congress" is still fairly legible, as is the remnants of John Hancock's signature.

The constitution is doing much better, and is still readable for the most part.

Then we had to go to the expo. When we got there, we found WMDs!

Guys were running around in full camo gear with gas masks. I just can't believe they actually made the signs.

The expo is at the DC Armory, which is basically an old gym.

Nike's presence is nothing compared to Chicago. Brooks is the title sponsor for this one. I didn't really notice the creepy mannikin staring at the camera until just now.

And finally, the booth across from us had a massive number employees. They had probably 10 people working at a 10'x10' booth, which meant at least 6-7 were in front of the booth at any given moment. As a result, there was no way to really get to the booth or figure out what the booth was for unless you looked at their t-shirts.

Thirty pictures later, you've made it! Congrats.