The New Road

Not so bad...

The usual poker crew came over last night for food and gaming. While I was outside grilling the chicken Joe and his girlfriend came out to say hello. She is a big biker so I wanted to show her my hard earned new injury. What's awesome is that she gave me this answer that was like, "Heh, you got off easy." Which I did. But here Megan and Lori were looking at this thing and just in horror. Actually I think Megan thought it was cool, she would pull down my sock just to show it to people.

This training injury...

Brought to me by Pearl Izumi and Trek.

It's actually nowhere near as bad as it looks in the picture. It's really just six scratches caused by the rear gears when I toppled over while trying to figure out if a car was going to try to run a light or not. The scratches don't hurt at all and I was able to finish my ride with no problems.

They say that with cleats on your have to get to the point where getting out of them becomes muscle memory. I hope that happens soon rather than later.

Forerunner

For my birthday Lori got me a Garmin Forerunner 305 watch. It's a big hunk of GPS that you strap on your wrist when you are running or biking. First off it tracks where you go. In this case it was my lunchtime ride today:

And it can do really cool stuff like graph your speed against your elevation, like so:

It also supports a heart rate monitor, and while I had it strapped on today it didn't pick it up. I'll work that out when I get home tonight.

The top of the elevation graph is the Mission Fremont right around Mission Coffee. The big dip at around 4 miles is a fun hill on Paseo Padre that winds down toward Durham.

Tri For Fun

I finished my birthday triathlon in 1:09 this morning. I could have done a lot better if I hadn't done two things. The first was that I went about 25 meters too far after the second turn in the swim and needed to backtrack. But other than that the swim went really well. I was doing a strong freestyle and did well with it. If I had a wet suit on I would have been unstoppable. But I thought it was a little too hot for a wetsuit (though many others had them).

The second problem was that my calves locked up about 500 yards into the run. So I had to throttle back to a jog. Letting lots of people who I blew away on the bike pass me.

The bike portion was awesome though. I passed countless people. And I sparred most of the distance with a guy on a $5K Quintana Roo bike. He caught me on a hill though and found a better gear than what I had. After that we only had a mile left and I couldn't catch him. Felt good though.

Next time I do this race I'm going to go in the first wave. I opted for the second because the race coordinator said the first was for people that had done 50 triathlons already. As I was talking to people later it was clear that most of the people in the first wave had done it only once before.

Feels good to have done a solid triathlon right around my 39th birthday.

Fred Thompson: Thud

Fred Thomspon was all the buzz before he semi-officially entered the race. But now that he has declared that he is going to declare, his campaign has landed with a resounding thud. He is running third behind Romney, and, I shit you not, "None of the above". "None of the above" is actually winning the race for the Republican nod at this point.

I don't mind Fred as an actor, and he seems like a nice guy. What disturbs me about his presidential run is his attitude about it. It's as if he is constantly shrugging. He gives me the "...and now they want me to be president" vibe. Like it's some burden that yet another old white man has to bear. The presidency isn't supposed to be a job you clock watch on. I know that's what Bush does. But remember back to a real president, Clinton, to see a motivated leader who knew how to get things done.

39th Birthday

Today is my 39th birthday. We don't really have anything special planned. We may do a dinner this weekend. Perhaps on Saturday night after the triathlon. It's been a really good year. Megan and Lori are doing great. I'm happy and in the best shape of my life. And I'm really enjoying all of the work and play stuff that I'm doing.

Now the clock starts ticking on an international distance triathlon right around my 40th birthday. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Walk Score

Here is a pretty cool web site that tells you how walkable your neighborhood is by finding how close your house is to local niceties like bookstores, shops, restaurants, etc. My house faired poorly, but my Fremont office score really well.

New Google Maps Feature

Google has added a new feature to it's awesome Google Maps service. When you give the service two addresses it plots a route. Simple enough. But now you can just pick up and drag parts of that route to another spot to have it re-plot the route using your detour.

Technically this is very impressive stuff. This is being done cross-browser with DHTML. Very, very impressive stuff.

iPhone

I bought my iPhone a couple of days ago and I couldn't be happier. Of course, almost anything would have been better than my Treo 650 which was, by far, the worst phone I have ever owned, or even could imagine.

That being said, the iPhone has surpassed even my wildest dreams of a phone. It's incredibly easy to use and intuitive. It works both on a data plan and on WiFi. Which is great, because WiFi is a lot faster and I am usually near a hot spot. It works with my email servers. The voicemail system is absolutely freaking fantastic. It's gorgeous. The camera works really well and takes stunning pictures for such a small viewport. The iPod functionality works very well, and the album browsing is sexy as all get out. The photo viewing is rudimentary, but the ability to pan and zoom with just your fingers is really cool.

In short, this is the best tech purchase I have made since my first Macintosh. I regret nothing about it. Love everything about it. It's as revolutionary as the Dyson or the TiVo. It so worth the money, especially when these awful PDA phones run only a hundred or so less.

Honestly, you know how Mac users love there computer? Literally, love it. Like, wouldn't leave home without it type deal? That's how you will be with the iPhone. All the crap you hate about your phone, it's all gone. This phone is like your friend.

iPhone: Will It Blend

This is just a cryin' shame.

Iraq Tipping Point

We have finally, far too late, reached a tipping point on the Iraq war on capitol hill. Republicans are starting to defect en masse. Bush is apparently already warming up new talking points that would cover an eventual withdrawal. My hope is that it will slide further and faster soon and we will be looking at mass redeployments of troops, to genuine terrorist hot spots (hopefully) in the next six months. Honestly I don't think the armed forces can move much faster than that. And we will definitely have a long term presence in the green zone and the embassy for years to come.

On the political score this is really bad news for Bush. His approval rating is already at historic lows, and we haven't even officially lost and withdrawn yet. When that happens. When we get images of convoys of US troops driving out of Baghdad and the chaos that ensues after that, his numbers are going to go through the floor and there will be genuine calls for impeachment (even with so little of his term left to serve.)

Bush's plan of handing this catastrophe off to the next president and somehow securing his legacy (at the cost of thousands of soldiers and Iraqi lives) is collapsing. This should have happened much sooner. What little hope we had of building a stable nation of Iraq was completely squandered with years of 'stay the course' stupidity. What a waste.

Even I will admit to being scared about what comes next both for Iraq and America. I never wanted us to lose this thing. Which is why I didn't want us to go in there in the first place. But now that it's really coming to pass, it's very distressing. This whole disastrous misadventure has been such a nightmare from the beginning. This is far worse than Viet Nam. We will be feeling the repercussions of Iraq and Bush's failed presidency for generations.

Running Partner

I've been running with a partner on Wednesday mornings. It has really helped motivate me to run farther. Just this week I ran 7.5 miles, which is just a touch farther than my personal best. And I'll likely be running 8.5 next week. Perhaps a half-marathon isn't as far out as I had originally thought.

It's not just the company, though that is nice. It's also the fact that my friend has done a marathon and knows some good training techniques that have really helped give me some stamina.

I don't think I'll ever be a 'great' runner, but I'm definitely working my way up towards 'good'. Now, give me a bike race and I will bust anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Health Insurance

I probably won't be going to see Sicko in the theatres. While I liked Farhenheit 9/11 I don't care for Michael Moore himself all that much. He just kinda grates on my nerves. But he does bring up some good points. Particularly this time about health care.

Three things make me disgruntled about the state of our healthcare.

First, why, if we have the best health care in the world, do we only rank 36th among all nations in life expectancy? Seems like we should be number one, right?

Second, Lori and I lived for years in Australia, and we saw doctors while we were there, and we got excellent service. We never waited, and never paid a dime. We could have gotten private insurance, but nobody we knew there did and nobody ever complained about medical care. If you were sick you went to the doctor, they fixed you up, and you went on with your life. Boom, done.

Third, Lori and I have had no end of troubles with our current provider. Every time we see anything for anyone, or get any prescription filled, it's denied. We then call the company, who first says we are denied, then after we prove that we pay them money, they say we are active and that it's some snafu. Then they say it's fixed. Until the next time, when they deny us again. And over. And over. We also get heart-stopping bills in the mail with outrageous numbers we are supposed to pay immediately, only to call to clarify to be told once again that it's just 'some snafu'. And each time we call, it's a fresh new experience. With all new lackies who don't have a clue who we are and seem perplexed by our frustration. I mean, we only pay their salaries, why should we expect them to do anything correctly?

In fact, just today I went a couple of rounds with our insurance company. I tried to pick up a prescription from Target. Only to be denied. Again. The funny part was that the meds were cheaper when I didn't use my insurance! Hah, hah! Bite me.

Best health care in the world. Right here in the ole' U.S. Can't you feel it? I feel the love.