Monday Oct 13, 2008
I had a free day on Saturday after my son's flag football game with no one in the house all day. I took the new iPhone 3G with my newest application GPSKit to record my route and pace. Saturday late morning was awesome weather with a slight breeze and warm sun, it was great. I ran about 1.5 miles on paved surface and the rest on dirt trail with twigs, roots and those challenges. I have got to say that stepping on a walnut sucks. They are big enough and hard enough to really give you a tumble. I got the side of one under a leaf and almost went flying.
Friday Oct 10, 2008
I ran a new route yesterday on some horse trails in the woods and loved it. I was only on pavement for a short period which is nice on the joints. The run was hilly in the beginning and then leveled out. I crossed the same creek four times, after a rain, so I was extra carefully not to end up in the muck. I plan to go longer on the same trail tomorrow or Sunday.
Tuesday Oct 07, 2008
Being joe handyman, when I needed to change an outdoor light bulb last night, I just jumped right in. The bulb is tricky in that the light itself is small and the receptacle holding the bulb moves around so removing the bulb is an interesting trick. I had both hands inside the light and was griping the part of the light fixture that holds the bulb while twisting the bulb out. I clearly used too much force and broke the bulb in my hand. Of course, my sidekick and helpful spouse was there watching and kind of laughed after she realized I wasn't going to die.
Then as I moved my hands to get them out of the light to check for cuts, I got a nice jolt of electricity. Pure household current at it finest. At that point I further crushed the lightbulb in my hand only to have said helper yell at me for making a further mess, she didn't realize what happened. After asking, I likely screamed, to get me some shoes and the shop vac, I determined that I only had 3 small cuts. After she vacuumed around me, she had quite a laugh and I'm sure it was quite funny as well.
Live and learn.
Of course I know about electrical hazards and don't typically do stuff like this, but how many of you turn off the light before replacing the bulb? I can't recall ever breaking a bulb in my hands before. Next time, the switch will be off.
Monday Oct 06, 2008
Running late on breakfast this morning, so little one had a toaster pastry and milk. Not feeling the need to be boring and just put stripes on the poptart, I went custom. I typically spell their names or something, but shorty did math problems all weekend, so I thought I would do another one. I got the best smile, so it was worth it.
Monday Sep 29, 2008
I was cleaning up my office from a weekend of kids doing art up here and found the following list on 3 different sheets of paper.
Her to-do list in the morning:
1. Read a book.
2. Go downstairs and have breakfast.
3. Get dressed.
4. See Mom (I'm bumming slightly on what about me...)
5. Play with friends.
6. Run 1 mile.
Here is her afternoon list:
1. Rest.
2. Play on computer, Wii, and PS2.
3. Play with friends.
4. Lunch.
5. Run 1 mile.
Here is her evening to-do:
1. Golf cart ride (we ride "off road" on the golf cart once in a while, clearly a hit)
2. Dinner
3. Get on PJ's
4. Bedtime snack
5. Brush teeth
6. Bedtime
7. Read
I think it is really interesting to see her day and what she thinks makes for a good day. Thought I would share.
Friday Sep 26, 2008
In the final chapter of my first iPhone, yes, the one with the Diet Dr. Pepper residue inside the unit, I sold it on eBay. I thought it might be worth a few dollars, but I was wrong. After searching for iPhone 2G - water damage, I found them worth $120 - $150. I started an auction at $75 and did a BuyItNow for $160 and sold the phone in 3 hours... Amazing. I'm hoping that the new owner is able to take apart and clean and resell if that is his thoughts. I fully disclosed my DDP accident and the fact that the top two rows still work while the bottom three rows don't work. Great news for me.
Monday Sep 22, 2008
As part of my wife's startup that she and a buddy are working on, they will provide cool day trip ideas for folks all over the US. As they are getting close to a working beta, less than a month away, we decided to try out a recommendation for a 1 hour get away and some fun stuff to do.
We took the kids and "our third kid" (a friend of my little one) to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA. It was really interesting. Basically, it is Old World farms and then farmsteads in the US in 1820 and 1850 with period costumes and dress that answered questions. They had 1580 England, 1700 Irish, 1740 German and are building a Nigerian farm as well. I thought it was great, being the closet farmer that I am and the kids had a blast as well.
Cathy also realized that Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro was having one of three open houses all year and it was yesterday while we were in the Shen. Valley anyway. Got to love that soon to be available day planning tool. The Wildlife Center is a non profit group that treats wildlife that needs help. They get tons of baby squirrels, baby rabbits, birds of prey and the occasional bear, bobcat and deer. What a great place and people that are helping the world. We took a 90 minute tour and saw numerous birds of prey that they use for elementary school programs. No bear or bobcats in residence, which is a good thing. We almost were talking into driving 2 hours out of our way to return an opossum to the wild near Lexington, Va but we had the friend and it would have made us fairly late getting home on a school night.
I think over the next month, I'll be taking them my 72G former saltwater fishtank for their use as it is a great dust collector in my basement.
Monday Sep 22, 2008
I had a concall that was dragging and when surfing looking for my team and found that UVa is in the bottom 10 teams in the NCAA.
Bottom 10 Football teams
Friday Sep 19, 2008
Yesterday's weather was the stuff that you live for: warm sun, nice breeze and in the 70's... We had all the windows open letting in the fresh air, it was/is great. I went for a bike ride before dinner and decided to go a new route. Sadly, I didn't have the GPS function on the new 3G iPhone up and going, but that is for another day.
I went on a path that is a horse trail and also a golf cart trail thru the woods along the Rivanna River near my house. The trail was nicely shaded and very peaceful. It got really interesting when I hit a drop-off of about 15 feet down to a creak that was 4-5 feet wide, I flew down the hill thru the creek and bogged down in the mud on the uphill side. I don't think I would have made it on bike and thankfully got my foot down before eating said mud. I proceed before another gentle fun creek crossing, no more than 2-3 foot drop and made it up the other side. Feeling that I was running out of time, I made a right turn up the path that was massively steep only to end up in some nice blackberry patch with thorns everywhere, hence the blood in the title and found myself carrying my bike thru a neighbors backyard for a few before hitting an empty lot beside them. It was an awesome ride, next time I will NOT make that right and continue on AND have the GPS working on my phone.
Thursday Sep 18, 2008
To be clear, Diet Dr. Pepper isn't on the compatibility matrix for the original iPhone.
The process to move my old data to the new iPhone was fairly easy. The new phone was software version 2.0, while my old phone was updated to 2.1, so I have to update the new phone before moving the data. One call to ATT and I was up and going.
Can't wait to play with it and the new GPS functionality.
Tuesday Sep 16, 2008
I may have played too loose and just played too many hands last night. I certainly didn't play well. First hand, I had AA and raised to double the big blind and both the blinds folded as did one other player. I didn't want them to play for the value of the blinds and maybe raising to 5X the blinds might have made it look like I had junk, but everyone folded pre flop. Also, I have 4 cards to the A high flush after the flop numerous time, (odds are 50/50 to hit it) and I never did... Just not my night. Oh well.
Monday Sep 15, 2008
It is absolutely great when your kids get old enough to share non kid fun with them. I had a buddy call Friday morning and offer 1 ticket for the VT home game and I was pleased to be going. Saturday morning at my son's flag football game, I saw another buddy wearing Hokie attire and we talked about the game and he mentioned that he had 2 tickets plus a parking pass. I jumped to get a ticket for my son as he was slightly bummed that I was leaving him for the day. He was quite pleased and we had a blast. VT need every single play to pull out the game and thankfully GT made two dumb penalties which handed the Hokies the game.
Friday Sep 12, 2008
This isn't as bad as the title might sound in the big picture of things in the world. But I was slightly ticked off when I just upgraded my $4.99 version of Hold'Em for the iPhone only to find out that all the games I had won and the prize money that allows you to play in more games was GONE.
So I'm guessing that my cash winnings are kept in a file that was blown away during the install, so I got back to $0 allowing me only to play in the "Garage" and not in any of the nicer, fancier places...
Like I said, not the end of the world, but the makers of Hold 'Em should have tested that small feature.
Thursday Sep 11, 2008
I am trying. After a 5 day miss, I was able to get rid of my sinus issues and ran on the road last night. (I'm not a treadmill guy)... Took pup, so he was happy.
Also following some good advice, I have started to hit the weights a bit as well. Mostly major muscle groups and not trying to bulk up so using light weight and lots of reps to tone up. I'll keep working and blogging about it.
Thursday Sep 11, 2008
Just measured 4636k down and 966 up...
After my cable system was down a few days ago for a couple of hours in primetime, whatever they did is working well now. Digging the speed.
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I do make sure the light is off before I change it...