So I did the K-100 relay yesterday. I did leg 5 which only has one hill so it wasn’t too bad.
It was very hot. And because of the higher altitude, I had less atmosphere to shield me. So I am now sporting a nice sunburn. I had slathered on a bit of SPF-8 sunscreen, but it didn’t protect much. Fortunately I had taken off my shirt for the run so I don’t have a farmer’s tan.
My support team for my leg wasn’t that good. It consisted of two people who are secretly camels in disguise. So they didn’t think I needed that much water. They were supposed to show up every two kilometers to see if I needed anything, shout encouragement, and take pictures. And they were good for the first few stops. Then it started stretching out to every five kilometers. When I did see them and got water, I drank the entire bottle within two kilometers, which left for a very dry run. I could even feel myself powering down from lack of fuel. I passed someone and was doing well but they got water and I watched them motor past me. So people passed me. But the other groups tend to put their best people on this leg so I can’t feel too bad.
At one point, there was a rather large mountain goat with an impressive rack on the side of the road. Munching grass. All the runners passing by were probably the best entertainment going. However, when I started getting close he looked like he was deciding to cross the road and was ambling towards me. When we were a few meters apart, I just treated him like any other pedestrian I come across during a run. A nod of the head and keep going.
After I passed I didn’t look back.
Then I just steamed along. I did mug another support vehicle for some water. That helped give me some fuel. The small child holding the sign “Run faster! There is a bear behind you.” was cute, but didn’t really increase my speed. In the end I did the 17.6km in 1:41:27. I wonder how much faster I could have done it with a decent supply of water.
I don’t know yet how my group did. We weren’t a competitive team. You can’t be when you are sporting a few senior citizens. Unfortunately, there was a death in the family of one of our runners, so we had to make different arrangements. We moved people around and had one of our runners do two legs. He did amazingly well. Probably because the two legs used different muscles. His first leg was mostly uphill and his second leg was all downhill.
Today I ache and I am taking it easy.

I discovered a way to put a spring into my step today.
This might only be a guy-thing, and/or a computer person thing. Essentially it is marking territory.

I registered a domain name.

It’s quite a nice feeling. I now have a spot on the information superhighway that I can call my own. In fact I have two spots! One for the theoretical company I would need if I ever finish writing my programming project and want to distribute it. The other is for personal stuff.
I didn’t need the personal stuff one, but once you start marking turf, why stop?

Awhile ago I heard that people aren’t reading as much anymore. I think I saw it on a television program. So in the back of my head I thought I should rectify that. I haven’t read anything fiction in awhile, so I was as guilty as the average North American.
On impulse I bought the book, jPod yesterday. And then I thought I would read a bit.

I think I have figured out why I don’t read as much anymore. It’s because I have poor self-control. With television and movies, they only last a set time. The good ones don’t take too much more than two hours. You can plan your day around them.
With a book, you start one and plan to only “read a bit”. Then you notice that you have run out of pages and it is three in the morning. Mind you, this book had large chunks that were easy to skip. Did it really need to list all the prime numbers between 10,000 and 100,000? Probably not, but that’s a dozen pages that just fly by. Sort of like the long sections of elven poetry in Lord of the Rings.
Based off of my reading pattern though I would recommend jPod to a friend.

I still got up early today to do my run. So I am pleasantly running on 4.5 hours sleep. I’m surprisingly goofy right now. And happy? I’ve noticed that I am not that good at typing either. Lot’s of mistakes. The “delete” key is my friend. My drive to the run didn’t go so well. I took a large number of wrong turns for a destination that is only 2km away.
I wouldn’t have tested drunk, but I think that would be a fault of the testing mechanism. I’m not 100% sure I was qualified to be driving.

The rain has started.
People have started parking on my street.

Who will win in this confrontation? Who will prove the victor? Who will reign supreme over Whyte Avenue?

I am not a hockey fan. Until last week I had never watched a hockey game. At all. I saw the occasional clip, but never an entire game. It did mean that when the insanity happens two blocks to the north on Whyte Avenue, I never felt a part of it. I can’t justifiably go crazy, as I’m not pumped up as everyone else.
But a friend convinced me to come to the bar and watch a game. So I have now watched two games of hockey. My friend was very helpful and gave me lessons as to what goes on in a game. So I learned about “offside” and “icing”. Like I said, I’ve never watched a game. I’m a bad Canadian.
The two games weren’t that inspiring as I got to watch the Oilers lose both of them. So it never sucked me in.
In fact tonight, I was enjoying reading the book jPod on my balcony. I had picked it up this morning. I could easily keep track of the game though. When a goal is scored, I can hear the cheer from the bars. I even got to see a helicopter circling over my place. Presumably that was a TV camera mounted on its nose.
Now I hear that the Oilers have won a game. We treat the hockey players like gods in this town. So our pantheon has beaten their pantheon. The wild party will start. How wild it is, is up for debate. It’s a weekend night, so the drunk people can stay out late and trash the place. But the temperature is dropping and it looks like rain. That would put a damper on the celebrations.

Go Oilers! 🙂

I have a problem that I’m sure lots of other people would like to have.
Now that I have paid off my mortgage, what do I spend my money on? My default answer would be RRSPs, but I need to celebrate and spend it on stuff of no practical value.
I went to BestBuy today, firmly convinced that I would buy something. The biggest criteria is that I don’t want to feel stupid in six months.
I could get an iPod? But a friend has a fifth generation one, so to keep up with the Joneses, I need to have a sixth generation one, which could come out any day now. If I buy a current model now, when the new one comes out I will feel stupid.
I could get a PVR? My VCR is starting to die, so this is a completely valid option. Except I’ve kept track and figured out that I only watch about an hour and a half of TV each week. That would be a lot of money on something I wouldn’t use much.
Underworld: Evolution just came out on DVD. $25. It’s going to be half of that in six months, and I already have movies I already own that I haven’t seen.
The same story goes for video games. Some still need to be taken out of the shrink wrap after two years.
In the end I bought nothing at BestBuy.
I am going to go with some books. I placed an Amazon order. Hardly sexy, but it is something I’ll enjoy.

Which of the seven deadly sins can have its letters rearranged to form the word for a landscaping tool?

Every so often someone in our office writes a problem on to the whiteboard in the main meeting room. That was the latest. So a bunch of programmers started thinking about this one. It first started with trying to figure out the seven deadly sins. Once that was done, we couldn’t figure out the rest.
We did come up with a solution though. LUST can be rearranged into SLUT. That’s a kind of Ho(e). Isn’t it?

We didn’t write our answer down.

Plan A was simple. I got a call from a friend and we decided to go with two of his co-workers to “The Bank Ultralounge”. Off we went. The place was dead when we got there at 10:00. It got better, but it still seemed to have a poor girl:guy ratio. At around 11:30 we decided it was a lost cause and would go with Plan B.
Plan B was down the street to “Fluid”. There it was more happening. There were more good looking women. However they had already hooked up. Plus there still wasn’t enough of them.
So Plan C took us to West Edmonton Mall where we tried to go to “Escape”. But it appeared to be closed, permanently. We got out of the car and checked out the new night club, “Fever”. We had our ID checked. But before we paid the $5 cover, we looked in. Not enough people to justify it.
Plan D was for “Dante’s”. Initial observations were good. There were two very hot looking women in the line in front of us. However, after we passed ID, the cover there was $10, and it looked iffy. My friend decided to take a bullet for the team. He paid the cover and looked around. When he came back out he loudly pronounced for all to hear “That is the worst place ever!” Apparently the median age was in the fifties. He also had a traumatic experience with someone losing their toupee. The two hot girls were nowhere to be seen. Maybe all the good looking women were in the big RV trying out for the Ms. Grand Prix Edmonton. Or something like that.
Plan E took us back downtown. We passed by “The Met” but it looked dead, so we tried the “Overtime Bar and Grill”, famous for its police stings. By now it was 1:00 and the place looked like it was dying. We backed out and decided that “The Druid” would be our plan F.
This was the most successful plan. The place was busy. A good selection of women was available to look at, and in our imaginations we could contemplate talking to them. The only down side was that this Irish pub seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with rap music.
When all was said and done, and we were walking back to the car a pair of girls proclaimed I had a “nice ass”. Darn straight! And don’t you forget it.