boowebb

James Carville Defends McCain - Wait Just a Minute

As has been widely reported James Carville (he of Clinton stratergizing) came out in defense of John McCain in saying that he was too honorable to have known about the ridiculous Obama kindergarten ad.

The ad - this season's version of the 1988 Willie Horton ad - charges that Obama wants to teach kindergarten children sex education when in fact he sponsored legislation to teach children how to identify sexual predators. It is ludicrous in its interpretation of the facts in an obvious attempt to scare people into thinking Obama is a superfreak Liberal.

But, to stay on point, what the feazy is Carville talking about?

First, if you put your name on something you might want to watch it and approve it before it goes out the door. At worst McCain believes the salacious attacks will get him elected; at best McCain has no control over his staff. Neither trait sounds like the kind we'd like in a President.

Second, the bill that was signed into law to force a candidate to take responsibility for ads aimed at another candidate was called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act - AKA the McCain-Feingold Act. I'm going to go out on a limb and say if you sponsored the bill then maybe, just maybe, you are fully aware of these rules.

Ignorance is not an excuse. Time to take some personal responsibility. McCain should know about these ads which is tantamount to agreement. The alternative is incompetence.

Christian Bale is a Badass

With the release of the new Terminator 4 trailer:

It occurred to me and a co-worker that Christian Bale should star in every sci fi role for the next several years. Some examples:

Dune - the perfect Paul Atreides. He's already got the skin suit look down.
Blade Runner (no remake scheduled) - We felt that Ed Norton would be the perfect Deckard and Bale should play Batty. We also agreed that we'd be incredibly geeked if Ed Norton ended up as the Riddler. Following that line of thought it became obvious that Bale and Norton should star together in every movie they do.
Superman - since Brandon Routh is out why not? Or maybe Bale would just be a good Bizarro or Cyclops? This discussion quickly deteriorated into how much we'd like to see a Doomsday/Superman movie.
OK, Tobey can stay on as Spider-man. And Robert Downey can be Iron Man.

And, at the very least, he should be a "red shirt" in Star Trek Zero.

Global Warming is a Sin!

The Pope weighs in...

How are you going to deal with that Religious Right?

I Am A Complete Jackass

Thanks to Gawker for finding this!

Why anyone would listen to what this insipid man has to say is beyond me - there is remotely nothing he discusses that is factual nor practical. Enjoy him making a fool out of himself acting the prima donna.

Random Playlist Thoughts

The great thing about music is that is can envoke very specific memories - what you were doing during a certain song, who broke your heart, etc. This one always makes me chuckle when the song comes on:

In high school we had a teacher Ms. Nelson who taught math. She was right out of college so we joked around with her a lot. So we knew her as Penny Nelson. Turns out she got engaged the 2nd or 3rd year of her teaching. Then we found out that she was marrying some guy with the last name Lane.

Guess what we whistled when we walked by her classroom the rest of the year?

locking macintosh with a keystroke

Problem

You want to lock your computer when you get up from it. You don't like hot corners for whatever reason (you're a keyboard junkie, they are used for other tasks, you are used to Win-L on Windows).

Solution

Use Quicksilver to start the screen saver application with a keystroke.

Discussion

I live in a dual world and one nice thing about Windows is you can Win-L to lock your computer when you get up from it (See here why you might want to do this).

The Macintosh solution is to first change your security preferences to "require a password to wake the computer from sleep or screen saver" (same think with the Windows screen saver).

Many people like to then set a "hot corner" to start their screen saver (screen saver preferences, hot corner button). This means you have to drag your mouse into one of the four screen corners to start the screen saver. There are two reasons why I personally don't like this:

I love Quicksilver which is a launching program for Macintosh (and much more). I love my keyboard and I prefer not to use my mouse. So it makes sense for me to be able to launch the screen saver from the keyboard and Quicksilver should be able to help me do this.
I run Parallels in full screen mode and for some reason the hot corners tend to be less reliable when Parallels is running.

To do this you first need Quicksilver - a quick download and easy setup will have you up and running quickly. Quick tutorial - CTRL-SPACE will open the QS launcher then you start typing in the names of apps you want to launch or control. Certain apps - like iTunes - can be controlled through QS to fine detail. Play. Have fun.

Back to this screen saver issue....

By default QS will scan your Applications directory for ... well apps to launch. You can either have it scan all applications or you can create a custom link directly to the screen saver application. I chose the latter because the former added an additional 300+ applications to the QS catalog.

Here's how:

Open QS preferences.
Click the catalog button on the top bar.
Click the Custom button on the left sidebar.
Click the + sign on the lower status bar to add a new custom catalog entry - File and Folder Scanner type.
Browse to /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app and open it.

That's it. Now I don't get all fancy with QS - I just CTRL-SPACE and type screen and this comes up for me. Easy-peasy.

deleting all subversion files from a directory

OK, I've got to give Mercurial a try. In order to import the files from my local working copy (will try hg convert later) I needed to prune out my local copy.

Yes, you can use SVN export as well. But I wanted to try to delete all the files within a directory structure. Here's how to use "find" and "rm" together to remove specific directories in a directory structure:

find . -name '.svn' -type d -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

the "find" part of this argument will find all files in and under the current directory named ".svn" that are directories and print them out as a list. those results are piped to xargs to turn into an argument list for rm. the "r" option works through the tree recursively and the "f" option forces removal. This is necessary in order to remove folders that have files in them.

LOL Boowebb

http://lolinator.com/lol/boowebb.com/

Other fun sites to LOL:

http://lolinator.com/lol/boowebb.com/hiking

http://lolinator.com/lol/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcats

http://lolinator.com/lol/www.scientology.org/

Stop It!

OK, if you are one of the however-many-millions using BlueTooth(tm) headsets with your cell phones - stop now!

We get it. You are _SO_ important that someone may call at any moment and you must be able to answer the call at a moment's notice. Nevermind that your phone actually rings 4+ times before you need to answer it and that the time it would take to life a phone to your ear or - heaven forbid! - remove a headset from your pocket and insert it into your ear.

Now what I'm talking about is not opposition to BlueTooth(tm) headsets or headsets in general (we'll get to that in a moment). I am opposed to people that walk around with these things in their ears like they are jewelry.

My favorite was a couple of years ago on a flight. After the "you can now get up and walk around" message was broadcast to the passengers some dude comes walking up the aisle with a BlueTooth(tm) headset in his ear. Really? You going to take an important call mid-flight?

Another fine example is when attending the Tacoma Days festival (yes, I will admit the irony of me passing judgement on people from the Tacoma Days festival) the number of people walking around just "waiting for the call." Clearly I don't get enough phone calls - I just don' get it.

But while we're on the subject - stop talking in elevators and inside public places ESPECIALLY if you are in line. My immediate reaction is to start conversing with this person. After all they clearly are unconcerned with my personal space so why should I be concerned with theirs? And if you are in line at a store is there a more demeaning act than treating the checker like a 2nd class citizen?

This of course makes me long for the days when you actually might not be home when someone called. Don't get me wrong, I would hate to not have my cell phone but this is just swinging too far.

Now onto BlueTooth(tm) itself. First, it's dangerous. My old boss of course got himself all hooked up with the BlueTooth(tm)/BMW integration - a nice feature that hooks your phone into your car's speakers and displays caller ID on your radio display. A nice feature until you happen to be driving around with a date and another girlfriend calls.

Second - what's the point? Yippee, I can have a 5' wireless network around me. I have exactly three cables coming out of my laptop at the moment which somehow are not creating a huge burden for me from a clutter perspective. Last time I checked a wired mouse was about the same size as a wireless mouse. Outside of a wireless headset for my phone I don't feel any more mobile with BlueTooth(tm) in my life.

In a nutshell - I'm impressed. I don't get BlueTooth(tm) at all and yet they've somehow convinced us all that it's the next best thing.

But I digress. Where was I?

Oh yeah - you look stupid with that thing in your ear.

Extract Files From Subversion for Propagation

Problem:

You store your site files in a subversion repository for source control. When you update your site you don't want to upload the entire tree (nor the svn working copy files) nor do you want to spend time hunting and pecking for the changed files.

Solution:

Use the following script on *nix to extract non-svn files that have recently changed:

find . -not ( -name '.svn' -type d -prune ) -not ( -name '*.log' ) -type f -mmin -240 -print | zip ~/Desktop/prop -@

Discussion:

We're building upon syntax we've used in two previous posts: delete files from a subversion sandbox and zip changed files in your subversion sandbox.

In this case we are using the "find" command combined with the -mmin option to find file modified within a specified number of minutes. find . -mmin -X will find files in the current directory structure modified in the last X minutes. find . -mmin X will find files in the current directory structure modified before X minutes ago.

In the example above we're findiing all files not in .svn folders modified less than 240 minutes ago. We pipe the results of that find to the zip utility to zip up the results. We are also filtering out the Rails-specific "development.log" from being zipped.

If you want to propagate an entire directory structure you can use svn export on your working copy to extract out all your files (this is the same as a checkout without the .svn folders). You can also svn export from the repository to pull a specific revision or branch.

svn export . ~/Desktop/prop

svn export http://repos/project/tags/release_1.0 ~/Desktop/prop

And for those Rails developers you can obviously use Capistrano to get around most of these issues.

Delete All Files in a Subversion Working Copy

Problem:

You want to remove all the files in your subversion working copy but you do not want to remove the folder structure.

Description:

I have had to do this when upgrading an application from Rails 1.x to Rails 2.0. The file structure of my project changed significantly enough that I just moved everything out to a non-working copy to do the work. When I started to move the work back in there were a lot of files/folders that had changed.

Rather than work through the manual process of moving files in svn it's sometimes easier to just start from a new point in time within the same repository. In that case you want to:

remove all the files in your current working copy yet preserve the folder structure for SVN
move all the new files into your working copy and commit those changes
clean up any new/missing files and folders.

Solution:

*nix

From the command line run:

find . -not \( -name '.svn' -type d -prune \) -type f -print | xargs rm

This says....

find from the current directory (find .)
...ignoring files in a directory called '.svn' (-not ( -name '.svn' -type d -prune ))
...any file (-type f)
...and delete it (-print lists the files and xargs rm removes any file in that list)

oddly enough the following _will_ list out the same as above...
find . -type d -name '.svn' -prune -o -type f -print
but -delete is invoked with -depth implied so you will end up deleting required svn files if you run
find . -type d -name '.svn' -prune -o -type f -print

Windows

This is easier from the UI with your favorite search tool. I use Directory Opus so from the advanced tab specify Location to not match .svn and type matches files only.

Any other good ideas for this on Windows?

The Definition of "Ballsy"

http://www.google.com/microsoft.html

RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER: Writing to the Log in Rails

One great thing about Rails is the logs that are produced in development mode. By default rails will list out all SQL statements and trace all controller calls.

It is possible to add custom messages to the rails log through a poorly documented RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER object which is defined in environment.rb.

The following log levels are available:

debug
info
warn
error
fatal

Therefore, to add debug calls to your code for development mode just add the following:

RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.info "foo bar"

I've found it useful to add a method to application_helper for this for consistency. It helps as well to add line feeds and searchable text to make your output stand out in the log file.

def add_to_log(output)
  RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.info "\n ***mylog*** #{output}\n"
end

Easily Zip Changed Files in Your Subversion Working Copy

Subversion is a great tool for source control on a team of software developers. Every check-in we do into subversion must be accompanied by a code review from a fellow developer. The best method for doing this is to send the modified files to another developer in zip format. But how does one do this with a large source tree?

*nix

From the command line run the following:

svn status | grep ^[AM] | awk '{print $2}' | zip ~/Desktop/cr -@

A small explanation of what's going on here:

this makes heavy use of piping (aka the | or "pipe" character) which sends the output of a command on the left of the pipe as input to the command on the right. as a short exampe ls -l | grep ^A will send a directory listing to grep will will then evaluate that list and parse out only those entries that start with A (which really will be none...).
svn status will list all files in your working copy (local sandbox) that are not in sync with the svn repository.
svn status returns ?, !, A, M, D for "unknown," "file missing," "added," "modified," and "deleted" respectively. it lists this info in column 1 and the file path in column 2.
we use grep ^[AM] to filter out the list for added and modified files only. it's a regular expression that says find matches where the line starts with A or M. this means the output of svn status | grep ^[AM] will be a list of all added and modified files in your working copy.
we use awk '{print $2}' to print the 2nd column front standard input. this means that svn status | grep ^[AM] | awk '{print $2}' will list the paths of each file in your svn working copy that has been added or modified.
zip is the most obvious command in this sequence - it builds a zip file in the location specified. the only odd option is -@ which tells zip to take the list of files to zip from standard input.

I have actually saved this to a bash script to make sure I delete any existing cr.zip.

Windows

Heaven forbid you can actually do something more easily and nearly as geeky on Windows but it's true....

This assumes you use TortoiseSVN which is a stellar program that integrates into the Windows shell.

Right-click on your trunk directory and choose TortoiseSVN => SVN Check for Modifications. This command sends svn status and returns the list to a dialog box. From here you can double-click each file for easy diff.

To zip these files up create a new zip file (on your desktop) with your zip utility of choice (aka WinRar or WinZip - as you'll see in a moment) and open the zip in your utility.

From the TortoiseSVN window select all the files you want to zip (you will have to manually unselect (or not select) deleted, missing, or non-added files which is made easier if you sort by the "text status" column) and drag them to the title bar of your zip utility. With WinRar and WinZip you get a dialog giving you options about how you want to add these files - make sure you select to add the files with full paths or when they are unzipped they'll be all at the root of the zip file.

I have not played with other zip utilities on windows outside of 7z which does give you the option to add files by full path.

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista for Free

This is amazing - who would have thought Microsoft would have allowed this backdoor....

Race Report - Kansas City Half Marathon

I decided to run the Kansas City Marathon for a few reasons:

It's for a good cause - leukemia and lymphoma research
I've been wanting to run a marathon for quite some time
The run would be in the fall hence a likelihood of good weather (meaning a bit cooler)
It would be near home so would have family support

Well, things being the way they are, I got busy over the summer and didn't get as much training in as I wanted. So, with a 12 mile training run three weeks before the race under my belt (note NOT a 20 mile run) I changed my registration to the half marathon.

I felt I was in good shape. I'd run the Dawg Dash 5k the week before with a good (for me) time. I'd run the Seafair Half Marathon earlier in the summer 14 minutes faster than my previous half (Seattle Half Marathon). So, I felt good about running a time competitive with the Seafair half - I was shooting for 1:45 or better.

The run started early - 7:00am - thus assuring that we'd be running under cooler conditions. Two weeks previous the Chicago Marathon had been stopped due to excessive heat so this was welcome.

The race started at Crown Center where the Hospital Hill run also starts. The marathon reportedly had a record number of entrants and it was apparent. For some reason the marathon runners and half runners started at the same time which bogged up the start of the run as well as the first six miles of the course.

For Kansas the course is quite hilly (in fairness the run is in Missouri) with the hardest hill coming in the first three miles. Being from Seattle the hills didn't seem to pose much threat and indeed I felt pretty good as I ran up to the War Memorial and down toward Westport.

The trouble began while running through the plaza. I'd been fighting the urge to hit the port-a-potties but nature took over. By that point I'd felt my legs fighting me and I could not figure out why. As I slowed down considerably it hit me - I'd spent Thursday walking around the University of Kansas campus for over five hours!

(Again, before you start laughing KU is quite hilly)

Morale of the story - don't walk around a hilly area two days before a big run. And certainly not for five hours. Wearing flip flops was probably a poor idea as well. Duh.

Let's just say the last six miles were brutal. I ran the first seven miles around one hour (at six miles I was still on a 1:50 pace) and the last six in 1:08. Fortunately there are no hills to speak of in these last miles but I counted every step. I forced myself to run (except through water stops where I felt the co-ordination needed to run and drink would be....well, would it would be challenging to pull this off in my condition) all the way in. And there was no mustering a show of strength as I came through the finishing chute.

The finishing area was crowded as hell - in fact it was not laid out very well and there was a shortage of volunteers at the finish to herd runners along. It was tough to get through lines and to find your supporters. But, there was a Boulevard Beer stand which made me happy.

All-in-all I learned a few things. Rest before a big run is critical. You can run when you're in dire pain. And a cold one after the run can take your pain away pretty quickly.

Race Report - UW Dawg Dash

This was my 2nd Dawg Dash. This year I decided to run the 5k as I was running the Kansas City Half the next weekend. Two years ago I did the 10k as my first race in nearly a decade and finished in 1:03.

The start of this thing is always a madhouse. One thing I like is that it starts and ends in Husky Stadium which makes you feel like a track star. You also get to run around campus which is hilly as hell but the band hangs out near the fountain which is good fun.

You also get to run with every co-ed that has ever put on a pair of running shoes. And a bunch of people that like running with their dogs. So, with the spirit that this is a fun run I feel slightly bad for how I felt during the start of the run which was "if you're going to run 11 minute miles DON'T START AT THE FRONT OF THE RACE!!!!" For as many 5k's as I've done over the past couple of years I felt like I was just far enough back to run comfortable 7:30 miles. However, I literally ran right into the back of some girl who cut right in front of me due to some serious confusion at the front of the pack.

So, most of this was due to poor planning, and in fairness a lot of these "fun runners" had no idea they should not be standing at the front. And in fairness I should have recognized the shiny runners with their race-day T-Shirts on (you can pick these people out just like at a rock concert) and scooted further up to the starting line. BUT, the race organization was pretty poor. There were no instructions to have people move back if they were running slower or with dogs (some poor woman started at the front wearing what looked like a rain jacket and nearly got herself and her two terriers run over). The starting chute was also more narrow than the track itself so you had too many runners trying to fill a space not designed for them.

Once on the road you run around the stadium and up through campus. And I mean up. At least you get to run down. I ended up running ok and beat a guy to the line 1o years my junior (take that Gen Y!). 23:53 - not stellar but not bad for training for a half marathon v. a shorter run.

Will I run this race again? Only if I can run a sub-20 5k next year.

Muir Snowfield with Chris

Chris and I went up to Paradise at Mt. Rainier on his most recent trip to Seattle. Chris had wanted to do a day hike up to Camp Muir and back (a hike I did over two days over a year ago) but we decided this would be too much for a day hike. So, the goal was to get up on the Muir Snowfield for a bit.

The drive down was pretty non-eventful. We drove a bit out of the way (around the south of Orting) to avoid The Puyallup Fair which proved to be a wise choice. To boot we drove by a maize maze. Past Orting the traffic was very light as the forecast was for fog/rain at Paradise.

Paradise was mostly fogged in as we got to the visitor's center and it was also rather brisk. I had left my bladder at home so I wanted to get some water at the shop. We also only had one pair of gloves and hat so we each bought one of each to stay warm.

The hike starts at 5400 feet and takes the Skyline Trail up toward Panorama Point (there are weaving trails through this area – you could take the Alta Vista Trail slightly to the east (much to my chagrin this was the Spanish pronunciation. Chris has been pronouncing Vista (as in Windows Vista) “veesta” all week to irritate me and now he had a legitimate reason to pronounce it as such) but veers left and upward to Pebble Creek before reaching the snowfield. We saw a few hikers coming down who had not made it very far up the snowfield – in fact it was snowing at that altitude.

Pebble Creek is about 7200 feet which we reached in a little over an hour. We ran into a group of three – a couple and their friend – and it was her first time on the snowfield. In fact we later learned that she had surgery earlier in the year and resultant complications that resulted in several blood transfusions so this was quite remarkable.

We didn't get very far up the snowfield – 15 minutes or so – as the conditions were very foggy and icy. The snowfield was very low and there was a lot of exposed dirt out on the snowfield. Very odd.

On the way down we were able to get a good look at the construction on the new Visitor Center and Paradise Inn.

Toward the end of the hike the fog started to clear and by the time we were in Eatonville the mountain was clear on the horizon. We treated ourselves to Arby's in Puyallup on the way home.

As always, regardless of the weather, hiking around Paradise is wonderful. It was a good day on the mountain.

Red Blood Club

why not.....

http://www.redbloodclub.net/

seriously, someone please tell me what this is all about

Darth Vader calls the Emperor

Hilarious.....

Oh My

Star Wars Gangsta Rap - very disturbing (and funny). Check it out.

iPod Reboot

Found this little trick and need to keep this handy. I was driving along I-90 through Spokane and my video iPod got stuck moving between songs (it may not like Primus is all I can figure).

The trick is to toggle the "lock" switch to locked then unlocked and then hold the center and menu buttons simultaneously until the iPod reboots.

I also noticed as I was scrolling through songs that the letter S popped up in the display and I scrolled to the S songs.

After a bit of digging this feature is apparently new and is called "Quick Scroll." It appears that as you apply pressure to the wheel as you scroll that you can scroll through letters of the alphabet. Unfortunately I have one of the rubber guards protecting my iPod from wear and tear and so it is apparently not sensitive enough to pick this up.

There is also a new "search" function in the updated iPod software that let's you search for a song. Accessible from the main menu (or music menu) this seems quite useful.

Guess I'll have some playing to do as I drive to Whitefish, MT tomorrow.

Brain and Brain! What is Brain???

I have no idea what the title of this blog has to do with the content but I was thinking of this entertaining Star Trek quote....

I was released from the hospital yesterday - in the afternoon about 2:30. Overnight was not bad. I fell asleep soon after the blog entry, was awoken around 11pm to check some vitals then I slept for about 6 hours with the help of some percocet. I slept on/off through the morning but the bustle around the hospital kept me awake. The doctors came by early to check on me and let me know I'd likely be leaving that day.

I had only been on the pain meds since the operation and my blood pressure was normal. I was running a low-grade fever but this did not seem to be much concern.

I took a walk early in the morning and one later in the afternoon. My afternoon walk I hooked up with a gentleman from Alaska that had had his bladder replaced due to cancer. He had been through three months of chemo already and had just had a new bladder constructed out of a portion of his small intestine. And he was out-walking me! He had had his surgery the previous Thursday however ;-). He was still in amazing spirits and quite healthy - told me he had been working out specifically to deal with his condition over the past several months and it showed.

I'll give fair warning now to stop reading if you don't want to hear much about the details of what else post-surgery involves :-).

The big concern of the hospital staff is if I was passing gas or not. I started the night before. This is apparently a big deal to make sure my gastro system was functioning after the surgery. Fun stuff. The good news is that more movement tends to get that system going and gets the CO2 that was pumped into my abdomen during surgery absorbed.

The only prescription I had was for more percocet so we stopped by the drug store on the way home. Also decided to stop by work at the end of the day to say "hi" to the crew. It was nice to see everyone. We had also had our chili cookoff so I brought some chili home.

Once I got home I was pretty exhausted - went to be about 7pm and woke up periodically through the night. I took two doses of percocet in the night and let me tell you - dreams on narcotics are pretty intense. Random dreams about Arby's and Allen Field House and being chased by dogs. And in full cinescope color!

This morning woke up about 9am and did myself the favor of taking a shower. The following picture is from the IV I had in my neck - I guess it was about the width of a straw. Starbucks straw - not those thin wimpy ones.

Dad and I walked over to Starbucks this morning so I'm trying to stay active and moving. Will be heading over to the grocery store later today as well. All in all things are going smoothly and things are healing up on/ahead of schedule.

Most importantly today is to see KU beat Texas in the Big 12 game of the season - should be a good game.

Gut Check

I can now cross off my list of things to do "spend a night in ICU." So, the surgery went off as expected - of course I was out for all of it so what do I know? :-)

The pain is amazingly slight. The last thing I remember is the doctor trying to get the A-line in my wrists. I woke up with this A-line in my femoral artery (groin) in my right leg. As advertised I had an IV in my neck; not advertised was the catheter. I was hooked up to several macines including some cool leg wraps that inflated every five minutes to massage my legs and aid circulation.

I slept on and off through the night. I was hooked up with a personal pain medicine dispenser (this has some acronym I cannot remember). I only used it 5/6 times.

Morning brought solid food - 1/2 banana, oatmeal, french toast, and juice. I got some down but abdominal pain made me not want to take too much.

Around 10am the tubes started coming out. The A-line was worst as it required several minutes of pressure on the artery. The catheter was amazingly painless as was the neck IV.

I moved back up to the 17th floor around 11am. I tried sitting up early which was quite painful. What is interesting is how much my shoulder hurts (left) - I apparently got yanked pretty well in the OR.

Of course you learn to rate your pain on a scale of 0-10. Pretty sure I've never been at pain = 10 so it's a little hard to rate. I've been taking perkased today for the pain which has been tolerable.

Just took two laps up and down the hall for my first outing. I also ate all of my lunch and dinner so am holding down food. I assume if I get a good night's rest I'll be home tomorrow.

As Tue/Wed the hospital staff has been top notch and very helpful. The stay has been very pleasent and comfortable.

Hopefully I will be released tomorrow so I can type from my keyboard and not the Treo.

Can I Keep This Gown?

One final post before I hit the OR. My Treo works so will take this chance to document my hotel stay so far.

Dad and I showed up before noon yesterday - our scheduled check-in. No matter - was in my 17th floor room soon enough (nice southern view). The only bad part is my last meal was 8pm the previous night - I was instructed to be on a clear liquid diet all day. I eventually got a fine lunch of chicken broth and red jello (dinner was beef broth and yellow jello). Of course when you are starving every commercial seems like it's for pizza or steak. Needless to say much of my hospital stay so far has been planning my release meal.

I was on IV all day - three bags of saline to make sure I'm fully hydrated. The only drug fun was my enema fluid to make sure I'm emptied out (and without going into detail it works).

The only glitch is my anesthesiologist was over hours so is not able to do the surgery. His partner is taking over and is just as experienced so no worries. I actually was just visited by my 3rd surgeon which makes five doctor visits since admission. They are prepared and so am I - I am in good hands.

Surgery is for around 9:20 am and I'll be getting prepped an hour before - the general then the epideral then out like a light. If all goes well I'll be in recovery around 1pm with a few small incisions in my belly and one less adrenal gland.

If all goes well i'll be out on Friday.

I will close by saying I slept well without any drugs. Not nervous at all. I will talk to you all tomorrow.

T-24 Hours

So here we are at the final post before surgery. I am admitting today to the Virginia Mason hospital (downtown Seattle) at noon. I am scheduled for surgery first thing Wednesday morning which means about 7am or so.

Everything to this point is checking out. I had a long conversation with the anethesiologist yesterday and he's certain everything will turn out well.

This also marks the beginning of my fast - no solid food for the next couple of days. Whee!

Not quite sure what to expect from today other than some monitoring, likely a fair amount of blood testing and such.

See you all on the other side.

Full Steam Ahead!

Seems that it's been awhile since my last post. In this case, no news is good news.

I have been consistently upping the dosage of alpha blockers and expect to be on 4x 40mg a day starting tomorrow. Those following closely will be happy to know that my BP has dropped consistently under 135/90 which is considered the upper range - this morning got a couple in the 110/70 range which used to be normal for me.

The upside is I am not sick of Gatorade yet and am probably going to be single-handedly responsible for a banner quarter for them. By 10am yesterday I had guzzled 64oz already and by end of day I had gone far north of a gallon consumed. The bad news is the doctor's prediction appears correct - I've gained about 10 pounds. I just hope it's all fluid :-).

Ah, yes, I started the beta blockers yesterday. As the doctor says this weekend we were really going to start pounding on me with the drugs. Frankly I have not felt that lightheaded. Then again I've been pretty much lying on my butt as opposed to being up and around like at work last week. The new drug is metroprolol and I'm doing 2x 50mg of this cute pink little pill. All I have to say is good riddence to the atenolol - I'm sure these are similar but I had such a bad experience with this bad boy the last time b/c I was not on the alphas yet.

Tomorrow is a company holiday so I'll be continuing to rest. Not much of a three-day weekend but that's ok. I'll be checking in on Tuesday at noon and expect everything to stay constant between now and then.

Can I Get a Fix Man?

Not much drama to report in the quest for adrenal gland removal - of serious note anyway. I do have a story to relate that my friend Todd will no doubt find at least mildly anecdotal.

So, last we left off I had met with the surgeon. Friday I went in for another CT Scan which was pretty much like the first. The only real change is that I got to drink two of the mystical drink rather than just one.

Dr. Don called on Monday to let me know the EKG and Echo results were good.

I have been continually upping my dosage according to my marching orders.

So, I realize on Saturday that I'm running low on pills. Walgreens has a nifty feature where you punch in your prescription order as long as you have refills remaining (long-time readers will remember the trials I went through to get my first prescription). I fill in my information and wait. And wait a bit more. Then I think maybe Walgreens is using the Aspen Notification Service and I'll get my confirmation email later.

Sunday - no email. Walgreens doesn't love me.

Monday I call. I only have 10 of these bad boys left and I'm going to take 8 today. The pharmacist tells me that insurance will not cover my pills. Incredulously (and before I go any further and before my pharmacy friends out there grill me I will mention that I rarely get prescriptions and I have never once in my life refilled one) I ask why not? Because your prescription was for 10mg a day and it's only been 8 days. Oh yeah - that secret underground drug trade in alpha blockers - I remember! Actually, I get it but was just not ready for it.

Well, I knew my anethesiologist was out that day already because I'd called to check in. So, I called back hoping to get another doctor to greenlight some new dope for me. Nope - got hooked up with the doctor who said he'd take care of it (and of course wanted to know how I was doing as well as how the BP was and if I'd kept my spreadsheet of BP current). He calls back in about 10 minutes to tell me my new prescription was for 40mg 4 times a day which as far as I can tell is the maximum amount I could get (Bucket - please confirm). Let's just say I'm not running out of alpha blockers anytime soon.

The good news is they are working. The dosages are going up and the BP is dropping (it's been in the 155/90 range and today I got a 113/74 which is quite normal if I do say so my damned self).

Time for another test and to update the spreadsheet. Life is good.

A Day in the Hospital (and Another Date Identified)

Today I met the surgeon and team that will be doing the surgery. Overall I am very happy with who will be doing this - very much interested in this type of surgery and also has a history doing it as well.

My appointment was early in the morning so I went on the way to work. I first met with one of the doctors on the team (Dr. Don I think). We went over my history again and he showed me an image of the CT Scan - essentially the right adrenal gland (the good one) looks kind of like a slug but the left looks like a golf ball.

Dr. Biehl then came in to go over the procedure and answer questions. The procedure will be attempted laparoscopically but they may have to make a game-time decision to do an open surgery. This can happen if there is a blood vessel in the way or some other kind of complication.

I will be admitted the day before to take an IV in order to get properly hydrated. The surgery (officially known as an adrenalectomy) will take 2-3 hours. I will spend the night in ICU in order to monitor my heart/cardiovascular system. Then another 2-3 days in the hospital and then another 2-3 weeks before I can be fully back to normal (meaning back to full exercise).

An interesting note is that this will involve removing the entire adrenal gland and not just the growth. It has taken over too much of the tumor at this point. This answered my question of "why do you call this an adrenalectomy when an apendectomy is removing the appendix?" (point of fact - this was the answer to that very question from me).

In order to make sure I do not have a larger condition known as Multiple Endocrine Neoplasma the doctor ordered another CT Scan but to run my full chest and through the pelvis (the last was just my abdomen) as there are glands in those areas where other tumors might hide. He also wanted some additional blood tests, and EKG, and a heart echo.

I next met with the anethesiologist - top rate guy. He is the doctor that is going to control my meds before and of course during the surgery. So, we'll up the dosage about every two days from here on out.

Oh, oops, I forgot - I will be having the procedure 2/22. That's in just 13 days.

So, by the time I get to the operation I'll be on 60-80mg or more of the alpha blockers per day. A few days before he will also put me on a beta blocker to help control my heart. The beta blocker has a regulatory effect on the heart so the heart rate will not spike. And I will be drinking liquids like nobody's business to compensate for the lower blood pressure - gatorade perferred (or other sports drink) to get the electrolytes. He expects me to gain 10-15 lbs. during this time just in water weight.

During the operation I will be under a general anesthetic (administered through IV) and will also have an epideral. He will also have an IV in my neck in order to be able to specifically control my heart.

This all points to this being a very serious procedure (make sense - we are balancing a very delicate and crucial system in my cardio system). This also reminds me a bit of my job in some ways - the doctors have a pattern in their history to follow, ie other surgeries they've done and specifically adrenalectomies. They need to gather as much information as possible including how strong my heart is thus explaining the tests. In that spirit I will be keeping track daily of my BP to make sure it's lowering.

So, after this I went downstairs (to the anesthetic department) to get my EKG and (horray!) have some more blood drawn for more tests. Thus ended my trip to the hospital - about 2 hours in total.

But, I then returned in the afternoon for my heart echo (aka ultrasound). Very uninvasive and quite interesting actually (I have never seen an US before). Pretty cool software as well behind the scenes. So, you get to watch your heart beating from all different angles. The purpose here is to make sure the heart has no damage as can happen in cases of increased adrenaline over time.

So, not a bad day in the hospital overall. The diagnosis is complete and I have my team picked out that will do the surgery and this is the right group. The fact gathering has begun as well and I have my CT Scan tomorrow.

First Results

Today not much specific happened other than I got results back from the chest x-ray which showed no metastis in my lungs. This means a very near 99% chance the growth is benign but this is not absolute until the tumor is removed and a biopsy performed.

The doctor also upped my dosage of Dibenzyline to 10mg twice a day. The good news is since I started the drug I've had no attacks. I have felt a couple of head rushes as a side effect which was expected. Also, the BP has gone down a bit which is also good.

And the Winner Is……

So, I met with the endocrinologist today. Let's skip to the back page - I have pheochromocytoma. Now, let's get to the details (or skip ahead to the next article).

So, the CT showed a 4cm (read: golf ball) tumor/growth in my left adrenal gland. This is of course as suspected. Most of the research I've read so far has been true so no sense in rehashing the details.

Of note is that my original doctor had noted possible PCC in my blood sample. Why I was not taken down the path of urinalysis or CT Scan at that point is beyond me.

So, the doctor decided that it might not be a good idea to run a marathon so it's time to bring the exercise levels down - casual exercise only. Also, the beta blockers that were prescribed to me are actually making the problem more acute so I am off those. He prescribed an alpha blocker (dibenzyline) which essentially "blocks" (no kidding....) the alpha receptors in the cells. These receptors are sensitive to the epinepherine and so this will help the high blood pressure. Essentially I need to consistently increase my dose over the next 3-4 weeks before surgery in order to get my system balanced. As far as I can tell there is a risk, if not balanced, that messing with the adrenal gland could violently increase my blood pressure (read: heart attack) and then cause it to drop to very low levels as the adrenaline supply is cutoff. This would seem to be bad during an operation. I will therefore be incrementally decreasing the adrenaline effect in my body pre-surgery.

Oh, yeah, so this is important. It does not appear to be malignent (based on size, shape) but the doctor ordered a chest x-ray to be sure. Also ordered another blood test to check out some calcium levels that might indicate a bigger problem in the endocrine system. So, I took a quick jaunt upstairs to radiology to get zapped then back down a floor to give up some more of my blood.

Now, I have never had to have a prescription refilled. I don't much believe in drugs as a rule (I would rather diagnose the problem rather than just treating the symptoms) so color me surprised when I was told at the Renton neighborhood Rite-Aid that they did not have Dibenzyline in stock. I called the local Walgreens to no effect. I decided the better part of valor was not to sit there and burn 411 calls trying to figure out who had this drug in stock (I was now discovering that drugstore inventory is not shared between branches) and instead head home to call from my handy computer. Well, the local Bartells did not have the drug either and it was approaching 9pm so I figured I would wait until tomorrow.

The good news is that I found a Walgreens in Bellevue that had the drug in stock and got this Saturday morning. We'll have to see how they work but being off the beta blockers a day has resulted in a much better feeling.

Oh, BTW, I will get back the x-ray and blood results on Monday when I'm in San Jose so should know more then. I also scheduled an appointment with the surgeon for next Thursday at which time I presume that I will have a surgery scheduled.

Pig in a Blanket

Well, I have now had the pleasure of experiencing a CT Scan. All-in-all not an unpleasent experience.

The basic premise is that they run you through a machine that has a laser that "slices" through your body and images it as you go. In this particular case they were only looking at my abdomen in order to identify a tumor in my adrenal gland. BTW, the adrenal gland sits on top of the kidney.

In order to prep you must not eat for four hours ahead of time and when you arrive you must drink some think liquid which presumably coats the digestive system (I honestly did not ask...). Then you wait for an hour which I suppose gives you enough time for the liquid to get to the intestines. The only real problem here is that I did not know that an hour wait was in order. Again, not normally a problem unless there aren't any magazines from the last four years in the waiting room. How much fun can you have on a Treo in one hour? I found out (the answer is "not much").

So, the procedure is fairly uneventful. A CT-tech (rad-tech?) fits you for an IV so that they can inject you with contrast during the procedure. You are led into a room where you lie on a table - in my case I had to hike my jeans down to clear way for the scan. And then the fun begins.

Now I am in no way claustraphobic. But I of course noticed the posters of scenic wide-open vistas intended to comfort those patients that are. They fit you with an IV and you are ready to go.

Back and forth on the bed as they slide it through the tube. A nice computer voice tells you when to breathe and when to hold (I would have preferred a "you can now breathe" as opposed to the curt "breath" command - the Enterprise computer is so much more polite). The only really funny thing is a sign that says "laser beam blah blah blah....do not look into it" right above your eyes. Why not just give me a big red shiney button that says "do not push!" I patted myself on the back for not blinding myself during the procedure.

Halfway through they stop for a moment and come over and inject the contrast through the IV. It's a very warm feeling which ultimately makes you want to go to the bathroom (like going into a warm pool or having your hand soaked in a warm bucket of water). The feeling was a bit much but then again I have a ton of adrenaline coursing through my veins (presumably). They slid me through a couple of more times and then unhooked me and told me to pull up my pants.

And that's it. The contrast did not last long and off I went.

The good news so far is that all of the staff I've met has been quite friendly. Always good to have people willing to joke around with you when they are poking you with needles and such.

Tomorrow I meet with the endocrinologist to review the CT Scan results.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog on my condition known as pheochromocytoma. The purpose of this is to chronical the process I am going through in diagnosing and dealing with this condition.

This all started summer of 2004. I started having frequent episodes that I can best desribe as "adrenaline rushes." Usually this would be first thing in the morning but would also happen at times after having a heavy breakfast. The symptoms were a rush through the body particularly up the spinal cord, nausea, headaches, dizziness, and a general feeling of anxiety. One odd symptom - and I noticed this several times while riding on the bike - is that my heart rate would actually drop during these episodes.

I originally visited Virginia Mason (Bellevue) to find out what was going on. No diagnosis was quickly uncovered. I had some basic neurological tests done as well as and EKG and everything seemed to check out in these areas. I also had some blood work done and there was nothing to indicate high blood sugar. After a couple of trips to the doctor they suggested this might be panic disorder and a possible treatment would be a drug like zoloft. I was a strong believer that this was a reaction to something chemical and not psychological and so I discounted that diagnosis and sought other opinions. I got a similar diagnosis from a second doctor (also at Virginia Mason).

By September '04 the attacks had stopped and so I did not think much about it through the following year. But they reappeared last summer but in a different form. Rather than getting headaches as a result I would get more stomach/GI pain. Rather than first thing in the morning it would happen more at night and often would wake me a couple of hours after I had gone to bed.

I started seeing a third doctor (not VM - private practioner) who thought this might be related to a reflux disorder. We did a barium swallow (you drink about a gallon of a liquid that has the consistency of an Orange Julius and they tilt you around on an x-ray bed to see how your insides look as you swallow the drink) which revealed no hiatal hernia (where the stomach protudes into the esophagus) or other serious reflux problem. There was a thought this might be related to the vagus nerve - which runs from your abdomon around the stomach, hearth, esophagus into the brain - in which its overstimulation might be causing the heart slowing and GI discomfort. I was prescribed Prilosec and beta blockers (this with the intent of regulating the heart) but neither had any effect. These diagnostics lasted from June through November with very little happening to curb the episodes.

Through December not much happened - it was a busy time with Christmas season (I visited KS for a week) and when I returned I got terribly sick and was so for about three weeks. During that time I visited the VM clinic three times to see what I had and to get antibiotics. I saw the original doctor the first visit (just a flu - rest and it will pass) and a new doctor the 2nd/3rd visits (this is doctor #4 for those keeping track). During the third visit the doctor realized that I had high blood pressure the last fiew visits and noticed a marker in my blood that indicated high adrenaline levels. At this point she ordered a urinalysis to see if there were more adrenaline markers than just the blood test would show. I also had the pleasure of purchasing a personal blood pressure machine to do daily readings. Finally, I got my antibiotics which in 5 days kicked the hell out of whatever I had.

So, after about 1 1/2 weeks I returned to the doctor to get my diagnosis and this is where we are in the tale. Indeed I had three (of four) markers in my urine that were highly elevated - 4-6x as much as would be considered normal. This pre-diagnosed the pheochromocytoma but it was up to getting a CT Scan to determine this for sure. So, we're setting up an appointment to get the CT done and to talk to an endocrinologist this week. The specialist will give the CT results and prescribe next steps.

My New Toy

Today arrive my Dell Dimension E510. I toyed with getting one of the new XPS boxes but didn't want to shell out the cash. I got the Win XP Media Center edition which is quite interesting so far (I'm not quite done installing all the advertising crap that Dell feels obliged to install for me).

The machine is super quiet - insanely quiet actually. I've got 2GB RAM with a hyperthreaded 3.4GHz CPU.

The only real problem so far is the uninstallation process. I suppose this is an ideal thought but it would be nice to get a computer with just the OS installed - damned OEM agreements.

I think I will also need to get a cable in box - we'll have to see about that. In theory this machine will act just like a ReplayTV but will have to play with that.

More later...

My First Good Run!

Tonight I ventured back to Seward Park for the 2.4 mile loop. I also incorporated RunningStrides with is a concept from Chris Carmichael's TrainRight website (I have no idea if they came up with this or not). Essentially you warm up (I generally do three minutes of walking/jogging) and then do a number of repititions of 100m runs at 5k pace with a one minute rest in between.

The goal as I understand it is to get your system to start the lactic acid cleansing response (lactic acid is the byproduct of anaerobic exercise - it is what makes your musceles feel "full" as you increase exertion). Your body can transport away a certain amount of lactic acid as you exercise (if you are "more aerobic" you are working "with oxygen" and therefore producing less lactic - if you are "more anaerobic" you are working "without oxygen" and producing more lactate). There is a point where you are working anaerobically enough that you begin to produce more lactic acid than your body can transport - this is the anaerobic threshold.

This may or may not have done the trick (one would think 3-4 weeks of consistent training is finally paying off) but I did a great run and felt good for the first time this year running. Based on my time I did about a 10 minute pace which is still awfully slow (I used to be a seven minute miler).

The takeaway is that I'm starting to see good results. We'll see how things progress over the next couple of weeks.

Look Into: My Favorite New PowerToy

My Favorite New PowerToy

This might be worth a look - I do a lot of work on multiple computers and it is hard to keep things sync'd. Will have to play with in my free time.

Running Tour

This weekend was good for getting outdoors. Friday was disappointing as the Yankees lost a heartbreaker of a game (they came back after being down 5-0 to be up 6-5 only to lose 11-7). After the game I did a little indoor running on the treadmill - still at a slow pace but I put a little incline into it.

A short aside - before running I discovered that the exercise room (extra bedroom on the upper floor - treadmill and bike training stand are here) DVD player was brokeen. Not recognizing discs. The good news is that I spent maybe $60 on this one so no big loss. The bad news is I need to replace it because Friday night comedy is just not where it's at. Take the show I struggled through - Hot Properties.

Three gals own a real estate business but sit around talking about their sex lives (Gail O'Grady is dating/engaged to someone 17 years younger and has lied about her age, Nicole Sullivan is the desperate "can't get a date" addition, and the Latin actress is divorced from a gay man and has no "gadar" - good stuff). This must have been the pilot - another woman shows up looking for a place for her and her fiance (oh, this happens in NYC) and confesses to these women she's never met that she's a virgin - they of course cannot keep a straight face (good for business I've learned). Hilarity ensues when we discover that two of the gals have slept with the previously believed virgin fiance. Ultimately the woman dumps the dude since he's been lying and looks like she's joining the firm (after one of the gals was found making out with him...). Great stuff!

OK, that was not so short but I need my DVD player if I'm going to run/ride indoors.

Anyway - I got in a bit more than 1/2 hour run at a nice brisk pace.

Saturday - the plan was to get on the road early on the Mountain Bike that I've been refitting as a commuter bike (see "soon to come" previous post). I got my fenders installed and got out on the road. Maybe 5 minutes in I realize a weird noise coming from the front tire. I stop. It blows.

Let me back up 10 minutes which is when I was looking for my portable pump in the garage. Normally I carry air canisters (CO2) in order to quickly inflate if I have a flat but that's on my road bike which is at the repair shop. So, no air. No pump. I'm walking back home. The good ol' walk of shame.

Back home I'm barely warmed up so I head down to Seward Park for a nice run. Seward is close enough that I've run there (four miles) and I ride through there all the time as Lake Washington Blvd is a bike-friendly road that takes up ultimately up to the Burke Gilman Trail on your way around Lake Washington. The path around Seward Park is about 2.5 miles.

Afterwards I drove out to Sammamish Valley Cycle to pick up my road bike which was in for the annual tune up. Good to know that I can fit the bike in the extended cab of my truck! Great folks out there - buy a bike and get free lifetime tuneups! Oh, I also bought some new tubes (wonder why). I did put road tires on the MTN bike and may have gotten too big tubes - we'll see how these work.

Saturday night I got on the bike at home (on the trainer) for a little active recovery. Active recovery is basically working out only hard enough to get your heart rate up - not enough to tax you but enough to get blood moving through your muscles to move the bad stuff away (this is the lay explanation).

Sunday was a quick run down through Dead Horse Canyon. I described this in an earlier post.

All in all a good weekend - a nice diversion through Seward versus my usual haunts. I think I need to continue to explore other parks in the Seattle area for running. Anyone have any ideas?

Chris Loves Sheep

So, the hijinks began in earnest yesterday at work.

Our team is doing daily bug triages (this helps prioritize bugs in the system for you non-engineer types) and this involves several people in a conference room looking at a screen of our bug system. Logically, you are using a computer to drive this process.

Yesterday Chris was the driver. He had to, however, leave midstream to do an interview (we're hiring!) which was his mistake. He left his computer in the hands of Johanna who promptly reset his IM user name to "poopy head" with the personal message "I love sheep." I believe that Johanna was assisted by Sarah and Pete (I did not witness the incident).

So, why sheep?

First, Chris does love sheep. Second, at Pete's previous job they used to attack people that left their computer unlocked by sending an email from the computer to the department with the subject "I love sheep."

From this point forward we are now calling Chris "The Shepherd" which is much more preferable to his previous monikor as "Dough Boy."

Please post your best cranks at work!

Vampire Hunters

In the interest of useless trivia I discovered tonight that the music to the Demolition Man trailer is from the Dracula soundtrack composed by Wojciech Kilar. The track is Vampire Hunters and is quite a dark anthem.

In a seemingly related note I was told today that I was the geekiest person that someone knew. I dispute this but really have nothing substantial to refute this claim with.

That being said I did score 45% on the geek test - this does not really put me in the scale of uber-geeks.

Sarah has also challenged me to put up my picture of our visit to the Star Trek exhibit at the Las Vegas Hilton (this qualifies I'm sure for something). I honestly like my picture with the Mark V torpedo as it has more historical significance in the Star Trek universe.

Note that Sarah is standing next to the Klingon.

One thing to remember from this visit is that they take pictures halfway through the tour. At the end they merge your picture into a Star Trek scene. I don't remember what my expression was but it sure was funny merged into the TOS bridge scene.

Dual Blogging

Well, I figured out how to make dual blogging work with MSN Spaces and Blogger.com.

Here is what I was after (and figured out): to post to Blogger.com and show it in MSN Spaces so that the gleam shows up. For those of you regulars you know that I'm primarily using Blogger.com so I want to post there first. The steps below allow you to accomplish this.

Both sites allow you a publishing email. In either case you must specify a special word to use in your email address as a cheap security measure.

In MSN Spaces this is under Edit My Space => Settings => E-mail Publishing. Setting this up is quite easy:

1. Check the box "Turn on e-mail publishing"
2. Email address - use the email address associated with your blogger.com account
3. choose your "secret word" - the email address you publish to will be user.secret@spaces.msn.com
4. choose to publish or save as drafts - I am using drafts right now just to make sure everything is hunky dory but will likely change this to live publishing in a couple of weeks.

That's it on the MSN side. You will update and the gleam should show up on your MSN Messenger when you publish to blogger.com.

BTW, I turned off commenting as I want these as blogger.com only.

On the blogger side it's equally as easy:

1. Goto your blog
2. Click Setting => Email
3. For Blogger Send Address enter the MSN Spaces email above
4. You can select a mailto blogger address - same "secret word" security model - same rules as you can publish or save as drafts

I did do an email post the other day (geek factor - from my phone :-)) and it works like a champ. I did find I needed to re-edit the post but that may be due to the phone more than from the email. Shame on me - I should have posted this from email...

Happy Blogging!

The Circle Loop Adventures Continue

Chris and I continue to run after work around the Downtown Bellevue Park. Last night we came to the conclusion that the long road to fitness is paved with sore legs. Right now we're reconditioning our legs to take endurance running rather than stressing our cardio system. Then again, neither of us are doctors nor personal trainers so we might be blowing smoke.

Tonight I am going to tackle Green Lake. This will be good as I used to live in this area and it's a great outdoor area in Seattle. It's also a different path than I've been on recently. It's a nice rolling 3.2 mile loop.

That's all for now - bicycle adventures will be the next post.

Welcome Back

Well, I experimented with a couple of other blogs and I think it's time to return to blogger.com. In comparison there are a couple of things that stand out as to why:

1. spaces.msn.com never got my blog listed in MSN search
2. I can allow people to comment on my blog that are not members
3. I can modify my template how I choose meaning I am not put into a pre-determined template
4. I can post this on my website rather than having to use another server
5. works equally well in Firefox and IE
6. I can mod the time of my post - handy when I've been lazy about goings on....

What am I losing?

1. gleem from MSN Messenger when I've posted - I can overcome this by updating links to this site from my MSN spaces site
2. automatic blogging from messenger - not a huge feature anyway for me. I will need to experiment with the email blog capability of blogger.com
3. not much else....

So, let's see how this goes. First step is to copy over content from the other blog...here I go...

More Running

Just a short entry to keep my spirits up. This week I was pretty good - ran twice during the week. Tuesday I ran for an hour on the treadmill (no stopping!). Really needed it that night as it's the night of the marathon phone calls with India - four hours worth that night.

Thursday Chris Holtz and I ran from work down to a local park in Bellevue (aptly named the Bellevue Downtown Park). It's a nice park - gravel and about 1/2 mile for the loop and lots of people out walking and running. It might work to drive next time - the run down and back is on concrete and a bit hilly. The run itself was a bit rough - I think I did a bit much with the hour run and so my calves were a bit sore. I feel pretty good today on rest so it should just be a matter of reconditioning the joints to run that type of distance and time.

The good news is Chris and I both agree that we should do this regularly - hopefully a coupe of times a week.

More progress later.

One interesting article is on how chocolate milk may be as good or better than sports recovery drinks. This is pretty interesting - current thinking is that a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein helps refuel and recovery. The good news is that milk is cheaper and tastes pretty darned good.

Deception Pass Loop

This is a hike I did August 26-27.

This is not to be confused with Deception Pass in the Puget Sound - this Deception Pass is on the Pacific Crest Trail on the East side of the Cascade Mountains.

This part of the PCT is in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness which is one of the prettiest parts of the country. I had hiked on the PCT south of here three years prior at Pete and Waptus Lakes and was eager for a second outing. I must say that hiking and backpacking in the North Cascades is wonderful.

The trailhead is at the end of road 4330 north of Cle Elum and Roslyn off I-90. I took the path west from the trailhead and this takes you from the valley up to the mountains rather quickly. For the first couple of hours you are in forest but eventually you reach Squaw Lake which the first stop of the day.

The hike started rather ominously when I put on my pack and realized I had water dripping onto me. This of course was the first time using my new Bora 50 so I was a bit put off. I unpacked the whole thing and could not find anything wet so I wrapped my bladder in an extra garbage bag (always bring extra!) and off I went. BTW, this was also the first trip with my new down sleeping bag so I was a little worried that it would get wet and be worthless later that night. Thankfully I was wrong.

The rest of the ascent was rather uneventful save for the wasp that decided I had irritated it enough to retaliate and sting me. This proved a little annoying the rest of the trip as the bite was right on my sock line. Alas, I had something to keep my mind on while the rest of my body started going into the numbness of pain.

I met a group at Squaw Lake that had been backpacking for a week. A group of boys and fathers and they had been swimming and fishing along the way. Certainly a good adventure before coming back to school.

Once above Squaw the views start to open and you can see the mountains on the other side of the valley. Quite remarkable. You pass several other smaller lakes on the way and then finally the view opens to reveal Cathedral Rock.

This is by far the best view of the rock. It is reminescent of Devil's Tower in Wyoming (made famous - or more so - by Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and is quite majestic. The spire is quite incredible.

This path takes you up to the PCT (I found out later that the path I was on is a detour for those with animals as there is a fairly difficult stream crossing that would be more so for horses). As I approached I ran into some fellows on horseback that truth be told I thought was a bear until they reached the crest I was approaching (you hear loud noises and see dust - what would you think?). They were shocked as well given that the terrain hid me until I called out to them. This was the third and final group I would see on the first day.

The top is 5600' and at this point I decided to turn south and head around Cathedral Rock to camp at Peggy's Pond. At this point you are on the PCT for just a 1/2 mile before you come to a "hiker's only" sign. This is the route to the pond. Along the way you are on the rocky slide under Cathedral Rock and the "moderately maintained" trail is a bit treacherous if you are not watching yourself. However, it is well worth it as you have views of Deep Lake and the valley beyond that are beyond spectacular.

I reached Peggy's Pond early - around 5:30. I setup camp and read for awhile. One other group camped across the pond from me but we did not cross paths. Dinner was beef and onion freezed dried surprise. It was not bad especially when you consider that I used 1/2 the water I was supposed to.

The final episode before bed was not terribly successful - hanging the food sack. First problem was there was little flat ground to work off of which is difficult. Second is that there was nothing of substantial weight to tie to the rope. Third is that the rope itself was just not suitable for the task. After about 30 minutes in vain trying to get the stupid rope up over the stupid branch I decided to risk it and hid the sack away from the tent under some rocks. If I lost my food, well, I guess I would just deal with it :-).

The night was uneventful other than the fact that I was sleeping under Mt. Daniel and Cathedral rock next to a still pond - AMAZING. I did wake in the middle of the night to do some business and the stars were just incredible - I think we forget how many stars there really are when there is no light to drown them out. I think I saw the milky way for the first time in years. The night was absolutely clear.

Quick side note - I did have very good weather during the trip. I don't know that I saw a cloud of note the entire trip.

About 5am the wind was really whipping. My Golite Hex 3 is quite amazing but I didn't have it guyed properly for the wind and so I felt it. Actually, the wind changed directions during the course of the evening so I would have had to totally guy down to make a difference. I would suspect we had 35mph gusts that night.

Morning was morning in the wilderness - eat, pack, move out. Bacon and Eggs was the order of the morning which was fine. I was on the road by 8am.

I met a dude on the way to the Peggy's Pond trail that had camped at first pond (Peggy's is the 2nd). He was climbing Mt. Daniel that day - more power to him.

Did I mention the lack of clouds? Well, at 8:30 climbing around Cathedral Rock to the East the sun hits you smack dab in the face. Good Morning!

So, here begins the adventure. The night before I totally lost when I turned onto the PCT (perhaps the bear/horse adventure rattled me at an inopportune time). So, I was trying to find the trail a bit lost although I knew about where it should be. I didn't find it - instead I turned north at what appeared to be a trail (a bit washed out...) through a slight valley that eventually descended into a dried out river bed. Again, I don't know exactly where the PCT was but I am sure it was 50 yards to the East on the ridge to that side. About 1/2 mile in I knew I was not where I should be climbing over boulders in said old river bed (the chili can from 1950 was a clue...) and I got to a point where I knew there was no way the trail was to the west of me - I could see the fact of Cathedral Rock - NO TRAIL. At an opportune time (finally) I moved east and up and the PCT was RIGHT FRIGGIN' THERE! Skill or luck - I don't care....

On I go along the PCT and right at a time where it starts the switchbacks down to a resonable altitude. This is a time not to get careless with one's footing. Seriously. And I won't forget to again. So, I got careless and stepped right off the trail with my right foot and damn near slid off the mountain. Now this wasn't a ledge but it wasn't a ditch either. I calmly did not struggle at first until I realized I was sliding! So, life seems to run in slow and fast motion in these times and I remember thinking this was bad and threw my upper body to the left and pulled myself up. After a short moment of reflection on how glad I was that no one was around to see this little episode, I pulled myself up and carried on.

From Cathedral Rock to Deception Pass on the PCT is about 5.5 miles and I got there by noon. This involved two stream crossings that were pretty rocky and got my boots wet. This also involved a very nice and solitary hike with the moon following me along the western horizon. Vistas to the east across the valley remained and I periodically could see Lakes Hyas (little and "regular" I guess) below me through the trees. I saw only two groups on that stretch and this was only toward the end (yes, yes, yes - I could have passed someone earlier if only I'd been on the trail...). The first was three guys doing the Stevens to Snoqualmie Pass section of the PCT - something I aspire to in reverse. They did 5 miles the day before and were planning on doing this in 6 days. Well, this section is 67 miles or so so do the math - I sure hope they made it! The latter group consisted of two guys about 1/4 mile from Deception Pass.

Now at this time I origially planned to head up to Marmot Lake but I had made good time to Deception Pass and frankly felt like heading home. I had been out of town that week and so really wanted to get some sack time in the old bed that weekend. I headed south.

It's all downhill from here as they say. This part of the hike is mostly in the woods other than some patches where you are hiking along Hyas Lake. Remembe how I saw 5 people on the first 4 hours? I saw that many in 2 minutes on this section. All told I'm sure I saw 50-60 people.

About 1/4 mile is is the turn off to Robin and Tuck Lakes. Never ever go there please. The trail is totally trampled do to high foot traffic and is better to be left alone. The sheer number of people heading up there compared to the number I had seen to this point is an indication of how heavily it's traveled. Alas, I will never see these two beautiful lakes.

The rest of the hike was the usual last few miles. Several people along parts of the trail as dayhikers or overnighters who only want to travel in so far. I made it back without further incident.

All-in-all a very pleasant hike. The views are incredible and the weather was gorgeous. I will definitely come here again but may avoid Hyas Lake and do a loop through Deep Lake and Waptus Lake to the south (there is a connector at Squaw). Marmot and Jade Lakes will be explored one day.

Fatty McButterpants

For those of you who watch King of Queens you willl get the reference.

The journey to running continues if but slowly. So far my frequency is about once a week give or take. This is the week to start making it a regular weekly occurance.

The good news is that I seem to be maintaining my fitness - not improving it of course. The circuit I run is near my house in Lakeridge Park along a nice forested path known as Dead Horse Canyon. I live on a hill so it's downhill to the park but the park goes back uphill along a small stream - it's not an easy incline and within a few minutes I'm at my aerobic threshold. Once out of the park it's uphill to home with the invariable walk uphill. Today, however, I made it up to the stairs which is as far as I've made it without walking in awhile. The goal for the next month is to complete the circuit without stopping.

I think some indoor treadmill is in order - that or a flatter course elsewhere. After a month of regular short runs it will then be time to start working on distance.

That's all for now - I just wanted to get my goals on paper so I have something to look back on :-)

News on the RealID Act - Part III

FEDERAL EXTORTION

This is the text from the RealID bill...

: "SEC. 203. LINKING OF DATABASES.

(a) In General- To be eligible to receive any grant or other type of financial assistance made available under this title, a State shall participate in the interstate compact regarding sharing of driver license data, known as the 'Driver License Agreement', in order to provide electronic access by a State to information contained in the motor vehicle databases of all other States.

(b) Requirements for Information- A State motor vehicle database shall contain, at a minimum, the following information:

(1) All data fields printed on drivers' licenses and identification cards issued by the State.

(2) Motor vehicle drivers' histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions, and points on licenses."

This is what it boils down to - the states have the "option" to not go along with this provision but only if they don't want the Federal money. They called this "strong arming" in Chicago in the twenties - but it was the mob that was doing it.

News on the RealID Act - Part II

FindLaw's Writ - Leavitt: The REAL ID Act How It Violates U.S. Treaty Obligations, Insults International Law, Undermines Our Security, and Betrays Eleanor Roosevelt's Legacy

Even more reasons to vote against the REAL ID or NATIONAL ID - great article!

News on the RealID Act - Part I

UnRealID.com

Want to get the word out to as many as possible (hopefully someone reads my blog :-)). This bill supports the troops in Iraq, which is a good thing. The problem is that it also supports the concept of a "Real ID" which is a thinly veiled way of saying "National ID."

Why is this bad, you ask?

First, this is being snuck onto this bill as a rider. A rider is an unrelated amendment to a bill - usually it's something not large enough to be a bill in and of itself but often it's a way of getting something unpopular greased through the system. That is happening here.

As such, this amendment has never been debated on the Senate floor. The Senators voting on this bill may not even know of this amendment. Yes, our legislators vote on things they know nothing about all the time. This is the rider system.

Second, this ID card takes us in a dangerous direction. We live in a Federal system - this means that the national government and state governments share power. This is a healthy checks and balances system. In general, it is good to have governmental decisions being made closer to where you live, however some government must exist nationally so the local governments are not abusive.

That being said, this is scary because the National ID establishes a national database of people. This is a scary step towards a police state.

For more on why this is a bad idea.

Ironically enough, our troops are overseas fighting to protect this exact type of problem.

So please get the facts and email/FAX your Senators and tell them:

Have the amendment removed from the Iraq support bill. We prefer to support our troops but we don't support this amendment. Vote against the bill if the amendment is not removed. Sponsor a bill that will disallow the use of Riders - FOREVER.

Tips For Linux - How to find Size of a directory & Free disk space

provides some handy notes on getting started with LINUX

Emacs Quick Reference

A very nice top-level view of emacs

Another very good overview

Activating NUMLOCK During Boot Time in Linux

Interesting notes while I hack away with Linux

Firefox Impresses - Continually

Well, Firefox just continues to impress.

I have managed to customize my tabs via the normal preferences as well as a couple of plug-ins to provide me the ideal browing experience.

First, all new tabs open in the background. For me, I like to be able to click on links in stories I'm reading but continue where I am.

Second, anything typed into the location bar is opened in a new tab in the foreground. See below what this means for keyword bookmarks. Obviously, if I'm typing something in then I want it right away (most of the time anyway :-)).

Third, Firefox supports multiple home pages. If you enter your home page as "http://google.com|http://yankees.com" this will open two tabs when you open FF or click "home."

Fourth, Firefox bookmarks support the notion of keywords. You can create a bookmark from a google search and replace the specific search with %s (e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s). Edit the bookmark and create a keyword like "google" - now anytime you type "google amazon" in the address bar firefox will do a google search for you. I've done the same trick with Google Maps.

Finally, some nice extensions.

Tabbrowser preferences - provides a nice interface for some advanced tabbing features that are not normally available through Firefox preferences.
Last Tab - for the programmers of the world this is a necessity. It changes the CTRL-Tab behavior to go to the most recent tab rather than the next tab in order.
Unread Tabs - if you open a lot of tabs (from RSS feeds for example) you can easily see what's not been read with this extension.

chrisholtz.com

So, speaking of Chris we were playing around last night (in our typical "why aren't we just using IM?" email frenzy) and found this sweet website (http://web.archive.org). Unfortunately we also found Chris' old sweet website :-)

Interesting to note that this is when I met Chris. This is also shortly where I turned him back into a carnivore (with help from Ben). I believe the fall happened at the Golden Dynasty and the dish was sesame chicken....

Chris also currently has his own blog.