I always love to hear that someone is looking for “The Next Big Thing” to grow their business.

Think about this for a minute. This person spends years jumping from product to product, idea to idea, testing them only to find it’s not the money maker they had hoped it would be. Or it doesn’t fit their business model. Just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s a one-size-fits-all item. Off to the next product or idea du jour.

While that person is busy looking for ”The Next Big Thing,” the creatives are out there making the next big thing. They’ve done the research, found a hole to fill or a niche market for which to cater, and acting on it. While the others are wasting their time figuring out how the current Big Thing works, the creatives are already on their way to reaping the rewards of their Big Thing.

If you want the Next Big Thing, design it, build it, market it, then profit off of the sheep looking for The Next Big Thing. Don’t just sit there. Define the damn thing and make ideas reality.

Photo: A Thrilling Time is in Your Immediate Future by Drew Bennett and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

The morning was a bit rough trying to figure out what I missed on the day off. Weeded through the email for the important items. Went through the ticketing system to find any quick wins. Took care of a few items before the weekly UX touchbase meeting. The afternoon was more of the same — quick tickets, a meeting for search and product discovery on the site (yes — information architecture and taxonomy are integral to that process!), followed by a company leadership monthly meeting. I can’t tell you what went on in that meeting because it’s James Bond-like — if I told you, one of us would have to perish in some odd turn of events. Ok, not really, but it’s still confidential information.

Picked up Triumph of the City from the Zappos library to read this week. Ended up making it through 3 pages before falling asleep. Did I mention how tired I was?

Wednesday started out about the same, but a 9:30 meeting. The meeting went well, especially considering I’m trying to normalize the taxonomy so that no items are duplicated (one home — and only one home — for items). Worked out a work flow for this team which will help everyone out in the future, so a win first thing in the morning. Followed that up with a quick quality assurance test on a new feature for our in-house taxonomy tool. Found an error, and worked with the fab developer to get it fixed so that it might be released tomorrow.

After lunch, it was time for the weekly data sync, where the UX team, customer service people, analysts, and project & product managers get together to put everyone on the same page. I really like those meeting since there’s a lot of good information exchanged. The three o’clock crash then happened, where I felt like I needed a 2 hour nap. Acquired an Odwalla bar and some green tea to pick up my energy again, and pushed through another few tickets before the end of the day. Tickets ranged from taxonomy additions to search items that needed to be cleaned up or redirected to a taxonomy based search rather than a raw text search. That’s always an interesting vetting process since it’s a bit balance between search (the broad gathering of products) compared to taxonomy (the narrowed gathering of products), especially since you never want to assume what your user is thinking or for what they’re searching. They’re annoying little fights at time, but they’re what keep the job exciting day after day.

Oh, yes… and over the past two days we set up a new fish tank. The old one decided that it would be fun to short out on Friday. Smoke and everything. Glad it didn’t fry the lone tetra in the tank! But now fishy has a clean new home, and seems quite happy in his new digs.

Photo: Back To Work… by Richard Holster and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

The Three Caballeros Family Fiesta 5K started bright and early on Jan. 6th. No official chip timing for this event since it’s not a competitive 5k. Lots of people, though. About 8,500 people showed up to start running / walking around EPCOT’s World Showcase. I arrived waaaaaayyyyy early, catching the bus out around 4 am (the event was to begin at 6:00). It was nice and clear when I arrived. By 5 am, the dense fog rolled in, dropping the temps so that I was starting to get chilled to the bone.

Ended up walking with friends and their family instead of running it. We were in the last corral because of the baby stroller. Yes, they had unofficial corrals based on times for a 5K, which worked out well. The course wasn’t very cluttered at all, and I forgot what it was like to see the sun rise over the façades.

It was officially the slowest 5K I have ever completed, coming in at over an hour. I had the Garmin running, but neglected to turn it off until after I

was on the bus back to the hotel (this becomes important for the half). I was okay with the lack of timing, though. Gave time to catch up with my friends!

They handed out small bags of food which included a bagel, banana, and orange.

Got back to the hotel room and crawled into bed for a nap, piling on the blankets to help take the chill out of my body. Three hours later, I rejoined the land of the conscious, took a shower, and headed off to the parks. Walked 8+ miles.

Got back to the hotel sometime around 8 pm. Rolled out my calf muscles and my feet very well. In bed by 9. Exhausted!

Up again by 3 am to catch a bus at 3:30 am. Get on the bus. Breaks down on World Drive. Driver gets the bus going again. We make into the lot for EPCOT, and the bus loses its brakes. Oh, yes. Luckily we coast to a stop in an unused lane. Wait 20-ish minutes for a new bus. Transfer busses. In that amount of time we could have walked to the bag drop area.

Finally make it. Realize that we have to walk about a half-mile to the start line…. And on the way hear them start the race. I barely make it to my corral in time to start with them, but I do and I’m feeling good.

And my Garmin dies. In the first 500 yards of the race. Resort to my old counting methods to keep a steady pace. Count to 100 while running, then count to 50 while walking. Also opted to not listen to any music since the course had so much activity!

The first 5K I keep my steady 13:30 pace. Stop to take a few pictures at the hot air balloon and by the parking plaza. At 10K I slow a few seconds more to 13:45 or so. That’s fairly standard for me – and something I’m working on. I run through the Magic Kingdom at a much slower pace, stopping to have a cast member take a picture of me in front of the castle on my camera, stopping again for a picture of everyone running through the castle, and then by the pro photog smack in front of the castle. Fun!

The course is fully stocked. Tons of volunteers. Water stops every 2 miles or so with cups of Dasani water and/or Powerade.

Around mile 8 I can feel a lovely stabbing pain starting in my heels. Not good. I pull off to the side to stretch out my calf muscles. Walk. By this time I’m somewhere around 14:30 miles. I stop to stretch again. The 3:00:00 pacer passes me (on the right when I’m already as far to the right as I can get – but that’s a rant for another day) around mile 10. Mile 11.5 stop to stretch again. Force myself to run (hobble?) the last mile through the pain, and end with a respectable time of 3:08:33 – including all the photos and stretching.

The runner’s area flows well. More volunteers. Medals everywhere. Piles of mylar blankets. Easy to grab water or powerade. Fairly quick getting through the picture area. But the food area was chaos. No little baggies like the day before. Mad rush for bananas and Builder’s bars. Bagels snatched out of hands of others. But no one in front of the oranges. SCORE! Favorite post-race food acquired.

Since I was already in SoCal, I decided to visit with friends I haven’t seen in way too long. Even information workers need time to recharge their batteries and reconnect with those important to them!

I finished it. That’s about all I can say since the Zappos.com Rock n’ Roll Las Vegas half marathon experience was almost a 180º turn from 2010.

Before anyone thinks I’m busting on Vegas, keep in mind I live here. I know how fast the weather can change (like last night), how fast it cools off once the sun disappears over the horizon, and that it does rain on occasion. All of which happened yesterday. There’s nothing the race organizers could do about that. It’s nature. It happens. It’s the desert!

I had my compression tights on, a thermal shirt with my Zappos long-sleeved running shirt over it, plus I tied another pull-over jacket around my waist for the run. I had gloves. I had ear warmer band in case it got windy. I’m glad I had all of that since mile 12 I felt the air change: damp, chilling to the bone air. Put on my jacket. Put on my gloves.

I’m learning that Mile 12s are not my friend!

There were people running in shorts and tank tops in upper 30º weather — and these weren’t elite runners. Their bib numbers were 30,000 or higher, meaning 2:30 and above finish times. I wish I could find the This post I was reading a few days ago when researching day-of marathon fueling, but the article said they weren’t as concerned with the fueling for the runners as the chance for hypothermia. Think about it: Runners get hot and sweaty as temperatures drop. Kinda like swimming in your own personal 30º water for two hours or more. I saw people puking in bushes, people doubled over with cramping… more than I’ve seen at any event this year. Tons of hurting people. Craziness.

I don’t know if they were all running tourists or what, but — yikes — at least watch the weather report for the run in which you’re participating. Run smart. Then run with your heart. I know not everyone fell into this category, but I can only imagine a good number of the people pouring out of the aid tents could have prevented some of their ailments with proper planning and gear. That would have allowed the medical responders to treat the people that truly needed the help.

Race Start
There wasn’t a true wave start like there was last year. Once Corral 20 hit the start line, it was just a stream of runners to get the race started — and get the Strip open to traffic. Again there was no corral police, so even though I was in corral 31, I was starting with mostly people ABOVE that number. Which meant that I was weaving in and out of walkers for the first 3+ miles. And there were spectators in the corrals, too. Seriously? Get off of the course, please!

On the Course
I couldn’t keep a steady pace. I couldn’t move to the right when I wanted to slow down. Walkers often were five or more abreast and wouldn’t move over when you yelled “passing on your left.” And 90% of these walkers were not Team Challenge members. Most of Team Challenge were respectable to faster participants, staying towards the right of the course unless trying to pass other walkers. The course was often that packed that there was no way around slower participants unless you went in the full marathon lane — which was not well marked (orange safety cones with small signs? Trip hazard for everyone!).

I was verbally shouted at for giving a “passing on your left” warning to people. I was elbowed. I was shoulder checked. I was almost tripped. More than once. That is not sportsman-like conduct. Running is not a contact sport!

Aid stations (water, Cytomax, Gu) were ill equipped. I was just over half way through the field of half marathon runners, and supplies were already running low. Many aid tables by the second half of the race had been broken down, leaving the course slick with wax-covered paper cups coated in water. I walked through all aid stations to make sure I didn’t become road pizza. The volunteers took some slack for that, but they were doing the best they could with the supplies they were given (a huge THANK YOU to all the volunteers out there on a chilly night).

I’m glad I carry my own Shot Bloks and Formula X (sports drink) for events. All I needed was water from the aid stations, even if it was only a swallow or two to keep things moving along.

About mile 9 I abandoned all hopes of finishing in under 3 hours. Sometime around there, my plantar fasciitis started to flare up as well. Stopped. Stretched the Achilles on a curb for a few minutes, then continued on walking the rest of the way to the finish line at a slower pace, trying to enjoy the night and the race. Up to that point, I was enjoying my 13:30 run/walk pace!

Spectators at the finish line? Some hecklers yelled at me to run. In my mindset, I considered giving them the bird, but refrained. I wasn’t going to injure myself for such a poorly executed race when I have two more half marathons coming up next month.

Post-race
The finish area was chaos. I was pushed out of the way by a runner behind me so she could grab a medal. They were handing them out straight out of the boxes without enough time to unwrap them. Apparently they ran out of Half Marathon medals and were handing out Full Marathon medals to half finishers — and then ran out of those, too. Everyone dammed up the mylar blanket area, so I skirted around the sheep to the last mylar blanket distribution where no one was waiting. I bypassed the photo area all together (no showgirls this year), and moved on to the post-race noshes.

Bottles of cold water, Snickers was handing out their version of a granola bar, there were mini-bagels, bags of pretzels, GoGurt, and green, crunchy, unripe bananas. I rifled through the bananas until I found a somewhat ripe fruit. No oranges or any type of warm beverages (note to race organizers: oranges are my favorite post-race treat).

And leaving the runner’s secure area? Also chaos. Instead of waiting for their runners at the designated meeting area, spectators crowded the exit. I could barely get through so I could continue on my way to the Zappos VIP area. All I wanted was a potty, to stretch, and get some water and food in me. After talking with some of my co-workers for 20 minutes or so, I walked back to my room in the Luxor.

The inside of Mandalay Bay looked almost like a war zone. I didn’t go in the conference hall entrance where the gear check was located, but another entrance closer to a loading dock area along the Strip. I walked past a Mandalay Bay employee carrying a stack of blankets to a few hurting people curled up in a corner. No first responders to be found.

Apparently this route allowed me to avoid the mêlée of tens of thousands of runners trying to exit the convention center at the same time The Immortal show dumped 8,000 people from the events center. Human traffic jams and emotional panic mode were apparently in full effect at that juncture.

I made it back to my room after a 15 minute obstacle course of people, deciding to eat whatever I had in my room or could grab from the 24/7 store in the lobby. Many restaurants were closed because it was Sunday night or late, and the rest of the eateries had lines out the door and hour waits. Dinner ended up being the mostly ripe banana, apple juice, pretzels, GoGurt, another nutty fruity granola bar (not the Snickers one b/c that didn’t have enough protein for my needs), water, and my nightly vitamins. Not nearly the correct post-race food, but it would have to do.

I showered in my non-smoking room (thanks, Luxor, for allowing me to swap rooms that day so my asthma wouldn’t be triggered anymore. Also related: Spraying the room does nothing for the allergens that trigger asthma — they only cover the smell), stretched out really well, rolled on my foam roller a bit, iced my feet for 10 minutes and then warmed them back up by slowly rolling on a tennis ball. And then a restless night of sleep ensued where I was woken up by stabbing pains in my heels a number of times. Woke up this morning, stretched out good for another 40 minutes before trying to walk, took some Advil, and continued on my day (albeit 2 hours later than I normally start my day).

How can it be improved?

• Properly stock the aid stations for the amount of people registered, not estimated number of runners after drop-outs.
• Reducing the number of participants if you know you cannot guarantee the support staff (volunteers, hotel staff, etc.) to meet the needs of the amount of registered runners.
• Adding a sheet of paper to the race packets about running etiquette — or as part of the signature required piece on race packet pick-up. Not that everyone would read it, but it would be part of the rules and people could be removed from the course for not following them.
• Overall runner education about the event. Post the weather forecast at the entrance / exit of the expo so people can pick up last minute gear if needed. Show the course map and highlight the places where the full and half marathon should keep separate lanes. Display any other course specific rules on large posters at the packet pick-up area.
• More medical support so first responders aren’t overwhelmed and can properly treat their patients.

I could go on, but most of the other suggestions are common sense.

This is my Rock n’ Roll Las Vegas half-marathon experience. Apparently the full marathoners had similar complaints, but you can search the web for their stories. Better left for them to tell it first hand than for me to convey it a la a game of telephone. Other people had fantastic experiences for this, but it’s all a matter of perspective: Those who have completed a number of races seemed to have found this one severely lacking in runner support.

Overall, this was not a well-planned event. I’m not sure if it was because Competitor Group had never organized an event with 44,000 registered participants, the fact that it was the first year of the Vegas marathon being held at night, or the inverse weather patterns than most marathoners are used to experiencing. All I know is that if they plan on holding this at night next year and/or increasing the amount of participants, I will not be running in this race. I didn’t feel safe on the course, not due to the areas we ran through (there was ample law enforcement around — all very attentive!) but because of the lack of support and participant courtesy on the event course.

Photo: Las Vegas Strip at Night by Marco Verch and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

• Finalized a classification system for books at /usr/lib. Promptly helped to open the place as well.
• Worked. A lot.
• Trained. A lot.
• Cooked a 16 lb. turkey.
• Cooked for three potlucks.
• Ran — and finished — my first 12K race. Promptly finished last in my age group.
• Ate a lot of turkey left-overs.

You’re probably thinking right now, “Yeah, so what? It’s a list of mundane monthly tasks.” True. So, what did I learn?

• Writing takes time. I’m a chronic procrastinator, so the task probably won’t get completed anytime soon if I don’t have a deadline. Midnight rocks for that reason.
• Brushing the turkey with a liberal coating of olive oil creates the perfect golden turkey and helps to lock in the juices. But baste, baste, baste!
• After these three half marathons, I need to do something else for a month to let my legs & heels heal. Plantar fasciitis is not fun. And my cats tend to steal my therapeutic tennis balls. I might find one of the four tennis balls any given day.
• People have a hard time understanding the tasks and skills of Information and Knowledge workers. There’s still the 1930′s librarian stigma, even in corporate America. Been thinking about ways to change this.
• I seriously suck at answering emails. In fact, answering some emails is akin to talking on the phone: not something enjoyable for me to perform.
• Good blog posts hit once or twice every month. The rest is drivel and fluff that doesn’t tend to serve to better society, but instead calls out our narcissistic ways.

And that, my friends, is the end of NaBloPoMo. See you in January (and maybe before) for the next round of Library Day In The Life.

These aren’t my first half marathons, but they are a first in some ways. I’ve been suffering from some plantar fasciitis, and it really, really, really flipping hurts. The frozen water bottle and tennis balls have been my friends. In some ways, it’s most certainly my own dumb fault since I know I should be stretching more. On the other hand, how much more can I do? Stretching every day, trying to keep my calf muscles loose (which really isn’t easy!). I find a curb, I stretch. I sit at my desk, I stretch. I play with my cats while I’m stretching.

My calf muscles haven’t been happy because I’ve been running so many hills: Red Rock twice, River Mountain Loop once, Six Tunnels to Hoover Dam on Thanksgiving, the Vistas (a 3 mile hilly loop). Which is good, but it’s bad. Takes a toll on the body, but all of the half marathon courses are relatively flat. Yay, increased speed!

It’s going to be a busy race weekend, too. I’m bringing my running full-circle this year by participating in the Great Santa Run again. It’s for a local charity and to try and break a World Record, so I’m all for getting up on Saturday to participate in it! Besides, this was the first 5K I ever ran three years ago. At which point I swore off distance running until I found out about Team Challenge and had the motivation of doing good for my family and friends by running. Now I’m totally hooked. Damn that addictive runner’s high!

That afternoon, I’ll be helping out at the Team Challenge booth in the race expo for a few hours, then going to fuel up on a higher carb dinner. I’m actually taking a different approach for this race for fueling: Slow and easy on the carbs. A bit each day (yes, that means I’m gaining a pound or two this week, but I’ll run it all off Sat & Sun), and a bit more than normal on Saturday evening. Sensible brunch on Sunday with a nice balance of protein & carbs, and a good snack around 3:30 pm. I’m trying to avoid having to use the port-a-potties along the race route, too!

Depending on how I feel in a few weeks, I may also run the Come Run With Santa 5K that I did on a whim last year and took 3rd in my age group. Which shocked the heck out of me since I’m a penguin. Fitting for a race in December, though, if you really think about it.

But what I’m really looking forward to is staying healthy for the Disney Coast to Coast Challenge. One group of friends asked me to run the Walt Disney World Half, another group of friends asked me to run the Tinkerbell half with them in Disneyland. And, being as I haven’t taken a true vacation in a year, I’m going to Disney World! I’m going to Disneyland! In the same month, too!

That also qualifies me for the Half Fanatics group at the Neptune level. I also came to the conclusion that I don’t care what my times are so long as I complete all three of the half marathons. And they’re all in December / January, which means no jasmine bushes to trigger asthma attacks (like at the OC Half — grrrr!).

I hope my body can handle it!

Photo: Running Part 2 by The World According To Marty (Flickr username) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) license.

I feel like I could use another few days off to fully recover. Using a prompt today because I’m tired and it’s already time for bed!

What is the last thing you do before going to bed?

Besides the obligatory teeth brushing, I drink a glass of water, call the cats into the bedroom, plug in the cell phone, and check to make sure my alarms are set. Yes. Alarms plural. I can sleep through them easily!

Some nights the ritual includes packing running clothing for the next day.

Generally it’s fairly boring. Run-of-the-mill tasks. Nothing very exciting.

Photo: Toothbrush 2 by FotoGraph-Zah (Flickr user name) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.

… like they used to.

About every other year, I need to replace my jeans. I pretty much live in jeans since I work at job that allow me to dress comfortably.

Denim is generally a fairly tough material, but the past few years the manufacturing has become chintzy. It seems like designers are more worried about the whiskering and worn, broken in look than the actual quality of denim. Which… well… leads to pretty severe degradation of the fabric. Two years ago, the jeans I had for 3+ years actually wore at the hip area where I used to carry keys. That’s to be expected.

But I had a pair of Lucky Brand jeans that I purchased in February that just magically got holes in the butt area. Glad I was at home when they appeared! I would have at least expected the jeans to hold up for a year and a half, but nope. Done. Kaput. The denim was soft and worn. I guess too distressed to hold up. Definitely not worth the money paid for them. I had another pair of Lucky jeans purchased around 2003 that held up for 4 years. I wonder why their manufacturing quality standards changed?

Needless to say, I’m sticking to my Levi’s from now on. The last 2 pairs I purchased (six months before the Lucky Brand) still look decent, minus the cuffs which are starting to wear. If I want distressed jeans, I’ll do it myself.

Photo: BLUE – Jeans by Marianone (Flickr user name) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

It’s that time of year for persimmons. Right now I have approximately 20 pounds of them in my kitchen thanks to Jeff.

If you’re like many Americans, you’ve never seen — let alone tasted — a persimmon. See that little picture off to the left? Yep. Kind of looks like an overgrown, mis-colored roma tomato. But the taste when ripe? Sweet, much like a mango or apricot. You can eat them raw once they’re ripe (think an over ripe tomato consistency — soft like a water balloon but not dripping mushy). Very tasty!

Being as there are way too many of them in my kitchen, it can only mean one thing: time to make persimmon jam! I need to find my canning tools and brush up those rusty skills. Making the jam isn’t so bad, but the canning part is what takes the work and is way too easy to screw up.

And the left over persimmons? I’m hoping a few co-workers and friends help to take them off of my hands.

Photo: persimmon by ttaengi (Flickr user) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.