Still looking for Spring

I got snowed on riding home from work last week!

I trained more this year for the Michigan Trail Marathon and ran evan slower than last year. It's frustrating to know I ran over an hour faster for the same race less than ten years ago. It's not only aging that's taken a bite out of my speed. These knees of mine are constantly aching. The food was good at Zou's Zou's and there are a couple of more Starbuck's opened along the route to the race. Next year the REI in Ann Arbor will definately be on the tour! Of course I didn't do myself any favors in the run by doing my longest bike ride in a couple of years (76 miles) a week before the race. I got to practice my flat fixing routine during the ride too-I got two flats! Did you know that the glue in those little tubes that come with the flat kits will evaporate if given enough time?

It was my best bike commuting month so far this year.










March bike miles=333.4
April bike miles=469
2008 miles=1128.8
Price of one gallon of gasoline=$3.59 (and rising)

Signs of Spring

We moved our clocks an hour forward last night but everyone made it out at the regular time for the run. Steve can't help but slip into his Henning Falkenstein imatation as Joe finds the first skunk cabbage peeking through the ice on the Cowles Bog Trail this morning. The shelf ice still hugs the shoreline as we crest the big hill before the beach. Yesterday there was significant lake-effect snow just west of us. The birds seem to be unusually noisey as we run through the woods. The tug of war between winter and spring is being played out. Spring will win this war eventually of course but how long from now? The college basketball tournament selection takes place a week from now and the season ending games are on television this afternoon as I change my commuter bike tires over from studded snow tires to "summer" tires. All together now "Here comes the sun...do, do, do do......."


February bike miles=163.2

;^)

Lost Weekend

I love the internet! I subscribe to a blog called Boing Boing. They blog about all manner of things, including some guy who spoke at one of the TED Conferences. This guy, J. J. Abrams, has his talk posted on the TED site. I realize upon listening to him speak that he's one of the creators of a television series called LOST. As it happens, ABC currently has every episode available online to watch. Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I'd never seen even one of the episodes. Since then, I've spent many hours catching up on over three years of episodes. Maybe I'm a bit obsessed with it but it's cold and unpleasant outside so what the heck. I can certainly see why the writers want a piece of the internet pie because this is a wonderful thing. No need to TIVO your favorite shows. Can't wait to see where this leads-for me and the industry.

Form v. Substance

This is what I'm talking about! Thanks to the folks at EcoGeek.org for sending me to this.

Groundhog Day

Well, the groundhog didn't see his/her shadow around here, but you can't tell by the weather over the past couple of weeks. We've been under a "Flood Warning" continuously for two weeks now due to some heavy rains. Tom Skilling has been going slightly mad on the evening weather! I've already got four February bicycle commutes in February, compared to none last year. One commute left my regular cycling shoes wet enough so they didn't air dry for two days. Last night I slid home on three inches of new snow. It was an adventure! I'm learning to commute in colder, winterier (is that a word) weather this year. As Richard Dreyfss would recommend-baby steps.

My old Nissan was put to rest a week ago. The repair bill of $2000.00 was just too much. I was hoping to get 300,000 miles but 226,000 is not bad. I'm reminding myself and anyone who reads this blog (both of you) that the greenest way to use a car is to buy used, keep it maintained, and run it as long as you can. It seems like Earth-friendly environmentalism has become trendy these days (For example, I saw a hybred Ford Escape SUV on the way to work the other day). But as with many other things in our whacked-out society, this seems to be more form than substance. President Bush did sign an energy bill that will finally mandate higher fuel economies but we lag behind much of the world in this.

January bike commute miles:163.2
February bike commute miles (so far):81.6
Total for 2008: 244.8

Distributed Computing

I wrote about my crashing desktop computer awhile back. I eventually bought a Dell Dimension 8200 desktop on eBay for $65.00. A great deal and the computer just hums along. The only downside I can see so far is that memory upgrades must be done in pairs of memory sticks that make the process more costly. Anyway, I started to get back to some of the interests I had on my computer before the whole blue screen of death episode. One of my recent things is to go back to running SETI@Home. SETI@Home is a distributed computing effort to sift through huge quantities of data in search of extraterrestrial signs of life. As a die-hard X-Files devotee this idea appeals to me. Now the software used to accomplish this feat, BIONC, is also used for several other distributed computing applications. There are many worthy projects going on but I settled on Rosetta@Home for now. Here's an interesting description of this project:

As a person who's trying to always become more socially responsible (a life long quest). The concept that my eBay computer might actually share some small credit for truly historic scientific breakthrough is exciting. Since my computer sits idle most of the time, I'm giving it something to do.

Happy New Year

In case you haven't seen this already...





Happy New Year from the shores of snowy Lake Michigan!