A photo that Ang took of her injury this afternoon that she wanted to put up. She's pretty proud of it.
Friday, September 02, 2005
a few photos from last weekend...
with my parents in tow last weekend we did some wandering around. Commodore mentioned in the comments that I don't smile nearly enough in my photos, and that I don't ever take photos of myself outside of meetings. So.. here you go Com, this is as much smile as you're likely to get.
and one more self-portrait. I've got quite a bit of weight to drop.
and the obligatory "guests are in town" shots from Garden of the Gods. I love the garden, but it seems like it's the place that you HAVE to bring people to. Hopefully these aren't the same photos you'd usually see.
while we were at Garden of the Gods we went to the "trading post". It's just a tourist trap gift shop, but while we were there we saw a 'bike family' walk in. Two parents and three kids all dressed up in the same flag jersey outfits. Ang and I wandered outside to look for their bike but we couldn't seem to find it anywhere. I knew Ang was a cyclist when I heard her mention something like "Did you see the bike family!? Awww... they were sooooo cuuuuttteeee." Kind of like what she'd say when she saw a puppy. Anyway, when we left the shop we finally saw their bike... and oh what a bike it was. I've seen tandems with trail-a-bikes attached, but I don't know that I've ever seen a bicycle built for five. On top of that, I don't know that I've ever seen a bike with it's own "Tandem Talk" built in Tandem intercom. In any case, marvel at this miracle of modern cycling engineering. heh.
After wandering around Old Colorado City for a while (a shopping district on the outside of Garden of the Gods) we wandered downtown to a park to have some lunch and Ang went photo crazy with the squirrels.
and, while we're at it. An Angela shot photo of a duck.
and thus ends this little photo tour of the evening...
and one more self-portrait. I've got quite a bit of weight to drop.
and the obligatory "guests are in town" shots from Garden of the Gods. I love the garden, but it seems like it's the place that you HAVE to bring people to. Hopefully these aren't the same photos you'd usually see.
while we were at Garden of the Gods we went to the "trading post". It's just a tourist trap gift shop, but while we were there we saw a 'bike family' walk in. Two parents and three kids all dressed up in the same flag jersey outfits. Ang and I wandered outside to look for their bike but we couldn't seem to find it anywhere. I knew Ang was a cyclist when I heard her mention something like "Did you see the bike family!? Awww... they were sooooo cuuuuttteeee." Kind of like what she'd say when she saw a puppy. Anyway, when we left the shop we finally saw their bike... and oh what a bike it was. I've seen tandems with trail-a-bikes attached, but I don't know that I've ever seen a bicycle built for five. On top of that, I don't know that I've ever seen a bike with it's own "Tandem Talk" built in Tandem intercom. In any case, marvel at this miracle of modern cycling engineering. heh.
After wandering around Old Colorado City for a while (a shopping district on the outside of Garden of the Gods) we wandered downtown to a park to have some lunch and Ang went photo crazy with the squirrels.
and, while we're at it. An Angela shot photo of a duck.
and thus ends this little photo tour of the evening...
yawn
Today was one of those mornings where the weather was fine, the wind was fine, and yet the ride still sucked. I haven't been getting to sleep as early as I should lately and it's been affecting my performance. My quads feel pretty sore. We picked up some endurox at the store yesterday, so hopefully that will help with the recovery. The stuff tastes horrid, but it's always worked for me in the past when I need more muscle performance day to day and wouldn't have the recovery time otherwise.
While we were running yesterday nights errands Ang had a staff meeting at work. With gas the way it was, we didn't want to drive back to the apartment and then have another trip all the way back down to the coffeeshop so I got pulled along. I feel really blessed to be in the job I'm in. As a creative director, people know where I'm coming from and my leadership is generally acknowledged. I'm given the power to make the decisions I need to make.
At the coffee shop, I got talking to one of the owners wives (the owners are perfectly coiffed very yuppy late-30s dentists) who's an interior designer. Being an interior designer, I mentioned I was a creative director and tried to talk about work a little bit, not shop because they're two different industries, but work because they ARE at least a little related. Conversation was met with a brickwall. I handed her a business car and she oohed and ahhed over it and passed it to her husband who promptly passed it back. I hate when people give me back a business card. To me, it says, "Yeah, this looks nice, but I'm not ever going to use your services so here have your card back, I don't want to know how to get ahold of you".
I just felt like even though I'm outside their system, and in a position of my career that's a little bit higher up, I was treated as below them because my wife works for them. I was kind of pissed off.
The other owner asked later if we had biked down. I told him sort of, in that Ang had met me on the way back after not getting my message and that I had ridden and she went to get the car, but then mentioned I was getting ready for my second Ironman Tri. I think sometimes that I use the Ironman as a way to beat people over the head. It's an event that's kind of inconceivable to a lot of people and when you tell people you're getting ready for your second it's a like a big middle finger "yes I'm a fat graphic designer but I'm more fit than you". I don't know why I do it, but sometimes I can't help myself from mentioning it as I stand tall and try to tower over the person I'm saying it to. Maybe I said it because I was still trying to be the alpha male after getting put off by the first owner, maybe not.
In any case, the meeting meant getting home later than I wanted to and then being up later than that working on getting Ang's tired changed on her (that's hard to say) road bike (it's mine I tell you, MINE! heh). The tires that were on there had led a good long multi-thousand mile life, but bike tires aren't really worked into our budget right now so I hadn't gotten them replaced. When Ang flatted out last week I saw how bad they had gotten and we finally got them replaced yesterday night.
We bough specialized armadillos mostly for price, but they were supposed to be good for commuting so that was the other reason. I came home to do some reasearch on what I'd bought and found out how tough they really were. I guess they're very similar to kevlar in the way they're constructed. You're supposedly able to roll over shards of glass without flatting out... not that I really want to see that.
On top of being tough like that they were tough to get on. Man, I forgot how hard it can be to get a wire beaded tire onto a rim. Whoo-hoo! Ouch. Anyway, they're on. Although i need to redo the front tire because I put it on backwards (the tread pattern is going the wrong way) but I can fix that tomorrow.
Off for another fun day of coding. blah. It's one thing to write CSS and get it to work the first time, it's another thing to go back and try to analyze what it was that you did and figure out why it's not working. Needless to say, the latter is I what I'd say makes you a programmer and I don't rise to nearly that level. I'm a designer who happens to have to code.
Movie blogging this weekend hopefully, it's been much too long. Maybe there'll actually be a rebirth of the weird double features (I forgot what I was calling them)
While we were running yesterday nights errands Ang had a staff meeting at work. With gas the way it was, we didn't want to drive back to the apartment and then have another trip all the way back down to the coffeeshop so I got pulled along. I feel really blessed to be in the job I'm in. As a creative director, people know where I'm coming from and my leadership is generally acknowledged. I'm given the power to make the decisions I need to make.
At the coffee shop, I got talking to one of the owners wives (the owners are perfectly coiffed very yuppy late-30s dentists) who's an interior designer. Being an interior designer, I mentioned I was a creative director and tried to talk about work a little bit, not shop because they're two different industries, but work because they ARE at least a little related. Conversation was met with a brickwall. I handed her a business car and she oohed and ahhed over it and passed it to her husband who promptly passed it back. I hate when people give me back a business card. To me, it says, "Yeah, this looks nice, but I'm not ever going to use your services so here have your card back, I don't want to know how to get ahold of you".
I just felt like even though I'm outside their system, and in a position of my career that's a little bit higher up, I was treated as below them because my wife works for them. I was kind of pissed off.
The other owner asked later if we had biked down. I told him sort of, in that Ang had met me on the way back after not getting my message and that I had ridden and she went to get the car, but then mentioned I was getting ready for my second Ironman Tri. I think sometimes that I use the Ironman as a way to beat people over the head. It's an event that's kind of inconceivable to a lot of people and when you tell people you're getting ready for your second it's a like a big middle finger "yes I'm a fat graphic designer but I'm more fit than you". I don't know why I do it, but sometimes I can't help myself from mentioning it as I stand tall and try to tower over the person I'm saying it to. Maybe I said it because I was still trying to be the alpha male after getting put off by the first owner, maybe not.
In any case, the meeting meant getting home later than I wanted to and then being up later than that working on getting Ang's tired changed on her (that's hard to say) road bike (it's mine I tell you, MINE! heh). The tires that were on there had led a good long multi-thousand mile life, but bike tires aren't really worked into our budget right now so I hadn't gotten them replaced. When Ang flatted out last week I saw how bad they had gotten and we finally got them replaced yesterday night.
We bough specialized armadillos mostly for price, but they were supposed to be good for commuting so that was the other reason. I came home to do some reasearch on what I'd bought and found out how tough they really were. I guess they're very similar to kevlar in the way they're constructed. You're supposedly able to roll over shards of glass without flatting out... not that I really want to see that.
On top of being tough like that they were tough to get on. Man, I forgot how hard it can be to get a wire beaded tire onto a rim. Whoo-hoo! Ouch. Anyway, they're on. Although i need to redo the front tire because I put it on backwards (the tread pattern is going the wrong way) but I can fix that tomorrow.
Off for another fun day of coding. blah. It's one thing to write CSS and get it to work the first time, it's another thing to go back and try to analyze what it was that you did and figure out why it's not working. Needless to say, the latter is I what I'd say makes you a programmer and I don't rise to nearly that level. I'm a designer who happens to have to code.
Movie blogging this weekend hopefully, it's been much too long. Maybe there'll actually be a rebirth of the weird double features (I forgot what I was calling them)
Monday, August 29, 2005
.
my friend Chris sent this to me this morning as we were talking about church website redevelopment. We were talking about why church websites fail and how the articles he was reading pointed mostly to style over substance.
Isn't style over substance the reason MOST things fail? I think that could almost be the answer to the secret of the question of life! Things fail because they're focused on style instead of substance.
Anyway, it's a blogging article talking about why church websites should be blogging and focusing more on information and getting away from doing sites that look like snazzy brochures that puff up the senior pastor.
Blogging: Advice for Church Websites
Isn't style over substance the reason MOST things fail? I think that could almost be the answer to the secret of the question of life! Things fail because they're focused on style instead of substance.
Anyway, it's a blogging article talking about why church websites should be blogging and focusing more on information and getting away from doing sites that look like snazzy brochures that puff up the senior pastor.
Blogging: Advice for Church Websites
back to the grind...
My parents were here this weekend, which always means that things of an athletic bent take a backseat to hanging out. This isn't an altogether bad thing, but it still meant that I didn't get to do any riding this weekend.
I decided to take the long route into the office via the Air Force Academy this morning, mostly because I hadn't ridden it lately and I wanted to confirm why I hadn't ridden it. The route's longer and actually climbs more than the normal short route does. On my way up the entrance of the trail I saw a guy bopping along on his mountain bike and watched him pass me before I got to the top. Obviously, this means that a chase is afoot. I reeled him in and then inexplicably he just stopped. He stopped. He's not SUPPOSED to stop. That means that I'm stuck with him chasing after me when he inevitably starts again. I don't like being in the chased position. The entire rest of the ride I'm looking over my shoulder trying to find where he is... every time I think I've dropped him for good, there he is on my tail again, wearing his dopey expression and haircut shaped into the shape of a helmet so that he didn't need to wear a separate one. UGGGHHHH! I wanted to stop for a second and take a drag of my orange gatorade but every SINGLE time I wanted to do that and catch my breath a little, THERE HE WAS! It was aggravating to say the least. He finally took a turn and continued up the path, leaving my neuroses to their own devices but it was a little frustrating.
There was a bit of a bite in the air this morning. Fall won't seriously come to Colorado for at least another month, but mornings like this start to sneak in. As soon as you get pedaling the cold melts away, but the first few minutes on either side of the ride always give you a bit of a chill.
I was reading an article talking about Hurricane Katrina's economic impact. I guess the 1mbpd that they pump in the gulf from offshore oil rigs has been temporarily shut off while the hurricane moves through which is yet one more thing that could push gas prices up, but that's not the big concern. I guess the big concert is that with no new refineries built since 1976 due to regulatory policies, more than 17% of refineries exist in LA and AL. If they get hit sufficiently hard it's not inconceivable that with speculation we could see $4 a gallon. $4 a gallon scares the living daylights out of me. I'm not entirely sure what we'd do besides try to ride even more than we are now. Thankfully, you can ride year round here if you really want to. Plus, I can't imagine the hamper it would put on the economy at $4/gallon but maybe it would finally create the economic incentive for hyrdrogen development.
Now, with that said, I know that $4/gallon gas wouldn't last forever mostly because of economic factors. $4/gallon makes lots of other oil retrieval economically feasible, like the oilsands in Canada and inevitably with the increased supply from alternative production, you're going to create a bulge in supply and overpower demand thus deflating the price, but it's not something I want to test in the short-term future.
one word. UGH.
I decided to take the long route into the office via the Air Force Academy this morning, mostly because I hadn't ridden it lately and I wanted to confirm why I hadn't ridden it. The route's longer and actually climbs more than the normal short route does. On my way up the entrance of the trail I saw a guy bopping along on his mountain bike and watched him pass me before I got to the top. Obviously, this means that a chase is afoot. I reeled him in and then inexplicably he just stopped. He stopped. He's not SUPPOSED to stop. That means that I'm stuck with him chasing after me when he inevitably starts again. I don't like being in the chased position. The entire rest of the ride I'm looking over my shoulder trying to find where he is... every time I think I've dropped him for good, there he is on my tail again, wearing his dopey expression and haircut shaped into the shape of a helmet so that he didn't need to wear a separate one. UGGGHHHH! I wanted to stop for a second and take a drag of my orange gatorade but every SINGLE time I wanted to do that and catch my breath a little, THERE HE WAS! It was aggravating to say the least. He finally took a turn and continued up the path, leaving my neuroses to their own devices but it was a little frustrating.
There was a bit of a bite in the air this morning. Fall won't seriously come to Colorado for at least another month, but mornings like this start to sneak in. As soon as you get pedaling the cold melts away, but the first few minutes on either side of the ride always give you a bit of a chill.
I was reading an article talking about Hurricane Katrina's economic impact. I guess the 1mbpd that they pump in the gulf from offshore oil rigs has been temporarily shut off while the hurricane moves through which is yet one more thing that could push gas prices up, but that's not the big concern. I guess the big concert is that with no new refineries built since 1976 due to regulatory policies, more than 17% of refineries exist in LA and AL. If they get hit sufficiently hard it's not inconceivable that with speculation we could see $4 a gallon. $4 a gallon scares the living daylights out of me. I'm not entirely sure what we'd do besides try to ride even more than we are now. Thankfully, you can ride year round here if you really want to. Plus, I can't imagine the hamper it would put on the economy at $4/gallon but maybe it would finally create the economic incentive for hyrdrogen development.
Now, with that said, I know that $4/gallon gas wouldn't last forever mostly because of economic factors. $4/gallon makes lots of other oil retrieval economically feasible, like the oilsands in Canada and inevitably with the increased supply from alternative production, you're going to create a bulge in supply and overpower demand thus deflating the price, but it's not something I want to test in the short-term future.
one word. UGH.
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