My job lets me work from home a lot. The team I work with is very loose, my boss is up in Seattle, and we all generally work on our individual projects, anyways. I go in to the office on days when I have meetings that are actually based in San Jose (rare), or there's some hardware in the office that I actually need to bang on (less rare). But I'll sometimes only go into the office once or twice in a week.
Generally, I love working from home. No commute, save on gas money, make my own lunch, hang out with Bud during the day from time to time. I can stay in my pajamas all day if I want (although Nanny J is here). In general, I'm often more productive and more comfortable.
But there are days, like today, where I don't get out of the house at all. Usually it's just poor planning. There aren't any errands that need to be run; no appointments to meet. The closest I got to getting outside today was a couple of brief trips into the garage to add a few cardboard boxes to the recycling pile out there. And overall it leaves me a little unsettled.
By the time Bud's in bed it's too late to head out for a bike ride. Maybe I'll just go out for a run or something. Or just wait until tomorrow. But by tomorrow morning, I'll be chomping at the bit to get outside. Guess I'll head into the office tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Father's Day Ride
For Father's Day M-lady watched Bud while I went out for a longish bike ride. It was a great ride, and ended up totaling about 68 miles. Sadly, my legs decided they were done after about 60.
I was riding with three other guys: DH, a good friend and colleague of M-lady's, and a couple of guys I hadn't met before, CE and DW. DH has a couple of young kids, and gets to train about about much as I do... not much. CE and DW are primarily triathletes. CE is more of a runner than a cyclist, and turns in 2:40 marathons. DW finishes Ironmans. These guys could ride forever.
As it turned out, though, they couldn't really lay down a lot of power. We all warmed up together on Foothill at a very mellow pace, and I had shaken off most of the rust by the time we reached the base of Old La Honda after about 14 miles of riding with some rolling hills. The weather was gorgeous, sunny skies in the low 70s east of Skyline, mid to high 60s on the west.
I started up OLH at what I felt was a pretty reasonable pace, and dropped the other three guys pretty quickly. So I dialed back, took it easy on the climb, and rode up with DW. We finished a few seconds under 24 minutes, which was a respectable time. DH was about 30 seconds back, and CE was about a minute behind him. We all headed up to Alice's at the corner of 84 and Skyline to fill up our water bottles.
We proceeded down 84, with DW taking the lead. I rode down ahead of him for a while, until we hit the little town of La Honda.
One of the things I love about cycling is the scenery. It changes faster than when you're running, but doesn't zip by as it dows if you're in a car. In La Honda I passed a sight which really turned my head. It was a wooden tavern or inn, with a hitching post outside, with about a dozen horses hitched to the post. With saddles. It looked straight out of the 1890's. A little net research showed that the place was Apple Jack's... I'll have to go back sometime. On a horse, apparently.
After trying to clear my eyes, I eased up and waited for DH and CE to catch up with me. We sat in a pace line as we hit the rollers and the headwind running out towards the coast. The three of us pulled up to the San Gregario general store within about 10 seconds of DW, not quite managing to reel him in.
From there, we headed up stage road, a mellow climb towards Highway 1, where we descended to the turnoff to Tunitas Creek. Tunitas Creek is a bigger, longer climb than OLH, with a gentle beginning and ending third, and a fairly steep middle third.
DH was pretty tired before we even started, but my legs were still feeling OK. When the road kicked up into the steeper section, I went ahead and started putting some effort down, keeping my heartrate right around a maintainable 170. I eased up a little when the road flattened out a little bit, but felt like I made good time up the hill.
DW arrived at the top about 3 minutes after I did, and CE was another 2 after that. DW had proceeded on down King's Mountain Road, and after a few minutes of waiting CE and I headed back down Tunitas to find DW. His legs had exploded at the bottom of Tunitas, so CE and I escorted him the last couple miles up to the top.
DH, CE, and I descended King's Mountain Rd at a safe pace, taking it easy and careful of the traffic. We picked up DW at the bottom of the descent, and headed out to the Woodside general store, where we topped off our water bottles for the last part of the ride.
Over Whiskey Hill, up and down Sand Hill, and onto Junipero Serra. That's about where my legs quit. DH and I sat in behind DW and CE, who pulled us all the way home about 7 more miles down Foothill. My legs were just leaden weights... I haven't been that blown for a long time. I guess that's what I get going for a 4.5 hour ride when I've been training about 2 hours at a time.
Here's my GPS data from the ride. Nothing terribly astonishing, but it's always fun to look at the hills.
I was riding with three other guys: DH, a good friend and colleague of M-lady's, and a couple of guys I hadn't met before, CE and DW. DH has a couple of young kids, and gets to train about about much as I do... not much. CE and DW are primarily triathletes. CE is more of a runner than a cyclist, and turns in 2:40 marathons. DW finishes Ironmans. These guys could ride forever.
As it turned out, though, they couldn't really lay down a lot of power. We all warmed up together on Foothill at a very mellow pace, and I had shaken off most of the rust by the time we reached the base of Old La Honda after about 14 miles of riding with some rolling hills. The weather was gorgeous, sunny skies in the low 70s east of Skyline, mid to high 60s on the west.
I started up OLH at what I felt was a pretty reasonable pace, and dropped the other three guys pretty quickly. So I dialed back, took it easy on the climb, and rode up with DW. We finished a few seconds under 24 minutes, which was a respectable time. DH was about 30 seconds back, and CE was about a minute behind him. We all headed up to Alice's at the corner of 84 and Skyline to fill up our water bottles.
We proceeded down 84, with DW taking the lead. I rode down ahead of him for a while, until we hit the little town of La Honda.
One of the things I love about cycling is the scenery. It changes faster than when you're running, but doesn't zip by as it dows if you're in a car. In La Honda I passed a sight which really turned my head. It was a wooden tavern or inn, with a hitching post outside, with about a dozen horses hitched to the post. With saddles. It looked straight out of the 1890's. A little net research showed that the place was Apple Jack's... I'll have to go back sometime. On a horse, apparently.
After trying to clear my eyes, I eased up and waited for DH and CE to catch up with me. We sat in a pace line as we hit the rollers and the headwind running out towards the coast. The three of us pulled up to the San Gregario general store within about 10 seconds of DW, not quite managing to reel him in.
From there, we headed up stage road, a mellow climb towards Highway 1, where we descended to the turnoff to Tunitas Creek. Tunitas Creek is a bigger, longer climb than OLH, with a gentle beginning and ending third, and a fairly steep middle third.
DH was pretty tired before we even started, but my legs were still feeling OK. When the road kicked up into the steeper section, I went ahead and started putting some effort down, keeping my heartrate right around a maintainable 170. I eased up a little when the road flattened out a little bit, but felt like I made good time up the hill.
DW arrived at the top about 3 minutes after I did, and CE was another 2 after that. DW had proceeded on down King's Mountain Road, and after a few minutes of waiting CE and I headed back down Tunitas to find DW. His legs had exploded at the bottom of Tunitas, so CE and I escorted him the last couple miles up to the top.
DH, CE, and I descended King's Mountain Rd at a safe pace, taking it easy and careful of the traffic. We picked up DW at the bottom of the descent, and headed out to the Woodside general store, where we topped off our water bottles for the last part of the ride.
Over Whiskey Hill, up and down Sand Hill, and onto Junipero Serra. That's about where my legs quit. DH and I sat in behind DW and CE, who pulled us all the way home about 7 more miles down Foothill. My legs were just leaden weights... I haven't been that blown for a long time. I guess that's what I get going for a 4.5 hour ride when I've been training about 2 hours at a time.
Here's my GPS data from the ride. Nothing terribly astonishing, but it's always fun to look at the hills.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
A Promise of Things to Come?
Just updated the theme and tweaked the template a bit. Maybe I'll post some more grown up stuff here. Stay tuned...
Monday, June 11, 2007
Ten Years Ago
A meme! I got tagged for a meme (and noticed), so thought I would provide my twists on it here. Thanks to Crystal for the tag!
What Were You Doing 10 Years Ago?
Ten years ago I was about 6 months out of school. I was living with three other guys in a house in Mountain View, and we spent an awful lot of time playing Mario Kart 64 on a big TV. M-lady and I were considering moving in together, after having dated for a couple of years. I weighed about 10 pounds less than I do now. Which brings us to the first item:
Five Snacks You Enjoy
Of course, I've got high cholesterol issues now, so I don't get to eat these very often anymore.
Five Songs That You Know All The Lyrics To
I have a really, really good memory for lyrics. M-lady thinks it's a little spooky sometimes. So I thought it would be more interesting to list five songs I know, but for which I don't know the lyrics.
Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire
I took this to mean 'what would you do with so much money you didn't have to worry about it'. A million dollars only gets a reasonable down payment on a house around here. Let's say I was a billionaire.
Five Bad Habits
Five Things You Like To Do
In no particular order...
Five Things You Would Never Wear Again
Five Favorite Toys
This changes on at least a monthly basis
Five People to Tag
I don't know of five people to tag. So I'll just say... if you read this, and you want to do the meme, have at! Just drop me a line to let me know you did it.
Meme Track
Instructions: remove the blog from the top, move all the blogs up one, and add yourself to the bottom.
What Were You Doing 10 Years Ago?
Ten years ago I was about 6 months out of school. I was living with three other guys in a house in Mountain View, and we spent an awful lot of time playing Mario Kart 64 on a big TV. M-lady and I were considering moving in together, after having dated for a couple of years. I weighed about 10 pounds less than I do now. Which brings us to the first item:
Five Snacks You Enjoy
Of course, I've got high cholesterol issues now, so I don't get to eat these very often anymore.
- Popcorn with real butter
- Ice cream
- Red Vines (these are OK... non-fat!)
- Dry-roasted peanuts
- Pringles
Five Songs That You Know All The Lyrics To
I have a really, really good memory for lyrics. M-lady thinks it's a little spooky sometimes. So I thought it would be more interesting to list five songs I know, but for which I don't know the lyrics.
- Mein Hertz Brennt by Rammstein (don't know German)
- Just Push Play by Aerosmith (Jamaican patois)
- Louie, Louie by The Kingsmen (yeah, I'm not special on this one)
- Don't Shoot, Shotgun by Def Leppard (intense mumbling on this track. seriously.)
- Alegria by Cirque Du Soleil (made up language)
Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire
I took this to mean 'what would you do with so much money you didn't have to worry about it'. A million dollars only gets a reasonable down payment on a house around here. Let's say I was a billionaire.
- Buy a big, new house in a good school district
- Collecting sports cars
- Collecting bicycles
- Set up a dance and music studio/theater
- Get a nice AV/home theater setup
- Bonus item: philanthropy (cancer research and survivor foundations)
Five Bad Habits
- Going to sleep really late
- Getting up really late
- Procrastinating
- Letting my desk get ridiculously messy
- Not paying attention to the calendar
Five Things You Like To Do
In no particular order...
- Dance
- Bike
- Drive
- Sleep
- Game
Five Things You Would Never Wear Again
- A mustache
- A mullet
- A singlet
- Really bright bermuda shorts
- Braces
Five Favorite Toys
This changes on at least a monthly basis
- Calfee
- OQO Model 02
- XBox 360
- Garmin Nuvi 660
- Bumblebee GT yo-yo
Five People to Tag
I don't know of five people to tag. So I'll just say... if you read this, and you want to do the meme, have at! Just drop me a line to let me know you did it.
Meme Track
Instructions: remove the blog from the top, move all the blogs up one, and add yourself to the bottom.
Friday, June 08, 2007
My Woman Swings
M-lady and I headed out to go swing dancing, socially, after Bud went to bed tonight. We thought we'd check out the local scene here in San Diego. So we headed down to a dance in La Jolla called the Firehouse.
It was an interesting scene. Lots of good dancers, but of a pretty different style: sort of a soft Hollywood style swing. M-lady and I are more Savoy style dancers. So we certainly stood out. One of the local instructors came over to ask us who we were after a couple of dances, and we both got asked to dance a few times by various locals.
After dancing for a little while, the DJ announced signups for a Jack and Jill competition. For those not int he swing scene, this is a competition where you get assigned a random partner, so it's much more focused on actual partnering, leading, and following, rather than tricks and mini-choreographies one may have put together with a regular partner. M-lady and I decided to enter, just for kicks.
We knew we'd be at a bit of a disadvantage, with our out-of-town style, but we both drew pretty good partners. I got the only guy who was dancing as a follow; I'd watched him dance a bit earlier in the evening, though, and I knew he was pretty good. I also know how to lead a little more heavily for guys.
The competition was structured in standard format: 12 competing couples, judges tap couples out until there are 5 left, those get to solo and are judged by audience applause. My partner and I did pretty well: I gave him enough room to show off, and I did a couple of tricks which no one in SD seemed to dance. We were certainly drawing attention as the only same-sex couple. We were the last couple tapped out giving us 6th place. Oh well. There were a lot of boos from the audience when were were tapped out... I think we were a crowd favorite.
M-lady made it to the finals, though. They danced 4th, and did a well-structured little solo, with some charlestons, breaks, and a great free spin. M-lady danced beautifully, and the crowd loved them: they took first place, winning the competition. Go M-lady!
After the competition, M-lady and I got asked to dance by lots of other folks. It was pretty nice. Our best dances were with each other, though.
It was an interesting scene. Lots of good dancers, but of a pretty different style: sort of a soft Hollywood style swing. M-lady and I are more Savoy style dancers. So we certainly stood out. One of the local instructors came over to ask us who we were after a couple of dances, and we both got asked to dance a few times by various locals.
After dancing for a little while, the DJ announced signups for a Jack and Jill competition. For those not int he swing scene, this is a competition where you get assigned a random partner, so it's much more focused on actual partnering, leading, and following, rather than tricks and mini-choreographies one may have put together with a regular partner. M-lady and I decided to enter, just for kicks.
We knew we'd be at a bit of a disadvantage, with our out-of-town style, but we both drew pretty good partners. I got the only guy who was dancing as a follow; I'd watched him dance a bit earlier in the evening, though, and I knew he was pretty good. I also know how to lead a little more heavily for guys.
The competition was structured in standard format: 12 competing couples, judges tap couples out until there are 5 left, those get to solo and are judged by audience applause. My partner and I did pretty well: I gave him enough room to show off, and I did a couple of tricks which no one in SD seemed to dance. We were certainly drawing attention as the only same-sex couple. We were the last couple tapped out giving us 6th place. Oh well. There were a lot of boos from the audience when were were tapped out... I think we were a crowd favorite.
M-lady made it to the finals, though. They danced 4th, and did a well-structured little solo, with some charlestons, breaks, and a great free spin. M-lady danced beautifully, and the crowd loved them: they took first place, winning the competition. Go M-lady!
After the competition, M-lady and I got asked to dance by lots of other folks. It was pretty nice. Our best dances were with each other, though.
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