]]>Our first set went well, i did my leg under 8 minute pace, which is what I’d hoped for. We had one runner mishap where our 12th runner took a turn incorrectly (60 degree turn instea of 90) and ran an extra 3.4 miles than he was supposed to - 10.4 vs. 7.0. The extra he ran is more than the entire length of my first leg, and he did it faster than I did mine! But, he was complaining that he didn’t have long enough to run, so it serves him right.
Overall it has been pretty fun, but next time I’d like to train more and get some longer legs to run.
Van 1 just checked in to say they’re on their last leg, so it’s almost time to move out and run some more. Gotta go! ]]>
Here are some pictures of our newly decorated van.
Now we're off to run!
kevin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamkevin/sets/72157616233374994/
I’ll have a few more pictures to add to the set, probably tomorrow, but for now we are exhausted and going to bed.
Tomorrow we’ll head to heidelberg, on bicycle!
]]>I installed google chrome a few weeks ago an have been using it on and off (mostly off lately)
here are some random thoughts on it so far:
- fast, it loads things faster than Firefox and IE do.
- somewhat buggy - there are some UI elements that don’t work correctly, the dumbest of which (as they are both google products) is some gmail + gtalk stuff, like tabbing between conversations, and the hover window in your contact list.
- No middle click for scrolling is annoying.
- No keyboard shortcut to get to bookmarks is annoying. I’m sure there is one, but i have no way to find out what it is.
- Very little in the way of options. I don’t know how to change default programs for anything (i.e. download videos/mp3s instead of playing them in iTunes)
- random crashes are always fun
- doesn’t seem to follow standards just yet, but it’s still in actual beta (as opposed to “google beta” which is a final product in which they can write off any bugs because it’s still a “beta.” see gmail.)
- no plugin/addon/extension support (yet?)
- no adblock. not a big issue for me, but i know a lot of people hate not having something like that. although it is something of a conflict of interest since google serves lots of ads…
I also got the new iPhone update, 2.1, which fixes a bunch of things that were annoying: -
- a lot less hang-y, especially contacts.
- somewhat less crashy for apps and safari.
- updating Apps keeps their position instead of putting them at the first available empty slot.
- supposedly more accurate signal meter. I still lose signal every once in a while, but it might be better. I don’t really know, it seems mostly the same, but now with more bars!
- battery life is supposedly better, can’t really tell but it might be.
And finally i got a new zune 120gb, and the zune 3.0 software! I really like the new zune software - without a zune pass most of the fixes on the device are minor, but there are some nice things:
- a clock! the zune didn’t have a clock before, now you can turn one on.
- playing podcasts - they added a “Play all” button before, but even if you started playing from a specific episode, it would still play all. Now it is a Play New button, and it works correctly, plus playing a specific episode will only play that one.
- I like the zune pad a lot. sometimes i hit up or down instead of clicking it, but i still think it’s really good.
- Marketplace over wifi from the device is really cool. If i had zune pass it would be even better, but even without it, it’s very good.
- there’s a bug where the zune will look like it’s not playing - the time progress bar doesn’t advance - but it continues to play. I’ve only hit this once, but it was weird, and didn’t go away until i powered off the device by hitting Back + Down for a few seconds.
The software is also much improved, more than the device was.
- more options in the UI, without being more cluttered
- mixview is really nice to see related artists, songs, albums, and influencers/influencees, and friends or users who listen to the same artist.
- artist info is more complete now, they even show tour dates if available.
- marketplace added some nice stuff - picks are suggestions based on yours and your friends’ music, and for zune pass subscribers there are channels which are automatically updating playlists.
- social added more complete info on yourself and your friends, plus it loads way faster, and you get mixview for users as well, although for some reason it shows my brother on my mixview, and he has to my knowledge never used zune software or hardware in his life.
- other stuff but i am going to bed now :)
Now I’m trying out the wordpress app, it seems to have a nice clean interface. I’ll try to post some stuff about lollapalooza, though I might just fall back on twitter, well see.
Time to go to work!
However, after looking around some more, I found a way to get my precious address bar back:
1. Click and drag “My Computer” to the top or side of the screen or desktop. This creates a new toolbar.
2. Right click on the new My Computer toolbar and select Toolbar->Address
3. Click and drag the new “Address” bar to the Taskbar.
Stupid laws, always trying to infringe on my rights. or something.
]]>It started out a little sketchy - we gave a ride to Elliot, a new acquaintance, who had gone last year (I didn’t go the year before), but we left a couple hours later than we had planned, so we didn’t get near the area until around 9:30 PM. We headed to Site 1, where they camped the year before, just as it was getting full dark. A bit of a hike is required, following driving through some sketchy/rocky terrain - which we did, very slowly, in a Passat wagon. After parking… somewhere, we were convinced by our new friend that it was just a little ways down the river, but maybe a bit of wading would be required - turns out it was not really a little ways down the river, and we waded through knee deep snow-melt (i.e. freezing cold) water, only to decide this was perhaps not where the campsite was found, and turned back. Later we found out that one of the other campers, driving a pickup truck, had seen our car, but didn’t think it was us since he was looking for my car, not C’s. We also found out the next morning that Site 1 was under 10 feet of water.
At that point, I decided to try my phone, got a hint of an analog roaming signal and checked voicemail to mostly hear the directions to Site 2, which did not involve fording rivers in a car (did i mention it was a passat, and not a truck?). We followed the directions as well as we could until we made it to another place my phone got a weak signal, deciphered the rest of the directions, and finally made it to camp. Drinking ensued.
The next day, we got up at the crack of noon and had some Batter Blasted pancakes (review: They taste like Bisquick pancakes. Not too shabby for coming out of a can, and great for camping). We were also shown the trees that showed where Site one was, trees that were sticking up out of water reaching halfway up their trunks. Next up was rafting down the river. There were 9 people rafting in total, and a couple people had brought two “four-person” inflatable rafts, which fit three comfortably, and four… kind of. However, C had borrowed a couple one-man rafts from one of her friends, so we figured all was well. We drove up to the launch site, and proceeded to blow up the two loaner rafts - the first was an inflatable Kayak, and a few people remarked on its quality and design with admiration, and a one person raft. To get the right idea of the size of the one-man raft, think of one of those big, 8-person white-water rafts, but shrink it down so that one adult can barely kneel in the bottom of the raft. Not what you would call a mighty raft, but we figured it would suffice, but the kayak was clearly the way to go. I ended up in the kayak, and Elliot volunteered to take C’s place in the Raft, for which I was grateful, (especially later, but I’ll get to that). The water was flowing pretty quickly, but it was deep, so none of the rocks were really near the surface, but it is probably not a good sign when a fisherman asks if we’re really going rafting in that, and at least we have some life preservers right? We did not have any life preservers, but we are good swimmers, i guess?
I was feeling pretty confident in my snazzy kayak, and told Elliot that if he fell in, I’d come help him out. (This is what the fancy writers call foreshadowing). The 2 big rafts went downstream, and we followed just behind them, though they got ahead pretty quickly. I took a minute to get the hang of the double-sided paddle, which I had never used before, but it was cool, I was in a damn kayak. We made it through the first rapids without much incident, but then came to a rock wall with a bunch of white water and some sort of eddy / undertow, and that’s when I learned the crucial lesson that kayaks are really good going straight into white-water, and pretty friggin’ unstable hitting them sideways. I hit the white-water sideways.
What happened next was 1) probably less than 15 seconds 2) felt more like 2 long minutes to me, and 3) remembered vividly. It went something like this:
“Oh shit, oh shit” - boat flips - “Shit.” Underwater, I feel my glasses come off “FUCK!” I lose my right sandal “What the-? SHIT!” I can see the surface about 2 feet above me, and I think “Where are my fucking glasses, I should have brought a strap for them [I had in fact thought about getting a strap but I mean, we were just doing some little rafting around, nothing serious] fuck them I’ll worry about it later cause I’m not really approaching the surface of the water and i would like to be up there, swim motherfucker go go go.” I finally broke the surface (like i said, probably only 10-15 seconds, and I didn’t exactly feel like I was in mortal danger, but I sure as hell wasn’t happy about being pulled underwater by an undertow and losing my stuff. The paddle was seriously hard to get out of the water, and I almost let it go, but I’m glad I didn’t or I would have had even more underwater adventures to deal with. I actually surfaced right next to the kayak which was lucky, and I pulled myself over to it, half threw myself on it and attempted to sit on it correctly without falling back in.
At that point I was rather angry at the river for taking my god damn glasses, one of my shoes, and as I reached up to slick back my hair, realized it also took my hat, but again, there wasn’t anything to do about it at that point, so I concentrated on making it down the river safely. I was also cold, shaking with adrenaline, and not exactly looking forward to more of this awesome kayak. I also tried to look for Elliot, since I figured if I had gone over, he probably had too, in his boogieboard raft, and I had told him I’d come rescue him (ha!), but I couldn’t see very well (refer to: losing of glasses) and I was not too keen on falling back into the at-most-45 degree water as a result of looking behind me. It was also at that point that I was very thankful to Elliot for taking the tiny raft or I would have been freaking out even more had I not only lost a shoe and my glasses, but also possible my girl - I figured Elliot could take care of himself better, and i wasn’t going to be much help. I did fall in one more time, but it wasn’t as bad as the first time (it’s not like i had anything else to lose), although I had to float downstream left-foot first (that was the foot with the remaining shoe) for a bit before getting to a calm section. The rafts had stopped just before a bridge at the halfway point, where the water was calmer, and they were prepared to give me shit about falling in, but apparently I had a look of anger (at the river, they didn’t know that) which put a stop to that before it began. One person said “didn’t Kevin have a hat before?” and someone else added “uh, where are his glasses?” and then I pulled up and got the hell out of the kayak.
Elliot made it pretty well, all things considered - he fell in at the same point I did, but didn’t lose anything, like, say, his vision, though at the bridge he fell out again and the mini-raft floated past us, not that anyone really wanted to ride in it after that. I traded a seat in a raft for the kayak, and the rest of the rafting trip was pretty uneventful - I remained angry at the river, but glad that I was basically unhurt, and my girl was safe, and I was floating peacefully in a mostly stable raft. I ended up with a small bruise on my knee and a sore heel, both from hitting some thankfully smooth rocks while trying to get back onto the kayak.
The rest of the weekend was really fun - I even got a loaner pair of (girl’s) glasses which I was incredibly thankful. They were surprisingly close to my prescription and allowed me to see decently enough (although they were too small, and slightly headache and eye-strain inducing). I didn’t stress out much since, after all, the glasses would just cost money to replace (though in truth they were a slightly more money than my last pairs had been). Plus, I had my previous pair at home, which are even closer in prescription than my loaner pair (though still a little eye-strain inducing - I think it’s the change in astigmatism), and I needed a new pair anyway. it would have been nice to reuse the frames, since they were a little pricey, and I liked them, but change is good, right? It will just be a bit of a pain in the ass to deal with. And the sandals were at least 10 years old, and in need of replacing as well, and the hat, well, it’s just a stupid baseball cap, even if it’s the only one I ever wore. I guess I’ll finally get that Detroit Tiger’s hat I’ve been thinking about getting…
Lessons learned: Inflatable kayaks are good for lakes, not for rivers. Wear a strap to hold your glasses if you are going rafting, even if you don’t think it’ll be rough going. Take your OLD pair of glasses when you go rafting.
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