A cool little landmark...

Last night was January 29th. That means there've only been 29 days so far in the year.

When I first started riding in earnest, it was January 4th. I rode about 5 miles for about 25 minutes with an average speed of about 11 mph. My cycling computer calculates all this for me and I've been tracking my progress nightly in a moleskine that I'm using to track my daily food intake and chart my exercise work.

My inital goal at that point was, "I'd like, at the end of 2009 to have averaged at least 5 miles a day on the bike." That means my total odometer by December 31 should read at least 1825 miles on it. Not a lot, but you figure you're not riding every day, naturally, and I didn't wanna shoot *too* high.

Over the last month however, I've been actually...you know...getting into shape, and as a result, my numbers and estimates have changed a little, for the better too. I wasn't really prepared for such a dramatic increase in efficiency, but as it stands now, I can't even work up a real sweat in 5 miles, and I'm now banging out anywhere from 15 to 20 miles a night, only limited now by the actual amount of *time* I can spend on the bike. In other words, now I run out of time before I run out of energy or get tired! I'm riding now for anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, my speed is averaging now about 18 miles an hour, and my distance covered ranges from a *minimum* of 15 miles to as many as 20, and soon (this weekend) 25 to 30 in a single sitting.

I feel like I'm fucking *killing* it, and it's only getting better and better, more and more fun, and more and more addictive.

So...back to my "landmark".

Last night my total odometer hit 290 on the 29th day of the year. So now, my average is exactly ten miles a day and that's after not really hitting ten miles until at least a week or two into my riding. The reality of that number is that it's skewed pretty heavily towards recent riding, and if I continue to even REMOTELY ride like I'm riding now that ten mile a day average will be long gone by the Spring, and could easily be double.

So, as it stands right now, by the end of the year, my total odometer should read 3650 miles. At LEAST. I'll have to remember to link to this at the end of the year when I check.

I can't tell you enough how much this means to me. 3,650 is a magic number, for one. It's pretty much the distance across America from Myrtle Beach to Los Angeles along the southern route thru Texas and Louisiana, which is a secret goal of mine to one day traverse. Two, and more importantly, it means I've actually gotten healthier than I thought possible. I really don't see a day in the future when I'll ride LESS than ten miles, and if my current condition is any indication, it'll probably be WAY more than ten miles.

That's why the 29th day of the year was a cool little personal landmark that I think I'll remember for a while...

Forever immortalized in Google Maps...

Last night I was playing around in Google Maps making up a map of my route to work when I noticed "StreetView" was working now in Myrtle Beach. When I created my route, it (Google) asked me if I wanted Streetview and naturally I said, "yes! Show me the street view of my route!"

Of course as I started to nudge my little map avatar man along my route, I was surprise to see this. After all, that's me up there in front. So I started back down 707 and sure enough, there I was, the whole time, following the Google Map car from 544 all the way to the back gate of the Air Force base. This being the money shot as I pass the car.

I remember this day too. I remember seeing the little car as I rolled up next to it and immediately recognizing what it was. I think there's even a shot of me taking a little snapshot of it...

Yep, I thought I had taken snapshots of that car as it passed me.
Pic 1 | Pic 2 | Pic 3 | Pic 4

The last shot is me and "the dude" talking for a couple minutes before he had to head out. He said they were shooting all up and down the east coast and that there were multiple cars in the area at the time.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting. I remembered seeing the guy, and that morning when I came into work we talked about it for a couple minutes, how interesting that whole concept was, etc, and then I sort of forgot about it. Funny how that works.

The logistics of riding my bike to work...you know, I think I can do this!

Have you ever "known" something, but at the same time, never really KNOWN something? I'll give you an example. For some reason or another, I've always "known" that there was a shower where I work...

Wait, maybe a little more backstory.

I work in an Advertising Agency. The agency ownership is also in an ownership position of another business that's housed in the same building. That business is a printing business. The Ad Agency sort of holds a "front of house" position in the building, and the printing company is down another hall, and also occupies the large warehouse back end of the building.

So back there, in the back, is a more "industrial" bathroom in the warehouse, and it's got a shower.

And I've known this. I don't know how I know it or why, but I never went back there until today. It's a pretty nice shower, and the bathroom has a pretty good lock on it for a little privacy while you're showerin'.

So think about this for a minute. The "bike route" I mentioned yesterday is about 14 miles. Fourteen miles of fairly flat, straight, medium traffic, secondary roads. The place where I work, I have an office where I can store items that I need, and a shower. I work about a mile from the beach, and my route takes me along the ocean for at least 50% of the ride.

So I guess the question is, what the hell is actually stopping me from riding my bike to work? People would absolutely KILL for the set of conditions I have in my job, life, and home/location. So I've been working out the logistics, and I think I can do it. Here's what I'm thinking:

First off, think odd and even days.

I lay out all my clothes the night before work, I've always done that since the Navy. So, it would be nothing for me to lay out a second set of clothes. Shirt, tie, pants, socks, shoes, etc, and hang the pants and shirt & tie on my office door. So let's call Monday the first odd day, I'll take in clothes for tuesday and leave them there. Then I can drive in on Monday, and ride on Tuesday and there are clothes waiting. Then I ride home Tuesday. Wednesday I'll take clothes for Thursday, and take my Tuesday clothes back home. Odd, Even, Odd, Even. I could ride to work every other day if I started doing that.

That leaves showering. I figure all I need is to run get a cheap bathroom carpet and leave it in the bathroom. Then I put together a bag that has, Shampoo, Soap, Shower Shoes, A Towel (which I can hang up to dry) and some hair care products, and I should be good to go, right? Leave the bag at work, swap out towels every few days.

My only question concerns taking off shorts and shirts and leaving them hanging up for about 8 hours, then putting them back on for the ride at work. I think if you turn the shorts inside out and let them "air out" you should minimize any um...personal problems, if you will. I'm not so concerned about tights and tops. They're "airy" enough and not so "hugged tight" to body parts that are normally susceptible to those "types of problems". I could probably rinse my shorts in the shower, but I'm not sure they'd dry in 7-8 hours. I suppose I could do a dry run and soak a pair and see how long it takes them to dry.

This is all really exciting. Like I said earlier, I really do think a lot of people would kill for my drive to work situation. It's a perfect bicycle commuting route, and when you take into account the shower situation it's a complete no-brainer. I talked to Andy about it this afternoon and not only did he say, "sure you can use it" but he thought it was an awesome idea and was glad someone was doing that and using the shower.

So with the ride up and back being 14 miles one way, I'm looking at being able to get in an easy easy 30 miles or so every other day. Take the long way home and I might be able to stretch it out to 40 or so.

The other issue is going to be clothing and outerwear, but that's a whole 'nother post. I need to really work on putting together a good set of outerwear, but right now I'm completely clueless. The plan now is to make sure it's not scheduled to rain, and if there's a chance I'll be riding in the rain to bail and drive in. Once I figure out what's good to wear and what works, I'll wade into getting some cooler weather riding gear and wind/rain gear. For now I'm just gonna stick to high 50s to low 60s and tights with no chance of rain. Stick to the simple stuff and move on to more advanced outwear decisions once I have a better idea about what I'm gonna need.

So I think I've got the logistics figured out. If anyone thinks I've forgotten something, or I'm missing a potential problem, please let me know!

Xbox Live is 'Proverbial Gold Mine' for Netflix

From Digg:
"Analyst Michael Pachter sees another 1 million Xbox Live users joining up with Netflix over the next year, as the streaming service becomes even more popular."

Seriously, who couldn't see this coming? They're streaming HD movies to my house for the cost of my monthly account. I don't pay anything extra, and I get instant access to their entire streaming library. Granted, the list of DVD rentals outnumbers the streaming selection by almost 100 to 1 it seems, but it's early, they'll keep adding to it, and right now I haven't run out of things to watch on my Instant Queue!


read more | digg story

If anyone ever tells you there's no such thing as a Gay Dolphin...

From Android Phone Pics

The view driving back to work after lunch. Traffic was pretty dead and I was actually able to stop the car in the street, grab the phone, select the camera app, point/aim, hold steady, and shoot. Well, actually I was kinda slowly creeping down Ocean Blvd., but I stopped when I actually snapped the pic.

It's on the way to work in the morning too, this view. I'm kinda posting it as a reminder, and a gentle nudge. I'm going to try very hard to remember to take "the bike route" to work...and for several reasons, I think. One, I want to know how many miles to work on the route I'd take if I was commuting on the bike, which I'm working on solving logistically. And two, I don't think I go down to the ocean near enough. I really like this route to work. It takes me from the dead south of Myrtle Beach at my stomping grounds at Springmaid Pier, to the main center of town, and up beyond a little (29th Ave.). So it's a beautiful, breezy, relaxing ride. It's nice to glance over on the way to work and catch the ocean flickering by as it's exposed in the spaces between hotels, long empty gaps and parking lots. That short drive to work taking that route can really have an energizing effect.

Oh, and the Gay Dolphin? It's over there on the right. The big glass building.

UPDATE: Yeah, I did take the long way to work this morning. It was nice.
Pic 1 Pic 2

USA's Worst Food: Baskin Robbins Chocolate Oreo Milkshake

Men's Health magazine has released its annual "Worst Foods" list. Scoring the top spot as the absolute worst food in the country? A large Chocolate Oreo Shake from Baskin Robbins. This bad boy has 2,600 calories, 135 grams of fat (59 of which are saturated), 263 grams of sugar and 1,700 milligrams of sodium.

read more | digg story

"Can you make it do this?" or "Why I might very well be the most valuable person at my company right now"

Going forward in this environment has really forced me to look at the clients I ultimately work for. I work in an agency environment, and a lot of times I work with Account Executives on behalf of a client. Over the years this has worked okay, but I've never been a huge fan of this work methodology because if the AE isn't paying very good attention to the needs of the client, programmers have an almost impossible task of hitting a moving target that they don't even know exists. This always leads to disappointment on the client side, and even worse, leads to strained relations between programming and sales. Sales thinks programming takes too long and costs too much and nothing works right when they DO deliver it, and programming thinks sales has their heads up their asses and never takes the time to understand exactly what the client wants.

But now, I think events have started to reshape the way everyone is working, for obvious reasons. I would liken this to the external environmental pressures that are the driving engine of evolution. Something outside is causing a change in the way business has to operate, and the ecosystem responds by weeding out those who can't change the way they work, or whose work is being done in a manner that simply won't survive.

Enter Interactive. The opportunity for us all now, is to provide *value* to the client. The days of clients just throwing money at Internet Marketing endeavors is over. Now, armed with the language of web 2.0 and ROI, they want their efforts to *do* something. To *result* in something. They want something *tangible* from us now.

This makes us (programmers) invaluable. And it means we have a place at the table now for discussions OUTSIDE of our comfort zone. No longer are we going to be relegated to the conversations about process, and execution. Now we're going to be asked to contribute *ideas* and participate in a dialog that helps the companies we work for bring far more value to the proposition than ever before.

I'm currently working on an Event Calendar for a client. Normally, we'd be satisfied with delivering what the client asks for, delivering it in a timely manner, and delivering it in good working order. However, this time we're going to raise the bar. This time, with programming's participation, we're going to deliver an event calendar that not only does what our client *wants* but exceeds their expectations. And not for any self serving reason. We're doing it because it demonstrates how the execution of programming and a little thought and planning can, for a minimal investment, bring tremendous value. In other words, "We can do that for you, but we think THIS will actually HELP your business a lot more with its marketing efforts.".

If you don't think for one minute that resonates with clients, you're either high, or you didn't comprehend what I just wrote.

Now think about that for a second. Programmers, participating in the value discussion, and bringing solid ideas to the table that can be executed on for the benefit of all involved.

Who wouldn't want to be on that bandwagon?

It's a great time to be a programmer.

Obama To Shutter CIA Prisons Immediately

From Digg:

"Guantanamo Bay isn't the only thing on the chopping block. President Barack Obama will close a secret network of CIA prisons immediately."

It's not so much the news about Guantanamo Bay that excites me. Everyone knows Guantanamo Bay is a blight on America. It's THIS news that really gets me. He could've easily closed Gitmo and left this network of hidden, shadow prisons operating, but he didn't. He closed them. And in doing so, reaffirmed my faith in the process. Things work, and good people do exist.

read more | digg story

Organizing Thoughts...

Initially, I thought perhaps blogging would grant me some avenue into organizing my thoughts. You know, maybe by some sort of osmosis or chemical reaction, I'd miraculously stare at this screen, and my thoughts would all magically organize themselves into succinct, coherent blog posts. Turns out, it's not that easy.

Sometimes I just feel like I have TOO many interests. I love comic books and video games. However, I'm not sure if I love them *enough* to form opinions and posts about them. They are what they are. Entertainment. You either love Superman, or you don't. I'm not sure anyone cares *why* I can't stand Spider-Man, and I'm not sure I could find an audience large enough who gives a shit what my opinion on the latest Battlefield map pack is. So my main two "interests" it turns out, aren't all that interesting. At least not interesting enough to write about.

I'm working very hard on getting healthy, but that seems like such a pragmatically personal thing that writing about it would just be a complete waste of time. What's working for me, a 41 year old man who's trying to lose weight, probably won't work for you, because you're not me, you don't share my experiences, and quite frankly, I know you don't really care about how I'm losing weight, or why. I suppose common, everyday blog posts about equipment, food, etc would be appropriate, so I'm considering that as an option, but I'm not feeling all that confident about it. We'll see.

Which leaves me with my real, kinda main preoccupation: Programming. The problem, as I see it, is that I don't much like to write about programming. It's dry (unless you're a programmer) and there are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million blogs devoted to programming and programming techniques. I hardly think I could cover new ground.

So as you see, I'm kinda stuck. I WANT to say something here, but I'm just not sure what it is.

Maybe that's the key. Maybe I'm not SUPPOSED to know what I want to say.

Tell you what. I'm gonna struggle with it, try to put together some nice blog posts over the next few weeks and see where this takes me. I'll see if I can get some sort of "voice" for this place, and see if I can get me some sort of momentum going.

What a cool resource (If only it would work!)

I was digging around for Nutrition information when I stumbled across this. It's the "USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference". Of course, you can search it, browse it, etc, but what really struck me was this link. It appears as if the USDA has made the entire database of nutrition information available for download. That would be awesome...if it worked. For some reason, I'm unable to click and download the Access version of the database. I suppose I could mess around with the ASCII version, but I don't really wanna. It'd be nice to get my hands on the Access database just to mess around with.

If anybody knows a better link, or perhaps a mirror site, please lemme know. In the meantime, I'll try to snoop around and see what I can find.

"Work and the Economy" or "Sorry, Pete, I know we're kin, but they got this depression on. I got to do for me and mine."

I was talking to Tammy the other night about work. It's a tough environment now. It's advertising, and the economy has devastated advertising and marketing companies all up and down the Grand Strand. Layoffs, reductions in hours, pay cuts. It's tough all over town, and it's not going to get better tomorrow. There is a lot of rough water ahead, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

So lately, it's been tough to muster up the motivation in such a dire environment, and I was explaining that to my wife, who listened intently, looked at me, then said, "You need to suck it up. You have a job, you're important to the company you work for, you have a job to do and an opportunity to help your company pull thru all this. Stop wallowing in everyone else's pity, getting caught up in everyone else's drama, and do the job you do and help your boss make it thru this mess."

Nobody ever has to wonder why I love this woman.

She's absolutely right. In times like this, it does nobody any good to get caught up in events that you have no control over, one. And two, in no way does help anyone move forward in the way that everyone needs to do right now.

As I sit here typing, I'm reminded of that scene in the beginning of 'Saving Private Ryan' where they're stuck on the beach being bombarded by mortar fire. The instinct is to stay right there and huddle, not charge forward. Moving forward seems almost counter-intuitive. Thing is, the spot you're sitting in has been spotted previously before you got there, and if you stay there, you're dead. In fact, the ONLY safe place is forward.

I feel like that now. The only way is forward. Not backward, and certainly not huddled in my foxhole, paralyzed by fear and circumstance. I'm going to view this as an opportunity to take the lead and charge.

Who's with me?

Blogging. Let's define the sandbox, shall we?

I never have blogged much before. I'm not much of a writer. Or, at least, "I don't fancy myself much of a writer".

But I wanted to start. I don't know why. I think it's because I love Twitter so much, I want to jump to the big stage, and play with more than 140 characters. We'll see. I have some things on my mind lately that I think blogging will help me work out. I'm preoccupied lately with several "projects" or perhaps we'll just call them "topics" and some of them are frankly kinda new to me. Others I feel like I want to "chronicle" in some way. Either way, I felt like lately, writing might be the cathartic thing I need to help me focus on the several things that have been preoccupying me these last few weeks...or months...or perhaps...years...

First off, I was way overweight. Let's be honest. Since I got married and have done nothing but sit around and smoke pot and play video games (I said "let's be honest". I'm not going to do this and dance around topics or issues just because they're not exactly politically correct...or legal. I do what I do...*shrug*...I don't judge *you*), I've gone to complete shit. There's no reason on earth why I should weigh two hundred and twenty seven fucking pounds. Are you kidding me? That shit kills you in multiple ways. Not only does it literally kill you. As in, "Jeff, you need to lose weight or you're going to fucking die" (paraphrasing). It fucks up your self esteem, it depresses you, it makes you look like a big tub of shit, and it conditions you to wear xtra large t-shirts and baggy jeans to "hide" your appearance. You become a fucking slob, which just makes you a fat, ugly, poorly dressed malcontent. Not good. That spiral only goes in one direction, boys and girls.

I love riding bikes. I have a mountain bike (A Cannondale F-600. Beautiful bike), a road bike (Trek Alpha Series 2200) and I rode them occasionally. FAR less than I wanted, or thought I would when I got them. That's all on me though, there was nothing stopping me from riding. I should be honest about that, too. I'm sure if I wanted to take off and go to Poinsette/Killer Three, or hop on the Trek and disappear for a couple hours, Tammy wouldn't have minded. That finger points squarely at me. So, in the spirit of wanting to ride more over the winter, thinking that perhaps my momentum from winter training would take me into the spring and summer last year, I purchased rollers. I didn't like stationary trainers. Pain in the ass to set up, expensive...um, stationary. Plus, I always loved the idea of rollers, going back to my early days of riding road bikes. The sight of those guys in the Tour de France warming up for time trials on rollers was mesmerizing. So effortless. So straight. Such perfect strokes. So I bit the bullet and bought some Nashbar aluminium rollers. I used them a little (to my credit!), but not nearly enough. After Thanksgiving, when I flew back from San Fransisco, weighed myself and saw *227*, I decided I was going to use the sons of bitches. Not only that. I was going to take charge of my fucking life. I mean, I just felt like my weight was the outward manifestation of a lot of the unhappiness I felt like I was carrying around for one reason or another. I wasn't happy that I was overweight. I wasn't happy that wasn't confident enough to pull off a nicer wardrobe at work, etc. I just had had enough. That was it. I had reached my breaking point personally. I could no longer sit around and watch life go by while I stuffed my face, sat on my ass, and watched life go by from the sofa in a smokey haze.

So now, here I am. It's the middle of January, and I just weighed myself this morning, and for the first time since *I got married* (in 1998) I weigh 200 pounds. Twenty seven pounds since, honestly, the first week in December. I'll say six weeks. Twenty seven pounds lighter in six weeks. I'm doing it the old fashioned way. No more "processed" foods. No Soft drinks. Reduced portion sizes. Reduced caloric intake. Increased physical activity, including aerobic work that hits my target heart rate and holds it there for extended periods of time. I'm currently riding about 15-20 miles a day for about an hour or so. It's absolutely addictive as hell, and I'm SO motivated now with my performance on the bike. My cadence has improved. My balance, my ability to maintain a straight line, etc. I have a really nice, smooth, powerful stroke now, and I'm itching to get out on the road and put it to good use.

So right now my main focus of interest is in all of this. I'm enjoying keeping track of what I eat now, and I'm looking for maximum bang for buck. I'm getting into recipes for dinners that are whole and healthy, preferably as organic as possible. I'm enjoying keeping track of the progress I'm making on the bike. The distance I'm covering, the speed I'm averaging, etc. Being a programmer, I'm toying around with several mobile solutions to facilitate my tracking and mining of this information as well. So I have a lot of thoughts on this stuff. I'm also always looking for links to sites that help with this, so feel free to contact me via the blog, or leave a comment to something that might be helpful. I'll always give props and shout outs.

The other thing, and the thing that's newest to me, is "the wardrobe thing". I'm really exploring wardrobe & clothing now, wanting to dress a lot nicer, as I should. I'm a senior programmer working in an advertising agency, dammit, it's time to start dressing like one! For instance, my newest love is french cuffs. French cuffs and dress pants. For the first time in recent memory, and I do mean "recent memory" I'm able to pull off a nicer wardrobe and dammit, I'm going to take advantage of it! So now I'm enjoying "getting into" men's fashion for the first time, and I thought this might be a fun place to talk about some of my questions and issues regarding trying to be an impeccably dressed senior programmer working in an advertising agency.

So that's my sandbox. Or at least. That kinda defines the sandbox to me. I have my interests...Programming. Comic Books. Video Games. Bicycles. Etc. Etc. But now, I think I'd like to start "putting down to paper" some of the things that pass thru my noggin. Maybe I have an opinion. Maybe it matters. Probably it doesn't. But that won't stop me from posting it, now will it?