Month: July 2008

Book Recollection: My Life On The Run

Bart Yasso can thank my Runner’s World subscription for my purchase of his book.  In one of their issues, they had some short excerpts from his My Life On The Run that resulted in an extremely embarrassing outburst of laughter.  Ironically, it was on my way back from the 4 mile Corporate Chase Run in Chicago.  Obviously, I enjoy running… recant that… I force myself to run.  When I gave up martial arts, I had to find a way to keep the fat off and running seemed like a good idea at the time.  Well many years later and I am still running and still trying to figure out why people subject themselves to this torture.  In my quest to discover the answer to this question, I often find myself reading material related to running (for example Runner’s World).  After reading the excerpt in the magazine, I decided I needed purchase Yasso’s book. 

Basically, Bart has lived an interesting life.  He started out embracing the weed and barley derivatives, but eventually found running as a means to rise above it all.  One mile lead to another and eventually he was running full marathons, ultra marathons, traveling all over the world as an ambassador to other countries to the joys (again, I question that word) of running.  He has definitely done more things than I would have ever dreamed possible and clearly appears to be someone who understands a little about true humor.  I was a little worried after a few pages in when the theme I absolutely can’t stand surfaced … My Father didn’t appreciate me and never gave me affection – typically I close the book and take my best shot towards the garbage can.  Generally this is just an easy way to lay blame on others for your life’s failures – take some ownership and stop wasting my time writing about it – that story has already played out.  For some reason I let it slide solely on the fact I had remembered the good portions in the magazine.  Eventually this gave way to some extremely funny (dare I say hysterical) recounts of running from rhinos, competing in a birthday suite race, dragging a burro to the finish line, biking across America and many others.  More surprising was coming down with chronic Lyme Disease – I had absolutely no idea this was even possible, but had a definite impact on his running career. 

I did have a couple of dislikes related to Bart’s book.  At times it really didn’t flow well from chapter to chapter.  For example the cycling chapter really didn’t fit well with the surrounding running topics and the break towards the end to discuss his running heroes was informative, but would have been better further towards the end.  I also didn’t expect the second part of the book to be dedicated to training routines – I have enough of those books so I just skipped all of those pages (~45) and went right to the summary of some races he recommended participating in. 

All in all, definitely worth the money for the gut holding humor.  So even if you are not a runner yourself, pick up the book and experience life through the eyes of another – and for the record, based on the suffering he experienced running, I am still not buy the joy part of the sport.

follow the jump for my highlights

Continue reading Book Recollection: My Life On The Run

How To Earn My [W]Rath

As we were heading back from our South Dakota trip, we came upon a pretty nasty storm in Western Iowa.  Generally this doesn’t bother me much, but as all to common on any road travel these days, we were reduced to a single lane due to road construction.  As a result, it was difficult to concentrate on the narrow lanes while focusing through the downpour.  After awhile we decided to go ahead and stop for the night in Council Bluffs.  The GPS indicated there were some casinos nearby so we opted to stay at one of their hotels…. actually that was the plan, but we ended up calling for rooms in advance only to find out they were ALL booked.  No problem, we’ll find something along the way.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find very many options and it was getting pretty late.  Eventually, we found an exit with three hotels on it – I think a Holiday Inn and possibly a Day’s Inn (can’t remember for sure).  We opted for the Holiday Inn only to find out they were booked and was given the recommendation to try the other hotel (Day’s Inn) across the street.  So… we went over there having to pass a Rath Inn on the way.  As you probably expected, that hotel was full – we finally figured out that the College World Series was going on which filled up all the rooms in the neighboring cities (I believe the games are held in Omaha Nebraska).  The hotel clerk wouldn’t even recommend another option which immediately stood out as interesting… two hotels in the area refused to refer anybody to the Rath Inn – either stiff competition in the area or something is up.

 We were tired, the rain wasn’t letting up so we went against our better judgement and headed to Rath Inn to take a chance they had a room left.  It was more of a motel (park next to door), but a bed was all I really needed (hasty assumption there!)  Turns out we were able to procure the last non-smoking room – we’re in luck.  We drove the car to the room, quickly opened the door to get feel the comfort of the bed to soothe the eyes.  The view didn’t leave much of reason to blog on it – basic room generic decor … should be okay.  And then my wife comes out the bathroom with complete disgust on her face and seriously agitated.  Turns out they didn’t even bother cleaning the bathroom from the previous occupants.  DISGUSTING – we were trapped – nowhere to go and in a room not fit to stay – the traveler’s dilemma.  Fatigue won out, we tore all the sheets of the bed, grabbed a blanket from the car to sleep ON TOP of and did our best to get some sleep.

I now have a benchmark for the bottom rung of roadside bedding – and a new level of fatigue I’m willing to endure to find another place to stay. 

Viewed From Afar (and a request for identification help)

First off, I’ve decided to go ahead and merge in my wildlife observations.  I was investigating the option to have a secondary blog out there just for the wildlife stuff, but then decided I really didn’t want to manage another website.  I think it still fits the overall theme of observations I see from day to day.    I will tag these as Wildlife and likely a subtag with the specific category like birds, snakes (yeah, you’re getting some of those soon), frogs, bears, deer etc.

So… keeping with the South Dakota trip theme, I thought I would start out with some birds we snapped while traveling out there.  I’ll start with a flesh eating variety call the Black Billed Magpie.  We were touring the Bear Country USA Drive Through Wildlife Park and I saw this fairly pretty blue and white bird on the side of the road.

Black Billed Magpie

I actually didn’t know what it was until I returned home and found it my brand new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America.  I finally broke down and bought an updated guide, but more on that in a future post (I actually selected this book because it finally had a picture of the woodpecker I could not identify in a previous post).  As we traveled a little further, I became slightly horrified by the fact that the previously considered “cute” bird was actually a flesh eating demon.

Black Billed Magpie

I had visions of it attacking me, sticking his beak in one of my eyeballs and ripping it out of my head as it flew off into the air leaving a dangling mass of entrails oozing out of my shrieking face – hmmmm in retrospect, I might need to lay off of the late night horror movies.  Based on the description in the book, it appears to simply feed off of carrion so likely little to fear here.  Although, this shot looks like he is scraping an eyeball of his beak.

Black Billed Magpie

There is another bird (Spotted Towhee) after the jump along with a blue bird I am currently unable to properly identify.

Continue reading Viewed From Afar (and a request for identification help)

Major Rock (by that I mean Bach) SUCKAGE

My ears are ringing badly… why you ask… well I submitted to the Jedi mind trick my wife placed on me and I ended up agreeing to go see Poison at our local Peoria Civic Center last night.  That’s right, Poison… 80’s, makeup, hairspray, latex … you got it.  First a confession is in order.  This is the third time I have seen Poison in the last 3 or so years (that d*mn Jedi trick must be stopped).  But in all honesty, I must agree that it is a pretty fun time.  Poison does give their all and their songs are catchy and don’t take a master’s degree to learn the lyrics – but the number one thing, of course, is the people watching opportunity. 

Unlike the last two times I saw them, it wasn’t at the Mississippi Valley Fair in Davenport.  This was a real arena and there was a fronting band – let’s retry that.. there was suppose to be an opening act, specifically Sebastian Bach.  You know Bach, as in Skid Row, Super Band reality show member, VH1 top 100 metal songs narrator, rehabber – I’ll stop there because the downhill terrain is getting slippery.  Anyway, we find our seats, take in the view, note a tremendous amount of significantly overweight women dressed to score, spot an unusually large number of Affliction and other UFC themed shirts, settle in to the truly uncomfortable arena seats and prepare for Mr. Bach to bless us with his wonderful bygone day pipes.  First his band comes out and all I could think of is what newspaper ad did he find these guys at –  espescially the lead guitarist sporting the scary dude elongated sideburns, black boots and b e l l b o t t o m s – weak.  The music kicks in and it’s ABSOLUTE CRAP.  I’ve been to many concerts across many different genres and this is the worst I’ve ever sat through.  Every single act on the Warped Tour had better sound that what was blasting my ears – distortion out of tolerable gain, vocals lost in the guitars and Bach’s wireless uplink cutting in an out.  It was awful and based on the people standing around looking at each other, this was a consensus opinion.   As a side note, a good indicator that you are on the way out is when you have to come onstage and open up with a song from another band (Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle).  Sebastion also has historically relied on his strong high end vocals but apparently that is gone because they had the reverb turned up so high on his mic he would stop singing way before the end of the screech.  Finally midway through the roadie guy kept coming out to play with his butt monitor to see if he could fix it (there has to be some funny shots of that and based on the thousands of camera’s going off in the no-camera show someone must have it).  They eventually gave him a wired mike which didn’t fix the problem but gave him the opportunity to stand on stage and due the horribly cheesy and stupid helicopter whirl with it.  Nothing tops the lead guitarist’s trying to actually hit his leads – missed note there, delayed note there all cranked up so we could hear every high school chop – I finally had to laugh out loud when he tried strumming with his teeth and ended up losing the rhythm – of course he was continually stomping on his pedals trying to get them to work.  I will digress again quickly – what is it about bands continually telling me where I’m at.  I know where I’m at, the guy next to me knows where he is at and if the lead singer bothered to look at the arena name he would also know where he was at – so use it once or twice to fire the crowd up .. and then just STOP IT.  To put it in perspective, I counted the number of times Sebastian said Peoria vs the number of times he said the F-word – guess which one won by a landslide and if you know anything about Bach, you know he uses that other word allllllll the time – the point I explained to my how before the show how it would be a great drinking game.  Sorry, back to the rant.  Finally they end, the audience applauds their exit (most reaction all night) and they crank up the recorded music which sounded absolutely awesome.  Guns N Roses: Welcome to the Jungle, AC/DC: Highway to Hell – was as if they were there rocking it out for us.  Bach – you owe my wife and I and apology for having to sit through that crap.  There was great retribution when Poison came out – Brett Michaels actually thanked Dokken for opening up for them – HEHEHEHE (I wish) – Brett turned to CC and he told him it was Bach and trying to brush it off then thanked Bach [for wasting our time] Classic!

As just a few comments, Poison didn’t disappoint.  They played their classics, interacted with the crowd, kept the Peoria statements to a minimum and get this…. sounded great as they hit all their keys and notes.  Imagine that – after 22 years and still delivering on the cost of their tickets (Sebastian, taking any hints).  The additional side of this was that CC sounded great – energetic, lightning fingers and good crowd interaction.  This opinion could have been amplified a little bit based on how horrible the opening guitarist was, but like I mentioned, I’ve seen them twice before and CC sounded just as good then (ah, life after the 80’s drug scene isn’t all that bad is it). 

The most important things about last night was that my wife enjoyed watching Poison and when she is happy I am generally happy – plus we were kind of celebrating our anniversary so I am glad at least Poison didn’t dissapoint us.  My only complaint was we decided not to buy Linda a concert shirt.  I wanted to get her one as a small anniversary gift, but we both decided that 40 dollars was toooooo much to spend on a T-Shirt.  Much like gas, 4 is the watermark for second thoughts.  I was also appreciative he only mentioned his reality show once unlike last time where he milked it from beginning to end. 

…now time to go and figure out a way to get this ringing to stop.

Coffee 5 Cents, Ice Water Free but NO PARTYING

I had to laugh while taking in the sites at Wall Drug while on our South Dakota trip.  Actually, a more accurate depiction would be …. trying to keep myself entertained while internally struggling to determine why the hell I bothered to detour from my intended destination to go to Wall Drug in the first place.  Unfortunately, my wife convinced me to go and I somehow let my expectations get a little too high – when someone tells you that you can buy all the crap you didn’t know you needed, my expectations was a Super Wal-Mart filled with trinkets from the Wisconsin Dells.  Not the case… they had a few stores, had the obligatory Jackalopes for sale … and a 6 Foot one Linda forced me to get my picture on (NO I will not be posting it) and sure enough free ice water.   This managed to keep my interests for exactly 32 minutes  – eventually I found myself outside the women’s bathroom waiting for Linda (I know.. TMI, but I didn’t want you to think I was just hanging out there for no reason).  Apparently this was an employee communication area since it had a number of bulletins pinned to the wall – one of which caught my eye.  One particular sheet went into great detail how male employees can wear jeans, but women were forbidden from wearing jeans and must wear black slacks or a skirt.   I decided the owners might be religious since we have similar sects around here that have the same rules for their women.   What really made me laugh was a whole dissertation on how there would be no parties in the employee dorms and that individuals caught would be subject to significant discipline including dismissal … and the local police have been notified of this policy.  The only thought that came to mind was … Here you are in the less than happening Wall, South Dakota and you can’t even drink your sorrows away… I’m not on vacation.. I’m in HELL.

Hey Linda! any chance we can get back in the car and start heading to Custer State Park? -no… pretty please -no what if I buy you a cute little jackalope? -no or a “We Must Be on the Backside of Mt. Rushmore” shirt? -no or Black Hills gold jewelery? -no moccasins? -no polished rock? -no let you control the radio on the way there? -no   ……. ugh, I’ll just sit here and wait for the horns and pitchfork to show up

 Just say NO to {Wall} Drug{s}!

More Crap Code

I am completely sick of paying money for software that is basically crap.  Freeware, Shareware I have no problem with and understand bugs may creep in and possible limited test time etc.  That naturally comes with that form of product development, but to be honest, I am seeing better code these days in that format that I am seeing off the shelf.  So case in point (and the reason for being so upset that an immediate post was needed to vent) – I had some free time tonight and decide to install and load up a gift my dogs got me for Father’s Day.  This gift was a digital photo ball from Senario and looked pretty cool – my wife was on me for not having enough photos on my work desk so this is going to come in handy.  So I finally make through the extremely annoying plastic mold packaging, find the directions and USB cable and figure I am good to go…. but no, it has software that has to be installed to manage the image download.  After literally looking for 10 minutes as to where I put the disk when I opened the package, I finally figured out it was in a mini-cd disk between the packaging cardboards.  I slap the disk in and the first thing the dialog asks is where I want to install it.  I NEVER install software in the Window’s defaults in order to keep my drives organized, so I changed locations with the browse button and complete the install.  As I would expect, an icon is placed on my desktop, but it had a default icon which I thought was odd.  I clicked the newly created icon… and I get the Windows Missing Shortcut Error Dialog.  Sure enough, they didn’t bother to set the Vue-Me software desktop shortcut to the LOCATION I SPECIFIED FOR INSTALL in the initial install.  This is absolutely pathetic and immediately tells me they did not once bother to test out the install to a non-default directory even though their software clearly provided that option.  If I provided this lack of quality to my end customers I would be laughed at (yes, I’m in the IT business which is why this bothers me so much).  If you are expecting me to actually pay for your software, then take the time to test it – I’ll keep this gift because it was the thought from my dogs (okay, my wife for the dogs), but don’t expect me to purchase anything else from Senario in the future.