ness:.

Comeback 2.0

2011-06-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

In Oregon there are three important stage races for the amateur bike racer: The Mt Hood Cycling classic, the Elkhorn Classic and the Cascade Classic, each of these races are three days long. The Oregon cyclist can live the dream and doing the stage race and spend a weekend bike racing on some very epic and scenic courses. Unlike Pro tour riders, there are no team cooks or breakfast buffets every morning, (unless you pay way extra). This summer, my comeback to road bike racing, I plan to do the three stage races in the 'cat 3' category. (Bike racing lingo: cat 5 is beginner, cat 1 is almost pro).

Last weekend, the first of the three stage races took place: the Mt hood cycling classic in Hood River. In my opinion, Hood River is the most beautiful town in Oregon, and alot of that has to do with the columbia gorge. The race consists of 4 stages over 3 days.

Stage 1

The first stage started in the Dalles, and covered territory between the Dalles and a small town called Mosier. The race was on some of the same roads that the columbia gorge marathon travels in October, a foot race that I've done twice, so I was somewhat familiar with the route. However, there was one section that I was not familiar with, and this section included what is known to the locals as '7 mile hill'. Before the race I was talking with my teammates Pete and Erik, and predicted that around 15 riders would be in the lead group, and if you were not in that group, it would really suck to be trying to chase back on. I don't like to make up excuses, but I had to take antibiotics for three days in the week prior to this race for a sinus infection, which was very taxing on my system. I'm not going into details but I didn't have 'full power' on 7 mile hill, and I don't think it helped to have the climb with a slight tail wind on one of the first 70+ degree days of the spring. It was a pressure cooker and it was hot, and my lungs were still coughing up the 'gunk'. To make a long story short, I was dropped by the lead group on the climb and had to chase to get back as much time as possible for the last 20 miles with 7 others in the same position. Interestingly, exactly 15 riders finished the stage on the lead, and Pete was one of them. I finished just over 4 minutes later.

Stage 2 (11 mile TT)

The second stage was an 11 mile time trial in Trout Lake, WA. Even amateur riders use the tricked out TT bikes, or fit their road bikes with clip on bars and disc wheels. I decided to bring less to the race, so I was on my road bike with regular bars and no disc. The result here was I lost 3 more minutes to the leader.

Criterium

I was scared of this race because of the hairpin corner after the downhill, but it was mostly safe until the last corner, where a dude crashed and the ambulance came, but he ended up not leaving in it. I ended up ahead of the crash, and was 11th.

3 Summits Road race

71 miles with huge climbs in the mountains north of Hood River on paved single lane forest roads. After losing time on Friday, I was mixed about how this could go. In chatting with guys from the team we agreed that this would not be an attack fest, and more of a war of attrition. The first two climbs were tough, but I was able to hang on. The downhills were fast, and I drove down the second big decent, because being behind other riders on the brakes during the first one was just too stressful. Hung on until the last steep uphill mile with the selection of 15 riders in the field, and moved up on GC from 40th to 16th, by far my best overall finish in an Oregon cat 3 stage race. Looking forward to Elkhorn on June 17-19, where the 1st and 2nd place riders from Mt Hood will be racing, so it will be tough!

Runner overcomes obstacles

2010-11-23T08:27:00.000-08:00

Runner overcomes obstacles

Bend’s Ryan Ness deals with health disorder while competitive running

By Amanda Miles / The Bulletin

Published: November 23. 2010 4:00AM PST

more photos | order photo

Ryan Ness, 35, runs in Drake Park on Friday with his greyhound Jazzy. Ness recently won the Columbia Gorge Marathon.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

Two just might be Ryan Ness’ lucky number.

Two months ago, Ness moved to Bend for the second time after spending a few years in Portland.

And last month, he won the Columbia Gorge Marathon in his second time running the Hood River-area event (and in the race’s second year, no less).

Or maybe Ness, 35, is just plain lucky. Lucky enough that when he discovered in 2006 he had developed hemochromatosis, the diagnosis was made before the disease — a disorder of iron metabolism — appeared to have caused any lasting damage.

Running is not the only sport in which Ness participates. He also cycles and cross-country skis, and he races in multisport events. Don’t ask him to pick which of the sports he likes best, though, as it tends to vary with the seasons.

“If I had a favorite, I might try to just do that (sport) more,” Ness says. “I just like fitness and keeping in shape and endurance sports, really.”

Growing up in St. Cloud, Minn., Ness was always active. He ran cross-country in high school and also cross-country skied, but he says he did not win many races — he was a middle-of-the-pack type of kid.

But it was more about the lifestyle than the results for Ness. He took to heart the examples of some influential coaches, and of his marathon-running parents.

“I had that ingrained in my head that that’s what I kind of wanted to be like when I grew up,” he says.

So Ness kept training and got better, fitter, faster. He ran marathons, competed in Midwest nordic ski races, did triathlons.

In 2003, he even completed the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon — a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile (marathon) run. He finished 64th out of about 1,800 participants with a time of 10 hours, 39 minutes, 5 seconds — a respectable mark for a first-time Ironman contestant.

That has been his only Ironman to date, though by his own design.

“It was fantastic,” Ness says. “I had a really good experience, so I kind of think that maybe I’ll just turn that page because if I go back and do another one, it might be horrible because you have that chance of having a horrible Ironman.”

His athletic lifestyle made Ness a natural fit for a place like Central Oregon, where he moved with his wife, Laurie, a nurse, in 2004, telecommuting for his job in computer programming.

Ness continued to compete in endurance events. He even placed in the top 10 in the elite men’s division of Bend’s multisport Pole Pedal Paddle race in both 2006 and 2007.

It was during the year between those two PPP races that Ness was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes the body to store too much iron, which can lead to health problems later in life such as arthritis, organ damage, or failure of the liver, heart or pancreas.

Hemochromatosis affects roughly five in every 1,000 people in the United States, according to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse website.

The diagnosis came almost by fluke. Ness’ younger brother, Kelly, had gone to the doctor for an unrelated illness. But when his blood work showed high iron levels, Kelly was diagnosed with hemochromatosis.

Upon learning of his brother’s diagnosis, Ryan decided to undergo testing as well. And those tests revealed that he too had hemochromatosis, though he was not yet manifesting any symptoms.

No one else in Ness’ family has been diagnosed, though he suspects one of his grandfathers — who died in his early 70s after suffering from arthritis and heart disease — might also have borne the disease.

Ness’ treatment was simple. To remove the excess iron from his body, he had to have blood taken until his iron levels fell to an acceptable range.

The hard part was that he had to do so weekly for about 30 weeks in succession.

“It’s not the funnest thing to do every week,” he says. “It got really draining, not only going there again and getting poked. I think I recovered pretty quickly from them — but just week after week after week of getting this blood out of me. I was really tired.”

Not long after his weekly blood draws ended, Ness moved to Portland. He had decided to shift from computer programming to a career in engineering. He and Laurie, who is also from Minnesota, moved in June 2007 so Ryan could attend an Oregon Institute of Technology satellite campus in Portland.

Life in a bigger city proved to be an adjustment for the couple. And something was missing.

“(Portland) wasn’t all bad because it’s not cold in the winter, but we both grew up in snow, and we like to be closer to the snow, so that was hard,” Ness explains.

A job in test engineering with PV Powered gave Ness the opportunity to come back to Central Oregon. He and Laurie returned to Bend this past September.

And the very next month, on a scenic marathon route along the Columbia River, Ness pulled off one of the biggest accomplishments of his athletic career.

He knew going in that he had a shot to win. He had placed third in the marathon’s inaugural edition in 2009, and neither of the men who had beaten him had entered the 2010 race.

He started out conservatively, and about four men passed him early in the race, he recalls.

But Ness had a plan.

“I knew the course because I’d ran it the year before, so I kinda knew the race wasn’t going to be won in the first six miles, so I didn’t start out fast,” he explains.

The course for the Columbia Gorge Marathon begins in the town of Hood River and heads east toward Rowena before eventually looping back on itself and returning to the start. It is challenging and hilly. One climb is especially grueling: From the eight-mile mark to about 14.5 miles, the course climbs roughly 800 feet.

Hence, Ness’ patient start paid big dividends, as he took the lead with about six miles remaining.

Ness had never previously won a marathon because he typically ran in bigger races such as Twin Cities and Portland (where he set his personal best of 2:53:54 in 2004), marathons with massive fields and often won by professional runners.

His first win was in doubt until the very end.

Unbeknown to Ness over the latter stages of the race, another runner he had previously overtaken was hanging tough. With the marathoners blending in with participants in a half-marathon race being staged simultaneously over much of the same course, Ness did not realize until about half a mile from the finish that the runner in second place was only a few seconds behind him.

“I didn’t have a lot left,” Ness says, “so that’s why I was surprised and scared when I saw him, because I knew if he was coming fast, it would have been hard for me to react to a kick at the end. When I saw him, I just kind of went as hard as I could for the rest of the way. And he was kind of probably in the same situation as me, but I didn’t know that at the time.”

What Ness had left turned out to be just enough. He held off Win Goodbody, of Portland, for the victory in 2:57:13.4.

He won by 8.6 seconds.

“I haven’t won very many (races), so it was really cool to win it, and it gives me more confidence for the future,” he says.

Ness is not sure what his immediate future holds regarding his competition schedule, though he plans to do some cross-country ski racing this winter, make his return to the Pole Pedal Paddle next May, and likely go back to Hood River next fall to try to defend his marathon title.

Perhaps more important, he is definitely back to his old self, as fit as he was before his diagnosis. And his treatment these days is much less rigorous: He has to have blood drawn only two to five times per year.

“There’s a lot worse things that could be wrong with people,” Ness says, “so I feel kind of fortunate in that respect.”

Or to put it another way, just a little bit lucky.

Amanda Miles can be reached at 541-383-0393 or at amiles@bendbulletin.com.

Drunk Monkey

2010-11-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

My friend shot this video, it is classic.

This is fascinating.

2010-06-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Not only do all the pro bikers dope w/ blood, they cheat with batteries too. This is actually pretty convincing. he just takes off from the rest without even looking like he's attacking.

UND Fighting Sioux

2010-04-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Souix are losing their name! Even though I rooted for their hockey team to lose, I liked their logo. I bet the sales for their hockey jerseys will benefit next year (the last year of the Sioux) I even want one!. And football games at NDSU won't be the same either because (at least when I went there) the home crowd often yelled 'Sioux suck shit', even when the team wasn't even playing the Sioux.

At least Ralph Engelstad had around 2,000 Sioux logos embedded into the 100+ million dollar arena the team plays in. Good luck covering up all of them! Now they can replace them with the UND prairie dogs, or UND ground hogs or something.

Shamrock run and Vernonia half

2010-04-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a pretty good race at the Shamrock 15k run in Portland, it was a pretty big race with a combined 20+ thousand people in the 5k, 8k and 15k... But it was nowhere near as memorable as the Vernonia half marathon that I ran yesterday...

In the week leading up to the Vernonia, the weather forecast was for a big storm coming into the PNW with low snow levels of around 1000 feet. I'd never been to Vernonia, but a co-worker of mine lives there and he said the elevation is around 600 feet, so all week I was mentally preparing for battle with rain. Car-pooling to the start with Jerry M, we decided it was a good idea that we left 15 minutes before our planned time, because we were actually getting into some snowy driving conditions. We drove by the finish area, which looked pretty snowy, more like a springtime scene common around central oregon, not Vernonia. We were going to a running race and not a nordic ski race right? The race is point to point, and you get bussed back to the starting area after you finish (sorta like some big midwestern ski races - vasaloppet, birkie).

We made it to the starting area with plenty of time, and although it wasn't snowing, it was damp and low to mid 30s. Not sure how many people there were, but it was alot, They said it was the biggest vernonia 1/2 ever despite the rough weather conditions. The race started and it promptly started to snow! There's a short out and back section for the first 2 miles and then we headed out to Stub Stewart State Park rails to trail trail.

The first 6 or so miles was like running on the springwater trail except there was a feeling of being a bit more back in the woods. As we progressed the snow got a little deeper and although it wasn't snowing or raining hard, it was a steady precip most of the way, with alot of drops and snow clumps falling from the trees. Right around miles 8-10 is where it got more interesting. The pavement turned into a gravel rail bed, and there was mud, snow and big (unavoidable) puddles. it was possible for a while to keep the feet from getting drenched, but after a while the straight line mentality took over and just running right through was the most efficient (and most fun) choice. I was impressed with how my new Nike Lunar Glides drained water though! The last few miles included a steep downhill, cross a road and then a steep uphill in the snow slickened loose gravel, and then a gentle descent to the state park where the finish line was, but not before one last but very unexpected climb in the last 1/2 mile up to the finish line.

The Vernonia 1/2 was definitely a battle this year. There were not very many PR's here today, but I'm sure that everyone that ran Vernonia this year had some pretty good stories. It was definitely a run I'll remember for a while and I'm sure you'd agree if you were there. I managed to run it in 1:25:24 which I was really happy with, considering the conditions. I was shooting for 1:22.5 which would have put my pace faster one of my friendly rival Sean's winning pace at yakima marathon the week prior.

On the bus ride back to Vernonia, the bus driver told us how high the water got during the major flooding the area went through this area a couple of years ago. It was astonishing (it was a really major flood), and aside from some houses that appear to have been raised up, you wouldn't know it. All of the folks helping out were very friendly and the soup at the finish was hot! THANKS VERNONIA! see you next year.

lost (shoes)

2010-02-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

This was to be my 3rd attempt at Hagg Lake to complete the 50k. The first was my best, and also the least muddy. Last year will be remembered as a disaster, and this year I decided to switch to the 25k (only one lap around the lake). The weather was fantastic and we had about 4 sunny and dry days leading up to the race, which lessened the mud situation, but there was still a good amount of mud, which there will always be at Hagg pretty much no matter what.

On the way to the race I had to get gas, and during the fill up with the engine off, i left the car lights on. Upon attempted re-starting the engine, it barely turned over, and I thought, oh crap, come on car!! so after I shut off the lights and waited a few seconds, it still turned over real slow, many times, but eventually fired and i was on my way.

After getting through Forest Grove, I missed the left turn on to scoggins road for Hagg lake, oh crap and it was no big deal, because I wasn't late. And I arrived with plenty of time to chat with the local crowd and jog a little bit. The race started, and the out and back was short, and then we hit the trail. I think I took a wrong turn in the first spot it was possible to take a wrong turn, and didn't lose much time, but it was kind of a bummer. I also realized while trying to make up time, that I have not been racing on trails much and you can't just put it in cruise and hammer out miles like you can on the road, you have to pay more attention on the trail or you'll fall down. So even though I didn't fall down, I attempted to miss a couple of significant mud puddles and pretty much completely failed, getting both shoes wet on the first half.

The second half on the run around the lake I was going OK, and had lost all hope of trying to keep the feet dry, and was monster trucking straight through the mud sections, which was great for the mentality and enthusiasm. But then I missed another turn, and didn't really go too far off course, but did add some distance. You'd think this was my first lap around Hagg lake, but it was actually my 5th (counting the last 2 years).

With about two miles to go one of the dudes in the 50k that we were passing told me I was the 10th one, so I decided to hold that position. Or try to hold that position. I could hear people behind me, but was feeling pretty good as running through the mud (instead of trying to awkwardly avoid it) was great fun. Then on what I thought was a huge mud section (that I didn't remember from years past) with about 1+ mile or so to go, I was racing through it, and it was deeper and stickier than I thought and I lost a shoe. I went a couple more strides before I could turn around and retrieve it, but this thing was buried, and another 25k-er was right there. So I left it and continued with one shoe. I got about 40 yards, and figured out that it really was awkward running with one heavy mud soaked shoe so I took the other one off too, and went minimalist style (socks only) for the last maybe 3/4 mile into the finish, holding off the dude who passed me when I lost the shoe, for an official finish of 9th.

Then, as a slight reward, I was handed the medal for the age group winner for the 30-34 age group!!! wait, I'm 35!??!?! I tried to say, "Well I'm 35" but I think they used the age that you were, when you registered, which I apparently did when I was still 34. So that was pretty cool, even though the dude that I out raced while barefoot in the final mile, who was 10th, was actually really 34 years old and probably should have got the medal, so it was a bit awkward, but the race people told me to keep the medal so I did.

Anyway, it was fantastic weather, and even though I lost the shoe deep in the mud, it was a good race. My next race is officially the shamrock run 15k (thankfully on the road, probably closed roads to boot), but I might go to silver falls next saturday for a low key trail run, and then I hope to run the April 3rd Vernonia half marathon. I will have a busy couple of weeks with important work meetings, job interviews and finishing up two classes at school, so the schedule is a bit up in the air, but the shamrock run is 100% on.

Here's the shoe that made it:

The other one will probably become fossilized and the next civilization will find it in a million years.

Forecast

2009-11-17T15:15:00.001-08:00

OK it usually doesn't rain all day everyday, but not a very sun-shiny forecast. Winter in the PNW. Snow in the mountains though!

Columbia Gorge Marathon saga

2009-11-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

Since I've been meaning to write a post for over a week now to recap the columbia gorge marathon, well, here goes! This year, I really wanted to do a fall marathon. Since my MN days, running the twin cities a few times and chicago, I really wanted to get the feel of another marathon. Running in the fall is just the best. The cool air, the leaves on the trees, can't beat it. I ran Portland marathon in 2004 (our 1st year in Oregon), so that was the last road marathon for me.

I found out about the CG marathon way back last spring when we were having breakfast with our friend and neighbor Susan and her sister Leslie and her husband. Leslie lives in Hood River, and said that they were thinking about organizing it, they found a sponsor, this and that... So I told her to keep me posted. Pretty much immediately when I got word of the race being on, I registered and started thinking about how sweet it was going to be.

Well my training plan was working pretty much perfect. We got back from spain, and I started doing long runs and even some speed work, and I was in pretty good shape, even though I wasn't doing many races, but I was planning on running a 1/2 marathon in Bend 2 weeks before CG marathon. Then, two weeks and six days before the race I was doing a 'recovery' run in Forest Park, and tripped on a rock or root or something, and smacked my ribs pretty hard. I tried running on that Thursday, and was in too much pain. the next week I took it easy but biked one day (felt crappy, ribs hurt). The weekend before the marathon I was able to do some easier running, but it was still hurting. The days leading up to the race it really started to feel better, each day, which gave me confidence that I should at least be at the starting line.

I drove out there on race morning, and was a little intimidated by some of the strong winds in the gorge in the amazingly dark early morning; if it was going to be that windy, the race would not be fun. Finally I arrived at the start area and a few people were around, but it was calm and non crowded as ever. Had a good chat with Leslie, Win (fellow pdx runner) and Kelly (pdx run oregon blogger). Finally made it over to the staring line and found Sean, good buddy (and rival) from central oregon. We chatted, took some photos, and then it was getting time to start. Chad (race director) did a little speech and then he said GO! The 7 or so miles were nice, just chatting with Sean and Win like it was a wednesday noon run or something. Rather uneventful, except that we noticed some of the mile-markers didn't seem right. We got to Mosier and Sean picked up a gu and put the hammer down. I tried to keep him in sight, but was only successful in keeping the 2nd place guy in sight. However, it was at this part of the race where I knew I was going OK (ribs weren't going to stop me today).

One of the coolest moments of the race was near the 1/2 way and high point on the race profile there was a helicopter hovering really low and taking some photos. It felt like we were getting tour de france style coverage! Then it was a right turn and downhill back to Mosier, where I arrived in 2nd place, with no sign of Sean. The long climb back up to the bike bath to hood river was a real grinder, and I was taking it at my pace and went back to 3rd. I did not lose too much time however and still had intentions of trying to catch Joel for 2nd place with even 2.5 miles to go. Then I just said to myself, you are having a great race, just hold on for the finish. The last 2 miles flew by (maybe a little short), but the feeling of finishing this race in sub-2:55 fashion was pretty outstanding, especially after my lack of any workouts that felt decent in the three weeks prior.

Since the marathon, Laurie left for a 2+week trip to Vietnam for operation smile, and I've been really busy with work and school, and it started getting dark really early. What is the point of daylight savings anyway?

Probable

2009-10-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

OK, here are a couple of spain pics (bike related). we were there for almost 2 weeks and saw alot of other stuff (no bullfights), but seeing la Vuelta was pretty memorable.

Here is a pic of big mig! We saw Miguel Indurain. My friend Sean (sorta jokingly) asked me if we saw Indurain in spain, and was surprised when I said yea!!! Other (cycling) stars we saw were Cadel Evans, Fabian Cancellara, David Millar, Tyler Farrar, Vinokourov, Valverde, and a bunch of others. Vino almost won the stage we saw the finish of (he ended up 4th), and why is it that these dopers are worshiped is beyond me sometimes. Especially when 34 year olds are still dropping dead. I'm as guilty a fan as anybody I guess. I hate Valverde, as he is sorta not just a suspected doper, but an actual doper banned in Italy!!! and he is the hero and love of all the spaniards, winning la Vuelta. I guess maybe Contador is a bigger spaniard star, but he didn't show up at la vuelta this year.

As for Cadel Evans, he is the man. I was glad he got world champion stripes, the media makes him out to be a dork, but I think in real life he's a good guy at least from my observation after stage 10. Too bad he got that flat tire at Vuelta.

I thought Millar would have been uglier for some reason... He's a former doper, and now he's on the clean team Garmin, and I was going to say he never wins anymore, but he went on to win the final TT at La Vuelta, so maybe there's hope for the sport.

We're going to the race across the sky movie showing on Thursday, to see the leadville 100 mt. bike race documentary. Should be pretty cool, and I think I'm going to wear the dopers suck wrist bands for fun, and it will probably give me a little inspiration for Sunday (columbia gorge marathon), and future goals, maybe even leadville 100.

Upgraded to probable for the marathon. I'm pretty sure it will be a struggle, but I'm pretty stoked, and have been looking forward to this for a while. The crash a couple weeks ago was luckily after most of my important training, but I still feel like I haven't done enough running (and ate too many donuts) in the last 2 weeks to make a good race out of it (sub 3?). Someday I want to go sub lance (which is somewhere in the 2:50 range). One thing is for sure: running through the tunnel on the way back is going to be awesome, but it's still a ways to the finish.

Day to Day

2009-10-13T17:24:00.001-07:00

After a long lapse, I'm updating the blog. Since updating, we took a pretty sweet trip to Spain, which I hope to post a recap at some point. In short I'll just say that southern spain is a very arid landscape and the weather is hot. We saw the Vuelta

In preparing for the Columbia Gorge Marathon on Oct. 25th, I had been getting into some good form. It's been 5 years since I've ran a road marathon(ran Portland marathon in 2004 in PR time) and I'm really looking forward to this one. The course is challenging and it's got a view of the gorge most of the way. If the weather's bad it could turn out to be an epic cold and windy death march. Two weeks ago I did yasso 800s averaging 2:46 per half mile, which (according to Bart Yasso) translates to the potential of being able to run a 2hr 46min marathon. I pre-ran the final 18 miles of the CGM course felt great. I was all scheduled to run a half marathon tune up last sunday, and then last week, on a 'recovery' run at forest park, I was running on the trail and instead of staying on erickson drive, I needed to warm up so I ran up to the wildwood on wild cherry trail and came back down dogwood, where I proceeded to crash on the down hill, tripping on a root or rock or something. It wasn't running fast, but running downhill that translated into a harder fall, and I didn't catch myself really at all, and basically landed on my side and managed to scrape both the left and right shins (very minor road rash). The worst was the impact to the lower right ribs, and if you've ever had a rib injury you know the drill. Hurts to laugh, hurts to sneeze, hurts to cough. Well try running. So I tried running 3 miles last week and it was not happening. Rested the weekend and got a couple hours on the bike yesterday in a desperate attempt to keep the fitness. Feels a little better this week than last week (but it's more sore after the bike ride), so my status is day to day for the CGM.

I'm nearing completion of school and will be looking to land a job staring in 2010 (around Feb or March). What does that mean? I don't officially get done w/ school until June2010, but I only have one class for the spring term. So the job will probably be here in the valley (portland / hillsboro area). My plans are to get employment in the semiconductor industry as it relates to solar cell manufacturing. The outlook looks pretty good. The program at the school I'm in really could prepare a student for potential employment in the wind, solar (manufacturing), solar (residential), hydro, bio-fuel or electrochemistry (fuel cell) industries. At this point I'm hoping the solar manufacturing thing works out, as I already have an internship at the largest solar cell factory in the Americas. And my senior project (call it Bachelors Thesis) topic is studying the light induced degradation of mono-crystalline CZ silicon solar cells.

Hope somebody still reads the blog, and hope to write a killer race report for the gorge marathon. And if the race doesn't go so well, that's ok, but I should be on the starting line.

2009 Vuelta a Espana - Stage 10 finish

2009-09-27T22:48:00.001-07:00

It goes by pretty quick!!!

here's Simon Gerrans winning stage 10 of LA VUELTA!

Summer

2009-06-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

It's July, it's in the 90s, it must be time for... the Tour!

So the Tour starts tomorrow!! Even though I'm excited for it, I'm not excited about some things. I was pretty excited for Astana, but that was before they left Christ Horner off the tour squad. You can say that one of Contador's spanish buddies got his spot, but in reality, his LordStrong is the one who's there in place of horner...

Now, I really hope either Menchov or Evans can whoop ass on both Lance 'second coming' Armstrong and Alberto Conta-Doper, but I don't really like those guys either. Either that or Levi just crushes everyone, which is unlikely. I pick Sastre to repeat, and Cavendish to get green, and a random doper to get the polka dots. Now maybe I'll just go out and ride my bike.

Anyway, I'm back at it this weekend, with the foot traffic flat 1/2 marathon. Known for hot weather, it won't disappoint, as it's supposed to be in the 90s. So I guess that's about all for now... After using twitter so much lately, it's difficult to get more than 140 characters, but I'll keep trying.

Pre classic

2009-06-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to go to a professional track meet last sunday. The Pre-classic in Eugene is one of the best meets in the USA, in terms of the world class competition. There were no less than 34 Beijing Olympic medalists there... Here are some photos below. The rest are on flickr.

shot put winner below. He attempted a victory lap, but only made it 1/4 of the way around the track:

bowerman mile winner. His victory lap was complete in about 60 seconds, and yes he is as skinny as he looks if not skinnier. About 13 guys went under 4 minutes in the mile. Pre would be proud:

Lashawn Merrit breaking the sea-level world record in the 300m.

Dwight Phillips just after jumping the 5th longest long jump ever, 8.74m (or 28 feet 8.25 inches) holy crap.

Sanya Richards, just before going sub 50 in the 400m.

RIP Sasha Clapper

2009-04-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

We built one bad ass power supply (below), and a sweet electrolyzer. I met Sasha in Spring of 2008, when we were lab partners in Electrochemistry at OIT. The students in our program are diverse and Sasha was no exception. We're talking about a dude with neck tattoos, on one side, the angel whispering in his ear, and on the other side, the devil.

He will always be remembered in the lab for the experiments we ran. Especially when he ignited the hydrogen that we produced in our electrolyzer.

taken 4/21/2009

Rest in peace, my friend, it's not going to be the same at school without you.

iPod charger for earth day

2009-04-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Not enough juice for the iPhone.

Power supply

2009-04-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

School is keeping me busy, with Power Electronics, Heat transfer and Vector calculus. By far the most interesting is power electronics. Why? cause you get to build stuff. Lab 1 of power electronics, we built a power supply. Basically we took a PC power supply and took everything out except the fan, and designed a power supply w/ a 5 volt DC, 12 volt DC, negative 12 volt DC and an adjustable voltage with 1-15 volts DC. It takes power from the wall outlet (120 Volts AC), and converts the power to DC and regulates it. My lab partner Sasha helped. We soldered the board 3 times before we got it right, so we learned some things. The fan runs, although the power supply will probably not generate too much heat, but it's nice to have the fan run, so we at least know the thing is working.

Holy crap, 3 blogs in one day. I'm doing twitter now. yippe.

two wheeled awesomeness

2009-04-21T22:20:00.001-07:00

thanks bro, via facebook

do you have mac envy?

2009-04-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Whistler Olympic Park - trail report

2009-03-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are, back in rainy Portland, after having spent some time up north previewing the Nordic venue for the 2010 Olympics in Whistler. We made it up to Vancouver last Saturday, before heading up to Whistler on the 99. They are totally expanding this road, which basically means they are blasting out a bunch of rocks, to make room for a wider highway. It seems pretty amazing that they are going through all of that just for the Olympics, but I guess, that's what they had to do to get the bid. Now thinking back to last summer watching China's Olympics, w/ the 100,000 seat stadium, I think of what Vancouver has that may be similar? hmmm, they have a metrodome like structure! good luck with that. And whistler has no big venue that holds alot of people, but I guess by comparison, nobody watches the nordic races (compared to figure skating) so they are probably fine. BUT, one third of the events are going to be at whistler Olympic park (between xc, biathlon, jumping and nordic combined).

As for the Nordic trails... well, we had perfect conditions. And hardly anyone was there. Actually there were a lot of people on Sunday, but virtually no-one was skiing on the Olympic course, so it seemed empty pretty much where ever you were skiing. There is over 50k of trails. I have no idea why, but most of the rec skiers stayed on the 'recreational' trails (which were spectacular BTW). As for the Olympic courses, it was my first ski on Olympic class trails, and I thought the hills would have been steeper. They didn't seem as hard as I thought they'd be, but i was not ski racing on them either, I'm sure they are hard enough, but especially the Biathlon trails seemed easy? Camp ripley biathlon had way steeper hills.

We had one day when it wasn't as sunny, but it was still quite awesome. here are some looks:

Like skiing at bachelor on it's best day, with better trails and 100 times better scenery.

start grip tape was grippen and gliden!

These guys spent all day getting the jump ready, but nobody was jumping!

The huge jumps. This event would be the ultimate one to snag tickets for next winter.

Here's a wide view of the stadium, that will look much different next feb.

Podium!

I highly recommend a trip up there to ski, it is amazing. We will be back that's for sure. We just need to find time off, and get hook ups on excellent lodging in whistler, Thanks Belinda!

PC Free

2009-03-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

Got rid of the old PC! If you want it, send me 65 dollars and I'll fed ex it to your door. (but it doesn't work, but the parts still hold at least 100 dollars of value on Ebay.

This is the first post from the new mac mini, which is so far, flawless.

One lab report, and one paper, and one presentation away from being done with Winter term 2009. Should have everything wrapped up in the next 30 hours, but it seems like I need more time. After that, it's looking like we're going to be on our way up to BC to preview the 2010 olympic nordic trails. Holy shit that will be sweet. Full report to follow, from where we go, which is still up in the air, but it's looking like Whistler.

a funny one...

2009-03-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

The outlook...

2009-02-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

So, the blog has been very, well... tired. With all the BSSN internet sites like twitter and facebook, the blog is getting neglected. and it's harder if not impossible to tap out a decent blog post on the iphone, and twitter is super easy, cause posts are short, so I put the twitter feed on the right, but I don't even 'tweet' that much. School has been busy.

So, anyone who comes here with an attempt to gauge (or gage) my fitness level as it applies to running ultramarathons in record time, well they are going to have to wait until Saturday. All I'll say is, I will be at the starting line, and also that I will try to run the first lap at a reasonable pace.

My Hagg mud forecast is also as follows: It will not be unlike last year, and may even be less muddy. We have been having humid air so the grounds are not dry. We just have not had alot of rain, and the rain will hold off until saturday evening or sunday, according to the forecast right now.

The final piece of news for the blog today, is that I have a job interview today.

BSSN: bull shit socail network

Obama

2009-01-20T07:33:00.001-08:00

2008 is gone

2009-01-17T20:26:00.000-08:00

Just for the archives, here's the results... with most recent listed first.

School (half way point.)

2009-01-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

First I have to say the weather has been great for the past 2 days. We're talking 50 degree-sunglasses days, of which, you don't get very many of here, during this time of year.

On to the real blog entry: So, I'm about 1/2 way through my 2nd for-ray in college. So far, I think the most important information I've learned are concepts in mathematics and electronics. Also, I've thought alot about our society's problems (like the financial crisis of 2008) are pretty much a direct correlation of human beings not being able to understand the exponential function. That is, e to the x (or e^x). I am beginning to understand it.

So this winter term of 2009, I'm taking 4 or 5 classes and here they are... Digital Signal Processing (DSP): Hands down the most interesting and awesome class I've taken so far since going back to school. Really cool stuff taught by the most inspiring instructor at OIT. This is not required for the REE program (that I'm enrolled in), but our director is letting us use it as an elective, since 3 of the renewable energy students are taking the clss. I couldn't not take this course. I have in fact considered switching to the EET (electrical engineering technology) program. probably wont... Fluid Mechanics: good concepts, great textbook, horrible instructor. Enough said there, but it's really too bad, because they just hired this guy, and he's basically reading the text to us. Embarrassing really. Photovoltaics: so far, more to do with azimuth angles of the sun and net present value / return on investment than how the shit actually works. Energy Economics: So far (i know it's only been 1.5 weeks) more about boring supply / demand curves that anything too interesting. This is an elective that I'm taking but I'm considering taking this instead: Biofuels and Biomass: even though I don't really expect to go into this in the future, it is probably going to be more interesting that economics. So i don't think I'll stay in 5 classes, but I have to decide by Friday.

This Saturday will be 5 weeks till Hagg Lake 50k. Laurie is doing the 25k this year, so we've got the training plan all set. Like last year, it will be my first race of the year, and I have cautiously optimistic goals, since this will be my 3rd ultra!!! Now I'm a veteran, and probably most importantly, a Hagg veteran. I know now, what that second lap feels like. Holy shit and well, I wasn't going to post anything about this, but we got a new ride, (I should really say, Laurie got a new ride) and it's f^*&ing awesome. Peace out.

subaru impreza outback sport

Big snow, still snowing

2008-12-22T07:25:00.000-08:00

at least a foot

2008-12-21T20:34:00.001-08:00

Well,
here we are in portland, with about a foot of snow!!! no kidding. We've been skiing in the streets for 2 days and the temps in the 20s.

Imagine a foot of snow, and no snow plows, and that's what we have here. The roads where cars have driven are like huge birkie trails, hard packed, flat and wide. Interstate 84 is still closed between portland and hood river, and it's quite obvious that the snow's not going to melt in the next few days, because it's still 25 degrees with temps forecast to stay below 35 for the next few days.

updatey

2008-12-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

Here we are in Portland after a good dump of snow. Well in portland a good dump of snow is about 3 inches, and then sustained below freezing temps. This wouldn't have caused a traffic jam back in MN, but here they basically had I-5 shut down yesterday (unless you had chains on) and basically all of the portland schools are closed today. People don't even walk on the sidewalks. they walk on the grass part becuase they can't really balance on anything that doesn't resemble pavement or cement.

So anyway... all this means that there's finally snow in the mountains, for some skiing. hopefully we'll get up to the tracks within the next few weeks.

I finished finals last week, and it was a bitch, but it went reasonably well, and Now i'm one term closer to being done with school. The highlight of the upcoming term should be digital signal processing. Hope to post updates on the awesomeness of that class.

In other news, I jailbroke my iPhone. Basically that means I can now install any apps. Not just ones apple approves. So don't tell steve jobs, but my iPhone just got a whole lot cooler. Now we can stream live on the internets (via qik.com) Check it out!

It's pretty funny when I realize i was in fact, live on the internet (qik.com).

So anyway, we hope to have more and more wonderful content from the iphone. On the list of things to do for the break is to develop a real iphone application. I built one last September but it wasn't really functional, and then school started, and i had not time for that stuff! we'll see how that goes. I'm geeky like that, and a victim of consumerism in it's finest, i guess. maybe if my iPhone apps take off it will pay off!?!

Autumn Leaves 50k

2008-11-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

Race prep usually includes resting and hydrating and eating pasta. Some people are different, do different things... but usually those three things are pretty common. Well in Minnesota, I had many a race (mostly xc ski races) on the morning after watching a hockey game, and well, why not try to replicate past routines! I attended the winterhawks game Friday night, with some friends from school, some of whom had never been to a hockey game, we had a good time. We heckled the cougars from Prince George, and they heckled me when I left w/ 5 minutes to go in the third, but I had to get home to rest! Running 50k tomorrow. Many of my non-running friends think I'm certifiably insane, no question about it. So anyway... I was not getting the rest that I wanted, but they always say it's the night before the night before that really matters right?

Alarm goes off at 5:30 and I hit snooze. Twice. So that basically made me behind my planned scheduled departure. I ate breakfast a little later than I wanted, and I usually forget things when I'm in a rush. I made it out the door, and was on my way.

I had plenty of time before the race to get my stuff to the right spot, and well wait for about 10 minutes. Today, my warm up was going to be during the race. We got going and a "Team Eugene" guy took off. Seriously fast and he didn't let up the whole race. I guess that's why he's on team Eugene (they are fast). So, I was running with my new friend Win, (that's his name), and basically, he was talking and I was wanted to say, shutup, or slow down, but i did neither and just ran next to him.

The first lap was 10k, and the next 5 are 5 miles, and we did the first 10k in about 41 minutes. That was faster than I wanted to, but hey, I was doing fine, so I stopped for some gu, and continued on. The race morning was awesome for running. at most 50 degrees, and sunshine, calm winds. So after that first lap, I took off one of my (3) layers. Now overall, the course was really good, with about 2/3 of the loop being paved trail, and the other 1/3 being real trail. The one gripe I had started during the second lap, when we hit the 1 mile out, 1 mile back section on the same path, so essentially we covered this 12 times over the course of the race. boooring. But you could see the competition which is good (if your 'on') or bad (if you're fading). At this point I couldn't really tell, but I knew I was in 3rd place after the 2nd lap, which I covered easily in about 34 minutes. So that was my planned pace (35 minute 5 mile loops).

This was my first time doing this run and the flyer says 'the loop can be considered very flat and very fast' I'd tend to agree with that. If you want to run a fast ultra this is one good chioce. They did add a small hill this year but it's really small, so it's not really a factor, unless you slip on wet leaves... So I didn't slip on the leaves, don't worry.

The third lap I considered the half way lap, which thinking about this, was really not half way until the 3rd lap is complete. but I needed to think it was half way for moral support. I was still feeling really good, and I think I was down to my sleeveless T at this point, because it was so nice out. It must have pepped me up, because I did the 3rd lap in about 33 minutes. Yea! ahead of pace. Maybe I could turn this into a sub 3 marathon!??! The end of lap 5 is the marathon split. But first I had to do lap 4. Each time going around the loop, I kept seeing the same people... So some were doing the 50 miler, some the 50k, and some even started at 6am... but on the return stretch I saw some of the same people. So I thought Hmmm, he must be chasing me. At this point I knew I was in second place (Win quit after lap 3), with the first place guy, way way out front. So anyway. Lap 4 was just under 35 minutes. I was slowing a bit, still running 7 minute miles. Good enough. still ahead of pace. Honestly my goal today was sub 4. I'd be happy with that. I also thought, it would be cool to run boston pace for a 50k (3:10 marathon pace). I also thought it might be awesome to run sub Meissner in 2006, when he did this same event in 3:40:18. AH HAA a challenge. We're pretty good rivals, at least from 2004-2007 in the bigfoot 10k in Bend, but he usually wastes me in the long stuff, but he's also got way more experience with them. And come to think of it, we only raced a 50k together once. Anyway, I hit the marathon in about 3:01. pretty sweet. Sean said if I hit the marathon in 3:00 I'd have no trouble going under his time. My pace however was slowing. I had 39 minutes to run the last 5 mile loop, after running 26.2 already. My split after the first 2 of the last 5 miles was 15:30, so I was beginning to think I could do it, sub 8 minute miles. We got to the out-n-back section and I saw Stan pacing his wife running (Stan who put together the pumpkin run in N. Bonneville a couple weeks ago) and I asked "would you tell anybody if I turned around now??, we got a laugh about it, but I knew, that 3rd place was not far behind me, and sure enough i got passed right before the turn around, oh well. I was still well ahead of planned pace having a good time (suffering).

The trail section was hard on this last lap. I wasn't running fast, but I was really fighting for it. I got to the line, and the clock said 3:39:59, and then 3:40, and I was like Shit Yea. I guess my 'official' time was 3:40:14, Pretty unbelievable. The ultra running crowd is second to none, it's sure a welcoming and friendly bunch.

So it was a really struggle, those last five miles, but it just goes to show you... keep on keepin on!

Also, I did this run with no ipod. I had planned to bring along the shuffle, only to figure out I left it in the car right when the guy said "1 minute 30 seconds to start", so, maybe that's just as well. Lots of solo time out there in these ultras compared to bike racing and other shorter events.

Anyway! Happy running!

I-84 EAST.

2008-11-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

Well a tired Laurie made it to Thailand after a marathon flight plan that went from PDX to Tokyo (11 hrs), then from Tokyo to Bangkok (7 hrs), and then an 8 hour bus ride to Mae Sot, the site of the Op Smile mission. woah. Send her email she has limited access. Might not respond right away, but I she will get them.

In more local news, make sure and check out the photos from the bonneville dam tour we went to yesterday. It was pretty cool.

I went up early with James, with the intent of running the Pumpkin run 5 miler in North Bonneville, WA. We planned to leave a little early... but I ended up showing up about 5 minutes late, and then James wasn't at the pre-determined meeting place either. Since I was late, I didn't feel like calling him right away, and he showed up at about 4 minutes to 8 (planned departure was 7:45am) The race start was 9am (as indicated on the website of the Columbia Gorge Running Club). We still had enough time to get there. So as we rolled out, we pondered a little on whether or not to take the washington side (hwy 14) or the Oregon side (I-84). At the last moment, I decided to take the oregon side, thinking the time saved would be worth the $1 toll on the bridge of the gods. I exited off of I-205, onto I-84. Only problem was, it was I-84 west. not East, like we wanted. Never make this mistake, even if your not in a hurry. Because there are no exits for miles, and then when you finally get to an exit, you can't just go over to the other side and get back on the interstate going the other direction.

Where was the damn GPS when we needed it. The iPhone sucks for turn by turn directions, unless you want to get in an accident... So we weaved through some city streets, and basically got every red light, and finally, after at least 2 U-turns, found I205, and then got on the right path. We figured we were not going to make it to the run on time, so we figured we'd go anyway, and just run, since it was on trails, and we did have time before the Dam tour at 10am.

We finally made it to N. Bonneville, and what do you know... the race hadn't started yet! so we paid our 2 bucks, and tried to keep warm for a few mintues before it got started. It seemed like if they would have started any later, we would have been late for the dam tour.

The run was good... 4 pretty much flat miles on a very nice trail with views of the gorge and then an unexpected 5th mile that was 3/4 up hill. Not like the uphill at Mac 15k, but brutal still. I ended up 3rd, and got an awesome pumpkin pie, a free 6 inch at subway (in stevenson, WA), a $5 certificate for tha bahma coffe bar in stevenson, and a coffee giftcard for Jolindas in stevenson that doesn't say how much its worth. Pretty sweet for $2 bucks for the entry fee! If you're going through stevenson, i'll hook you up w/ lunch and coffee. Let me know!

Joe Dudemans race report here.

We got to the Dam tour at 10:10, and Lee Sheldon (our professor) wasn't there yet, so all was good on a day where we could have used the extra hour that we got today!!! Too bad there aren't more days when we fall back. Wouldn't it be sweet to set your watch back an hour more days of the year? After the tour we went to the infamous Char Burger (Lee's favorite hang out) for lunch and ate the pumpkin pie that I won earlier in the day.

Bonneville dam slideshow here. (click photo for caption)

Non-acedemic plans over the next few weeks:
Vancouver fall 5 mile
Champeog autum leaves run (which distance? hmm)
Hood River turkey trot

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T21:52:00.000-07:00

I will spare you the spam email, and simply ask you to click this link for a laugh.

http://tinyurl.com/56m8h3

Thanks Sean.

and, for what it's worth, i already voted by mail, because that's what they do in Oregon.

As for other comments on the whole election thingy, it's pretty interesting how it's playing out. The national media seems to bey way pro-obama, and all the polls say he's leading, but it's getting closer and closer as we approach the election... or is it...? They just want everyone and anyone to watch the TV on Nov 4th, because that's all they care about is ratings. The newspapers are all going bankrupt, so TV man, that's where its at for the media moguls.

We have had a president for the last 8 years that pretty much nobody likes, that won in 2000 by the slimest of margins... and could have easily have gone the other way, if not for a few idiots in Florida. GWB started a war, can't stop the endless campaign in iraq, and is now pretty unpopular, even with the repbulcans. you don't see him campaigning for Mccain, at all. And he's repbulican, it's pretty apparent that the voting public has shown it's disdain for the decisions of the president, and is taking it out on the party by putting alot of democrats in the senate and house. If Obama wins, we'll have a supermajority, whatever that is. Is that good? probably not, but I think its worth a try.

It seems that the country is more divided than ever. The people that don't like Mccain, really, really don't like him, and the people who don't like Obama really, really don't like him. That's not good. We have two types of people here as I see it. You've got the what I'll call, new-school versus old school thought train. I know that not everything is perfect with Obama, but you know, Mccain picked Palin for fricken sakes. What kind of judgement is that?

To me, it's mostly about inspiration. One of the candidates in this election inspires, and one does not so much.

Who inspires you?

Finally

2008-10-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

A blog post!

Well it's been a while since I updated, and I guess that's because not much exciting has been going on. It's been real nice fall here in Portland, the leaves are turned. It's been mostly rain free, except for a day here and there, and lets just say, that we'll take that as long as possible.

Last year I was cyclocrossing, but this year, I havn't really got race fever yet. It's been more popular than ever, and all the races up here are breaking records in terms of riders, which is great. I have gotten in some epic road rides around the northwest hills which is always fun. (Westwood st. up to council crest, west 57th, thompson to skyline, then up old germantown road. yea.) As far as the running goes, the ankle feels ok; I'm lacing them up for a 15k trail run near corvallis tomorrow. I won't break my records, but hopefully will show up on time this year. After that it's going to be cruise control until I turn on the mileage in January, to get ready for my second Hagg. That's the plan.

I've been coaching some workouts with the PDX nordic ski training group, sponsored by XC-Oregon. There's been an average of about 16-25 people per weekend, and that's alot for Portland. I've helped out last year, and there was an average of about 3 people per week, so the excitement is building you could say! I think the nicer fall weather has been a big plus too. As far as the coaching goes, we do a mix of strength, technique and intesity training in a 90 minute session. I'm not exactly yelling: Come-on dirtbags!!! get your asses up the hills, but today lets just say they were sweating.

Next week Laurie leaves to Thialand, for a few weeks of op smile medical mission, and travels... but I'll still be here. Our Hydro instructor is taking us on a tour of the Bonneville Dam next weekend; he knows pretty much everything about hydro-electric dams and pretty much invented the things, as far as he's concerned.

the break in review

2008-09-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Six weeks off, well sorta. I still managed to work under 20 hours per week so it wasn't complete off time, if you know what I mean. The spirits are high and the future looks good, despite continued possible world financial melt down and eminent government bail out. The break started out...

with a day trip to the coast. It was one of those 100 degree days inland, where it's about 60 at the coast. Pretty special for the dogs who pretty much

The macbook just crashed a while ago (and the blogger autosaved the above, so I'm just leaving it), and now I'm on the PC. Sux for me. Hopefully the macbook comes back to life tomorrow, but it's not looking good right now.

Anyway, the dogs loved the beach. Then it was on to Minnesota for Labor day weekend! It was some great weather (in the 90s), and we got to spend some time at the lake with family. Too bad we couldn't stay longer, but we both left with a little bit of a chest cold.

Then I planned to do some 10ks and a half marathon (Laurie did the 1/2 marathon along w/ Kelli and Kyle above!), to get back into shape. I did the first 10k, and it was pretty good. On the Tuesday after the P2P 10k, I sprained my ankle ending all hope of running any other races during the break. Oh well. I've been getting some rides in at least, and the ankle is finally feeling better.

I got to go sailing w/ a friend from school in his catamaran and after several hours of fun sailing we were nearing the end of the day, and caught an unusually strong gust of wind and flipped the thing. I ended up sitting on the top cat up in the air, and he was in the drink with his son. So we did manage to get it upright, but it wasn't easy. All in all, it was fun.

Then last week, we went to Bend for the weekend, after not being there much at all for the last year (and then some). The whole weekend, we hardly went anywhere without running into someone we knew, which felt kinda good, (but admittedly was a little weird), but just reinforces the small town-ness of Bend (that we miss) and that we don't get much of here in Portland.

So school starts on Monday, so it will be good to get back in the mix with the other clowns /er students again, we have a pretty good group. I'm looking forward to new classes this term. It's like a chance at a new start. Also, Laurie is going to be in Thailand (w/ OpSmile) in November for 3 weeks so send care packages around halloween. :D

And I watched the debate the other night, and I found it real interesting how Mc-Cane (sic), basically ignored Obama when Obama said we have to restore America's reputation in the world, because the world view of the USA is basically pretty shitty. McCane (sic) is an old timer that has all this 'experience', but I'm saying that all that experience he's got, is just what got us into this mess (or all of these messes) and we need some new life running the show up there. holla if you hear me! WORD.

Now lets just hope the bail out works.

P2P

2008-09-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Battled through a strong chest cold for days, I didn't know how I would feel, but I felt good enough to run the pints to pasta 10k. The name implies there's pints at the start and pasta at the finish, but that's not quite accurate. Both are at the end of the race, but it goes from (near) the widmer brewery to the old spaghetti factory in portland. A more accurate name would be strips to pints and pasta, because the actual start is at the North American Adidas headquarters (Adidas = 3 stripes) and there's free beer and pasta at the end (at 9am!).

Since it was point to point, and I didn't want to ride the school bus to the start, I decided I needed another training run to prepare, so I ran to the start (a tradition at bigfoot 10k in bend). The race is downhill for the first mile and then mostly really flat after that. I took that as a free fast mile, just was going to pace it easy down the hill to 1M and then start to race. With that tactic, I essentailly turned the 6.2 mile race into a 5.2. mile race.

It was a really hot day, and I felt slow, but hit three miles in just under 18 minutes. I just tried to hold on, and amazingly the miles just clicked by, but I still felt slow. The final time: 37:34! 6:03 pace. woo hoo.

Race 1 of 3 is complete in my 'fall weekend footrace before school starts' season. Next up Timberline half marathon next sunday. Sean says I should run the marathon the day before, but it's filled up! So there that's my excuse. The next weekend is bend bigfoot 10k.

Time to get in shape

2008-09-06T19:25:00.001-07:00

Joe Nathan

2008-08-27T16:16:00.001-07:00

Eddie G

2008-08-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

1st pitch

2008-08-27T13:41:00.001-07:00

Hydrogen fuel cell

2008-08-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

iRyan

2008-08-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it took about one week into summer-vacation, and gadget fever overcame me. Got an iPhone!!! What does that mean for the blog? More photos! woo hoo. I also got a new phone number: -5.0.3-7.0.3-3.5.4.7-

We're headed to MN this week, for the holiday weekend.

then it's back to business w/ 3 races in 3 weeks, and no school until Sept 29th! :D

Twilight Crit

2008-08-12T16:55:00.001-07:00

In the midst of finals week, writing a race report:

8.8.08, portland twilight criterium sponsored by healthnet; cat 3, $3000 at stake.

It was a perfect example of an American criterium: short technical 800 meter loop, bumpy, L shape around downtown Portland city blocks.

The race started. 1st 4 corners were intense. Crowded road, sprint out of each corner, heavy breaking into the next. Speed increased. Eventually (1 lap) we were strung out all the way. I thought I was last rider. I glanced back, and there were people behind me. Good, I thought, at least I'm not last rider. Now move up. Course was too technical to pass very much. Then a dude crashed on the straight away after the start finish and slid on what looked like his cheek bone on the curb for 10 meters with his legs up in the air. Then more crashes. In the corners. Each time, the riders in front didn't even notice, kept going. Riders behind the crashes (like me) in back slam on the breaks to avoid the pile up and carnage, and then desperately sprint to try and catch back on. Found my self in a group of maybe 10, and I thought we weren't that far back, but they weren't going full gas. So I went full gas for about 2 laps, and then it was someone elses turn. But it wasn't enough and we were pulled just short of 1/2 way through. I complained to the officials and told them we should have all gotten a lap, because we were all held up by multiple crashes, but they still pulled us, then I apologized a few minutes later for complaining. I do have to say the the Oregon racing association (OBRA) is top notch and they put races on like none other.

Through the crashes and suspense, it was fun. Got the fever back so to say. More races on the horizon, after this week though.

Big Day, plus news, etc. (long post)

2008-08-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back in the blog-o-sphere, and taking a time out to update the world on everything going on out here. Today was all-in-all a decent day. Still have next week with 4 final exams, 2 presentations / demonstrations, but today was big progress.

This summer I'm taking a 'Fuel Cells' course. It basically consists of learning how fuel cells work, what they are good for and why we may need to put effort into learning and advancing this technology. Part of the course is a lab, and in that lab, my group's assignment is to build a real fuel cell. I'm talking hydrogen fuel cell here. Sounds pretty far out, and dare I say-futuristic or amazingly complicated? You may think it is complicated, but it's actually quite simple, and finally today, on week 7 out of 8, we connected our fuel cell to the H₂ gas line.

Keith & Jeff and I were pretty much worried sick about the whole thing and even though we still probably would have done a good job in the eyes of Bob, the professor, if it didn't work, it would be a bit de-moralizing. The cell was pretty much finished on Monday, and we planned to do final assembly it and connect it to the gas today. The first step was assembling it. Keith and Jeff were basically chomping at the bit to get this thing together, and I was like, cool it boys, we don't have to rush this process here (because they were almost shaking they were so focused on getting this thing together). It got together, and we did a pressure test (w/ about 7 PSI) and it was not successful. One of our electrodes needed to be sealed up. We sealed it and re-connected the electrode. No problem, sealed ready to go. Then Keith got a little excited and as he was tightening one of the gas valves, broke the electrode off. Luckily, the screwed in part was still threaded in the plexi glass (only way to fix this, is to re-build this half of the cell (photos are coming soon, I promise). Luckily we could still measure the voltage using a needle tip multi-meter. So we were still OK to continue.

Next step: Connect gas. We are connecting pure oxygen to one end, and hydrated hydrogen in the other end. We were putting the hydrogen through a erlymeyer flask with warm/hot water, because the middle layer of the fuel cell requires hydration to work optimally. So we finally got everything connected, I put my goggles on (because we've had explosions in the lab before during this process), and turned on the gas. There was no explosion, but instead of injecting hydrated gas go into the fuel cell, the hydrator that we connected sent water at about 5psi into our fuel cell. We (I) hooked up the hydrator wrong. So that wasn't the best case, and we could have very well been ruined right there. In hindsight, this may have acutaly helped us, because it ensured that our nafion was really hydrated. (Nafion: the expensive part of the fuel cell)

When we finally got the hydrogen running through our fuel cell we measured a no load voltage of 997 mV (the perfect ideal voltage for a hydrogen fuel cell is 1.229 volts). We were pretty stoked and it pretty much made the term, so far. Alot went in to building this thing and even though the design is pretty simple, it is a pretty cool project. I will get photos up.

- The other summer school project is a pretty cool system we're building for Motors class. Someone (me) had the idea to attach some kind of contraption to a bike wheel to generate useful power. We attached magnets the rim, and those magnets pass by a couple of coils, which create a voltage that lights low voltage super high intesity LEDs. It works pretty well, and we are finalizing our design, and once I have the pics downloaded you'll see them here (or on my flickr site).

- Friday I'm bike racing. Finally. Unbelievably it's the first bike race of 2008 for me and it's none other than the Portland twilight criterium, cat 3, 6:30 pm. I might be off the back, but not without a fight. There's $3000 purse, so it might just be the Pacific northwest Cat 3 world championships. Should be fun...

- We've been stocking up on blueberry's every weekend, and our freezer is about full of them. If anyone has any suggestions on long term berry storage let me know, because I think they tend to ice up in the freezer. We already made about 8 cans of JAM, and a pretty awesome pie.

- The garden is doing really well. The highlight so far have been lots of green beens, and in a few weeks we are going to have WAY more tomatoes than we will know what to do with. We have 3 corn stalks, and the some of the sunflowers are about 9 feet tall.

- Going to MN over laborday weekend, but leaving out of seattle. We got tickets to the Mariners at Safeco field, and they play none-other-than, the Twins, so I'm super stoked about that, especailly since the twins continue to kick ass, even though they trade all their good players, like Johan Santana an Torii Hunter. I'll be the one w/ the Joe Mauer T-shirt on in section 139.

- Tonight the Statics teacher bought pizza for the class. Pretty nice dude, thanks Joey.

- Tonight, to celebrate the last statics lecture, went to the witchita pub w some classmates. I biked there, and the other 5 renewable energy students each drove seperately. (We are renewable energy students, not energy conservation students I guess).

- Bike commuting is in full effect: Get this: in July, Laurie and I didn't get gas in the car. We did in June, (and we did a huge road trip to Montana in June, so we got alot of gas in June), but during July, we didn't need to get gas once in either the subaru, or the rally car. Take that OPEC. I don't know when the last time that happened in this household but I think it was a long, long time ago, and maybe never.

- That's it. Now the schedule is: work then school on Thursday, work then bike race on Friday, homework / study on sat-sun, one final on Monday, two finals on Wed, one on Thur, then the two presentations / demos on Friday. Then no school till sept 29th. woo hoo!

Breaking News...

2008-07-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

This must be a record for new blog posts for me... What is this like 3 in a week? The news today was just too important not to pass on. I just saw on Velonews that old friend and current pro bike racer (in Europe) Kori Seehafer (was Kori Kelly) won a world cup event in Sweden. Click here for the link! I think she's trying to get selected for the olympics which would be totally awesome. Go KORI!

I went to college with Kori at NDSU and we were even house-mates for a summer. She started bike racing with the club at NDSU right around the time I did... now she's pro and kicking ass, and I'm back in college. go figure...

Peak oil for fun and profit

2008-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Tour

2008-07-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here's to the Bjarne Riis tour drama! As evel put it: Riis should have just come out of retirement and won the tour himself. In any case, Sastre seems like a nice guy, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for Cadel (see multiple Youtube's below).

Matt Simmons

2008-07-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Note the 'deer in headlights' look of the idiot anchor people, after some of the comments Simmons makes...

Get used to high oil, etc.

Status Update

2008-06-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

Went to Montana for a week during the break between spring and summer term. It was fun, check out the photos (see flickr feed). Saw a real live, wild black bear. It was exciting. Also spent some time in the beautiful Hamilton area in the bitteroot valley. Pretty awesome.

Back in school this week... Classes:

Fuel Cells - pretty interesting. we're building a hydrogen fuel cell, all we have is the PEM membrane (nafion) and the carbon electrodes. We have to design and build everything else. We will document that here on the blog for sure.
Electrical machines (motors) - might be pretty cool. One of the labs will be our choice. I'm considering building a generator that will mount on a bicycle trainer so I can generate power while riding bike.
Physics 3 - the standard 3rd term of physics. if there was one of these classes that was considered the easiest, this would be it.

I was going to take a third class, that meets tuesday and wednesday evening. But sitting in on a lecture from this instructor is like taking too many benedryl. (hopefully you know when that happens, you fall asleep). The guy is boring, and with physics meeting on thursday nights, I'm going to open up the tuesday and wednesday nights. Maybe I'll get sane again.

[Update: I didn't drop the third class (statics) yet. Will reconsider after a couple of weeks.]

I'm still working, until further notice I guess. The job is going to continue, for now anyway. Not all bad... but that sorta just means I have absolutley no time for anything except school, work and writing a blog post every 2.5 weeks. I will be able to control my hours a little better now though, so I will work less :D

supposed to be 97 degrees tomorrow. hippie ray! wait thats a little too hot.

levi and horner are riding the cascade this year. Damn I wish I was racing, but I think we'll go watch this year. Not too many chances to see the dude who was 3rd place in the tour de france racing (and the dude who was 11th for that matter).

Also in Eugene is the olympic trials. A huge deal down there. It would be totally awesome to be watching that too. I guess it's good for the sprinters that its suppsed to be 100 degrees, but the gal on the radio today ask the person she was interviewing if it would be a problem for the distance runners...

Well, that's all for this edition of the blog. Check back next time for more information for your enjoyment.

Don't call it a comeback

2008-06-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Ran the 3rd event of the year last Saturday, 5k starlight run. It was pretty fun running along the parade route (right before the parade). Lots of people running & watching, but this race is more known for a quite substantial costume contest. It was quite a scene. For a race that expected 3000 runners (and had 3000 last year) I was not too impressed w/ the organization, but I think the costume contest was pretty organized, and that's what seemed to matter.

The big news though is more media coverage for OIT's renewable energy program. A couple weeks ago, the reporter for OPB (oregon public radio) was in da house. Unfortunately it just so happened that he was there the day after we blew up our electrolysis experiment and that was still the talk of the class, and well, I'll just have you listen for yourself.

Click Here. There's a text article and a link to listen to what went on the radio.

The media guy had to focus on the explosions, I guess it gets better ratings. We really didn't intend to portray the school as some sort of mad science lab. And, as for our experiment (the boring one), we were trying to get an over unity reaction (more hydrogen potential energy than energy put in as voltage). The best efficiency we managed was about 52%. Not quite over 100, which we were going for. The first student is graduating with the degree this spring, and the Oregonian newspaper was there today; I'll pass that along if I find it. Like many of the students this is not his first degree, he's got an electrical engineering degree and an MBA.

So that's going to be it for blogging until after the spring term is over. Finals next week. Then 1 week off, then summer term. Hopefully summer comes soon here. If you take out one weekend when it was 95 degrees, it's been pretty shitty weather since about last November. But this is why it's known to rain all the time in Portland. Summer is supposedly starting on July 4th.

Old river ramble

2008-05-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I got back into the scene today with a 10k in West Linn called the old river ramble. I have not been racing much and certainly not training for any racing but when the race number gets pinned on, all bets are off. But expectations were low (but Sub 40 was a must ;). It was a pretty nice day, after 2 days in the 90s it was in the 70s with full sun. The course was along the willamette river in West Linn and Lake Oswego, and wound through Mary Young state park.

My only race strategy was to not start too fast and get passed by 5 people during mile 3, when I couldn't go any faster. I saw Wendy (a local all-star), and i decided to pace myself with her. It was a good plan, but I probably would have started a bit slower than the 5:39 that we ran. But it felt ok and I just went. The race sort of reminded me of a Nordic race in Bend, only you can replace XC-Oregon, with Team Red Lizard. I think all the people in front of me had red lizard shirts on, which is cool. They have a strong club up in here. So anyway... back to the race, it seemed to fly by all of a sudden we were going up hill and it was mile 5. I heard a guy breathing hard in back of me and I decided to drop that fool, and try and catch Wendy. I didn't quite catch her, but I turned in a solid 38:53. Not a PR, but hey, it's a course PR!

Next up is the starlight 5k at the end of the month. 3000+ people, along the rose festival parade route.

After the race, we biked downtown to see Barack Obama. Turns out, about 72,000 other Portlanders had the same idea. It was pretty cool, and you have to wonder if Hillary would have had the same kind of turnout. Here's the view we had. He started out the speech by saying wow like 10 times. It was a pretty massive crowd. (my first you-tube upload below).

Electrolysis

2008-05-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

School is about it these days. Still have a job, and that tends to get in the way of academics, which seems to be the priority these days. Still running, but the race schedule is a bit up in the air right now. Some good experiments going on in electro-chemistry. If you've noticed the photos in the flickr side bar, we built a Cu-Zn daniels cell, that measured 1.05 volts. So it worked, but it really wasn't that exciting. Yesterday, things got a bit more exciting. We built an electrolyzer, to capture hydrogen, and see how much we could get out of some KOH (potassium hydroxide). Well, it was working really good with while pumping about 2.5 volts in there. We were getting way more bubbles than I thought we would, so I guess you could say the experiment was a success. Next week we'll take more precise measurements. Here's a rough diagram of our design:So there you have it. But that's not the end of the story.

We asked Bob (professor) if there was a safe way we could 'light' the hydrogen. (Heck, it was already mixed with oxygen right there for us) He said "well, not really", in a sort of confused tone. Problem was, my lab partners were focused on this endeavor, to light the gas. (even though it was not part of our thesis for this experiment.) Somehow I think they must have thought it would burn like natural gas on the stove, you know gently. I thought more along the lines of the hindenburg. So, with goggles on, (lab partner 1), [aside: lab partner 1 has a few tatoos, and he has 1 behind each ear, on the left, is a whispering devil, and on the right is a whispering angel] borrows (lab partner 2) lighter, and proceeds to "burp" the hydrogen up (think like your farting in the bathtub). I was already back about 5 feet with my arms shielding my head, when all of a sudden this Super loud POP, and lab partner 1 drops the beaker (didn't break), but it did give us a good scare, and I think my life flashed before my eyes for a second. We apologized to Bob for being wildly inappropriate, and I think he might give future classes a brief lecture on safety (or maybe just common sense). No one got hurt, so we got a little bit of a laugh out of it.

Today we had the midterm in Circuits. It wasn't too bad. The final will be much harder according to Mateo (Mateo=professor, see link on right). A couple of weeks ago he showed us a computer program he wrote to predict the price of stocks. Today while we were taking our midterm, he filed a patent application for something that was related to platforms for collecting and analyzing biomedical research. He's also 27 years old, so I guess you could say he's pretty smart. Great guy to learn from here at OIT. He also assigned to us what he told us is about 15 hours worth of homework for next week (class meets once/week). Hmm. I have tomorrow and Friday set to work at my job, Saturday afternoon is Diff. Eq (yea saturday class what the hell is that?), Sunday i guess I know what I'll be doing. (NOT BLOGGING that's for sure.)

Next week is the MT HOOD CYCLING classic. Last year it was an awesome experience, racing with the cat 3s, and this year, well, the only riding I'm doing is bike commuting, so no racing next week for me. Laurie however is going to be volunteering with doping controls, to see if she can catch some of those doped up cyclists. And the first 2 stages are here in Portland this year!!!! Tuesday the prologue is going to be downtown, and it should be spectacular. I however, will be in class.

hosta la veesta.

Gas price

2008-04-23T18:59:00.001-07:00

I know it's pretty high historically speaking, and everyone (radio, TV, sidewalk, etc) is talking about it, but I've been keeping track since sept. 2005, and here's the history at least here in Oregon, at least what we paid. I also have fuel mileage numbers, but that's another post.

The moving average is definitely on the up and up, but is 2.90 really that much different than 3.50? It might force a small shift to something other than business as usual (I use that term from an economists point of view), but if the economy goes south (like it is), the demand for gas will go down (and it actually has since last year), causing the price to go back down, and then we'll be back to where we started. The one factor that might cause problems with that theory is the simple fact that we can't pump oil any faster than we are right now. We'll need to have a shift in the model of our economy that needs infinite growth and is dependent on cheap oil (or should I say energy).

As for school, well, it's school, and I don't know what other engineering programs are like, but I may have picked the hardest one. Last year I was preparing for the PPP, and this year I'm doing lab reports in IEEE format. What would I rather be doing? hmm.

Shout out to my buddy Sean, who ran Boston Marathon! He was bummed that he didn't make his goal time, but he still kicked ass and beat my PR marathon time by 3 minutes! Good Job, and I wish I'd have been there!

peak hockey

2008-04-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

NHL Playoffs are here. It will be a while before they're over, and we'll wonder why the season is so long during the finals, but they start tomorrow and I have to get my predictions in.

Last year I predicted every series in round one, and I didn't get very many right. This year I'm only going to make a couple of predictions.

The east finals: Pittsburg vs Montreal. (MTL in 5)
They haven't been this excited in Quebec for along time! I really should be too excited about that prediction, because they are the 2 best teams in the east. But who cares, there you have it.

The west finals: san jose vs Minnesota. (MN wins in 7 games)
provided the Wild can avoid playing the Ducks.

I usually would not pick a team from California to make it this far, because most of my picks are based on geographic location rather than team skill.

Finals MN Wild over Canadiens in 6 games. Real original I know, especailly after my picks last year, but really how cool would it be to have that matchup?

Presidential Encounter (sort of)

2008-03-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

The place where I work had the former president [William 'Bill' Clinton] come by for a campaign speech. It [the speech] was at 9:30am, and I had to work from 7:30am-11am and since it was the first day back [at work] after being off all week, I couldn't really get away. Plus, I think the line was so long that if you weren't standing in it at 8am, there was no chance you were getting in.

So I'm riding [my bike] home, and I run into a road block [on the OHSU campus]. What the heck? Must be some sort of [medical] emergency, or some sort of [presidential] motorcade! So I took the long way around to get in position for a good view, and although the security guys were real nice they [because they were under the orders of Secret Service] made us move back too far to really get a good look and give BC a big high five or something. I could only manage this shot with my cheap phone:

When he walked around the bushes, I saw his face, and it was a face I'd only seen on TV screens and stuff, so when I saw him walking in a spot I walked on only 2 minutes earlier, i was a bit shocked. It was almost like my brain took a snapshot of that moment, and that image will be in there for ever.

So we had a good spring break [at Orcas Island]. More on that later. Spring term [at OIT Portland] started today; back at school today through mid June [when we get another whole week off. woo hoo.]. Here's a rundown of what's ahead for me [acedemically] this spring:

CHE260 - Electrochemistry (w/ batteries & fuel cells) w/ Lab
REE241 & REE242 - Electrical Power w/ Lab
EE225 - Electric Circuits III (Laplace transforms / applications) w/ Lab
MATH321 - Differential Equations

Just a whole lot of fun there. Even more if you take into account that the math class meets from 1 to 4pm on Saturday!? Nothing like ruining every weekend until June, huh?

NHL Playoffs begin in a couple of weeks and like last year, I'll be submitting my playoff predictions! Stay Tuned!

[I made some edits to this blog because it was quickly written btwn classes and when I re-read it, some things may not have made sense.]

NY Times

2008-03-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

Nice read here.

We're back from NW Washington.

Rode the ferry to Orcas Is.

Been there done that.

Caught the wild game Sat. night (hockey night) on CBC tv from Canada!

2 down 1.5 to go

2008-03-18T22:03:00.001-07:00

Two finals done yesterday. 1 more Wednesday evening, but not before circuits II lab presentation at 1pm. We're not exactly making any new discoveries (yet anyway), but we did manage to build a mini transformer with an iron ring and some wire. It even worked. Pretty damn awesome. The presentation should be stellar. I wish I could say that about the circuits final. It was pretty hard. I have no chance at an A in circuits, but I do in Chemistry (the other monday final) and physics (the wednesday final) and WR327 (no final). We'll see how it ends up.

Spring break technically starts no more than 120 minutes after 5:30pm PDT, Wednesday.

We're going to this on Thursday. Should be awesome.

Then we're going here on Saturday.

Hopefully more exciting things to blog about than magnetomotive force and faraday's law.

Later

Training science

2008-03-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've been known to do athletic competition from time to time. Pretty much anything that includes running, bike riding, xc skiing, and is anywhere between 1kilometer and up. I used to do Triathlons, but I retired after Ironman Wisconsin 2003.

I recently shared some of my training science with my bike team (Therapeutic Associates, Inc). See post here. You'll see a nice graph of my power output on the 80 mile stage that happens on Saturday, the third day of a difficult 4 day stage race. While they're out racing around Hagg Lake on road bikes, I'm still sorta recovering from 2 stinkin laps around Hagg on foot, and baring down on finals week that is less than 7 days away.

But, before all that, I thought I'd give you a little race day graph (kinda like you get if you have an ipod nano, and nike shoes, only better.) I made my ultra running debut a few weeks ago at Hagg, where I managed to finish. I had really just barely completed my training program that I set out on, and I was able to finish the first 50k of my running career (10th overall too, not bad). Unlike last years bike race where I plotted Power over time, here I plot pain and pace over time, so you have a little bit of an idea of what it was like. It started out really slow (as you can see) because there was a really big uphill on the first 5k, and then we went down the hill, and I started going really fast, and then there was a general trend.

Too much to do right now, and not enough time to do it... so what am I doing? Writing blogs. Well I guess you could say I'm just practicing or studying for my WR327 advanced tech writing course. Maybe my instructor would give me some extra credit (come on Valerie!!!!).

stuff

2008-03-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I harped on mass transit in the northwest. Well, It turns out, I was stupidly mistaken. In my previous post, I referenced a video that profiled Bogota's mass transit system and how awesomely cool it was. It was like a light rail, only there were no tracks, just roads where only the buses drove. So, I ran into this blip.tv video done by 'YERT' and basically I feel now, like I should delete the post I made a couple of weeks ago because in fact, Portlands system does kick ass, and low and behold, there is a wonderful example of bogota's system RIGHT HERE in the northwest, just about 70 minute drive from Portland, in 'weirder than portland' Eugene. Surprisingly, since moving to Oregon in 2004, I have only been through Eugene a few times, and a couple years ago, when I was doing the Tour of Willamette bike race, I noticed this odd construction, looked like some sort of train route next to the road, but they were not building train tracks. I couldn't really figure it out, so I sorta just chalked it up to part of the weird-ness that is Eugene. So you have to go to about 1/2 way through this video to get to the Eugene stuff. I obviously hadn't done my homework, when it comes to trash talking the mass transit systems around here.

In addition to that sweet video... there's a guy in Idaho, who thinks the world can be powered by solar roads. I have some doubts, and one of them is studded tires. And the other is big trucks. I mean if you're going to use that many panels, why not just put them on the roofs of buildings. Or in the median.

Henry Hagg

2008-02-23T16:55:00.000-08:00

I raced 50k today, via 2 laps around the muddy hagg lake. It wasn't the birkie but hey, It also wasn't 10 degrees! It was however on the same day. It was frosty at the start, but it really turned in to a perfect sunny day. I was warned, not to slip in the hagg mudd, which was slick at times, and I was also warned that I would really start to feel it at about 3 hours into it. And it did. Although I didn't collapse or break down and crawl, I was sluggish for the last hour. I really kept event on the down low. No worries, just finish. Training run. Well, pinning on the number and the gun went off... I was racing I guess.

The Start: 50k is called an ultra-marathon, and they start out really slow. Really slow. I've done long running races (road marathons) and I guess they start out slow too, but when you have to go 50k through trails and an unknown quantity of mudd, I guess it's OK, and probably smart to start slow. There was a pretty elite group there today, and I took it out with the defending champ and we ran in 6th and 7th until about 8k. Then he literally put the hammer down and was out of sight before I could look up. He went on to set the course record. He's doing western this year (the biggest 100 miler in america). So I knew I wasn't going to keep up with him and I knew I was probably running too fast at this point in the race, but I wasn't really sure what was going to happen, this was my first ultra trail run. Basically I just cruised along until my friend Sean caught me and we ran together and chatted for a while. Sean lives in Sisters and we ran together and raced against each other in shorter races and it was really good to be running with him here, in his element. (He's run alot, ok more than alot, of ultras, and has been in magazine ads for montrail shoes). We were chatting and then all of a sudden we got to the 2nd aid station. I'd seen aid stations at ultras before, and they have huge spreads of food and water and energy drink. I didn't really know if sean would stop for long, I kind of imagine stopping for a while having a snack and tell some jokes, and then get going again, but after sean got his bottle filled, he was gone, and I never caught him again. Went on to finish the first lap (plus the 5k out and back section) in 2:14.

The second lap: So I don't know if I've been watching the show lost too much or what, but I kept hearing footsteps behind me, the whole 2nd lap. There were 3 guys that passed me on the second lap, but it was strange, I basically though some one was right behind me the whole time. The second lap was pretty hard my legs were sore. I probably didn't have the milage required to actually race 50k (longest training run: 3 hours) 2:56 actually. But that's ultra running. Survival is the goal and making it to the finish line is what everyone wants (because they have hot dogs!) I walk the bigger uphills, and there were not really big hills on this course. I've always had alot of respect for guys like Jeff B, and Sean, who've run the big boy races at Big Horn, and that was before I'd done any ultras. And Big Horn - I'm telling you what, that is one helluva tough course. I ran the lowly 30k which was almost all down hill and suffered like a dog. But those guys did the 100 miler and 50 miler (and each won). And here I was at Hagg (where there are multiple pavement sections) (albeit short), but it was tough. These ultra runners are TOUGH.

The Mudd: It was muddy, but by hagg lake standards it was like running on tarmac. After the race this was talked about as the least muddy hagg ever. It hadn't rained in a couple weeks in town, and it was fairly cold (frost this morning), so it was prime conditions for a course record, which did happen. I ran about 40 minutes off the pace, but for my first ultra I'm totally stoked and it was super fun, even though I'm really sore now. I think I made the top ten, and my time was a respectable 4:24 (about). Not bad for the first 50k. I was thinking I might suffer so much during this that it might be my last 50k, but after finishing it... maybe I'll be back. I'll post pics if I can find some. Alot of folks were taking photos out there.

So back to the daily grind now. Tomorrow is sunday, day of rest, but I have alot of stuff to get done for school, but that doesn't require much movement.

UPDATE: Evelyn Dong (Lives in Bend, ski's for XC Oregon / Subaru factory team) won the American Birkebeiner today. Congratulations Evelyn. YOU ROCK!

Spring

2008-02-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

More and more, it's feeling like spring here. It's not so cold (like it is back in minny). 50s are forcast for this week! Get out the road bike!

I managed to get mt hood ski race revenge last weekend, beating one of the punks who sprinted by me when I face planted last time. I ended up 2nd, but that was good, because I didn't face plant, and I had managed a 3 hr run the day before. Midterm season ended last night, with the physics final. The other midterms were above average, and the other one was average. I think I understand the material better than my C grade in circuits reflected. And maybe it's because the teacher is allowing us a 3X5 notecard on the exam for anything we can write, but chemistry is going pretty well this term.

Laurie's going to Seattle on the train this weekend. I'm going to brush up on Chemistry, Circuits and other bogus bull crap, i'm supposed to be learning about renewable energy dammit! The only thing of noteable note that's pretty cool and interesting that our class has learned or whatever is, about a week ago, we had a guy show us (the guy came to OIT) his car that he converted into a hybrid. How? well, 1st, he put a big Pb acid battery in the back seat, that would power everything electrical in the car (everything like radio, heater, a/c, lights, you name it.) And then, he wired this big battery up to the alternator, and made it so the alternator would only run (ie charge the battery), when the sensor (installed by the wheel well) sensed that the car was going downhill, or deccelerating. That left the horsepower of the gas engine, to concentrate on power the wheels of the car, not having to worry about the alternator. He said he's got 47 mpgs, and this was like a circa 1998 chevy or chrysler sedan or something like that. His car did not self support itself (it needed to be trickle charged at night every 3-5 days) but he was going to put a small pv panel on the roof so it wouldn't need to be charged at all. If wise asses in portland can build shit like this on their own, why cant idiots in detriot? Let's just blame it on George Bush.

OK, now I'm supposed to be working, not blogging. later.

Some thoughts on transit.

2008-02-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

I'm all about mass transportation. It's awesome. And you could say Portland has a pretty darn good system, with busses, and streetcars, and light rail. It even has an aerial tram for goodness sakes. If you take the tram out of the equation, I've ridden on portland's mass transit exactly zero times since we moved here. And for the first 6+ months that we lived here we only had one rally car, so you'd think (with all my trips to and from work and school) that at least once I'd have taken the bus. Nope. I rode my bike. So this isn't true for everyone (fitness wise), but I think I can get anywhere in this city, except for perhaps beaverton (there's a big hill) if I'm on my bike vs riding the bus or trains. It's slow!!! and the streetcar is even slower. I think the average speed is like 10mph. It's almost a joke. And the mass transit in this city has cost portland millions and millions. Wait no, billions. You'd think, since America is supposedly the smartest, richest, educated and most technically advanced civilization in the world that we'd think of the best way to get people from point a to point b, in an efficient, fast and low cost method. NOPE. but they are in Bogota, Columbia. Bogo-freaking-ta. You know in south america. Check it, it's 7 minutes.

While I'm at it... here's another you tube. Gotta love LOST.

No news...

2008-02-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

No news is good news I suppose. The rains continue. And alot. I was talking to one of my new friends at school yesterday (he's another pdx newcomer), and I told him... Geez, you know I think this winter is unusually cloudy and rainy in Portland, worse than average I said. And then our friend jeff turned around and said, 'I think this this winter is way sunnier than average', and he's lived here for seven years. So there you have it. Even during the worst of times, others are experiencing the best. A nice way to look at life I suppose. I mean it's not that bad. It could be a hell of a lot worse. I mean Fargo was worse... But wait... There was Nordic skiing in Fargo. No wait... Fargo had a 30F below wind chill, it was worse.

In any case, I'm keeping in shape, and it's quite possibly, better shape. I have not been doing many fitness tests (racing), but soon... holy crap three weeks and 2 days until I attempt the Hagg. That will be a challenge for sure, but not really a gauge of fitness because I've never done it before. It sure is a nice diversion from all the crappy weather.

If I can find a ride to the hood this Saturday I may just get revenge at the 3rd race in the series at mt hood meadows. Hopefully revenge for the spectacular crash I took in the last 50 meters of a nordic ski race. Not before a chemistry mid term tomorrow.

peace.

lost

2008-01-31T13:13:00.000-08:00

who's boat is it? (not penny's!?!?)
who is jacob?
ben is nuts.
jack is stupid.
Locke is Mad

yes we're addicted to a TV show.

season (4) premier episode tonight!!!!

1. Spring? 2. Ski racing 3. Econ

2008-01-28T17:14:00.000-08:00

Today, I went for a noon run btwn classes, and I could've swore it felt like spring out there. The clouds were breaking and sun was poking through, and we had melted off the half inch of snow from the night before. Things were looking good, at least for about an hour. It didn't take too long before heavy sleet was falling a couple hours later.

Last weekend we drove up to welches to stay overnight, and get some skiing in. They had a little 10k skate race at meadows nordic so I decided to give it a go. Why not make the first ski of the season a race? These things are not very heavily attended, but there were probably about 25 people all together. The race started out, at a pretty conservative pace, so I tried to dart off the front and get out of sight, to see exactly what I was dealing with here. Well, It was a good idea, because I got a lead, but I didn't get out of sight. I was in good form (technique wise), and not so good form (speed wise). Plan A was to ski hard and ignore my competitors about 30 yards back. Plan B was to fall back and rest, ski behind these guys, and then go for the sprint at the end. I was working hard, so I decided to stay out front. The race ended with one lap around the meadow, which would be the 3rd time through the meadow for the race. I made it to the end of the meadow where we turned around and came back to the finish and my lead was still about the same, or a little less. So I tried to punch it a little more. There was no looking back, I had the race. I was starting to experience the trill of victory, about 100 meters were left in the race. Something happened. I must have planted a pole in between my skis. I fumbled once, bounced on one foot, then bam my knees hit, and I was face first on the trail. My glasses came off my head. Should I pick them up? No you dumb ass, get up and go. But it was too late. I got passed by two old guys, and although I was still on the podium, I got a little agony of defeat. There was my wide world of sports weekend. It was awesome to be back on the snow, and it's definatly something that is worth it to make a little more time for this winter. Here's a pic of the wonderful drive home, and it was wonderful, depending at how you view winter weather.

I'm no economist, but I've read some books, and think I'm pretty reasonably educated. Today on the AM news, there was more bad news about the housing market. You'd have to assume that we would have another couple hundred point drop in the stock market, but in fact it was just the opposite. DOW was up 1.45% and S&P was up 1.76%. The screwballs on wall street think the fed will drop the rates another 1/2 point. I know I'm probably not the only one that's thought of this, but to me, this sounds like a coming mega economic disaster. How did we get into this housing 'crisis'? I might be wrong, but low borrowing rates sure didn't hurt. Why not lower rates even more, and make it even cheaper to borrow, so the whole thing starts back up again. Where do these idiots running things think this will go?

And the damn economic 'stimulous' package? How much less do the retards at the white house want the US dollar to be worth? Why not print up a few trillion dollars and give us even more money to spend. I have no solution to the mess, I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out.

Big News

2008-01-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

The one car household is no more!!! That's right, we submitted to the pressure of the american way, and now Lgirl and I once again, each have our very own gas powered auto. We got a rally car!!! 1990 honda civic lx, with quarter million+ miles! It's not lowered but compared the the subaru, it's like a damn indy car. So far, it runs good (knock on hard wood), and the price was right. It even came with a sweet stereo and yakima rack and a seat pad that has a heater and vibrates, so who the hell could go wrong!? Bought it for less than my SAN JOSE for goodness sakes!!!

It should do the job to get me back and forth around town when conditions are not bike weather. One could argue that all weather is bike weather, especially here in Ptown, but the night classes in the winter that get done at 10pm, don't bode well to biking home.

If the motor dies in the next couple of years or so, I'm going to find an electric motor and some batteries and wire it up to be the electric car of the future. If someone wants to donate batteries and electric motor, I will expedite the EV conversion, and begin work next summer.

In other news (and the only other news besides the fact that I'm swamped in school and work)-
I'm running more these days. Maybe getting ready for this.

bye bye '07

2007-12-31T11:53:00.000-08:00

The year of moving. We moved twice this year, and we just moved to a new house over the holiday's and boy, was that a drag. It's still a drag because there's still alot of stuff to be put away.

Story... We were moving a few final car loads yesterday, from the old house, to the new house (that's still pretty old) and what the hell... the NEXT door neighbor's (at the old house) walked up and introduced themselves. We've only been living there over six months and on the last day we were going to be there, they finally say 'hi'. I mean we've exchanged hello in passing, but never more than a word. I guess we're partially to blame for not walking over and saying hi as well, but we were busy trying to find our way around town and find shelter from the rain. The good part of this story, is when we finally got all of our crap over the the new house we were out in the back yard with the dogs, and the new next door neighbor's at the new house, walked up and said hello, and we had a nice chat. So it was nice to meet them, and in a kinda sorta evil way, I hope the new renters at the old house are loud, messy and obnoxious. Ok, I guess not that would be bad karma.

Other news... So we were at a Christmas party with some folks from L-girls (disclaimer: Lgirl=wife=Laurie) work the other week. It was a standard household pot luck style party complete with the big cheese and crackers trays, and little jonnies in the crock pot.

Since I didn't know anyone, I got to talking geeky computer stuff w/ a husband of a guy L-girl works with. So we were talking about snow and cold weather and hockey and that kind of thing. I said, yea, back where I grew up in Minnesota it was cold... And we skated on the rinks outside. And he said, I'm from Minnesota! St. Cloud. I was like woah 'SO ARE WE!!'. A fellow Stearns county compatriot! We were most definitely 3rd cousins or something... Well maybe not. That was a pretty amazing small world moment. His last name was Sand and he moved away when he was young, but still has many family members there.

Now on to 2008, where there will be lots of School, some work, and hopefully lots of kick ass competition to keep hope alive!

Peace out and see you on the other side.

bike sticker

2007-12-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

I saw a sticker on a fender of a fellow bike commuter on the way to work today that read: "Live Free or Drive"

Gotta love it. Sounds like a good motto for 2008.

If you want to get tough, move to Portland and bike commute all winter. You won't think it's so bad going out riding when it's in the 30s and rainy. Before the past few weeks, that kind of riding sucked pretty good. I would probably opt to not ride. But with some good equipment (rain wear and fenders), after a few weeks of pretty shitty weather, it's no big deal. That is if you can handle the depression that goes along with the endless winter here (no snow, cloudy all the time, super short days). And when it did snow here on Christmas day, people were literally dancing in the streets. I'm not even talking about accumulating snow. Just the wet crappy snow that melts when it hits the ground. And on the local nightly news, we got today classified as a white Christmas. KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD!

Here comes the rain again...

2007-12-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy time after the cx season ended, first with finals, and now moving. That's right, moving. How are you spending your christmas vacation? No vacation here.

Aside from the big storm that caused all the problems on the coast a few weeks ago, it's been pretty decent weather-wise, until this week. I guess it's not even too bad, considering what the bike commute might be like if it would be 10 degrees cooler with the same winds and precip. 40F and gusting wind driven rain isn't bad compared to 30 with wind and snow. Of course if it was snowing like that here I think the city shuts down. But the cascade mountains are getting snow now, finally, as the skiing reports that I've heard so far have been pretty ugly. The skiing in the midwest however, is awesome this year, for the first time in 8 or so years according to my brother. Speaking of my Brother, he's engaged to Danielle now... Congratulations!

So next week we are going to move most of our stuff from Sellwood to Westmoreland (next to sellwood). By 2008 we should have everything moved. The bad news is, moving sucks no matter what. The good news is it's still a very walkable neighborhood and we'll have ample room for a basement bike shop / renewable energy laboratory, and a huge back yard for the greyhounds to do their racing (even though they're retired-they still like to go at it every once in a while).

More updates as necessary.

Phone number

2007-11-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

We canceled a phone number. Do not call 503-327-8643 any more, but instead roll back to the 541 phone number (610-9679). That number has not changed and it's not new.

Right now, it's 36 degrees and raining at 40 feet elevation. You'd think it was about to snow if you knew better. But I don't think it is going to yet anyway. Based on the temperature, and the precipitation, which is not all water when it hits the car windshield but then immediatly melts (you know it has that slushy look to it when it hits the window and then the wiper blade swipes it away.) So it may be snowing in the PDX at some point this winter, since we still have just under a month to the solstice.

In other news, 2 finals next week, one the week after.

Coming soon, a demonstration of a solar powered robot that we built in circuits class.

sscxwc

2007-11-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

The first ever experience cx (cyclocross) was a race I watched at riverside park in St. Cloud, MN, my hometown. The weather was cold and windy, and the race looked really hard. There was a bunch of beer and pork chops. There was a few people there but most were racing. There were no crowds.

So up here in Portland cx I've got into it a bit more, doing some of the races in the cross crusade series. They know how to throw down a cross race out here. There is a Halloween edition in astoria (that I missed), but you'll see costumes in each of the 7 weekly races. There are huge crowds every weekend. Last weekend was the official un-official world championships of single speed cyclocross. Estacada has a pretty good venue watching and racing. We're talking costumes. A tequila shortcut, dodge ball zone, lady in a bikini cheering all day, tons of intoxicated people yelling at all the riders. Here are a few picks I caught of the action...

Here's the leaders going through the tequila shortcut. It was a rowdy bunch.

the lead pack.

So I did not race in the world championships. I didn't attend the qualifier on Saturday, because of other stuff I had to get done. It was a spectacle, that's for sure. I did race the regular singlespeed race for the regular cross crusade, so that was just fine. I placed better than I have before getting top 20, so that was cool, but I got outsprinted again!!! Second week in a row. This time it was after the muddy run up with the crowd, and I was ahead of this guy by a bike length. Then we both had to get off the bike, and run up, only I pushed my bike instead of shouldering it, like a good cx boy. Well, I couldn't run fast enough to stay ahead of him and by the time I realized I should have picked up my bike it was too late. oh well. I'm learning.

State championships is this weekend at Hillsboro stadium. The only thing that might keep me away is electric circuit's homework and a chemistry test on Tuesday. After this weekend you can still race for 2 more weekends in Portland if you want to, a psuedo cross race on the 25th and the grand prix of cyclocross on Dec. 1st and 2nd.

So this time of year I've usually had the bike hung up. This year I've been biking to work every day (4 days / week) and I only drove the car to school a few times. And cross racing. So that's all. We are staying in Portland for Thanksgiving going over to Laurie's brothers house.

Oil Record High, Dollar Record Low

2007-11-06T08:54:00.000-08:00

Up on yahoo fiinance this morning (oil record high, dollar record low)... another day another dollar... or is it? What it is, is a broken record.

School is keeping me too busy, and work is keeping me entertained. Cyclocross is keeping me alive.

I did not improve my placings this weekend at Barton Park (Cross Crusade #5), but I did finish, and I did crash, got up, and then sprinted (unsuccessfully) for 29th place. Next weekend is the World Championships. Rumor is that trebon, cameron, craig, decker, etc are all going to be there. Just qualifying for the finals on sunday will be admirable. It's looking to be muddy, for once. We've had amazingly dry weather for the past few weeks.

Bunny hop CX barriers

2007-10-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Adam Craig doesn't need to get off his bike to go over CX barriers. Check out the Cross Crusade #2 video for proof.

So I went in the one gear division again. Got caught behind a crash at the start, and it took me 1/2 a lap to catch up to this guy. So that's not good. Then in the end I worked up to ~~19th or so~~ 22nd. I was pissed because I did n-1 laps (even though I didn't get lapped) so I will be looking to start further up in the field for next time for multiple reasons (noted above).

Like CC#1 the weather (sunny / warm) was very not cross season like (rainy / shitty). But today it was more like it. It wasn't even that bad. It didn't rain all day, and I didn't get wet on my commutes (well not very wet anyway=not perfectly dry). That might change tomorrow, we'll see.

The worst part of winter here is going to be the daylight, or lack thereof. I guess that's why Laurie ebay'ed one of these. Like that's going to take place of the sun.

peace out.

OIL

2007-10-14T09:14:00.001-07:00

Found an interesting post on the huge amount of oil that we burn each year...

Read this.

That's a lot of oil. (Are we using it efficiently?)

The weather...

2007-10-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

It's sunny today. So it was the first what you'd call really nice day since Sept 27th, so I'm calling everything before Sept 27th summer, and between Sept 27th and yesterday winter... and today and tomorrow are fall. Then based on the weather forecast:

we go back to winter on monday until further notice. So we got here in June just after it supposedly stopped raining, It was pretty much very nice until September 28th it started raining. Based on that experience, we have about 8 months left to wish it was nice outside. But wait, the days start getting longer in only 69 days. Wait. 69 days is alot, and the damn time didn't even change yet. I'm trying to come up with ways to think the worst is over, but really it hasn't even started. When can we move back to Bend?

Oh it's not that bad, check back with me in 6 months to see how converted I am to being a PDXer...

Hornings hideout tomorrow. I changed gears on my bike from 42X17 to 36X17, so I should be better off. I'm hearing the course is much more difficult (technically speaking) than alpenrose. It will be a true test of toughness, endurance, and a sure ticket to the hurt locker for 45 minutes.

Enough blogging I'm going outside.

Later.

run what you brung

2007-10-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are in Portland, after a start to the cyclocross season. The laps at Alpenrose were long and bumpy, and you better be ready to start and stop and then get going fast again, and then jump off your bike, jump over stuff and get back on really fast. I think my gear is too big, because I was going super slow on some of the uphills. And I may have had too much air in my tires, because the bumps felt extra bumpy. But then in some of the grassy sections it felt like my brakes were rubbing, because I wasn't going faster. TJones rocked the single speed division. I was 27th out of 80+ in the category. Over 1000 raced total. CX is huge here.

The race wasn't too exciting for 27th place, but I did get passed by the naked guy (wearing only size small unda pants). Then I passed him, because I didn't want to look at his ass all day, and then I ate dirt on the barriers in the middle of the velodrome, and I couldn't catch back up to him. So I got beat by the naked guy.

And a guy took a picture of me...

It was really tough, but I'm already starting to plot out how I can make my bike go faster next week.

Have you seen me latley?

2007-09-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

It's been pretty crazy around here with the job, and school starting this week. So let's just say it's been super busy here, but the weather has been pretty awesome. All I hear about is how it rains constantly in this city, and since we moved here in June it's probably rained 5 times or less. Now watch, tomorrow will be the beginning. Hopefully more of the days will be like today, it was damn near perfect.

In skiing news, the Portland Oregon dryland XC skiing workouts begin this week (Sept 29th). More information here. The cyclocross season is also underway, but I have not yet raced. That's still the plan.

Later-

bike tour photo blog

2007-09-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Day 1: near Hella to Landmannalauger

DAY 2: Landmannalauger to Hyranyar

DAY 3 Hranyar to Nydalur

Day 4 Nydalur to Laugafell

Rest Day @ Laugafell

Day 6 Laugafell to Akureyri

A more complete flickr slide show here, in case this wasn't enough for you... (make sure and click the photo for the captions.

Iceland Part 1

2007-09-11T20:14:00.001-07:00

So here we are in Portland, and it's been a few days since we've been back from the tour. I finally got around to putting some of the photos up from the iceland adventure. Flickr photoset here.

So the trip started out a little lame. We had two segments to our flight. One from PDX to MSP, and then the next day, we were flying from MSP to Reykjavik. We split this up, because we got decent airfare w/ iceland air from MSP, and planned to stay at our friend Patti's house to get a good night sleep before the flight to iceland. Problem was, we had a layover in chicago on the way to MSP. So we were stuck in a holding pattern above chicago, until we got low on jet fuel, and the pilot decided to get gas in Detroit. So we got gas, and by the time we finally got to chicago, all the planes to MSP were gone. Our options were spend 50 bucks on a cab and 69 bucks on a hotel, only to get 4 hours of sleep to make our flight at 7:20am, or sleep at the airport. We chose the airport. They setup cots so it was not complete hell, but then the guards come by at 4am to wake everyone up and it basically stormed all night, but we did have a good view of the lightning storm. So we didn't get a good nights rest.

The next day we were off to iceland. We hit the blue lagoon hot springs / geo thermal site. It was pretty sweet. We then hit the hotel in sellfoss and put the bikes together and rested up, for tomorrow the bike tour would begin.

In other news, I started a new job here yesterday, up on the hill, at the OHSU SON as a DBM.

More tomorrow.

Iceland Bike Tour

2007-09-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

We're back!! it was an awesome trip. more photos and stories soon...

Crude, trips, planes and economics.

2007-08-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are in portland, as a strong hurricane starts to ramp it up toward the gulf of mexico. So, I'm not a professional stock or commodities trader, but if I was, I would have loaded up on crude oil futures today. But the fact is, I really don't even know how it works to buy Sept07 crude, but what I do know is, if Dean stays strong, and rolls into the Gulf as a categorized hurricane, it will threaten some oil refineries, and well, the price of oil will hit about $100+ a barrel. Well see what happens there. The chart here is the graph for today and oil traded at about 71.50 a barrel.

We're going to iceland next week for a bike tour. It should be totally major and hopefully we don't bring too much stuff that we don't need, since it will just add extra weight. It's a bit stressful trying to plan such a trip, without even having been on a multi day bike tour in america, let alone a foreign country. Luckily we're going with some experienced professionals.

So next Wednesday we'll be up and on our way to MN where we will catch a plane to iceland the next day. We don't make airline trips too often and now I have to wonder if this might be the last trip we take on an airplane. Not by choice mind you, but I strongly believe that the era of low cost air travel is going to be gone at some point in the not so near future. The cost of fuel will be too much to keep it going (because it's not going to get really cheap again like it was before about 2005.) (but maybe I read too many blogs like this and this).

I don't really consider myself one of those coo coo for coco puffs retards that goes around warning of economic collapse, and stock up on rice and water. But (IMHO) we have some major issues with our economy. It lives on growth. It needs growth. We proved it this week when the stock market was going insane, on credit woes and slow housing stats. Our economic engine requires factories to build more cars, construction workers to build more houses, and which in turn requires OPEC and other oil producing nations to drill more oil (because that's what we need for growth). So with all those new houses, and new cars, we can then use more energy that creates more pollution.

OK, so you say, "the new houses are energy star efficient" and "the cars now get better MPG" but i say that's fine, but what about the 500 houses in my neighborhood that are 50-100 years old and they are all crappy energy wasting shacks, even though most of them cost over 400k. And honestly, are we just going to line up all the SUVs that were sold in the late 90s thru now, to line up at the junk yard? NO, they are going to be driving for at least 10-15 more years. Peak Oil has already happened:
This was taken from here in the February 2007 issue. Note that proven oil reserve discoveries hit a 'peak' in the late 1960s, and have fallen ever since, and is expected to keep falling, as shown. At some point, production will be forced to fall (because there's only so much discovered oil), and when that happens, there will be a supply/demand issue. When you look at that graph, it's hard to imagine we can keep growing production.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've come to the conclusion that we're all screwed, because I don't think there is enough oil left to keep fueling the economic growth long enough for us to figure out another way to grow our economy without it. See, lots of us have retirement money in the stock market and if that bombs then what happens? I know I had history classes and I think that happened sometime around 1930 something. And that's not even taking into account the possible global climate changes that may or may not happen (like what? oh, maybe hurricane Dean).

Your president is not going to fix it, and if you think you're going to get a new president that will fix something, think about this:

1988 - Bush 1
1992 - Clinton 1
1996 - Clinton 1
2000 - Bush 2
2004 - Bush 2
2008 - ???? Clinton 2????

What the hell is this? Our government is really a one party system.

See you after we get back from Iceland.

Funny Youtube

2007-08-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

you might have seen this, but in case you have not, you will hate me for putting this song in your head for the rest of the day:

Books, Bikes and Bridges

2007-08-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

Books
I've had a problem finishing books lately. It might be because of school, or whatever, but it's not because the books aren't good. Here's what I'm in the middle of.

1. Freakonomics. A good book, but I had to stop, because it seemed like the author implied that every scenario in the book was indirectly caused by the legalization of abortion. It just got old, and I started something else....

2. A Sunburned Country. I read the book A Walk in the Woods by the same author (Bill Bryson) and it was laugh out loud funny. One of those books that you don't want to end. If you have not, you should read 'A walk in the woods'. So you'll want to read it at home and not on the bus (or somewhere else out in public) because you'll be busting out laughing. A sunburned country is also good, but I got distracted by:

3. The Road That Has No End. I've always had a dream to pack up the panniers, and rolling out on a multi day (or week) (or month) bike tour. That's what this book is about. Except these folks didn't stop, and I think they are still out riding around somewhere. Anyway, I didn't finish this book because I borrowed:

4. Bowerman and the men of Oregon. This book chronicles the life of Bill Bowerman, coach of the U of O track team, and notably the excellent distance runners that have come out of that school during his tenure. He was a superb coach and also innovated running shoes, and you could say, that he invented Nike. This book is awesome (after you get through the first few chapters it really gets good) and I will finish it (because I have to give it back to my friend Sean who I borrowed it from) So, I was reading Bowerman and then I saw this at the library:

5. With Speed and Violence. This is another book about climate change and I'm in the process of reading this one now. All the usual stuff like rapidly melting glaciers and polar ice. This book is brand new, so the information is pretty current (for a book), and it's pretty freaky. Now I'm sure you could go and find books that debunk the whole climate change theory, (or at least the theory that climate change is caused by humans) but whatever the case, no matter who you are, you can't argue that it's happening. This book hypothesizes that some major changes might come on faster than we've previously thought (like in the span of years or decades, rather than centuries or longer). After only reading 25% of this book these are my thoughts: Basically, we are screwed. I say that because it's business as usual here in america, we want more and big and then more again. There's nothing wrong with that, but we still run on oil to fuel our economy. The only way we will change, is through government mandated electricity generation reform (more renewables, less coal) and government mandated gas and carbon taxes to fund those renewable programs. I'll have more thoughts on this stuff in the future. I also may post a full book review on this one when I'm done.

Bikes
I never got around to posting a race report for the cascade classic. It was pretty awesome... Our team had a guy finished 2nd in the GC, so basically we worked for him, and secured his spot on the podium. He took us all out for lunch afterward with all the money he won, so it was pretty fun. Last year (in the midst of my blood giving) I was 4th from last, this year I was 35th out of 70+, and I even won a bucket of red vines in the crit. Maybe next time I'll sprint for some cash, and not just end up with a giant tub of candy.

Bridges
I was stunned to see the coverage of 35W falling down in Mpls. What the heck! Being from MN, the story was extra crazy. I predict that the next bridge to fall will be this one (picture on the right). It's the sellwood bridge in Portland, Oregon. It opened in 1925. Now that's old. Did they even have cars back in 1925? Even if they did, the cars now are MUCH heavier and the traffic is MUCH busier. The have outlawed big trucks and buses from crossing this one, but still. It is almost 2000 feet from one end to the other, and it's 75 feet high. I just hope I'm not biking across it when it falls. (Click here for Portland's plans to replace the sellwood bridge).

New blog format!! woo hoo!

Link of the day

2007-07-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/environment/57973/

I promise, more blogging soon.

Excessive heat warning today

2007-07-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Forcast high: 101° F

No A/C in the house. Yea.

Next weekend: Cascade

2007-07-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Last year I completed the Cascade Classic (Cat 3), and managed to finish, but it wasn't very good. I'm hoping to be a little closer to the front, maybe top 20? Last year I was giving blood every week, so I was just a little bit off, as would be expected. We'll see how the Time trial goes on Friday. I ran a 1/2 marathon on the 4th, up at Sauvie Island. It was pretty big (over 1500 finishers), and it was a pretty hot day (at least a couple people required medical assistance.) I ran a steady race, finishing in just under 1:23. Not my PR, but pretty close.

And the Tour started today, on 7/7/07!

Bike commuting... Rain...

2007-06-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've started taking two classes at PCC, and I've been bike commuting to get to school. Fortunately, Portland is great for bike commuting (bike lanes, dedicated bike trails, lots of bike commuters). Unfortunately, you still have to know where you're going. My first class was Monday at noon. I left a good hour early, to ensure that I'd have enough time to bike to North Portland, to get up to PCC Cascade campus. So I knew that the school was off Killingsworth, what I didn't exactly know was where on Killingsworth, so when I got to Killingsworth, I didn't quite know which way to go... So... I asked for directions (I know - not very 'manly'). The gal that I asked said... "PCC? Portland Community college? I know there's a PCC on 42nd," she even asked her friend, to confirm. So, I look at where I am... which is like 3rd. hmm 42nd minus 3rd, thats almost 40 blocks. So I put the 29er in TT mode and race up the road. Finally make it to 42nd and although it is a PCC building, it's not where I need to be... So I go up a couple more blocks and ask another lady. "Where's PCC?" she says, well, you overshot it by about 2 or 3 miles... So I have to rewind and race back, all the way to where I was, and then some, to where I needed to be. Only about 25 minutes late, ughh. I don't think I missed too much importance on the first day though. I was really close to where I needed to be the first time I asked for directions. (See, it's not always good to ask for directions -- or I suppose you just need to ask the right person).

Then on Tuesday, I had to go to yet another PCC campus (Sylvania). I was studying the map for the correct route, because there really wasn't a straight shot, and there are sizable hills between our house and the campus. So I found the best route, and I didn't go the wrong way, but it was a grind getting up the hills on my SS 29er.

Since we got here, I've been a bit anxious to get out running on a rainy day. Well, I thought yesterday would be the day. I started out in a light rain, and about 5 minutes into it, it stopped raining. Then when I got done w/ the run, it promptly started raining again. I was sort of worried, because I had to bike up to the Sylvania campus again, but yesterday it had been raining intermittently, so I figured it would stop. It didn't. I was pretty wet by the time I got to campus, but I wore a rain jacket, and brought a dry shirt. I just need to get some fenders. Wouldn't you know, that the sun even popped out during class, but then when class ended it was raining again. We have had pretty nice weather, and I'd say yesterday was probably the rainiest day since we got here.

2007-06-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are, we live in Portland now. It's been one week plus one day since we took the final car drive over the cascades to SE Portland where we live now. We do still have some stuff stored at the townhome (Laurie's Mom's place), but not too much.

So we moved out of our house in Bend that had a square footage of about 1550. Right now that seems like a mansion, compared to the little house we're renting. I did a rough sq ft calculation with my tape measure last night and it came to 676. The parents old cabin on Lake Alexander was much bigger than this place. On the bright side, I suppose our energy bills will be lower?! I'd feel much better about this house if we weren't paying as much as we are for rent. But we do live in an excellent neighborhood (sellwood) that's quiet and there are many good restaurants within walking distance. Plus the bike commute to alot of places (like downtown) is much easier than the drive, and the drive isn't bad either, Parking is the problem.

We went on a road ride up the willamette to St. Johns bridge, and then took Germantown road up through forest park. It was an awesome ride through the woods with lots of climbing, we just need to find a better route through downtown, on the way home, if there is one.

Tonight there is bike racing at Portland International Raceway (as there is on pretty much every day in or around Portland).

So that's all right now. Here's a picture from the Criterium at Mt Hood Cycling classic:

Mt Hood stage race - cat 3

2007-05-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking in the blogging department lately, but I had a stage race last weekend, and we've been moving to Portland and it's been busy.

Last weekend was the Mt Hood stage race. I did it last year, in the cat 4 division, and this year I was in the Cat 3s. The field was strong, and about 80+ strong to start the race. On Thursday there was a 66 mile circuit race that consisted of 3.5 laps around a course that was about 18 miles. 9 uphill and 9 down. We went up the hill 4 times, and each time the main pack got smaller. There weren't any real break aways, just some tempo riding at the front. I did not ride at the front that much, until the last lap, when I sprinted ahead of the field for about 30 seconds. It wasn't really an attempt at breaking away, Just a surge or whatever. Then I went back in the pack, and stayed in until about 1 kilometer to go, when the pack slowly pulled away and shattered. I ended up 28th and about 1.5 minutes back from the winner. It was Therapeutic Associates teammate Scott Gray who won the stage, so that meant he was in the leaders jersey, and he would be the last to start in the next days individual time trial. Sweet!

Back when I did triathlons I think I was a pretty good time trialer, because I rode alone, alot. Now I do alot of group rides, and few solo rides out in the wind. So my time trail skills are not on par with where they maybe should be. I got passed by 4 people (we started 30 seconds apart, so do the math) and finished the TT over 6 minutes behind the winner of the TT, but I only moved down one spot in the GC (overall standings) so that wasn't all bad I guess. oh yes it was I was 52nd in the ITT.

The big day was Saturday, 89 miles in 90 degree heat through the mountains east of Mount Hood. It was super tough and my teammate spencer and I almost were dropped on one of the climbs in the middle of the race. The pace was hard, on the uphills and people were getting dropped on most of the climbs. The downhills were easy, and I was surprised that nobody pulled through, to increase the pace. Most of the downhills were straight open roads and we were going fast, but there was constant breaking, which got a little annoying. By the time there was 20 miles to go, there were probably 30 people left, and one guy off the front by minutes (he would win the stage). I was not cramping, so I guess I drank enough, but I knew I was feeling it, but I think everyone else was tired too. Scott (teammate) dropped his chain with about 15k to go, so I waited for him and pulled him back to the pack. It was nice of me to do, but I think he would have made it back anyway. He was still in the top 10 overall, and stood to move up in the GC because he's a great climber. I held on to the pack until about 5k to go when the race got really hard and turned onto the road that goes up to the Mt Hood meadows parking lot. I limited my losses, and finished in 26th just over 7.5 minutes back from the leader, and I beat pro mountain biker Evan Plews. If you're pro, and you don't want to have some no-name cat 3 say that they beat you on their blog, then you should be racing with the big boys, and the other pro mountain bikers like Carl Decker. I moved into the top 25 after Saturday's road race.

On sunday was the criterium, and our team (Therapeutic Associates) won all of the primes. The crit course was super fun, but there were crashes, all which seemed pretty minor. I suffered in the back of the pack, when I should have been in the front, because I think it's easier riding in the front, with less braking into the corners, and less chasing out of them.

So the race was a success, but I need to time trail faster. I used my old bike w/ areo bars and a disc wheel and still lost more than 6 minutes (in the end of the 4 days I was less than 12 minutes behind). Laurie got some pictures of my back in the criterium, and I'll post those if I can find the camera cord after we are finished moving to Portland (we move for good on Monday June 11th). I'm planning to do the cat 3 Cascade classic in July in Bend.

Later Skaters.

P3 2007, 7th

2007-05-21T15:42:00.001-07:00

It's finally over, all the training, stress and planning for PPP07 is done, and the race went off superbly. I ended up finishing 7th place in the mens elite division. Everything went pretty much as good as I could have hoped for. I took one warm up alpine run and thought, well, this is going to be nuts. I have to say though, when the gun went off, I had my best alpine leg in my 3 year PPP history. I could actually see the leaders when we started the nordic leg (but that didn't last long). The conditions for the nordic leg were unbelievably good. It was firm and fast. The bike was good, I actually passed people unlike last year when I didn't see anyone until the run. After the first mile of the run, I got into a rhythm and was able to go pretty good. I didn't tip over in the kayak, but I also didn't enjoy any minute of that leg. I think I paddled OK, but I don't paddle often, and think a bit more practice would have come in handy. I would have been able to concentrate on going forward, rather than staying straight and upright. OK, so I know this is the most boring race report ever, and I don't have any really good stories, except that I didn't have any common PPP problems, and went as fast as I could. There were good stories though. I heard of one guy who lost his ski in the alpine leg, and had to climb back up to get it, and then when he finally got done with the bike leg, he had to run the 5 mile run in socks, because his support crew wasn't there with his running shoes. My neighbor who borrowed one of our kayaks tipped over twice. XCO all star Brayton (5th overall) was in 3rd, when he tipped over on the river, losing minutes and missing the podium, in his first ppp. The US Ski team had a couple of teams entered, and they went fast, with the mens team posting the 3rd fastest time of the day. I guess the moral of the story is, the PPP was a major success for me considering from last June 2006, until February 2007, I gave a pint of blood every week to get rid of extra iron, which took a tool on my training and fitness. My goal was to get back to where I was last spring at this time, and I think I did it, and then some. 2+ minutes faster. So that's good news.

Ski ya later!

I got some ink.

2007-05-18T09:49:00.001-07:00

Ok, not much, but hey, this is the Bend Olympics.

fitness update and cookies

2007-05-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we baked cookies. I made the recipe that's on the back of the bag of chocolate chips (toll house). Laurie made vegan cookies. Luckily I froze 1/2 the batch, hoping to save some for a later date. So now there are approximately zero thawed toll house cookies left (ate em), and I'm real close to digging into the rest that are in the freezer; only thing holding me back is my 'belly ache' from eating all the cookies. There's still quite a few vegan ones left though. I have pretty much zero self control when there are cookies in the cookie jar. dang.

So the fitness is coming together. I was able to keep up on the Tuesday night 'hammerfest' ride from sunny side sports. Chris Sheppard was in the house, and Megan Elliot (GF of euro pro Chris Horner). This year, the Tuesday ride has become the CSLB ride (Chase Steve Larsen's Brother). Mike Larsen moved to town a few weeks ago, and he can ride. Anyway, after getting my ass dropped many times this spring on this ride it was sweet to be in the front group until the end, especially since the group that started out this week's ride was huge. Yeeaa! I'm also running a fair amount. The bend olympics is coming up, but I have not XC skied since late March, and I haven't alpined or kayaked since last years ppp. In fact (this is sad) I've taken 4 chairlift rides since moving to Bend in May 2004, All of them having to do with doing the PPP twice. 1 ride for warm up, 1 ride up for the race. I am going to TRY to get up to the mountain once before the PPP but if I don't, oh well, the race will start for me if I can make it to dry land after the nordic leg, then watch out, cause I'll be chasing!

After the bend olympics, I'm doing the Mt Hood stage race. It will be my first Cat 3 endeavor that was not during weekly phlebotomies. I raced in and finished the Cat 3 cascade classic stage race last year, and it was pretty bad, but I finished and not DFL and not even bottom podium (but close). I raced good in the Cat 4s at hood last year, (I even won some money for being top 10!) and am looking forward to racing at hood again, but this year in the 3s. This year the format for the 3s is 4 stages in 4 days starting on May 31st. I'm a bit concerned that I haven't done any road races yet this spring, but Hood consists of 2 climbing stages (Thursday's 66 mile circut race and Saturday's epic 87 mile road race), an 18.5 mile TT on Friday and a 30 minute criterium to wrap it up. I hope to have the fitness to hang on on the climbing days, and the TT is solo, and the crit is only 30 minutes. Back in my triathlon days, the TT would have been a cinch, but the lack of a TT series in Bend this year, and my unexpected withdrawal from the DRVTT fest, I have not had much practice. Oh well, that's why I have a disc wheel :P

I'm thinking I'm going to sport THESE at Mt Hood this year... (whadya think?)
that's all, Thanks for reading.

Moving to PDX

2007-05-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

So goes the story of life, we've lived in Bend almost exactly three years ago, and now we are making plans to move to Portland, Oregon. By June 15th, we'll be fully moved over to the 'rainy side' (but on the plus side, I'm hearing that it's supposed to be pretty nice weather there from about now, until about September when it starts raining non stop for 8 or 9 months). I'm wrapping up my duties with Merrill Corporation. That means I QUIT!!! And no, it has absolutely nothing to do w/ the convention I went to last week.

Why in the hell are you moving out of bike mecca, xc skiing paradise, trail running heaven, that is Bend, Oregon, you ask?? Well, that's a good question. I once told my wife on lovely winter day XC Skiing, "it was hard for you to get me to move out of MN, but it will be even harder for you to get me to move out of Bend!". Well, turns out, I'm the instigator this time... I will be going to school full time starting next fall at OIT's Portland campus. The program I'm enrolled in, is a BS degree in renewable energy systems, and it lasts 3 years. Essentially it's an engineering program that focuses on renewable power. We'll see where that road leads.

Laurie found a nursing job at OHSU and we found a place to live in a SE Portland neighborhood, that should be good for bike commuting. It will be the first time either one of us will have lived in a city larger than Bend, (or Fargo, ND, or St. Cloud, MN if those are counted as larger than Bend) We're both anxious, excited, scared. It seems like I already miss Bend a little bit. But Bend will still be here, only 3 hours away.

We sold our house, and holy crap. we're moving. It was a tough decision to
move away from Minnesota 3 years ago, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. We've met so many great friends here. Moving now will be a bit easier, although we've got quite a bit of stuff, and some of that stuff might have to go, or find storage. I'm still going to do a bit of skiing (XC Oregon - PDX squad), but snow will be further away, so maybe I'll have to sharpen the hockey skates, as Portland actually has some ice arenas, that is if I have time between the homework.

Our new address will be

8005 se 8th ave
pdx, or 97202

Write that down.

email is the same.
cell phone will be the same (541+619+9679)
blog will continue.

Twenty one.

2007-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am back in Bend, Oregon after a nice weekend of not being in las vegas at a convention. The whole trip to Vegas was sort of a blur, basically worked the whole time and slept the other time. We did get done at about 4:00 on Thursday, and had a nice dinner at the NY NY hotel. I was surprised at the will of some of my co-workers to 'hit the strip and gamble' after 2.5 long days of convention work with very little sleep. But then after thinking about it, most of them have children, and when they are away from home they have to take advantage. I was perfectly content with going up to the hotel room to sleep. But I did manage to hit a few slot machines.

I put 5 bucks in a nickel slot, pulled the lever, and BAM 48 bucks. Cash out, after one spin. Then I went over to the deal or no deal slots and within about a minute i was up 8 bucks. So, I wasted the rest of the 8 bucks and change, and stormed out of there with almost 45 dollars more than I came in with! Hot damn. If everyone could say that when they left vegas it wouldn't be vegas! I had some temptations to play some 21 (three card poker), but the minimum was $10 per hand, and I figured if I played 4 hands, and lost all four, I'd be down, or where I started, and depressed that I just lost all that money. Even though it wasn't that much... One of the wives of my co-workers won a Grand. sweet.

Latest news on the iron overload front is I'm officially 100% de ironed, with no phlebotomies in sight. I stopped going in for weekly phlebs at the end of February, when my ferritin was 30. A month after that (at the beginning of April), my ferritin went up 5 points, so I had another phleb. Today my Ferritin tested out at TWENTY ONE. That was the best news I could have hoped for. Now it's time for some steak!!!!!

Parting shots from Las Vegas:

Convention before:

Convention during:

The strip, as seen from the walkway between MGM and NYNY:

Statue of Liberty, NY NY hotel:

We actually did make it down here on the last day (view from Bellagio entrance):

I was still smiling after the chaos.

With this post a new format is also being rolled out, to accommodate larger photos. Thanks Blogger, for making this easy.

Arb0nne N.T.C. 2007, Las Vegas

2007-04-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

What am I doing here? How did I get here? When can I go home?

I'll just start from the beginning. I signed up to help out at the convention, as the 'IT geek'. Merrill (company I work for) does -alot- of printing work for Arbonne. It was a trip to Vegas and hey, what the hell, why not. Can't be that bad.

Left Bend @ 4:15pm tuesday, when I thought my plane left at 4:45pm. Needless to say, the gal at the ticket counter basically said, if I'd have been one minute later, they may have not let me board.

The airport in Vegas. Notice, there are very few signs that say "to Baggage Claim". They want you to gamble at the airport.

Got to NY NY Hotel at about 9:50pm, call Stephanie (the project manager for this task, think NBC TV show apprentice). the task: sell as much arbonne stuff as possible in 2 days. Go to MGM grand garden arena to help setup the computers. La la la, that happens, and when it's all said and done, it's about 1am, off to bed ASAFP. Slept horribly.

Next morning wake up call at 5:30, in hopes to find breakfast, before going to the convention to begin selling crap. Best I could find with the time frame given: 2 Starbucks scones and a coffee. Yippie skippy.

Arbonne doors open up at 7:30am. we had 2 stations, with 4 registers (read: laptops running a db program) each, and by 7:45am, both areas had lines until about 4pm. That whole time I was running a laptop that was acting as a cash register with one 15 minute break. I'm not really complaining but it was extremly busy, overall it wasn't too bad, everyone was nice, nobody was mean, and there were no computer melt downs (whew). out of the what seemed like five thousand people that came through my spot there were literally 3 men. (there are some 16500 people here, 99% women). yea.

We also had drop boxes where people could drop off an order for pick up tomorrow. We got WAY more of those than we expected. We were assembling those until about 11pm.

Photo inserted 4/30/2007
Here's what the scene looked like at 9:34pm:

If this get's pulled off tomorrow (it will), it'll be a work of art from Stephanie. It seemed like we were in way over our heads at times today, and would never get done. now all we have to do tomorrow is alphabetize ten thousand bags for pickup. How long will that take if we start at 6:30am. If big races (like the Birkie, or Twin cities marathon) can do this for participants post race bags, we should be able too...? right? we'll see...

4/30/2007 update: We did get them mostly alphabetized. Except somehow the S and T piles got overlooked, and there was madness trying to get those alphabetized while people were trying to pick up their stuff.

Anyway, this blog post was way too long for how late it is, and how tired I am. But my blog has been lame lately, and I needed to spark it up a bit.

One more full day in viva LV, and then back to Bend on Friday. Big races coming up.

Photos added on flickr, may be inserted into this blog post at a later date.

Wild vs Ducks: hockey live

2007-04-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.comcast.net/sports/nhl/hockeylive/

4/19/07, 7:30pm pacific daylight time

found link on versus.com

Go Green.

2007-04-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

In case you don't know who this guy is, he wrote the book The World is Flat. The United States is going to look pretty silly in a few years, when we look back at and wonder how we made this a political issue.

Round 1

2007-04-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

NHL Playoffs, Round 1

East:
Sabers vs Islanders: Islanders in 7, because they have Richard Park.
Devils vs Lightning: New Jersey in 6, because Tampa Bay doesn't belong.
Thrashers vs Rangers: Rangers in 6, because Atlanta doesn't belong.
Pens vs Sens: Pittsburg in 5, because Sidney Crosby is the next Great one.

West:
Detroit vs. Flames: Wings in 7, because I want see Derek Boogaard (w/ MN Wild) beat up Bertuzzi in Round 2.
Canucks vs Dallas: Vancouver in 5, because I hate the Dallas Stars.
Sharks vs Nashville: Sharks in 6, because they are Pacific Time.
Wild vs Ducks: the State of Hockey in 6 games.

What a great NHL hockey mind. We'll see.

2007 XC National Masters

2007-03-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

This year here's how it went down... Last year it was fairly cold (no klister) and this year it was warm (klister).

Thursday 15km Skiathlon

We got new snow the Tuesday before the races and it was cold at night, so I was hopeful for hardwax conditions, but that was not the case. It was sunny on Wednesday and everything transformed. We used klister, covered by a hard wax, I know this is not really acceptable, but I don't remember which wax was on my skis. There were a few of us getting wax advice/instructions from XC Oregon speedsters Brayton and Zach. We were able to get the skis going good though, with good kick up the hills and decent glide. Races like this, I learn that I need to be better at double polling. That's what I get though, for only half heartedly being committed to off season (and in-season) strength training. The skate was on the flat part of the trail, that is not usually groomed up here. Most if not all of the trails at bachelor are up and down with very little sustained flat, and skiing the flat was hard. I used to be a midwesterner, and the flats are very common. I'd never complain about a flat trail, because it was what we did. It was like doing a big VA loop with a little bigger hill in the middle of it (back when we skied at the VA in high school). I can't give much age group podium strategy talk because my age group was a whole 2 people!!! But I was behind Joe Jensen from Idaho, and he's the same one who beat me last year (this year by a little bit more), but the main difference being that I gave 35 pints of blood (iron overload) from June through February, and he didn't. Try training thought that ordeal!

Saturday 15km classic

It was warm on Friday, and it never froze on Friday night. So it was like skiing in firm slush. The track was not super soft, but some spots were choppy around corners, but it was pretty good considering how warm it was. Kudos to the grooming team at Bachelor. There such a deep snowpack here, that it becomes like ice underneath where they groom, so even the warm days they can work out pretty decent grooming in most conditions. The swix recommendation was 2-1 mix red-universal klister. A pair of fast gliding no wax skis might have worked well on this day. For me, I had an ironed in base of green toko klister, and then I put a little silver and red mixed w/ universal. I skied a bit, (around the stadium and up and down blue jays... and I didn't think the kick was enough so I had brayton put a bit more klister on (panic waxing), for some more red. In retrospect, I'm still split up on whether or not this was a bad idea, because on the downhills during the race, i could feel the kickwax on my skis. I guess it was good for going up the hills, but I think i could've used the original wax. Plus when I was cleaning the klister off after the race it was a total mess. I did a fair amount of classic skiing this winter, but on the klister days, I skated. That probably didn't help me in choosing my skis and/or wax either. As for the race, I felt OK... I was skiing with a 25-29 skier, and on the flats, I would pull away (even w/ the extra wax), and on the uphills he would catch me. His ski's must have been slower than mine, so maybe my wax wasn't so bad. The end of the race there is a kilometer long uphill, and he passed me. I tried to hang on but had nothing left for the sprint. I skied hard and was satisfied w/ the result.

Sunday 30km Skate

This was the biggest race in terms of total people. My only real complaint is that they split up the age groups (and this goes for all of the races really) staring the 34 and under first, and then the 35-39, etc. This spreads things out alot, at least for us, when there are a wide range of speed. It probably works better for the older age groups where you'll have like 15+ in an age group, that are competitive. If you start too many at once, the way the start is setup, it would be complete chaos, so maybe the small groups are justified. On race morning, I was laying in bed, thinking it was going to be hell up there skiing in the snow... Thought about not going, I was a bit tired from the previous 2 out of 3 days of racing... But I still went, and got up there, and sat in the car for a bit, and was thinking, this is going to be hell... It was snowing pretty good... There was new snow today, and I was justifiably worried about the conditions. There was about 5 inches of snow in the parking lot, and it continued to snow. But once again the grooming was good, and firm, with just a bit of new snow on top. Since we were not the first wave, the earlier skiers had packed it enough, so the new snow was really not an issue. It was warm enough so it would pack, and didn't stay powdery. It was pretty fast too. So, the race started and as usual I fought hard to hang on to the lead group of skiers in my wave, and did for a while, the first 5 k is for the most part, almost all down hill... and then when we got to the uphill sections it was a bit more difficult. There are some super hard climbs in the middle part of this loop, and then the flat section (same flat section as skiathlon). I was a bit bummed, that on the first lap I couldn't have skied up the big hill a bit faster, because I was nearing the top, and Pat Weaver passed me (I had 3 minute head start) and put in a small gap, and then I skied behind him not losing much time at all, over most of the flat section. It would have been nice to draft off of him during that part, at least for a while. The second lap, I managed hang on, and ski hard the whole way, but it was hard. The last uphill before getting to the stadium was a 'gut buster' to say the least.

Well that will pretty much put a wrap on my ski season, until the PPP (commonly referred to locally as 'the Bend olympics') in May. I'll still get up for some skiing, but I'm converting to riding my bike and running more right now.

Blogs...

2007-03-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

So here we are in Bend, Oregon, another beautiful day where you can XC ski in the morning and road ride in shorts in the afternoon! 65 and sunny!!! And the skiing was excellent! It really is march madness ;) ... Speaking of march madness, I'm in a NCAA pool w/ some guys from work, and I pick the U of O Ducks to win it all. So if that happens I'm going to win the pool, because nobody else picked Oregon. It would be sweet to win the pool having not watched one minute of one NCAA game during the regular season and not even during the NCAA tourney! That's what no cable TV will do to you. I still hope to catch some MN wild nhl hockey games when they start kicking but in the playoffs!

So if you're bored, check out a couple of these blogs...

xcoregon.org/blog - Great blog about XC ski racing and some local bend racers that are tearing it up in europe and norway. Good stuff.

ourdreamourreality - Our friends and former neighbors here in Bend that recently sold their house and packed up and headed out. They are currently traveling around Argentina and other parts of South America. (did I mention they have a 2 year old daughter?) They are having a big adventure!

kyia - Some of our friends from MN recently traveled to Poland, for vacation and a 50km xc marathon.

Well, that's about all for now... Damn the time change this year sure seems like spring and it's only mid march. I'll be XC ski racing next weekend here at Bachelor at the national masters xc ski races. I'm excited, but after this excellent weather, and 35 blood donations over the past year, I have no expectations. If your reading this, and your also doing the races, and skiing in the 30-34 age group, I will still try to kick your butt!

Later

de-ironed

2007-03-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

April 2006 Ferritin: 1090
35 pints of blood later...
March 6, 2007 Ferritin: 30

What that means is I don't have to give blood every week anymore! Yay!