I downloaded and use the Peters0n Field Guide to North American Birds app for my iPhone. It's really cool, has all the descriptions, plate images, photos of eggs, places to put your own photos of the birds you see, and recordings of the sounds, so you can listen to the calls. It also allows you to check species off your life list, or create additional lists. I like it, and it's probably a top 5 in-use app at the moment.

I was out "running" (more like plodding, but whatever) yesterday and startled a bird in the sagebrush. I wasn't sure what it was, and the thought of slogging through all 810 listed species, looking for a match seemed daunting. That made me think of how the overall list could be pared down in situations like this, and I thought, "Eureka!".

The iPhone has geolocation abilities. It also knows the date. The Peterson Field guide has range maps. Bingo! Put the two together and you can have a filter that essentially says "Show me only the birds possible in my current area, at my current time of year, based on their range maps."

I think that would be really cool. Then, when I have opportunity to be across the country, I can do the same, and see a display of only the birds in that area, during that season. I think that would make identification a bit easier. What say you?

VB6. Haven't heard that one in a while, have you? I seem to be about 8 years out of date. But if an application works, why change it, right?

One would think that embedding a spreadsheet into a Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010), VB-flavored form would be a fairly straightforward and simple process. One would even go as far as to say, "Gee, those Microsoft folks have Excel running around loose in the wild, maybe they'll even have a built-in component!"

One would be wrong on both counts.

Some background: years ago, I created a front-end application that would emulate the look of the timesheets we use for tallying the time we do for tasks. It linked up to the SQL back end, so the folks in Accounting could simply download the data into csv files for import into their magic buckets to spit out paychecks. For the most part, it all went swimmingly, with various levels of access to others' timesheets and two-level electronic approval, though the Accounting wonks never wanted to use the import function; apparently they preferred re-entering all the data from printed sheets. Whatever.

Fast forward 10 years. I've left and returned. The same VB6-based application is still in use, with nearly no changes. Now, for some inexplicable reason, that application is conflicting with the data access components we have in our extensive Word 2010 customization. Looking at the data access, I ensured all the Word stuff was using the latest ADO dlls (6.0) from the existing mishmash of 2.0, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8. Still, the timesheet app wouldn't work. Interestingly, re-installing the timesheet causes factory-access errors in our Word customization. Since the Word aspect of the division is much more important than the once-every-two-weeks timesheet, a fix for the timesheet was needed. I had two weeks until the pay period ended.

No problem. I would get the source code, poke around and find what needs updating. Anyone got a copy of VB6 running around? *crickets* As it turns out, there is not a functional copy of the combination of source code and VB6 application to make modification. Swell. Forced re-write time. 

In trying to emulate the existing look and feel of the application (mustn't upset the users), I needed to embed a spreadsheet in a form. What a headache. To do so, one needs to download and INSTALL the office web components executable on every computer that will be running the app. Sorry, there will no simple dll and regsvr32.exe action for you! Manual process on every computer. I don't get it. 

I tell you, if I need to do anything else on this timesheet, and/or if the replacement application (anyone hear of Tyler??) is delayed any longer or sucks more than anticipated, I'll scrap the VS2010 application altogether, and just customize the hell out of a spreadsheet and Excel instance. It'll likely be easier.

Yesterday, I headed out for what turned out to be the "ST" run. I'll explain that in a minute. The run was a drop and go from Tahoe City to where I had left my car at the Bayview Campground across from Inspiration Point overlooking Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe. The majority of the route followed the Tahoe Rim Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, until it hit the Velma Lakes area, where I turned off, and headed east toward my car. 

The views were tremendous, as you can see:

The run was the "st" run in many ways. 

• the longest I had done with a pack;
  
• the longest  I have done solo;
  
• the longest  I have done unsupported;
  
• the longest  I have done, period! 
  
• the most elevation gain (over 9000' according to Google Earth)

It was also the first run I have done where there really was no turning back. I had to finish, regardless. My car was at the end, and there was nothing at the start once I had left, since I had been dropped off. It was a mosquito-fest as well. Slowing to a walk served as an invitation to the little blood-suckers. Dozens would descend if I tried to stop for a stretch. I started to beg for the usual winds to blow them away.

I felt pretty damn good until I hit mile 25. There was this big wall there, and I smacked right into it. My stomach went sour, and even thinking of eating ANYTHING made me want to puke. Since I would have ralphed back up anything I put down almost immediately, I didn't see the point. As a result, my ability to run - shall we say - suffered? I ended up walking virtually all the last 12 miles. Water became an issue as well. I had 80 oz with me at the start, and none at the end. I even took a couple sips from a stream (I know, a no-no). And now, more pictures!

All I can claim is that I completed the journey. The mileage might be off a bit, since the Garmin 405CX died at mile 31. Apparently, I am too slow and the battery failed at that point. The maps showed I was about 6 miles or so from the end where the Garmin died, so I calculated. It may be more, actually, since the maps to that point were about 10% off the GPS measured distances. I think the trail changes since it was mapped have something to do with it.

I met some nice people on the trail, and when one asked (it was "Caveman" I believe, who was hiking the entire PCT) why I was doing it, I quoted a Shin's song and said that I was trying to live a life less ordinary. At the time it made sense. When I was fighting the urge to empty my stomach every step of 12 miles, I could have done with a bit more ordinary. But the thought of what awaited me in the car, kept me going. The trail down to Bayview was steep, but pretty. The view of the beer was even prettier.

About to head out in the dark to get to the Tahoe City trailhead of the TRT. The plan is to head south on the Rim Trail to the Vilma Lakes area, then drop down to the Bayview Campground, where my car will be.

If I haven't checked in after 14 hours, Risa will start to get concerned. I'm thinking less than 12 should get me there.

Adventure runs, FTW!

If you're in the northwestern slice of the hemispheric globe, you know that the manufactured holiday (aren't they all though?) Father's Day passed by on Sunday. It's the day when kids are supposed to pay homage to their dads. I'm extremely happy to have two wonderful kids who make a Father's Day out of almost every day of the year. I don't need a special day. However, receiving the obligatory and stereotypical necktie and the always welcome dark chocolate as gifts made this past Father's Day Sunday a good one. Having recently lost my own father in March (Fuck you, cancer.), the holiday was a bit on the bittersweet side, though.

Mikaela had a good weekend of soccer in a local tournament. After giving up two quick goals in the first five minutes of the first game on Saturday, her team then proceeded to shut out their opponents for the remaining 175 minutes of the tournament, finishing 1-1-1. Team defense was spectacular in the second game, and the goalie figured it all out in the last game. She'd been struggling all season, but put it all together in the final game of the season with a grand individual effort. 

I did a nice run on Saturday, myself. Starting at the South Upper Truckee Road trail head for the Little Valley Trail, I made my way up, up and up to Dardanelles Lake and Round Lake and back. It was a spectacular day, and playing tag with the mountain bikers, swapping the lead back and forth on the way down was entertaining. I probably pushed it a bit too hard in the doing: my ankles and baby cows are a bit sore and tight from the tightroping across and over rocks and roots, but being recognized as "fast" by the cyclists was surprising and ego-boosting. Made the pain worth it! It's also put a bug in my head about a long run next weekend. We'll see if I can sport the cojones necessary to make it happen or not.

Sunday - Faddah's Day itself - was bittersweet not only for the reason above, it was the day we dropped Spencer off at a 2-week summer camp. This is the first time he will be out of touch for any length of time. I'm not sure when he grew up, because I sure didn't get any older. The camp looks amazing and fun, and I'm sure he's going to have a great time. No phones, no iPods, no computers, no anything that plugs in. Talk about disconnection for a 13-year old!

I think I'm going to coin a new acronym: YAWBE. Pronounced "yaw-bee" it stands for "Yet Another Weekend Blog Entry." Seems to fit. Since it sort of forms a word, it can safely be called an acronym. Otherwise it's an initialism. I learn something new every day.
 
Go ahead and notch another action-packed and fun -filled weekend on the books. Why does it seem they seem to come and go ever faster as the years pass? Reminds me of a particular kind of doughnut. A "Sucks, don't it?" kind of doughnut. There is a theory out there about time moving faster as one gets older; I'll do some research on it and get back to y'all when I recall what I've read and/or find out more.

As for this weekend, it was great! It started on Friday, when I was just about to walk out the door for a casual run. A friend called and asked if I would be willing to lead a visitor on a trail run in the area. Nothing too difficult, about 7 miles or so. I agreed, though the mileage was higher than I really wanted to do, since I was planning a 13 on Saturday morning.

We met at the Carson Station Best Western, and I lead the way up Lower and Upper EZ trails on C-Hill. Theresa was having some difficulty given the elevation (she's from much lower - <1000') and a recent cold, so we cut over on the Flag Trail, down the Goat Trail and headed back. I was fine with the 5.5!

Saturday morning was a posted run on ccrunners. 9 miles at 8:30 in Ash Canyon, and a pre-loading 4 on the V&T Lasso at 7:45 for any who were willing. Well, none were. I did the lasso solo (always nice) but the wind was biting and the temps on the chilly side: around 45. I got back to the start and waited to see who would appear for the 9 miler. Again, none. 

Sad really. Invite a crowd and get nobody to show. Perhaps I should have showered between the Friday run and the Saturday one? At any rate, I decided I didn't want to play in the cold wind, so I bagged the 9 myself and went home to get ready for my son's 13th birthday party. The party was originally slated to be at a local water park, but given the chilly conditions, we moved it to an indoor trampoline park. Wow, did they have a grand time!

After the party, a few of the new teens came back to the house and had a sleepover. I'm glad I don't have to do much about those anymore; pretty much clean up the kitchen after late night snacking is all.

Sunday was a run and run and work-a-run day. I first ran to Hobart Reservoir from Lakeview. Tough climb up. According to RunningAhead, it was a 5000' elev gain and loss in the 11 miles. Yikes! But the view was spectabulous:

I spent a few minutes in the sun stretching, snapped the above photo, and headed back down the hill. I had a busy slate still ahead. After getting home, it was a couple of chores around the house and then off and gone to the Melanie Pfieffer Melanoma 5K. I had volunteered to do the timing for the event. I got there early to scope/run the course. It was an easy out and back, with only one street-crossing hazard. Get a couple of people at that point for safety and all would be good. 

I had my camera in my pocket, but never got around to snapping any photos. Bummer. Maybe somebody who was there will read this and send me some. Far fetched, I know, because it implies people read this. :-)

Only about half the participants had pre-registered before the cutoff, so I was a busy boy, tap-tap-tapping data into the timing app on my iPhone (PocketTimer Pro). I had barely gotten them in (OK, I actually hadn't gotten them all), when the starting horn sounded. I added a few after the start (Nice feature, by the way.) and was prepped for the finishers.

If you're interested here are the results. I didn't hang around for the free buffett afterward at El Charro, though it looked amazing. The room was crowded, and there was nowhere to sit by the time I got the results organized. I don't do crowds well anyway, so I let the organizers know the results had been both sent to them and posted, and bugged out to a great roast beast dinner at home. 

After totally oinking down dinner, it was crash-and-burn time. What a great weekend!

Run data, run data, run data. When will it EVER end? Probably with this post, is my guess. After this, well, I think I may stop harping about it, and simply enjoy the time outdoors and not worry about elevation profiles.

I recently started putting my run data on RunningAhead.com. I really like the site and the ability to graph multiple elements simultaneously on a single graph. I also like that it reads the data from my Garmin Forerunner 405CX wirelessly, too. That makes data upload easy. The only thing Garmin has on their site that I still occasionally look at is goal-progress. I imagine RA can implement that one pretty easily too, and eliminate any need for me to deal with Garmin.

When I uploaded some of my data, I noticed that, yet again, the elevation profile information was different from everyone else's. As part of a different conversation with Eric Yee from RunningAhead, I asked about why there were differences in elevation profiles for different sites. This is part of his response:

Wow. Google is different. I also think there is a fudge factor at play on some of my runs in the data itself. If, for example I am following a trail on the side of a fairly steep hill, the trail may be in fact "flat" as it is following the contour. However, the GPS is not ever spot on, and it may be tracking a point 20 feet to the right, then 5 feet to the left, and so on. On a steep hillside, that 20' right might be 15 feet higher than I am, and the 5' to the left may be 10 feet down. So in the course of my movement of 10 feet straight ahead, and level, the GPS just might have tracked a 30' loss of elevation. Or so it seems to me.

At any rate, have a great weekend. My loin-fruit are free of school as of this afternoon, so they'll be as happy as I am tomorrow: they get to sleep in, and I get to go for a run before the big 13th birthday party for my son. O_O

Ahh, the weekend. Time to sell cars, watch soccer (not for much longer) harangue kids into doing homework when all their friends are already out of school, get irritated by the seemingly incessant wind, and, of course, run a bit.

This past weekend started nicely with both a soccer game and selling a car that had been sitting idle on the drive/side of the house for almost a year. It didn't take that long to sell, we just never bothered to try until last October. We finally sold it to a local guy (the good ol' Carson City one degree of separation in action). Good car. It will be happy to be useful again.

Soccer. Hmm. Once again, my daughter's team lead by a 2-0 margin going into the second half. Once again, they managed to squander that lead and either lose or draw at the end of full time. In this particular case, it ended in a loss. I don't understand it. The girls appear to be working as hard as ever, but I think the lineup alterations at halftime are not working as expected. Since it's happened in the last 3 (or is it 4?) games in a row, I definitely think it's a coaching issue. I won't complain to the coaches though. Mikaela doesn't focus on the outcome and is happy with playing hard. I will be, too.

I joined up with the TMM group run on Sunday morning, and ended up doing a new route for me. I had run the first 1.5 miles before on a Mt. Rose to Spooner Summit one-way journey a couple of years ago, but I had never seen the trail from the return perspective, and I had never been on the trail down to the Diamond Peak lodge, nor on the route out of there that the Tahoe Rim Trail 50M race follows. 

There were only five of us that started, Dr. Josh and Tom, both of the UNR Medical school took the lead, the always lovely and chipper Angela, and Peter. Trailing was the photog.

The elevation profile was brutal. The gain itself was bad enough, but having most of the climbing in the second half of the run, after the legs have been flogged by a long downhill was un-nice. I was able to run a part of the steep climb - like the first 1/3 mile or so, before it got really steep and sandy. Then it was a slog up the hill. Beautiful views over my shoulder the whole way though. :)


All in all, a pretty decent 7 days of running with over 11,500 feet of elevation gain across more than 50 miles. That's my biggest week in a year. Yowza! Subtracting out the aberrant peeing blood situation on Friday after a very hot, strenuous run in Ash Canyon, I'd call it great!