HDTV

Interest rates have been climbing over the past few months, so it was a really good time to take our variable rate mortgage and lock it into something a little more stable. We made a well-timed decision and, given the continued increases, one that is definitely working in our favour.

Since we were refinancing, we decided to add a couple of bucks to the existing mortgage and finish up our basement (well, half of it). Along with a full bathroom and a new office (so that I can finally get all of my shit out of the dining room), we're building a home theatre. I'll go into more details about how the home improvement project is going (hint: it's been stupid slow) in a later post.

Of course, you can't have a home theatre without something to watch, so we bought a Panasonic 50" DLP HDTV (I'll add a link as soon as I find one - the one I was going to use no longer exists). It's a pretty decent TV, but while the basement is being worked on, we've had it set up in our bedroom (I know - lame) with a basic co-ax cable connected to it. The picture has been pretty good, but I know it could be better.

The electrical work was supposed to be completed last week, so I called Eastlink to get them to come out and set me up with HDTV. Eastlink provides about 10 different HD channels at the moment, so even though it's an extra $10/mn right now (soon to be $15), it will probably be worth it (most of the shows Andrea watches are broadcast in HD, as is PBS). The electrical work wasn't completed, but I decided to set up the TV in the basement anyway, rather than having everything hooked up in our bedroom.

When we first built the house, I knew that I'd eventually get to the basement, so I had the cable guys leave a drop. Unfortunately, the drop is on the opposite end of the house from where the TV room is. The cable guy, while setting up the HD gear and installing the jacks that I want in the basement, commented that I may need a signal booster (the electrician, while working on the basement and running the co-ax for cable, also noted the same thing several weeks before). He hooked everything up, but didn't think that there was a problem.

One thing the cable guy did mention was that since I have an HDMI jack on my TV, I'd get a better picture if I had an HDMI HD box. He suggested that I give Eastlink a call and let them know and that they'd send out an HDMI box for no extra charge. I assured him that I was do that ASAP.

It turns out, though, that the quality is less than optimal.

Andrea and I decided to watch a Maple Leafs hockey game on CBCHD (one of the main reasons for getting HD in the first place!). While things were slow on the screen, the image quality was pretty good. As soon as the pace picked up, though, artifacts were showing up around the players. Artifact is likely not the correct term here - basically it looked like the signal compression algorithm was inadequate, kind of like a low quality Quicktime or WMV file. And then there were the blocks. On a far-too-frequent basis, the image would be reduced to nothing but annoying blocks. It never lasted more than a second or two, but I was getting better quality from the straight co-ax!

I also noticed that, in general, the non-HD channels didn't look all that good through the HD box. I'm not particularly amused at this point, but I haven't gone through any of the motions to resolve the problem yet - that's this week's project. Here's the list of stuff I'll be doing to correct the problem:

1. Get Eastlink to replace my current box with the HDMI box. The installer said that that should improve the overall picture quality.
2. Get the installer that shows up to spend some time (10 or 15 minutes) checking out the quality of the existing channels, looking for, in particular, the blocking problem. I suspect that he'll say that I'll need a signal booster, so I'll be sure to mention that to the CSR when I call about getting the new box.
3. I've asked a friend, who also gets the HD service, about the artifacts/pixelation issue - he suggested that I call Eastlink and get them to re-program the box. He was having a similar issue and that seems to have solved his problems.

So, after the box is installed, if I'm still having problems, I'll be giving them a call again to see about what changes need to be made to the box. These sorts of changes can be done remotely, so hopefully they'll take effect immediately.

If none of that works, then I'll cancel the service and complain rather loudly - maybe even consider switching to satellite.

I'll post updates as I work through the list.

- Mike

It's beginning to look a lot like....

Where the hell did November and December go?!

Here it is, December 16th, and the house isn't decorated for Christmas yet. Andrea's freaking out because everything is so far behind. She's done some decorating over the last couple of weeks (especially this week) and we brought the tree into the house last night. It's not decorated yet, but at least the house smells like Christmas.

I'm not stressing out so much about it because, as a child, we never really started decorating the house until about this time anyway. Heck, the tree wasn't even up and decorated until the 23rd. We'll do up the tree this weekend, which will be just fine with me. Andrea, on the other hand, likes having stuff done at least 2 weeks before. Yeah, she's a weird one. :)

Of course, taking 8 days to go to Munich probably wasn't the best idea during the Silly Season, but the way I see it is that the decorating will get done in time. I love how the house looks with all of the decorations, but, really, as long as the tree is done and we have a couple of (fake) boughs around the house with some lights, I'm perfectly happy. Given the choice between a fully-decorated house and Europe, Europe will win every time. :)

I've got lots of shopping to do next week, so I'll pack up Olivia and get out of the house for a few hours. That ought to give Andrea lots of time to do whatever it is she wants to do.

Today's my last day at the office until the new year and I'm really looking forward to relaxing (if that's going to be possible!) at home with Andrea and Olivia, drinking tea, watching the fire, and just absorbing everything. Christmas will probably be hectic this year (babies make everything hectic, don't they!), so I'd better get in the relaxation while I can.

- Mike

Just a wee bit of travelling

So, I find myself in Munich this week, participating in the DSL Forum quarterly meeting.

I'm the main technical representative for the company I work for, as well as the editor of one of the parking lot documents. Being an editor means that I pretty much need to attend all of the meetings, so I'll get to do quite a bit of travelling (at least 4 times a year) for the next little while.

Travelling seems to be feast or famine for me. Back in 2002, I did a lot of travelling - about 10 trips, all told. Lots of trips to the US and a few to Europe. I travelled enough that I achieved Elite status with Air Canada. I was pretty happy about that, since that meant I would get the upgrade coupons and get access to the Maple Leaf lounges.

All of that travel was promptly followed by 2.5 years of virtually no travel whatsoever. I travelled twice in 2003, and neither of the trips with Air Canada, so I didn't get to use any of my Elite benefits. Figures. I also only travelled a handful of times in 2004 (once to Denver, twice to Madrid).

So, what happens this year? Right after Olivia was born, I seem to be travelling quite a bit. LA back in July. Philadelphia in September. New Hampshire in October. San Francisco in November. Munich in December. Every trip lasts about a week. It's crazy!

Andrea, naturally, is not too thrilled with my being away so often. To be honest, while I love visiting new countries, I hate leaving Olivia. The fact that Andrea is home by herself with Olivia makes things even worse, since it's very hard work raising a child with two people, let alone by yourself.

Things a little different this time, though... I've brought Andrea with me to Munich. I've been slaving away all week while she's been galavanting all through Munich and even to Salzburg. She deserves the time away, of course, so I don't mind hearing about all of the cool things she does during the day while I'm stuck in meetings.

And there's no real end to all of the travel in the near future. Potential trips for 2006 include New Hampshire, Vienna, Athens, San Jose, and Atlanta. I'm thinking I'll get Elite status again in 2006.

Guerilla .NET not so guerilla?

Back in July, a colleague and I went to Torrance, CA to attend DevelopMentor's Guerilla .NET 2.0 training course. I enjoy learning about new technologies and I was anxious to see how .NET compared to Java/J2EE. I absolutely love writing code and DevelopMentor's motto of "Write code day and night" (or something close to that) certainly appealed to me.

Overall, we learned lots of interesting things, but I found the course to be rather disappointing. I really did expect to write code day and night. Instead, we worked on labs for about 10 hours. There was just so much information to cover, which didn't leave a lot of time for labs. On top of that, the labs tended to be rather simple. I was certainly looking for more of a challenge.

We opted to attend the 2.0 course because it is scheduled to be released sometime in November. However, we probably should have taken the 1.1 course instead. Most of the people attending the 2.0 course were already very familiar with 1.1, so they were really only looking for the differences between 1.1 and 2.0 (changes, new features, etc). As a result, the instructors met halfway with the material. For those of us that had never seen .NET before, we spent a lot of time trying to catch up. I suspect that those already familiar with 1.1 were probably pretty bored most of the time. Chris and I had spent some time learning C# syntax before the course, which kept us from being completely lost.

C# is very Java-like, which made it pretty easy to learn. I liked the delegates (sort of like function pointers), which can help code look a little tidier than with anonymous inner classes. I'm not so sure about the attributes yet. I'm pretty sure that I don't like the weird ? shortcut. In a lot of ways, some of the features of the C# language look like hacks to get the language to perform certain behaviours. I suspect that my current opinion will change as I use the language more.

I find it interesting that Java and C# are pretty much headed down the same path, what with generics and the like. No real surprise, I guess, since they're both solving the same problem.

One of things that really disappointed me was the realization that .NET is not Microsoft's answer to J2EE. Chris and I had mistakenly believe that .NET had equivalents to EJBs and the like, but really it's Microsoft's answer to J2SE. Sure, MS provides ADO.NET (basically ODBC) and ASP (similar to JSP), but those are technologies built on top of .NET.

Microsoft seems to have this incessant need to change things that are already standardized (or at least generally accepted). Case in point is ADO - they could have easily taken ODBC/JDBC and built a .NET equivalent (NDBC?). Instead, they came up with new method names and the like. I find that really annoying.

Although there were a lot of things that I did find annoying, there were also some things that I really liked. One of the big wow things for me was the ease at which Visual Studio lets you build web services-based applications. The whole WSDL browser and code generator stuff is really slick. I built a small GUI-based app that used web services to retrieve weather info and display it in about 5 minutes. I was totally juiced by that.

I could continue offering up opinions about C#/.NET, but I really don't have enough experience yet for those opinions to have any meaning, so I'm going to stop. :)

There was an optional programming competition that was part of the Guerilla course, with prizes being awarded for the best programs. Being in class 12 hours a day didn't leave a lot of time for working on such a task, but Chris and I spent some time figuring out what we could put together. Chris and I hummed and hawwed about what we could do. In a room full of programming geeks, technologically-slanted apps should do the trick. However, experience has taught us that style wins over substance every time.

The group went to play laser tag one night and we convinced two of the instructors to have a go at Dance Dance Revolution. Chris took a great picture and he came up with the idea of hacking up the picture a bit and writing a program to simulate the instructors playing DDR.

We stayed up late a couple of nights and finally came up with a decent app. We animated the players, played music from the game, and gave each dancer their own skill level. The whole thing was really cheesy, but it looked hilarious.

Apparently everyone else thought so too and we won first prize. Our instincts to go with flash and dash and make fun of the instructors was proven correct.

All in all, we learned a lot of stuff about .NET during the course. I think the most important thing we learned is that the system is capable of a lot of stuff and we've been given just enough information to know how to dig deeper for whatever it is we need. I was really disappointed in the lack of coding, but the sheer amount of material to be covered meant that there just wasn't a lot of time for that.

Would I take another Guerilla course? I don't know. The instructors certainly knew their stuff (they were fabulous, actually), so going to another course just to collect info about a certain technology would be worthwhile. But I would certainly change their slogan.

- Mike

Whoa, where the heck have you been?

Yeah, I've been gone for a while. Family life has been keeping me insanely busy. The time that I would normally use for updating the blog is usually taken up with baby duty.

A lot of stuff has been going on and I'm hoping to get caught up with everything over the next couple of weeks. Here's a brief rundown:

• Andrea took Olivia to Toronto to visit her family for 2 weeks (you'd think I'd have had lots of time to catch up at that time - 'fraid not)
  
• My running has been suffering - not only am I having knee problems, I'm having a hard time finding the time to get the running in
  
• I went to Torrance (just outside of LA) to participate in a DevelopMentor Guerilla .NET training course
  
• Just got back from the Nova East star party, organized by the Halifax chapter of the RASC
  

I'm on vacation this week, so I'm hoping to be able write up some details about the items I just listed. Stay tuned.

- Mike

9:00 has been cracked!

I took the day off from running yesterday (not really by choice - crazy busy at home) and started my run today fairly refreshed. After the 9:20 per mile performance from Wednesday, I felt pretty good. As on Wednesday, I was looking forward to bettering my previous time, but not by anything significant. Big improvements come over time and not overnight. Or so I thought.

I've been reading some articles about distance training and one of them talked about how short distance runners, when slowed to marathon pacing, do far better than runners whose training is focused mostly on endurance. The reasoning is that the short distance runners develop better lung capacity and a more efficient running stride. The end result is that if you include lots of speed training along with the regular endurance training, you will see a shorter marathon time.

I've always had a very short running pace, which isn't really efficient. Tonight, I tried altering my running stride. Instead of short and fast strides, I took longer and slightly slower strides. I noticed an immediate improvement. Halfway through the run, I continued with the long strides, but I picked up the pace a bit to something a little closer to my usual pace. It was an intense struggle to maintain that pace through the last mile, but I managed.

The end result? 3 miles in 26:38. Woo!

Now that I know I can do it, I'm going to focus on perfecting my stride and slowly increasing the distance. My next milestone is going to be 5 miles in 45 minutes. I suspect it'll take me a few weeks to reach.

- Mike

A hard ol' go

I was a little late getting out for my run tonight (9pm), but at least I still got out, which is important. It's certainly a lot easier finding time for a 3- or 4-mile run than it is for 5 or more. Even a 3-mile run takes me 45 or more minutes - 10 minutes for stretching, 30 minutes for the run, 5 or 10 more minutes for cooldown stretching.

I was very surprised by my performance tonight - I was able to bring my time down to 9:20 per mile. It was quite a struggle for me to maintain that pace for 3 miles, but I did it.

My struggle tonight elevated my already heightned respect and appreciation for the expert runners who can do a marathon in less than 3 hours. To do that, you need to run a 6-minute mile - for 26 miles. An amazing feat, to be sure.

I still have such a long way to go...

- Mike

And so we begin again... Part 2

I haven't got a lot of running in over the last couple of weeks, so it's prudent that I start off my training with shorter distances for the next few weeks and then only start increasing the distance once I feel comfortable again.

I'm going to have to draw up some sort of training schedule soon, but I'm thinking about doing four runs of 3 miles and one run of 5 miles each week for the next couple of weeks. I will probably increase the long day distance by at least 1 mile per week. that should give me lots of time to get me to the 15-mile mark.

Completing 13 miles in less than 2 hours means that I'll have to run a 9-minute mile (13 X 9 = 1h57m). In all of the training for the full marathon that I did, I never really did better than a 10-minute mile, so cutting out an extra minute per mile and maintaining that pace is going to be difficult.

Tonight was the first night that I got out as part of my new training schedule and I surprised myself by running a 9:45 mile. By focusing on speed over short distances for the next few weeks, I should be able to get that down to 9 minutes.

- Mike

A change of plans

It's been a few days since I made my fateful decision about dropping out of the Valley Harvest and I must admit that I've been pretty bummed out about the whole thing. Of course, there's really not much I can do about it, so I guess I'd better just suck it up.

And then this morning, things changed. Again.

I was in the shower thinking about how I was going to stay motivated until January, when I could start full-out training again. I tend to lose interest in things rather quickly, so I need lots of motivation to keep me focused on my goal. Trying to keep up a maintenance program for 6 months was going to be hard for me.

As I've mentioned before, I've really only ever been interested in the full 26 miles because running a half marathon is really quite easy (distance-wise, anyway). So if the distance itself wasn't going to be a challenge, I started thinking about what I could do to turn it into one.

When I ran the Bluenose back in May, it took me 2:35 to run the first 13 miles. If I'm ever going to crack the 4-hour mark for a full marathon, I'm going to have to bring that time down to less than 2 hours.

Ding! There's all the motivation I need right there.

And so the new plan is to run the Valley Harvest half-marathon and to do it in less than 2 hours. If I'm successful, it'll push me a long way towards breaking that 4-hour mark for the Bluenose next May.

- Mike

Decision time

I've been trying very hard over the last few weeks to try to get myself up to a 25-30 mile week, but it's just been too difficult. Between work and spending time with the family, I'm unable to find a minimum of 1.5 hours a day to dedicate to training (minimum days are 5 miles).

And so I have decided to abandon my efforts for running in the Valley Harvest marathon in October.

With the Valley Harvest off the table, that leaves next year's Bluenose as the next race. Olivia will be much older and a little less needy by January, so finding the time to dedicate to training should be much easier. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Of course, I don't want to start from scratch again come January, so I'm going to try to get in 3-5 miles as often as I can - 12 miles a week would be great, but I'll just have to wait and see how that plays out.

- Mike

And so we begin again...

Even before I actually ran the Bluenose, I started working on the idea of running the Valley Harvest marathon in Kentville in October. Given the awful conditions for race day for the Bluenose, I figured I owed it to myself to try running a marathon in what would almost be guaranteed to be better conditions (knock on wood).

Once I had actually completed the race, I made up my mind that I was definitely going to go for the Valley Harvest. My original plan was to take a week off from training altogether and then jump right into a 30-mile-a-week maintenace program (5-5-5-5-10) until July or August and then start working on a full marathon plan. Alas, life had other plans for me.

Instead of taking a week to recover from the race, it took closer to two weeks. On top of that, Olivia was only about 6 weeks old and still quite a handful, needing to be fed every 2 or 3 hours. Add in the fact that I started back to work on May 31st and you can see how it was rather difficult to find the time to get a run in.

On June 8th, 2.5 weeks after the marathon, Andrea could see that I was getting frustrated and told me to go for a run. Now, I figured that after such a short time period (2.5 weeks of rest really doesn't seem like much when compared with the 20 weeks of training that I had just finished) that I'd be able to rip off 5 miles with little to no trouble at all. Boy, was I ever surprised. It was all I could do to finish 3 miles.

Ok, so I couldn't pull off 5 miles my first day out. I figured I'd run 3 miles a day for a few days to shake out the rust and then I'd be able to return to my normal 5-mile days. But I couldn't. I was so sore after those first 3 miles that I had to take a couple of days off. I couldn't believe how much my body atrophied in just 2.5 weeks!

At this point, I've managed to get in a couple of 5-mile days since getting back into the saddle, but I've been pretty sore - sorer than I normally would be after a 5-mile run. I'm hoping that if I take a little more time to ease back into my routine that I'll be fine and still have time to get back up to 30 miles a week before the end of July.

- Mike

Revenge of the Sith

Despite Lucas' reputation for bringing out wooden performances and producing atrocious dialogue, I enjoyed The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. They certainly don't compare to the original trilogy, but they were entertaining nonetheless. As such, I expected to be entertained by Revenge of the Sith as well.

Going into the movie, there were three main things that I was interested in seeing:

1. exactly how Anakin became Darth Vader
   
2. how the gaps between the prequels and original trilogy would be wrapped up
   
3. how a story that really has no happy aspect to it whatsoever would be handled
   

And, I must say, I was quite pleased with how the whole thing played out.

Even with my initial lowered expectations, I must admit to being surprised by the relatively awful first 30-or-so minutes. I went into the movie expecting to see a dramatic sci-fi movie, not some hokey, badly-made comedy film. I just couldn't believe it. Thank god that the story settled down into the proper genre shortly after.

The love scenes between Anakin and Padme were, predictably, mediocre. There weren't many of them, which made me happy.

I was a little confused about why Anakin wasn't dressed up like a padawan anymore (longish hair, without the rat-tail), and the reason was never highlighted during the movie. Luckily, I've since watched the animated Clone Wars series, which explained everything.

Samuel L Jackson made it clear in the past the that he didn't want Mace Windu to go out as a punk, and I must say I was happy to see how the whole thing went down. I'm a little surprised that he was actually able to defeat Palpatine, especially when you consider that Yoda and Palpatine fought to a stalement later on in the Senate chamber. It was at this point that Anakin finally took his first step down the path to the Dark Side, delivering a "sucker punch" to Windu and allowing Palpatine to dispense with him.

Overall, I felt that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side happened much too quickly. We are given a definite time frame in the movie - probably about 8 months from when Padme tells Anakin that she's pregnant at the beginning of the movie until the twins are born at the end - and I find it hard to believe that Anakin was able to be turned from the Light Side, which he studied for more than 10 years, to the Dark Side that quickly. That would suggest that he was predisposed to the Dark Side, which surely the Jedi Council would have detected. At one point, Windu says that perhaps they have interpreted the prophecy incorrectly, which could help explain the rapid downfall.

I rather enjoyed the irony around the fact that Anakin eventually makes the leap from Light to Dark in order to learn the skills necessary to keep Padme from dying, only to find out that it was his turn to the Dark Side that leads to her death. And by his own hand at that! It's never explained in the movie, but I get the feeling that Palpatine was feeding the visions of Padme's death to Anakin in order to push him over the edge.

I felt that Hayden Christensen's acting was the worst of everyone in AotC (no fault of his, really), but I was very surprised by his performance at times in RotS. I actually felt his hatred for the Jedi and Obi-Wan near the end of the movie.

I loved how all of the loose ends were tied up. We got to see how the droids would not know anything of the past in ANH. We got to see how the twins were separeted. We got to see how Yoda and Obi-Wan ended up as they did. I loved how Grand Moff Tarkin was introduced at the very end. The one thing that didn't make sense is how far along the Death Star was at the end. There are 18 years between RotS and ANH and, if I remember correctly, the station becomes fully operational shortly before the beginning of ANH. What took so long and how did they manage to hide its existence for so long? There are only a few years between the destruction of the Death Star in ANH and the creation of the new one in RotJ. Why the difference? I suppose they could have started the second one shortly after the first, but I think this was a slight timing oversight.

In the end, it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it was definitely the better of the prequel movies and one that I am anxious to watch again.

- Mike

5:38:01!

I can hardly believe it - I ran and finished a marathon!

It was, without a doubt, the greatest challenge I've ever faced, made all the harder by the deplorable race day conditions.

I had four main goals for the race:

1. Actually complete the distance (ie, all 26.2 miles)
   
2. Run non-stop for as long as possible
   
3. Run as much of the course as possible
   
4. Finish somewhere around 5:20
   

Having completed several 16- and 18-mile distances during my training, I had no doubt whatsoever that I would be able to cover the entire distance through some combination of running and walking.

Knowing that I could complete the course, barring some sort of freak incident, I wanted to be able to run as long as I possibly could. I was shooting for at least 20 miles, but anything more than 18 would be great.

I acknowledged the fact that I probably couldn't run the entire distance (it's hard to train, sleep, and eat right when you've got a newborn), but I did want to really push myself to run every step of the distance that I could.

The 5:20 finish time was really a stretch goal, but under good running conditions, I felt that I could probably make it.

As I described last time, the forecast for the day was none too favourable. In fact, deplorable would be a little more accurate. I must admit that, although I knew it was going to be bad, I still was pretty unhappy when I woke up in the morning and saw the awful conditions. My resolve never wavered, however, and I eagerly prepared for the race.

Finally, after showering, eating, getting dressed, and dropping Olivia off at the grandparents', Andrea and I were off to the Metro Centre.

The first bit of news we were given once we got there was that the start time was going to be delayed at least an hour - ie, original start time of 9am was pushed back to at least 10am. That wasn't such a big deal to me, but it did mean that Andrea would not be able to see me actually start off (she had to leave to get ready for the christening of her best friends' daughter, who happens to be 3 weeks to the day older than Olivia).

Along with hoping for better weather conditions by waiting the extra hour, we also found out that the delay was a result of the planners trying to figure out how to salvage the race. With the high wind conditions, it was no longer safe to run across the bridge. It was also mentioned that parts of the course in Dartmouth were flooded out.

There was quite a bit of talk of canceling the race. However, the organizers realized that that was not an option - too many people spent too much time training to have the race scrubbed. There was also talk of reducing the full marathon to only a half. I really hoped that they weren't going to do that. I had trained to run the whole distance and if I couldn't do that, I wasn't going to bother at all. After much delay, the organizers were able to get the city to allow the first half of the course to be run twice.

The time for the start finally arrived. Everyone started lining up, getting ready for the starting gun. The first person out of the gate was the lone wheelchair athlete. There was a great amount of cheering and applause when he crossed the start line.

I was surprised by the electricity in the air. I was very excited about getting started, but I was also really nervous. I'm not really sure why, but I do have a habit of getting nervous when doing new things. *shrug*

The full and half marathoners all started at the same time, so there were a lot of runners at the start line. In fact, it took about 5 minutes from the starting gun just to get to the start line. As a result, my "official" time is longer than my actual chip time.

Although the weather was awful, there were a lot of supporters along the track, waving like crazy and cheering everyone on. It was really great. I probably spent too much time/energy acknowledging the cheers, but it was great fun.

The first few miles of the race were pretty painless. There was lots of rain and wind, but I didn't really notice it. Well, not until the course turned around and we were running straight into it. I'm not sure of the wind speeds, but I'd be willing to bet that the winds were at least 40km/h. With the gusts, sometimes it felt that I was running up against a brick wall. It was kind of demoralizing - running as hard as you can and not making any real progress. We had to run into the wind for several miles and I was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to keep it up the first time, let along a second lap. Of course, I was completely soaked by all of the rain by this point and the strong wind made things very, very cold. It was not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.

Around the 8 or 9 mile mark, I started to wonder if I was going to be able to make it. Luckily the course turned again and we were running with the wind, which gave some reprieve. However, most of the second half of the first lap was uphill. That kind of sucked, but at least I wasn't quite so cold (my hands were literally blue for most of the race).

Finally, I go to the 13-mile mark. I stepped over the line and began the second lap. I was pretty sore and tired at that point and my heart sank a little at the thought of having to do all of that again. The one thing that really kept me going was the goal of trying to run more than 18 miles without stopping.

Running along Barrington street, straight into the wind, for several miles was incredibly difficult the second time around. I pushed and pushed as hard as I could, each step becoming more and more difficult. It was all I could do to make it to PPP. Finally, at the 20-mile mark, I had to stop. I also had to pee like a race horse, so I stopped. It sucked that I had to stop, but at least I managed more than 18 miles without stopping.

From that point on, I would walk for a bit and then run for a bit. I tried very hard to run as much as I could. Of the final 6 miles, I probably walked about half. That disappointed me, but I was just so tired and spent. The wind really took its toll on me.

It was right around the 22-mile mark that I came upon Andrea and Emma, my niece. Andrea had been planning on meeting me in various spots along the course to cheer me on. I've got to tell you, seeing the two of them there, waving signs and hollering at me really spurred me on. It was only about 30 seconds, but it made all of the difference in the world.

As soon as I ran past them, they got back into the car and drove to another spot and waited for me. They did this a couple more times along the remaining miles. When I got within two miles of the end, I told them that they should probably head over to the finish line.

I walked for a little bit until I got to the 2km remaining point. I wanted to finish as strong as I could and I pushed hard to run right to the end. There's a bit of a nasty hill right before the finish line and it was quite a struggle, but my training route ends with a mile-long hill, so I was used to having to work hard to finish. I got to the top of the hill and a volunteer directed me towards the finish line which, thankfully, was downhill.

I ran into the Metro Centre and Andrea, Emma, and her parents (my sister and brother-in-law) were all cheering me on. There was almost no one left, but I didn't care. The sense of accomplishment I felt was almost overwhelming. I felt so good that I almost didn't want to stop running. In fact, a volunteer had to tell me to stop so that she could cut the chip off my shoe. :)

The official time - 5:38:01. Slower than the 5:20 that I was shooting for, but pretty respectable, given the conditions.

I've never been so tired or spent in my whole life, but I'd also never felt so invigorated. I can't even describe how I felt. And pretty much the first words out of my mouth were, "oh yeah, I'm going to do that again." Robin Williams once remarked that while you could certainly spend your time doing cocaine, running a marathon gives the same high and only cost a pair of shoes.

Interestingly enough, some combination of my elation at having finished and the excitement of my family attracted a reporter from the Halifax Herald, who asked me some questions about why I was running, how long I trained for, etc. It'll be in the paper in a couple of days, I suspect.

And so now I plan to take a week or two off to recover and then start thinking about what I'm going to do next. The Valley Harvest marathon in Kentville is in October.

- Mike

Not looking so good...

The weather hasn't been so good for the last few days, what with the constant stream of rain, and it's looking pretty miserable for tomorrow's race. That's certainly a drag.

The Weather Network has a 7-day forecast that I have been watching intently since last weekend. The weather is notoriously hard to predict in this area and the forecasts are wrong as often as not. It's hard enough coming up with an accurate short-term forecast, so when I saw rain for the 22nd the week before (ie, the tail end of the 7-day forecast), that pretty much told me that I could look forward to sun. As the week progressed, the forecast for the 22nd continued to change and at one point, they were predicting sun and good temperatures for both Saturday and Sunday. Alas, that was not to be.

Heavy rain started near the end of the week (and I mean heavy). The forecast for Sunday changed again around Thursday - lots of rain, relatively cold temperatures, lots of wind. It remained the same on Friday and here it is on Saturday and the forecast for tomorrow hasn't changed.

Oddly enough, it's been quite nice today. No real sunny breaks, but no rain, not a lot of wind, etc. Given the forecast for tomorrow, the race should have been bumped up to today.

So how are things looking for tomorrow? 50mm of rain, winds of 40km/h, and single digit temperates. How lovely.

With that kind of weather, what to wear for race day becomes very important. If it was going to be nice, my running shirt and shorts would be sufficient. If it was going to be cold/windy and not raining, my sweat pants and a sweater would be fine. However, the rain adds a whole new dimension. The sweater and sweat pants would be ok, except for the fact that they will hold a lot of water, making the run even more difficult, especially with all of that wind. If I don't dress warmly, though, hypothermia will be a real problem. I decided that I needed to buy some appropriate clothing.

Half an hour later, I'm back at the Running Room. They had all kinds of great water-resistant windbreaker like jackets. I did some research on the website before I headed down and had two potential jackets picked out - the SOHO jacket and the Unisex Reflective jacket (some sort of Running Room-branded jacket). From my research, I preferred the Unisex, but the cheapskate in me had me leaning towards the SOHO (hey, $15 is $15!).

Once I got to the store and really looked at the two jackets, I opted for the Unisex. I liked the look, feel, and features of the jacket better. There were lots of colours to choose from (although I would have to go to the expo booth to find a blue or red one) and although I'm historically into drab and dark colours, I figured I'd spice things up a bit. I hummed and hawed between the yellow (listed as gold on the site) and bright green and decided that yellow was the way to go. So add another $80 to my equipment total. :)

One of the nifty things about the jacket are the zippers that run along the sleeves and down the sides of the jacket, which serve as vents. I won't be needing those tomorrow, but I'm sure they'll have some use in the future. I was wearing the jacket around the store and noticed that sometimes the zipper would rub up against the underside of my arm. I immediately recognized that as a source for chafing, especially on a long run, and the short-sleeved running shirt that I already have left some of my bare arm exposed to the zipper. I'm sure you can guess where this is going... $50 later, I found a long-sleeved mesh shirt (very similar to my short-sleeved one).

Now that I've got my new shirt and jacket, I'm all set for tomorrow. I tend to generate a lot of heat while I'm running, so I think I'll be fine if I wear my shorts only (ie, no sweat pants).

And so I wait....

- Mike

What a little piggy!

There's no doubt about it - Olivia is a ravenous little girl and has been pretty much since the moment she was born.

Olivia was 8lbs 1oz when she was born on April 18th. As is typical with all newborns, she lost some weight over the next couple of days. Olivia was having quite a bit of trouble getting a hang of the whole breastfeeding thing, so she didn't get a whole lot of food the first couple of days. On the 19th, she was down to 7lbs 7oz. On the 20th, she was 7lbs 6oz. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but the nurses were cautious.

Because she hadn't really been getting a lot of food over those two days, she was pretty upset a lot of the time. She'd feed at the breast for 30 or 45 minutes, be calm for 10-20, and then start screaming again. Two days of this behaviour finally took its toll on Andrea and I and we were at our wits' end.

Recognizing that we were about ready to give Olivia away to the next person that walked by, our nurse suggested that we try giving her some formula so that she'd at least have a full belly and let us get some sleep. We started with only one ounce, but as soon as she finished it, she quieted right down and went to sleep. We've never looked back since.

Breast milk is best, of course, so Andrea was pumping off as much as she could during the day (and she continues doing that today), but we continued to supplement with formula. It was 1oz at first, but with each feeding, she would take more and more. By the middle of the 3rd day, she was almost up to 4oz.

As a result of feeding her the formula (and the sheer amount she eats), her weight loss obviously stopped and she actually started to gain back a few ounces. We left the hospital on the 22nd and the public health nurse visited us at home on the 23rd. When she weighed Olivia, she was back up to her birth weight.

Olivia is now consuming 4-6oz per feeding, with 5-6 feedings a day, and the results are incredible. By the 27th, she was 8lbs 14oz. On May 9th, she was 9lbs 14oz. She also grew 2 inches in length between the 27th and 9th. She's starting to bust out of the 3 month sleepers we have for her, resulting in Andrea hanging out in the second-hand clothing stores (we're pretty lucky in that we have 2 very good stores within a 10-minute drive).

Olivia is progressing incredibly well, and I very much look forward to the next stage of her continued development.

- Mike

The right equipment makes all the difference

I've been meaning to write this up a long time ago and now that I'm home for 6 weeks with Olivia, I've finally got a few minutes to try to catch up with some of the things that I've wanted to write about over the last couple of months. (I can't believe I just said that I actually have a few minutes!)

I tend to be quite a cheapskate, so one of the appealing notions of running was that I wouldn't need any additional equipment. I already had a pair of sneakers, t-shirts, and some shorts, so I was good to go. Or so I thought.

I began my training in earnest at the beginning of January. I was only running a maximum of 5 miles one day a week at this point (3 and 4 miles for the other days in the week), so I hadn't encountered any problems. Shortly into February, however, my feet started getting sore on my long days (6, 7, 8 miles). I knew I was in real trouble when I started developing blisters on my feet. Andrea had been telling me all along that I really should invest in a good pair of shoes, but I had been resisting that idea because of the cost (cheapskate, remember?). Finally, I realized that she was right and decided to give in.

I probably could have gone just about anywhere to buy a good pair of running shoes (Cleve's, SportChek, etc). Instead, Andrea convinced me that I should go into the Running Room. A friend of hers at work went there and had been raving about how informed the staff was and the various services they offer, such as running clinics. I knew I'd pay a premium for anything I'd buy there, but I decided to check it out. And boy, am I ever glad I did.

It was busy in the store when I got there (I was pretty surprised by that, actually), but while I was waiting, I noticed that all of the staff seemed to know all of the clientele. That was pretty reassuring, since that meant the store got a lot of repeat business.

Someone finally got to me. She took a look at my feet and asked "You've never been here before, have you?" I wasn't quite sure how she knew, but I acknowledged her assertation.

"Take off your shoes and roll up your pant legs."

As I complied, I noticed that everyone in the store was walking around in sock feet with their pant legs rolled up. So that's how she knew. :)

"Have you ever bought a good pair of shoes before?" she asked.

I looked at her and said, matter of factly, "I've never paid more than $30 for a pair of sneakers in my life."

She gave me a look that hinted that maybe I was just there to buy the shoes and had no intention of using them for training. "Well, you're going to pay a lot more than that today."

As I said, I'm really glad I went there. I had no idea that buying a pair of good running shoes was such a complicated process. I always thought that a shoe was a shoe was a shoe. Not so. Manufacturers make different types of shoes, based on foot structure and how you walk. I don't remember all of the details and I'm too lazy to look them up, but I was completely surprised.

The associate had me walk and run up and down the store so that she could see how I impacted the floor. "Aha! So that's why I needed to roll up my pants," I mused. It was kinda weird at first, but everyone else was doing it too, so it wasn't too bad.

After a few minutes of analyzing my walk and my feet, the associate went to the wall of shoes and selected a pair of Saucony Omni 4 shoes. I'd never even heard of them before. Amazingly enough, they were an absolute perfect fit. I'm really not sure if it was skill or luck, but I was impressed anyway (I'm willing to bet it was skill). Just for kicks, she brought me several other pairs of varying manufacturers and types to try, but none of them really fit. I opted for the first pair.

During the fitting, she eventually asked why I was looking for a good pair of shoes. I mentioned that I was training for the Bluenose Marathon. I think she was relieved that I planned on actually using the shoes for their intended purpose. I mentioned that I was getting blisters and she indicated that blisters are usually caused by improperly fitting shoes and improper socks. I tend to wear cotton socks, which tend to hold moisture. She immediately recommended that I buy a proper pair of running socks (mostly a polyester-like material that wicks moisture away). I really didn't know what I was doing, but I bought a pair anyway.

And so I continued my training. And lo and behold, the blisters went away and my feet stopped hurting, almost immediately. After only a couple of days, I was very glad that I paid about $140 for a pair of sneakers. I also tried wearing both the new socks and some of my old socks. I immediately noticed a difference. Again, I was so surprised. Eventually, I noticed that one particular bag of sports socks I got for Christmas worked really, really well (even better than the running socks I bought), so I've been sticking with those ever since.

As my training distances increased, my nipples began to start chafing. Like everything else I wear, most of my t-shirts were 100% cotton. Luckily I found a great tip on the web site where I found my training plan - the tip was to apply Vaseline to your nipples before running. What a huge difference. Instead of being rubbed almost to the point of bleeding, I suffered no problems at all, no matter what the distance. Eventually my wife bought me a proper running shirt (again, made of a wicking material) which has done wonders for me. Sometimes I finish a run and my shirt is actually dry!

So it turns out that my initial thoughts about running being a cheap hobby were completey incorrect. I've laid out $140 for shoes, $10 for socks, $40 for a running shirt, $20 for shorts, and $40 for a 2-bottle water carrier. Still cheaper than playing hockey, I guess. And had I not done it, I'd have given up on the training several months ago.

- Mike

Olivia has arrived!

As I mentioned way back in February, I'm going to be a dad. Well, the day finally arrived.

Olivia Lauren Digdon was born on April 18th, 2005, at 6:24pm via C-section. She weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 20.5 inches long. She's got a full head of very light hair (just like her mom and dad) and bright blue eyes. Despite a plethora of claims stating otherwise, she does NOT look like Don, Fred, or Brian. :)

It's been an interesting journey up to this point and it's kind of hard to believe that she's finally here.

Andrea and I had been trying for about 18 months. The fact that we hadn't been successful really wasn't bothering me at all, but it was really upsetting Andrea. I knew it would happen eventually, but that didn't keep Andrea from being a little depressed.

So, let's fast forward to August.

Andrea gives me a call at work. "Are you sitting down?"

"Why?", I ask. I spent a couple of seconds trying to figure out what surprise she might be about to spring on me. Andrea had been taking Clomid for several months, but her prescription ran out and hadn't been on it for a couple of months, so pregnancy was the last thing on my mind.

"I think I'm pregnant!"

I felt some excitement and disbelief all at the same time. "Pregnant? Are you sure?"

"Well, I just took two tests, and they both came back 'positive'."

We were both surprised. She has mentioned that she's not even sure why she took the test in the first place.

Andrea has the unfortunate luck of people not being available when she has exciting news. Back when I proposed to her, she tried desperately to call her mom & dad, but they had mistakenly knocked the phone off the hook. We eventually had to drive to their house to give them the good news. This time around, I was scheduled to go out to dinner for work with some people from our RWC head office. Dinner was slated to start at 7, so I didn't have enough time to get home first. I also knew it would likely go late (I believe I got home around 11pm). So poor Andrea is bouncing off the walls and I couldn't be there to share the moment with her.

Apparently Andrea still didn't quite believe that she was truly pregnant, even though the home pregnancy tests are typically 99% accurate. While I was out for dinner, she ran down to the grocery store to buy a couple more home pregnancy tests. I believe she eventually took 5 different tests, just to be sure. They all came up "positive."

I eventually got home and Andrea was still up - she was absolutely glowing. I can't remember the last time I saw her so happy. We stayed up for several hours talking about the major journey that we were about to undertake.

And what an interesting journey it's turned out to be so far.

- Mike

Dodged a bullet

I've just realized that it's been awhile since I've written anything. A lot of stuff has been going on, so I figured I'd better bring everyone up-to-date.

Last time I talked about the groin injury I was suffering with. I was pretty cranky about the whole thing, especially since I had just registered for the race the day before the injury. While I was moping about the house, Andrea gave me a fresh perspective.

"Ok, so you can't run the full marathon. So what? There's nothing that says you can't walk part of that 26 miles. I'll still be very proud of you."

While I admit that the thought of not being able to run the whole race was certainly going to be a disappointment, the furthest distance I had ever covered was a mere 13 km during a forced march (with full pack!) during my basic training days. The ability to run/walk/crawl 26 miles was still going to be a significant accomplishment. I started to feel a little better.

I ended up taking the rest of the week off from running.

My normal training routine is to do the long run on Sundays, take Monday and Friday off, run a short distance on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and run a medium distance on Wednesday. Since I wasn't feeling 100% by the time the next Sunday rolled around (scheduled for 12 miles), I had to rework my regimen. It's very important that I get the long distances in before the race, so I absolutely did not want to drop any. So, instead of running the long distance at the beginning of the week, I decided to run them at the end of the week (Saturdays instead of Sundays). By running the 4 and 5 mile distances at a 5.5mph during the week, that gave me a little extra time to recover from the injury.

So, Saturday the 19th rolls around. This was going to be the day that would likely dictate my future as a marathon runner. If I managed to complete the run with no problems, I figured everything would be good to go for the rest of my training schedule. If there were any problems, I was going to have to take several weeks off, leaving me destined for either the half-marathon (which was probably the most likely) or running and walking the full (less likely, especially because of the time limit).

I actually felt pretty good during the run - good enough that I did 13 miles instead of 12. That last mile was absolutely brutal, but that was because I probably wasn't properly fueled before the run (one bowl of oatmeal in the morning was not enough). I did manage to complete the distance in 2:35, but it was far from my desired pace.

Just to be sure, I took two days off after the run, leaving me with only 4 runs during the week instead of the usual 5. I felt really good all week.

This weekend, I went for the regularly scheduled 14-mile run and I had no problems at all (if you don't count a 20 km/h headwind as a problem!). I finished in 2:40, which was only 6 minutes off of my 5.5 mph pace. I was pretty happy about that. I suspect that the carb overloading I did the day before and in the morning (2 bowls of oatmeal) went a long way to helping me through.

I'd like to think that things are back on track. I'm very careful about my stretching, and I try to stretch out my groin area frequently. So far it appears to be working. Provided that nothing else happens during the remaining 8 weeks of training (I can't believe I'm halfway through!), I feel like I'll be able to make through the full race.

Keep those fingers crossed!

- Mike

My worst fears realized

So I've been doing this running thing for a few months now, steadily making progress with my 16-week training plan. For the most part, I've been running indoors, mostly because I hate running in the cold. However, the weather has been pretty decent lately, so I've been running outside as much as I can.

On March 6th, I went for my first long outdoor run - 11 miles. It was great to be outdoors, but let me tell you - running outdoors is a lot harder than running indoors. Not only do you have to deal with headwinds (of which there were plenty), there are hills, uneven terrain, and the effect the cold has on your breathing. The first 8 miles were pretty good, I must say, but I struggled through the last 3. It was very hard, but I made it, and in 2:05, which was only 5 minutes behind my desired 5.5 mph pace.

*fast forward to March 9th*

When I go for the long runs, I try to maintain the 5.5 mph pace. When I do the shorter 3-5 mile runs, I like to try to up the pace to 6 mph, just because of the extra effort it requires.

I did a 4-mile run on the 8th (after one day of rest from the 11-mile run), at 6 mph and had no problems whatsoever. The 9th was also a 4-mile day and I continued with the 6 mph pace. Somewhere around the 2.5-mile mark, though, something wasn't right. Thinking it just a sore muscle, I finished up the run. I did think about dropping my speed down to 5.5, but decided against it. It would prove to be my undoing.

After hobbling back to the locker, I realized that I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to me, but I was limping around quite badly. I walked around some more and did some stretching to try to help it along, but nothing seemed to help.

"No problem," I thought. "I'll sleep on it tonight, take the day off tomorrow, and everything should be fine. I'll only lose one day, but that won't impact my training."

I was particularly worried about this, since I had finally registered for the race the night before.

*8 hours of sleep later*

I can barely get out of bed. I know now that perhaps something serious is happening here. My hopes of running the race are dwindling at a rapid rate. At this point, there's nothing I can do but wait and see if the problem corrects itself before I have to throw the whole thing out the window.

And so I wait...

A marathon? What the hell am I doing??

Not only have I been putting on a few pounds over the last few years, I've also been pretty slothy. I've been thinking about how to rectify the situation, but I've been unable to come up with a good plan.

When I was younger, I used to go to the gym and lift weights at least 5 days a week. Of course, it was easier back then. My dad had a weight set in the basement, which I used a lot during high school. While as a student and an employee at Dalhousie University, a membership to Dalplex was included and was 60 seconds away. While living in Ottawa, I had to actually walk right past the gym to get to the office. I'm not exactly what you would call "dedicated", and history shows that I'm usually not willing to go through any sort of effort to actually get to the gym, which is really the only reason why I managed to get to the gym at all in the past. I once joined the Y, but it took 15 minutes to walk there. After a couple of cold mornings, I pretty much gave up.

I've been thinking about buying a Bowflex for several years, since if the equipment is in the house, I will definitely use it. They're pretty expensive though and, with all of the other things we needed to buy, it just was not possible to buy the Bowflex.

What to do, what to do....

About a year ago, a guy that I went to school with (and a former co-worker) was talking about his new-found love affair with endurance athletics. He spends his time training for ironman triathalons, and his website contains pictures of him participating and a blog describing his efforts. I went through the whole thing and decided that if he could do it, so could I. Well, at least some portion of it anyway. :)

I figured that training for and participating in a triathalon was probably a little too aggressive to attempt, at least for now. Financially and logistically, it would be rather difficult since I'd have to buy a bike and find a swimming pool (there are none anywhere around me). However, I did have a pair of sneakers, so I figured that I'd focus on the one component of the triathalon that was readily available to me.

I'm going to run a marathon.

As luck would have it, Halifax has it's own marathon - the Bluenose Marathon. The inaugural race was in 2004 and will be run again in May of 2005. So, armed with a pair of sneakers and a real timetable and goal, I began my training.

Not knowing anything about how to train for a marathon, I turned to the all-knowing, all-seeing Internet. My research led me here.
The site lays out a 26-week training schedule. Since I had lots of time to prepare, I started following the plan.

The pre-requisite for the plan is that you need to be able to run for a minimum of 30 minutes without stopping, and that's what I started working on. It took me a couple of months, but I did eventually make it and I then started working on the training schedule. And then two things happened....

By now, we're starting to get into October, so the days are getting shorter and the weather is starting to get a little colder. Things were also pretty busy at work. As you can probably guess, my training started to slide. Eventually I stopped altogether.

I spent a month considering how I was going to continue. I knew that I could run outside, but I really am a wuss and I don't like the cold. I considered getting a treadmill, but the money issue that kept me from buying a Bowflex continued to be an issue.

It was around this time that my employer indicated that the company would subsidize a gym membership. As it turns out, there is a Nubody's gym just up the street from my house and they have all kinds of treadmill equipment. It looked like things were going to get back on track for my training.

The gym membership plan wasn't going to kick in until the beginning of January, and having not done any running for 2 months and the May deadline fast approaching, I knew that I was not going to be able to continue following the 6-month plan.

The marathon was now a mere 5 months away and I knew that I was going to have to build myself back up to running 5 miles before I could even start the real training. I worked out a plan to get me built up again in 4 weeks, leaving only 16 weeks until the marathon. As luck would have it, I managed to find a 16-week training schedule here. The plan is aggressive and there's no room for setbacks or slacking, but I was confident that I could do it.

And now here we are, the end of February. I managed to get myself back up to 5 mile runs and I started the training schedule, right on time. Today I started week 5 of the schedule, which consisted of a 10-mile run. It's the furthest distance I've ever run or walked and while it just about killed me, I did it.

There's still a lot of work ahead of me, but with every successful run, I feel more and more confident in my ability to actually accomplish this goal. I will continue to share my trials and tribulations during this process.

- Mike

Yeah, it's been a while

Ok, so doing an update once a year isn't going to make for a very interesting blog. :)

There's lots of stuff that's been going on in the last year, and I plan to write about as much as I can in the next few weeks. Here's a quick summary:

• I went to my first star party last August, which prompted me to finally upgrade my department store telescope to something a little more substantial
  
• I found out that I'm going to be a dad
• I got inspired to train for and run a marathon

I'm not very good at organizing my time, but I am hoping that the training, all of my various hobbies, and taking care of a newborn will teach me some valuable time management skills. If it works, I'll find that I have more time to keep this site up-to-date.

- Mike