A Geek’s Think

In my last post, I mentioned a goal of mine to run a 10k this spring.  Today I met and surpassed that goal when I finished the Gate River Run, the largest 15k held in the United States.  Having never run more than about six miles in training, I was a bit worried that I might have some issues near the end, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.  That certainly doesn't mean it was easy, though!  The last mile of the race takes runners over the Hart Bridge, aka the Green Monster, and the ascent is by no means a simple task after just having run nearly 8 miles.  In the end, I finished in 2273rd place (out of about 13,000 runners) at 79 minutes 47 seconds by my watch, which translates to 80 minutes 51 seconds official time (time after the starting gun goes off).  That equates to about a 8' 40" pace, which I am quite pleased with.

Next goal: run a half marathon by the end of 2010.

Update: My race results can be viewed online here.

I've always had a difficult time deciding on a Halloween costume.  My costumes over the years have been so bland as to be entirely forgettable - and, in fact, I can't remember more than one or two of them that have been recorded photographically.  This year was little different. I thought and schemed and thought some more, and finally ended up purchasing a cheap knight costume at Walmart.  I did have some fun making the sword and helmet, though.  

There is one interesting side note to this story - my sister and brother in law independently chose knight costumes for my nephews Adam and Joshua.  I must admit that they are much cuter than I am.

So, without further ado, I present Sir Tyler!

I think I've set a new record for time between posts!  To repeat a phrase found many times in my past blog entries (and journal entries, for that matter), I'll try to do better... :)

Since my last post, I had a blast in Boston for St. Patrick's day (my ship spent the week there), spent a few weeks at home visiting family and friends, and left on my second naval deployment.  Busy times.

We've now been deployed for about 2 1/2 weeks, in which time we've visited the beautiful Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras and passed through the Panama Canal.  Roatan Island's primary industry is tourism centered on its beautiful beaches and many diving opportunities.  While I didn't take advantage of either of those attractions, I did take the opportunity to have a "Dolphin Encounter" at the local marine institute.  For a small fee, we had a 30 minute presentation during which we were introduced to one of their dolphins and were able to interact with her a bit.  Afterwards, we were given another 30 minutes or so to snorkel around the dolphin enclosure with about 15 dolphins.  It was a great experience, even though my camera might not agree - it took a bit of a swim itself in the process...  :(  Hopefully my new Panasonic DMC-TZ5 gets here in time for the next port visit...

On a completely different note, you may not have noticed my blog looking much different lately, but for the last month it's been a completely different system under the hood.  My former blogging software, Wordpress, was becoming more and more difficult to use over my limited bandwidth out to sea, and tended to have security problems on a fairly regular basis.  Fortunately, my site was never compromised, but my inability to update the software while away from home made that a distinct possibility.  Therefore, I took it upon myself to write my own blogging software.  Now some of you may be thinking about what a masochist I must be, but it really wasn't that bad - the Python-based web framework I used known as Django made my job easy.  This is my first real Django application and I'm quite pleased with the power and ease of development the framework offers. Maybe someday I'll give a more detailed explanation of what's going on behind the scenes of the new blog, but for now I'm just enjoying my freedom from the bloated beast that is Wordpress.

Last night I had the pleasure of heading over to the Jacksonville downtown area and attending a wonderful concert by the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it - I’d forgotten how much I love the symphony. It brought back memories from my own band days in high school. Yes, I was a band geek, and proud of it! It was also fun to watch a bunch of elderly blind men jumping around, singing, and having a great old time. And by elderly, Jimmy Carter, the lead vocalist, has been with the group since its early days in the 1940’s! I hope I have half their energy when I’m their age!

I arrived in town a bit early to avoid the traffic for the Rascal Flatts concert and Monster Truck Jam also going on and decided to walk around town a little. Jacksonville’s a nice little city: check out some photos I took during my wandering.

When I was a kid, I loved eating these thin biscuits filled with raisins - something like a flattened raisin sandwich. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find them for about 10 years now, even though I’ve looked for them in nearly every supermarket I’ve spent any significant amount of time in. I couldn’t even remember who made them or what they were called. Well, last night I decided to find out what actually happened to my childhood treat. Off to Google!

Turns out my biscuits were called Sunshine Golden Fruit Raisin Biscuits. When Keebler bought out Sunshine, they discontinued the Golden Fruit line, which explains why I haven’t been able to find them. The Wayback Machine even has a copy of one of Keebler’s old product pages describing them. So sad.

Or maybe not! It also turns out that my raisin biscuits were actually a variation of a British biscuit first produced in 1861 called a Garibaldi biscuit. While not produced in the US, Garibaldi biscuits are still sold in England and can be found via various importers such as the British Food Shop or the Vermont Country Store. As Bill and Ted would say, “Excellent!!”

I bought 5 packages.