The Evil Eyebrow

Month: December 2008

  • Direct Consequences of Bad Design

    Simon Whitfield, Canadian Triathlete, has posted on his blog about the frustrations inherent in keeping up with his athlete location reporting system.

    This is a great example of poor electronic design causing hardship. He is an athlete who is already under great stress to train and compete, plus deal with all of the myriad other life stresses that come along. Do you think that an Olympic medalist needs this sort of added, unnecessary, headache in order to be a top athlete? I don’t.

    We all deal with crap like this on a day to day basis, if we spend any time in front of a computer. In fact, I received a Piece ‘O Shit pdf from my flexible spending account manager this morning that was chock full of crazy links and unexpected features (it’s a pdf, dudes, not a hypertext!). But when a national government actively reduces the ability of its national athletes to perform, they might want to consider farming out the work to a competent firm.

  • Here's What I'm Doing. You?

    Perfect Sunday?

  • Merry Christmas

    Here’s wishing everyone who’s not near me a Happy Christmas. Merry Yuletide, etc.

    Christmas Morning

  • My Desk

    This is what my desk looks like when I’m creating traffic diagrams.

    Traffic Diagrams

    Surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of equipment and software and still the best way to do what I’m doing right now is to just mess with pen and paper.

  • BMI (what?!)

    Holy Crap! I’m “overweight”.

    My Body Mass Index (BMI) is 25.1, which just smidgeons into “overweight”.

    Bastards. Now I have all sorts of issues for which I’ll need therapy.

  • Help! Asking for CSS/PHP Help…

    You may notice that the previous post on the main page totally screws up the blocking with the one before it. I am a sufficiently noobish CSS person that I don’t know how to make it right. Anyone want to help me fix this?

  • Coldest Run of the Year (so far)

    28°

    Bleah.

    Hopefully we won’t have too many more of those. That being one of the benefits of living in the south.

    This is my get up for nights like this.
    Winter Wonder Wear

  • Yo Olde Dead Hickory

    IMG_3467Nine days ago we finally had a large dead tree removed from our front yard area. This had been hanging over the house (literally) since summer. My dad had come to visit and we were sitting on the front porch when he said, “I think that tree is dead.” I looked up at this large tree (kind of hidden in the forest a bit) and realized that yes, this large hickory tree was indeed deceased and prepared to split our house in twain at the next wind storm.

    The dudes who showed up to do the work were fast and professional. The only words I needed to know were “Esta bien!” They were also cheap, at least compared to the other quotes I’d received. I think the tree service industry has a bit of a lull in the winter.

    You can see the flickr set here.

  • ATC 5k Cross Country Run

    I’m way behind on some of the Standard Update Blogging™ that I usually do. For everyone’s sake, most especially me, I’m throwing it all out and only doing the latest race:

    The Atlanta Track Club Grand Prix Series Milton High School Cross Country Race (whew!).
    Milton High School

    This was a standard 5k cross-country race, over hills and dale, on the grounds of the Milton High School in Alpharetta GA. If you’ve ever run in a high school cross country race, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it’s a trail race, but without the EXTREME that is normally associated with “trail races” nowadays.

    The race was on December 6th, at a nice 9:30 start time. It was clear, calm, and cold (cold for georgia ~33°). I went to the race with Courtney, who’s stated goal was to “finish” and “finish with a 12 minute pace”.

    I managed a good run, despite not having done much running since the marathon. I turned in a 26:50 which I am delighted with. My best 5k time is 26:12, on a road course (damn you Jim, with your 26:11!) so a 26:50 on an up and down, round-and-round trail is just fine.

    Courtney came in 37:19, which if you do the math is a 12:02 pace. Right on, girl!

    Next race is the ATC Resolution Run on January 1st. 5k for me. It’s a flatter course so as long as the wind is down, I should improve that time.

  • Winter Solstice

    Cancelled Hike
    Tomorrow, December 21, at 7:04 Eastern Standard Time (plus or minus a few for inaccurate clocks) is the winter solstice. This is the day when the sun, at noon local time, will be at 90° azimuth over the horizon (i.e. straight up) at the tropic of Cancer Capricorn [ed: whoops, got summer and winter confused]. It’s typically called the “shortest day of the year” but that’s only true from an absolute measure of sunlight; it isn’t necessarily true from a “latest sunrise” or “earliest sunset” perspective.

    From a December standpoint, I like the solstice because it’s a non-arbitrary holiday that very few people around here celebrate therefore I get to throw out the “merry solstice!” call and receive odd looks in return.

    I also observe the solstice because for the entire months of November and December, I watch my available sunlight dwindle ’til I’m always running outside in the dark. While not a show stopper, I like running while I can see, rather than not. This day marks the turning point, when the daylight starts inching back, so I’m happy. I know that there will still be 6 weeks before a marked improvement occurs, but at least the days are getting shorter anymore.

    The solstice is also the “first day of winter” which is a moniker I strongly object to. See the link for my opinions on the topic.

    The solstice is an indicator to me that I’d better finish up my Christmas shopping (I’ll be doing some of that today).

    Finally, it’s an excuse to blog about a world event without much baggage to go along with it. Solstice Huzzah!

    Happy Solstice everyone. I hope you enjoyed your annual free ride around the sun.