The Swamphole

I updated my main computer, running Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" to the Cinnamon Shell a few weeks ago and I've been absolutely loving it. Cinnamon is a massive improvement over stock GNOME3/GNOME Shell in my opinion, even in its current early stage of development.

I think I can finally say I'm back on track training-wise, by which I am mostly referring to TrainerRoad. Yesterday I completed Palisade, which is the last workout of week one in the Advanced Base: Strength & Endurance plan. I was a day late doing the workout (it was scheduled for Saturday) but life happened and I never got around to it. I'm really pretty proud of myself for doing it yesterday because I really, really didn't want to. It was a cold, rainy, dreary day and I stayed fairly busy until almost 6pm.

I slacked off a bit over the Christmas holidays. I'm happy to say I didn't stop working out completely but I definitely let both the intensity and frequency drop off fairly dramatically. I managed to make it through the holidays without really gaining any weight, so that's a plus, and I don't feel like I lost too much fitness either. What I did lose was focus. I attempted a couple of TrainerRoad workouts last week and I'm sad to say I failed pretty miserably at both of them. And I really feel like I failed because I lacked the mental toughness to just push through and finish them. It makes me pretty angry with myself.

There I sat, head down, sweat dripping from the tip of my nose, hands on the brake hoods, elbows locked, staring at the twin puddles of sweat on the floor under my bike while I tried to keep going through the last couple of minutes. I was in the final cool down spin at the very end of the 90 minute self-flagellation session deemed "Beacon" by its creators, and it was finally coming home to roost that I'd actually survived the first 6 week training plan devised by those industrious (and, I suspect, slightly sadomasochistic) fellows behind a new online service for cyclists called TrainerRoad.

Anyone who is as avid, some might uncharitably say rabid, a motorcycle road racing fan as I am is probably aware of the fact that many, possibly even most, professional motorcycle road racers are serious road cyclists. They log miles upon miles on a road bicycle every year and for many it's the center point of their physical training regimen. Yamaha MotoGP rider Ben Spies, for example, is so serious about cycling that he owns his own cycling race team and is a fairly accomplished amateur cycle racer in his own right.

Whew! The site's been in maintenance mode for several hours now while I performed some much-needed updates. I think everything is working right again but I'm not entirely certain. At the very least it looks like it is close enough to normal to put it back online.

If anyone is wondering, this is mostly a test post to make sure some things are working.

I've mentioned a couple of times lately that I got into riding road bicycles a few months back. It's probably fair to say that "got into" is a gross understatement and I should probably use something like "became obsessed by" in its stead. I mentioned a bit about how all this came to be in a previous post, so go check that out for a few of the details.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving this year. Mine was quiet and pretty nice except for some distressing family news. That made it hard to enjoy the day but there was nothing to be done about it but keep on keeping on, as it were. That being the case, I did my best and managed to spend some quality time with my wife, got a nice bicycle ride in, had some great food and generally tried to take it easy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hard to believe it's been almost a year since I wrote anything here. This year really has flown by! It's been interesting and different, and there are a ton of things I want to write about. I suppose I'm just going to have to make time to start sitting down and cranking out posts again. Where to even start?

I'm really curious about the behaviour of the various players that currently (or will very soon) have Android-based competitors to the Apple iPad in the marketplace. Have all the managers in charge of doing the mental heavy lifting for these companies fallen down and sustained head injuries? Or perhaps they just aren't paying attention? Or is it simply that they are all either idiots or completely incompetent? After all, Apple has done a pretty fantastic job marketing and selling the iPad. The heavy lifting is done.