We're going backpacking this weekend! :-D We've got a new tent, new eating kit, new food, and a new stove. It will be interesting to see how all this new gear works out!

Saluting a great excuse for programmers!

How many C programmers does it take to change a light bulb?. (Geeks... love them, don't try to understand them.) From PhDComics.com.

This UDP joke reminds me of how nerdy I am.

Tip: UDP is a way computers communicate where neither party is overly concerned if messages are not received.

I just got notice that I passed the final exam in the Sun Java certification track, which is the Architect certification. I'm pretty pleased with that result. It took several months of hard studying and I'm glad it's done.

I rode at the Tarwheels Bikefest in Hillsborough, NC this morning. I couldn't have asked for better whether, especially as its been 100+ every day this week -- it was cloudy and relatively cool, probably topping out in the low 80s. What a great day to ride a metric century, meaning one hundred kilometers, approximately sixty-two miles.

I rode with Marc, a friend from work. We arrived at the race with enough time to get our things in order, and were ready to go to the starting line, when we realized we'd each forgotten something. He forgot sunscreen and I forgot my sunglasses. We hurried back to the car, but when we got back the riders had already left. It wasn't a big deal to be a minute or so behind the pack, but it also meant we didn't hear how you were supposed to know which turns to make. (You do get a printed list of the turns, but who can read that while riding?) We figured we'd just follow any cyclists in front of us.

The first ten miles felt a little hard, in part because I hadn't gone riding in a few days (see the weather note in the first paragraph). There were a lot of hills as well. We tried to join a paceline with a few different groups of cyclists, but they each turned out too fast. At about twelve miles, we finally found a husband/wife pair going our speed. We offered to ride with them and they were happy to have the help. I think the husband had been pulling the whole way so far! Over the next ten to twelve miles we picked up a few more riders and had a proper paceline, with everyone taking two to three minutes in the front. Now that's how you're supposed to ride! We kept together until the first rest stop at mile 25.

There was water, Gatorade, cookies, Fig Newtons, and slices of PBJ, not to mention brownies and other assorted goodies. That's the right way to do a rest stop! Although there were a lot of people at this stop, the riders leaving did not form any large groups. After the turn separating the 100K and 100mile routes, there weren't many cyclists going our way, and therefore it was hard to know where to turn. That was our excuse anyway. We'd gone about two miles in the wrong direction before guessing that we were not where we belonged. When we looped back we saw other riders making the correct turn and we learned how they did it. All of the turns were marked on the road with spray-painted arrows. Wish we had realized that earlier!

Coming into the second rest stop at mile 43, I was feeling pretty tired. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of cycling in front of me! The rest stop goodies were roughly the same at this stop, so I loaded up on some good stuff. I don't have a lot to say about the last set of miles, other than that it was pretty hard and it pushed my legs to approximately their maximum cycling effort. I also should have been drinking more water, which would have kept my legs happier. In retrospect, using my handy-dandy interal effort calculator (3-4 miles of cycling to 1 mile running), today's ride was about as hard as one of my longer marathon training runs, which sounds about right. In the end, we finished in 3:45 of riding time and 4:30 of total time and a riding average of ~17 mph. Then I went home and took a nap.

I enjoy reading the blog entries at strange maps, and the United States of Florida entry is another good one.

This classic memory is from a family vacation. I'm not certain when, but I believe it was while shuttling back and forth to the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Dad pulled the car into a McDonald's parking lot one morning. Mom, Amy, and me got out at normal speed, and Dad started moving very quickly to get into the restaurant. He was trying to get in front of some lady who was trying to enter before him. The three of us got into the McDonalds just in time to see Dad triumphantly reach the counter first, just in front of the other lady.

"I'd like two chicken fajitas, please." beamed Dad.

"Huh?" said the teller.

Embarassed, I had to remind Dad that McDonalds hadn't been serving chicken fajitas for breakfast for a few years. While he regrouped, he let the other lady order in front of him.

We went on another fun backpacking trip this weekend. The scenery was good, the hiking pleasant, the overlooks overlooking, the rain staying away, and the dogs walking like champs. Hank did quite well despite his sore feet and Scout pulled me up all the hills. Despite hot and dry conditions, we still found a little water in the spring to pump for dinner.

We even learned a few lessons:

• When you're on the last dirt road before the trail starts, and you've been driving on that road for 45 minutes, and then it's suddenly paved, you have missed the trail.
• If you're going to drive 45 minutes on a dirt road, you should have brought your four-wheel drive truck instead of your Camry.
• If you can't get your dog to go to the bathroom before bed, you will hear a familiar high-pitched whine and tail thumping at 1:15AM, and be forced to take her outside then!
• Even if things don't go to plan, it's always fun to go backpacking!

Instead of going directly home, we took a detour to catch some of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. It's a pleasant stretch of road and generally more interesting to drive than the interstates.

We had so much fun with the trip that we went to REI when we got home and bought more gear for next time (hopefully this month): a new stove, a lighter bowl/spork for me, and a camping pillow.

Jesse James Garrett coined the term AJAX. It stands for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML. To find about more about what it is and does, read Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications