"You are actually 16 times more likely to get killed in a car accident on the way to purchase your lottery ticket than you are to actually win with the lottery ticket you buy there!" From Matthew Paulson

We went backpacking this weekend in southwestern Virginia. Once again, we had a great time! We arrived Saturday just before noon and hiked 4.5 miles to a shelter. After breaking camp in the morning, we hiked another 7 miles.

All of the new camping gear worked great! It was a good thing we had the new tent because it's smaller size made it easier to find a spot at the rocky campground. The new food bowl did not transfer all the heat from the chicken stew to my hands. The camping pillow made it tolerable to sleep in a tent. Good stuff all around!

The dogs were backpacking champions also. They struggled a bit with heat while we walked through some open fields, but once we hit the woods, they hit their stride. Hank had a few moments where he needed water but wouldn't drink it, so Elise added some chicken bouillon to the water and he was suddenly thirsty! They were only a minor annoyance in the tent (read: another 1am bathroom break). When we finally got back to the car, they slept all afternoon. Aside from Scout's random decision to run a few laps up and down the stairs in the evening, they slept most of the evening and still looked pooped before I left for work today.

This week, I'm getting excited about going to Myrtle Beach with my parents and my sister's family. Elise pointed out to me that including this trip and her work, her weekends are booked until Thanksgiving! So we're going to be plenty busy over the next few months!

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.