::Leading With A Limp::

Inbox Zero

What a great way to start the Labor Day weekend...NOTHING in my inbox!  I'm pretty excited about this.

Inbox confessional...how many are in your inbox right now?

No, I'm Not Dead

Wow...six days since my last entry.  That has got to be some sort of record.

Over the last six days I have finished Hood to Coast, cramped up, cried like a little school girl about my cramped legs, recovered, flown to L.A. with my wife and kids, moved *most* of my furniture (still 3,000 pounds sitting in some unknown storage center somewhere in Oregon), met with more attorneys at work, loved my staff, withered in 110* heat (yesterday I parked my car in Van Nuys for a bit, when I got back in it told me it was 115*), finally slept in my own bed, got the kids started in school, sang Happy Birthday to Madeline last night.  Phew.  That's a lot.

My blog was down for a bit.  I was moving a server from Oregon to California.  Yes, I own my own servers.  Don't throw stones, I love geek stuff.  Anyway, during that time some funky stuff happened with DNS and TypePad.  All is well now.  Well, well enough for you, my fine reader.  I still have some issues with DNS but I won't bore you with the details.  Well, maybe I will...it has to do with domain mapping vs. domain forwarding.  I opted to host my DNS outside of my own servers (this is the first time I've paid for hosting service in years), so I just have to work out the kinks with that.  All is well.

Back to work for me.  I hope that where you are you are enjoying the day and looking forward to the weekend.

Made It!

I dominated the final leg. Now we are at the after party on the beach, enjoying yakisoba and some special hydration compounds. Wahoo! Final time...31 hours, 12 minutes and 14 seconds. definitely not our best time over the years, but it was one of the most fun runs that we have done.

My Two Favorite Things

It has started raining. Super. My two favorite things, running and rain, combined into one activity.

Second Leg Finished

A little faster this time, but its still obvious that I haven't trained since waaaaay before the Mexico mission trip. Leg 2 was 5 milesat a 9;02 pace. I just ran through Mist, Oregon which is pretty much in the smack dab center of nowhere.

At about mile four bible passages where rolling through my head. One just wouldn't get out of my brain, 'Eloi,Eloi, lama sebacthani'. Yeah, it hurt.

First Leg Finished

I just finished my first leg...6 miles at just over a 9 minute pace. Pretty slow, but at least I lived to tell the tale. I got passed by about a dozen Kenyan Olympic runners...or at least they looked like it as they blew by me.

Now we are going to chow down at The Original Pancake House. One of the original 24/7 greasy spoons, then we will go sleep in a high school gym and start running again after a short nap. Did I mention that I'm having percocet with my eggs and toast...

Hood To Coast Begins

I'm in Oregon right now, getting ready to run a 197 mile race from Mt. Hood to the Oregon coast. Death is certain, I will post updates periodically.

Irony in Communications

As I type this I've been on hold with AT&T for 10 minutes (probably 11 or 12 by the time I publish this).  I'm not being transferred, I'm just trying to talk to somebody about changes I want to make to my account.  I also have a question about an overcharge on my last invoice.  Two thoughts:

1. Isn't it ironic that one of the largest communications companies in the world cannot answer my call in a timely manner?  I can wait for a minute or two...more than ten minutes is not okay
2. When a potentially frustrated customer calls in with questions, is putting them on hold for a massive amount of time really the first and best tactic in disarming their frustration?

UPDATE:  I got a live person at minute 14.  Now, at my 32nd minute of the phone call, my first of four issues hasn't been resolved.  Ugh.

UPDATE 2: 46 minutes into the phone conversation, and I have resolved 2 issues.  More to come...

FINAL UPDATE: 52 minutes.  Yes, 52 minutes of my life is gone, I will never get it back.  All 4 issues were addressed, only 3 were resolved.  1 of the resolved now involves me flashing the ROM on my HTC 8525.  This process will take quite a bit of time.  I don't have it in me anymore, I'll do it tomorrow.  All of this technology makes our lives better, right?!?

Email you want...but not right now

Ahhhh....processed pork is getting another bad name.  First we had "spam" which is a widely accepted term these days.  It is of course the very unwanted email, usually referencing a part of your anatomy or letting you know that you can getting a better mortgage rate.  Perhaps it's even reminding you that you can get a lot of free money, if only you will help the poor, disposed prince of Nigeria.

Now a couple of guys are coining a term that refers to email that you opt into but isn't personal.  It's Twitter alerts, it's a notification that somebody has posted a comment to your blog.  It's a post on the Neowin forum.  They are calling this tweener mail "BACN".

It is interesting and something that I have noticed.  A lot of my inbox is taken up with alerts (Google alerts, Typepad alerts, etc) that I value, but that get in the way just a bit.  So what do we do about bacn?

Media Persecution

Chip asks a good question today, "do Christians face persecution in America?"  He put together a short (3 minute) video montage of some popular TV shows that would indicate the answer is "yes".  Go check it out and weigh in.