As the world turns

Well, all things come to an end. (Both the good and the bad, but not the ugly without plastic surgery.) Life's book has to have conclusions and chapters must end so the story can continue. The next chapter in my professional life will be as a contractor in DC with my first gig at National Geographic.

I have been very blessed in my life and was extremely fortunate to work at The Washington Post for the past 2 years. I thank God for the opportunity to meet and work with one of the best christian mentors I've ever had, Steven King, and everything that he did for me professionally, personally, and spiritually. I also enjoyed spending so many hours hanging out, err, *cough I mean working with one of my college buddies, Jesse Foltz. In that time I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming that I was actually being paid to both program in Python and use the Django web framework all while hanging out and working with world class people. I have, without a doubt, grown by leaps and bounds. The largest portion of my professional growth as a programmer is due to none other than Jesse for all the chop-busting :)

When I accepted the original job as an Innovations Developer (internally: Web Ninja) I had no idea that it would lead me to work for a strong Christian manager and eventually a position as a Senior Developer. I also never expected I would get to brainstorm and build just down-right awesome stuff with Jesse. I leave the Post with sadness that our team is no more. I didn't know that I would get to architect and build systems that would power mission critical roles. I certainly never imagined I would have 1 on 1 access to the system administrators and eventually count them as my closest friends. There has, unquestionably, been no other experience in my life that compares to the feeling like you have all the resources of a Fortune 500 company data center at your disposal and getting to use all the cool toys like Isilon storage systems and Splunk. But enough of the nerdy stuff... :D

I'm moving on to a company called Celerity to help start their web practice (which has a strong focus on Django) and, again, my first spot is Nat Geo. Can I just say that it is awesome to walk through halls that have domes that light up like the galaxy and scale models of the Grand Canyon that fill the ceiling space in the elevator lobby? I am very much at home there :)

My new supervisor, Drew Engelson, is a fantastic guy and has years of experience with Amazon's cloud services and large Django systems (he was chief architect at PBS previously) so I can't wait to see what kind of growth opportunities this will provide. I actually took the job to work for him since I figured it wasn't every day that you get to pick your mentor.

I started full time last Tuesday and my gut reaction about Drew is spot on. Top notch, very bright, and considerate. I truly hope I have the opportunity to be more involved directly with him and the growth of our part of the company.

Here's to tomorrow! Cheers :)

Suffering Saturday

I've been on the bike 4 times already this year but today is the first ride I've done for fun (not commuting). I did 27.18 miles in 2:40:52 for an average speed of 10.22 MPH. The terrain was a lot of fun and had its challenging (to me) spots. Definitely nothing like the rail road grade W&OD.

I'm bummed at my average speed but I gave it everything I had. I don't think my legs have had this kind of workout in the last 6 months. Covered a lot of new ground (very scenic).

Red is my favorite color

I can't believe I have put off blogging this for so long (but March does include race'n in TN). I sold my Jeep and bought a motorcycle! Happy birthday to me :D A no-frills, fun-in-the-mountains, street legal dirt bike. A Honda XR650L.

I walked into Carmax on a Friday and sold my Jeep to them, went to the airport and rented a car, and drove to Mom's house in KY and bought it the next day from Ashland Cycle Center (who, by the way, gave me an amazing deal).

Of course, the main reason I got it was because it was red. And because the oil is in the frame (called, you guessed it, an oil-in-frame (OIF) chassis) it doesn't have an oil cooler. I looked at a Suzuki DR650 but considering that I am learning how to ride I figure this bike will spend some time on its side at some point and the oil cooler on the DR looked like one more thing to break.

Surprisingly I haven't missed my vehicle at all. I remember one of my professors telling me to sell my Jeep when I moved up here and while it wasn't practical at the time it certainly isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Without further ado...

On the trailer when I picked it up

At the country store after riding US 421 "The Snake"

Back at my in-law's house

Bike Commute

The first step to riding 80 miles on the bike in one session is to get back in the groove. And that means if the weather is above 55-60 then I have NO excuses for not being on the bike. So I headed to work Friday morning and snapped a few pics to and from. 30 miles in one day after a 4-5 month hiatus is respectable in my book.

It all started at 6 AM with a protein shake that by 7:15 when I was out and on it desperately wanted to come up for air :-/




My first stop was to snap this picture of the sunrise where Cameron Run meets the Potomac.



Trust me, these photos do NOT give this spot justice. Gravelly point is the best hidden gem in the DC Metro area in my book. You would be hard pressed to find another location in the US where you can stand on the center line of the approach path for a metropolitan airport at slightly higher elevation than the runway with an amazing view. With a Northern wind you are almost guaranteed the chance to be buzzed by a 737 or A320 screaming in at 150 kts just 80-100 feet over your head. Add to that the often cross winds and the fact that this is one of the hardest approaches in the world with 20-30 degree right turn just seconds before landing and you have an experience anyone from hard core plane geeks to the average tourist will enjoy.





Riding by the White House on the way into work is always a refreshing sight.




Finally, the sunset from the bridge where I took the sunrise photo where I495 merges with US 1 and crosses the Potomac.

'11 Goals

I have 2 things I want to do before I turn 30... I want to climb Mt. Rainier and I want to clear a minimum of 150 miles of the AT in a single session (<2 weeks). If I manage to get in shape I honestly think the climb of Rainier will be the easier of the two because I am much more likely to head out on the AT without conditioning to the same level that I would for a mountain climb.

With that said I need some goals to start on my path... So this year, before summer is over, I want to summit Holston Mountain on the Josiah Trail and I want to ride the entire W&OD Trail from one end to the other and back (~80 miles total) in less than 5.5 hours.

Public declaration complete; now we wait and see if I pull it off.

2011 Weight Loss Check In

This is a whopper of a post... Sorry :D

I truly believe in divine intervention. And for anyone that chooses not to believe in a supreme being then you can think of it as the universe aligning itself so that I find the path I need to be on.

With that said, let me start the story by stating that I am NOT a book reader. I might read 2 books cover to cover in an entire year. Sure, I read, but it's usually on the computer and usually related to the latest tech. On December 13th I was on Amazon for a reason I don't remember and stumbled on a review for a book called the "4 Hour Body". The title got me... What could a book called the 4 hour body be all about? So I read the review which outlined that chapters and my jaw dropped as I saw something about losing 20lbs of fat in 30 days. I'm no stranger to weight loss or diets or, especially, the gym. I lost about 30 pounds over the course of about 60 days but I was hitting the gym harder than I ever had in my life. Is that what this book would suggest? What about the 4 hours part?

I was hooked. Then I noticed I couldn't order the book as it didn't come out until the 14th. I went home that night and thought about the book and the thoughts continued all the next day to an almost obsessive point and I decided that if my local book store had the book I would buy it. So I headed home from work early and went to the store and couldn't find a single copy. I asked the staff person stocking the shelves and she remembered seeing some copies of the book in a box in the back but they weren't to be released yet. After convincing her (thanks to her coworker) that this day was the release day and someone just forgot to put them out I got my copy and went home.

This is a big book, too. Over 500 pages. Yet it is more of a manual, a reference, than a novel. So I stayed up until 2:30 am reading. I couldn't put the book down. The 4 hour part of the book was about gaining 20 pounds of muscle in 30 days with only 4 hours of gym time total for the whole month. That sounds cool but at the risk of your liver and / or kidneys based on the amount of drugs you take with it I wouldn't be up for trying it. Besides, I wasn't interested in that; I was interested in the other chapter about losing 20 pounds of fat in 30 days. And did I mention that this feat is accomplished with zero gym time. Not 1 second of exercise. It sounded too good to be true and I was completely skeptical. But you can't knock it 'till you try it so I studied the book and made a shopping list and prepared to begin my journey on the slow carb diet.

The start day for my first week was Saturday December 18th. I ate a big protein rich breakfast and avoided all sugars all day. I went out to dinner at Outback and watched Mandy eat a giant ice cream sunday and at that point would have gladly eaten a packet of sugar. Mom has always admitted to being a sugar lover but I never thought I was... I was a meat and potatoes guy. You can keep your cup cakes and pie and pass me another serving of mashed potatoes and gravy. But I forgot one thing. I LOVE soda and soda is loaded in sugar. At this moment it had now been almost 24 hours with no sugar, no caffeine, no starches.

This might be TMI but it is important to the story... I withheld from the sugar and went on home and hit the bed early (amazing how my diet had immediately affected my sleep schedule). That night I got up and peed four times. This is noteworthy because I NEVER get up to go to the bath room. And these were bladder busting trips across the apartment. So the next morning I weighed in not really expecting to see much of a difference, maybe a pound higher since I ate a giant steak with a massive helping of broccoli but instead I found myself SIX pounds lighter. Over night.

I'm still skeptical at this point because that was obviously water weight (albeit a lot of water weight really fast). So I stuck out the diet for the rest of the week and lost an astonishing 11 pounds. Then it was time for Christmas and I completely left the diet. When I got back home I had put 8 pounds back on which shows how easy it is to rebound on this kind of diet. I accept that flaw and consider this a tool to get the weight off, not keep it off, so my end goal is to get 10-15 lbs under my target weight so the rebound normalizes me.

So I began the diet again on January 3rd and stuck to it... As of today, February 5th, I have lost 23 pounds since December 18th and if we want to ignore the rebound, 20 pounds since January 3rd. Oh, and I am tracking inches on my chest, belly, waist, hips/butt, biceps, forearm, and thighs. I have lost over 14 total inches since January 3rd.

So the diet works. With amazing success and no gym time. But I feel that now is the true test- Have I plateaued? Will the weight loss slow down? For every 6 days on the diet I take 1 day off and binge on all the foods I've cut out of my diet. I specifically set out to spike my calories to keep my body from going into starvation mode. After 2 months on the diet I will take a full week off. Cheating adds about 4-6 pounds back on but they come back off quick enough (evidenced in the little spikes in the chart below).

This week was also the first time I have started adding exercise. I will focus solely on kettle bells and rowing this month once or twice a week for not more than an hour at any given time (and probably not rowing for more than 30 minutes). March will see the addition of cycling to work again on moderate days.

Wish me luck and I'll post a check in next month.

Senators and Representatives Can Protect Each Other

Today's events were tragic.

A public servant should never have to feel like they aren't safe, especially in their own district. But after reading so many stories pointing the finger at right wing conservatives and leaders expressing fear for their lives and families one thing stood out to me:

Our leaders do not feel obligated to protect themselves.

The comments I've seen from leaders lead me to believe that they are now concerned for their safety and acknowledge they don't have security and protection. Well you know what? I don't have a security detail either. But I have weapons for self defense and I know when and how to use them and what the consequences for such actions are. I accept the responsibility of being able to protect myself and my family.

As I understand it, the only representatives that are given protection are the leaders of the chambers (and to be honest I'm not sure why they get it). And that protection is around the clock. Capitol Hill is crawling with police so they're pretty well covered during the day at work.

But what about senator Bob and representative Sally when they are at home in Utah and Kentucky?

Unless they have some special privilege (like not having to accept the public health care option) that prevents them from exercising their 2nd amendment rights there is nothing stopping them from carrying their own weapons for self defense. That goes for their staff, too. Kentucky even has a special section to allow local leaders to carry concealed when others cannot:

KRS § 237.110 (16), concealed carry is prohibited in:
(d) Any meeting of the governing body of a county, municipality, or special district; or any meeting of the General Assembly or a committee of the General Assembly, except that nothing in this section shall preclude a member of the body, holding a concealed deadly weapon license, from carrying a concealed deadly weapon at a meeting of the body of which he or she is a member;

Of course that is just affecting concealed carry. There's still nothing stopping a citizen from going to a town/city hall meeting with a holstered firearm on their leg or hip. And there's nothing stopping a leader from doing the same.

Now I don't think we need to go back to the wild West and go around shooting everyone but I do think if the common understanding is that both a leader and their staff has a weapon (even nonlethal tasers / rubber bullets) someone might think twice about walking up and pulling a gun since they probably wouldn't have the opportunity to get away with it.

If we can give guns to pilots we can certainly give them to our leaders. The only problem is if they try to take ours away in the process. And I'm sure it's been said somewhere today and will probably come up many times in the coming days- why don't we just ban guns. In a nation of absurd, reactive security policies it certainly wouldn't surprise me to see this event used as an example to relight that fire.