Last weekend I competed in the Musselman Triathlon. This was my second half Ironman distance triathlon and it was a huge improvement over my first one. Before I get to my results a little about the race.
Bad Estimates Are Worse Than No Estimate
I learned first hand what a Derecho is this weekend. After the storm I was left with no power and high temperatures close to 100 degrees. It was not a comfortable day on Saturday in Maryland.
Celebrating Heroes 2012 Triathlon
What a great race! Thanks to the Columbia Triathlon Association for keeping everything running smoothly.
Everything race-wise went well. The only minor things that went wrong were forgetting to start my watch on time, forgetting to the off my gloves in T2, and some minor cramping on the run. All of those are things i can fix. I think I'm ready to go for the big race in a few weeks.
Zombies, Run!
I'm not a big fan of running. The last few weeks I've been running with Zombies, Run!. This has made running much more enjoyable.
The story in the game is a great distraction on a short or long run. I run with the zombie chases enabled which adds an extra level of excitement that keeps you on your toes listening for the "Zombies Detected" warning.
For now it is iPhone only, but it is coming to Android soon.
Ladew Gardens
Getting some pictures again
On a camping trip this weekend to Shenandoah national park I got some much needed photography practice. It was hardly fair out there. The deer are very tame. I was able to get very close for these shots. There are a few more shots up on Flickr.
Complex Counts in Hive
This came up on the Hive mailing list and I'm putting it here as a reminder to try it out. Here's how to do complex count statements to simplify queries.
The New iPad
The retina display got me. I could ignore the faster processor and the nifty cover in the iPad 2 and stick with my first generation one. I did the same with the iPhone 3 and 3GS. I wasn't sure how much of a difference the retina display would make, but the iPhone 4 got me hooked. I'm looking forward to not being able to see the pixels on the new iPad.
Old Scuba Pictures Live On
I've put my old scuba pictues back up. I was a little lazy and didn't want to move them somewhere new. I took the easy route and put them up in a public Dropbox folder.
There might be a few broken links in there, but I'll worry about those another day.
Social networking for work
I've been trying out groups on LinkedIn, but for Hadoop and Java the posts are dominated by recruiters and minor flame wars. The Hadoop and associated technology mailing lists are far more informative and useful. It looks like twitter is another place for seeing what's going on in Hadoop land. I need to spend more time there.
Whenever I'm looking for a new job I'll head back to LinkedIn. Until then I need something better.
A new start for the site
I'm moving everything over from my old host to Squarespace. I'm trying to get in the habit of posting more and this move will make it a lot easier.
I had a lot of old pictures up on my old site and I haven't figured out what to do with them. Most are not that good, but there are a few I really want to keep. At some point I'll either move them in here or switch to Flickr or Picasa to host them.
For now just posting something is a good start.
Getting started
I'm still setting things up on here. I'll put more up soon.