Eamon's Blog

New Blog

2006-05-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

I've switched to a WordPress blog. My new blog is at www.eamon.the-byte-factory.com.

Albany Swim Meet

2006-05-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

We got locked out of Saturday and Sunday of this meet because the signups weren't turned in on time, so Kate signed everyone up for the 400 free or 800 free (long course) on Friday, depending on if you're under 13 or not. Since this was my first time swimming the 800 in a year, I improved 21 seconds. My time was 10:07. My first 400 split was 5:09 and my second one was 4:58, so I really negative split it too much. At least now I know how to swim it at All Stars. Also, I saw Curtis, my old coach from the Mantarays, for the first time in about four years. :P

Monster Cookie

2006-05-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

I did the Monster Cookie ride (62 miles) on Sunday, without getting three flats this time. I averaged about 17mph. Unfortunately I had morning practice the next day at 5:00am, but I seem to have survived.

Albany Triathlon (6th place out of 5)

2006-04-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

I did the Albany Triathlon yesterday (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run). I won the 19 & Under age group, but there was only one other person. My time was 1:18:31. I was supposed to get a blue ribbon, but they're all on backorder so, until they can send me the real one, they gave me a "placeholder" ribbon: 6th place in the Mountain Bike category. And it so happens that there were five people in the 19 & Under Mountain Bike category. Hey, I got 6th out of five people! Pretty good, huh? Edit: I also placed 23rd out of 84 overall. Edit x2: Here's a picture of me with my triumpant 6th place ribbon:

All Stars

2006-04-20T00:15:00.000-07:00

I've been selected to be part of the Oregon All Stars Team! So, I'll be going to Vancouver, BC in a month for the All Stars meet.

A Painful Ritual

2006-04-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

Are you a Real Man?

Elite IM Clinic

2006-04-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

I went to the Elite IM swim clinic today, featuring Olympic gold and silver medalist (in the 200 fly) Tom Malchow. We had two practices, the first one was two hours long and the second one was an hour and a half. Overall we swam about 7500 meters (8200 yards). The locker room was huge (as was the rest of the building); it had a centrifigal suit dryer, six different colone dispensers and disposable combs. The only problem was that someone decided to put the locker room on a different floor from the pool... In between the two practcies, Tom gave an hour long talk, we had lunch, and then Alex Nikitin (one of the coaches) gave a talk about the technicalities of swimming IM. What I learned:

You can use less energy proportionally by keeping up your speed for a whole length rather than slowing down (momentum keeps you going)
A good back to breast turn can save you 4 tenths of a second
In a fly or breast turn, you use less back and arm muscles if you have more momentum going in to the wall
You should take several fast strokes off the wall to maintain your speed from your pushoff

Also, I got to have a private talk with Tom during lunch. He said he goes to the hospital right across the parking lot from our pool once a week for work!

April Fool's Day

2006-04-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

A dark and dangerous day. There was lots of duct tape and TP, but I survived. I set up hidden sensors outside my room...

Learn How to Eat Sushi

2006-03-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Makes me want some.

Sectionals, Day 3

2006-03-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

This was the last day of the meet. I swam the 100 fly and 100 free. 100 Fly: I got 59.42, and I came in 19th out of 29. My time from State is 59.36. I died on the second 50... We didn't get a video of this race because of some Issues. 100 Free: I beat my old time by 57 hundredths of a second, with a 53.16. I got 24th out of 34. Here's the video for my 100 free: Our team got 20th out of 143 teams. If Tori and Crystal were at the meet, we'd probably be within the top 8.

Sectionals, Day 2

2006-03-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

On the second day of the meet, my events were the 200 fly and 200 free. 200 Fly: I got 2:12.85. I improved two one-hundredths of a second from several weeks ago... I got too excited and swam the first 150 almost all out, then died at the end. I came in 19th out of 33. ...I WILL get a Zone time in my next 200 fly! 200 Free: 1:56.16. I dropped 15 hundredths of a second from State. John said it was really good because my splits were 28, 30, 29, 28. I got 16th place out of 28. Here are the movies of my 200 fly and 200 free: 200 Fly 200 Free

Sectionals, Day 1

2006-03-17T18:02:00.000-08:00

This is the first day of Sectionals, and it's really exciting to be at this pool again. There are 143 teams here, from 7 different states: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. My two events for today were the 50 free and 200 IM. 50 Free: I didn't do very well in this event. I got 24.66, 32 hundredths of a second (32 jiffies!) off my time from State two weeks ago. I was also 67 hundredths off a Zone time. I got 23rd place out of 30. 200 IM: I got 2:12.15. I improved one second. I was still a little tired from my 50, since I had to get ready for the 200 IM as soon as I was done warming down. But John said it was really good. I got 20th out of 30 people. I also time trialed the 50 free to try and get the Zone time. I got 24.36; not a Zone time, but John said it was a "perfect race". I guess I'm more of a mid-distance swimmer. My mom filmed my first two events. (If they don't work, you need to download Quicktime 7. 50 Free 200 IM

Morton

2006-03-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

We're in Morton, Washington now. Tomorrow we'll drive up to Federal Way for Sectionals. I'll be posting pictures of the meet. EDIT: You can get realtime results at www.pns.org/realtime.

Upgraded from Brain to Processor

2006-03-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

My current math homework is factoring out trinomials, which can take a long time with a mere human brain. So my mom and I wrote a program to do this. It's written in C and Objective-C (with the Foundation framework), but it shouldn't be hard to port it to another language, if you're not a UNIX user. Here it is:


#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) {
        NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

 int num1, num2, num3, a, b, c, d;
 NSMutableArray * num1Factors = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
 NSMutableArray * num3Factors = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
 
 printf("Enter the coefficient for x-squared: ");
 scanf("%d", &num1);
 
 printf("Enter the coefficient for x: ");
 scanf("%d", &num2);
 
 printf("Enter the constant: ");
 scanf("%d", &num3);

 int i;
 int plusNum1;
 if (num1 < 0)
 {
  // if num1 is negative, we need to count from num1 to positive num1
  i = num1;
  plusNum1 = -num1;
 }
 else 
 {
  i = 1;
  plusNum1 = num1;
 }
 
 // find the factors for num1
 while (i <= plusNum1)
 {
  if (num1 % i == 0)
  {
   NSNumber * f1 = [NSNumber numberWithInt:i];
   NSNumber * f2 = [NSNumber numberWithInt:num1/i];
   
   [num1Factors addObject:f1];
   [num1Factors addObject:f2];    
  }
  i++;
 }
 
 
 int j;
 int plusNum3;
 if (num3 < 0)
 {
  // if num3 is negative, we need to count from num3 to positive num3
  j = num3;
  plusNum3 = -num3;
 }
 else 
 {
  j = 1;
  plusNum3 = num3;
 }
 
 // find the factors for num3
 while (j <= plusNum3)
 {
  if (num3 % j == 0)
  {
   NSNumber * f1 = [NSNumber numberWithInt:j];
   NSNumber * f2 = [NSNumber numberWithInt:num3/j];
   
   [num3Factors addObject:f1];
   [num3Factors addObject:f2];
  }
  j++;
 }
 

 // ok, now do the calculations
 BOOL flag = YES;
 int i1 = 0;
 int i2 = 1;
 // try each pair of num1 factors
 while (i2 < [num1Factors count] && flag == YES)
 {
  int j1 = 0;
  int j2 = 1;
  // try each pair of num3 factors
  while (j2 < [num3Factors count] && flag == YES)
  {
   // get two pairs of factors, one for num1 and one for num3
   a = [[num1Factors objectAtIndex:i1] intValue];
   b = [[num1Factors objectAtIndex:i2] intValue];
   c = [[num3Factors objectAtIndex:j1] intValue];
   d = [[num3Factors objectAtIndex:j2] intValue];

   if (num2 < 0 && num3 > 0)
   {
    c = -c;
    d = -d;
   }
   
   // try it out, and if it doesn't work, start over with the next pair of factors
   if ((c*b)+(a*d) == num2)
   {
    printf("(%dx+%d)(%dx+%d)", a, c, b, d);
    flag = NO;
   }
   j1 += 2;
   j2 += 2;
  }
  i1 += 2;
  i2 += 2;
 }
 
 
        [num1Factors release];
        [num3Factors release];
 [pool release];
        return 0;
}

It's snowing!

2006-03-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

The Byte Factory

2006-03-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

Joseph's, Daniel's and my software company is finally on it's way.

Medals

2006-03-01T23:22:00.000-08:00

Here are the medals I got from State. The maroon one is 6th place and the rest are 7th. Click for a larger image.

OSI State Championships, Day 4

2006-02-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

This was the last day of the meet. I had three events: the last leg of 400 freestyle relay, the 200 fly and 100 free. We got 3:49.40 in the relay, which is one second off a Sectional time. My split was 53.1. In the 200 fly I got 2:15.17. I improved 2½ seconds, and I got 6th place. I'm now five seconds from a Zone time. Kate said my splits were "phenomenal", especially my third 50. I didn't do so well in the 100 free; I got 54.04. At least I already got my Sectional time last night in the time trial. In the 200 fly in finals I got 2:12.87, 2.3 seconds faster than I swam in prelims! I got 6th place. Now I'm only two and a half seconds off a Zone time. I'll get it at Sectionals. So now I have a 6th (200 fly), 7th (50 free), 7th (100 fly), 7th (200 free), 10th (200 IM) and 16th (100 free). Our team got 4th out of 52 teams. ---------- TEAM STANDINGS: 1st Thunderbolts 2nd Lake Oswego Swim Club 3rd Bend 4th Bearcats ... Here's a picture of me on the blocks: EDIT: Kyle set a new state record wearing my cap!

OSI State Championships, Day 3

2006-02-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

I only had one event today, the 200 free. But I also time trialed the 100 free even though I haven't swam it yet, just in case I don't get my Sectional time. In the 200 free I got 1:56.31 — a one second improvement, and 5th place. In my 100 free time trial I got 53.73. A Sectional time is 53.89, so I got what I wanted. When I swam the 200 free in the finals, I got 1:56.84. I was half a second off my prelims time, but I got 7th place. ---------- TEAM STANDINGS: 1st Thunderbolts 2nd Lake Oswego Swim Club 3rd Bend 4th Bearcats ...

OSI State Championships, Day 2

2006-02-24T21:56:00.000-08:00

Today I swam the 200 IM, 50 free, 100 fly and the fly leg of our 400 medley relay. PRELIMS In the 200 IM my time was 2:13.28. I dropped two seconds, and I got 10th place. In the 50 free I got 24.76, and my old time was 24.71; I lost control of my dive. But, I still got 8th, so I made it in to Finals and got another chance to swim it. In the 100 fly I got 59.36, which is a two second improvement. And I got 5th place. We won our heat in the 400 medley relay, and our time was 4:17. We got a Sectional time by four seconds. My fly split was 59.4. FINALS I didn't mess up my dive this time in the 50 free — I got 24.32, and 7th place. I'm only three tenths of a second off a Zone time! In the 100 fly, I got 59.76. I added .40 second because I was tired. I got 7th place. This has been a long day. ---------- Team standing: 1st (thanks to our girls' Junior Nationals relay team)

OSI State Championships, Day 1

2006-02-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

My only event today was the 800 free relay, with Nathanial, Adam, Eric and me (in that order). My split was 1:54.9, a best time by about two seconds. I also tied Tori and Nathan Losch's splits. I think I started losing my vision on the last 50 (so my last flipturn was pretty bad), and I couldn't kick at all. I really ran out of oxygen. In Kate's view, all the better. We weren't expecting to do very well, but we got 7th!

Short Course State Championships

2006-02-22T23:17:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is day one of four of the short course OSI State Championships. I'll be posting how I do in my events.

Bad Poetry

2006-02-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is why you shouldn't try to hack Mac OS X... You get repelled with Bad Poetry! Software developers shouldn't even think about writing poetry, especially right after working on a security patch in an OS...

DreamHost

2006-02-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I signed up for DreamHost, entering the promo code 777, and I got hosting plus a free domain for $9.24 for the first year! Also, since they're having a special offer, I get 20GB of disk space and 1TB monthly bandwidth. And, best of all, they let you host unlimited domains, which means I can have as many sites as I want on that one account. So now I'll be hosting The Byte Factory's site, the Bearcat site, and eventually my dad's site on that server.

Looking for a web host...

2006-02-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm looking for a free or really cheap web host for one of my sites. Also, I'd like it if they let you point several domains to different directories. I was going to use Astahost, but then I found out they require you to actively post on their forums! Not good. So, if anyone knows of a good one, please let me know. -- Sorry for the lack of posts lately; I've been working on cleaning up the Bearcat site.

HST Winter Invite, Day 2

2006-01-30T00:44:00.000-08:00

Today I swam the 100 free, 200 fly and 200 free. In the 100 free I got 55.35. I think it could have been a 53, if I hadn't missed the wall. My goggles filled up with water, so I couldn't see the wall. In the 200 fly I got 2:17. I didn't improve, but I was right on my old time. It's not a very good pool... Hardly anyone was getting best times. In the 200 free I got 1:58. I wasn't worrying about getting a best time; all I wanted to do was beat the Thunderbolt next to me, and I did. I was also racing right next to Adam, who got 1:59.

HST Winter Invite, Day 1

2006-01-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

My events today were the 50 free, 100 fly and 200 IM. In the 50 free I got 24.71. I beat my old time from two weeks ago by .20 second. I need a 23.89 for a Zone time... I got 1:01.56 in my 100 fly. I was .30 seconds off my old time. I think part of it was because one of my goggles filled up, so I couldn't perceive the wall very well. In the 200 IM, I got 2:15.67. Again, I was right on my old time, but Kate said it was still a really good race. I just swam it at the last meet anyway.

The Complication of Three-Column Layouts

2006-01-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

As I was converting one of my websites from tables to CSS, I encountered a problem: how do I make a centered three column layout that works in all browsers, including IE? So I did some Googling, and found this. Exactly what I need. So I looked at the source, and AHH! There are more hacks than there is actual code! But this was all I could find, so I saved the source and started morphing it into the page I was working on. First, I had to change the width to what I needed it to be. In other words, change the width of eight divs, plus their respective hacks. Soon, I got most of the layout how I wanted it to be, and started adding in the actual content. But then I tested it in some different browsers, and I stared at the screen in horror as IE blew up my layout! I looked at the code, trying to find what I did wrong. It had been working just a few minutes ago, so it couldn't be anything big. I tried commenting out parts of the CSS and replacing it with the original, but try as I did, I couldn't find the problem. So I had no choice but to START OVER. After three hours straight, I finally got it working in all browsers, including The Bad One. I can't wait till the release of IE 7...

iLife + iWork

2006-01-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

We ordered iLife '06 and iWork '06 a few days ago, and they arrived today! iLife has a lot of really cool new features, and so does iWork. iWeb is awesome; here's a sample page I made with it. Also, Pages has a new 3D chart feature, so there will be no more ugly charts.

Email Invasion

2006-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Whoa. 51 emails is a lot. Actually, 49 of them were from the Cocoa Dev mailing list...

CAT Open, Day 2

2006-01-15T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today I swam the third leg of the 400 free relay, the 200 IM, 50 free, and 200 fly. I got 53.4 for my 100 free split of the 400 relay! That's what I was trying to do yesterday. The fact that I was on camera made me swim faster... I got 2:15 in the 200 IM, which is a three second improvement from a few weeks ago. I just missed a Sectional time. In the 50 free, I got 24.91. I finally broke 25. I also got a Sectional time by eight hundredths of a second. In the 200 fly I got 2:17 (exactly what I thought I'd get). I improved two seconds, so now I'm only six seconds off a Zone time. Three more meets... I just need three more meets...

CAT Open, Day 1

2006-01-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today I swam the 400 medley relay, 100 free, 100 fly, and 200 free. I swam the free leg of the 400 relay, and my split was 54.2. In the 100 free, I got 54.9, which is a half second improvement from my old time. In the 100 fly, I got 1:01.26. I dropped about two seconds from last time and got a Sectional time. I got 1:57.64 in my 200 free. I improved three and a quarter seconds. I also got a Sectional time, and I beat Brian Cha, finally!

Cool Stuff Missing From Keynote?

2006-01-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

See this article on Cult Of Mac, about stuff missing from Steve's Keynote. Sounds like there will be some really cool stuff coming from Apple soon.

pwn3d

2006-01-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

This is completely random, but I just had to post it.

Intel at MacWorld!

2006-01-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

So, as predicted, Steve announced a new line of Intel-based laptops (the MacBook Pro) and the Intel iMac G5 this morning. The MacBooks run 4x faster than the PowerBooks and the new iMacs are 2x faster than the PowerPC iMacs! And the MacBooks have a built-in iSight, like the iMac. He also introdced some other stuff, such as iLife '06, iWork '06, and an FM tuner iPod accessory. And, he did say "One more thing..." before introducing a new line of laptops.

Back from California

2006-01-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

We got home from California last night. We were going to spend the night at a hotel in Ashland, but we decided to just do it all in one day. I got a cool picture of Mt. Shasta out the window on our way back: BTW, right now, Steve is probably saying "Oh, and one more thing...", as he introduces a new line of laptops... UPDATE: You can get a 1024x768 version of that picture here.

Apple stores

2006-01-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

We've been staying at my aunt and uncle's house in Menlo Park (near Palo Alto) for the last two days, and yesterday we went to the Apple store at Stanford Shopping Center (above). Then, today we went to Concord to stay in a hotel for the wedding. On our way here, we walked around San Francisco for a few hours, and we got to go to the Apple store (yeah, the one with the glass staircase). I took some pictures, but they're on grandma Nini's camera, and I don't have an SD card adapter with me. We also got to see the Moscone Center, where MacWorld Expo will take place in two days. Unfortunately, we have to leave on Sunday, so we'll be missing the Expo.

Leaving for California

2006-01-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

I'll be leaving for California tomorrow until the 10th. We'll be in the Bay Area, for a wedding.

The Byte Factory

2006-01-02T00:52:00.000-08:00

As of today (okay, yesterday), The Byte Factory has officially started. Starting a software company on January 1st makes it a lot easier to remember how long it's been in existence. Members so far: Eamon, Daniel Jackson, Joseph Inglish.

PhotoBooth

2005-12-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

Adam came over today, and we were having fun with PhotoBooth. Above are some of the pictures we took. Click the image to see more. (Yes, I completely ripped this design off of Mike Matas' blog.) Also, yesterday was the last day of Christmas training, and the hardest practice I've had since Christmas training last year. We (the mid-distance people) did 30x200s. I'll analyze Kate's Book sometime soon, and see how far we swam (and if we made it to Mexico). Happy New Year!

An Excess of Water

2005-12-30T12:11:00.000-08:00

It has been raining a lot lately, and now our neighborhood is flooded. Some of the neighbors have rivers running through their yards. I don't think the lake has ever been this high before, so I had to take some pictures. Click the images to enlarge.

Server

2005-12-27T08:34:00.000-08:00

We're in Morton now, and we'll be here until Wednesday. A few days ago, a friend's dad gave me a spare Compaq Proliant 2500 server he had sitting around. I think it's from 1999, and he said it cost about $6,500 at the time. It has five 2.1GB hot-swappable hard drives, a 200MHz processor, and 512MB RAM. So it doesn't have all that much space, but my websites aren't very big anyway. But when I tried to boot it up, it would come up with "Non-system disk or disk error". So we took it to Morton hoping Grampa Dan could help me with it. After some tinkering, we found out that the only OS installed on it was DOS 6, which is... well, yeah. So we installed Windows XP (he just happened to have two Windows XP CDs sitting around, one from China, one from the Philippines), and now it works. I'm not familiar with Windows servers, so I don't know if I need the Windows server software to use it as a server or not, but the person who gave it to me said he'll be bringing the software later this week. I'll probably install Linux on it anyway, though. On another note, one of the things I got for Christmas is a book that tells how to make a hydrogen bomb! (Thanks Uncle Steve!) Bwahahahahaha...!

New iPod

2005-12-21T17:38:00.000-08:00

My new iPod came today! I've loaded six movies onto it (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the 1984 Apple ad, and some swimming clips). The display is really crisp; it looks just like on a regular TV screen. Also, I don't know if my old earbuds were just getting old or not, but the new ones have a lot better sound quality. And the new software is also cool; it has the addition of a stopwatch and a screenlock (and other stuff). Here are some pictures:

It has begun.

2005-12-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Christmas training started last night. No morning yesterday, because of the Animal meet. We swam 7400 yards in two hours and fifteen minutes, and it was hard. We had morning practice today, and we swam even farther than last night. Afternoon practice in about four and a half hours...

Animal Meet

2005-12-18T17:12:00.000-08:00

Today was the Canby Animal Meet, where the only events are the 400 IM, 200 fly and 1000 free, and everyone has to swim all three events. Then they add up your times for the three events, and whoever has the fastest time wins. In the 400 IM, I got 4:55, which is a five second improvement from what I got on November 4th, at the McSwimville Invite. I'm 1.8 seconds off a Sectional time. I got 2:19.84 in the 200 fly. I dropped two seconds from three weeks ago. I'm trying to get 2:11 sometime this season, beause that would be a Zone time. In the 1000 free, I got 11:09. The last time I swam this was the first meet of the season, on October 21st, so I improved 38 seconds. I don't know what my overall time or the final results are yet, but I'll post them when I find out.

Swimming, Software Company, Ice, iPod

2005-12-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

A lot of things happened today. swimming First, we had Saturday morning practice, as usual, from 7:30 to 9:00. Then, at 10:00 was the intersquad meet -- a meet between just our team. It was really short and the events went really fast. I swam the 200 IM, 200 free, 100 free and 100 fly. The times I got were 2:18, 2:01.12, 55.52, and 1:04.43, respectively. I got a best time by three seconds in the 200 IM and about half a second in the 100 free. I wasn't expecting to get any best times, because it was just an hour after a practice. Also, I have the Animal meet tomorrow morning. Baba and Paka came yesterday, and Paka will be watching the meet. software company Daniel (BioChron) has decided to be be part of my future software company. And we decided on a name: The Byte Factory. We'll be developing for Mac OS X and probably Linux (if we can figure out how. :P). And you can join too, Joseph, if you read this. frozen lake For the first time in years, the lake froze over. Not the whole thing, but almost. And it's thick enough to walk on out to about ten feet from the shore. Proof: And... iPod Last, but definitely not least, I ordered a new iPod today! 30GB, black, with custom engraving.

Halo Around the Moon

2005-12-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

There was a big halo of light around the moon tonight, which I've never seen before. We looked it up, and found out it's because of crystals in the air refracting the light from the moon 22 degrees and creating a "hole" with a bright border. You can read about it here. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

Weather Update

2005-12-12T07:39:00.001-08:00

So, here's the weather now: Now, if there was just a little moisture, it would snow...!

Christmas Party & Whip

2005-12-10T19:10:00.000-08:00

Today we had a Bearcat Christmas party at the pool. There were gift exchanges 'n' stuff. There was also pizza. We, the senior group, gave Kate a whip for Christmas. (If you've seen the movie Miracle, you know where we got the idea from.) After a while, when everyone was playing water games, she came came into the room cracking the whip. What's going to happen to us when Christmas training starts...?

Horrific Changes

2005-12-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I noticed that the 2006 Sectional times are way faster than they were last year. The 14 year-old 50 free is now 24.99, the 100 free is 53.89, the 200 free is 1:57.99, etc. Everything is several seconds faster, and now I only have one Sectional time: the 200 fly. Nooooooooo! Not that there's anything wrong with the 200 fly. In fact I like the 200 fly. But I used to have four or five Sectional times. I asked Kate about it, and she said they take the average of everyone's times at the last Sectional meet and make those the new Sectional times. But the good news is that the Zone times didn't really get any faster. People must have swam really fast at Sectionals, and were still tired from it at Zones.

ECSC Winter Invitational, Day Three

2005-12-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

My events today were the 200 medley relay, 200 fly, 200 back and 100 free. Our relay consisted of Eric (back), Adam (breast), me (fly) and Raymond (free), in that order. We weren't really expecting to do very well because Adam had to swim his worst stroke while Eric swam backstroke (instead of Adam swimming backstroke), but we did pretty well. We got 1st, and we were only two seconds off a Sectional time. I think our time was 2:04. My split for the 50 fly was 28.2. In the 200 fly I got 2:21.99, a seven second improvement (from my last short course time; my converted time from long course is 2:23). I think I also got a Sectional time by six or seven seconds. John was happy because my last two 50's were the same split: 36.8. I got 3rd place. In the 200 back, I got 2:18.52, and 2nd place. My old time was 2:21, so I improved three seconds. I also got a Sectional time by one second. I got 55.96 in the 100 free. I just missed a Sectional time by .17 second, but I dropped 33 hundredths of a second. I got 4th place. I've decided I'm more a mid-distance person than a sprinter.

ECSC Winter Invitational, Day Two

2005-12-03T23:15:00.000-08:00

I swam the 50 free, 200 free, and 100 fly today. In the 50 free, I got 25.19. I dropped a little over a quarter of a second. I also won the event. John said I could have gotten a 24.9 if I hadn't breathed into the wall though... I got 2:00.90 in the 200 free, which is a two second improvement. I got 2nd place. The guy who won got 1:55. In the 100 fly, I got 1:03.1. I lowered my old time by one second, and I got 3rd place. Tomorrow I'll be swimming the 100 free, 200 back and 200 fly. -- I got to hold a video iPod in person yesterday! It belonged to one of the ECSC people. It's thinner than I thought, and really light. It also has a really nice screen.

ECSC Winter Invitational, Day One

2005-12-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

Since Kate is at the Husky meet at UW (and I don't know where John is), we didn't have a coach for warmups today. Instead, Kristen Quirk, the ECSC coach, was supervising our warmup. Tim came when the meet started. I swam the 500 free today. I got 5:25, lowering my old time from four weeks ago by nine seconds. A Sectional time is 5:30. I think I also won the event. The guy next to me was Corey Williams, from RST. I was right with him (and everyone else) for the first 200 or so, then I got just a tiny bit ahead of him. I was about to pull back, thinking I was starting out too fast, then I remembered Kate yelling at me for pulling back and losing my race at the last meet, so I decided to try to stay with him. When I got a little farther ahead, it made me want to go faster, and then I beat him by about six seconds. I'm just happy I won a (somewhat) distance event.

42°

2005-12-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

Aargh! When will it be winter here? It's getting warmer! If there are any Cocoa developers who read my blog, please take a look at the question I posted here, here and here. UPDATE: I asked Drew Hamlin about my problem, and helped me solve it! It turned out to be something really simple. Thanks Drew!

Snow in Morton

2005-11-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

We're in Morton right now, and finally, on the day we're going back home, it starts to snow. This is the first time I've seen snow in two years, so I just had to post a picture.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

We drove up to Port Angeles, Washington today to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. On Monday we'll drive to Morton to visit more relatives, and then back home the next day. On the way up, we ran over some broken glass on the freeway, and we've been having tire leak problems all the way. Now, on the way back to the hotel from the grandparents' house, I'm writing this in the car on the side of the road with a flat tire while we wait for my grandpa to come help us. There's free wifi at our hotel, but the router is probably relayed off about ten other routers, because the internet was acting really, really slow, and then it just stopped working period. Hopefully it'll be working better after a while...

Incompatible Viruses + Software Company

2005-11-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

I've recieved probably about twelve spam emails today, each with an attached Windows virus (of course, they're all zipped .exe files, so they can't possibly harm my computer). Two of them were even "from" Office@fbi.gov and and Department@cia.gov saying that they've logged my IP on over thirty illegal websites. I've tried using Mac OS X Mail's "Bounce" feature, which lets you bounce the message back, but the bounced message gets bounced back to me. Cease, spammers, thou foul knaves! (Oh, uh, wrong kind of spam...) -- Joseph and I have decided to be part of the same software company instead of each having our own. We'll be developing for Mac OS X and Linux in probably Objective-C and Java. The only problem is we have to think of a name that we can both agree on... Joseph wanted it to be Stained Brain, but I don't really like it. Anyone have any ideas?

Christmas Training

2005-11-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas Training starts December 19th and goes until December 30th. There will be morning and afternoon practices every day except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 'Twill be a hard ten days. Last year when Adam and I were still in Senior Prep, we came to two Christmas practices, and I was completely dead after both of them. We're planning on "swimming" from Reykjavik to London, but we'll need all (or at least most) of our people to show up every day, otherwise we end up in the middle of the North Atlantic. But if we do it, maybe we'll get to make t-shirts. UPDATE: Vancouver to Tijuana (or Canada to Mexico) sounds better, and it's the same distance. Also, it's a little less out of the way.

Palm Repair

2005-11-15T00:23:00.000-08:00

I finally submitted a repair order for my Tungsten C. It will cost $169, but my dad said he'll pay for half of it. Now I'm just waiting for Palm to send me an email with instructions on what to do. Except they haven't sent it yet, and it's been about ten hours. Maybe they have to validate it or something with a real person... I thought about just getting a new device, since the repair costs so much. But the Tungsten C, even though it's discontinued, is still one of the best models. True, it doesn't have Bluetooth, but it does have WiFi support, which only two other models have (the Palm TX and the LifeDrive). It also has the second fastest processor: 400MHz. Plus, the Palm Z22, which would be one of the options if I were to get a new device since it's only $99, has a 160x160 screen -- half the resolution of the Tungsten C. But, when I finish learning Java, I'll be able to write applications for the Palm OS, which will be fun.

Weather Service

2005-11-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

Hmm, do you see something wrong with this screenshot?

McSwimville Invitational, Day 3

2005-11-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

Today I swam the 200 free, the fly split of the 200 medley relay, 100 free, 200 back, and 100 fly. I got 2:02.76 in the 200 free, which is about a two second improvement. Kate said I didn't go out fast enough though, so it could possibly have been faster. In our 200 medley relay, Adam swam back, Nathanial swam breast, I swam fly and Raymond swam free. I forgot what our overall time was, but my fly split was 28.7. In the 100 free, I got 56.29. I improved about a quarter of a second from two weeks ago. I was in Lane 1, but I won the heat and beat Mason! I got 2:21 in the 200 back. Kate was really happy because I did what she said to do -- my splits were 1:10 for the first hundred and 1:11 for the second hundred. The 100 fly wasn't as good as I wanted it to be; I got 1:04 (my best is 1:03), but there are a few things that might have had something to do with it: first, after the 200 back, Kate made Adam and me go warm down/up until the 100 fly, which didn't give me as much time to stretch as I wanted. And then I thought I was in Lane 6 when it was really Lane 2, so I lost some time I could have used to stretch trying to find my lane. And then my goggles leaked. Oh, and this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I think my hand hit the guy in the other lane on the last 25. Is that legal...?

McSwimville Invitational, Day 2

2005-11-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

My events today were 200 IM, 200 free relay, 50 free, 100 back and 500 free. In the 200 IM, the time I got was 2:21.03. I improved two seconds. Our 200 free relay consisted of Nathanial, Adam, Raymond and me. We got 1:48, and my split was 25.02. I got 25.75 in the 50 free. A little off my best time. Kate said my stroke looked good, but my tempo was too slow. In the 100 back I got 1:06.08, and my old time was 1:08. I was racing Adam in this event, and I beat him by a little more than half a second. I got 5:34.20 in the 500 free, which is an eleven second improvement (although I don't even remember the last time I swam it). Kate said my splits were bad because I decended the hundreds instead of swimming the whole thing fast, but my overall time was still good.

McSwimville Invitational, Day 1

2005-11-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

The warmup today was probably the most brutal in history (at least in my history); about half of our group had bruises when we got out. I had to swim under people several times, and Adam said he ran over just about everyone... I swam the 400 IM, and I got 5:00.63. I beat my time from two weeks ago by six seconds. I was racing Adam, and this was not our typical 400 IM: Usually I get ahead on the fly, he gets ahead on the back, I start to catch up on the breast, and we stay the same on the free. Not this time. This time I got ahead on the fly, but then I started sprinting the back because I was afraid Adam would pass me. So he went faster on the breast when he saw that he didn't get ahead on the back, and then he kept his lead on the free, so he beat me by three seconds. This is off-topic, but if there are any Cocoa programmers out there who read my blog, could you please tell me how to make a Mac OS X Address Book-style textfield?

Typing Test

2005-11-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I took an online typing test and my best results were 71 WPM (net speed, not gross speed). Take the test and tell me what you get.

Objective-C, Java, and Software Update

2005-11-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

I downloaded Mac OS X 10.4.3 today; it has several improvements and fixes, but the best improvement is in Spotlight: I searched for something returning 3500 results, and it took Spotlight six seconds to find them. Now where would you find that on Windows...? -- I finished my Objective-C book a few days ago. I can now say I've learned Cocoa and Objective-C. I also utilized the information on Cocoa Dev Central to learn about Cocoa Bindings, which allowed me to take out over 60% of the code on a current project. And Joseph lent me a Java book, so I get to start leaning Java. I'm excited.

Yard Work + Project + Palm

2005-10-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Remember the Bearcat auction in July? Adam, Andrew and I did yard work at the Siminec's after morning practice today. We had to lay sod in their backyard. It was mud when we came and grass when we left. It took us four hours. When we were done, my face was completely covered with mud, there was mud down my neck, and my arms and legs were caked. And Andrew's shoes were so (there's no other word for it) destroyed that he just left them there to be thrown out. -- Kate assigned me a project: find out how far we can swim in two weeks, averaging 7000 yards a day and combining the distance of all our swimmers in Seniors (about twenty people). It comes out to 1185 miles. The second part of the project is to find out where we can swim to in that distance. At first we thought Hawaii, but then we'd end up about 1000 miles out to sea. We could swim from Reykjavik to London, but that's a little but out of the way. Or we could just swim East, but it's hard not to end up somewhere like South Dakota or Kansas... -- I am having a lot of trouble contacting Palm. When we were in France, I accidently plugged my Tungsten C's charger into the wall without a power transformer, and blew it out. So my PDA had to go without power for the rest of the trip, and draining the battery is bad for it. So now I need to get its battery replaced, because I can't charge when it discharges so quickly, but I wanted to wait until I get a new charger in case there are *delays*. Well, there have been delays. Palm took the wall chargers Tungsten C off their site. There are car chargers and solar chargers, but no wall chargers. So I tried contacting customer support by email, but no response. Several weeks later, I posted a topic on their forums. No replies. I checked back again at the forums, and noticed that three topics have any replies. So I tried calling them by phone, and after a recording told me I would be hooked up with the right department, it hung up on me. Maybe I'll wait try again on Monday.

Team Pictures (Again)

2005-10-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

I said I'd post some pictures when I get them, so here are a few: There are actually about fifty-eight more, but I will try to have them all on the Bearcat site within a few days.

Long Bike Ride

2005-10-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

My dad and I went on a group bike ride with about twelve people, and it went from Maclay Inn to Silver Falls and back. It was 54 miles for us. We eventually abandoned to group, because they had to stop and wait for the tandems and slower people every few minutes. Four of them started to follow us, but they fell behind when the Hill started. When we got to Silver Falls, we stopped at the lodge and had a sandwhich. Then we rode to Silverton and had some soup. The hill on the way back down was the biggest I've ever been on; we were going faster than the speed limit. It ended up taking about five and half hours from start to finish, but some of that was waiting time.

Harvest Open, Day 2

2005-10-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

This was the last day of the meet for me. My events for today were 400 IM, 200 free relay, 100 fly, 100 free, and a 400 medley relay. In the 400 IM, I got 5:06, beating my old time by ten seconds. Adam and Andrew were also in the same heat as me. In the 200 free relay, we had the ultimate relay team, the one we've been waiting for for years: Adam, Andrew, Kyle and me. Our time was 1:44. I forgot what the order was, but I know I went first, and my split was 25:53. I got 1:04.89 in the 100 fly. Not my best time, but the last time I swam it was at the end of the season. Andrew (who was swimming right next to me) beat me by one second. My time for the 100 free was 56:66. I think I got 2nd in this event. I got a best time for short course, but my converted time is 55.47. I beat Andrew by half a second. The 400 medley relay was another Ultimate: Adam was swimming back, Kyle was swimming breast, Andrew was swimming fly, and I was swimming free. We got 4:17. This would have been a Sectional time by a lot, but Andrew just turned 15 so it doesn't count. We still got a State time though.

Harvest Open, Day 1

2005-10-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is my first swim meet since long course State. I swam the 200 yard IM and the 1000 free today. In the 200 IM, I got 2:23, which is a six second improvement from my old time. I was racing in the lane right next to Adam, and he got 2:20. In the 1000, I got 11:48, and my seed time was 12:17 (but I hadn't swam it in ten months). The only two people in my heat were Adam and me, but they combined it with the previous event, which was also all Bearcats. So it was me, Adam, Crystal, Sammi and Tori in one heat. Tomorrow I'm swimming the 400 IM, 100 fly and 100 free.

Team Pictures

2005-10-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we had our team pictures. It lasted about an hour and twenty minutes, and we ended up not having to swim. Everyone wore their Bearcat sweats and Bearcat t-shirts (except James - !). And Brent Kibby was the photographer. Some of the things we had to do were a little painful -- such as the Pyramid, where Adam, Andrew, James, Natascha and I were on the bottom. Somehow, the people on the top had the worst balance... I'll post some of the pictures here when I get them, and I'll try to put all of them on the Bearcat website. Miscellaneous Topic of the Day: I've pretty much finished cleaning up my dad's website, and I actually got it to work in Windows IE, but now everything shows up Really Badly in Mac IE! I'm wondering if I should just drop support for Mac IE... Who uses such an insidious browser anyway? Do you - ?

Nib Files, HTML Files, and Images

2005-10-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have already known this, but I just figured it out: You can access all the nib files, HTML files, images, and other resources of any application, through Terminal. Type in: open /Applications/SomeApplication.app/Contents with the complete pathname of the application. Remember to add the .app extention. I knew you could do this with directories, but I didn't know you could do it with application bundles. I guess they count as directories too. This is a useful thing to know, because then you can do things like replacing the icons, etc. Another way to do it is to download CatScan ($10), written by Mike Matas.

New Apple Wonders

2005-10-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

If you have not seen this, you have got to see it. ...Oh, and this too.

Programmer Shtuff

2005-10-10T11:02:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, but I've finally started learning GUI in Cocoa with Objective-C, so I've been really busy. I posted more sourcecode on my software page. This one is for an improved version of Portfolio, (which I added several motnhs ago), but written in C++ instead of C. It's also a lot less buggy, and with more features. I started and finished it while we were in France, to keep my brain busy. If you download it, you'll get a zipped Xcode project, but if you don't have Xcode, you can just use the actual source files.

First Day of Swimming

2005-10-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I had my first day of swimming in two months. It was good to see everyone again, and they were happy to see me. My stroke felt really awkward, as it always does after a long period of not swimming, but I got used to it. I think my legs are in better shape than before, because of all the running in France, but my upper body is weaker. The reason I'm posting this at four in the morning is because I'm going to morning practice today and I have a little extra time before we have to leave.

Photos

2005-10-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded 42 photos from our trip to France. You can view them on my Photos page, or click here. There are actually over 800, but the number of photos I can put on one page is limited to 42.

Back Home

2005-10-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

We got home this morning at about 12:40am, after three flights: an Airbus A119, Boeing 777-200, and a Boeing 767. I was using my GPS on the flight from Atlanta to Portland, since there were no seatback screens to tell you where you are, but I turned it off after a while, so it still thinks we're somewhere over South Dakota. Here are some pictures of the 777 in Paris: I would have gotten more, but the Runway Man was getting mad at me.

Last Day

2005-09-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is our last day in France. Tomorrow we'll drive to Nantes, then fly to Paris, then to Atlanta, and from there to Portland. I'll post another entry when we get home.

Cruise Ship Museum

2005-09-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

We went to the cruise ship museum in St. Nazaire today. We went there last time we were in France, but it was still really cool because it's located in a World War II Thing/Structure, there really is water (which they also keep the submarine Espadon (Swordfish) in), and the inside is made to look like a cruise ship. There was even an engine room: a real bar: and other storage space: At the end, you go into a small theater where it shows different clips from cruise ship films (including the Normandie burning on its side in the New York harbor), and then after five minutes, the lights start flashing, you hear rumbling sounds, the screen goes off, and someone comes in and hands you your lifejacket. You follow him to the lifeboats, get in, and are lowered down to the water level, where you step out and go through some doors into a hallway, which then takes you to the giftshop. -- By the way, I found a shrimp in my swim suit yesterday after going to the beach.

Aquarium

2005-09-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

We went to the aquarium in Le Croisic today. It was really cool; it had a tunnel going through the fish tank (like at the aquarium in Newport, Oregon, if you've been there), and lots of other stuff, but the coolest part was the shark tank. The sharks were huge -- not just four foot long sharks like you sometimes see, but full-size ones. I would have taken more pictures of the sharks, but flash photos are prohibited and it was a dark room. So I only have one shark picture, which was actually an accident, because I didn't think my flash was working: We also saw a lobster try to attack a crab several times: And then there were the turtles (I know you would have liked this, Adam): There are lots more photos, but it would take too long to upload them all on a dial-up connection, so I'm only posting three.

Batz

2005-09-17T23:48:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Batz at about 3:30 yesterday, after a five and a half hour trip. Not very much has changed since last time we were here, except some stuff has been renovated. The house has four stories and two backyards. It is also right next to a pizza place, and within walking distance of the beach. And it's right in the middle of the town, so if we can find a broadband internet place, I can walk there.

Brittany

2005-09-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

We're leaving tomorrow to go to Brittany for the last two weeks of our trip. The town we'll be staying in is called Batz (silent 'tz'), and it's the same place we stayed in our last time in France, five years ago. It will be about a five hour drive. The greenish marker on the map is where we are right now, and the purple one is where we're going. (But it won't be a straight line as the map suggests, obviously.)

British People's Pool

2005-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

We met some English people at a restaurant on my birthday, who invited us to their house a few days ago. They're only here five weeks out of the year, so they let us use their pool while they're gone. The pool is built in to the Deck-Like Part of Their House, and it's about ten meters long and five feet deep in the deepest part. It's also covered by a rounded plexiglass roof. It's really cool. I tried to get a workout in, but it's kind of hard when you can't see the wall (the wall was the same color as the floor and there were no shadows). So we lined the bottom of the wall with little pebbles and leaves to make it more visible.

Birthday

2005-09-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Well, today's my 14th birthday, and we're going to an internet place for lunch! My main present was the 3D Weather Globe software, which is really cool. So far, I have eight emails (it's 10:30am here), and most of them look like birthday greetings. One was even automated. I haven't gotten to read them yet since our dial-up connection is being so slow right now, so I'll wait until we go out to lunch. On another note, I'm almost finished learning C++. Next is Objective-C.

Rocamadour

2005-09-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

We went to Rocamadour yesterday, a medieval town built partly in a canyon and partly on a huge rock. The part built on the huge rock is a plaza surrounded by seven churches, and up above that is a castle, 1600 feet above the ground level. Pilgrims used to come here as penance. On the ramparts of the castle, there is a view point (which obviously wasn't originally a view point, but it is now) looking out over the cliff. It's so high, you can look down and see a flock of birds. Oh, and it was 104 degrees (farenheit) out. Looking up at the cliff from ground level. You can see the view point in the top left. Looking straight down from the view point. You can see one of the seven churches on the left, and then the ground level in the center. There are two people down in the bottom right (the specks behind the car). One of the doors in the plaza. The sharp rivets make it look like a torture device. By the way, we found a human bone in a cemetery a few days ago.

French Parking

2005-09-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

"Stay off the sidewalk if you don't like my driving..."

Pain

2005-08-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

...I should tell you that "pain" means bread, not pain.

Leet

2005-08-27T01:27:00.000-07:00

I have lots of time to code here. I wrote a simple, yet effective, function that converts a C-Style string into leet. Here it is:

void leet(char *theString)
{
 for( int i = 0; i < strlen(theString); i++)
 {
  switch( theString[i])
  {
   case 'A':
   case 'a': theString[i] = '4';
      break;
   case 'E':
   case 'e': theString[i] = '3';
      break;
   case 'I':
   case 'i': theString[i] = '1';
      break;
   case 'O':
   case 'o': theString[i] = '0';
      break;
   case 'P':
   case 'p': theString[i] = '9';
      break;
   case 'S':
   case 's': theString[i] = '$';
      break;
   case 'T':
   case 't': theString[i] = '7';
  }
 }
}

Medieval Village

2005-08-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

We went to Sarlat today, a completely medieval village about an hour and a half away. I've never seen so many thousand year old buildings in one place before. Medieval ally ways are cool. We also saw the Largest Truffle in the World: To Joseph: I know you're getting tired of medieval France, so to refresh your mind, here's something different: I'm making a C++ string class that has a few Nice Little Methods. I know there's already a built-in string class, but I wanted to make my own. :P

The Castle

2005-08-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I said I'd post if we encountered a castle, so here it is: The castle walls and the tower in the background The tower as seen from the courtyard The view from the top of the tower Facing the other direction The tower was built in the 14th century to defend against the British, and the rest of the castle was added on two hundred years later. I didn't count the stairs to the top of the tower, but there were a lot. And they were really, really steep. There was a really cool view from the top though. There were also a suit of armor, swords, and other Various Items worth posting here, but it would take too long to upload all the images on a dial-up connection.

Our Arrival in France

2005-08-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

The airport at Bordeaux The flight from Portland to Atlanta was four and a half hours, and we were flying a Boeing 767 (that was the first time I had seen Delta use anything other than Airbus). I got to check my email in Portland, but there was no wifi in Atlanta! At least there was a power outlet, so I got to charge my PowerBook a little. Our plane took off for Paris at 9:30pm (GMT -0500). It was a Boeing 777! There were TV screens on the back of each seat, a game controller embedded in the armrest, and engines big enough for a car to fit in. We were served dinner and breakfast. At 11:15pm (GMT -0800; I don't know what time zone we were in at that time), I saw the sun just rising over some mountains. The mountains were Iceland. I knew it was Iceland because it was in the direction it should have been, and that was just about the only land the sun was rising over in the whole Atlantic ocean. It would have been about 450 miles away, but you can see a lot from 37,000 feet up. We landed in Paris at 11:40am (GMT +0100) yesterday after a nine hour flight, and then we took an Airbus A318 to Bordeaux. Then we drove two hours to get to our house. We had to stop at the grocery store because we didn't have any food. We're staying in a hamlet with a barn from the 13th century! Everything is made of stone. There are three huge fireplaces, each with a stove in them. The stairs are really steep, so you have to be careful going down them. There's only a dial-up connection here, but luckily I haven't been getting as many emails as I usually do. But I still probably won't be posting very many blog entries unless we encounter a castle or such. Sorry the photos are bad quality; I don't have access to my iDisk, so I'm having to upload them to Blogger.

PDX

2005-08-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

We're at PDX now, and boarding in about five minutes. We'll be flying to Atlanta, then to Paris, then to Bordeaux, and then taking a two hour drive to the place we're staying at. More later.

Leaving for France

2005-08-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

We're leaving for France tomorrow morning, and we'll be back September 30th. Since CompuServe (the only way we have to connect to the internet in foreign countries right now) works with pretty much anything but Tiger, I'll be using my dad's computer to connect to the internet, so I might not be able to respond to emails immediately. I'll try to post some pictures while we're in France.

Virtual Family Picture

2005-08-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

We had our annual family picture today, but since Uncle Rick's in Japan, we just had a video chat with him and included my PowerBook in the picture!

Last Swim Practice + Trip to Morton

2005-08-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

We had our last swim practice of the season today. It started at 7:30 instead of 6:30, so we got to sleep in. We played Water Polo, Colors and Sharks and Minnows the whole practice! It was really fun. This will have been my last practice until October even though it starts back up again on September 6th, because we're coming back September 30th. We're leaving for Morton, Washington today till Monday, for Loggers Jubilee. I might post some pictures.

The Conversion Begins

2005-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

It has begun. I'm converting all my sites to XHTML 1.0 Transitional, starting with www.michaelcurtisford.com. This site might take a while -- not because of size, but because... It's all using absolute positioning! I'm going to have to fix that. I wasn't a very expericenced web designer when I first coded this site.

Marware Sportfolio I

2005-08-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

My new Marware Sportfolio I will be really useful when we go to France. It has lots of pockets, so I can store various Other Devices in it with my PowerBook. It also has a shoulder strap, which is convenient.

Oregon State Time Trial Championships

2005-08-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

My bronze medal Isa on the left, me on the right Today was the Oregon state cycling time trial championships. For me, it was 10k. My time was 17:51, which is a 1:07 improvement from my time last year. I got 3rd out of six people; the guy who got 1st won his age class at Nationals, and he got 15 minutes and something today, breaking the course record by over a minute. I think I averaged about 22mph -- it was something around 25 on the way down and 20 on the way back, because of the wind. I tried to get off my bike after I finshed, and my legs collapsed. I guess that means I went hard enough.

Mighty Mouse: Arrived

2005-08-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

My Mighty Mouse arrived today! I was waiting for FedEx to come, so I checked my Package Tracker widget, and it said it had been delivered, so I went to check, and there it was. It has only one button, but it senses where your fingers are so it works as a two-button mouse. And the scrolling ball is really convenient, as well as the squeezy things on the sides. Well worth the price.

Mighty Mouse

2005-08-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

Behold, the Mighty Mouse. I ordered one as soon as I saw it on the Apple web site. Two, actually: one for my PowerBook and one for the Power Mac G4 upstairs. This is going to be great.