Lighting it up!

It's starting (on days other than this past Friday) to look like spring may be just around the corner here in Colorado.  That means it's time for the Crossfit Games open regionals competition, and road cycling season with track season hot on its heels.

Speaking of lighting it up, several of my friends from the US Paralympic Cycling Team are heading to Italy next week for the 2011 Paracycling Track World Championships.  Looking at the rosters, it appears at least one of the guys I raced with on Monday nights in Manchester will be competing as well.  Good luck to everyone competing!

I thought that with competition(s) coming up soon, I should post some pictures to help psyche up mentally.

Working to help set a new 1-mile record in Colorado Springs.

Pulling off at the end of my turn at the front.

These first two pictures (above) are from the track in Colorado Springs this past summer, when Ryan Luttrell, Mike Giem, Charlie Higbie, Kevin Selker, and I teamed up to set a new track record in the 1-mile race.  I took a hard pull in between Ryan Luttrell and Mike Giem.  The first picture is near the beginning of my pull, and the 2nd picture is near the end.  All I can say is, I am very happy that everything went according to plan there...

A few weeks ago, I competed in an Olympic lifting meet at Crossfit Roots here in Boulder.  We performed snatches and clean and jerks.  I ended up with a personal best in the snatch and matched my personal best from Manchester in the clean and jerk.  Here is a picture of me receiving the bar in my 2nd clean.

I have a long way to go on the Olympic lifts, but I feel like I'm making progress every month.

Finally, there is an on-going competition among riders on the ColoBikeLaw.com cycling team to pick up the most outrageous pieces of road SWAG, carry them home, and provide photographic evidence to the team.  This week I found a hat while riding.  It's not quite up there with Doug's dinosaur or David's rocket, but it could be the start of quite a snappy outfit.  Time will tell if I can match my 3rd place finish from 2010 in the CBL road SWAG competition.

This hat may look pretty sharp, but is way too small for me.

Until next time, keep the rubber side down and start thinking about competition!

How many engineers does it take?

Question: How many engineers does it take to open a bottle of wine without conventional cork screw technology?

The answer is revealed at the end of this post.

This past week I went in to my former employer, Holzworth Instrumentation, and spent a couple days wrapping up a design for production.  This coming week, I will build up some circuit boards and have them ready for shipping to customers.  Being an independent consultant is interesting.  On Wednesday, I was managed by a doggy, shown below.

Guinness (the doggy) sat next to my desk to make sure I stayed on task.  I think he wanted to help me... eat my lunch.

For several years now, I have had a large air compressor that I picked up from Costco.  It comes in handy for cleaning dirt of off bike frames, bike chains, and bike brakes.  It is also useful for annoying dogs and neighbors, and scaring the beejeebees out of me when I forget to turn it off when I'm done cleaning bikes and then it kicks on while I'm asleep.

Recently, my compressor has fallen victim to insidious and treacherous squirrel-saboteurs.  They chewed through the hose that runs to the tool/sprayer which made it difficult to do any useful bike cleaning without having the motor running continuously (loud and very annoying).  I cut out the chewed section and mended the hose with a barbed fitting and a pair of hose clamps.  After completing the fix (pictured below), though, I discovered two more chewed spots near the other end of the hose.

A squirrel-bit hose is easy to repair, but at $3.50 per fix can quickly become more expensive than a new hose.

Since the parts for fixing a section of hose cost about $3.50, a hose with two or more damaged spots is better replaced than fixed (from a cost of materials standpoint).  So, I headed over to Home Depot and picked up a handful of compressor accessory hardware to ensure that the treacherous squirrels will no longer be a problem.

A picture of my upgraded compressor hook-up is shown below.  I installed a small ball valve after the pressure regulator, and then installed a quick release socket into the ball valve.  Now, after using the compressor to clean bike parts, I can close the valve, disconnect the hose, and bring the hose inside where it is safe from the meddlesome squirrels. 

The valve and quick release fitting make my new hose safe from squirrel sabotage.

The other night, I went to open a bottle of wine and realized I do not possess a conventional cork screw (or other wine bottle opening device).  Luckily, I do possess a box of 2.5" deck screws, several screw drivers, and a set of vise grips.  With those tools, one can easily open a bottle of wine, shown below.

A few items from my tool box proved an effective substitute for a conventional cork screw.

Answer: I can do it myself, with a deck screw, screw driver, and vise grips.

I can (and do) read

Yesterday's blog post was a bit of a right-before-bed brain dump onto the keyboard, so I apologize if any of the recap of the last month seemed disjointed, out of context, or just plain confusing.

In the past few weeks, I have finished reading a few books, only one of which I mentioned in my post last night.  In light of that omission, I thought I would write a follow-up post describing, in slightly more detail, some of the things I have been reading in print, on the Kindle (electronic e-Reader), and online (Right here on this very laptop.  No, not your laptop, silly!  This one that I'm typing on.).

In print, I had been working on Genome - The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters before I left for the UK and Europe.  Knowing that bike equipment, winter clothing, rain gear, extra undies, various bike tools, and my passport would take up quite a lot of space and be heavy, I left this one in California while I went gallivanting on the east side of the Atlantic.  Upon returning to the US, I finished it.  In chapters 1-22 (with chapter "X and Y" inserted between numbers 7 and 8), Matt Ridley describes some of the interesting implications of various genes inhabiting our genome.  In each case, he examines a gene located in a chromosome corresponding to the chapter number (or name) and relates it to some real-life condition the reader could likely relate to (more so than a purely academic paper).   The author presented a wide range of topics in a clear but entertaining manner, such that even an electrical engineer (or somebody else who is not a biologist) could understand them.  Good work Mr. Ridley!

After finishing up Genome, I turned direction slightly and dove head-first into George Carlin's autobiography, Last Words.  I say a slight change in direction because I went from the autobiography of a species to the autobiography of a particularly unusual example of a species that most everyone reading this blog belongs to.

I saw George Carlin perform at the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs in fall 2006.  It was the first and last time we ever crossed paths, and in hindsight, I now regret not having stuck around after the show for a handshake, an autograph, or a moment of connection that George describes having enjoyed with audience members many times over the course of his career.  After reading his book, I have a new-found appreciation for the struggles he went through with substance abuse, health problems, and family upheaval.  I can only hope that his wish was granted, that after he died he would not be buried or cremated, but rather blown up.  Hats off to George and Tony Hendra, who finished up the book in George's absence.

Anyone who has journeyed the internet for more than an hour has likely encountered a Chuck Norris joke somewhere along the way.  That leads to the 3rd book I have finished recently: The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book.  It is a compilation of 101 of Chuck's favorite "facts" from the web, each one combined with a short story, quote, anecdote, or other relevant statement from Chuck.  While I disagree with some of his political and religious views sprinkled throughout the book, there is a wealth of good advice regarding honor, commitment, goal setting, hard work, perseverance, respect, motivation, and mind-set.  On top of that, there are some comic gems such as:
To eliminate obsolete pennies, Chuck Norris stretches them into $5 bills - since Lincoln is on both anyway.
And the occasional sci-fi paradox such as:
Chuck Norris was born in a log cabin that he built with his bare hands.

This one is a quick read, but could easily entertain one for a plane trip or an afternoon in line at the DMV.

The 4th print book I finished recently was Drive, the popular/practical psychology book on motivation that I described in my post yesterday.

On to the Kindle!  So far, I've downloaded a couple of the free (older) e-Books from Amazon to read wherever I take this magical e-Reader.  So far, I've finished Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, and am part way through Common Sense by Thomas Paine and the Essays - First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau questions many aspects of government, and describes an interesting "ideal" state where the state's regard for people is so high that it allows them to choose to participate, or not, as they see fit rather than as the state decides.  It is a nice idea, but likely too idealistic to be realized with the assortment of cultures that inhabit our world today.  It's always good to have a goal, though, and I think this would be a worthy goal for all governments.  That goal being, to hold the liberty and wishes of each individual person above the perceived necessities of the state entity.

Finally, I've been doing some reading online, accumulating data to help in deciding where my next career path will lead.  Over at the IDGA website, there are a couple of primer articles on electronic warfare; Electronic Warfare 101, Electronic Warfare 102, and Electronic Warfare 103.  These are real-world not-always-so-friendly applications of some of the products I have worked on at my last two jobs.  In addition to the EW articles, I read a primer on adaptive optics from the Photonics Online newsletter.  Adaptive optics have all sorts of applications from correcting for atmospheric effects in astronomy to improving the resolution for medical imaging; worth a read, and not overly technical (even an electrical engineer can understand this one).

Until next time, keep reading, keep riding, and keep writing comments.  Anyone who made it this far in a post with no pictures deserves a prize.  Whoever makes the wittiest comment will receive a prize, to be determined at an appropriate date.  The prize may or may not be appropriate (or worth anything).

A bit of recap

Here is a brief synopsis of what I've been up to this past month:

Lots of crossfit over at Roots including a "bottom to bottom" Tabata air squat WOD with a 1-mile run tacked on to the end.  I'm happy with a Tabata score of 17 and a sub-7-minute mile.  My legs were sore for days afterwards, but not as bad as when I pulled a "bottom to bottom" Tabata air squat workout on "Wildcard Night" at Crossfit 701.

On Friday, the 14th of January, I drove to Golden, carpooled with Jeff to Denver, and then flew from Denver to Los Angeles.  That afternoon, a group of Caltech alumni, accompanied by a handful of friends and S.O.'s, headed out to the Mohave Desert for a weekend of engineering fun in the sun (and cold, and mud).  On Monday, the 17th, it was back on the plane to Denver, carpool back to Golden, and then drive back to Boulder.

On Tuesday, the 18th, we did the Crossfit Total at Roots.  For those who are interested, the CF Total is (roughly) twice per year workout that measures each athlete's progress in terms of lifting capacity.  On Total day, we have an hour and a half to work up to single rep maximum weight efforts in each of three lifts; the back squat, press, and deadlift.  In January 2010, I lifted 225, 105, and 245-lb for each of the lifts.  This year, I upped that to 255, 120, and 335-lb respectively.  I'm happy with progress like that.

On Thursday, the 20th, I tried skate skiing for the first time.  I'm not very efficient at it yet, but am able to have fun doing it, so efficiency will come.

Saturday, the 22nd, had me putting on my engineer hat to help my teammate Brett remove the crank bolt from his Toyota 4-Runner.  With some help from his dad, we rigged up a wooden bracket with a pair of bolts that would prevent the engine from turning over while I torqued on the crank bolt with a 3/4" breaker bar and a 4' cheater bar on the end of the handle.  Sadly, the glorious wooden bracket was not photographed before it splintered under the load.  The bolt was still not free.

However, not all was lost.  Brett's dad had a piece of metal C-beam, which he fashioned into a far sturdier brace, pictured below:

Brett is now properly equipped to remove the crank bolt from any 4-Runner he meets.

On Sunday, the 23rd, I headed up to Snow Mountain Ranch where I volunteered as a score keeper at a biathlon competition and had my 2nd endeavor on skate skis.

Biathlon combines skiing and shooting; what could be better?  Volunteers stand in the cold, but can quickly warm up by skiing around after the race ends.

On Monday the 24th, I learned to make Moroccan chicken salad, in the style of the possibly-famous California Pizza Kitchen.  I put together a batch as a test run for a cycling team dinner coming up on Friday.  The test run was a success.

Then on Tuesday, I headed to Colorado Springs to meet with various folks over the course of the day.  Fellow cyclist Ryan Belew gets a shout-out here for letting me borrow his wheel case for my track racing adventure to the UK.  That was a huge help!

On Wednesday and Thursday, there was a career fair at CU Boulder.  I went both days, saw a few folks who I knew, talked with recruiters from a handful of companies, but didn't see any opportunity that I would characterize as "just right".  Maybe next time.

Friday was the 2010 awards dinner and post-season party for the ColoBikeLaw.com cycling team.  I ended up taking home two awards; a pair of snazzy electric-blue leg warmers for a runner-up position the Road SWAG competiton and a gear bag for the overall lead in the most-races-raced competition.  Counting my racing campaign in Manchester, I had 105 race starts in 2010.  That's a lot of racing!

Saturday morning it was off to the airport again for a trip to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista (a San Diego suburb) where I piloted a tandem for paralympic national team member Karissa Whitsell.

The scenery around the Chula Vista OTC rivals that of Colorado Springs, and in January is substantially warmer.

During a recovery ride by the lake, I spotted a latrine with a view.  The poor guy who had his belt stuck in the door at the Berlin house party in December would have had no such problem here.

On Wednesday the 2nd, I had to say goodbye to warm-and-sunny San Diego and return to Boulder, where it was rather chilly.  On the plus side, the snow on the flatirons was scenic.

When it is 0 degrees F (-17C), the snow sticks around like a bad habit.

Now, what does one do after returning from sunny San Diego to the frigid cold in Colorado?  Eat lots of vegetables.  I think my dinner on the 2nd may have set some kind of personal record.

Some 5-year-olds' worst nightmare: a plate of asparagus and broccoli.

Last Friday, the 5th of February, Boulder Indoor Cycling hosted the 2nd edition of their First Friday race series.  A handful of local track racers came out and raced on the dizziness-inducing 140-m track for the entertainment of about 230 spectators.  I had a bit of a slow start, but capped off the night with a win in the 50-lap points race.  I suppose that makes up for being eliminated from the sprint tournament in the first round.

On Saturday, it was back over to the gym for an in-house Olympic lifting meet at Crossfit Roots.  I'll probably be able to steal a picture or two once the event photos are posted on the Roots Picasa album.

Sunday was the Super Bowl, so I played football in the snow in the morning, and then did other stuff while the event was going on.  Afterwards, I checked out youtube for the best commercials.  The Pepsi date commercial, while not necessarily appropriate for all audiences, was one of the more humorous in my opinion.

On Monday, I put in another crossfit WOD, did some base riding at Boulder Indoor Cycling, and then headed to Denver in the evening for an improv comedy show at the Bovine Metropolis improv comedy club/theater.  A good time was had by all.

There was a bit of a snow storm Monday night, so on Tuesday I picked up a new book on practical psychology and its implications for motivation in modern economies and cultures called Drive, by Daniel Pink, and read it from cover to cover, finishing around 1:00am this (Wednesday) morning.

Today was not overly exciting.  I completed a project to replace the damaged draw string on the backpack I took to the UK and Europe.  I also made a significant effort to synchronize the training log that I keep on my computer using a set of Matlab-translated-to-Octave scripts/functions with the TrainingPeaks website that my coach and I use to plan my future training.  Things became a little out-of-synch during the off season, but now are squared away.