Raced in a 6k super sprint over the weekend. I finished in 43:00, shaving 2 minutes off my time compared to last year. It’s still pretty slow (the winner finished in 22:00). My shoulder harness fell off taking a tight, bumpy turn in the penalty loop, so I had to make a quick repair. The trails were very icy.

Anyway, I could think of 100 excuses, but the only solution is to get out there and ski some more. I have a training date on Sunday.

Tickets to the 2010 Winter Olympics just went on sale a few hours ago:

http://www.cosport.com/

I bought tickets for Snowboarding, Biathlon, and Short-track Speed Skating. The latter sport I didn’t even know about until today. It’s like roller derby on ice, with a relay-race component built in. I was surprised at how expensive the tickets for more popular sports are. $200 for figure skating? $400 for ice hockey?! Supply and demand, I guess.

There are (relatively) cheap hostel rooms in Vancouver’s 3 HI hostels. Hotels were asking around $500, and cabins up in Whistler were more like $1000. That’s like an order of magnitude more than the hostel.

The last piece of the trifecta will be train tickets up to Vancouver. They’re not on sale until next year.

I’m so pumped!!! Especially for biathlon, which has always been a “something that is only done professionally in Europe and I only get to see on Youtube” sport.

"List all you eat, and change one thing at a time"

How I did it: For a week or so, make a list of every ingredient in every thing you eat.

Next to each thing mark whether or not it's local.  You can define local however you want.  I live in Seattle, so I defined it as Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and southern BC.  It's about a 400mile radius (that's pretty lenient).

If you eat prepared food (frozen entrees) or restaurant food, you can assume it's not local unless you know for sure that it is.

At the end of the week, look at all the not-local things and figure out if you can do one of the following:

1. Get it locally
2. Replace it with a food that you can get locally
3. Live without it (good for prepared/frozen foods)

Resources:

• Farmers markets.  You are almost [see comments] guaranteed to buy local foods there so you don't have to worry
• If you live in an area serviced by Amazon Fresh, they have a "local" filter to only show local products
• Shop at a PCC or other natural grocery store, where they are more likely to show the origin of foods on the price tag.
• Start a garden or p-patch (or make friends with someone who does...they usually have extra produce)
• Look into canning.  It's a great way to spread out summer's glut of produce throughout the year
• You'd be surprised what you can find on the web.  Just search "<food name> <your location>".  I figured local grains would be impossible but Venessa found this farm in Winthrop that makes grains and pancake mixes 

It made me Appreciative

I’d convinced myself that the seller wouldn’t take our low offer, but they did. So now we’re on to the next step, inspection.

Venessa and I just made an offer for this house (there’s no address on the listing but it’s on 24th and Judkins, a few blocks west of where we live now).

It was just what we were looking for, small, high-quality kitchen, open layout, bright, room for a garden, but not too much yard to maintain.

I’m terrible around needles and dread getting blood drawn. The thought of this freaks me out and makes me want to faint a little, but I’m doing it anyway! I made an appointment for Monday evening so there’s no turning back. Here’s to facing your fears, I guess.

Venessa and I are starting to look at houses, and generally get our finances together to be in the house-hunting process. Part of this is figuring out ways to save money.

One day while I was driving through my ‘hood I saw a car with really sweet rims and it got me thinking: if the person driving that car was asked to “tighten the belt” financially speaking, would he think to trade in the $5k rims for a more modest pair? What are the “Sweet Rims” in my life? What are the objects, habits, lifestyles, etc., that I spend an inordinate amount of money on, but aren’t really an integral part of my happy survival?

I’m convinced that almost everyone has Sweet Rims somewhere in their life. Some are easy to spot: the daily latte ($4 a day = a Sweet Rim worth of money each year) or pack of smokes, or the couple of drinks at a bar every night. Some are harder to spot.

I think mine became sporting goods in the past year. Applying the Sweet Rims theory, I came to the realization that I can’t be a skier and a snowboarder, it’s just not physically possible to put in the effort to keep up with both sports when the winter season is only so long. So I’ve made a promise to myself to pick one (probably skiing) and not sink any more money into the other. I sold my new boots and I’d sell the rest my snowboard gear if it was worth anything, but at 7 years old, it’s probably worth less than I would expend in time/effort to put it up for sale.

So what are your Sweet Rims? The default answer is “I don’t have any”...of course the person in that car wouldn’t think of his rims as something worth trading away in order to meet life’s goals.

I challenge you to think long and hard about this. It might be a few small things. If you really can’t think of anything, then I applaud your lifestyle and frugality, and aspire to be more like you!

Yesterday was the last race of the season, and although my skiing showed a lot of room for improvement, my shooting was pretty accurate. I hit 18 out of 20 targets (1 0 0 1 for those of you keeping score at home), though I did make use of some of the extra rounds available in the Super Sprint format. I can't describe how good it feels to "shoot clean", and get to ski right past the penalty loop.

I placed 15th which is two places higher than my summer race ... though there were two fewer competitors (i.e. I still finished last).

During the shooting bouts, and especially after everyone else finished, the rest of the team was super supportive of me, cheering, clapping and shouting my name each time the race route took me near the range area.

I really pushed myself to the limits of my physical endurance and found there was some more in left when I got there. There was a killer hill-climb in the final loop, and I was thinking about it for most of the race because the route requires skiing up it three times. (It’s the first leg of the “short triangle”.) When I got about halfway up it, I thought I was going to have to stop. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my hill climb technique.

During these difficult parts of the course, I kept my mind focused on a few thoughts: “technique through it” (as opposed to “power (or push) through it”), “never save anything for the swim back”, and if there wasn’t enough oxygen in my brain for something that complicated I simply kept time to the rhythm of my skating with “BOOM skate-a BOOM skate-a”

In retrospect, this was a poorly chosen goal because even though my intentions were good (“improve accuracy”) it focused too much on getting to an arbitrary number. I was able to get the goal of 10 out of my mind early once I started shooting accurately, but had my shooting been just so-so, the “10” would have haunted me and hurt my performance.

My next goal is race in two summer biathlon events which focuses more on just getting out there and having fun, and less on race performance. My skill is bound to improve as a side effect, yet I won’t dwell on it.

“Week 2” of training is over (I put that in quotes because I missed week one so this was really the first week).

Goal: 60 miles
Actual: 60 miles!

Venessa and I did a 11 miler on Saturday (Burke Gilman trail) and a 20 miler on Sunday (Home to Alki and back).

I already know I’m going to fail Week 3 because it’s the last biathlon weekend so I won’t be able to get a long ride in.

I’ve been tagging an entry or two during down-times at work (waiting for unit tests to run…ahem).

Finally done.

http://bostonsteamer.livejournal.com/tag/

Calling all people with teeth!

I need your depleted toothpaste tubes for a secret project. Don’t throw them away, donate them and get the satisfaction of knowing your small donation will go to something bigger than any one of us.

This has nothing to do with getting your DNA off the tubes or otherwise identifying you from your tube. It will go into a huge pool of anonymous toothpaste tubes.

Contact me for donation options (mail, pickup, etc). I’m willing to pay you back for postage.

Bowling Event Tickets are on sale now!

The Opening Party tickets at the Showbox will go on sale very soon. Sign up for the mailing list here, to find out when they go on sale. (Or I’ll let you know)

Lebowski Fest tickets often sell out in advance so get them ASAP.

Ok, I’ve got a bunch of updates:

Tickets go on sale on Friday, January 26th. Lebowski Fest tickets often sell out in advance so we recommend getting them ASAP. Information on how to purchase your tickets online will be posted on the site on that day.

Two tickets will be available:

Friday, March 9th, 2007 – Opening Party @ The Showbox
Bands TBA, midnight screening of the film with an introduction by Jeff “The Dude” Dowd. Ages 21 +. Doors at 8pm @ The Showbox – 1426 First Avenue, 98101

Saturday, March 10th, 2007 – Bowling Event @ Kenmore Lanes
Ticket includes bowling and shoe rental. Costume, Trivia, Bowling and other contests. Appearance by Jeff “The Dude” Dowd. All ages. 9pm to 1:30am @ Kenmore Lanes – 7638 NE Bothell Way (Kenmore) 98028 – $25

It is looking like the bowling event will be held on March 10th.

We are still looking for a venue for our Friday night event that could have bands play and the screen the movie. I’m thinking CHAC, the Sunset, Neumos, or the Crocodile?

Do y’all know of any other good clubs that could hold 500 or more people, with a movie screen?

My Eagle licence plates just arrived! Now I just have to put them on my car. And I’m not sure what to do about the tabs…

I was walking around one day and I saw an eagle on a WA state license plate. I researched it and found out it’s one of those new “Look at me! I’m ostentatiously supporting a particular cause!” plates. Regardless, I’m going to get one.

I just filled out the application, and I’ll mail it in as soon as I can find my checkbook.