Travis Pettijohn: Blog

Yesterday I rode my first “century,” or 100-mile bike ride, on the Evanston Bike Club’s North Shore Century. Before this ride, my longest ride ever was 50 miles. As you can imagine, it was extremely challenging. We started in Evanston, IL and rode to Kenosha, WI and back. I was on the bike for 6h37m, on the course for 9 hours. My Garmin reported that I burned 5800 calories (about 2.5 days’ worth of food, or (since fat contains 3500 calories per lb) roughly 1.6 lbs of fat). My average heart rate over the time on the bike was 143bpm (excluding rest time). Average speed was 15.5 mph.

This morning when I turned on a computer the first thing I did was make a list of what hurt. For my own future reference, here is my list. An *asterisk means that the pain is more that what I’m comfortable with, i.e., it might pushing from hard use into injury.

• Neck and shoulders, from supporting the posture. Especially left side between shoulder and neck.
• Forearms and hands are stiff. Lower back is mildly fatigued.
• Butt is very sore. Swelling at seat-contact points.
• Glute is sore & fatigued.
• Bottom 1/3 of quads is especially sore & fatigued. Especially medial.
• Hamstrings are stiff and sore.
• Right lateral knee pain from IT band. *
• Both IT bands are stiff and sore.
• Top-back of calves, up into the knee. Left one feels strained, especially on the medial side connecting into the tendons under the knee. Certain strains produce sharp pain. *
• Knees and the muscles that move them are very fatigued. Getting into the bathtub was a challenge.
• Feet and ankles are somehow okay.

I recently bought a new bike, an Orbea Onix TDA. But this post isn't about the bike, it's about where I bought it.

On a Friday about a month ago I decided to go bike shopping. I went to five stores: Get a Grip, Mission Bay, Kozy, Cycle Smithy and Performance Bicycle.

Each store had a certain vibe to it. Get a Grip was all about getting the right bike with the right fit for you. They don't just sell you a bike, they put you through a 2- to 3-hour fitting process. Adam Kaplan gave me a great talk on materials and had three tubes of different material so that I could rap them against the floor and feel in my hand how they transmit (or in the case of carbon, don't!) vibrations. But he was hard to nail down on makes and models. He wanted to find my fit first and then find a bike to work with my fit and budget. This bugged me a bit as I didn't know what was in the market. But I did really appreciate his level of expertise and his willingness to just talk and explore the subject with me.

Mission Bay was next. He was all about materials, components and prices. This helped me understand the marketplace better and what differentiated the price points.

Kozy wanted to move their inventory. "Here's what's in stock, and LOOK, it fits you, let's get you on it." Cycle Smithy and Performance were better than Kozy, but still, they were more about moving their inventory than service, and they didn't know or weren't able to articulate the differences in price points.

Now that I better understood the market, I called Adam back at Get a Grip the next day. We spoke about models that they carried and I felt comfortable that after going through the fitting process, I would walk out a bike owner. So, I scheduled a fitting and mentioned that I was hoping to get a new bike in time for the Triathlon. They set me up with a loaner bike (a Cannondale Six13) merely on the promise that I'd go through with a fitting.

The fitting rig lets you adjust everything: all of the angles and all of the lengths. It's hooked up to a computer that draws graphs of your power output as you pedal. They did video analysis and showed me some tweaks. It was a very cool process.

When I picked up my bike 2 days later (normally they order a bike and then customize it in about ten days, but this was in stock and they rushed it for my race), it fit me like a glove. I sat into it and I wasn't stretched out, I wasn't compressed. My feet were positioned correctly to get the best power. And to boot, the bike was on end of season clearance, so I got a great price. Adam told me the fit was "within a centimeter" and to schedule an hour with him in a few weeks to get it "within a millimeter." Very cool.

I can't recommend this place highly enough. No where else in Chicago will you find such a level of expertise, professionalism and passion. If you're in the market for a new competition bike, start your shopping at Get a Grip. I'm proud to be a member of their community.

Check this out.

In March of 2004, I blogged about my achievement of running two miles continuously.

In July of 2006, I blogged about running 3.6 miles continuously.

In May of 2007, I blogged about running The Relay, 3 legs totaling 15 miles in 36 hours.

In August of 2008, I blogged about completing an Olympic Distance Triathlon.

What's next? Seems like all I have to do is set a goal and then make it happen.

I finished the Accenture Chicago Triathlon today! I wanted to write up some details of the event for my learning purposes. Some may find it interesting, others will not :)

Overall Stats

These numbers are not "official," but they reflect my stopwatch and the real-time SMS alerts they sent. Updated with official numbers and Olympic distances.

• Total Time: 2h59m51s (broke the 3 hour mark!)
• Swim (1.5km/0.93mi): 34m20s (includes the 1/4 mile trot into T1)
• T1: 4m55s (39m15s)
• Bike (40km/24.8mi): 1h19m55s (1h59m10s)
  • The bike is (more or less) four lengths from Monroe Harbor to Foster. The wind was out of the North at about 10mph.
  • Avg Speed: Overall, 18.6mph; L1, 17.1mph; L2, 21.9mph; L3, 17.8mph; L4, 20.9mph
• T2: 4m58s (2h04m08s)
• Run (10km/6.2mi): 55m41s (2h59m51s)
  • The course went South from Museum Campus and back North. I broke it into two lengths, out and back.
  • Avg Pace: Overall, 8:58/mi; L1, 8:38/mi; L2, 9:27/mi.

Logistics

• Prepared everything the previous afternoon (done before dinner). Mentally rehearsed transitions and how to pack them so that it would be brainless.
• Wake: 3:55am
• Out the door: 4:15
• Set up transitions per my brainless plan. Note that when I arrive to transition at race time, I work with what's on top of the stack first. Whatever's on top, pop it. T1:
  • Mesh bag hanging under bike
  • Bike
  • Helmet upside down. Inside the helmet:
  • Cycling Gloves
  • Gu & Alleve (wrapped in Saran and taped to Gu)
  • Shoes - socks in one shoe, sunglasses in the other
  • Hand towel on top, everything buckled into a tidy bundle
• T2
  • Running shoes
  • Extra socks and Gu in one shoe
  • Orange water bottle (to aid identification) and race number/belt in the other
• Transition closed at 5:45
• Eat: 6:00
  • Turkey sandwich
  • Fruit Smoothie
  • Coffee (prepared the night before and refrigerated)
  • Water (see "mistakes" below)
• Race start: 7:41.

Mistakes

• Over-hydration before the race. I drank 1.5L of water, plus coffee, plus one of those fruit smoothie drinks. I felt bloated and had to relax my swimming pace four times to relieve myself. That's hard to do when people are swimming on top of you. Another consequence of the bloating was that the wetsuit was tighter than usual, meaning it constricted breathing a bit. I also relieved myself at T2. Next time I'll drink less before and drink more on the bike. If I do it right, I should be able to do the whole race without a bathroom stop.
• Ate a little too late. I just sat with my stuff at transition to make sure it would be in a known state and drank water. I should have started eating 30 minutes sooner than I did, or eat a little less.
• What else could I improve about transitions? Not much. Dealing with all the gear was slow. Ride sockless? Do like the pros do and leave my shoes clipped into the pedals? Have Gu on the bike so I wouldn't have to stuff them in my pockets? Don't wear gloves?

Pain

• My right knee is pretty sore. It's the same inflammation from a tight IT band that I get all the time anyway—fixing this needs to a top goal next spring. I tried self-medicating with 3 Alleve along the way to prevent inflammation. I don't know if it helped.
• I got a blister on my left arch on the run. I want to blame the shoes, but since I only got it on one foot it must be a combination of my form and the shoes. A fellow Triathlete suggested double-layered socks. I think I'll try 2 pairs of thin socks next time I go for a long run. Or correct my form :) I wonder if fresh socks after the bike would have helped, as 2.5 hours in one pair left them pretty damp.

Impressions

• When the race kicked off and I was watching the first waves of people swimming, the water looking like it was boiling from all the splashing...I gasped...it hardly seemed real. "I can't believe I'm about to do this," I thought to myself.
• The swim was a blur. I was in such a daze surrounded by 150 other white-swim-capped people that I hardly realized what was going on. All of the sudden I was in the water, and all of the sudden I was exiting and people were helping us out and up onto the steps. I held my front crawl form really well—I usually switch to breast stroke to catch a breath every now and then, but this time I didn't let that be an option.
• T1 was flawless. I sat down in the grass to remove my wetsuit, which helped avoid the cramps I've experienced from time to time in my calves. Everything was in order and went according to my mental rehearsal.
• The bike was more engaging. I was on a brand new bike (got it Thursday—nothing like breaking it in on race day!). Between checking my cadence on the Garmin 405, shifting gears for the hills, avoiding potholes, avoiding debris (like dropped water bottles) and passing at 25mph on Lake Shore Drive, the bike finally woke me up.
• T2 was pretty good. My area was a mess—there were bikes I had never seen before on top of my stuff. But I was able to find someplace to stash my bike, identify my running shoes and change into them. I didn't change into the dry socks, though I might next time.
• It was weird setting everything up in the dark. I didn't recognize where the transition area actually was until I picked up my gear in the afternoon. I just followed the herd this morning...moo.
• The run was long and tiring. I tore out of T2 and when I checked my pace it was 7:30. I laughed and slowed down to a more comfortable 8:30. In the end, I really started running out of gas at the turnaround. Twice I walked while I took some water (at most 30 seconds of total walking, but still). The middle 4 miles of the run were lonely, as the spectators fell off.
• Running under the final underpass 1/4 mile from the finish line...people clapping and cheering and the echoes down there...I got goose bumps all over.
• I'm really proud of myself for doing this. I signed up over ten months ago! I have to say, one of the best decisions I've made in my life was making physical activities social. I have to especially give a nod to Mike Wood and Adam Wengert for the great camaraderie along the way and constant chatter about our training. I honestly don't know if I would have gone through with it by myself. The social spirit made it possible. Congratulations to you two, and to all of my fellow athletes!

It feels like I haven't posted here in forever. Follow me on Twitter, I'm pretty active. Most of my free time has been focused on wrapping up my training for the Accenture Chicago Triathlon this coming Sunday. For example: today I biked 50 miles and swam a half mile. In total, around four or five hours of cardio (there was some resting on the bike ride). Good stuff. I also went to the Chicago air show yesterday...pictures will show up on Flickr and/or Facebook soon.

Yesterday I picked up a pair of Vibram FiveFingers KSOs and am already in love with them. They are basically socks with soles and separated toes. The theory behind barefooting is that traditional shoes put your feet on a flat platform and muscles that would otherwise be involved in walking atrophy. If you wear shoes with a lot of arch support, you're enabling the muscles that support your arch to continue to be weak; going barefoot forces the muscles to get stronger. Shoes are undoing 4 million years of evolution. Or consider walking on uneven terrain in traditional running shoes—your ankle twists and bends to absorb the differences, as opposed to your toes and feet wrapping into the differences.

I went for a short (very short, 400m at most) run yesterday in my KSOs and felt muscles on the underside of my toes engaged. I went for about a mile walk today and felt the whole underside of my foot start to fatigue from my feet actually gripping the ground. I'm sold on the theory of barefooting, and (as my physical therapist cautioned me) will very very slowly ease back into it. I haven't run barefoot since I was like 4 years old.

Here's a lengthy article in New York Magazine on barefooting. I actually also ordered a pair of VivoBarefoot shoes (think slippers with 3mm kevlar soles that are designed to look like socially acceptable shoes) from Amazon, but the only pair they had in stock of the model I wanted turned out to be one size too small...NB, try on shoes before you buy them.

I was in San Francisco last week for The Relay. After the run (which was awesome, btw: 4.5 miles flat @ 8 min/mile, 5.8 +250ft altitude gain @ 10, and 3.1 +1100 @ 12), I spent a few nights with friends and family that live in the Bay area. Free accommodations, sure, but it was really healthy to spend time with some people that I don't get to see as often as I used to. It's so easy to take friendships for granted when they're convenient.

Anyway, I celebrated my 27th birthday while I was out there. One girl that I was talking to, she and I went to high school together. We were talking about reunions, etc, and she said to me that her life "just keeps getting better."

Perfect.

I couldn't agree more. My life just keeps getting better.

When people tease me about getting old or whatever, I just pause, lean back, smile and say, "You know, my life keeps getting better. And if at 27, my life is the best that it's ever been, then, you know what? I'm pretty damn happy to be 27."

May your life just keep getting better. Cheers.

I just got back from running The Relay out in California. It's an intense, sleepless, 199-mile, 12-person relay race over about 36 hours from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. Everybody runs three legs (well, sometimes some people run extra legs) of about 5 to 7 miles each. At the end of the race, I was talking to a couple of other runners. They had both run marathons in the past and they were talking about how this race requires a whole different kind of endurance. Funny stuff. I know that I could not go out and run a marathon tomorrow (maybe next year?), but it made me smile to hear a marathoner talk about how challenging this race is.

Overall, I had a blast. I was there with great people, and the constant activity meant we never had a chance to get bored or annoyed with each other :) I plan on doing this again next year!

Here are my pictures from the event. To give you an idea of how intense this was, here's a timeline from when I woke up on Friday morning to when I went to bed on Monday morning.

Friday 6:00am CDT, Wake.
7:00, Out the door to ORD.
12:15pm PDT, Arrive at SFO, pick up vans, head north to Napa.
3:00, Arrive in Napa, eat dinner, buy groceries.
8:00, Team meeting, plan directions for the next day.
9:30, In bed.

Saturday 5:20am, Wake.
6:00, On the road to the starting line in Calistoga.
8:00, Race starts, Zach runs leg 1.
8:20, Van gives Zach water at mile 2.
8:45, My leg (leg 2) starts.
9:05, Van gives me water at mile 2.
9:30, Jan runs an extra leg.
10:15, Ghost runner runs (in other words, we chill out and wait 45 minutes).
11:00, Sarah runs, we hand her water at 2 miles (this pattern continues).
11:45, Jan runs his second leg ("I came here to run, so I am going to run.")
12:30pm, Van exchange. Jan finishes his leg (6) and hands off to Adam to start off Van 2. We (Van 1) chill out at the exchange point, eat, lay in the sun, try to sleep.

6:00pm, Van exchange. Nellie from Van 2 hands off to Zach from Van 1, I run, Jan runs an extra leg, ghost runner, Sarah, Jan runs his assigned leg.
Sunday 12:30am, Van exchange. Jan hands to Adam on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Jan just ran across the bridge at midnight under a full moon. He raved about it.
1:00, Van 1 arrives at our hotel in downtown San Francisco.
1:30, Everyone has showered and is asleep.

4:00, Everyone is awake.
4:30, Van 1 is on the road to the next van exchange.
5:30, Arrive at van exchange.
5:45, Nellie hands to Zach. Then I run (boy was I in pain; my legs felt like stilts and it took me 3 miles just to warm up). Ghost runner (Jan didn't run an extra leg...slacker), ghost runner, Sarah, Jan.
10:30, Van exchange.
11:15, Van 1 arrives in Santa Cruz, we have brunch (so good and necessary) and then go to the beach to wait for van 2. I fall asleep on a bench on the boardwalk. The water is freezing, but feels really really good on my sore feet.
3:15pm, Van 2 arrives in Santa Cruz.
3:45, Nellie and the group crosses the finish line.
4:15, Both vans are back on the road to SFO.
5:15, I'm checked into my flight at SFO, but am too early to check my bag. So I take the tram to the International terminal where there is a food court and I open a beer. I'm too tired to read, so I send some emails and texts from my phone to pass the time.
7:30, I'm through security. I chill out with another beer and some sushi. Still too tired to read. Try talking to a girl who is also alone with a drink and get shot down.
10:45, Board flight, fall asleep before we even leave the gate.

5:15am CDT, Arrive ORD. Get bags, struggle to stay awake on the L so I don't miss my stop. I definitely fell asleep on the bus that I transfered to, but wasn't worried because I was going to the second-to-last stop.
7:15, At home. Take a shower.
8:00, Asleep.
11:00, Alarm goes off, snooze until..
11:45, Hobble out of bed, run errands, sort through my pictures, go about my day.
9:30pm, Asleep.

On Sunday morning, I ran the Shamrock Shuffle, an 8k (5 mile) race through the streets of Chicago. It was the first "competitive" run I've done since track in high school, and I only ran freshman and sophomore years. My finishing time was 47:28, which I'm happy with, as I was targeting ten-minute miles. The girl who won, Tera Moody, I ran with in high school. Small world. I kind of wish I had stuck around for the awards so I could have said hi.

After the race, I went home and showered. It was so nice out, I decided I had to get out and about. Made a few phone calls, ended up meeting a friend at Rock Bottom for some beers and a burger. While I was waiting for him to arrive, I ran into some guys I knew from college on the rooftop beer garden.

After eating, we took a walk North on Michigan Avenue, then ended up hanging out at Oak Street Beach to read and people watch. Then I decided to walk home, another 3 miles along the lake.

Came home, got a phone call from another friend in my neighborhood and hung out on his friend's deck while the sun set with a few beers.

Came back home, finished up the Vista installation, got a text from a buddy who wanted to meet for a beer. I looked at the clock, thought it would be better to go to bed, so I went and had a pint instead. We went to Galway Arms and I had a few Guinnesses.

Man, what a great Sunday. I probably ran and walked a total of ten miles. And I got a nice afternoon beer buzz. Beautiful. I made up for going to bed so early on Friday and Saturday preparing for waking up early for the race on Sunday. Everything's coming up Millhouse :)

After spending a week at altitude (around 8000 or 9000 feet), my body started to get acclimated to the reduced oxygen. Plus I got quite a bit of physical exercise with all the hiking. There was also the uphill sprint, where David, Ryan and I sprinted up a 60-degree rocky grade, cutting each other off and sliding for about 60 vertical feet. Man, we all panted when we stopped and could not catch our breath.

Anyway, I went for a run yesterday for 3.6 miles, plus a little walking to cool down brought me to 4 miles. I think that's my best run yet since probably track in high school! Go me! Or, go extra red blood cells! (Or is it an increase in 2,3-bisphosphoglycerate? I love clicking around Wikipedia.)

I'm playing in a softball league this summer that my brother in-law Mike put together. When I was living in Champaign, I remember being up in Chicago and hearing Mike and my other brother in-law Paul talk about their softball league. I was more than a little jealous. It seemed like so much fun to hang out with friends and family and play some softball!

Now that I'm living in Chicago (and staffed locally), I'm able to take part. It's been fun so far. We have a pretty strong team (our record is 3-1). It turns out that I'm a pretty solid base-hit producer. And even though I'm playing right field to minimize my defensive impact, I managed to catch a fly ball last night. Good times.

Since I don't have cable, the only channel that I can watch the World Cup on is the local Univision affiliate, D66.1. I'm more dissapointed that it's in SD than I am that it's in Spanish. But hey, at least I can watch a few matches!

Edit: I take that back. ABC D7.1 will air world cup matches in HD on Saturday and Sunday. Record series: done.

I heard a bunch of hooting and hollering outside of my window. I looked out and—much to my surprise—saw hundreds of bikes being ridden by naked and scantily-clad people. A little digging on the Internet turned up the World Naked Bike Ride event. You know how I see it? I saw some boobies: my Saturday night has been a success. :)

Three day weekends rock. I went out each night, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Cubs game on Saturday afternoon, a BBQ Sunday afternoon and to the X-Men movie this afternoon. So much activity! Good times. And the best part? This coming week is only four days long.

I had a pretty fun weekend. Friday I went to a happy hour, drank beer and watched the Sox game. I'm not a huge Sox fan, but I'm happy to see a Chicago team in the running. Being that I live on the North Side, this is Cubs territory. There's not a ton of excitement, given the significance of the situation (I live across the street from a few bars, so I have a good indicator outside my windows). I can't help but wonder how nuts this place would be if it were the Cubs. I guess I should ask someone who lived here last year.

After sleeping in on Saturday, I took a walk down to the Old Town School of Folk Music and picked up some fresh strings for the guitar. I'd had the last set since I got the guitar in December '04. So I walked back home, changed the strings (broke the high E in the process...damnit...good thing I bought two packs), and decided that I had to do something outdoors since it was so perfect outside.

I took a walk toward the lake, stopped in at a sushi place and had a bargain lunch special. The rolls were good, the fish was so-so, but all in all it was a very tasty late lunch. I then continued on to the lakefront and plopped myself down on the rocks at the shore and read for about an hour. The crashing waves...the sun...the breeze...the peace...it was almost like vacation (almost).

After that, I went to 3 Penny Cinema and watched The Aristocrats. The Aristocrats is a documentary about a sort of inside joke in the comedy industry. The joke is simple: "A family walks into a talent agent's office and says, 'we have a great act for you!' 'Let me see it,' says the talent agent." At this point the comic telling the joke improvises the most filthy, vile, incestuous, scatological act he can imagine. "'Wow,' says the talent agent, 'what do you call that?' 'The Aristocrats.'" (Watch South Park perform the joke for a prototypical example.) The movie is worth seeing, but (as I was previously warned) it suffers from very distracting editing. As for the cinema, it's a small, two screen theater that still only costs $6.50 for a ticket. Plus I live about 1.5 blocks away. Good enough.

Sunday started with me going to my guitar class at Old Town School, as usual. Then I decided to go for a run. I don't think I've run for much beyond two miles since track in high school, but today I decided to push it. (In fact, in March 2004, 2 miles was an accomplishment.) I ran almost four miles and felt great. I don't know what got into me. Maybe it's my soggy belly, or maybe it was seeing all those fit, trim people with their LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon t-shirts walking around town recently, or maybe the trouble I've been having falling asleep the last few weeks. Whatever it was, I ran about twice as far as I have in probably five years. My route: up to Fullerton, over to the lake, south along the lake to North, stop to stretch, cross over Lake Shore Drive, run back up to Fullerton, back to home. It felt great! Maybe I can make longer runs more regular.

I did some laundry after that, and have been watching some baseball this evening while diddling around on the computer. I'm experimenting with running Virtual Server 2005 on my Media Center, with Server 2003 running in a virtual instance. I want Server 2003 somewhere (mainly for IIS6 and multiple concurrent remote desktop connections), but I don't want extra hardware. My Media Center Box has plenty of oomph (though it needs a pinch more RAM). I'm frustrated by XP's limitation of only one interactive user at any given time. Two people can be logged in at any given time, but only one can be interactive. In other words, I can't remote desktop into my Media Center box and do work while at the same time playing music with the account logged into the console (hooked up to the TV). Another frustration I'm having is that I don't have a "home" computer anywhere. Every time I get a new laptop issued by work, I transfer my primary operations there, since I already have too many computers. But I'm thinking I can set up a "home base" in this virtual instance. Remote desktop in and I'm home. It won't work for things that need to be on hardware (DirectX, for example), but being able to leave MSN Messenger or AIM signed in somewhere (given that I can't sign in at work) might be cool. More to come.

I spent last week in Seattle for a training program that Avanade sends all new hires to called QuickStart. The week was a ton of fun! I met some really great people from all over the world, including the UK, Germany, Spain and Canada. Plus people from all over the US.

View my pictures from the week!

I flew in Sunday morning so that I'd have time to do some sightseeing. I wandered around and found some random cafe for lunch and had a falafel sandwich. Then I went on the Underground Tour. Seattle was built on a flood plain, so twice a day when the tide came in there were serious sewage issues (if you flushed while the tide was in, the toilets flushed up). They backfilled the entire area, making the old first stories of the building underground. What you see now as the first story is actually the original second story.

After that I wandered around Pike Place Market and took in the sights, including the Original Starbucks (the logo is a bit more revealing there). I bought some fresh fruit and watched the dudes throw fish around.

Class began on Monday. The focus of the training is on how to be a good consultant: meeting skills, questioning skills, assessing risk, stuff like that. That evening I had dinner at Marco's Supperclub and had an amazing tuna dish.

Tuesday after class we had a team building event at Blue Ribbon Cooking School. Beer and wine provided while you cook under the guidance of professional chefs. This was a great time! Afterwards a few of us went to a pool hall and kept the night going.

After class Wednesday, about a dozen of us went to the international district (the PC way of saying Chinatown) for dinner. Followed by bubble tea and a round of beers (African Amber) back at the Edgewater Hotel (where Avanade put us up for the week).

Thursday was our last day of class. Afterwards thirteen of us went out for sushi. Talk about a great mix of cultures! Japanese food and people from all over Europe and North America. Some beer, some sakegood times! Then we went to the Seattle Mariners baseball game. What's more American than baseball? Of the thirteen of us, only three were American. When the international folks started asking me about the rules (How many tries does he get? What are those lines for? So a foul ball is only a strike sometimes? Don't those people die from boredom standing there waiting for a ball to get hit?), I realized how convoluted baseball is. It's such a simple premise with a huge pile of rules.

After the game we went to a bar called Cowgirls Inc. You know the movie Coyote Ugly? It's like that. Bartenders dancing on the bar. Drinks and dancing made for a good time.

The week was great! I'm glad I got to know so many fun people, and I'm feeling inspired to be part of this organization.

It was sad driving around Champaign today, seeing all the windows that were still soaped with, "GO ILLINI," feeling the somber mood, seeing the flags at half staff. (Okay, maybe that was for the Pope.) It was an amazing season. Too bad it didn't end up the way we all hoped it would.

I got a parking ticket while I was watching the game. I was parked in a lot that required a permit until 5:00. At 4:41 I was issued a $20 ticket. Sheesh. $20 for 19 minutes.

What's the deal with the baton girl? I went to the Illinois vs. Wisconsin game last night. It was a great game. Illinois started behind, but then took the lead near the end of the first half. They held their lead through to the end of the game.

Back to my original question. I remember being at football games and asking myself that same question. How does someone get started twirling a baton? What motivates them to keep doing it? I can see a little girl thinking she's a princess twirling the baton, ooh look at how sparkly it is, I'm so elegant, I'm going to dance around while I spin this thing! Then I imagine the girl growing out of it. Certainly they'd grow out of it before they went off to college. But...no. I don't get it. The baton girl just sort of runs around the court independent of everyone else. She's not part of the band, she's not quite a cheerleader and she's not part of the dance team. She is the baton girl. I don't get it.

In other news, I tried an elliptical machine today instead of a treadmill. I was able to cover more distance without that shin pain. Maybe I'll keep doing it. It doesn't feel as natural as running but I still burned a bunch of calories and worked up a good sweat. It kind of feels like running uphill but with an unnatural stride length.

I learned a new way to tie my shoes today. I was reading a Slashdot poll and came across a link in the comments. For years, I've double-knotted my shoes. Whenever I would tie a single knot, it would come undone. The problem with a double-knot is that it's hard to untie. Just wearing shoes with a double-knot can tighten the knot, making it harder to untie. I'm hoping that this new knot, which is only slightly different from how I normally tie my shoes, is the solution I didn't even know I was looking for. It unties with a gentle tug and so far it's held well. I tied my running shoes this way today and the knots held. I must say, it's a little awkward relearning how to tie shoes.

And that concludes today's random entry.

Last night, I was invited to go the Illinois vs. Michigan State basketball game. It was a blowout, 75-51. I think this means that Illinois has a share of first place in the Big Ten. I don't really know. I'm not a big sports guy. Actually, last night was my first Illini basketball game ever. I was a student for four years, and I never made it. Only when a coworker had a complimentary ticket (I think he got it from another coworker who works for DIA; not sure) did I finally make it to a game. I'm glad I finally went to a one.

Right now I'm reading a great book. I think it might go down in the record books for me as the fastest read ever. It's called Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson. It's a true story about these two guys who are climbing a mountain in the Andes. On their way down, Joe falls and breaks his leg. He said that the bottom half of his leg went up through his knee, shattering it. His climbing partner, Simon, has been lowering him down the side of the mountain, 300ft of rope at a time. Eventually, they're out of rope and Joe is hanging from a cliff. Simon is falling. Joe feels jerking as he falls...inch by inch as Simon loses control of the belay. Simon had to make a decision to cut the rope. Either one of them dies or both of them die. Joe managed to survive the fall, but Simon doesn't know that, leaving Joe and his broken leg in the bottom of a crevasse. That's as far as I've read. It's very easy to read, and the imagery is pretty vivid.

In my previous entry, I wrote about laundry and how underwear is my litmus. Brad told me that he never washes his underwear. He just wears each pair once and then sells it on ebay. I thought that was pretty funny. How much would you bid for a pair of Brad's dirty underwear?