Kent, Unlimited

2010 in brief review

2010-12-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of 2010 I promised myself that I'd try to minimize potential regrets, and I think I achieved that goal. How? I jumped at as many things as I could: I attempted to help my friend with his website development business, while simultaneously taking a job at a gun store; I tried out lots of new guns/calibers; I joined a bike racing team; I competed in several pistol matches, some for disciplines in which I am proficient.

In short, I tried a lot of things, some of which worked and some of which didn't work, but now I know what they were.

I hope to do the same in 2011.

Delta

2010-01-14T23:30:00.000-08:00

I sense that this year will be new. More than just resolutions, more than simply getting to 2011. I'm in pursuit--of what, I don't know, but I've decided regret will be minimized this year as much as possible.

Lone Wolf

2008-04-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

I know myself, I know what's going on. But it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable: I've got a case of the "lonlies" again.

This weekend was great--drove down to Blacksburg, rode around the town on my bike, hung out with my friends, watched the Hokies beat the Hokies through sleepy eyes, ate too much...the works.

And now it's over. And I picked up on several subtle things this weekend--new developments in relationships, [good] sides of people I've never really seen before, and...how much I haven't changed. I'm still as immature as ever, incapable of really showing any emotion or empathy, incapable of really letting loose and having a good time. Why is that?

Fear. I fear the let-down afterward--I know that, in the morning, it's all over and I go back to being alone.

It doesn't help, either, that everything I watch, everything I listen to seems to emphasize the benefits of being with someone. Every love song, every break-up song, every movie and TV-show and book that I read--everything reminds me how alone I am. Dan's "good morning" kiss on Lindsey's sleepy lips, Utena's night with Akio, Bruce's wife's insistence on not tracking mud in the house...

And nothing left for Kent. No one to spend the night with, no one to kiss in the morning, no one to nag about tracking mud. Nothing but my guns and my bikes and my work.

I know that in a week I'll get over this, that something will happen soon that will snap me back to my happy-go-lucky self, but for now things are going to be depressing...

The Run-Around

2008-04-15T06:47:00.001-07:00

Thursday: get to work early; get to the range early; didn't clean my guns, because I had to prep for an interview

Friday: get up early; get dressed nicely for the interview; go to work early and play off my dress-up as "I haven't done it in a while" and "I have a date with a gun show"; leave work early and make it to the interview just-in-time; do the interview (which I thought was OK, but I was unintelligible as always); go to the gun show for an hour; drive my brother back to his car; go to dinner; get home with the intention of prepping my bike (but watched Good Morning, Vietnam instead); prep my bike until 2AM

Saturday: get up at 6:30; get showered, dressed, fed, and out the door in record time; drive up to Poolesville (1-hour drive, any way you cut it); do the ride; drive home (and get stuck in accident-traffic); get out to the gun show to make my 3-day pass worth the discounted $13 I paid for it; get home with a new hard-sided equipment case and some tools; get to the soccer game two minutes before start with no time to prep or even stretch; done with the soccer game and head over to one of the players' house because it's right by my own house; get home and shower and get to sleep.

Sunday: get up early; get out to the trail to ride; get home and get dressed; get up to Potomac Falls for a friend's wedding; head back to the gun show 4 hours later and discover that the 'ears' and the gun safe I wanted are gone; go back home with more tools and another equipment hard-case; go to dinner at my parents' house; go back home to record a thing for my sister; take her back home; head home to sleep, finally.

Monday: get up early; get to work early, only to discover that I'd forgotten my key/card and have to drive all the way back to get it and be 1.5 hours later than I intended at work; stay at work while everyone else goes out to celebrate a new director's hiring (yay...pep-talk and food...and almost 1.5 hours of lost productivity and getting fat on restaurant food--no thanks); get off work nearly an hour later than I planned; get to the range with only 15 minutes to cram as much 'practice' in to make up for not getting any quality practice in over the weekend; shoot my worst score in a month (didn't even break 500); get home for dinner; clean the gun; clean the bikes for tomorrow's ride.

An active lifestyle is good and all, but sometimes there's too active, when there's hardly time for anything else (and hardly time to post this, even). I need to clean my car and change the oil (I prefer to do both by myself), but this weekend I'm going down to BBurg--there goes my bullseye and cycling training. Maybe I can find a range down there and bring my guns...and I'm definitely bringing my bike, though since it'll be more like buddy-riding than training riding, it won't really help me all that much in training for Tahoe...

If driving to and from work didn't take up so much damned time--nearly a whole hour on the drive in, and almost that on the drive out...I could have a bit more time to space things out. Right now everything's running on very tight tolerances--not much wiggle room in timing. And just one little thing (like forgetting my key/card) will blow the rest of the things out of the water...

"It's no problem, man. No problem at all." (A dream)

2008-02-24T06:08:00.001-08:00

Those last words I said to him were out loud, in the real world, as I slipped back into consciousness.

He had collapsed and was laid up in the hospital and all of us, every one he'd met, had gathered to dance in his honor in a large, open area on campus. We had all done this once, and no one was afraid this time. We were happy, jovial. It's going to be okay. Then we got the word that he was home, and we all gathered up into an Army Deuce And A Half to make the trip out to his country home, navigating the fields and gardens.

We pulled up and we all jumped out and walked through his palatial country house, with flowers hanging in the veranda and old-style wooden doors. I pulled my shirt down over my sidearm, but we were greeted by his aunt and uncle, his uncle wearing his old flap-holster (oddly, on the same side that his arm was missing just above the elbow) from The War. We rounded a corner, and there he was, sitting near a corner of a rather large, open living room. I walked straight to him.

"How're you doing?" I asked as I hugged him. His hug in return felt practiced, but weak; he'd done this before.

"Ten years," he smiled as we broke apart.

"Plenty of time! Get everything done!" I exclaimed, more for myself than for him, gesturing and looking around at his house. I was trying to get used to the fact that the doctors said he only had ten years to live in a hurry. It's one thing to know you're going to die sometime; it's quite another to know how much time you've got left.

"I dunno," he said, starting to break down. "I still gotta pay this off," he indicated around to his country home, "I'm in negative money here, my brother is sick..." He was beginning to lose it, the tears plainly evident in his eyes. I looked back at him, making my decision on the spot.

"It's no problem, man. No problem at all." I meant those words, every last syllable. Even as I woke up from the dream, I realized that I was saying the words aloud to the cacophony of my two angrily-beeping alarm clocks. The words were true, and I understood them.

The "Me" in T-E-A-M

2008-02-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

I think I've figured it out: all of my passions so far, all of my hobbies, have been solitary activities, ones where I set and meet the expectations, ones where I impress no one but myself, where failures only matter to me. I suppose that's the definition of a hobby, I guess, but they really haven't brought me happiness. Temporary, yes, until I get bored with it and move onto the next thing.

What I really seem to revel in is a team mentality, being a part of something. I feel this when I ride my bike with someone (like Team In Training or random people I meet on the trail), when I play soccer (by definition, a team sport), when I played in a band and when I auditioned for The Motive, or when I do any activity with someone else. Even if the actions and motions are inherently individual--I don't really need someone else there to 'help' me ride a bike, for instance--as long as there's someone else there doing it with me, then I'm happy.

This is perhaps the reason I don't play video games as much as I used to, the reason I haven't really gotten back into art or airplanes, the reason I was (am?) depressed after reading the "Thanks, but..." email from The Motive, the reason I scour the "Musicians Wanted" section of Craigslist: I am lacking in human company. Even if it's just to show off, I want someone there to show off to. The Internet doesn't count--put a couple of computers and The Cloud between me and my 'audience' and it takes all the fun out of it.

Now that I've identified it, what should I do about it? TNT happens every weekend, sure, and every now and then I do things with other people (i.e. going to the range, snowboarding, a buddy ride), but "every now and then" isn't often enough. I'd like for things to happen at least more than half the week, so that I can start to appreciate my "alone time" again.

Hmm, that's interesting--if I want to appreciate my individual hobbies, I need to increase my social contacts and situations. Curious.

It seems to go back to taking things for granted: back in school I was always surrounded by friends and activities, so I never really participated in any of them, and focused more on "being myself", since it felt like my social circle would be there forever, thus there'd be time enough to do things with them. Now that they're no longer there, I have plenty of time to be "me", and now I long for human contact again.

Having tasted both, it's time to strike a balance...

Leading A Life of Quiet Desperation

2008-01-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

So. Here I am, living on my own, looking out for Numero Uno. I've taken steps to ensure that I'll be OK when I retire...but what about until then? What do I want to do with the next 40 years of my life?

I told my mom years ago that I wanted to do everything, and so far I've lived up to that. Back in elementary school I was voted "most artistic" of my class, and through high school and college I pursued my art skills to where I was actually "publishing" a web-comic once every week (for a short-lived six weeks). At the same time, I took music lessons, first learning piano and then moving on to the guitar, eventually forming an actual rock band and performing in college. At one point, I was a paper aerospace engineer. As to my active side, I started in baseball, moved onto soccer, learned how to ski and snowboard, took up ultimate frisbee, got into tennis, and finally jumping whole-heartedly into cycling. Lately I have picked up target practice. I am a computer programmer by day.

So who am I really? What is it that I really want to do? What is it that I really like? I watch TV, read the internet, and see all of these people who have specialized in one thing and been successful at it. I find myself thinking "I could do that", then I jump in and for a while (a few months, perhaps a year) I actually do that, but then something new catches my fancy and I'm off to another thing.

Maybe that's my real hobby, my real pastime--a meta-pastime, as it were: to jump into as many pastimes as possible, to take them as far as I can, plateau, and then jump into something else. Lately, it's been the stock market; I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and suddenly, in the span of about a week, I've become a gazillion times more financially literate than I was just a week ago, and odd phrases like "refinancing" and "what has your money done for you today?" take on new meaning.

But I know myself well enough now: in a year, maybe even a few months, I'll be back to searching for a new hobby, a new craving of knowledge to fill. Maybe it'll be skydiving or scuba diving or...I dunno. Who knows.

And I'm worried: will it be this way forever? Will I never find something, settle on it and say "this is it--I can do this for the rest of my days"?

I'm flailing about right now, casting around for things to do, while trying to reorganize a little bit. I've sold off a guitar and an amp and some other gear to simplify a bit, but then I've started pursuing music again. I fired up a childhood computer game (Tanarus) that used to consume, literally, half my waking hours to play (sorta like the MMORPGs, but this one is more action-oriented, driving tanks around). I've contemplated getting back into airplanes and art.

But what am I really looking for? What do I want to accomplish in the next 40 years? In the next 20? 10? 5? In the next year, where do I want to be?

Kent And Guns: The Early History

2008-01-02T12:57:00.000-08:00

I've always been interested in target practice.

I grew up in the 90's, where toy laser guns and Nerf guns ruled the day, although I did have a cap gun and one of those "tracer guns" that shoot the penny-sized plastic discs. I remember setting up paper cups and trying to knock them down with nerf guns that shot ping-pong balls. I even got in big trouble once when I found a perfect Y-shaped piece of wood, stretched a rubber-band across it, set up a crate as a target, and missed the crate and put a rock through the glass sliding door behind the crate.

Then, when I was 17 or 18, my dad handed me down his air gun, a Crossman 1377--one of the older, unrifled ones that could shoot BBs both and pellets. It had faulty O-ring, so the compressed air would leak. Then I repaired it and took to shooting all sorts of stuff--filling the barrel with water and shooting off a nice mist, blowing the dust out of my computers with it, etc. Unfortunately, my dad wasn't into guns (even though he owned--and still owns--a single-shot 12-gauge), and he placed little emphasis on safety, trusting that I was mature and would use my common sense to stay safe. I didn't know anything about safety. I was a dumb, naive kid with an air pistol, and no respect for weapons or their deadly power.

I'm still ashamed to tell this next part, but I'll tell it anyways because it needs to be told. I found that I could stick a Golf tee in the muzzle of the barrel, kinda like one of those rifle-fired grenades, where they stick a grenade on the end of a rifle, firing blanks to launch the grenade. This made for cheap ammo, since my dad was into Golf at the time and I could find a tee anywhere in the house. Plus, they were recoverable, so I could use them over and over again. One day I loaded one up and, with just one pump, I was able to arc the tee from the foyer in my parents house to my brother's room upstairs, where it struck my brother on the side of his head (evidently, not with the pointy part). It wasn't an aimed shot--I didn't intend to hit him, I just wanted to lob the tee into his room. Just to see if I could. Then, not having learned any sort of lesson from his anger, I shot my cousin's dog with another tee and a similar power level. This was the last straw. My dad took back his heirloom and threw it away. The dog, well, we've made amends--she still comes up to me (but not for the week after the shooting--she would hide in her transportation cage if I was around).

Finally I learned my lesson, or at least I didn't have the air pistol with which to make that mistake again. I went off to college and, in my junior year, one of my roommates brought back a PVC-pipe marshmallow blow-gun. Finally, here was a gun and ammo I could actually shoot people with and not have to worry about deadly consequences. I jumped right in, improving on the design to use a piston and a cylinder to deliver more power do it more consistently than lung power. I also changed the format of the gun, from a glorified blow gun (with a pair of handles for the hands and a barely aim-able shape) to a simple long-gun, with a butt-stock and a forearm. It was much more accurate and powerful and easier to operate (it depended on arm-strength rather than lung-strength) and could be fired in a wider variety of positions. I even figured out how to add a sleeve inside the barrel that had rifling, which might improve the accuracy of the marshmallows.

But it still wasn't the real thing.

Fast forward a few years: I've graduated and started a full-time job. At this job, one of the guys I worked with invited me to go shooting with him. With real guns. With real bullets. At a real range. I went to his house and, after running through a bunch of safety rules, he showed me what we would be shooting: another coworker's guns, a Heckler & Koch P7M10 and a Glock 21. We went over the manual of arms for a bit and practiced dryfiring. This time there was no immaturity. Here were real weapons that could be used to actually kill something with. Not just the varying degrees of lethality of the Crossman 1377, no; if you pull the trigger on one of these while it's pointing at a person, there would be no question that that person would die. Finally, I was experiencing the maturity and respect for the weapons I should have had, all those years ago. I was conscious of where the muzzle was pointing, ensuring that I would not "sweep" anyone while dryfiring, keeping my finger off the trigger and planted firmly on the frame until the sights were lined up.

Then we got to the range and I read each and every rule I had to sign off on twice to make sure I knew them before handling live ammunition. While we were doing this, I was buzzing with excitement and nervousness. I could hear the gunfire from the range, I could smell the burnt powder.

We paid for an hour of range-time, a few targets, 100 rounds of ammunition for each of us, donned our Eyes and Ears, and went out onto the range. My coworker clipped up his target, sent it out, and loaded one of the P7's magazines with 10 rounds and put them all downrange. Then, slide locked back and the gun on the table, he turned to me and gestured: "your turn". I stepped up to the table, loaded the magazine as he had--wow, was that painful--picked up the gun (finger off the trigger), slapped in the magazine, squeezed the grip and savored the feeling. I saw it in my mind's eye: the slide moved forward, stripped a round off the top of the magazine and pushed it into the chamber, while a split second later, the next round was pushed to the top of the magazine. In that split second, I felt all of this and heard it and knew, for the first time in my life:

I was ready to fire.

I lined up the sights, right on the X, right in the middle of the silhouette, and squeezed the trigger. In that instant, between the time the slide started to cycle back to the time the slide stopped moving forward, I knew this is for me. With a grin, I enjoyed the rest of the hour, even besting my coworker in an impromptu accuracy match. First time out shooting. And no, this wasn't with cheap, light .22LR--this was with full-recoil, service-grade .40S&W.

That first time was almost two years ago. Now, target practice has become one of my favorite (if most expensive) past-times, and I embrace everything to do with it, from the tools and technology to the ammunition to the culture, and even the political aspects.

I have found something truly unique in my little world, and I have no intention of ever letting it go.

Song for a New Year

2008-01-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

"Song for a New Year"
Song by Dispossessed

it's a new year
time for us to start again
it's a new year
time we all remembered where we've been
it's a new year
time for us to set things right
it's a new year
even if they won't change overnight

and I can't help but have the feeling that someday we'll all be good
and I can't help but have the feeling that it will all be as it should
and I can't help but have the feeling that it is time to start again
and I can't help but have that feeling now that I'm here with all my friends

it's a new day
forget all your ugly pain
it's a new day
look ahead; wash away the rain
it's a new day
things are sure to change, you'll see
it's a new day
and we don't know what it will be

and I can't help but have the feeling that someday we'll all be good
and I can't help but have the feeling that it will all be as it should
and I can't help but have the feeling that it is time to start again
and I can't help but have that feeling now that I'm here with all my friends

'cause things will change
we will grow
we're okay
and time will flow

we're all here
when I leave now
we're doin' great
we've made it through somehow

and it's a new year
time for all to make amends
it's a new year
never too late to start again
it's a new year
even if we won't change overnight
it's a new year
time for us to set things right

it's a new year...

What Makes A Good Gift?

2007-12-17T20:58:00.001-08:00

So about this time last year I was getting my gift-giving act together. I managed to still give some crap-tacular gifts, but I was definitely refining my approach: I would buy the gifts online this year and avoid the absolute circus of the local malls and stores--in this regard, I did well. I had all of my shopping done earlyish (by more than a week or so) and I had all the presents under the tree by Christmas Morning.

This year, I think I got the formula down-pat. So I give you my General Guidelines for Getting Good Gifts:

1. The gift should be something that the gift giver wants for himself/herself. This ensures that a gift was acquired with consideration and forethought. When I was rationalizing gifts, I constantly thought, "Would I want this for myself?" It prevented me from getting some truly useless gifts, like last year's Magnet Desk Toy. The guideline also ensures that the gift is representative of the giver--when the recipient gets the gift and uses it or otherwise enjoys it, they will be sharing in something that the gift giver would also use or otherwise enjoy.

2. The gift should be something that the recipient would want or use for himself/herself. This ensures that a gift will not spend undue time in its box in a cupboard, or collect dust high-up on a shelf somewhere. The rule will prevent awkward phone conversations: "How did you like your salad-tosser?" "Oh, it was nice, thanks."

3. The gift should be something that the recipient would not easily obtain on his/her own. The reasons for the recipient not obtaining the gift on their own can be as simple as "it would be too extravagant a purchase to justify spending the money" or as complicated as "it'd be nice, but I'm quite happy with..." or something like "the recipient wouldn't be able to afford it due to their income situation". Whatever the case, this rule ensures that it is truly a gift, not just a glorified stocking-stuffer.

There we have it, my three General Guidelines to Getting Good Gifts. Participating in the consumerism of Christmas is meaningless unless there's a good reason for it, and this year, with these rules, I am genuinely proud of the gifts I've gotten for people.

I feel that I have given them parts of myself, that on Christmas Morning they will unwrap their presents and find bits of me.

Moving Out, Moving On

2007-12-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

Look at this stuff-
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

So, for better or for worse, I'm moving into my parents' townhouse, four miles away from my parents' house (and my true home for the past two decades). I am officially on my own, and come next year (when I turn 25) I'll really be on my own.

It doesn't really jive with my lifestyle, although it's a significant step towards independence; I'm still paying someone else's mortgage (my parents'), but I'll be responsible for everything that happens with the place now: repairs, upgrades, the utilities, any roommate situations. It's all mine.

It's a townhouse, so I'll have neighbors to be considerate of (not so much as my leaves blowing onto their lawn, but more of my drumming and guitar-ing being too loud for them). And I've spent a lot of time painting in that house, so I have an idea of the kind of people who live there and the area: It's close to the airport, so planes passing overhead will be loud, and a younger crowd lives there, so cars passing by will share their music/exhaust noise. But I'm used to that--I did live in a college town for two years, after all.

Then there's my cycling concerns: I'd still like to be able to ride into work, and this new place lengthens my commute (if I were to take the same path) significantly--it would add about 20 to 30 minutes each way. There are alternate routes, but I feel safest with separated facilities (i.e. trails). It's also further to get to the W&OD trail, my main stomping grounds for riding. On the flip side, if I'm further away from civilization, I would get more quality ride-time on country roads.

In reference to the lyrics above, I've started to move my stuff in. All my toys are going to go. I need to get a safe for the more "adult" toys, but they're all going to live with me in my new house.

My new place. My place. No longer "my parents' place" (although technically it still is "my parents'" place).

I'm not apprehensive--it's just the next stage, a natural progression.

Sea Gull Century 2007

2007-10-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

My goal was to start earlyish, and finish by 3PM. My game plan: find people who are going fast and draft as much as possible. Well, it turns out that the guy I roomed with had a similar plan, so when we started, we got in this huge paceline, probably 30 riders, and just booked it outta Salisbury. The paceline was interesting: the guy in the front would pull for about 5 minutes, then drop out and the next guy would take over, and the riders would keep cycling that way. In the line, we got up to 23mph, which was the top of my sustainable speed, so when it came to my turn to pull, I could only maintain it for 3 minutes before I had to drop back.

So the Sea Gull/Assateague Century is only a "century" (or 100 miles) if you actually stop at each rest stop (notably, the first). Well, the paceline I was in skipped the first, at 20 miles, which was a 2-mile detour from the main path, and we booked it to the 35-mile rest stop, which only had water and Gatorade. By about this time, I realized that I had neglected to bring any food, so I dropped off at the 35-mile rest stop (and the paceline kept going to the 60-mile rest stop), got some Gatorade, used the bathroom, and started off again on my own after a 10-minute stop.

For the first 50 miles of the ride, we were riding through fairly dense fog, with a visibility of maybe 25 yards. When you're riding at 20mph, 25 yards is not a long distance. The 100% humidity was good for hydration (breathing in moisture meant I didn't really need my water bottles that much) but bad for visibility. About 4 miles after the 35-mile stop, after going through all sorts of bumpy road (thoughts of the Roubaix ride in France, where bikes need to be made out of really-strong stuff, lest the cobblestones literally shake the bikes to pieces, were going through my head) and not being really sure whether I was on the path or not, I thankfully came up to a marked turn (they had white spraypainted seagulls on the road with arrows indicating the direction of travel). This turn was at a "T" in the road. Y'know at turns in the road, there are places where cars go, and where they don't go collects all sorts of gravel? Well my line took me through one of those patches of gravel...but I didn't see it and I wiped out! Scraped up my shin, bruised my hip, and scratched my until-then-pristine bike. As I was shaking myself off, more riders were coming up to the turn, so I yelled at them "GRAVEL! GRAVEL!" and, even with the warning, not 5 minutes after I wiped out, another rider wiped out in the same way.

He and I were OK, and we both jumped into the same 4-person paceline, taking it a little easier at 19.5mph, and when the next turn came up, everyone played it safe and took the turn at maybe 14mph. I stayed in that line until the 60-mile stop. I don't quite remember how I managed to do that, because a rock had lodged itself in my left brifter and was making shifts and braking less responsive--the front brake caliper wouldn't release all the way, causing rubbing, and the it was hard to shift the front derailleur. Thankfully, at our slower pace, I was able to get away with opening the Quick-Release on the front brake caliper, and I didn't need my large chainring at all (whereas when I was in that first paceline, the only way I kept up at all was by sitting in the large chainring the whole time), just stayed in the middle ring, and I was fine.

Got to the 60-mile rest stop at Assateague Island (after crossing that bridge and dodging all the horse manure). By then the Sun had come out and started to beat away all of the fog. At this stop there were lots of cookies, baked goods, fruits...so I gorged myself on the food, got some water to wash out my scrapes, and grabbed some packaged Fig Newtons for trailfood, and started off again after resting for 15 minutes to let the food have time to work. This time I joined up with rider #3056 and we double-teamed it to the 80-mile stop.

TO ANYONE DOING THE SEA GULL CENTURY: THERE IS PIE AND ICE CREAM AT THE 80-MILE STOP! The guy I was rooming with didn't know, and he apparently blew by it, but #3056 and I stopped and had a slice of pie and some ice cream and filled up on liquids. We started off again after 10ish minutes, and found two more riders for our paceline, still going at almost 20mph.

During this final 20-mile leg, we were being passed by teams and huge pacelines, but no one felt any pressure to link-up and go any faster, which was good because the sun was out in-full by now and we could enjoy the sights (and smells!) of rural Eastern Shore, Maryland (I commented "Ah, feels like I'm back in Blacksburg!"). All the while, we were still doing our paceline thing, with (maybe) 5-minute pull-rotations (it wasn't anything official, but that's how it worked out). On my second pull, I got to the front of the pack and basically set my mental cruise-control to 20mph and set my cyclocomputer to show ride-time, after five minutes I would rotate out. Well, as I came up to a road crossing (most of the major thoroughfare roadcrossings had a police officer directing traffic, favoring the riders), I looked back...and it turned out that I had dropped my entire paceline. So I went slow, waiting for one of them to show up and I asked him, "Where'd everybody go?" and he said, "Well when you hit the gas, no one could keep up!" So he and I took turns pulling the other all the way back to the finish line.

At the 60-mile stop I took my phone out and saw I missed a call from my mom, which said my parents and my sisters were coming to Salisbury to cheer me on at the finish line. With almost perfect timing, they got to the line only 30 minutes before I showed up at 1PM! It was nice to have someone in the crowd there to cheer for me!

Statistics:
Saddle Time: 4h49m00s
Actual Time: ~5h30m (including all of the stops, and the 5-7 minutes after my wipeout)
Max Speed: 28.3mph
Avg Speed: 20.0mph
Distance: 96.33mi

After the ride we went to the Sage Diner for lunch, then my family went home and I went back to my hotel room to shower and crash for two hours. Then I joined Sridhar, Mike, and Jacob (the guy I roomed with) for a beer on-campus and to swap stories about the ride (this was about 5:30PM, and there were people still finishing the ride!). Evidently Jacob finished his ride in 4h30m (4h25m saddle-time, 5 minutes at the 60-mile stop), Sridhar had a saddle-time of 5h22m (my family and I saw him and cheered him on when we were heading out for food), and Mike finished...later.

Not too bad for my first century ride!

Cycling

2007-08-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've been riding pretty much non-stop for the past three weeks, probably averaging 15 miles per day. It feels good to be active, although I'm not really losing any weight.

I've noticed this about my weight loss: if I don't go to sleep right after (i.e. before I eat) some sort of work-out and make my weight-loss "stick", I'll tend to over-eat and blow away any "progress" I've made. Therefore, while morning rides (before breakfast/ride to breakfast) are good because it's cooler out and there is less traffic on the trail, evening rides (after dinner) are better because I can use up any extra calories I've ingested during the day. It explains why my DDR regimen worked so well.

All of this, of course, is in preparation for the Sea Gull Century, which is on October 6th, only five weeks away now. By then I hope to be able to at least ride to the start of the W&OD trail and back (a total of about 45 miles from where I live). It won't be quite like the 100 miles of flat, windy terrain the Sea Gull Century supposedly is, but it will have hills and road crossings and the like, so maybe it'll work out somehow.

I'm also a bit apprehensive about my equipment. I know it for sure now: my bike is "cheap" (even though it was $600 out-the-door) with cheaper components. It should suffice for the ride, but if I'm going to be serious about riding, my next bike will probably cost more than $1500. Still, it's a good "learner's bike": 27-speeds, Shimano Tiagra STI shifters/brakes ("brifters"), clipless pedals, road wheels and tires. When I'm done with it (probably after this season) I'll probably sell it.

It's just like with anything else: you get what you pay for.

Time to Move On?

2007-08-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

Is it time to move out and start my life yet? I've got all the pieces in place: decent job, working car, my toys, my friends, my debt--basically the means to support myself. So what's holding me back?

I haven't started looking at apartments or houses or condos--I haven't really felt the need to move out. Where I'm at (my parents' basement) is "good enough" with enough privacy and amenities that I'm comfortable. I pay "rent" and the rest of my money goes to paying down my debt and supplies, so in truth I'm not really saving all that much. Your living expenditures will always rise to meet your income, I think a co-worker said of getting raises.

I think perhaps the main reason I'm not feeling any rush to move out is that if I moved out, it'd be more expensive and I would definitely not have enough money for my other extravagances (currently my guns, but increasingly my bike and its accessories).

Well maybe it's time to change that.

Information Technology

2007-07-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

I seriously hate being the I.T. guy.

Hate it! And lemme tell you a few reasons why:

1. No appreciation. I never get an email or anyone coming by to say "hey, the network's running just fine! Thanks for keeping it running!" It's always "I seem to be having trouble printing." Or "I can't access $SERVERNAME." Anytime someone from the business side of the office comes by, it's because something's broken with our IT Infrastructure. Or their computers. Which brings me to my next point:

2. Stupid users. "How do I take a picture of this webpage and put it into a Word document?" It's a simple operation--how many times must I teach it to this one user? Or "My Outlook is behaving strangely..." Well if you'd actually archived your emails, rather than let a couple hundred thousand build up from the past few years, it'd probably work a whole lot better.

3. Not technically my job. I was hired as a Software Developer. I write code--it's what I went to school for. Sure, I can do these things, but that doesn't mean I want to. Didn't they promise they'd look into getting a full-time guy working I.T.? Didn't they say that my role as the I.T. guy was only temporary? If I had known that by "temporary" they actually meant "8 months and counting"...

*sigh*

And then, to top it off,

4. Not only do I do it at work, I do it at home, too. "Kent, I can't connect to the wireless network." Well sorry. You use your computer in practically one spot all the time, which happens to be right next to a switch and a second AP. There's a network cable right there. Plug it into the back of your laptop and quit complaining. It's faster and more secure, anyways.

Back in high school, when I was taking the Network Administration class and I got my Microsoft Certified Professional certifications for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Server, and Server in the Enterprise, people told me that I could just leave school and be making $50K doing that stuff. Good thing I didn't take them too seriously, because the Dot-Com Bust was right around the corner. That, and it wasn't what I wanted to do, and it still isn't what I want to do--it was just a resume booster.

Well, seven years later I'm still haunted by it. Can do != Want to do.

On Self-Reliance

2007-05-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are a few things I want every person in the United States to have done by the time they turn 25 (in no particular order):

-Build something with a hammer (a birdhouse works, but a cabinet works better)
-Cut something substantial with a saw (like a hole in drywall for a walljack)
-Change their own oil in their cars
-Wash and Wax their own cars
-Shoot a gun at a range
-Format and install everything on their computers from scratch
-Take something apart and put it back together in working order
-Cook your own meal, start to finish, and clean up afterwards.
-Sew something together using both a machine and hand-sewing

Yes, it means that I want every high school kid to take Shop Class, Home Ec[onomics], a computer course, and a car care course (or any other courses that cover these areas). I think it's key that everybody know how to do these things with confidence so that they can take care of themselves, without having to learn the hard way or on-the-fly. I also think that knowing how to do these things rounds a person out pretty well--at least they'll have done them, so that they know what's going on when they pay someone else to do them. And possibly they'll know enough about what needs to be done that they won't have to pay someone to do it for them.

I've been thinking of this list for some time now because at my job I was given the task of installing hardware for a third party. I was to mount a plasma TV, re-mount a pair of overhead projectors, and run some cable from one room to another. These are pretty simple things that can basically be done by anyone.

Anyone except the people who hired us, my manager, and the other developer on my team--they really had no idea where to begin, or how to go about doing anything related to this job. What really pissed me off about it was not that it was manual labor, but that my manager is in his 30's, and the other developer is two years older than I am and has his own house! Neither of them had a clue! How would they fix something if it broke in their houses?

I actually found my mind boggled, and to this day (two, three months later) every time this particular place or the particular job is mentioned I actually physically, involuntarily cringe, and the words "Not again!" flash through my mind.

That Invincible Feeling

2007-05-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently purchased a Smith & Wesson SW9VE for carry-duty, range-work, and dry-fire practice. As with most people, I like pretty much everything about it...except for the trigger, which is gritty and heavy. There are other things I don't like about it: the trigger reach could be a millimeter or two shorter, the serrations on the slide could be wider and deeper or at least sharper, and it would've been nicer to have a Picatinny rail on it, instead of S&W's proprietary rail.

That being said, the thing I dislike most about it is the lack of accessories for it: there are no holsters or aftermarket parts available anywhere! The pistol has a rail, but it's S&W's proprietary rail system so the laser-sights and flashlights are limited to S&W's meager offerings.

So what is a do-it-yourself-er like me to do?

I made my own holster for it, having ordered Kydex holster material and other hardware parts online. It was pretty easy, too, since Kydex forms with heat and retains its shape once it has cooled (and can be formed again later). It was my first holster, which allowed me to customize it to my own needs (adjustable cant, full-shrouding, etc.). I was pretty proud of it, so I took it to show my dad.

He glanced at it and said, "I wish you had a different hobby."

I was taken a little aback and became somewhat hurt that my father didn't offer any praise for such a well-made and functional piece of hardware (he's a DIY-er himself, having made several modifications to his house and having made several pieces of useful furniture). He didn't seem impressed at all that I didn't display any reliance on a third party to get something done--he chose instead to give voice to his concerns about my interest in weapons.

"Guns have an evil spirit. If you're not careful, they'll suck your soul," he said--he actually said that! I suppose he's alluding to the supposed feeling of power guns give those who wield them. While I suppose there's an element of truth to that (I've heard stories of people getting shot or almost getting shot because someone thought the Four Rules didn't apply to them), I personally have never felt that sort of invincibility and I don't think I ever will. As a matter of fact, I actually feel more vulnerable when I wear my gun openly--I felt that way at my friend's party a few weekends back, openly-carrying for the first time with no legal requirement in the company of friends. I also felt that way at the Virginia Citizen's Defense League meeting on May 17th, with all of the press there. I didn't feel invincible--on the contrary, I felt meek and nervous, stepping out with all of those cameras.

I suppose for some people having a gun is empowering--not so for me; they actually increase my sense of humility, because I know that I'm not the best shot out there. Because with this deadly power I am not certain of how I would respond, now, should a situation arise, or how I would handle the aftermath. It's so much easier to be sheep, to be a victim--that way you're not responsible for anything that happens to you. To defend yourself, that's hard. You have to know how much force is justified, when it is justified, what you legally can and cannot do.

All of this adds up to making me more humble, not less, by carrying a gun and becoming responsible for my own defense.

I wish my dad could see that.