NH 24 Hour Adventure Race

Tora and I volunteered for a 24 hour adventure race over the weekend. This was the last race of the season for the racing company Tora's mom owns, Racing Ahead. We both had a great time but it was very tiring! There were 18 teams that started this year so it was a pretty good crowd for a 24 hour race. Tora and I worked the start and the first transition area which was the paddle to bike transition. I had some fun doing a gear check on all the teams and making them dig through their neatly packed bags for required gear.

After the first TA, Tora and I sort of helped out at checkpoint 14 for a while and then headed up to our post for the night CP C, which was the last checkpoint of the race. We drove my minivan about a mile into the woods and set up camp in a meadow near Gunstock. The projected time for the first team was around 9:30PM so we sat around and waited excitedly for them, and waited... and waited... and waited.... and they finally showed up at 3:00 AM! Neither of us got much sleep at all that night but we tried to be cheerful and enthusiastic when teams wandered into our cozy part of the woods. One team even took a little break and sat around our campfire for a bit with us while they rested before the final push to the finish.

I like volunteering at these races (if anyone wants to try it then shoot me an email). The racers really appreciate that you are volunteering and thank you frequently and just doing the work can be fun too. The races can get exciting when a few teams are vying for the lead and you don't know which one will pop out of the woods first at the next checkpoint. The team that won this weekends race was called Wicked Pissah and they were consistently up there but I thought that they might lose the top spot a few times. You can read more at the official race report page.

Tora and I were so tired on Sunday that we had to trade off driving on the way home so we could alternate naps. We got home at 1:00PM, I took a shower and then laid down for a nap at like 2:00PM. When I woke up again it was Monday morning, I had slept 17 hours! I'm still impressed with myself and I think its a new sleeping record for me.

OpenMoko

So I've been drooling over the iPhone since it came out but I have some serious reservations about getting it. Yeah its awesome and slick and it will make women want me and men want to be me, but it costs a freakin fortune! Even after they knocked $200 off of the price it still costs $400 for the "cheap" version. Then they lock you into a service plan with AT&T. I'm not totally against AT&T but I don't like the idea of being locked into it for 2 years are whatever. Also it has wifi and internet access but no IM client. WTF is up with that? Also you can't just install software on it because its all locked down by Apple. I know that hackers have unlocked the iPhone and I'm sure that I could follow the instructions and do it myself, but why bother when there is going to be such a better alternative with OpenMoko!

From what I've gathered so far OpenMoko is a linux distribution meant to run on phones. The project has one phone so far that is built just to run it, but it has been installed on other smart phones with some success. I've always felt that cell phones were kind of a dubious racket, with all their locking you in to service plans and charging out the ass for anything extra. Having a totally unlocked phone running free and open source software seems really cool to me. Almost rebellious, as much as having a cell phone can be rebllious, which is not much.

The one phone that is built to run OpenMoko, the Neo1973, seems pretty sweet. It has a iPhone-esque look and a touch screen. They are only offering development versions right now which require you to flash a copy of the OS and filesystem to it but they say a real version will be coming between October and December. I'll be keeping an eye on this and I'll probably get one soon!

Launchy

Heard about this cool program called Launchy the other day. I've been using it today at work and I like it a lot! It is a quick way to run programs or open files on your computer without messing around with the start menu, desktop shortcuts, or folders. After you install it just hit <alt> + <space> and it pops up a box for you to type in. This is kind of like the run box (<windows key> + <r>) but it looks much better and is a lot smarter. You can pick from lots of great looking skins and customize where the app looks for files. It sort of makes a guess as to what you want too so if you open the same programs often it will pick those to show up first. Try it out!

I'm Getting Married!

Tora and I are engaged! I asked her last week and she said yes! It happened last Tuesday and I'm really really happy about it. I'll probably have to post more information about it but thats all I have for now!