good buddies and beer

Catching Up

2008-03-29T19:50:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted and a lot has happened! The biggest thing is that I got married! It was the greatest day ever. The wedding was in Sandwich, NH on March 15. Thanks so much to everyone who came! Tora and I were so happy with how it went and that we could share it with so many great people. For those people who have been paying attention to my running, I'm still on track to

Resolution Update

2008-02-25T12:48:00.001-05:00

I had a sad milestone in my attempt to run 365 days this year. On Friday I didn't get my run in. That broke a 52 day streak of running every day. I came down with the flu and had a temperature of 101.8 on the same day as a big snowstorm hit Boston. The combo put me out of commission for running. Fortunately I rebounded from my low on Friday and was able to make it out running on Saturday

Things that I'm wearing at work.

2008-01-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here freezing in my office and thinking about how much I'm wearing and how I'm still cold. Here is what I have on: Winter hat Softshell jacket Sweater Dress shirt T-shirt Pants Boxers Wool socks Shoes Even with all that on I'm still cold. I have to rub my hands together or stick them in my pockets every couple of minutes to keep them warm. I would wear my gloves but I

Still in it!

2008-01-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

Just a post to say that I'm 16/16 days so far this year. Ran my first workout yesterday. It was 4x moderate-hard up a hill and 4x moderate down. All in all it felt pretty good. Certainly not a hard workout but I want to ease into it because I can't take any rest days. Absolutely crazy busy this whole month. I'm on a project at work that needs to be done by Feb 1 and Tora and I are also

Run #2

2008-01-02T19:15:00.000-05:00

I lasted another day with the bet. I just finished a pretty hard 23 minute and 30 second run here in Waltham with Tora. I was really glad that Tora volunteered to come with me because today is mad cold. We ran around in our neighborhood and down into West Newton where we made a quick stop to see if the local outdoor store had any reflective vests. Before you claim that it is cheating to stop,

Day #1 is down

2008-01-02T09:29:00.000-05:00

I got up New Year's morning and laced up my shoes for my daily run #1 out of 365. Fighting a hangover, snow, and the hills of New Hampshire I struggled through a good 27 minutes. It was good that I got out early because soon after I finished a crazy snowstorm started that dumped 14-18 inches in NH. Tora and I ended up retreating away from the crazy traffic on I-93 to stay at her parent's house

The Resolution

2007-12-31T13:39:00.000-05:00

Today I went to lunch with some co-workers and to start a casual conversation I asked if anyone had a New Year's resolution. Since no one seemed to have any I volunteered mine, to run every day this year. This got a good laugh out of everyone as they looked at me in disbelief. Scott claims that even if I *could* run every day of the year it would be "incredibly idiotic". Well, I got all fired

How to Fix a Website

2007-12-13T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've solved the mystery of fixing outdated websites. This technique will work on anything from that homepage with the neon rotating banner that you made in '97 to the ecommerce site you made last year. Just follow these three easy steps: Step One: Cut a hole in the site. Step Two: Put your junk in that site! Step Three: Have someone open your site and that's the way you do it!

Back on the Wagon (or off?)

2007-12-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

I started playing World of Warcraft again. I went months without so much as logging in but something started to pull at me and I've been playing more and more. At first I just wanted to level Icehouse to level 70. That was actually pretty nice because leveling can all be done solo so there was no group pull to play a ton. If I decided to log off I just quit it and left everything. After I

Interesting Quote

2007-11-20T14:09:00.000-05:00

Author Jim Collins notes, One day early in my faculty teaching career — I think it was 1988 or 1989 — [my mentor John] Gardner sat me down. “It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting,” he said. “Why don’t you invest more time being interested?” If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things

Ryan Pollock is going down!

2007-11-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

Ok I'm going to admit something totally selfish. One of the reasons that I started actively blogging again is because I want to be the top "Ryan Pollock" when you search on google. I think that I either was the top or was close to the top years ago when I was actively running and had a lot of results up on the net. Since then other Ryan Pollocks have emerged that are, according to PageRank,

Finding a Good Garage

2007-11-08T15:28:00.000-05:00

I just got a call from Jerry, my mechanic in Waltham, telling me that Tora's car is all fixed and ready to be picked up. I'm psyched that I finally found a good mechanic in Boston. Tora and I don't like going to those national chain type garages because they seem like they just don't care. My neighbor recommended this little garage right around the corner from us and I think its going to work

Plug for Pangie

2007-11-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Pangie asked me to plug his new blog to get some people heading over there. I think he is required to keep a blog for one of his classes, but as always his writing is really good. If you are a teacher then its probably more interesting but it can be funny even if you aren't. Check it out!

October Is Crazy!

2007-10-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged much the past few weeks because I've been mad busy. This October is hellish at work because of a few deadlines and then to top it off we've been trying to plan the wedding! Ok enough complaining. The wedding planning is actually going pretty well. We picked a date and a place and as soon as we book it I'll put another post here. Probably today or tomorrow. I told Tora

Vintage Nike Shoes

2007-10-11T14:56:00.000-04:00

My friend Seton gave me a call the other day to let me know that Nike is re-making many of their vintage shoes from the late 1970's. As someone who used to steal my dads 25 year old racers just because they looked cool, I am really excited about this. Yeah they probably aren't great for your feet and they probably won't help all that much toward a new P.R., but they just might make you feel

Tango: According to Cvaty

2007-10-02T15:03:00.000-04:00

Check out Tango Icons, according to cvaty they will win. (2:56:29 PM) cvaty: tango (2:56:32 PM) cvaty: the icons that will win (2:56:39 PM) cvaty: they've all ready won (2:56:41 PM) cvaty: who am i kidding (2:56:51 PM) cvaty: cauz eventually (2:56:59 PM) cvaty: everybodys gonna use the same themed icons (2:57:02 PM) cvaty: and icons will just be (2:57:10 PM) cvaty: and tangos getting to that

NH 24 Hour Adventure Race

2007-09-25T14:34:00.001-04:00

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

OpenMoko

2007-09-24T14:48:00.000-04:00

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

Launchy

2007-09-18T16:58:00.000-04:00

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 + and it pops up a box for you to type in. This is kind of like the run box ( + )

I'm Getting Married!

2007-09-11T11:11:00.000-04:00

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!

Virtualization

2007-08-24T12:13:00.000-04:00

Somehow this week I started checking out virtualization software. Virutalization software lets you run multiple OS's simultaneously as if they were each running on a single machine. There are many ways to do this and a number of software packages that allow it. I looked at Xen, Qemu, and VMware. I actually ran virutal machines using Qemu and VMware but not Xen. This technology is really

Sammy's Party Recap

2007-08-15T10:48:00.001-04:00

Last weekend was Sammy's triennial birthday bash. I, unfortunately, only made it to the last night of this festivity but I can tell you that it was a kick-ass throwdown. Tons of people came, there was plenty of booze and food, and the setting was absolutely perfect. I took off early Saturday afternoon from Boston in Ian's V-dub. I was a little spaced out from working till 10:30 the night

del.icio.us

2007-08-06T16:02:00.000-04:00

Because I am a Web 2.0 whore, I set up a del.icio.us account. Del.icio.us is a site that has community bookmark lists. Its got some tagging features and users and whatever other features you'd expect from a respectable web 2.0 site (like facebook integration). What sucked me in was the firefox plugin that lets you easily tag sites as you surf. I'm not really sure if its going to kick ass or

Craigslist and Google Maps

2007-07-27T14:54:00.000-04:00

Found a pretty decent Google Maps mashup called Housingmaps.com. It puts apartment listings from Craigslist on a Google map. The site has a few options to limit the criteria that you use for searching such as price or if the listing has photos. If you are like me and pick apartments more on the area that they are located than anything else then this might really help.

Ok I'm Over It

2007-07-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

It's come to my attention (thanks JK) that I kind of left my self open to harassment by getting so worked up about Vino. For anyone who is curious, I'm over it. I'm still pissed about all the drug shit going on at the tour this year but my depression is over. Yay.

Vino

2007-07-25T13:50:00.000-04:00

When I got to my desk this morning there was a newspaper article sitting on my keyboard. The first thing I noticed was the triumphant grimace of Alexandre Vinokourov winning Monday's mountain stage. I thought that that stage was one of the most exciting I'd ever seen and 'Vino' is my favorite current rider in Le Tour. The second thing I noticed dropped me into a severe bout of depression.

Firefox Stylish Plugin

2007-07-19T14:55:00.000-04:00

Today for some reason I remembered that it was possible to define a custom css stylesheet for a web page in Firefox. When I was researching how to do it I found a guide on Tech Reads about the Firefox plugin Stylish. Stylish really streamlines the process of setting up custom styles for different sites. It seems that the mecca repository of those styles is located at Userstyles.org. Using

Boilermaker Post Race Party

2007-07-18T13:09:00.000-04:00

In my post about the Boilermaker I did not elaborate on the post race party. The mayor of Utica always claims that the race is "9.3 miles to the best party anywher!" or something corny like that. The thing is, hes not that far off. There is something completely amazing about free beer at 9:30 in the morning after a hard 9 mile race. Every time I've run the race its been hot and sunny,

Sercice Start/Stop Script

2007-07-11T11:40:00.000-04:00

I just wrote a few scripts to start and stop my IIS services so that I don't have to keep them running all the time. I realized that it was pointless to keep opening up the service manager and manually turning off the ones that I thought had something to do with IIS. Starting and stopping services with a script in windows is incredibly easy and there are plenty of guides out there for it. I

Boilermaker '07

2007-07-09T09:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I ran the Utica Boilermaker, a 15k running race with over eleven-thousand people in it. This is the fourth Boilermaker I've run and I think it was my slowest time. As always it was hot and sunny during the race, and over all a great day! Tora, Andy, and I left Boston on Saturday to go to Utica and met up with Tora's parents in Albany. We had some time to kill before they arrived so

CSS sucks

2007-07-05T15:18:00.000-04:00

My css style is not all that I thought it was. I just clicked on amurica and realized that my main content box has nothing to do with the size of the nav bar. Or maybe its the other way around. Regardless, this means I'm going to have to dig into my template again and fix it. I know its just a stupid thing but it will bug me if I don't. I might spice up the page a bit while I'm at it.

A little 4th of July Advice

2007-07-03T17:01:00.000-04:00

Here's some advice from Alen: Remember: if you light it and nothing happens, just back up and walk away. Makes me wish I had some fireworks from Wisconsin. Keep an eye out tomorrow and remember, if you aren't drinking by noon you are letting the terrorists win!

Doing a little bit of a blog overhaul.

2007-07-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Trying out some of my very limited css skills to get this blog looking a little nicer. Maybe if the site is in soothing grey I will feel better about updating it. I also attached a little javascript to show what my latest twitter is. I think I'm a much bigger fan of twitter than of blogging. I like to write the twitters and I like to say "twitter" because its a fun damn word, but I'm really

2006-03-01T13:40:00.000-05:00

Damn i missed febuary i suck at blogging!!!! well i registered a domain name and I'm going to try to set up a new site. Maybe i just don't like this blogger thing. Ah anyway. sorry for wasting your time.

Friday the 13th

2006-01-13T13:59:00.000-05:00

Yeah so I got outside this morning and my car was not there. Gone. That was not really a great way to start my day. I'm pretty sure it was towed as I was illegally parked in the lot behind my building. The damn thing is that I would totally and happily pay the rediculous price they charge for parking but they won't call me back about a spot. I hate them. I'm trying to get a hold of the

Ok one more quick one.

2006-01-12T16:34:00.000-05:00

So i got bored with the old look and cruised through some of the default templates that blogger has and picked this one. I think its called Mr. Moto. I kind of like it. I am pretty handy when it comes to programming and computers and whatnot but i have a hard time with html and css and all that website shit. If anyone knows some good guides then please link em or whatever because I don't want

To make my buddy happy.

2006-01-12T16:14:00.000-05:00

yeah yeah so I got yelled at for being the crappiest blogger ever. The way I look at it is that in every race someone has to come in first and someone has to come in last. Someone is always the best and someone is always the worst. Well I'm here so that everyone can be like, "At least I'm better than Pollock". Whatever. Of course as always I have been wasting my time playing WoW. I'm

Monthly Post

2005-11-18T12:08:00.000-05:00

Haha! I got a post in during November!!! Don't think that I'm going to make a habit of it though. My goal is to become the-least-successful-blogger-who-won't-give-up-ever. I actually might post a bit more because I have started at my new job. I got a programming position at a company called the place that i work. The only thing is that my training got resechduled which leaves me sitting at my

I suck at blogging

2005-10-02T20:02:00.000-04:00

I can't even get one post per month. Thats really lame. Its not as if I have anything really important to do with all my time. I blame it 90% on video games, world of warcraft in particular, and 10% on booze.

tubing

2005-07-05T00:06:00.000-04:00

Man if there is one red-neck activity that I love it is tubing. You sit there and float with your ass hanging in the water while consuming as much beer as you could rope , tie, or float with your tubes. It is the perfect pastime.

summer

2005-06-26T23:20:00.000-04:00

hmmm once again i have been a completely lazy bum and neglected my blog too long. It seems that being lazy is a recurring theme in my life, at least according to anyone who has spoken to me this summer. So what if I don't have a job now or one lined up? Ok well i do feel a little bad that I have been so slow at finding a job but you really can't blame me for wanting to take some damn time off!

Easter

2005-03-27T16:31:00.000-05:00

Its Easter and I have a ton of work to do so what the hell, why not put it off for a while and write a little. I'm actually pretty impressed with myself that I'm typing and not playing W.o.W. or doing any one of the huge projects I'm supposed to be working on. For my Game Programming class I am currently writing a 3D space fighting game. It should be Ok. I'm working on it with a few guys from

work work work

2005-03-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated this damn thing in forever so here is my token apology post. Excuse: "I need to do my homework to graduate!" Reality: I'm lazy and I keep forgetting.

Rough Morning

2004-12-05T23:18:00.000-05:00

OK, so after a good night of carbombs, fireworks, foosball, darts, and general carousing I was a bit tired this morning at approximately 7:00 AM. I was, however, up at that moment as Tora had just left for ski practice and I was trying to recover some fluids by putting down a few glasses of water. As soon as I climbed back in bed though, I hear pounding and yelling coming from the other room.

Trip to Wisconsin

2004-12-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

Hell Yeah, the van to wisconsin left on thursday, november 18 and traveled many many kilometers that weekend. "The Crew" was Sammy, Zippy, Justin, and myself. We cruised all night through canada and parts of the midwest. Before Chicago we almost lost it when we hit "the double blinking arrow" Sammy and Justin who had been driving for hours began to hallucinate heavily and we found ourselves

Missing: Bad Ass Blue Bike

2004-11-14T19:29:00.000-05:00

Yeah so its been a real long time since I updated with much happening in between but before i launch into som sweet stories I wanted to put a reward up for the return of the bike featured in a previous post. It was last seen outside Sykes at around 4:00 AM some number of saturdays ago. The reward is 12 cold ones of your choice and a hump dog.

Kerry Kicked G.W.'s Ass!

2004-10-01T02:17:00.000-04:00

So i just heard on the daily show that all the right wing blogs are disappointed with the debate. I really just want to rub it in their face that george bush got torn apart by kerry tonight. Yeah... so basically it was great, and i'm really happy. Next debate lets drink everytime bush makes an ass out of himself. Well we might get a little to wasted so we should probably chug every other

Edward 40 Hands

2004-09-29T22:21:00.000-04:00

Yeah so after the meet on saturday somebody had the great idea of taping 40's to my hands....oh wait that was my idea!!!! Anyway we had a good time, more pics to come soon but heres one that i liked:

The Blue Beast

2004-09-29T01:20:00.000-04:00

So heres our sweet new bike. It was a freebie on the side of the road on park street and completely busted. After a long sunday of of grease and gears we got her in decent shape, though we could use some pedals. (click for a larger image)

First Post

2004-09-28T20:02:00.000-04:00

wow i got a blog, sooo sawesome