I've kept up the running, and have pushed out to 32nd Ave. I'll probably go out to 33rd in the next few days. I think the current route is about 1.3 miles, and I probably walk another .3 as a cool-down at the end.

Haven't kept up the other parts of the workout quite to the same degree, but as noted in the subject, it's been a busy week.

Last Saturday we had some friends over and played a 'friendly' game of Tribes, which is a prehistoric social game designed by Steve Jackson and David Brin. Apparently they're working on a new version, and we had a playtest copy to try out.

To say that the game was grim would be charitable. Our tribe had an incredibly bleak 20 years, which eventually had us plunging to cannibalism, the deaths of two adults (myself and another) and a third player running away from the tribe to escape death.

It was fun, but I was a bit let down because the game basically hit a stalemate where combat was the only option, which struck me as a massive flaw in the game design. I'd have preferred we call the game there rather than stick it out, because, frankly, if there's a social game where some players have to stop being social, it's not really a good game anymore.

Still, a fun concept, and after looking at the math involved, I'd like to try it again. There are some possibly largely unbalanced points in it.

Sunday I rested, not running and sleeping in. I downloaded the Puzzle Quest trial on XBLA, which subsequently sucked me in enough to buy the full version. I've since wasted many hours over the past week essentially playing Bejeweled.

On Monday while running, I was struck by an amazing thought. In the past whenever I've run, I've always been struck by how chilly it is. Perhaps because I was moving faster the air going by was cooling me down.

Of course, that's not true. Well, it probably is true to a degree, but no, the reason my hands are always freezing when I run has little to do with the weather.

So my low blood pressure strikes again, this time to bring discomfort to my digits. Not really problematic, but a combination of amusing and annoying at the same time.

Also while running, I've been wearing my backpack, because it's the only thing I have which can hold my iPod such that I don't have to carry it. (Well, and my keys). It's not really much weight, but I probably should get an armstrap at some point.

Thursday was probably the biggest day of the week. I got up early and cut my hair. Here's me contemplating my new do:


While doing the cutting, I figured that cutting your own hair isn't really something you can do by a half-measure. Once you start (especially with the buzzing or shaving), you kinda have to go all out.

Still, it was rather quick, easy, and painless, so I'll probably keep doing it from now on.

And after that, I went and got my driver's license. Or rather, I attempted to do so. This isn't something I've been particularly enthused to do, because I have little wish to actually drive in California. I do plan to do a fair amount of driving in Washington, but we've gotten to the point as a culture where your personal identification is tied to your license to drive. Really dumb, but is necessitates that where I live (California) be mandated to determine whether or not I may legally drive, even if the vast majority of my driving will come in Washington.

Go in, wait in line. Find out I can take a shorter line becuase I made an appointment. Wait in shorter line. Realize that they're not actually checking appointment times, good because I was a bit late for mine, but making me wonder if they'd care if I just came up that line anyway.

Fill out form. Get number. Do vision test. Get picture taken. Do written test. Wait in line to get graded.

It's a funny thing about tests and waiting. 36 questions, and I can miss 6 and still pass. I'm feeling iffy on a few of them, because I didn't review all the little bits of the driver's guide, but I figure upon finishing that I'd missed three or four at the most. While in line, I'm second guessing myself and wondering if I'm up to five or six or the dreaded seven wrong.

Not really sweating, mind. Apparently we can take three tests before we have to come back another day, but it'd be a bit annoying to have to come back again.

Hand my test in. Guy grades it.

Wait, no red marks? He writes A+ on it, hands me a piece of paper as my temporary license and sends me on my way.

It's the first time in years I've taken a test, and I really enjoyed the feeling of getting everything right. Sure, not a hard test, but that alone made me want to go back to school. It's a nice feeling, getting a good score.

While looking around for programs for my Mac, I found this, which is completely useless, but also totally awesome. Perhaps the best dashboard widget I have.

And I'm rather eagerly awaiting my trip back north. Just a few more weeks.

Did the run by pushing out to 31st before the turn. Felt about the same as yesterday in that the first part on Balboa is tough, the downhill is easy, and I can cruise down Cabrillo.

I also pushed myself as I was making the final leg down 23rd to the house, hitting a full sprint for the last ~50 meters or so. It winded me, but felt good. However, I think I may have pushed a bit too hard, since I then got a headache and had to wait about an hour before I felt like doing the rest of the workout.

20 inclines, 20 squats, 80 crunches (I think. Might have been 90), and 2 sets of 20 calf-presses per leg. The presses are down from yesterday, but I was trying to get a longer motion, letting my heel down further and then pushing to a full tip-toe. After about 15, my legs really started to burn, which is why I broke it up into two sets.

Anyway, while I was reaching 31st, I realized the big reason why running Balboa is so tough. While 23rd-24th is a steep hill, it's still at an incline beyond that. The crest is actually at 31st. Hence, the first part of the run is entirely uphill. I'm kinda liking that, though, because it probably helps me from pushing too hard and wearing myself out early on.

Once I start extending beyond 31st, I don't think it'll get too much more difficult, because that's the extent of the incline. At least until I hit the next hill. My goal with this route is to run to the coast and back, which is a little over 3 miles. If there's two hills on Balboa to contend with, that should be good to give me something to contend with. It'll probably take me some time to work up to that, though.

My legs are mostly past the point of remaining sore all the time, now, which is really nice. Stairs are no longer hard. But the thought of painful legs does bring to mind one more funny GDC story.

Actually, it's more a story about GDC '07, but I didn't hear about it until this year.

At the amazing Three Rings party last year, at one point me and a bunch of others were dancing and, I'm not entirely sure why, but I thought it'd be a good idea to do a Russian squat dance. (Oddly, I think I only had two drinks the entire night, so I can't blame alcohol.)

My considerably more inebriated friends thought this was a good idea and went to it. Ray dropped down and completely nailed the dance for about a minute, kicking the shit out of everyone else (if we were competing.)

Apparently the next day, he woke up and his legs were absolutely killing him, leading him to wonder what the hell had happened.

The run today felt even better. The first half was a bit tough, felt sluggish and whatnot, but by the time I got to 30th, I really felt a bit of a pick-up. Tomorrow I think I'll push it to 31st.

Afterwards, I did 20 inclines, 20 squats, 60 crunches, and 50 calf-presses/leg. My legs were really burning at the end of the presses.

I meant to try and get some glute exercises in, but then Rob and I started cleaning up the apartment. Pr'aps tomorrow.

My legs have really been aching the past couple of days. Not constantly, but whenever I use them. Hopefully this will pass soon. Also, I think I banged my knee at some point, as it feels a bit more tender.

And now something's causing my hand to break out. Bleh.

Running went considerably better today. I stuck to the same mile route, and ran all but about half of one block (due to that block being a huge hill). At the end, I felt like I could keep going, but chose to stop so that I'd have enough energy for the rest of the workout.

20 incline pushups, 20 squats, 50 calf-presses (per leg), 50 crunches.

And I feel pretty good about it all. It's not super intense, but it's gratifying. While I've gotten out of shape, I certainly haven't gotten unhealthy. Those years of working out regularly with Chris sure did help me. I think that with a bit of persistence, I'll be back on track.

When I get onto a daytime schedule, I'll probably look into something more format. Perhaps, even doing climbing more regularly (although I can't say I really like the climbing gym here in town.)

Also, in the past couple of days I had absolutely no appetite. I was hungry, just didn't have any urge to keep eating. Today, though, that seems to have passed. I actually woke up becuase I was starving. And I'm feeling hungry again, so it's probably time for dinner in a bit.


I've been giving some thought since the GDC about my ability (or lack thereoff) to connect to other people. I tend to have good connections with my friends, but it's been rather difficult to break outside of that. The '07 GDC was rather anomalous in that I did manage to connect and hang out with people I didn't previously know. This year wasn't quite so good in that regard, but I did get to know people I met last year better, which was nice.

Even so, in an attempt to open myself up more, I've started exploring some of the newer social connection sites. I admit that in the past, I haven't quite seen the reason for them. LJ makes sense to me: you write your ideas down, and your friends read them. The newer things seem to have... connection for the sake of connection, which doesn't seem like a good use of effort.

However, I probably shouldn't knock it until I try it. To that effect, I've created a Facebook account, found here. It'd kinda cool that I found a bunch of my high school classmates.

I've also created a flickr account. Thus far, it's mostly photos from my brother's wedding and me messing around with Photo Booth. I'll probably need to par it down and organize it better later.

And I did a bit of updating to my LinkedIn account. Nice for work connections, I suppose, but the layout for it is totally ass.

I should probably look into updating my website to keep all this diverse online stuff organized.

I've managed to get back on my schedule fairly well after GDC, but while working last night, it really struck me how unhealthy I felt. Just this overall physical terribleness. And I've really got to make some changes to that.

A big thing, I realize, is getting off of the night schedule. I've been working it, off and on for about five years now, and it's really catching up to me. I've noticed that because of it, I've become more and more limited in doing a lot of things, since I'm asleep during the day. Socialization is hampered in a large way, and doing many common evening activities (including working out consistently) tends to be more limited.

Right now, if I need to do something during the day, I need to cut into my sleep time. If I worked during the day, it'd be possible while missing a bit of work. Ultimately, that's a preferred solution.

With that in mind, I talked to my supervisor about getting my schedule changed to days, and she seemed agreeable to the idea. This should also help to alleviate the concerns of the overall big boss, who's expressed his dislike to my working nights.

Also, in an effort to get some regular exercise, I took a run today. Sorta. It didn't go that well. I wanted to try and get a mile and a half done, but it turned out to be only a mile, and I ended up walking part of it. About a quarter way through my legs really started to hurt. I'll need to work on that.

Upon getting home, I did 10 pushups and 50 crunches, both of which seem absurdly low for me. Still something to work on.

I really need to remember to do this every day after I get up.

In other news, I put in an appointment to finally get a California driver's license. I probably should have done it over a year ago, but I procrastinated, mostly because my WA DL has been valid. It expires on March 12, though.

God, I'm going to be 31.

I took a long walk today. First I went to one of the local taquerias for a burrito. It wasn't bad, but not really a stellar burrito. I'd like to try out some of the other places in the area to compare. While I was in that area, I was going to stop at a barbershop to get a haircut, but I couldn't find one in the location indicated on google maps, so I decided to get to the bulk of my walk to and through the park. Ironically as I headed there, I passed another barber, but it was only a few minutes to closing. Perhaps I'll make it over there on Monday or so.

The walk through the park was pretty nice, even though I wasn't really in it for enjoying the environment. Plus, it's still February and even though it was clear and sunny, it's kinda chilly in general. The time was also getting close to 5pm, so there wasn't much sunlight. Even so, it was good to experience the park, something that I've not done in over 2.5 years, since Katster and I took an excessively long walk down the length of it in '04.

Ironically enough, I came out of the park about where we started our walk on that day, since I decided to meander down to a music store in the Haight Ashbury district.

Unfortunately, the experience at the store wasn't the best. It was extremely cramped inside. with instruments - mostly electric guitars - lining every available aisle with only a slight amount of space to walk. Oddly, despite the sheer number of instruments, the selection didn't seem incredibly varied nor was there a well-defined organizational system in place. I wandered through the entire store before I found the electric basses, which were situated in a nook right by the entrance. The selection wasn't that great there, since it seems most of the space is dedicated to guitars. There was a sale on, but even so none of the prices seemed particularly stellar, at least compared to what I've noted for similar models online. I had a bit of a desire to test, but nearly every guitar had a big "don't touch" sign. I wandered out again and browsed through the books to see what beginning bass books were like. There were a few that seemed notable, so I may be able to pick one up.

Ultimately, I checked the time and saw it was a bit past six. I'd been at the store something close to an hour and the only time an employee had said a word to me was to tell me to leave my bag at the counter. So faced with the not entirely welcome behavior, pricy selection despite the sale, and lack of variety, I decided to leave and head home instead of waiting another 90 minutes for Aya to pick me up to go climbing.

My route back through the park differed a bit. It was dark by this point and I didn't want to stumble across anything, so I stayed off the footpaths and walked along the roads. Still plenty of sidewalk, but the light was pretty constant since there was open sky and fairly constant traffic. My trip took another turn for the worse as I got within the last ten or so blocks, though, since my right knee started to ache. It got pretty bothersome as I got even closer to home and I had begun to favor it once I arrived. It didn't feel any better when Aya got home about 40 minutes later, so I decided to forego climbing for the evening. It seemed odd, since the walk was long (~5 miles), but not excessive and I never went over any difficult terrain or had even a slight accident.

Still, though the trip was nearly a total bust, we did get some good news. Jesse had a job interview earlier and he apparently did well, since he starts working on Monday. To celebrate he took us out to eat after Aya and I showered up. We walked to a Korean barbeque a few blocks away. While literally just up the street, my leg hadn't calmed down during the couple of hours I was home. The meal was excellent and filling, but the trip back was even worse.

Right now, I'm hoping it's just muscle fatigue since I haven't done a lot of walking in quite some time. I'll probably need to dodge climbing for a bit, at least until it starts to feel better. And I'll probably need to start walking more regularly.

Once home for good (I'd declared that I wouldn't walk down the stairs again today), I began to browse the 'net for basses and such. Given that I'd like to approach a new instrument with a frugal mind, I've been eyeing various package deals which tend to have the bass, amp, bag, strap, and possibly a small instructional item. Prices for these things seem to run between $150 and $300, depending on company and quality. Ignoring the incredibly cheap ones (since I want frugal, not crappy), the best deal I initially came across was (ironically), from a store in Tacoma. I'm not sure if it's the route, though.

So far I've found two different Ibanez packs. The one I found at the Tacoma store goes for $200-$230 and seems very entry-level. The bass looks basic with nothing special. The other Ibanez pack seems to be about $290 regardless of location and has a slightly more complete instrument. I've tried to find reviews, but they seem pretty sparse for the higher end model and non-existant for the lower-end one.

For about the same price as the higher-end Ibanez pack there's a Fender/Squier pack. Fender is, from what I've found, the dominant bass manufacturer. The Squier models tend to use less expensive materials, making them less expensive. The Squier P-Affinity is allegedly the best-selling bass in the world because of this.

And slightly less expensive is a Yamaha pack. I'm assuming the Squier, higher Ibanez, and this are all aroud the same quality. It won't be a perfect bass, but to try out and start learning it should suffice.

Mid-way between the two Ibanez models is one from Ephiphone, which seems to be the Gibson equivalent of Squier.

Hmm... I'm not sure. It may be better to just get a bass and whatnot separately. I think I'll ping my brother to see what he'd suggest.