20100226

Today I flew from Albuquerque to San Antonio via Dallas. It was an uneventful trip. This was my first time in San Antonio. I was able to tack this trip on the end of one of my monthly trips to New Mexico. The purpose of the trip was to meet with my friend Karen with regard to a couple of stroke research informatics projects. There are some exciting projects in stroke and it amazes me how little there seems to be in place to support one of the largest national health problems.

This was mostly a work trip, but I did manage to see part of the River Walk and of course had to have some Tex Mex food (given San Antonio is the birth place).

The hotel I stayed at with Karen had a nice gym. I was able to do my first weight lifting workout of the year. It was very nice and I look forward to doing more such workouts soon.

20100225

I really missed swimming today. I was able to do a bike ride today in the bosque. It was very cold given the mid-morning ride time.

My MRN work turned out to be a typical hectic thursday. If there is anything I could change about this job, it would be to relax the meetings and expectations of thursday schedule.

Gma Kerns passed on today. I reflected some of my thoughts on this event here.

Will & Johanna, Dylan & Angela, Raul, and Adam came up to Cedar Crest for an impromptu pizza gathering. We sampled a number of spectacular beers and had some awesome pizza. It was really a lot of fun and a much needed respite given the chaos of the day and week.

On the time of your passing

To our grandmother, great-grandmother, mother, sister, family member and friend:

At the time of your passing, I wanted to acknowledge what you have meant to me. Your strength and courage has been an inspiration. The trials that you have weathered in your life have been great. Your grace and discipline at handling the good and bad times a formidable example on how to conduct ones life.

At the time of your passing, you should know how important you have been in shaping my life. Your strength, courage and spirit have been an inspiration. I have inherited your creativity, sense of humour, love of strategy, strong character, and most important your determination. I use what you gave me every day of my life!

Thank you for teaching me, for being my grandmother and friend. Thank you for teaching me to love music.

You live in all of us (your family and friends) today, tomorrow and forever.
Go forth with the strength and courage that you have always shown us, every day that you have been with us. We all love you and cherish you, know that you live on in all of us forever.

Love, your grandson Jeremy

20102224

Gma K is still hanging on today, but probably not for much longer. I wish I could be home, it's hard being in New Mexico right now.

Today I'm really feeling the need to work out, get out on the bike and RIDE!
I wasn't able to work out yesterday, simply had too much to do.

My taylor ranch property closing date has been moved to March 3, hopefully it all still goes through.

Yay, I got to talk to kelly today. I miss her! We're talking about her visiting NM sometime, so hopefully we'll both be able to be here at the same time.

I got the "I only see you as a friend" thing today from someone I was interested in, that's the way these things go I guess. It was a bummer to hear though. :(

I got to do a bike ride in the bosque today. It was an awesome lunch hour ride!

I had a nice dinner at Tucanos this evening with Jessica and Matt. The food was awesome!

20100222

Today was the first full work day onsite at MRN in quite some time (since mid-january). I spent lots of time just refreshing where most of my team members are with various projects. Like usual, spending time here just adds to the massive queue of work to get done. Never feel like I accomplish anything as it's while I work on something 2-3 other things pile up. Sigh. I definitely get more done when I'm NOT here.

I managed to sneak in another cold, damp, cloudy bike ride in during the afternoon. I miss swimming though. I can't wait to hit the water again on saturday!

Got to meet Josef for a pint at Marble this evening. Another triple IPA. It was great to catch up with him, I really miss working with him.

News on gma K was terrible all day. Earlier in the day all I heard from mom was that they were just trying to making her comfortable. Breathing is very difficult, not on a respirator yet, but really nothing left to try or hope for. I wish I could be home for my mom and extended family right now. I'm not certain I could do much aside from just being there, but I hope they know I would be there if I could.

I had an interesting commute back up to cedar crest this evening. Calling a Ford Escape an "SUV" is some kind of practical joke. I hit 2-4 inches of snow/ice while climbing up the hill to my house in the east mountains. I barely made it, any more snow and I would have simply got stuck. Next time, give me a jeep for my rental!

20100223

Leaving my property in Cedar Crest this morning at 0430, I was struck again at just how beautiful of a home I have here. There was about 3 inches of fresh powder, it was calm, quiet. I sat outside by my pond in the fresh snow just thinking of the massive amount of change that has occurred in my life the past 6 months. Nearly all of it good! But I do miss the southwest and especially my home here. I really do NOT want to sell it, but it's too expensive to keep it and not live in it or at least have it rented.

Driving the 20 miles (2,000 feet of vertical descent) into Albuquerque, the fresh snow quickly disappeared. I made it to my desk at 0517. I decided to first catch up on my blog posts, since I had some difficulty with tethering the past couple of days I wasn't able to do them.

I gave a progress report on neuroinformatics tools and progress to my MRN colleagues today. It was a contentious meeting really due other items, still a frustrating experience (amazing how much lack of communication snowballs).

I got to spend time with my friend and colleague, Jessica today. It was great to catch up with her. She's moved out here to work at MRN and I've moved to Iowa, but I'll still be spending a great deal of time in NM, at least this year, especially in the non-winter months.

Gma K is in her final days, all of the family has been called to come see her to say goodbye.

20100221

Today ran continuous with yesterday in the sense of little to no sleep was achieved. A chance of flurries turned into a winter storm warning... so I had to scramble to get on alternative flights to beat the storm.

American Airlines graciously informed me at least 4 different times how wonderful they were being to "let" me fly standby. Today was the official last day of them allowing standby status for regular ticket holders. I'm not certain what to think about this. How are they doing me any favors here? I'm the one taking the initiative to get out of bed and/or not sleep at all at 4am to hop on an empty flight in order to avoid delayed or cancelled flights later in the day. I'm one less stranded, disgruntled passenger, one less phone call to their customer service. I just don't understand the business model that these folks operate under.

I did in fact arrive to Albuquerque today. I was hoping for some warm, sunny weather, but was greeted instead by some fairly spectacular clouds, and rain upon arrival, which is always nice in the high desert.

I immediately went to my office to pick up my touring bike and was off to REI (my favorite store on earth) to pick up some spares and odds and ends. Ah, but the bad weather struck, so I met Will for a beer at Marble. Triple IPA (ABV 11.0). Pretty awesome beer. The weather did not clear up much so I just went ahead a did a ride anyway. It was cold, damp, but still was pretty nice to ride in the winter.

The rest of the day was uneventful, having lots of problems with tethering my droid on this trip and my trackpad on my MacbookPro is acting up.

News on grandma K not good all day. Her CHF has kicked in, having fluid build up and breathing is quite difficult.

20100220

Sounds like gma K is doing slightly better today. Still going to be a long road, I wish I could go see her, but alas the weather was crappy today and now even worse tomorrow.

I swam a shortened distance today of 4km this morning, but it felt great! I knew I would be going to do other activities in the afternoon and the pool was super-busy (it always is on saturday mornings), so I was ok with the shorter swim today.

I ended up doing a snowshoe route this afternoon with the beagle. We started out at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area (MNRA). We followed the cross country/hiking trail and then decided to traverse Lake Macbride using this route. It was an exciting outing for both Tyler and I, found it to be relaxing and fun!

There's a big winter storm brewing. It completely screwed up my travel plans. I was planning on flying at 7pm on sunday to get into Albuquerque at 11pm, but alas that's not happening. Now, I'm on standby, ugh for 6am tomorrow morning, and hopefully I will beat this storm and make it to New Mexico much earlier in the day. I guess all is not lost, as I have a lot of house things to take care of at both properties once I get there. I should also get my bike worked up into shape so that I can ride monday-thursday for at least an hour each day this week, since there will be no swimming possible.

Because of the storm, I had to board the beagle at 5pm this evening. It sucks when the beagle is not here. The house is empty. :(

I had a really nice meal at Red's Alehouse this evening. Chicken Tortilla Soup, Paniolo steak on a bed of risotto, 2 rogue shakespeare stouts, chocolate cake with chocoalate sauce and bananas paired with a st bernardus for dessert. That's a lot of calories to take in for a meal, but given that I hit 183.5 pounds today, it was kind of a reward for hard work and exceeding goals the past week.

Life is still pretty good. :)


Aloha!

20100219

Well, didn't I just say yesterday I was thinking of cutting back on caffeine? Uf-dah! not yesterday! Thus, it was not a good night of sleep. Today has had a slow start. Hans notified me that we potentially have some new business coming our way on 2 fronts, so that is good news but even more work to contend with! I'm just trying to get it all done, falling slowly further behind. It may be time to cut back at MRN soon!

I finally had an interchange via email regarding the solon, iowa cedar lane property. I'm not certain that the seller understands real estate contracts, seems to keep dodging whether he would consider one or not. I fear at the list price he's now down to, though, that this place is going to slip by me--not much I can do about it, as my cedar crest property and NOT having closed on taylor ranch property keep me from proceeding down the traditional financing road which I'm certain is what this seller and any sellser would prefer to be selling into this market. I'm not sure how this situation will proceed, I really like the house and really want to lease with mandatory purchase it, but perhaps it's not in the cards.

Taking a day off from swimming yesterday really was nice, I was able to cruise today and finally ramped up to my goal of 2 hour swims (6.0km). I literally wasn't even remotely tired after the swim and would have gone for my first 10km today. However, I needed to get back to work. I also blew away my weight goal today, as I hit 184.5 pounds!!! Given that i weighed 178 pounds when I was 17 at High School Graduation, I'd say I'm pretty much there on the weight loss front. Incidentally, I also hit 178 pounds again when I graduated from college in 1994, but that was out of being dirt-poor my last semester of school... I have a long way to go though body composition-wise and all of this swimming has made my torso "look strange" to me--I look like an amateur swimmer now. I want to clear up what people describe as a "swimmers build"--I think most competitive swimming athletes (certainly the sprinters) have swimmer builds, I don't think most recreational long distance swimmers have that build. I really need to start mixing it up activity-wise, I want to do more cycling and I may now need to add in some weight lifting or at least some kind of toning/building up again but I need to add those things in conjunction with making progress on my Mm swim this year [today Results (33 Found | 24768 Total kcal | 140.28 Total km]

Enrique informed me that my taylor ranch property in Albuquerque is going to close NEXT WEEK!!! This is awesome news! It saves me 1 month of mortgage that I was expecting to have to pay, the inspection found the typical $500 worth of minor repairs that I of course got socked with, but at this point who cares. I'm finally going to be rid of that bad chapter in real estate from my life forever! :)

News from gma K today was ok. She has some congestion that they are concerned about, but was up walking several times today. She is really sore, and in a lot of pain even with the meds, moving her around is very difficult.

I got to talk briefly to my friend Kelly in Cleveland today! Yay! I miss her so much, miss working with her and her awesomeness! :) I wish I could convince her how nice Iowa City is and we could so find a great job for her here with my company or at UIowa, but she's happy to be living and working at home in Cleveland, reported by FORBES magazine to be the most miserable place in the US to live right now. :(

Well, it's snowing tonight, I am camped out by the fireplace, working and relaxing to music, with a beagle nearby. Life is pretty good. I gone out several times now just to pause and reflect beneath the stand of cedars at the front of my house.

Perhaps some snowshoeing tomorrow? I hope so? I'm certainly going to swim in the morning and go from there...

20100218

All of my thoughts all day have been with my family for a successful surgery for my gma K. The surgery went well, no complications, no sign of cancer spreading beyond the ascending colon. She is not out of the woods and recovery will be a long road, but the worst is over for now.

I cried (extremely rare for me) for the first time today since I learned of my close friend, Claude's suicide last fall... This time out of happiness. Happiness for my gma and extended family. Happiness that she is so strong and got through this. I am absolutely in awe of her strength and hope that I have half of that strength and that I put what i do possess in terms of strength towards the remainder of my life, passionately pursuing both hard work and happiness (as i see it they go hand in hand).

I don't even know how to create a segway from that...

If i were in Iowa City next week, i would so do this informal winter tri! It would have been a perfect test to see where I'm at with my winter training. I've lost most of the weight, but have a long way to go to get to where I want to be fitness-wise. But alas, I'll be in NM and I just missed out on this quad! The entire time I lived in NM, I always wanted to participate in the winter quad, but never seemed to get in the proper shape (at least in the winter) to do it. Well I could do it next year (the quad).

I am now seriously thinking of doing the Santa Fe Century ride though. Timing-wise it works with my schedule and I should just do it! I'll talk to Raul next week to see if he's going to do it again this year. If so, I need to add much more cycling into my routine, as May is just around the corner.

I took the day off from swimming. My body needs a bit of a break I think, just for today. In fact, normally I'm swimming 6 days per week.

Since I spent the day mostly at home, I got to again see how Tyler beagle spends his day. I think chasing sun beams to nap in is the majority of this beagle's life.

I thought some about stimulant intake again today. It's still excessive but on the decline. I learned a bit more about caffeine, theophylline and theobromine today, for some reason I thought tea had more theophylline, but according to this article, it does not!

I've been thinking of tapering off and eventually eliminating caffeine and alcohol sometime this year:
Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindus generally also abstain from caffeine, as it is alleged to cloud the mind and over-stimulate the senses. To be initiated under a guru, one must have had no caffeine (along with alcohol, nicotine and other drugs) for at least a year.


I got to play racquetball again with Matt this evening. I got my butt KICKED!!! but it was fun. :)

I also hoping that Hans and I can play racquetball tomorrow morning. Since he has yet to respond, probably not, definitely will start tomorrow with an early on swim.

The day has ended with an awesome bath, since I normally just shower off the chlorine at the pool, it was nice to relax for once and just chill out.

Today was a good day, I would like to have more good days like this.

20100217

Today didn't start out the greatest. I had a crappy night of sleep, if you even want to call it that. I did not make my morning swim time, I had a cumbersome to travel to meeting get cancelled also earlier on. But the day improved as it wore on

This story really kind of stuck with me today

I mainly appreciated that dying while doing what you love, it's definitely the way I want to go. I don't want to have a heart attack in the middle of the day because I had been working too much and/or under too much stress, which up until recently was clearly where I was headed. I will say, I ALWAYS avoid staged poses at places. I do realize sometimes you just want to document that you were there... Still I'm glad the guy went out the way he did!

During the course of the day, I started looking into using an open source product as a potential project for some upcoming work. It's amazing that this set of features is available essentially for free, and I'd like to find a small clinic to deploy and field test this to.

I met cousin Brenton at the NL pool today and tried to give him some pointers on swimming. I managed to squeeze in another 5000 m swim in the afternoon. Dropped another pound and hit 187.0. These last few pounds are going to be tough!
In terms of progress on the Mm swim, I found this website today. I'm not doing so bad on the year!
I have 32 swim in so far in 2010 buring 24767 Total kcal and at 134.28 Total km total distance.


Later on, I helped Mark edit our lupus lesion classification paper, I think it's almost published, finally! Scientific peer review is a dreadful process, wrought with politics and utter nastiness. I think I would prefer to define and solve problems, implement solutions, maybe push out the occasional white paper. Academia is simply not for me! 20 years is enough!

The cedar lane property in Solon near Sugarbottom became available as a for sale by owner today (I knew the listing was expiring and I pounced on it). Awesome!!! I am already in contact with the owner, via text/email negotiating on a lease and/or real estate contract. Cross your fingers, tyler and I need a new place to live June 1.

My thoughts this evening are with my aunts and uncles on Kerns side of my family. My maternal grandmother (gma k) is having a right hemicolectomy tomorrow morning.


I am sending all positive thoughts, good karma and energy towards gma k and our family (kids, grandkids and great grandkids)! I know and feel she will get through this!

mardis gras

So another year, another mardis gras.
I don't really follow catholic traditions at this point, but I still do appreciate mardis gras, it's always had an appeal of cleansing, rebirth!

Today was really a great day.
I started with a 5.25km swim. Got a fair bit of work done.
Witnessed an awesome sunset.
Played racquetball with Matt.
Had a nice sauna afterwards.

Ben alerted me to an incredible waning gibbous moon setting.

I had a goose island matilda this evening at red's alehouse ( i paired it with chicken tortilla soup and a chicken salad). The meal was fabulous, as usual! I've cut WAY back on the beer front, lately though, 7 beers over the last 4 weeks!

But even better was the Pomegranate Blueberry juice i just had. It was spectacular! :) It's hard not to drink the entire container! But alas, I saved half for another time.

HJB 2010 Megameter swim definition and update

So during the course of 2010, I am swimming 1 million meters. I got the idea for this from Sumner several years ago, and finally decided that this was the year to go for it.

The rules for my Mm swim are pretty simple, any type of stroke in any type of water, but no assistance such as fins or paddles, kickboards are allowed. Most of the distance will occur in indoors, but I anticipate some open swims during the summer at the local lakes. I am of course methodically tracking progress, primarily through the use of mapmyfitness.com.

As of today, I have completed

129.28 Total km

that's roughly 13%

I have a tracker set up here, at the moment, it only summarizes the past 30 days, but I'm working on getting it to do a yearly view.