Mark an urban awakening.

From my coach:

Mark, cycling is something (unfortunately) that requires tons and tons of time. You really can’t have much of a life outside of it because if you do then one or both will suffer. I totally know where you are at. Three years into my racing career as a mountain biker I ran into a snag called Natalie.  She was very time consuming and as a result my training suffered. I would show up to races that I knew I could do well in and get my ass handed to me. This viscous cycled continued until something had to give. I quit racing. I took a year off and didn’t even touch the bike once! I didn’t come back to the sport until later when I started riding road bikes and found a new passion for racing. I decided to quit my full time job and concentrate on training. I moved back in with my dad (the relationship with Natalie was over anyway) and worked part time at Sharps to make ends meet. It wasn’t until last year that I quit that job and started training full time (At which time I started seeing big success). I have found that to be competitive and to stay motivated in this sport you can’t have too many things on your plate.

To make a long story short, I understand completely.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/v/D-KueBsUAEo&hl=en" />

It was released this morning at 10am PDT but you can't get to it from their page.  Here are direct download links:

MacOS (en-US): http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=osx&lang=en-US
Linux (en-US): http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=linux&lang=en-US
Windows (en-US): http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=win&lang=en-US

So I'm giving up cycling.  I haven't been enjoying it lately -- the training is stressful and time consuming.  The rewards have been few and far between and the setbacks many.  The cost in time and dollars is exhaustive.  So I'm giving it up.  Maybe not completely -- I've simply worked too hard to get where I am now (even being in the terrible shape I now find myself) to give it up completely.  And I'll still need exercise in my life.  So I'll try to maintain fitness which basically allows me to get maximum efficiency from my time (I'll be riding fewer hours than required to hit the point of diminishing returns) and still have a good time by limiting my rides to group rides or rides with friends. Maybe I'll even throw a run in here or there.

What will all this accomplish?  I'm hoping it will let me focus on more important stuff in life -- learning new things, being more productive, living a less stressful life.  And in the case that I find it helps not at all -- well, my bike will always be waiting for me.

In the meantime I'm cutting way back.

... Looking for a dead seal.

Sent from my iPhone

Earlier this week I was starting work on a custom rakefile.  For those of you unfamiliar, Rake is something akin to Make but written in Ruby.  The context most people use for this is with their Rails apps which come standard with a pre-built rakefile of common commands to perform any number of tasks.  If you have rails application already setup to run on your computer, you can see the list of available tasks by typing:

mark-mac:vo2spot mrampton$ rake -T
(in /Users/mrampton/Documents/Aptana Studio/vo2spot)
rake db:data:dump              # Dump data to the db/ directory. Use MODEL=ModelName and LIMIT (optional)
rake db:data:load              # Load data from the db/ directory. Use MODEL=ModelName
rake db:fixtures:dump          # Dump data to the test/fixtures/ directory. Use MODEL=ModelName and LIMIT (optional)
rake db:fixtures:load          # Load fixtures into the current environment's database.  Load specific fixtures using FIXTURES=x,y
rake db:migrate                # Migrate the database through scripts in db/migrate. Target specific version with VERSION=x

I want to use rake outside the context of Rails, however.  What I want is to use rake in a simple script I'll use for deploying and configuring a Java app.

It turns out this is pretty simple.  Simply write the script as you normally would and require the rake gem.

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'rake'

Pretty simple.  Now you can begin writing your tasks. Or at least you should be able to.  If I attempt to run just the above I get the following at the command prompt:

./test.rb:3:in `require': no such file to load -- rake (LoadError)
        from ./test.rb:3

Now, if you have confirmed that rake is installed on your machine (which rake) this becomes irritating since the file DOES exist.  But the solution is simple, tell ruby that you're using gems a la:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'rubygems'
require 'rake'

SERVER_DIR = "/home/bin/unix"

desc "Install and start the server"
task :install do
    # perform installation      
end

CA High Speed Rail System

I've spent the past 2 weeks commuting to work and the city on Caltrain.
It's been a big change but one I've been happy to make -- not only am I
spending a fraction of what I used to at the gas-pump, I've also found a
more productive and social means to commute. In 2 weeks, I've run into two
cycling friends on the train, and also doubled or tripled the amount I read
on a week to week basis. Beyond that, I sincerely find the experience far
more relaxing than driving -- even driving short distances vs commuting the
same is much more pleasant.

Now imagine a time in the near future where we've improved on all of this
and have connected all the major metropolitan hubs with a rail system that
will get you from SF to LA in just over 2.5 hours. This could be the first
step in fixing our terrible public transit system.

http://www.youtube.com/v/9IZBos3DhZs&hl=en" />

Sent from my iPhone

http://www.youtube.com/v/kTYiEkQYhWY&hl=en" />

Ouch.

Sent from my iPhone