Photos from Channel Island Trip

Have recently upload some photos from my trip last month to Santa Cruz Island – Channel Island National Park.

 

Quote of the Day:
Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.
--W. Clement Stone

test

Clean install of Vista

For reason I don’t want to go into, I had to reformat my hard drive and get a clean install of Vista on my laptop.  This is a test post wit the latest version of Windows Live Writer after reinstalling everything.

Big Rock Triathlon – Olympic Distance

Last Saturday I completed my first official Olympic distance triathlon (1.5km Swim, 40km Bike, 10k Run) – the Big Rock Tri at Lake Perris.  Here’s my report…

Great weather and the water was warmer then I expected.  I still wore a wetsuit as I need all the help I can get in the swim.  I started out wide of the main group and did pretty good staying on course and not getting kicked.  My goal for the swim was to swim the whole way and not freak out.  I met that goal but now I need to work on swimming faster.  I wasn’t the last out of the water but I wasn’t in the main pack either.  The run to the transition area was tough - it’s up hill and mostly on rough sand / rocks.  But I did pretty good getting out of the wetsuit and on to the bike.

The bike course is 2 loops with a small hill at the start of the lap and a big hill at the end of each lap.  I felt good on the 1st lap and it seemed like I was catching some guys in my age group.  I took a gel and some cytomax on the 1st lap and powered up the big hill passing few bikers that decided to walk. My plan was to take another gel on the 2nd lap but I didn’t as my stomach felt a little funny. I probably drank too much lake water.  I actually took my feet out of my shoes while still on the bike for the first time in a race and had a fast transition to the run.

Everyone I talked to said the run felt long and I agree.  It was mostly flat but I had a hard time getting any speed till about the 2 mile mark.  Then my legs started cramping so I had to slow down a little but kept going and finished strong.  I finished 6th in my age group and faster then my personal goal so I’m happy but know I can do better.

Here are some things I’m going to work on….

• Swimming faster
• Keeping my bike cadence up during the 2nd half of the bike
• Running faster off the bike
• Really kicking-it at the end of the run

spring time – “cinco de mayo”

It’s a beautiful spring day here in Redlands, CA and things are staying busy at work.  ArcGIS 9.3.1 is now shipping but we are already deep into the development of the next release of ArcGIS.

Time is flying by and the User Conference will be here before we know it. Speaking of time flying by, it was 15 years ago this week that I started my 2 year mission for the LDS church in Guatemala. A lot happen in those 2 years of missionary service that still influences my life today.  

Quote of the Day:
Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.
--W. Clement Stone

ESRI Developer Summit 2009 Wrap-up

As many of you know I’m involved in a lot of the planning leading up to the Dev Summit. I say that so you realized that I might be a little biased but I truly think the event last month was a huge success.  The feedback from you the attendees has been very positive.  The event was not perfect and there are things we can improve and luckily we’ll get that chance next March, when the Dev Summit turns 5 years old.  Here is a photo of me being interviewed by the talented Megan Williams for an ESRI podcast about Dev Summit 2009.

Plus a a few other links you might be interested in

Slides, Video and maybe some code from all the sessions

Slides from Palm Springs

Code Challenge Winners