geek alert

The title is just a warning that some of your eyes might glaze over whilst reading this post. Others of you will find it interesting. Still others of you might have good advice to offer me…

Anyhow, I needed a good geek project to work on this weekend, I wanted to try something new. So I have this old PC sitting downstairs that I’m not using for anything except as a backup for the laptop and for doing filesharing (gotta love indieriver.net!), and it’s bogged down with lots of stuff; I’ve had it for 5 or 6 years now and never wiped it or reloaded it. So, I decided to have some fun and try doing a Linux installation. I actually settled on Ubuntu, which appears to have a fairly decent desktop interface and a nicely-designed installation.

Installing Ubuntu was actually very easy. I backed up the little data I wanted to save onto the laptop, then went ahead and repartitioned the 60 GB hard drive. The installation went quickly, and I was up and running. Getting a driver to work for my D-Link DWL-G122 USB Wifi adapter was a bit more of a challenge. But I got it working Saturday night after some serious consultation of the Ubuntu help forums.

Basically I’m stuck with two things right now. 1) I have a printer attached to the Linux machine, and it works fine. However, I need to get it shared with the laptop. I almost had it last night, but no such luck. There’s some combination of Samba and CUPS settings that I haven’t hit on yet that should do the trick. 2) I need to get a file sharing program running. The obvious choice is Azureus. However, it’s running into Java errors and hanging up on me; I end up having to kill -9 it every time. I did a brief web search for other torrent programs that might be good, but haven’t found anything I’m very happy with yet. I used Utorrent when I was using Windows, and like it a lot. Unfortunately, there’s no Linux version available.

Any suggestions from anybody for a torrent program? Should I just try debugging the Java issues in Azureus? Since that’s the primary function of that PC, it’d be nice to have it working. And I can’t afford to spend too many more nights up past 10 pm working on it. It makes it really hard to get up in the morning and run.

My first training run

I have a 5K course mapped out through our neighborhood, so I gave it my first try at that distance on Friday. It was early afternoon, probably 85 degrees out. Here were my split times:

Mile 1: 7:43
Mile 2: 18:56
Mile 3: 31:38
End: 34:20

I was cranking it out the first mile, didn’t have to walk much at all. Actually, through the whole thing, it wasn’t the cardio part that was slowing me down - it was my legs. My calves were cramping up pretty bad. The second mile I walked more; obviously, I went from an 8-minute mile to an 11-minute second mile. The third mile was then about 12 minutes. There is a nice long uphill grade to finish the third mile, it’s a good test.

All in all, 34 minutes isn’t too awful for my first try. I need to keep at this, though, so I can be better prepared for the 5K on September 16th.

I'm back home...

Got home from Seattle about midnight last night. Oh so much fun. Our plane was late leaving Seattle, but fortunately we had a good tail wind or we never would’ve made the connection in Minneapolis. As it was, could our gates have been further apart? Not really. We landed at F8 and had to get to A6. I think we were the last two on the plane. But we got home. Oh, and I got to fly first class from Seattle to MSP. That was nice.

I’m hitting work for long enough to catch up a bit and file my expense report, then I’m going home to see Becky and the girls. On a totally unrelated note, if I have time to crash this weekend, I’m thinking of converting my old PC down in the basement to run some *nix flavor instead of Windows… Ubuntu is looking like the early favorite. Should be a fun task.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go...

Well, it’s off to Seattle, actually, in about 30 minutes. Headed up there again for work, catching the little yucky turboprop from CID to MSP and then a 757 to SEA… Hopefully there won’t be as much excitement as last time…

I’ve got a new book to read on the way that I’m quite looking forward to: N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian. Hopefully I can digest it and give a little report when I get back.

Taking the Plunge

This weekend I signed up for a 5K run. I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve not been a big runner in past years, but with 30 approaching and too many pounds around my waistline, it is time to get more serious about it. I have increased motivation to run; finding time is still the difficulty.

Inspired in a good part by Jeff and Adriene’s efforts, I sent in my registration Saturday to run in a 5K in Solon on September 16th. In a fit of insanity, my sister Rebecca agreed to run it with me. She’ll probably beat me, too. So now I have seven weeks to try to get ready for it.

I’m not really scared of the distance; when I get out and run now I do 2.5 - 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I still end up having to interspurse some walking amidst the jogging. I just need to push my endurance up so I can walk less and jog more.

An aside here: I found a really cool website that has been helpful: mapmyrun.com. It uses the Google Maps API to allow you to chart a run (even going cross-country if you want to!). It’ll then show you the mileage of that run, and, given the time it took you to run it and your age, height, and weight, will even calculate a calorie burn. Maps can be saved and shared. Pretty cool. You can see my little 5K training map if you want to.

It’ll be tough to train any this week, seeing as I have a full day today and then I’m headed to Seattle tomorrow morning early. Maybe once I get back and it’s a bit cooler I can start cranking out the miles. I’ve gotta try…

Everybody loves a party!

Yesterday was Laura’s second birthday. So, we invited a bunch of friends over to celebrate. Actually, this was her second birthday party this year; we had one with my family on Saturday, and now one with friends. Two years old, two parties. Don’t get any ideas about next year, kiddo!

So the Scotts, the Finleys, the Wilburs, the Garner women (freshly-minted First Officer Daniel was supposed to get home last night sometime after being gone for six weeks!) and my brother and sister came over. It was waaay to warm and humid in the backyard, but we sweltered through it and munched on hot dogs, salads, fruit, and the requsite cake and ice cream. Laura opened a few presents and then there were gift bags for all the kiddos that were a big hit. I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all.

We took a bunch of pictures, but I didn’t get them off the camera last night. I’ll try to remember to add them to this post when I get a chance. I still can’t believe she’s two already…

Happy Birthday Laura!

She’s too young to read this, but still, I can’t believe that my little girl turns 2 today! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital, and now she’s a little fireball, talking a blue streak, playing with her little sister, and enjoying her new fishies. Scary to think that it only speeds up from here…

Random Thoughts on Classical Music

For those of you brave enough to read past the title, congratulations! Now instead of me talking about music by people my age, you get to hear me talk about music written by dead people. Well, they weren’t dead when they wrote it… but let’s not confuse the issue.

I grew up listening to lots of classical music. This was pretty much due to the fact that my parents listened to lots of classical music, and I was too young to buy records or run the record player. So classical it was. I remember Bach Cello suites, including a neat recording played by John Williams or Segovia or somebody on the guitar. Dad liked Stravinsky, so we heard some of that, too. And then there was the requisite Beethoven, and then some fun stuff by Prokofiev. (Though the title “Love for Three Oranges” sounds kinda kinky now that I think about it…)

Then I started taking piano lessons, and gained some more personal appreciation for composers. I think I initially got started playing Grieg because my friend Lydia was playing him, and I wanted to out-do her. However, he quickly became a favorite. Then I got my skill up to where I could tackle Chopin’s Ballades. They’re still some of my favorites. (How do I pick between No. 1 in G-Minor and No. 4 in F minor? Too tough to call!) And then there was Rachmaninoff. I hacked through his Second Piano Concerto during my first couple of years of high school. It was only after college that I picked up some of his Preludes, Etudes Tableux, and his wonderful arrangement of Kreisler’s Liebesfreud.

Oh, and any talk about my classical music history wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that tape of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Capriccio Italien that got played over and over and over and over in the van.

I don’t have classical music on that much any more; I’m going to have to make sure that I turn it on more often so Laura and Addison grow up with at least an exposure to it. Laura, though, already watches a Classical Baby DVD that has a bunch of good stuff on it; Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Bartok, and Villa Lobos, to name just a few. I guess that’s a good start. Next I’ll pull out some Mussorgsky…

A fun weekend...

It was busy busy busy, but it was fun. My brother Andrew is now officially a resident of Cedar Rapids. He’ll be down here at least for the fall, working at Menards and taking a couple of classes at Kirkwood. So he was/is in town.

Mom. Dad, and Aaron came down from Wisconsin to celebrate Laura’s birthday. It’s so hard to believe that my little girl is turning 2 years old this week! We had a fun time with them. Sunday our church had our usual service and picnic in the park. It’s a bit taxing for me, since it means I have to cart out all the sound gear, but it was special this year since Andrew and Aaron led music with me. They both played guitars, and I played bass. I think it went really well.

Oh, did I mention that Laura’s birthday is coming up? Becky and I decided to get her an aquarium this year. She just loves fish, and is glued to any fish tank she sees. So we are now the proud owners of a ten-gallon aquarium. Once we give the water another day to stabilize, we’ll become the proud owners of a few little fish to go in the aquarium. Hopefully she’ll enjoy it - I think I will, too.

Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon Hiawatha for the weekend. It’s now Monday and I’m back at work. Joy of joys.

Random Thoughts on Church Attire

OK, so Dan put me up to this. Pick a topic, and just start writing. So this topic came to mind. How did it come to mind, you ask? Well, I was thinking about our church’s service in the park this Sunday. And how much I enjoy it. And how one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because it’s appropriate to wear a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, even when leading the music. And that led me to thinking about church attire in general.

So what do you wear to church? I’m talking about Sunday morning, when you attend the regular weekly service. At Noelridge, I usually wear a pair of khaki pants and some sort of collared shirt. If I’m feeling sloppy I’ll wear jeans with the collared shirt. One time I even left the shirt untucked. But usually it’s khakis and a collared shirt.

Now, this isn’t a universal dress code for our church. Our pastor usually wears dress pants, but may match those with a golf shirt in the summer, other times a shirt and tie, and on rare occasion, add the jacket for the full formal look. On any given Sunday you will see lots of folks in jeans, and in the summer you will see a fair number wearing shorts as well. Given that our air conditioning doesn’t keep up very well in the summer, shorts seem like an attractive option at times.

Having said that, I just can’t bring myself to wear shorts to church. Why? I suppose part of it is thanks to my mother, who was firmly against wearing shorts to church, even for Wednesday night activities. Old habits die hard. Another part of it is that if I’m up leading music for the service, I figure not everybody wants to have to look at my bare legs. And I suppose another part of it is that I know there are people in the church who probably are against wearing shorts on Sundays, and as part of the leadership I don’t feel the need to push the point. I’m not caving in to their legalism, I just don’t feel like making an issue of it.

I had a discussion on this topic with my in-laws some time back when they were visiting. They come from the “dress your best to honor the Lord” school of church attire. Interestingly, they were also missionaries in Indonesia for a few years. So I wanted to ask if just going in a loincloth and other similar tribal garb would be OK. They didn’t bite. It’s based on culture, they said. We should look our best to honor God.

But what about that verse that says “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart?” I asked. Well, yeah, sure, that’s true. But hey, we’d dress nicely if we were going to meet the President, right? So why do we dress sloppily when we go to church? Do we have more respect for the President than for God? At this point I’m shaking my head a little bit.

Then they noted that the youth pastor at their church (a megachurch in Charlotte, NC) got some very bad reactions from older folks in their church because he didn’t wear a tie to their formal service. He was wearing a jacket over a polo shirt for the “informal” service, which had just gotten over, and he just wore that to the “formal” service as well. And they mentioned this to me as an example of people being disrespectful with the dress code. I think about that time I asked how much improved the service would be if the pastor just left on his polo shirt but the old folks started thinking about God instead of worrying about the pastor without a tie. I think the discussion went downhill from there.

So if you happen to be in Noelridge Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 10:30 this Sunday, you’ll probably hear me playing my guitar, leading some singing. Pretty much guaranteed I"ll be wearing cut-off shorts, a t-shirt, and my sandals. And having a lot of fun doing it.

And thanks, Dan, for the suggestion. It’s the most fun I’ve had blogging in quite a while. I’ll have to do it again sometime.