The instructions were to keep him up late (11pm) and wake him up early (4am) so he would fall asleep while the EEG was recording. The nurse scratched his scalp and attached electrodes. First they made him hyperventilate for a few minutes and watch a series of bright flashing lights. Then he fell asleep.

After all that was done the doc declared his results as normal. He did so well we hit up coldstone creamery.

It’s exciting (expensive), frightening and wonderful all at once. Over the years I’ve fallen more and more in tune with Death Valley; it’s solitude and it’s quiet beauty. Few people go high up into the mountains and even fewer wander outside the tourist areas of DV. I like these lonely areas, I find serenity there and am reminded of Buzz Aldrin’s famous description of the moon as, “Magnificent desolation”. What a perfect description for Death Valley.

I’ve even applied (by submitting some sample photos) to a stock photography company.  I’m excited for a lot of reasons lately.

Three new ribbons, 25 dollars cash money and a picture on the front page of the local newspaper.  I could get used to this high rollin’ lifestyle.  Small pictures of the pictures I entered are below, along with a shot of the dolla dolla bills I won.

I originally wrote a thought provoking post on big brain descriptions of each of the pictures, but I wrote that on my phone and somehow lost it.  Looking at these shots, I want to get back up to Bodie to do some more lens work as the place is just teeming with potential shots.  Even better I’d like to work there for a season and see all shots the behind the closed doors.  I obviously am getting back to Death Valley this year, once the temperatures are a bit more benign.

It feels good to get some applause for the shots I put up, we’ll see if this starts anything big.

I remember when he was shot down, and the stunning realization that despite our technological prowess and military power, good men and women still die in war. He was mentioned in no less than two state of the union adresses, his status changed from KIA to MIA to captured over the years and now his remains have been found and he can be laid to rest.

I am so godamned proud of the military that kept looking and almost two decades later found him. I hope our young PFC who has recently been taken hostage in afghanistan stays strong long enough for someone to get to him out safely.

Welcome home Lt Cdr Michael “Scott” Speicher, rest in peace.

http://jodag.net/Media/Movies/mystary.wmv

Direct link, rather than embedded due to IE’s failure to respect HTML standards.

To put it simply, the satellite Internet company knows it has you by the short hairs. Their customer service sucks, prices are atrocious, policies make it worthless and speeds make it only a slightly better solution than dial-up. Five years is a long time and technology advances.

Because of this, today I get to call and cancel. A friend of mine cancelled his service with direcway / hughesnet once. The end result sucked for him.

He was having tech support issues and used cancelling as a bluff to see if they would help him out. He told the guy on the phone, “if you aren’t going to fix it (the problem he was having) I’m going to cancel my service” the customer service tech replied, “then you’ll have to cancel”. Jared cancelled right there and then, his bluff was called.

To make things even better, after only a minute or two, Jared said fine, I’ll pay for a tech to fix it, just send one out. He was told since he no longer had an active account, he would have to pay the account reactivation fee and pay for the tech.

WWAN has finally caught up to my little slice of real estate though, and satellite is no longer the only option. I can’t wait to terminate my relationship with these idiots.

Ps. This is my first post from my iPhone. I love technology.

A few days before the race the race director sends out an email warning us about the incoming storm and the fact that the park service may close Titus Canyon due to the incoming rain/snow.  That was disheartening, because Titus is a stunning place for a run.  When you’re running in Titus you are never more than one more bend in the canyon away from feeling like you’re all alone in there. The canyon walls are so narrow and it bends so often you are occasionally the only person in view in a specific section, which is a really cool way to do a marathon.

The canyon walls are remarkable for their multi-colored beauty and there are multiple layers of historic use of the canyon from the Native American petroglyph to old mining camps. So you get geology, history and great competition all in one race. The runners that make the trek all the way out to Death Valley for the run, both the marathoners and the 30k’ers are great people.  As a whole, they are the best race people I’ve interacted with consistently, from the director (who gave me a ride in his van when the bus was too crowded last year) all the way down to the runners who will occasionally cheer you on while running.

Well, like I said we got an email indicating that Titus might be closed for the run. In that case there is an alternate route that starts near Furnace Creek on West Side road, it’s a dirt road in the middle of a broad valley, Death Valley is scenic almost no matter where you are but 3 hours at a snail’s pace in a big valley can’t compare to Titus canyon. The day before the race we get an email stating that Titus was officially closed and the alternate course would be the venue this year.

Gant wasn’t going to be running this year, due to a flare up of his TG but he was willing to play role of race support crew. He performed his job with the gumption of a Grant. I’m on the verge of promoting him to full “R” status if he keeps this work up. So we rolled up from Gorman on Friday night, got to Texas spring campground a little after midnight and despite years of experience telling us not to sleep in the truck, we slept in the truck. It turned out to be a pretty damn good decision . All night long the rain was pouring down, but I slept well and as far as I can tell, Gant slept soundly as well.

Dawn broke and we made our way to the check in at Furnace Creek. We got our bibs and followed the bus caravan down to West Side Road. At this point it was still drizzling and in the low 50’s, the clouds were solid and there was a slight wind to the south. The day looked dismal and grey; there wasn’t much to see besides the clouds and other runners. People were wearing trash bags to stay dry and kinda warm and the race director was giving his speech about snow in Titus canyon and that was why it was closed. At that point most people were more interested in starting the race and trying to get warm than in listening to the speech. Minutes later we were obliged.

The alternate course is a dirt road with a slight down slope on the way out. Due to the rain the dirt road was a sloppy mess. The rain didn’t really stop, it let up at points but the cold was constant. On the way out there was a tailwind, which in addition to the slight down slope made for a pretty good time to the turnaround point, 1:16 for me.  Unfortunately that meant there was a head wind on the way back to the finish line and an incline. The nice thing about hitting the turnaround point and heading back was all the racers behind me. Seeing them go the other way and hearing the occasional cheer from them really helped me keep my motivation and pace up as the road got sloppier and the rain and wind was now coming directly into my face.

Eventually, there were no more runners going the other way. I knew there were 12-16 runners in front of me and a few somewhat close behind me. I passed a few in front of me and was passed by a few as well. My legs were dreading the final mile as it was the steepest climb and I hit it like concrete wall. My pace went from a mid to low 8 minute mile to over 11 for that last mile. I was out of juice and it was cold, wet, sloppy and steep.

But it was over. The post race food was GREAT, just like last year – peanut filled pretzel bits, oranges, trail mix, water, Gatorade and of course the complimentary T-shirt. I started to cramp in the cold and quickly changed into some warm, dry clothes and relaxed in the truck while Gant tried to get an inside line on becoming a Junior Race Director.

Death Valley was indeed in the process of flooding, I’ve never seen a storm like that there, the roads were covered with water, Towne pass was a snowy sight to see and I was more than glad to be warm and dry in the truck with my chauffeur race support crew at the helm.

A few hours later I was home and Gant was on his way to a half marathon in San Diego. I found out that I took 1^st in my age group and 20^th overall with a finish time of 2:40 which I was pretty stoked about.  I am definitely looking forward to my 3^rd consecutive DVM(e) next year. I’d even run the alternate course, It’s really that worth it.  Good job to my support crew and happy hypothermia homeboy as well, excellent job as a matter of fact.  The picture collection is incomplete for various reasons, don’t ask unless you’re curious in which case go ahead.

deathvalleymarathon09-2.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09-3.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09-5.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09-6.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09-7.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09-8.jpg

deathvalleymarathon09.jpg

After some snickering and muffled laughter the teller gives me my check back with this neat little NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds) stamp on it.  Eventually I did get it paid sucsessfully, but it was just a delightful way to end four or five years of employment with them.

You can read a bit more about that here.

Now, seemingly happily ensconced in my current job there’s economic turmoil coming to find me here as well.  The good Governor has seen fit to cut everyone’s paychecks by 10% starting next month and all sorts of other fun ideas.  Whether or not that’s necessary isn’t anywhere near my scope of practice or knowledge so I’m not going to get into that.  I will say that I personally believe that unions can be a huge portion of the problem.  Unions protect the jobs of those who don’t perform their work adequately and demand equality in pay for the entire range of competence in job performance, instead of being based on merit.  Honestly, I respect Arnold for what he’s trying to do here.  I think the unions are too strong though, and stay strong by feeding off of California’s carcass.

We’ll see what happens there, but again like in April of ‘04 I’m beginning the job hunt process again.  I can stick it out here just fine, but my job has recently lost most of its appeal, nothing to do with the budget.

Speaking of money though, in other worrisome news I am either getting audited or have a fan at the IRS recently.  The last five days of visits to jodag.net include some visits from everyone’s favorite federal agency.

Hopefully it’s a fan.

Blank.

I’ve heard it said that all that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.  If there’s a need and you have the capacity to fill the need and do nothing, you bear the responsibility for that failure.

Blank.

I respect Hugh’s spirit of adventure and hope to be half that spry when I reach his age.  Thank you Vu for forcing me to write again.  It feels good, though I may take this down if I even put it up.

You can see the launches from most anywhere in Socal and there’s a great mailing list dedicated to information on launch times, dates and payloads at spacearchive.  The launch I got to watch was a Delta II, you can see a picture of the launch here.  I was standing near the top of 7,300 foot Alamo mountain to see it and it was beautiful.  The launchpad was over 50 miles away, but my perch was so high I had a clear view of the rocket quietly streaking into the night.

This lead me to think about change and how hard it is.  A rocket, weighing tens of thousands of pound and holding thousands of gallons of fuel is built for change.  It’s entire existence is built around one simple task, to go from stationary to 17,500 mph in under nine minutes.  They are built to beat gravity, to slip the surly bonds of Earth if you will.

A rocket will burn most of it’s fuel within the first three minutes of flight.  Each minute it gets a bit easier though, the gravitational pull of the Earth lessens second by second and it’s speed increases bit by bit.  Easier and easier it gets the farther it is from the point where it changed trajectory from a stationary hunk of metal to a speeding hunk of metal.

I think that’s true of any and all change, it takes a lot of effort to change the course or path of a life, but it gets easier with every step.  Once that initial decision is made and you are off to whatever change that is, it gets easier.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr