Consuming Cory Doctorow Audio at Lunch

In addition to finishing listening to Cory Doctorow's new short story, Epoch, on my lunch run today, I also listened to his first public reading from his latest novel, Makers. Epoch is about a sentient Artificial Intelligence and the issues surrounding shutting it down. It's a good story, better told. I say a good story only because it's plot line is almost a genre in itself, from Colossus (D.F. Jones) to 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke), etc. and this is a short story. But it has novel aspects and great details of the life of modern day Sysadmins -- Systems Administrators. The lingo is perfect and very much fun.

I've only read the first dozen or so parts of Makers (out of eighty-some), about economic turmoil and the reuse of technological detritus. The part he read overlapped the part I twittered in when he asked for suggestions prior to his reading appearance -- my first verified participation in a crowd sourced event! Makers is fast-paced and fun so far.

PodRunner: A Beat for Feet that Run

From the "How Cool is That?!" department on the internet: I downloaded a couple one hour long music mixes targeted for running from PodRunner. Tried it out on the treadmill this morning (it's a rainy Saturday). Pretty nifty stuff. Steven Boyett, DJ and author, posts these techno-music compilations with targeted BPM to pace your run or workout. There's a bunch of them and they keep coming, technically free, though there is a tip jar or merchandise to help support your habit. An easy way to keep yourself in fresh music; put your energy into the burn.

Post It!

Last month my wife and I participated in the River City Run, she won the Women's Masters division of the 10K race and was awarded the nice platter in this picture along with a box full of the other stuff in the picture -- all from 3M who was a major sponsor. I managed second place in my age division, winning the "invisible man" trophy seen here.

Lunch Run with Eagle

Since it was only 72 degrees and overcast I decided to run outside at lunch. I started out about 50 yards ahead of a group of 3 guys – they caught me after about a quarter mile, but I chatted with them for a minute and then stayed about as close behind them as I do my wife a lot of the time, 20 feet or so back, for the first 15 minutes. They said they were going 6 or 8 miles. I said I wasn’t going that far, maybe 4 or 5. I stayed with them as far as Lady Anne Lake at the back of Edgewater – they went straight on the roads and I turned right to go around the lake. I thought I’d at least go across the dam and see what wildlife I could see – maybe a great blue heron or a water snake. I only saw the more common animals: turtles, fish and ducks (including a coot) until I crossed the second bridge. I was just noticing how really low the water was when I saw a head sticking up in the shallows that wasn’t quite a turtle. When I got closer I could see it was a snake about 3 feet long. It wasn’t a Banded Water Snake, which is what I usually think I see, because I could tell that the markings didn’t go all the way around in nice bands. I looked it up later on the internet, identifying it as a Midland Water Snake. A few yards later I was still memorizing the snake pattern as I started to bend right with the edge of the lake, in the corner of my left eye I caught something swooping toward the center of the lake, maybe 100 yards from me. It was a large bird of prey that dipped its feet in the water and then flew back up with lazy but powerful strokes of some very large wings. It wasn’t a heron – all the wrong build for that, although the wingspan was about right; it was too big for any hawk and with the white head and neck and pure white fan of tail feathers this was no turkey buzzard, not that they swoop over water anyway; it was a bald eagle. Its talons were empty but it kept rising and flew off northwards over the trees leaving me just hoping it would turn around and take another pass at the fish it missed. Uplifted by the sighting, I kept going on around the whole lake and ended up with almost 6 miles under my feet.