36 days to go.

Progress, progress, progress.

I feel it. I do. My legs are stronger. Running doesn’t suck as much as it use to. In fact, the distance that I’ve ran in the last couple of weeks is the most I’ve ran in 10 years. And the best part is that I have experienced any shin splints or any other kind of pain. I think I can attribute it to biking heavily the last two years and rotating my running workouts with swimming and cycling.

I haven’t lost but a couple of pounds. Even that depends what day I’m on the scale. But I can tell that I’m starting to tone up. Mrs. Shoo tells me the gut is going away. Those are always encouraging words from your spouse.

Tomorrow I’m doing my first Team Gravity class. I’m told it’s resistance training with your own body weight like the Chuck Norris / Cristy Brinkley infomercials. Afterwards swimming. And after a world of hurt.

Things are looking good. Still a lot of work to do.

I think I work much better under a deadline. Even my fortune cookie tonight said, “You’re transforming yourself to succeed.” Here’s what I’ve done since the last and a little before the last blog post.

I’ve biked 44 miles. (All in the last week because of good weather)

8x (6 1/2 hours) in the gym. Running/cycling 28 miles.

1 hour in the pool.

I really need to put some more time in the pool. I knew the numbers would be lopsided. It is human nature to gravitate to the things we’re better at. Mine are of course biking, running, then…. swimming. I have though met up with my coworker who is an excellent swimmer. She’s given me tips about push offs, since the swimming will be in an indoor pool, and breathing. The breathing part has helped tremendously. I just need to build up my endurance. Unfortunately, hot tub time doesn’t count on dailymile.com.

I haven’t been running outside yet, but if the weather holds out this week, I plan to put some foot to the pavement this week. Biking has superseded running this week, because I just put on new tires and handlebar tape.

One of the great things about a treadmill is that most come with a heart monitor. Last time I was on, I noticed a huge difference in how my heart rate decreased after going from a running pace to walking. My endurance is also up. When I first started, I could barely keep a running pace for 10 minutes. Now I can run at a consistent speed for about 25~30 minutes. Ailments that have hurt me in the past like sore shins and feet haven’t been a problem so far.

Huge improvements in my… blog. Still room for more, but a great start.

One more good omen, one of my lucky numbers on my fortune cookie was 24, the day of the race.

Call me crazy, ill-prepared, or the hottest thing you’ve seen in spandex, but never call me not willing to try something new. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve signed up for a Sullivan Civic Center Triathlon (sprint). 400 meter swim, 13 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run.

Yikes!

I blame my coworker and biking buddy, C. Same coworker that encouraged and prodded me into doing my first century. Last week she sent an email; subject: “Who wants to do this?” That’s about all it took to convince me.

I’ve really been thinking about doing a triathlon for a while. Mrs. Shoo even gave me a triathlons for beginners book for Valentines Day. The Iron Abe tri in July was what I was aiming for.

Now mathematically, I had it in my head that I had 2 months of training to get ready for the the 4/24 race date. It really didn’t become real till I entered the race into DailyMile and discovered that I only had 60 training days left. Yes, I realize 60days~ 2 months is a given. It just didn’t become real till this little gadget popped up (below).

I’ve got a lot of work to do to be able to accomplish a triathlon. I’m sore from a moderate week of working out, but things are looking good. Keep tuned for more updates.

It practically snowed all day today. I can’t want it to be spring any faster than now. Damn groundhog.

It’s been a while since I’ve actually ‘written’ a blog, so this one will be in note form.

After a year and a half, a guy has been hired to take over my position as the server administrator on a project that I’ve been working on. Huge relief to have my weekends back and a silent phone throughout the night. The new guy has actually come from a job where he was working overtime and being on call 24/7. This is a new step for him to a slower paced job.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a triathlon this summer. More specifically a sprint triathlon. The flu has kept me out of the gym the last two weeks, but I’m finally feeling better. I’m no where in shape for a triathlon yet, but it is attainable. I’ve got the biking part down.

Spent an hour getting my truck out of my front yard this morning. I usually park in the front of the house with one side of the truck just off the side of the road. Well, last night we got a good 6″ of snow. When I pulled out this morning the back of my truck swung into the front yard. I eased it up and out of the front yard till I got my front wheel stuck in my neighbor’s yard. Lucky another neighbor came over and gave me a hand. It was one of those days that I just thought about leaving my truck cockeyed in my front yard and working from home.

Winter is really starting to wear on me. Well, probably everyone. I keep having daydreams of firing up the charcoal grill and taking the bike for a long ride. Some day… some day.

I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I was going through my Flickr photos. Thought I’d put together a post of my favorites from last year.

Sarah and her ‘baby’ Clancy.

The hipster generation. From Lolla 2010.

This was taken down in the basement. Light was just right.

My first, and so far only, wedding I shot. Dave & Ericka.

Sarah Borges and Binky.

From the front of the house.

Snapped on the way back home from a bike ride.

The wimpiest dog ever.

From our honey moon in South Padre.

Redid my friend’s laptop. Took a day and a half to get it going. His laptop was full of spyware and crapware.

The only stipulation was that he is not allowed to use Internet Explorer.

I’ve been playing around with a open source .Net Twitter project appropriately named TwitterVB. It’s a .Net library that you import into your .Net application and start sending status updates, pull twitter mentions, trending topics… just about anything you’d want to do with Twitter.

TwitterVB is one of the better libraries compared to others listed on the Twitter API Wiki page: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Libraries

Note: Because it’s .Net, you can bring this library into any .Net language. I built a quick command line app in C#.

Example code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{

var tw = new TwitterVB2.TwitterAPI();
tw.AuthenticateAs(“twitteraccount”, “twitterpassword”);
string text = “”;

while (!text.Equals(“x”))
{
Console.Clear();
Console.Write(“Send Tweet: “);
text = Console.ReadLine().ToString();
if(!text.Equals(“x”)){
tw.Update(text);
Console.WriteLine(“Tweet Sent – Enter to continue”);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}

}

Found a list of 12 things that have become obsolete in the last decade.

1. Encyclopedias

I’d have to argue that these were even obsolete in the late 90’s with the move of putting encyclopedia information on CD’s. Microsoft’s Encarta is completely free now, but will stop production at the end of 2009.

2. CDs

I still love the sense of tearing through plastic to get to a disc. Then immediately put it in my computer to rip to my iPod. It’s way too easy anymore to buy music. Too many times I’ve been laying in bed thinking… man, I need a new CD. Touch! $9.99 charged.

3. Fax Machine

This has been dead for a while. There have only been a handful of times that I’ve had to actually use one. Mostly for work.

4. Landline Phone

I’ve not had a landline phone where in my residence since I moved out of my parents’ house. Surprised they still have one.

5. Film and Instant Cameras

I got my first digital camera in 2001. 1.2 megapixel Sony Cybershot. The only time I’ve used film since then is when Mrs. Shoo and I got Buddy, our dog, and took some pictures of him at the park. Later that year I bought a digital SLR.

6. Yellow Pages and Address Book

We received three yellow books this year. Hate to say it, but all three were thrown away. As for an address book, we have a ton of them around C/O Mrs. Shoo. But needless to say, when we did Xmas cards this year, I had an old spreadsheet of addresses from our wedding that we pulled from.

7. Catalogs

I miss the good ol’ K’s Merchandise catalog. That’s where my Xmas used to come from as a kid.

8. Wires

Not necessarily. I am in the constant progress of rewiring our house. As for the landline wires that were still around, I’m pulling those out.

9. Hand-written letters

All forms of mail letter writing have been assigned to Mrs. Shoo. I only send payments for bills.

10. Calling

I think Mrs. Shoo and I send and receive 100~200 text messages a month. Note: Google Calendar sends me reminder texts.

11. Classifieds

I still check the classifieds, but I am more than likely to look to the net first.

12. Dial Up Internet

My in-laws are the only people I know that still use dial up. Were making progress to getting them broadband within the next year.

I had some time to work on the house this weekend. I had set out to do two things: 1. Re-caulk the bath tub, 2. Patch a hole in the wall from a previous project.

With any DIY, it really never goes as plan. In the bathroom, I started removing the old caulk. The purpose of redoing this was because water was getting pass the shower door and was starting to drip into the basement. Water damage is not a feature when selling a house.

As I was removing the grime, I realized we really didn’t need a shower door anymore. It was old and had a ton of soap grime.

The shower door is just to the side. Check out the tile. Yes, that’s on the to-do list.

Here’s the new shower rod and curtain. I like this a lot better.

This hole was from a removal of a light switch. We’ve been hiding the hole with a coat rack the whole time. I still need to sand.

Had to make a quick repair this afternoon. I was cleaning up my desk in the basement and realized that it was way too cold by the wall. I started feeling around and realized all the cold air was coming from the window. After further investigation, I found out there were gaps between the sides of the windows. The gaps were hidden by a plastic seal. To fix it, on the right side I cut a board to fit the gap and sealed it. On the left because it was smaller than the board, I filled with expanding foam. Now I am waiting for the foam to dry and will put a plastic seal on top of it.

Kind of embarrassed it took me this long to find the gap. It’s filled now.

I don’t know if work has gotten the best of me or life has just turned on auto-pilot mode but blogging material seems to be barren. Instead, I’ll just make a list.

1. Favorite musician of the moment: Jack Conte

I’ve watched a ton of his videos on YouTube. He does covers and originals. Radiohead and Panic at the Disco are two of my favorite covers. I was watching a video the other day on Humzoo, when I realized that the music in the video sounded very familiar. Ended up buying his album from iTunes 10 minutes after watching the video.

2. The new design of Engadget.com is adding some new design inspiration for a new http://spfldbloggers.com

3. This is what my view looks like every afternoon when it’s not cloudy.

4. I’ve finished two sites for clients last month:

JohnRomang.com

Creativemphasis.com

Both sites were for friends. Both sites feature custom software written by me to manage their portfolio.

5. Mrs. Shoo is pretty talented:

That is all.

A majority of the Shoo milestones have made it to the blog in one way or another. Somehow, I totally ignored publishing anything here on our 2nd anniversary which was 11/10. It’s been a busy weekend and I did send her a message on Twitter and Facebook, so I think I covered the bases for social media.

Happy 2 year anniversary to my beautiful wife!

The flowers I sent Mrs Shoo.

Today it reached up to the mid-70’s. The was also in rare form with clouds.

I found a backup CD from 2001 with old photos on it. This was back in my ‘punk’ stage after high school.

Steve and I outside waiting for a concert. Check out the bleach blond hair! My parents loved that.

Billy Spunke from the Blue Meanies, a Chicago based Ska band. Man, whatever happened to Ska? From Wikipedia, the Blue Meanies disbanded in late 2001.

Steve and I posing with Mike Park of Asian Man Records.

Jeff (vocals) and Bruce (bass) of Nil8. I see Jeff riding bikes all the time. Dreads hanging out of his helmet.

Lead singer for Alkaline Trio.