I've added yet another new feature to the site. In the menu bar, you'll see "Recent Comments." Previously, unless you were a registered user (I'm the only one), you would have to hunt around to see if anyone ever replied to something you had said (I get e-mails). As such, threads often died prematurely. With this new feature, hopefully y'all can keep better tabs on what's going on and where.
Thoughts on the formatting of the page? I tried to make it look like comments on a regular post.
This was a fun experiment in PHP, which I know, but don't. I borrowed a
good portion of the code, but expanded on it quite a bit. Two days, three technologies... I think I'm good on site changes for another year or two.
Two months earlier than ever before, Boston Marathon registration has closed. I obviously wasn't going to get the miles in to give it another good effort, but this absolutely seals the deal. What stinks is there are a large number of races still to be run, in which many, many people were hoping to qualify. Sure, they can run in 2011, but that's a long ways off. I won't get into "they need to increase the standards," but I fear they do, and that scares me. Regardless, Caitlin is in, and we're going. Still need to get on top of accommodations.
In personal running news, after having run a mile a day [roughly] for two weeks, I have come to realize I am no longer improving pain-wise, and am possibly getting worse. That led me to realize I was not yet ready to be running. That led me to realize my doctor didn't diagnose whatever problem I have correctly (a sore hamstring doesn't take two months to still not heal), and doesn't seem to have the expertise/equipment to do so. That led me to realize I should look for a new doctor. I have an appointment with Capitol Rehab, team doctors of G'town and Mason running teams, next week.
At first glance, the site looks the same as always. It's not! I messed with the menu bar today. Go ahead, take a look.
Not only does it have fancy hover effects, but there are drop-down menus! I made one for "Blogs" because all those items are really just subcategory of regular old blog entries. I'm not sure if this is an appropriate menu title so I'm open to suggestions. The other menu is "Lists." If you actually click on lists, you'll be presented with the old page, which served as an index of sorts. Now, no more index; all content pages are accessible from the menu.
It was a fun little experiment with CSS and Javascript, which I still don't know all too well, but with the help of Google, I can do anything
Not really new, as we've had them more than a month, but new to the world.
We finally threw an HD screen in the family room. We went with a 37" LG LCD that I picked out and purchased while drunk one night. I'm a total Samsung whore, so I had some remorse the following morning, but I'll live with it. Some people get promiscuous with strangers when they get drunk; I order TVs on my laptop from Amazon via the couch. This is getting old?
Anyway, I'm loving it. Also picked up a Roku to stream Netflix to it. I already have that capability down in the dungeon thanks to the service offered through the Xbox, but I knew I wanted it upstairs as well.
What has this enabled? A whole lot more sitting on the couch! I've watched a bazillion documentaries recently:
Hoop Dreams - Not sure how I'd never seen this. Great movie. Has a metric ton of messages in it. Watch it. After watching, read the following:
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices - I could have gotten the gist of this film from reading a website for five minutes. Instead, they poorly interviewed a bunch of unintelligent folk from Middle America who had nothing really good to say other than "my life sucks." They didn't add anything, just annoyed me. The gist: Walmart buys everything from China, Chinese workers are underpaid (problem for their gov't, IMO), Walmart ruins small towns, Walmart employees are racist and sexist (with a couple million individuals employed, that makes sense, you'll have some bad eggs), Walmart doesn't support its workers. This is a serious skip.
A show on the Mayan calendar ending in 2012 and the devastation of the Earth. Most people think there will be a sudden pole shift, but research shows that's never happened. There have been pole shifts, but they take millions of years.
A show on the Berlin Wall. Shocking that this took place in relatively modern history. I'm SO proud of my 50% (I think) German heritage.
A show on Arlington Cemetery. Makes me want to go visit. Caitlin ran away since it was a bit somber. My thought was "if this is the worst I have to go through related to war, all those who died to make it that way deserve me watching."
Soooo.... Know of any other good documentaries? I've got a slew queued up on Netflix, but am always looking for more.
Just a few hours ago, I received a call from my mom, who had her gallbladder removed this morning. Since then [and a whole lot, recently], I thought about all the wonderful ailments I get to look forward to as I grow old:
I am the only one in my immediate family with a gallbladder.
My grandfather had his first heart attack in his early 40s or late 30s.
Mother and grandmother both have had knee replacements. My mom was probably one of the youngest in the entire facility when hers was done, just a few months ago.
Grandmother has had a hip replacement.
Aaaand a handful of ailments that I'd rather not go into detail on here.
The Redskins currently being in a slump, and with outrage toward the owner never being higher, I thought back to the days of the Cooke family. ThenI thought "What ever happened to them?"
Admittedly, I was not a huge fan of the team growing up. It was an Eagles household, and I was just a kid... I didn't really have the means to nurture a love for them team; no car or money to go to games, no friends who cared, no TV to watch them... So sadly, I've only really known the Snyder era.
So what did happen with the Cooke family? Read. Yep, Snyder has always been an ass.
Unfortunately, what can be done? The team is a business, and Snyder, a good businessman, is making a metric ton of money each year he owns them. Not even factoring profits, the franchise has increase in value by $80 million a year since he became owner. That's good beans.
We've all heard the reports of people getting escorted out of the stadium for wearing their feelings on their shirts... It's absolutely ridiculous. This is what they're trying next. No way it'll work, but I applaud them for their efforts.
Snyder, please go away. I was looking for rankings of all owners across professional sports, but had no luck. I stumbled upon this, which I don't think is all that accurate, but still interesting.
I'm running again. It isn't going as well as I had hoped; still a lot of tightness and crappiness in my right leg, but it's going. In fact, running each day makes it even better, which leads me to believe I just need to get the motion going again.
I have yet to run more than a mile around the neighborhood, but I think this weekend might be time to double up to two. Despite being out for over two months, my natural pace on the runs has been around 7:50... Not too bad!
I've also been running and living in my orthotics. After only a couple of days, I began to feel comfortable in them, and feel they're really making a huge difference; I actually feel like I'm much better balanced now that my legs are artificially the same length. The best part was they only cost $169, which is dirty cheap. Other people I know, with the same brand, paid well over $300. My chiropractor rocks in that sense...
This weekend also marks the beginning of the Marathon Training Program (I made that cool hover image thing, by the way) for the National Marathon. Unable to run any great distance, but with tons of knowledge from reading books and just being a running, I figured I'd volunteer my time to coach new runners. Unfortunately, I just found out today that this historically has been a run-along program, which I cannot do for obvious reason. We're currently trying to figure something out (maybe I'll coach the half marathon instead?), but it's a slightly sad situation.
Another thing I'm hoping to get involved in this weekend is course certification! The club has recently been gouged by various police departments and park services, which has resulted in use not being able to hold a lot of our races where we used to hold them. As such, we need to make new courses. Our club is home to one of the premier certifiers in the country, whom I've been in touch with, and is more than happy to teach me the fine art. Neat stuff, but am I overextending myself? Eventually I will be able to run again, and I certainly am filling up my schedule with other things...
I currently feel like a bit of a blob. I'm soft in the midsection, I've lost a lot of leg definition, and I just don't feel too energized. I really need to get back to 100% soon. On the bright side, I'm up to seven pull-ups (up from two maybe a month ago?)... I've kind of been slacking on that training with the nasty weather these past few days, but I should be able to hit ten soon!
