Keefer Madness

Shifting Priorities… Time to Say Goodbye to the Consoles?

// May 15th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Gaming, Personal Crap

So priorities change as you get older. I keep toying back and forth with getting rid of the Xbox 360 and/or our Nintendo Wii. With a [near] eight month old in the house, and working two jobs, a bit of freelance thrown in the mix, squeezing in some saddle time on the various bikes, plus just the usual day-to-day stuff, there’s not a lot of time left over.

But I keep going back and forth. It’d be great to declutter the living room, and make a few bucks on stuff that’s been basically collecting dust for most of 2010.

But on the other hand, they’re still fully enjoyable when they do get the rare boot up — when friends and family are over, or when I get an even rarer solo game on the 360 in. I haven’t bought a game in awhile, getting the last few for both consoles as gifts, so it’s not really costing me a dime to keep them. Thoughts? Opinions?

Create Your Own Personal Infographic

// May 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Design, Internet / Web, Personal Crap

Thanks to a co-worker, one of my favorite recent adds to my RSS reading is CoolInfoGraphics. Today, they had a post to Create Your Own Personal Infographic via ionz.com/br. For all your English speaking peeps like myself, make sure to hit the British flag in the upper right hand corner.

It’s a great concept, but I think I want to run with it, and create something a little more relevant and personalized for me. I like the social networking question type of stuff, but think I’d go in another direction to make one that speaks more to me and my interests. I’ll get right to work on that in all my infinite free time. *ahem* But seriously, I am putting it on my to-do list, and I will create something.. eventually.

To the right is my personal infographic created from that site. Click on it to view it larger.

Notice the Lack of Cycling Posts?

// April 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap

Notice the lack of cycling posts? Make that, notice the lack of cycling? The biggest excuse is that currently, I’m working two jobs, bringing in the big bucks.. err bringing in some money. It’s been consisting of a fair number of hours away from the house. Besides missing my wife and little boy, the other huge thing that’s getting neglected are my bikes.

While my second part time job will get a reduction in hours after this first bit of training, I’m really missing my other training — on two wheels. So something’s going to change. Hours will go down, so that’s a plus in the available time. But I think especially on days with double shifts, I’m going to be looking at riding at lunch. I’ve always enjoyed the bike commute as well, so that’s another way (on non-two job days).

Regardless, missing the wife and kid with long hours is an obvious, but I’m missing my Specialized Tarmac and Allez hanging in the garage as well. In the end, the second job is going to help us pay off some stuff. Some short term discomfort, extra tiredness and lack of time for stuff at home should pay dividends. But here’s to making some changes and efforts to get regular rides in on as many days as possible, and hopefully ease back into the race calendar for 2011.

Starting to See and Feel Some Results

// April 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cycling, Health & Fitness, Personal Crap

So I think I’m starting to see some positive results in my cycling from my hard work in the gym and in the saddle. Now if I can translate it into better results in competition.

For roughly the past 6 months or so, I’ve been in the gym regularly doing some weight training focused on weak areas that will help me on the bike. Now, that I’m in the racing season, the weight training has changed from heavy weights, to high reps to work on endurance. Now, that’s been noticeable in visual body composition, but lately, I’ve been feeling stronger on the bike as well.

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Excited For Tomorrow

// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Baby, Personal Crap

So I know most of the baby-type posts have now migrated to littlebabyk.wordpress.com, but this one had to be posted on Keefer Madness as well.

Tomorrow’s a big day for us. I’m super psyched as Amanda has her ultrasound tomorrow at noon, where we have the chance of finding out the baby’s gender. Not that it isn’t already really real, but, this puts more perspective and allows us to start moving forward with a bunch of things – decorating Little Baby K’s room, buying gender-specific clothes and picking a name.

It’s been busy at work for the last couple of months at work, but it’s all going to be put on hold tomorrow for a little while. It’s going to be tough concentrating on anything but Little Baby K tomorrow.

My Carolina Bias

// March 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal Crap, Sports Stuff, UNC-CH

As the regular season of college basketball starts to wind down, and all the Tar Heel faithful are hoping for a stellar March in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments, I’ve been thinking about my daily Carolina bias in everyday life.

The Carolina bias I’m talking about doesn’t have to do with watching sports per se, but in daily interactions, commuting to and from work and the like. It’s a bit sad, but everyone has their prejudices and ways to filter and group people, objects day-to-day. Driving comes to mind. Someone that is flying a Carolina flag, has a UNC license plate, or a University of North Carolina decal, I’m more likely to let into traffic and even dismiss being cut off, etc. By the same token, I form a preconceived notion about someone with the same items themed from NC State or Duke (especially Duke!)

Meeting someone via work, or wherever, finding they went to Carolina automatically ups their status in my mind subconsciously, though half the people aren’t people you would have hung out with during the college years at UNC. Regardless, it steps them up a notch. Unreasonable? Possibly. But just wanted to share an observation I’ve had over the last nine years since graduation (man, has it been that long). Schools can unite people and it shows in post-college networking, informal meetings and even on I-40.

Cat4 So Far

// February 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap

So since I’ve upgraded to Cat4 road racing this year, I’ve struggled. But, it’s to be expected as it’s early in the season and I’m competing in a tougher class with longer races. US Cycling has finally updated their site with the official results.

So far, here are my results, while not great, are respectable and give me something to build on as my season progresses. Again, it’s early! I haven’t even taken bike commuting back up (though that’s happening real soon.. I miss it!)

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Great Group Training Ride Tonight

// July 1st, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Cycling, Personal Crap

Man, the slightly cooler temperatures really setup tonight’s group training ride for a very smooth ride. There were only 7 of us in total – most Tuesday night regulars. I kind of liked the small number. For the most part, we all stayed together and had a good pace. Multiple times I glanced down at the Garmin and we were doing 21′s, 22′s and even a 23 and 24 in there for good measure. It obviously wasn’t all that fast as we ended up with a pace of 19.4 miles per hour, which still isn’t too shabby.

At the end of these Tuesday night rides, there’s always a bit of sprinting and pacer pushing. I always contest but have a tendency to push too hard early on, get caught and blow up. Tonight, I stayed out front for over half the designated sprint road (Olive Branch). I did get caught and overtaken, but was able to latch on to the last wheel with some effort. I sat in there for a bit, recovered and blew by the group. I stayed out front for the rest of the sprint, just able to contain one rider for the last bit. It was very satisfying to win that and start the lone return home.

I’ve got a long weekend coming up in a few short days and am planning to race on Tuesday night at Ace (for the first time). Hopefully I can contest and win there as well.

Raleigh Gyros Tuesday St. Francis Ride – July 1, 2008

Naked Ride

// May 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap

So I rode with the Gyros this evening on the standing Tuesday ride that originates not far from home. It started off on the wrong foot. I got ready to ride out to the meeting place, and my GPS would power up to the splash screen, then go dark. I tried it several times with the same result. So I plugged it into power, but nothing was happening at all. No time, to play around with it anymore, I set off without a computer on my bike.

The geek that I am, I felt out of sync without my data stream sitting centered atop my stem. Between racing yesterday and not having a computer, I almost turned around midway to meet up for the ride. But I didn’t. With no idea of time, speed, cadence, etc. I did the group ride.

As for the problems with technology, and my Garmin in general, I’m hoping the power button got toggled in my backpack and the little guy just got drained to the point of exhaustion. The power button is just a soft key on the side of the unit. I’m hoping that’s all that happened there.

That’s two days in a row without my computer, and I don’t like it. I love cycling, I love geeking it up. I like when they converge and both are made better in my book by the other.

First Bike Commute In Under My Belt

// May 23rd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Cycling, Personal Crap

So I’ve been talking about commuting by bike for awhile. I got up early this morning and got my first ride in. All in all, it was really quick, and completely painless. My commute is a bit hilly, seeing as I’m parking at Crabtree Valley Mall. It’s actually in a valley. Anyway, anything that was uphill on the way to work will be downhill on the way home.

Traffic was completely thin. Only one car passed me, and the only significant cross traffic I encountered, I had a traffic light. I showered at the private gym here in our building and was at my desk by 7:15. Here’s to getting out early.

The only thing I’m going to look into changing is bringing my work clothes the day before. My backpack was bulky with a towel, change of close and various other items. I think I’ll try to regularly have the clothes and other stuff ready for me here at work so I don’t have to lug it all in on my back. It wasn’t the end of the world though.

So yeah, with one commute under my belt as of an hour ago, I’m completely satisfied. I really didn’t add too much time onto my normal commute, and burned less gas and more calories (about 600 one way!) I’m looking forward to making this a regular thing.