Go Rockies!

If you are like me, and have had running routes that take you around neighborhoods, through parks, around corners, into parking lots, up and down stairs and taking shortcuts while on a run, and you figure, "yeah, I think I am running 6 miles" but when you try to drive it, you are frustrated by the complexity of driving the car down stairs, pulling into parking lots and backing out...it just doesn't cut it, does it?

Try this. It's awesome. It works off of Google Maps or Google Earth. You can trace your route anywhere in world/usa. I have driven an easy route, and also mapped it with this program and it is darn close. I actually realized yesterday with this program that I have been running a longer distance at lunch than previously thought. Around 4 miles instead of 3.3. Give it a test drive.
You can switch from Maps to Satellite too, if you need to see street names.

USATF.COM

Yeah, they rock.

They Carry The Zero here, quite well.



this is actually a clean, clear version:

We are not even in our new house yet, but I have already been diving into books and magazines on how to save as much natural resources as possible by making our new yard more sustainable in this desert climate. I want to xeroscape some of it with wildflowers, yucca plants, more water-efficient grass, and rock. But there is a part of me, that I have to admit, and that most certainly won't come as a shock to anyone that knows me very well....I LOVE green, lush lawns. I love to walk, run the dogs, lay in, entertain in and admire green grass. I didn't have to take it too seriously in my first condo here because there was a strip the size of a Slip N' Slide. And in our present house for two more weeks, we added an extra flagstone patio to take up more space and reduce the grass coverage. We also planted wild grass, and a few other not-so-water-hungry plants. I wanted to do more xeroscaping but really, I love green, green grass.

In our new house, there is much more lawn. Try 3500sq. ft MORE lawn. That is a total of 0.19 of an acre in which we can build patios, add foliage, flowers, plants, pebble walkways, maybe a pond, and hey, maybe even a slip n' slide. Among all my plans and sketches came this article I read this moring in the WSJ that really opened up my eyes to what I have gotten myself into. We, as Americans:

• Burn 720 Million Gallons of gas a year mowing our lawns.
  
  
• The mowers spew pollutants such as carbon monoxide, smog-forming nitgrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide.


• A gas-powered push mower emits as much pollution in an hour as 11 cars, and a riding mower emits as much as 34 cars.


• The typical landscaped yard uses over 10,000 gallons of water a year, not including rain and snow.


• The average yard is 1/5 of an acre.

I am not going to get preachy here, but I am going to try and do as much as I can to make our yard as ecco friendly, gorgeous, useful, and better for the evironment. If anyone has any tricks of their own, please send them along.

Here's a good start: Ozone Aware
and apparently, zoysia is one heck of a good grass to use.

In honor of Earth Day weekend, tomorrow Christy and I are volunteering all day with my company's ACTS program in the VOC Parkfield Restoration Project. We will be building trails, raking gravel, etc. Thanks and have a Happy Earth Day weekend!

We are moving about 8 miles from our current house. We are moving south and a tiny bit east of our current house.
With the move comes change. Change is good. With the move, our local neighborhood park will be .24 miles from our house. Our current (old) neighborhood park is three blocks away. Both parks have colorful amenties such as bike paths. Both parks do not offer the same amentities though. Our new park offers two playing fields, cement bike paths around the perimeter, cement picnic benches, dumpsters, and lots of manicured green grass. Our current (old) parke offers, two big ponds, music shelter, ducks, geese, fishing and a golf course. I am torn. I like both though very much and am excited to get to know this new park.

Our Old Park

Our New Park

We here at Team Gibson are deeply saddened by all of your losses, friends who were injured and family that will be scarred for life over this tragic event. What is wrong with people? How about a game of cards, or chess, or even darts, but not guns.

Yesterday morning I woke up, took a shower, and dipped into the bathroom closet for my daily skin care routine of Paula's Choice - skin recovery super antioxidant concentrate and essential moisturizing sunscreen spf 15 with antioxidants, as I always do every morning. After I had applied the super antioxidant concentrate I applied the sunscreen, and went back into the bathroom to do the other thing I always do....put on deoderant. Anyway, as I was staring in to the mirror, my eyes started burning like someone had thrown me down and rubbed cut onions in my eyes. It was painful. I had never experienced that before from the face lotions, so I immediately tried washing out my eyes, to no avail. Well, I thought I would get dressed and give it a few more minutes. I even went outside for some fresh air but that only temporarilty helped. Once dressed and ready for work, I went back into the bathroom and my eyes were still burning more, so I went into the kitchen and washed out my eyes and face. It seemd to dissipate a bit so I made breakfast and went to the bus stop.

About 20 minutes after I got to work, Christy called, as she usually does, and we were discussing house stuff. She mentions that her eyes are bugging her worse today than before. She has allergies so that was not too surprising. So she said she was going to do the netti pot and see what happens.

I should also mention that yesterday, the dogs eyes were red and watery as well, so we had given them baths not only because of their eyes, but because they stunk. Like skunks.

Last night when I got home, my eyes immediately started burning again. We went through house trying to see if we could find the source. I was convinced it was something inside the home and not nature's way of putting pain into our lives, so I kept searching. We thought , maybe it was something on the moving boxes scattered all over the house. So I removed them. Maybe it was the new Lush soap we had used earlier that morning. In the trash it went. Still burning. We isolated it to either the office of the bathroom. So Christy said, maybe it's the trash, so I grabbed the office trashcan and the bathroom one.

THEN, I remembered. Sunday morning I had taken the urnial cake (chlorine puck) that you put in your toilet tank to dissinfect the bowl, out of the tank and thrown it in the trash and had planned on dumping the trash but our guests came over and I forgot. Well, I walked to the kitchen, by this time, when I opened the trashcan lid, I could barely keep my eyes open and almost passed out. I dropped the can and ran outside. Literally seconds before passing out. I didn't however pass out but came too close for comfort. I finally got the "puck" into the trash, washed it out, baking soda'd the hell out of it, dried it and set it outside to air out. We had opened the doors and windows anyway so this helped air out the house.

This is a public service announcement to remind you NOT to ever throw those chlorine pucks in the trash. Keep them in the water if you must, but from now on, we in Team Gannon are going to just do a better job of cleaning the toilet instead of using a lazy puck. Oh, by the way, it was not the Chlorox Puck, it was the Target generic puck. I am also feeling guilty for putting my wife and dogs health at such risk all day. Sorry.

An Apple a day...

This guy has over 100 Apple computers. Check out his bar of Apple Classic II's. His girlfriend says that for every computer he brings home from now on, she will be bringing home a new pet.

Jeremy Mehrle's 100 computers

Here is a video of his collection. GEEK!

Find out what hobby suits you best. Take this quiz and start chillin' now!


--------THIS IS ME, IN LEISURE-----------

DISCOVERY


photo courtesy of baxter photography

Life is a journey, and you take the time to smell every single rose along the way. Your brain is a sponge, soaking up every detail of life around you, and you constantly look inward to figure out the ties that bind you to the universe. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it's what makes you tick. You might like hobbies like participating in archaeological digs, botany, assembling models, playing the stock market, meditation or even parapsychology.

Here is what they just posted on my favorite weather site: Weather Bug
At this rate, we will be moving into our new house with parkas and snow blowers.

The other night I went to see G3 but only stayed for Paul Gilbert. He was amazing. Not only does he shred, but he shreds with melody and style. I loved him in Racer X, dug him in Mr. Big, and I have recently been into some of his solo work.
Check out this solo.

Buy our current house...

Cuz we just bought THIS house. Signed the contract today!



Yes, finally after looking at close to 50 houses, missing out on one amazing house, we have finally put in an offer on our new home. It's a "raised ranch". That is the creative wording for a split-level. There is no snow here now, but other than that, yes, it is a bit weird on the outside but the inside is amazing. A complete remodel. 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, H-UGE backyard with covered patio, 2 car garage and much much more. Did I mention the amazing kitchen? Ok, well, more on that later.







Please tell any of your constintuents that may be in the market for a fun, hip small little city house. Thanks.

Forbes says that although the Apple TV is a slick-packaged hardback book-sized device with eye-caressing menus, it is appauling in the area of video distribution to your HDTV set. The resolution quality looks choppy and broken and the movies are expensive. They compared it to the new XBOX. While the price is higher for the XBOX, the quality puts Apple to shame.
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I found this true when I went to the Apple store to witness the unveiling of Apple TV. I was amazed at how aweful the quality of the resolution on their TVs in the store. I kept thinking "there has to be a problem or interference coming from within the mall or store itself to cause this." or "Apple would never put this bad quality out for the public to see....unless they know that no matter what they put out, most geeks will snap it up anyway."

I have read other reviews that did not point any of this out. Thanks Forbes. Come on Apple!

DRM = Digital Rights Management. 256 kbps = CD quality MP3 format.

They will be selling all of EMI music catalog in this new format. You will have a choice to either download the 256 kbps songs for $1.30 or the lower 128 kbps for $.99. If you have already purchased some of their music at the 99 cents but want the higher quality, you can can do so for just $.30 each.

The DRM is amazing too. If you want to play your new DRM-Free music on 20 computers, you can. If you are one of the few that owns a non iPod MP3 player, you may play your music on that as well.

Full story here.

Use the web.
We have been looking at new TVs for over 3 months-in-store and on the web. I am amazed at the price differences between the two. We ( I mean, I) have been looking mostly at the Sharp 42" LCD 1080p because a few of our friends have it and it works very well for these technophiles. I also have heard the Samsung is really nice, but I get two more inches in the Sharp - and boys, and girls, you know what the difference two inches can make. So it really boils down to is preference. Christy and I went to Best Buy and found a few we really liked including the Sharp and for the price, you can't beat it.

here is a site that our friend Jon sent that gives you one heck of a price.

Yep, I did twelve miles of running this weekend. I mean, I did a 12-mile run yesterday morning. Yes, that's three times around City Park. It was very close to a Half Marathon (13.1 miles). It felt really good. I made it in 1:48 too. Not bad for my first time. And no, this is not an April Fools joke.

I think I have mentioned this before on my posts, but it is amazing what you can do when you put your mind to something.
I started off this week by telling myself I can do three times around the park. I ran Monday. Lifted on Tuesday. Ran on Wednesday and then basically took Thurs and Fri. off to relax. Saturday when I work up I realized, oops, I forgot my running gear at work - how's THAT for preparation? But I have an extra pair of shoes and clothes so that was not my big concern. My big concern was that my iPod shuffle was not here. SO, thank goodness I am such a thoughtful husband and had recently purchased a green shuffle for my wife. So I asked nicely and was able to upload my running playlist to her iPod and off I went.

I think the three things that are the biggest concern when attempting to plan a 12 mile run are:

1. What to eat before a run?
2. How much water/sports drink do I need to bring? ( my lovely wife got me a runner's Camelback last week).
3. Will I end up chaffing so badly that I have to stop? - OH, and four,
4. What if I have to pee?

These all were answered soon after I rounded the second lap of the park.
First, you have to figure out what works best for you eating-wise. I have found that a bowl of Autumn Harvest Kashi cereal, with 1/2 banana and blueberries and soymilk works best. I also have a Clif Gel 15 minutes before a run.

Then before I take off I also rub vaseline on my inner thighs and nipples. This run I did not chaffe but I wore down my nipple grease and could sure have used another glob. Word of wisdom runners, bring a vial of lip balm or other grease so you can have some on hand if this happens. A few weeks ago, I dressed in the dark and put on the wrong undershorts and OOH WEE did I end up with some bad bad chaffing.

Lastly, I did not have bathroom plans for the run but ended up seeing a porta potty that was right next to path which I was able to duck into and take a much-needed 1.5 minute pee break.

I had filled up the Camelbackw with 1/2 water and half sports drink which came in very handy. I did not feel half as exhausted this time, less in fact, than my normal 8 mile saturday runs, because of the sugar and water mixture.

I would love to hear from othe runners on their hints, procedures and also eating habits. Runner's World has a plethora of beneficial info on every aspect of running.

LASTLY, my knee usually just the right one, ends up very sore right around mile 8. Any knee strengthening suggestions would be helpful as well.

Happy running.