joereger.com

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Joe Reger, Jr. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:29:00 GMT

If all goes well this picture post won't appear on Facebook (or in my rss.xml feed) for at least 48 hours. Found a little bug in the code that grants me this grace period between when I post with my camera phone and when I give the day's pictures a title and a description.

Phones and Hard Drives

Joe Reger, Jr. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:46:00 GMT

After a whirlwind week and a Saturday that just wouldn't quit I find myself on a Sunday morning. With some coffee. Doing some geeky research.

My Verizon New in Two plan matures on Feb 20th. Which means it's time to get a new phone. I've been eyeballing the Palm Pre since they announced it, what, a year and a half ago? Verizon finally started carrying them on Jan 25th. It's definitely the frontrunner.

But then Marty Trujillo goes and blogs up a storm about his Droid. I started looking into the Nexus One and like the notion of its many-pixeled screen and fab OS. It's not out for a while though. And its form factor is bigger than the Pre.

My laptop drive is again driving me nuts. It locks the CPU up and generally makes the CPU unbearable. It's my second SSD on the Dell d420 and last night I gave up on SSD after 3 years and was ready to roll out to Frys to get a new, standard one. My father was up for the trip.

This morning I woke him up on instant message and checked store hours. Also looked into the details of the drive I need more closely. Turns out it's hard to find and nobody in town will actually carry it.

Damn early adopter-ness.

Got onto chat with Dell... not in the mood for human interaction today. Took a while but found a 40Gb for $200. Most lappy hard drives are running $60 for 160Gb. But it has the hard-to-find ZIF connector and the Dell-won't-sell-separately rubber bootie that makes it fit into the case perfectly. Father was up for the spend so I started to place the order.

Then Sr finds my entire laptop on eBay for $300. With a 60Gb hard drive. Wtf? So I cancel the hard disk order.

And now we're in research mode trying to figure out what to do.

Still sipping my coffee, avoiding human interaction. Plenty of that coming up this week.

A Trip to the Blabla Store

Joe Reger, Jr. — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:43:00 GMT

We love Blabla dolls! Video here.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Joe Reger, Jr. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:49:59 GMT

Am I Easily Offended?

Joe Reger, Jr. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:50:00 GMT

For years I've told people that "I'm not easily offended." But that's not an accurate statement. If you hit the right issue in the right way I'm terribly easy to offend. What I should have been saying all these years is that "I'm not offended by many things."

People take too many things too seriously. To many causes. To many us vs. thems. I like to pick my battles and if I don't have a dog in the fight I don't really care what you say.

Why the change? I told my dentist, Dr. Snyder, that I'm hard to offend. He raised his eyebrows and said that he's easy to offend. Which got me thinking. After a couple weeks, this blog post.

What are my issues? They usually boil down to respect for others. In life. In business. In politics. I'm quite sensitive to respect. Argue against somebody all day and I'm cool with it. But insult that person and I'm jumping in.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Joe Reger, Jr. — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:01:13 GMT

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Joe Reger, Jr. — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:16:32 GMT

The Morning Run

Joe Reger, Jr. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:14:00 GMT

Man tights made it awesome! Thicker gloves didn't hurt either. No iPod or HRM these days... au natural!

TEDx Atlanta

Joe Reger, Jr. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:17:00 GMT

LOL Car

Joe Reger, Jr. — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:51:00 GMT

Spotted on I-285 this morning... license plate is LOL... which isn't what she'll say if anything, even a bicycle, hits her.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Joe Reger, Jr. — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:01:31 GMT

Thought Patterns in Training

Joe Reger, Jr. — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:16:00 GMT

Today I was struck (again) by the power of ingrained thought patterns in training. A little review: in the beginning I went short and hard... after a season or so I learned the power of base training and did a lot of it... after three seasons or so I learned to base train early and then turn towards speed/intensity later in the season... by the fifth and sixth season I was trying to maintain certain speed targets year round.

Which brings us to today. After a couple (few?) good solid years I've had a major lull in training this winter. Thought patterns contributed to this lull and have made it tricky to get out. I'm not sweating it but it's worth noting.

As the season ends I find myself pretty fit with a bunch of speed. I always... always... say that I'm going to take it easy. And then I always... always... hit it hard... every single workout. Which burns me out, spends through my base training bank account and leaves me a heaping pile of not fit.

But why? I know better. I know base training is what I should be doing. Heck, it's what I want to do. The answer is thought patterns.

It's deeper than just "what should i do today?" It's a drive. It's in the reptilian brain. I'll start off-season workouts slowly but I can just feel myself getting pulled into the speed and intensity.

Fast forward through the burnout and bottoming out of fitness to today. I start to get back into it. I have no time goals. No urgency. Just out to enjoy a pre-dawn run. But there's the drive to go faster. It's what I remember. It's the last training memory my reptilian brain has so it pursues it.

I also experience the reverse. When I'm All Base, All the Time and try to switch into the speedwork I find that I have to change my thought patterns dramatically. I go for speed but suddenly find myself at a base exertion.

Being aware of it should help me counter it. But I've been aware of it for a long time. It's a skill. A skill that needs to be honed. Mixing up base with intensity is something I don't do well. I get into one mode or the other. I should try to be more balanced.

I suspect we all experience this patterning in many areas of our life. Food. Work. Relationships. But in triathlon the undercurrents come to the surface a little more obviously thanks to the magic of heart rate monitors and gps. Relationship-o-meter anybody?

I.D. Presentation Day

Joe Reger, Jr. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:17:00 GMT

Team I.D. presenting to, well, can't tell ya. But we had fun doing it and we look forward to the next steps. Michael Gibson worked on a mural for the Herman Miller space in Atlanta. They offered usage of their incredibly modern meeting rooms so we took them up on the offer.

2010 North Cobb Warrior Metric Century 3/27/10

Joe Reger, Jr. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:40:00 GMT

My friend Michael Bennett is putting on the 2010 North Cobb Warrior Metric Century on March 27th. He's been kind enough to share behind-the-scenes with me over the past few months as he's gotten it off the ground, gotten township clearances, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be a great event with a great course. Put this one onto your calendars. Check the attached flyer for details. Thanks to Michael for putting this together. More info as it becomes available!

Dr. Snyder for Dental

Joe Reger, Jr. — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:23:00 GMT

Great dental practice. I've been in a bunch lately. One more session and my big painful tooth issue will (finally) be gone.