mindplunge

Today marks my 5 year anniversary in the USA. I moved from the lowlands back in 2003 to the ‘New World’. Not a single regret… yet. I hope the Americans are smart enough coming Tuesday and don’t screw it up like they did the previous elections. We’ll see.

I guess to celebrate my 5th year I’ll be running my first 5 miler tomorrow. Kinda scary since I never ran this far. 3 miles is my current distance so 5 miles (a little over 8 Kilometers) is a hugh leap forward. I’m prepared tho! On top of it all it looks like this is going to be a wet run as well. Rain has been predicted all weekend long…

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Yesterday I started my new running program based on a 10K run from Nike+. It will prepare me for a 10K run within 12 weeks. It’s a pretty ambitious program but I’m pretty confident I can do this. Just as the C25K program I need an extra motivator to keep me running. A program will just do that.

I’m finally injury free and last week felt great to be out running again. It actually was so good I decided to jump to the 10K program. another reason not to give up running now is the drop in weight loss. This morning I was pleased to see that my weight dropped to 193.2 lbs (87.6 Kg). When I started running my weight was 211 lbs (95.7 Kg) so a significant weight loss!

My new running shoes are a bast as well. So much better. It feels like I’m less tired especially the last few miles of a run. We’re pretty fortunate when it comes to the weather here in California but the winter season is coming up and we have some rain predicted for the next few weeks. I’m considering a treadmill for a while now and I might purchase one pretty soon. Not sure if I can handle running in the rain. I guess I’m just like my dog who can’t stand rain!

For those interested in the program: my 10K running program

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Today I finally had some time to run another 5K. This run was injury free and it felt pretty good. I even had some energy left for an end spurt. I ran in the morning since we still have some high temperatures in the afternoon. It’s been 87F (30C) all week long and the forecast finally predicts some rain at the end of next week. It’s been so dry and hot up here I’m actually looking forward to a wet season.

Other then that life is full speed ahead. At work things are picking up and I’m facing some big projects. Next week will be Halloween and we’re having a party on Tuesday!

I upgraded my 20″ iMac with some additional RAM maxing it out with 4G. Pretty sweet as I noticed instantly the performance of my mac. I guess my brother just got a iPhone, rubbing it in with an email. Funny how all my friends and family email me telling they have an iPhone… It feels I’m the only one on the planet without one… Hmm…

Oh yeah, My 5K run was my fastest so far! 30′50″. Nice…

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AH, IT’S THAT WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR AGAIN: THE LEAVES ARE CHANGING, THE AIR IS GETTING CRISP, AND CHILDREN EVERYWHERE ARE LOOKING UNDER THEIR KEYBOARDS TO SEE WHAT TREATS THEY’VE SCORED IN HONOR OF INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. INVENTED BY GREETING CARD COMPANIES TO FILL THE VOID BETWEEN TRAFALGAR DAY AND MOLE DAY, CAPS LOCK DAY IS THE ONE OCCASION WHEN LOVERS OF CAPITALIZATION CAN COME TOGETHER WITH THE HATERS FROM CAPSOFF AND HACK-A-DAY AND PAY HOMAGE TO THE LITTLE KEY THAT HABITUALLY BLOWS UP YOUR SPOT WHEN TRYING TO TYPE A LOWER-CASE “A.” SO GO AHEAD, JOIN IN THE FUN, AND MAKE SURE TO ANNOY EVERYONE ON YOUR BUDDY LIST BY ACTING LIKE A N00B AND “SHOUTING” ALL OF YOUR MESSAGES TO CELEBRATE THIS HOLIEST OF DAYS.

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Obama ‘08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

With the 2008 presidential election, Americans face a pivotal choice between not just two candidates, but two paradigms. We need someone who understands the complexity of our time. Someone who believes in investing in renewable energy, in education, in women’s rights, in civil rights, in healthcare for Americans. Someone who believes in dealing with global issues with diplomacy so we can restore our respect in the world. Barack Obama represents the change we need and can lead us into a brighter future.

“Vote For Hope” was written to encourage and inspire the hip hop generation—and everyone—to get involved, and contribute their time, energy, creativity, and other resources to be the change they want to see in the world. We have been inspired by the artistic and musical contributions that have been pouring out accross the nation in support of Barack Obama’s campaign. Vote for Hope is our offering to this creative movement. It is our way of adding our small voice to the collective voice of millions of Americans calling for a change.

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It took me 23 days to finally clock some miles after finishing the C25K. I though my muscle strain wasn’t that severe but it kept me from running for a straight 3 weeks. This morning I had a good feeling. Walking wasn’t a problem anymore the last couple days and when I was walking the dog I tried a few sprints in between. No problem.

So this morning I hit the track again along the creek and ran for a 5K. My first K was way too fast since I just got of the injury. I slowed my pace down to a 10′45″ /mi. I was amazed I actually could run a 5K! Haven’t run for 23 days and being a couch potato just 3 Months ago I was pretty happy with the result.

I finished the 5K in 32′27″ which was faster I was aiming for. Anything close to 35 minutes was my goal. Maybe a short run tomorrow?

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Finally! After several years I now own the domain richardlemon.com. When I tried to register this domain 3 years ago it already was taken by a realtor in Florida sharing both my first and last name. The most annoying part was that he didn’t use this domain for years.

Two months ago I noticed his renewal was coming up and I was praying he didn’t have the auto-renewal turned on. He didn’t! After the domain expired it went into a grace period and I was able to bid on the domain. His last opportunity to renew the domain past as well and here we are. My brand new domain name.

I tried to transfer the domain to my current host Media Temple but since the domain has a new registrar I have to wait 60 days before I can transfer it. Currently it’s parked at GoDaddy and I could sign up for a hosting service. I rather have all my domains under 1 roof so Media Temple is the clear choice. Other then this Media Temple is also one heck of a host! I’ve been with them for over 5 years and their service is just outstanding. Great costumer service and there tools are phenomenal.

I’m using their Grid Server (gs):

• 100GB premium storage
• 1TB network transfer
• Host up to 100 domains
• 1000 email accounts
• Clustered architecture
• Rails & Django Containers
• MySQL SmartPool v.2
• FREE Urchin Analytics

More about Media Temple’s Grid Server

I guess I have to get started on designing my personal site pretty soon! Can’t wait to show it to you all.

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A groundbreaking ad campaign by the Barack Obama campaign appears to be targeting the couch vote: online gamers.

The new ads appear on signs and billboards inside 18 online video games – from Madden NFL ‘09 to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock – and target games in 10 battleground states with a picture of Mr. Obama and directions to the campaign’s early-voting site, VoteForChange.com.

It’s the first time, industry officials say, that a political candidate has taken advantage of a new technology that allows “dynamic in-game advertising” on games that are updated through the Internet on game units such as XBOX 360.

I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain buys ads on Solitaire, Freecell and Minesweeper…

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Scheduled tasks on a PC are easy. With a Mac it’s easy and fun! I needed to make daily backups for a client to our local server. Leopard comes with Automator, a cool app to , you’ve guessed it, automate tasks. Since I’m using Transmit as my dedicated ftp client it gets only better!

Automator has Transmit defaults build in. As stated on Transmits website it’s not in the library anymore but you can find it under the ‘Internet’ submenu of your library. Another place to look is ‘Most Relevant’ and ‘Most Used’.

setting up an workflow in Automator is pretty intuitive and you should be able to crank out a workflow within minutes. Now comes the sweet part. Rather then saving it as a workflow you can save your task as an application. To set up a scheduled task open iCal and create a new event. In the ‘alarm’ section select ‘open file’ and pick your newly created application. You can manually set the time when to launch this, in my case 3X a week at midnight.

When waking up my files are downloaded to the folder I told it to, zipped up and renamed with a date stamp. Life is sweet…

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Christmas decoration? Already? …

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