Time for a road trip! Me and A will drive down to Los Angeles to visit my family for Thanksgiving. It will be a combination of business and pleasure and I’m really looking forward t it. I haven’t had a decent vacation in a while so this trip is pretty welcome. More later!

Tomorrow I’ll be in the Bay area. First we are going to visit the acupuncture school in Oakland and see if it’s any good. Afterwards we’re invited by David to go to the Green Festivals in San Francisco.

A speaker at the Green Festivals is Chuck D. of Public Enemy, one of my teenage heroes but unfortunately he spoke today… too bad. I’m sure there are lots of other things to do and I’m looking forward to what Joey Shepp has to say about The Green Web: Advancing Sustainability on the Internet. Could be interesting.

I’ll have my camera ready and will have some pictures up by Sunday!

Last week everything fell into place. Somehow I discovered hulu.com. I thought: wow, great concept. Finally a way to watch all my favorite shows. A few weeks ago we decided to ditch Dish network (our satelite TV provider) simply because there was nothing on TV (600 channels, go figure). Most shows can be viewed online these days so why pay Dish $70/month if I can access the content for free? Right?

Then I came across this link at popurls: The end of TV. YES! Simply brilliant. It’s called Boxee.

On a laptop or connected to an HDTV, Boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.

This weekend I got the 40G Apple TVatv. Hacked it with atvusb-creator and uploaded Boxee on the atv. It took me a little while to get it all working but the great community at the boxee forum helped me out. Altering my profile xml file and I was good to go! All my shows back on TV.

Now I can watch the things I want, when I want. Another great thing is adding your own RSS feeds (video or audio, even torrents!). So today I added the Dutch news (NOS journaal) as a feed and I’m able to watch ‘het 8 uur journaal’. Simply amazing.

Obama was right: A Change has come to America, it’s a new Dawn.

Dear Americans. Don’t screw it up like you did the past 2 elections! Vote for Change, not for fear.

PS: Disregard the Google ads on prop 8 posted on this blog. Vote NO on 8!

I wasn’t kidding when I told you the Nike+ training program was ambitious. Yesterday I had a 5 mile (8.05 Km) run planned and since 3 mile was the furthest distance I ever ran you can imagine I wasn’t looking forward for this. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of running this distance. On top of it all it was pouring down yesterday morning… great.

But I came prepared. Recently I purchased the New Balance NBx Control Tights, some Nike Dry-Fit long sleeve shirt and of course my new Brooks running shoes. I had Aleisha drop me off 4 miles from home on the other end of the creek. Although the rain was puring down for the first 15 minutes of the run I felt pretty warm. There was hardly any wind and temperature wise it felt like low 60’s.

My run was close to perfect! I was afraid of mile 4 but I had enough energy left to finish the last mile. I felt a blister coming up but it wasn’t significant enough to stop running. Once again I had enough power at the end to perform a little sprint! I’m pretty happy with the result of my first 5 mile!

Some numbers:

Distance: 5.06 mi
Time: 54′05″
Pace: 10′41″/mi

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…

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

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…

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.