Happy Birthday to My Blog

I was looking back at my Blog the other day and realized that I first posted to this Blog 3 years ago today. What started out as a Wordpress blog turned into a Drupal Blog and it keeps changing a little bit all the time. As I learn more about CSS or Photoshop I keep making changes trying to improve my site. I don't use it as often as I intended but I am working on that. I do tend to use it a lot when I am training for the 3 Day but I need to expand on that. I plan to keep using and developing the site for some time to come.

 

Drupal 7 Coming Soon

Drupal 7, the newest version of Drupal is coming soon. It is scheduled to release on January 5th. I have worked with the release candidates and beta releases a little bit and I am really looking forward to it's release and the associated module updates. There are some very cool enhancements in the new version I want to use. The new admin overlay and admin theme are very nice. It also seems a little snappier to me so far. If you are interested in more information you can follow the link on my page to the Drupal 7 start resources.

 

Finally Free Time to Work on Sites

I am so glad to be done with work for today so that I can have a long weekend to just spend with my family and not worry about work. I have some other things I would like to work on that I have been neglecting as well that I hope to get to this weekend. I have not spent any time working on my website or any other websites lately and I need to change that. Working on the couple websites that I do work on is something I enjoy. It can be frustrating at times because i really don't have the background for the artistic side of web design. I do enjoy spending time figuring out the CSS to make a site look like I want it to. I have to get better at being more creative in how I lay things out. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have updates made to my site as well as the Drupal414 site. That is the site that belongs to the Milwaukee Drupal Users Group and I have started attending those meetings and am starting to get involved in that group. It's fun to get together with some others that are working with the same platform and hear about some of the challenges that others are facing. Most of my issues are pretty minor. Can't wait for January for the release of Drupal 7. I really like some of the changes in the platform. I really can't wait until the modules I need are updated so I can convert my site to Drupal 7.

 

The San Diego 3-Day 2010 Edition

This past weekend I travelled to San Diego to walk in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. This was my fourth walk and my second time in San Diego. This was a very challenging walk and I think that it may have been the most challenging of the 4 because of the extreme weather.

I arrived in San Diego Thursday afternoon and travelled to my Hotel in Del Mar. As I was resting in my room before dinner I felt it shake a bit. I checked the USGS website and it confirmed that there had been a small quake in the area. That was a new experience for me.

Friday morning the team headed over to Opening Ceremonies and it was kind of a gray day. Last year it was sunny but cooler. One of the things our team had decided was that we had to get in better position to get out on the route faster this year. We were buried in the crowd last year and the first day was often a painful shuffle in crowds which resulted in us getting into camp at about 5:00 p.m. This year we got out front and it made a huge difference. We were able to walk at a good pace for the day and ended up in camp by 3:00 p.m. The hill into Torey Pines was a little easier this year as I had done some hill training but it still required me to slow down for a little bit. Most of the route was the same as last year but it was still a fun walk. It was nice to get into camp while it was still light out. There were some local Brownie and Girl Scout Troops that were working as Tent Angels that got our gear and setup our tents for us. That was much appreciated after the 20.5 miles of Day 1. We had to get everything under cover as there was a chance of rain overnight.

Saturday morning was cool but dry when we got up. That didn't last for long. The showers started as we headed out of Breakfast and got heavier all morning. As we were crossing streets it often felt like we were fording small streams. Water was everywhere. It was nearly impossible to keep dry. When we finally got to lunch, they had brought in busses for us to sit on and eat our lunches so we could dry out for a short time. It felt great. There were however lots of people that had enough of the morning and wanted to head back to camp. As we were finishing up our lunch, a bus captain got on our bus and asked how many people were going to camp versus just having lunch. Our team was the only group on that bus that was heading back out for the afternoon. The afternoon was more frustrating than the morning. As we headed out of lunch if felt like we were walking straight into the wind and driving rain. The afternoon was one of my favorites parts last year as we walked right along the Ocean but the weather made it more of a test of survival rather than an enjoyable walk. The funny part was that the rain stopped and the sun came out about half of a mile out of camp. We walked into camp and I was amazed to find that my tent was actually dry. After dinner and a hot shower I crawled into my sleeping bag to get some rest before day 3.

Sunday morning looked like it was going to be a good walking day. It was sunny and clear as we set out. This was very welcome after the overnight cold and showers. They changed the route a little this year so we got a little different view to start out. The sun went away too soon and it was raining by the time we left the first pit stop. The most challenging part of the day was walking the hill in Old Town in the rain. Water was coming down the hill like a waterfall and was cascading over the sidewalk in many places. The hill is not really long but it is steep and gives you a good workout. Once you get to the top of that stretch it's pretty much down hill for the rest of the day. They opened up part of a High School for us to be able to eat our lunch and dry out. It was a short 2.7 miles to holding after lunch. We got there nice and early and decided to grab our gear and head for the Hotel to dry out right away. A couple members of the team went back for closing but I chose to rest my sore wet feet before dinner. The weather actually cleared and it was beautiful for closing.

The weather made the weekend challenging but I still had a great time. We had 3800 walkers and raised $10.6 Million Dollars this weekend. Thank you to all that donated to help us reach this amount. I am already registered for the Twin Cities for 2011 and I can't wait. Thanks again to my team who I really enjoy walking with. See you next year.

Trying Out a New Video Adapter

One of the drawbacks to having a laptop as your primary computer is the lack expansion capabilities. Video is one of the things I have wanted to expand for some time and I had not found anything promising until now. I have my Macbook Pro connected to a 22" Dell Monitor and I love the widescreen, but there are times that I wish I had a little more space to work with. I did a little searching today and found a device made by Diamond that allows you to connect additional monitors using USB on your Laptop. It has to be USB2 to work with this device but that shouldn't be a problem on most modern laptops. When I get my adapter later this week I can plug in a 2nd 22" Widescreen to my Macbook Pro and have more space when I am working on websites now. Will post more later when I receive the adapter and give it a try.

I Hate Internet Explorer

I really do hate Internet Explorer and can't understand why Microsoft can meet Browser Standards like others do. I spent some hours this afternoon modifying CSS for my Church website and got everything how I wanted it to look for now only to find that IE6 and IE7 don't like the CSS so I have to spend more time to figure out how to fix the issues. I mean if Firefox, Safari, Camino, and Chrome all work why can't IE.

 

Yup. That's Me

I was searching for a video on a song that I really like and came across this video blog from the artist that sing the song that I was looking for. The blog is at their vimeo site Healing Begins Journal Blog. I watched the blog and it struck a little too close to home. I think the author is right on when he says that it's easy to own up to our shortcomings when we are in prayer because there really is no one to admonish us or call us on what we have done. It's much harder to sit down and talk to a friend or pastor and admit that we are not perfect and actually provide real examples of things that we really aren't proud of. It's given me something to think about.

A Song That Speaks to Me

There is a song by Tenth Avenue North called "Healing Begins" that really has made impression on me recently. The song talks about letting go of all our pretenses so that we can face our failings and get beyond them. The refrain reminds us that healing begins when the light meets the dark. We have to admit that we are broken and need help. Only through the light of Christ can we overcome our darkness. I know that too often I think I have everything under control and I really don't. I have as many issues to face as anyone else and I need strength to overcome my weakness.

 

Another 3-Day

Well I haven't even finished fundraising for this year yet and it is still 98 days until I walk this year but I have aleady registered for next year. Next year will be my 5th 3-Day and I will be walking in my 3rd City. I have walked two years in Chicago, I will have walked two years in San Diego, and next year I will be walking in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The group that I am walking with decided that it's a little expensive to do longer trips each year so we are going to stick with something closer to home next year. The Twin Cities is a comfortable 6 hour drive from Milwaukee so I won't have any airfare next year. That will be good. I have also heard good things about the Twin Cities 3-Day so I am looking forward to walking in another city.

 

Missing Chicago

This weekend was the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the cure in Chicago. I had registered to walk in Chicago with my team but changed cities earlier this summer. This year has been a bad year with heat and humidity for me and my allergies so I decided that I was better off with walking in San Diego again this year. I don't miss the heat in Chicago but i did miss seeing my teammates there this weekend. I ended up having to work this weekend so I didn't even get to go down for Dinner or to cheer the team on. It looks like they had decent weather and they raised about $4.5 Million dollars for the fight against Breast Cancer. Nice job Chicago. Can't wait to see some of the team in San Diego in November.

Promoting Drupal

Drupal is a Open Source Content Management System that I started working with a couple of years ago. I originally started looking at it because I wanted to update my Church website off of a static Dreamweaver based website to something that would be easier for multiple people to update. I have since used it to develop this simple blog website as well as a couple of smaller websites for local groups. My sites are still pretty simple and I am constantly learning better ways to accomplish things using Drupal and it keeps getting better with new revisions.

The learning curve for Drupal is quite steep because it is very powerful but once you get started there are so many things that you can do with it. Drupal.org has a large community that does a pretty good job of answering questions for those that have taken the time to do some basic research.

One of the drawbacks with Drupal is it has not had as much exposure in the past as other CMS's like Wordpress. Drupal is working on that but needs more support. Recently Drupal was setting up a booth at OSCON to get more exposure. They asked for donations from the Drupal Community to help cover the costs of the booth. They had a target of $2500 and came up a bit short so they may not have been as successful as they would have liked. I find it a bit amazing that with all the people that are using and developing Drupal that they could not raise such a small amount. If the Drupal community wants to see Drupal succeed we need to do a better job of supporting efforts like this to get Drupal more exposure.

Drupal is a great CMS but it needs more than just the developers to help it grow. For those of us that are not developers or programmers that use Drupal we need to do our part to help it grow in other ways. That means that more of us have to be willing to donate when we can to help get the word out.

AYOP - A New Experience

I spent most of this week at Notre Dame University attending AYOP. AYOP stands for America's Youth on Parade and it is the premiere event for Baton Twirlers and Flag Corps. My daughters were competing in some twirling and some flag corp events. This was a new experience since all of the competitions that I had previously attended were much smaller. There were kids here from all over the country and different parts of Canada.

There were some very talented groups in attendance. The groups ranged from very large to very small and every where in between. With different events every day, it was pretty chaotic most days but the girls had a good time and learned more about an activity that they enjoy.

My wife had to work this week so I was a solo dad at AYOP and that was a challenge. The girls have to have different outfits and hairstyles for their different events. I am very grateful to the mothers of other members of our corp that took pity on me and helped with the girls hair throughout the week. The families in our Corp do a really nice job of helping each other out and I really appreciate their help this week.

My girls are already looking forward to next year.

 

Little Training But Lots to Do

I have not been getting much training lately as I have been running my daughters to their practices and activities since school let out. The activities are fun but I will be glad in a couple weeks when the competitions are over and we can relax a bit more for the rest of the summer. I will finally be able to get back to my training also. I am not walking until November so I have plenty of time to train but I do miss my walking. I find it to be relaxing.

I also have plenty of other things to work on this summer. I am working on upgrading several websites and there are so many things I want to make better as I have learned so much since I first rolled out the sites.

No Blisters

I have had issues with blisters every year that I walk the 3-Day. Last year in San Diego was my worst and this spring with my new shoes I have been getting some in places I had not previously. I used to use Body Glide on my feet every time I walked but that was not working very well. I must not have been putting enough on because I was still getting blisters. Well I decided to change tactics this past Sunday when I went out and so far the new strategy has been successful. Two walks and no blisters. Even with the 11 Miles on Sunday I was blister free. This time I used a strategy that I had heard others use but had not tried. I spread a generous layer of Vaseline on my feet wherever I knew I got hot spots or blisters. When I felt that it was wearing off, about 6-7 miles, I stopped and re-applied and it worked great so far. It felt a little strange at first when I started out but that did not last. Going to keep doing this all year and see if I can make it through the 3-Day with no blisters this year.

Summer Training

Well I decided to go out and get a decent length walk in today as I have been kind of busy and have not been walking as much as I would like lately. I guess I missed the part in the weather forecast where it said it was going to be this hot. I thought maybe we would get to about 80 so it would be good training. Turned out it was almost 80 by the time I left at 9:30 and it was pushing 90 by the time I finished my 11.2 miles today. I had almost forgotten how much I hate walking in this kind of heat. It was 90+ each day of my first 3-Day in 2007 and I almost passed out a couple times on day 1. Today I had to really make sure I was drinking enough Gatorade and I bought a bottle of cold water at a gas station just to have cold water to dump over my head and hat to cool me down a little. I missed the cooling stations that they have during the 3-Day. I usually take advantage of those to cool down in Chicago. That was one thing I didn't have to worry about last year in San Diego. The weather in San Diego was perfect and I much prefer walking in 65-70 than 85-95. I am waiting for them to announce the days for next year. I suspect that I may have a conflict with my Family Reunion and Chicago so next year it may be back to sunny San Diego.

I guess I better get used to it for now. Summer is just starting.

 

Mac Stuff

I have wanted to take a look at the iPad since it came out and finally got a chance to take a look at one today. It is an interesting device but I have decided that I will not be getting one. I can't justify having multiple devices with 3G accounts so I will have to stick with my iPhone for now. I am hoping that they will announce new iPhones and tethering this summer and that will make it easier to use my Macbook Pro when I am away from home. There are a couple of places I go with regularity that do not have any WIFI access and that limits what I can do when I am there. I still use my Macbook at my Desk more than away but it is nice to have the ability to take it with me as I go other places.

 

Geeks and God is Back

I had mentioned a couple days ago that I was very surprised to find that the Geeks and God Podcast is back on the air. The format is a little different than the past but it is still a great podcast worth listening to. The original hosts are no longer doing the podcast but they have very capable replacements. The hosts are now a group of about 5 or 6 guys that have been long time moderators on the Geeks and God Forums. They bring differing expertise to the table and so far the two episodes that I have listened to have been pretty good. They are now doing the podcast monthly instead of weekly but the format seems to be working well. it's not the weekly fix that I had been used to in the past but I am looking forward to the next podcast in May.

Blog Categories: 

Technology

Training and Stuff

Training for the 3-Day

Well the weather here in Wisconsin has been pretty hit and miss. We had some very awesome weather and things have kind of gotten cool again so I have not been walking as much. I did get a couple of good 10 Mile walks in the first two weekend of April but have been a little lax since then. I hope to get back to some longer walking this weekend but the weather may not cooperate and it may rain all weekend. We'll have to see what the temp is like. If it's not too cold I will do some training in the rain.

Podcasts

I don't listen to that many Podcasts with any regularity. I used to listen to Geeks and God every week and really looked forward to it but they stopped producing weekly Podcasts last fall as they are working on a new project. I was really surprised to see that there were a couple new podcasts when I checked out the site the other day. The original guys had a special podcast to publicize efforts to get more people so sponsor children through Compassion. They also were announcing that the Geeks and God Podcasts would be back on a Monthly basis with new hosts. The new hosts have all been active members of the Geeks and God Forums and I am really looking forward to checking out their podcasts as I have some spare time this week. Will let you know what I think.

 

Back to Training

I finished up work early enough today that I got to think about taking a Training Walk. Since I have had some supporters make donations I decided it was time I got back to my training. At 48 degrees it was not that bad for walking. I went out when the Sun was still out and it was a nice walk. The Sun was pretty much down by the time I finished so it was a little cooler but all in all it wasn't a bad walk. I put in 6.1 miles today and feel pretty good. You know you are really starting to train when you start feeling hot spots on familiar places on your foot. Time to break out the Body Glide. Hopefully this mild weather will stay and I can start getting out a couple of times during the week.

New Fundraising Method

This year I decided that I can't rely on just sending out e-mail to get donations like I have in the past. I need to branch out a little so I am putting together some 3 Day Business Cards with Donation information on them and I am going to post them on posters in public places that have spaces like Grocery stores and Libraries and maybe some other Businesses. I just ordered my Business Cards today and am going to work on my posters this week so that I can get them out in public as soon as the Business Cards arrive. Will post later to let you know how this is working.

Blog Categories: 

3-Day

Fund Raising Started

Well the weather has not been the greatest so far so I have not been walking much but I did start my Fund Raising. It's been a little slow so far but the donations that I have gotten have been great and I am off to a decent start. I plan to put some posters with donation information in local stores and see if I can get some more donations locally in addition to what I am working on through e-mail. I am also looking at holding a local fund raiser at BW3 if they accept my application.

First 2010 Training Walk

Well I started training earlier this year than I did the last two years. It was so nice today I had to get out and get my first training walk in. We don't get many 40 degree days in February so I had to take advantage of it. It was 39 and Sunny at 3:00 in the afternoon so I got out my walking shoes, fanny pack, and pedometer and hit the road. I ended up doing just under 5 miles and felt really good. It was nice to get out and try out my new walking shoes too. The Keens that I have worn the last two years are getting a litlte worn out so I got new shoes for this year. I got a pair of New Balance MW1200's. These shoes are very light and breathe well so that may help me avoid getting blisters this year. The biggest issue I had with these new shoes is they breath well and that is a bit chilly this time of year.

Drupal 7 First Impressions

The Alpha for Drupal 7 has been out for a week now so I had to download and install it to see what this new version is going to be like. I installed it on my Mac running MAMP as that is the sytem I used for development and testing. The install went easily enough. Enter the Database name, username, and password and you are on your way. There were a couple more choices for options during the initial install but those are pretty self explanatory.

The first thing I noticed when I logged in was the Dashboard and admin menu. I am really liking that this is now part of Drupal Core since I always installed the admin menu module as one of the first things I did whenever I install Drupal. I love the new menu overlays. They make things much easier to find.

The other thing I noticed right away is that it seems faster. Granted I am running with a very Basic system with no extra modules enabled yet but it seems faster out of the box to me. I am going to take more time this weekend to setup a copy of my Website running on the new version to see how well it works and go through all of the options to see what else i can find.

Based on what I have seen so far, I can't wait for Drupal 7 to get to a Release version so I can convert my existing sites to it.

Good Drupal Training

I have been using Drupal to manage several websites for a couple years now but really have not spent as much time as I should have in learning more about CSS and Drupal theming. I have been relying on Drupal themes that others have put together and just making some very minor changes to the themes for the sites that I am maintaining. I spent some time over Christmas break working on a new theme for my Blog site and for my 3 Day Team site. To learn more about theming in Drupal I ordered some downloadable video tutorials from a group call the Lullabots that do training on how to do things in Drupal. I have not made it all the way through both videos yet but they are already helping me understand the theming much better than I had before and I consider them a good investment. The only problem I have now is having enough time to make all of the changes that I want to.

 

Back to Chicago in 2010

After having walked in San Diego in 2009, I look forward to walking with the team in Chicago again in 2010. San Diego was an awesome time but I did decide to go there because I could not walk in Chicago because of work and my Family Reunion. I really did enjoy the experience of walking in another city though and think that I might have to make that a somewhat regular practice. Maybe I will end up doing every other year in another city. Here is for hoping for non tropical weather in August in Chicago