Running Redux

So I did a little fact-checking on my previous post on running and discovered that my times were wrong. Turns out I wasn't slowing down with every consecutive race. Below are the correct times and dates (all 5K races).

(Above are pics from my most recent race.)

Sept 16, 2007

Banana Chase Race
22:26 7:14/M

September 23, 2007

Komen Breast Cancer
22.03

November 18, 2007

Run for Hunger
21:50.70

February 2, 2008

Kaiser Permanente
22:54 7:23/M

September 14, 2008

Banana Chase Race
22:09 7:09/M

I'm a Dad

Today, at breakfast in the kitchen, my oldest son (5 yrs), was looking out the window up at the roof.

He asked, "Dad, how does Santa get down the chimney?"

I said, "You mean, how does a big guy like that fit down the chimney and into the fireplace and into the house?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "That - is a very good question."

And then I walked out of the kitchen.

Web 2.0 Social Apps

In socio-economics there's the upper class, the middle class and the lower class.  In a wired society there's: the power users, the lay-user and the afraid-of-the-computer user.  In a web 2.0 society: the update-every-days, the update-once-in-a-whiles and the why-bothers.

The people who use web 2.0 social web apps is a subset of a subset of a small set.  They are all techies and are playing to the techie crowd.  Question is: will these sites continue to only play to the techie crowd, or as time goes by, will the new (younger) generation become the update-ever-day kind and take these sites out of hobby-mode to actually-can-make-money status?

I check facebook and friendfeed all the time but what I find is that there's only a certain minority of my friends who use these web 2.0 apps, and an even smaller subset of them that update their status or other feed-worthy activity. It's a very small set of people who are avid users, the majority of all my friends (all of whom use email) don't use the web 2.0 app because there's little return on investment (of time).

Updating one's status, or one's blog or any 'feed-worthy' activity is an investment of time. Why would I want to write a review on a travel site or a movie review site or a restaurant review site? What do I get in return?  If I feel like I'm party of a community then maybe it's stature.  Most of the time, it's for people to broadcast their thoughts opinions.  Most people don't care to broadcast.

Maybe future generations will be using these web 2.0 apps like we use the telephone.  Blogging and broadcasting feed-worthy activity will be as routine as checking email.  Maybe.

amazon's new subscribe and save

I've signed up for something on amazon called subscribe and save (http://www.amazon.com/sands/)

Basically, you buy stuff like paper products, toiletries and stuff you would normally buy at Costco and have it shipped to you for free. And then they send the same bulk item to you 3 or 6 or 9 months later automatically. You can modify the frequency. The shipping is free and buying in bulk saves you some as well.

I hate making the trip to Costco so this was a no-brainer.

Amazon has a lot of 'green' brands as well, but not the wide selection that costco has to offer. Still, it's worth trying out for a few months and see if I like it.

Politics - Show up or Shut up

I’m not going to rant or rave about the state of politics today. I’m just going to cut to the chase. It comes down to just one thing and one thing only:

Will the vast number of newly registered voters show up on Tuesday.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Period.

Many of them are Democrats registered by the well-organized Obama campaign and they’re in key states. So the numbers heavily favor Obama.

But, many of them are also young. And young voters are notorious for not showing up at the polls on election day. However, many of these young voters DID show up for the Democratic

primaries and caucases and were a major proponent of Obama’s victories against Hillary.

I don’t know the answer to my own question above.

I’m guessing that when the dust settles, the Palin effect will diminish and perhaps even backfire. But that’s just a guess.

There’s about 50 days left and depending on how you look at it, that’s very little time or a lot of time, for things to change.