Watching time, the only true currency // A journal from John B. Roberts
David posts the details on the OpenDNS blog, and I want to call attention to the opportunity. We’re looking to pay someone to work quickly to create a Thunderbird extension using the REST API for the anti-phishing website launching shortly. If you’re interested, or know folks who might be, please hurry… need testable code by this coming Friday, September 26th.
If you have other ideas for how to put the API to use, go ahead and suggest them.
I can’t find a restaurant website, so the Yahoo! Local entry will have to do: Kiantis Pizza & Pasta Bar turned out to be an inspired (if totally fortunate) choice for dinner on Saturday night. Our walkable choices were not so inspiring, so we risked children’s fatigue levels and drove to downtown Santa Cruz — and it was great. Kiantis wasn’t a destination for us, but it fit the bill.
First, the wait wasn’t terrible, even on a Saturday night at 6:30pm in a town filled with a few hundred extra folks looking for a pasta fuel-up. (ahem)
Second, I found street parking less than a block away, even though the restaurant is on the main drag downtown, at 1100 Pacific Avenue.
Third, the 7pm wacky celebration was a total surprise. All the employees start dancing to a very loud rendition of “Hot, Hot, Hot,” and then the two of the top three finalists in the acrobatic division of the World Pizza Games showed off some of their moves. Pretty snazzy.
Fourth, the food was good. Not inspiring, but good — and we were in a hurry, with two children under the age of six, so inspiring was not the goal.
Fifth, and most important, we got great service. The waiter followed our lead when we jumped right into ordering, offered useful advice about spiciness on a kids’ meal, suggested separate bowls for the children’s meals, and generally was a step ahead all the way through, with a smile. Remarkable service, and made the whole evening a lot more fun. I’ve eaten at much more expensive places with less rewarding interaction and service.
I was sore yesterday, and I’m sore now, and we’ll see about tomorrow, but yesterday morning’s triathlon went well. The Santa Cruz Sentinel Triathlon is an Olympic distance race, which means it’s officially a 1.5K swim, 40K bike, and 10K run.
Update: The organizers sent an apologetic email after the fact letting all racers know that the run distance was mis-measured. Instead of running 6.2 miles (that’s 10K), we all ran 6.85 miles. That makes me feel much better about my run.
My total time was 2:28:00, which put me 143rd overall out of 856 total entrants. I was 19th in the M35-39 age group. (Full results, if you’re interested.)
I’ve competed in the Sentinel twice before, in 1999 and 2001, and I’m not faster now. 😉 Still, the bike course was lengthened by a bit under two miles sometime between 2001 and 2006, so it’s not all age. (And, we now know, the run was mis-measured in 2006.) I’m glad they moved to chip timing, too, so I can do a blow-by-blow breakdown of each different leg
Time: 27:54
Rank: 372 (Yeah, never my best leg… maybe I’ll have to try a warmup sometime.)
Time: 4:26 (Knew it was slow, but oof… although that does include the run from the beach to the transition, not just my clumsy efforts to remove the wetsuit.)
Time: 1:08:27
Rank: 140
Average speed: 21.7 MPH
Time: 1:49
Time: 45:24 for 6.85 miles (In 1999, I ran ~42:00 for 10K, by my watch. In 2001, 40:07 for 10K, back when I was running a lot.)
Rank: 77
Average speed: 7:19 per mile 6:37 per mile
In 2001, I was 134th, with a 2:12:51. In 1999, I was 141st with a 2:10:30.
All these details are blog as backup brain. When I look back in five or ten years, I hope I’m racing still…and this year’s times are not too out of reach.