When a backup isn't a backup!

A couple of years ago, I bought a Seagate FreeAgent disk drive to backup my laptop. In keeping with tradition, my father bought the same drive to backup his computer. Over the Christmas holidays, the backup drive stopped working as you could feel the drive spinning but Windows Vista would not detect the drive. While at home on the weekend my father asked me to take a look at it. We ran the diagnostic software and it said that the drive was toast. We ran the disk recovery software and it said that it could not recovery any files. Once back in Ottawa, I did a couple of more tests and found to my surprise that the drive is still under warranty. Sweet! The repair depot is located near Toronto. Seagate is very precise on how they want the drive packaged for return. The drive has to be surrounded by 2" of foam on all sides. Where to find 2" foam rubber? I had a brainwave which saved the day. Fabric stores sell foam rubber for folks that want to make cushions and comforters. I headed out at lunch to a fabric stores and bought a 2' x 2' x 1" foam rubber pad and cut it into segments to fit a box. I'll send the box on its way tomorrow and see what Seagate does.

Whole Foods rocks

Today, while doing some Christmas shopping with my folks we stopped in at Whole Foods in Oakville. I was going to pop in and buy some Pomegranate tea that I spied last time I was at the Baltimore Whole Foods store. This would be my third visit to Whole Foods. Jason and I went their in the fall and I grabbed some lunch when he was returning some things.

My folks were really impressed with the place and asked if we could go back after Christmas. My mother bought a wide variety of cheeses that she hasn't seen in years. As we were walking by the bakery we picked up a fresh baguette for dinner. I stocked up on some of the exotic black teas that looked yummy. We went up and down every aisle and enjoyed taking in the Whole Foods experience. Since it was close to lunch time had paninis for lunch. Jason thanks for taking me to Whole Foods in the fall, as a trip their is the easiest way of having really stoked parents.

Moving

I've been thinking about moving for a little while and made the plunge recently to a larger place. I am a little further from the office which may or may not be a good thing. With the help of my parents we purged, packed and cleaned my old place over a couple of days. On the weekend, I moved into my new place using a 14 foot U-Haul truck that was 3/4s full. The weather cooperated as it was a sunny and a cool 8C/46.4F. It took about two hours to fill the truck and I fell in love with the box cart as I could move three boxes at a time. The drive to the new place took about ten minutes. It a little long to unload the truck at the new place as the elevator was smaller. I think that my new place is double the size of my old one. I'll blog more on the adventure soon.

During my moving week I stayed with my parents at a downtown hotel. It was more convenience for everyone and my parents did want to tackle the Ottawa city traffic. Our bedroom looked down onto a day care. As we drank our morning tea we would watch the parents drop the kids at a really early hour of 7:00 AM. The kids were all bundled up and looked like minature Michelin-man people. Before we would head out for the day we watch the kids playing during recess. Some would be making snow angels, other on tricycles, throwing snow, shoveling snow and have fun in the cold weather. One of the things they did brought a smile to my face and that was the hoola hoop. They had learned about wiggling the hips thing and we happy to throw it five feet away and to pick it up and throw it another five feet. They were getting joy from just tossing around some plastic. Another brought back memories and that was that all the kids had their mittens on strings. I can remember having my mittens on strings.

Guest blogger segment -- my father

The most notable incident occurred when returning to the hotel as we bundled up against the sub-zero freezing weather. Outside the hotel door was a stocky fellow in just a t-shirt and shorts puffing on a cigarette with a sarcastic look on his face. He ball cap said Junior Canadian Ranger. He was an Inuit/Eskimo and a member of Canada's Army of the North and our last frontier. Somehow he found the freezing weather to his satisfaction and felt right at home.

Roofing

Every year my father and I tackle a couple of large home maintenance projects. This summer we completed three. We started off by manually drilling and installing four concrete footing for my parent’s deck. This stabilized the deck and extended it by a couple of feet. Earlier this month, we stripped off the shingles from half the roof of the deck and re-shingled it. Last weekend, we finished our most ambitious project of re-roofing 40% of the roof of the house. We started off by removed three layers of asphalt shingles and two layers of pine shakes. This exposed the underlying laths. We covered the laths with 15 - 2'x8' plywood sheeting. Our final chore was to apply 15-year asphalt shingles to the roof. It was a sense of great relief when the last shingle was nailed to the roof.

Another 31 second improvement…WooHoo!

2008 May 25
292/8368
1:33:42.7 chip
4:29 pace

2007
377/7005
1:34:13 chip

The ING Ottawa half-marathon is one of the three half-marathon races that I train for each year. I usually start off the year by doing the Phoenix, Arizona, PF Chang RnR half-marathon in January and close off the season with the Baltimore half-marathon in October. This year’s Ottawa race allowed me to better my time by 31 seconds but a few hours before the start even running the race was uncertain. After an 11 km tempo run on Wednesday night I developed a severe cold which affected my lungs and throat. For three days I was without a voice. I decided the best thing I could do was rest and hope that I could nix the cold. By late Saturday, my lungs were clear and throat was still coarse. Using the old running adage that it is okay to run as long as the cold as above your throat, I decided wait and see how I felt on Sunday morning.

I got up on Sunday to find my legs feeling fresh, energetic and ready to go. I ate four bowls of Vector cereal and drank some strong tea before heading over to the start line. At this point my first challenge arose as I was 300 folks behind the 1:40 pace bunny who I could see off in the distance. It would take about 1.5 miles of hard and fast running for me to surge by the bunny and his entourage. The pace I was running at was fast but very comfortable. I asked myself do I want to slow down or speed up. I sped up and surged by a hoard of people. The course was very familiar to me so I was able complete the Gatineau loop quickly. I surged each hill and glided down the backside. As we were heading across the over of the Ottawa River I went into a “zone” and worked hard climbing the three hills before descending along the Rideau Canal. At this point, I saw my folks who cheered me from the sidelines. The remainder of the race would be on familiar territory, the bike paths and roads that run parallel to the Rideau Canal. My journey down to Bank Street went quickly as we were racing in ideal conditions a cool and crisp 8C/46F. At this point I had a bit of fun as there was a jazz band playing in a nearby tent. They were playing swing with a fast tempo. I decided to do a 400 meter wind sprint and have my legs keep in sync with the beat of the music. It was fun to do. I eased back on the pace once out of earshot. At the Bronson Bridge, we crossed over the Rideau Canal and started our northward trek. I threw a couple of cups of cold water over me and sponged down at the water stop. I ingested a Powergel with 35mg of caffeine when I was 5km away from the finish. As I was heading up the canal I heard the jazz band playing a fast tune from the other side of the canal, time for another surge. For the next three km I pressed myself to try and shave at least one second off the next km. This strategy worked well under the final kilometer when I stitched slightly but the energy of the crowd pulled me through. I was really pleased by the race as the 31 second improvement was unexpected.

11 days before half-marathon

Tonight, I did my final interval workout before my half-marathon race next weekend. The workout was brutal, 6x1km on 30s rest. It was over quickly but a painful experience as you are only able to take a couple of breaths before you start sprinting again. My intervals times are better than last year but I am still not sure about my fitness level so I will use the outcome of the race to act as a judge.

I am looking forward to the race as I have been training for it for the past couple of months. The race really be special this year as my folks are coming to town to watch me run.

Easter and Facebook

My Easter weekend was more productive than usual. On Good Friday, I ran in a 10 mile road race close to where my folks live and ran a race that came with a surprise. My second loop of a five mile course was 63 seconds faster than the first. This was good news. During the weekend we installed a new countertop in my folks kitchen which went without a hitch. I also did something I should have done at Christmas but for time and weather reasons didn’t; to catch up with some of my running friends. On the weekend, Perry and I went for a seven mile run on an extremely hilly course that we would usually do twice a week while training on the cross-country team. The course is known as the “three-hills” and every two miles you have to descend and climb the Niagara Escarpment. We finished the workout in a brisk 53 minutes. Perry and I haven’t seen each other for a while as he went to Korea to teach English after university. During the fall we reconnected by Facebook and vowed to catch-up and go for a workout. He is married and has an energetic son that loves hockey. We played a game of pickup hockey after our run. I did some geocaching which was good as area near Niagara Falls has less snow and as a result locating a cache involves little or no digging in the snow. In keeping with tradition, the three families got together for an Easter dinner and the kids are getting older at an incredible rate.

Computer Surgery

I did something of the Christmas holiday that I am proud of, computer surgery. A little before Christmas my parents bought a new HP desktop computer. At the time, my father was a little reluctant to decommission his old IBM Thinkpad laptop. This was a good decision in time. On Boxing Day, a little before I headed out for my 10 mile race the computer stopped responding. My initial thought was that it had gone into Windows stand-by or sleep mode or Windows was acting up. The problem would have to wait until after the race. I called HP technical support and we suspected it was a hard drive problem or the computer’s power supply. A couple of days, later a new hard drive came by UPS and the recovery DVDs came by FEDEX. We replaced the hard drive and the computer was unresponsive. I called HP again and they thought it was a problem with the power supply. The next day a new power supply arrived and we switched all the cables. With a new hard drive and power supply the computer started up and started to purr. It would take about an hour for the recovery DVDs to be processed. But it was a good feeling to head back to Ottawa knowing that my parent’s computer was working again.

Home for the holidays

Late last week, my holiday plans were uncertain. I had a couple of modes of transportation for getting home for the holidays. While surfing I was able to locate a cheap flight to Toronto at an incredibly low price. It bought the ticket as quickly as I could. The past couple of days at my folks place have been relaxing and given me chance to get some much needed rest. I've read two books over the last little while. The first, "Cold Mountain," by Charles Frazier and the other is "Replay," by Ken Grimwood. Both books are a good read. I am glad that I had a chance to read "Cold Mountain" as it answered many questions that remained unanswered when I saw the movie. Jason's father gave me a list of recommended books to read over the holidays and "Cold Mountain" and "Replay" were highly recommended.

Yesterday, I decided to check some of my local geocaches and will head back to them over the next couple of days with a camera. There are some bouldering faces that I want to get Jason's opinion on as they could be climbable once the weather improves.

100th post, Columbus Day, 1 week to go

This is my 100th blog post in blogger. A quick thanks to Jason for suggesting that I give blogger another try as a blogging tool. I'm blogging at my parent's place near Niagara Falls celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Today, G, my dad and I went geocaching before we headed over to my sister's place the large family Thanksgiving dinner. I'll post pictures of the weekend when I am back in Ottawa. I am really looking forward to next weekend as I'll be heading to Baltimore to run in my third Baltimore half-marathon and to help Jason renovate his new house.

Where’s the tent?

I was talking with my father the other night and we trying to figure out who has what camping gear. I have some of it in Ottawa and my father has the rest at my folk’s place. The topic of the tent came up. My father could only find the tent poles and not fly or the tent body. I scoured my place and couldn’t find the tent. This was odd. My father checked the garage again and discovered that he had done too good a job when putting away the gear from our last adventure. The tent was in a box labeled Christmas decorations. I'll head over to MEC at lunch hour to buy another thermarest mattress and an awl but very slowly the chores are getting finished. The weather looks a little spotty with some rain to start off the time with hot sunny conditions for the remainder of the weekend.

The White Jacket

During my stay at Kemptville College on the weekend I took some time out to explore the campus and stumbled on something that brought by memories of my grade 5 exchange trip. At the time we were living in the city and the concept of farms and agriculture were foreign to me. To give the city kids a glimpse into life on the farm we would spend a week living with our exchange partner and working on their farm while going to school. In exchange they would spend a week living with us in the city. My mother had bought me some new clothes for the trip which included a white sports jacket. At the time I didn’t know that white is not a color that you should where around the farm. My exchange partner was Stephen Stringer from Shelburne, Ontario. One of the first things we did when I arrived was to take a tour of the farm using his tractor. We checked out the disc, plough, barn, the seeder, the wheat field, the corn field, the silo at which point it was time to refuel the tractor. I unhitched the nozzle of the diesel pump, which was slippery, and attempted to put in the tank but missed. The diesel fuel spilled down the front of my white jacket. What to do? Stephen didn’t want his parents to find out what happened. We tried to wash the diesel fuel out of the jacket but too no avail. The jacket still stank. His parents knew something was up but we just made excuses. What to do? We came up with the idea to bury it. On the weekend, we headed into the back forty and buried my jacket. As I write this I’m not sure if my mother ever found out about why I came home jacketless. So, when I was walking by the diesel tank and pump it reminded me of my ill-fated white jacket.

Minivacation

I've spent the last couple of days at my parent's place which has a panoramic view of Lake Ontario. On a clear day, I can look out and see the Toronto skyline which includes the Skydome. The weekend started off with me driving my father to the airport as he had a business trip in the states. I was able to get in some geocaching, home maintenance and catching up with my parents, brother and nephew. I fixed my nephew's mp3 player and usb drive which made him happy. I cut out the wooden frame of the four windows that my father and I will replace later this year. I bolted the aluminum storm windows on to act as temporary barriers until the vinyl insert windows arrive from the manufacturer. Today, I replaced the internal door lever on the screen door so that G couldn't push his nose against the door and accidentally get out. I finished my second Barry Eisler novel with another four waiting for me to read back in Ottawa. It has been hot with temperatures averaging in the hight 80s. I'm looking forward to heading back to Ottawa tomorrow where it is a little cooler. Once in town, I have to start preparing for my next adventure, a long weekend of hiking over the upcoming holiday weekend.

Tonight's workout...

Tonight's workout was a challenging one from three perspectives. It was 4 x 1km interval repeats on 60 seconds. The conditions were challenging as it was cold, wet and very humid. When the conditions get this cold and humid I start to feel all my old running injuries which makes running the intervals hard. I have been sleep deprived for the past couple of nights which doesn't bode well for running fast. My times were off a bit tonight but I soldiered through and finished the workout.

On Friday morning, I will run in a 10 mile race and my father will run in the 5km. It is a family tradition that we do the Good Friday race. I think it will be the tenth year that we have done the race. There is one slight difference this year and that is, I will be doing the 10 mile race as I have always done the 5km. After the race we will do some geocaching near the race site.

Much of the weekend will be spent chain sawing in the back 40, geocaching and visiting my extended family. G will be eager to go geocaching and I'm looking forward to exploring some recently placed geocaches.