Jake's Adventures

Palette

2009-07-12T11:31:00.001-07:00

Palette, originally uploaded by jakerome.

The sequel or upgrade to the first rainbow mosaic. I used the exact same process described in The Making of a Rainbow, although in the hours since I have realized there's a marginally easier way. This is as far as I'm going to take this exact idea, as it's actually quite time consuming to align all the images properly and create the credits. However, I will dig deep into the color reservoir to create 1-2 more spectrum-themed creations. Stay tuned.

Photos from www.flickr.com/groups/solid-squares/

Row 1
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1. Red (airplane wing), 2. bluest girl, 3. Red (stop sign), 4. Red (In-n-out tile), 5. chrstphre, 6. Red (Tiles), 7. bluest_girl, 8. D90 Student, 9. bluest_girl, 10. Orange (sunset surf), 11. Puke green (seaweed), 12. the|G|™, 13. Yellow (columns), 14. Martino's doodles, 15. Yellow-green (plants), 16. Green (leaves)

Row 2
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17. Red (rose), 18. honey.huckabee, 19. Renée Ann Wirick, 20. Red (balloon), 21. Red (flowers), 22. Sparty Lea, 23. Ludie Cochrane, 24. Burnt umber (sky), 25. Amber (waves of grain), 26. bluest_girl, 27. Orange (dip), 28. Into the wild, 29. Yellow (cone), 30. Ludie Cochrane, 31. Green (crabgrass), 32. Green (clovers take 2)

Row 3
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1. Red (sculpture), 2. Red (bounce house), 3. Red (garage door), 4. Red (futon), 5. D90 Student, 6. D40 student, 7. Orange (hard sand), 8. Gold (wall hanging), 9. Mr. Wizzard, 10. Robert in Toronto, 11. Gold (ceiling), 12. Lucy Nieto, 13. Green (buds), 14. Green (grass), 15. Green (plant life), 16. Turquoise (mount)

Row 4
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17. Red (All-Star Game carpet), 18. bluest girl, 19. Red (heinz bottle), 20. Wild Vine Photography, 21. Red (brick), 22. CLCsART, 23. Orange (pumpkin), 24. Brown (carpet?), 25. Yellow (leaves), 26. Yellow (can't remember), 27. Yellow (B17 fuselage or wing), 28. All-Seeing angler, 29. CLCsART, 30. Green (grass), 31. D40 student, 32. Green (chairs)

Row 5
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1. CLCsART, 2. andertho, 3. Ludie Cochrane, 4. Orange-red (subway), 5. Orange (seascape), 6. bluest_girl, 7. Golden (pelican feathers), 8. Beige (bamboo), 9. Brown (paper bag), 10. Yellow (flower), 11. .eyebex, 12. Green (ocean slime), 13. Green (plants), 14. Turquoise (scopes), 15. milltown01, 16. Silver (observatory)

Row 6
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17. D90 Student, 18. Red (bricks), 19. CLCsART, 20. uʌ, 21. Brown (floor), 22. elvybeauti, 23. bluest_girl, 24. Golden brown (samosas), 25. Ludie Cochrane, 26. Yellow green (Shrub up close), 27. More green, 28. Green (fake grass), 29. bluest_girl, 30. Blue (pool water), 31. Baby blue (rocket blanket), 32. Blue (water)

Row 7
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1. Orange (coat), 2. Red (Red Rock), 3. CLCsART, 4. Gold (blurred elevator wall with questionable white balance), 5. Brown (ceiling), 6. Yellow (space hardware), 7. Sand (windblown), 8. Dustlake, 9. Green (plants), 10. CLCsART, 11. Green (plants), 12. Green (leaf), 13. Werner Schnell Images, 14. Blue (stucco), 15. Blue (sky, yet again), 16. Blue (pipes)

Row 8
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17. Orange (T hexagon tiles), 18. Orange (hard sand at sunset), 19. Orange (last one, I promise), 20. Blonde (hair), 21. MarshaMod, 22. Yellow (train line), 23. Martino's doodles, 24. Green (sparse vegetation), 25. .eyebex, 26. Green (wall with hardware), 27. Dustlake, 28. Silver (Central Park Ice), 29. Blue (Saturn V support bolts), 30. Martino's doodles, 31. Blue (fighter wing), 32. D90 Student

Row 9
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1. bluest_girl, 2. Orange (more stucco), 3. Gold (tile), 4. CLCsART, 5. Beige (rock), 6. Yellow (pole), 7. Green (grass), 8. bluest_girl, 9. DREASAN, 10. Kimmy Danger, 11. Blue (wall), 12. the|G|™, 13. bluest girl, 14. Blue (sky), 15. Ludie Cochrane, 16. Violet (petals)

Row 10
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17. Gold (golden hour wall), 18. Tan (floorboards), 19. Yellowish Orange (Circuit City stucco), 20. D90 Student, 21. Lime green (stucco), 22. Green (blurred leaf), 23. Green (leaves), 24. bluest girl, 25. Blue green (hot ocean waters), 26. bluest_girl, 27. bluest_girl, 28. Deep blue (evening sky), 29. Cheewy, 30. Indigo (Flower), 31. Purple (can), 32. CLCsART

Row 11
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1. Beige (marble), 2. BeautyIsAs, 3. bluest_girl, 4. Ventri, 5. Green (grass, yet again), 6. Green (vegetation), 7. Green (wall), 8. Aqua (Venetian Canal), 9. D90 Student, 10. Blue (canopy), 11. OSD, 12. Dustlake, 13. D90 Student, 14. Ventri, 15. bluest girl, 16. Violet (flowers)

Row 12
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17. jef safi, 18. Yellow (trucks), 19. Ludie Cochrane, 20. Green (Highway shrubs), 21. Green (budding shrubs), 22. Green (trash can), 23. christophre, 24. bluest_girl, 25. Lucy Nieto, 26. Indigo (is it a sign?), 27. christophre, 28. Purple (petals), 29. CLCsART, 30. Dustlake, 31. Purple (flowers), 32. D90 Student

Row 13
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1. pho-Tony, 2. Robert in Toronto, 3. Green (Candlestick grass), 4. bluest_girl, 5. Green (vending machine), 6. Robert in Toronto, 7. Blue (sign), 8. Blue (sky), 9. Robert in Toronto, 10. bluest girl, 11. BeautyIsAs, 12. Purple (flower), 13. Pink (tiles), 14. Purple (sign), 15. Pink (flower), 16. Pink (flower)

Row 14
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17. Yellow-green (shrub), 18. Green (leaves), 19. Studiojules, 20. bluest girl, 21. Mawhrin Skel, 22. CLCsART, 23. emmanuelle gabory ..., 24. Indigo blue (wall), 25. Indigo (tiles), 26. Indigo (petals), 27. Purple (flowers), 28. Ludie Cochrane, 29. Purple (sign), 30. Purple (jacket), 31. CLCsART, 32. Violet (conduit cover)

Row 15
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1. Green (wide-angle shrubbery), 2. pho-Tony, 3. Green (Redondo harbor), 4. Blue-green (Waikiki beach), 5. Blue (sky), 6. Blue (highline wall), 7. foto.phrend, 8. D90 Student, 9. Purple (siding), 10. Purple (flowers), 11. Pink (flower), 12. D90 Student, 13. Violet (flowers), 14. Pink (lockers), 15. Pink (1780), 16. Pink (stucco)

Row 16
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17. MattPenning, 18. pho-Tony, 19. Blue (wall), 20. Indigo? (tiles), 21. Blue (garage door), 22. archibaldo, 23. Indigo (big wheel), 24. Ludie Cochrane, 25. CLCsART, 26. bluest girl, 27. KatPi, 28. CLCsART, 29. Reddish brown (wall cover), 30. Violet (flower), 31. Violet (Bougainvillea), 32. bluest_girl

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Palm Pre: First Impressions

2009-06-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

Last night, I spent 3 hours trying to sync the old Centro w/ the Mac Address Book without success. My master plan was to sync the Centro, then somehow sync that w/ my Yahoo! contacts, then finally export the whole mess to Google. I ad-libbed instead, in the process discovering that iSync has the built-in ability to sync with both Yahoo! and GMail. The second discovery was realizing I could just send all my Centro contacts (via Bluetooth) to the MacBook Pro. From there, I imported them into Address Book, synced up with Yahoo! (10.4 doesn't support GMail), then went to the Power Mac to sync Yahoo! & GMail w/ the Mac's address book. Got all that? Bottom line, I got all 3 address books synced up and sent to the 4th service that I needed.

So I journeyed down to the local Sprint Store this morning to get the Pre. I was ready to leave at 8:45, but spent 10 minutes furiously searching for my keys. Got them, and made it in 5 minutes flat, enough time to catch the line just before they opened the doors. Of course I took a few photos of the Sprint Store waiting for the Pre to go on sale and then buying it. After about 1.5 hours in line I got in. After another 20-30 minutes, I had a Pre in hand and was on my way home. Review follows.

I've been tweeting about the Pre all day, but here's the bottom line: the Palm Pre is fantastic, and lives up to and perhaps even exceeds the hype in many ways. First, as everyone has noted, it feels great in the hand. It took about 2 minutes to set it up, just put in my GMail account information and BOOM! Contacts. Put in my Facebook ifnormation, and BOOM! Contacts. Integrated as advertised, no hitches. Then I went to set up Yahoo! Mail, and it downloaded all my folders. Pretty cool, making it easier than ever to organize my email. Apparently Palm/Yahoo! have worked together to enable IMAP.

Web browser-- works very well. Well enough that I may just have to ditch the iPod Touch... what do I need that for now? Downloaded a few Twitter apps, of course, and while bother Tweed and Spaz show promise, both have a few quirks that are keeping them from being uber Twitter clients. Oh, and I tested the turn-by-turn directions and they worked quite well. I definitely won't be bringing the GPS on the road anymore, the Pre is perfectly fine. Downside is that I couldn't set up hands-free w/ the car. I'll have time to troubleshoot that later.

Next, I used Media Sync to add tunes. It worked completely seamlessly, added several hundred songs and dozens of podcasts with no problem. Brought the Pre to the gym, and it sounded very good using my standard $10 Sony headphones. But I know that wouldn't last... So I wandered over to Best Buy and bought a pair of Bluetooth headphones, the Motorola Rokr S9-HD. Charged them up, worked perfect, even had a very noticeable bass boost. Haven't tested the call quality yet, but will soon enough. I figure these will be perfect for cycling, where I can just stick the Pre in a backpack or bag and enjoy the tunes. The Nano might be one good armband from being sent packing.

Downloaded a few apps already, not many available. FlightView seems like a good flight tracker, and Pandora is REAL nice. Classic is fun, just to see how well the simulate the crappy PalmOS fonts. The NY Times app is useless, might as well just use the webpage.

What else, what else? Amazon MP3 store seemed good in the store demo, haven't tried it yet. No problem getting WiFi working. The card metaphor is very intuitive, haven't cracked open the manual yet and I think I've got it figure out. All too simple to use any song as a ringtone. Now, a lot of this stuff I could have been using the Centro for, and in the past I did use some features. But it was always a project. Nothing on the Pre feels like a project. Very intuitive, easy, etc. The camera seems decent enough based on a couple snaps. More time for that later.

I do think it's a little sneaky that, and very Big Brother, that the Pre asks for permission to provide "anonymous" GPS data to Google-- letting them track the owner's movements. And really, there's no way to anonymize location data. But that's a whole 'nother can of beans. Another minor quibble is the LCD screen light leak, which may or may not lead to me making a return trip to get a replacement. I like the keyboard, but it's not quite as easy to type one handed as on the Centro, since it's so thin when the keyboard is extended. But I'm getting used to it.

This wasn't much of a review. So I'll just close with my favorite Tweet of the day. "The Pre is great. It's everything that it was cracked to be & has exceeded my expectations in many ways. Not perfect. Outstanding."

Palos Verdes Marathon, 2009 Edition

2009-05-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I woke up before 5 AM and prepared to run my 7th Palos Verdes Half Marathon. I've only missed 2 races since 2001, and since I ran the full in 2003 I think it's fair I skipped the whole thing in 2004. The Palos Verdes Half Marathon is easily the best race in the South Bay, and is my one can't-miss event. Well, maybe the Catalina Marathon will qualify, too, but I've only run 3 there. The race itself went well for me, mostly. I finished only marginally faster than last year (2:01:30 vs. 2:02:02), but since I had run 21.5 miles a week earlier, and my average heart rate was 5 bpm lower, I think it's fair to say that I'm in better shape than a year ago. I ran solid negative splits (1:02:30/59:00), and had lots of energy left at the end. The major bother was my knee, which HURT a bit, following a minor trip & fall I had while walking to my morning rollerblade session a week sooner. Ugh.

My knee hurt all day yesterday, and I was depressed as I was certain my running career was over; today I feel better, and now I only worry about missing the Rock 'n Roll Marathon in 4 weeks. I think 2 weeks of no running will be smart-- lots of biking, rollerblading, elliptical, weights & sand dune repeats in my future! After the race, I made the short walk back to my car (I got there early just to get a good spot!), and grabbed the camera for some post-race shots. Sadly, my autofocus was temporarily messed up. So I still took a lot of shots, and some came out well enough. but... well, I wish the autofocus worked! After the race, I met a couple peeps from the Runners World forum where I chill. My favorite moment was cheering a runner set to finish in just over 4 hours. About 200 yards from the finish, huskydon & I started cheering as soon as we saw the runner & the clock. I didn't think he'd make it, but as we told him to RUN!!!, Chan Mitchell accelerated to make it close, and then EXPLODED to finish with seconds to spare. That was exciting. Check it out.

So check out all the Palos Verdes Marathon & Palos Verdes Half Marathon photos on Flickr. Here's one more shot.

Palos Verdes Marathon, part 1: Photo #10,000

2009-05-02T13:42:00.001-07:00

10,000, originally uploaded by jakerome.

So this is my 10,000th public item on Flickr. While I appreciated the many suggestions (holding a sign & photo of a white square seemed to be the top 2), I decided to go in another direction. I decided to take some great photos after I ran the Palos Verdes Half Marathon this morning and upload the best. Somewhere, my plan went awry. Mostly, there seemed to be some minor electrical connection issue b/w the 50-135mm lens (which I bought specifically fot race photos... ugh!) & the camera. Everything worked except the autofocus. Which is really a pain when shooting moving subjects from a variety of vantage points and distances.

So I did my best to use manual focus, and about 1/3 of the shots are even usable. Along the way, I discovered a few gems, and this is my favorite so far. This marathoner was finishing somewhere under 4 hours, and headed straight for me when he saw the camera, probably thinking I was an "official" race photographer. He reminded me of myself-- I often run straight at the photogs if I want a good shot. This guy, he seemed to have a lot of energy left for having run 26+ miles, nice relaxed form, confident, moving briskly. I can tell he's a Nike fan from the hat & shirt, but if I had to guess, I'd say he's wearing Saucony. Go figure. Meanwhile, the gentelman trailing looks more like a guy who just ran 26.2. Grimacing, fighting to complete the race. Behind them both, you can see the orange cones that marked the course, the Palos Verdes peninsula and sky, as the clouds are beginning to burn off.

So that's it. Number 10,000. Nothing gimmicky, not even a great shot. Ignores the rule of thirds and probably every other guideline for composition. But it captures the moment; it's authentic and it's real. It's solid, and fits my style to a T-- I like to take shots that make people happy, and I bet if either of these guys find the shot, they'll be glad I took it.

[I'll add many more photos and a more complete race recap soon.]

Diamond Valley Lake redux

2009-04-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

About 3 months ago, I entered the Diamond Valley Lake Half Marathon, and hung around to take a lot of photos afterward of the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon. So yesterday I went back to run there again, and this time I decided to run a full loop-- advertised as somewhere between 21 & 21.8 miles. I didn't take any shots yesterday, so I'll scatter a few photos from January around the post.

So I woke up "bright & early" at 8:30, and "quickly" headed to the door, managing to get out of the house by 9 AM. After one quick stop at the Kwik-E-Mart to buy 3 24-ounce bottles of Gatorade, I was on my way! When I got to the Lake, I paid the $7 for parking and asked if there were any drinking fountains on the trail. Nope! Looks like I'd be lugging my fluids. I had already drank 24 ounces, so I laced up, got my electronics (GPS watch, heart-rate monitor, iPod) ready and I was good to go. I don't own a fuel belt, so I held one bottle in each hand. I thought it was just annoying, but I would later learn it was more than annoying.

So I began, and almost immediately I took a short dead-end, which tacked on about a quarter-mile to my journey. I knew that would not be helpful in the long run! The weather was not too warm, not too cool, I'd say 60-70 for the whole run, with a light breeze ranging from 5-20mph. The sun was in & out, so overall it was a good, not great, running day. Now, 48 ounces is probably about half of what I would've liked to drink on a run that long, but I figured it'd be enough. One thing I decided early on was that since I was running late for Tommy's 4th birthday party, that I didn't have the luxury of taking breaks. Normally, I stop 1-2 minutes for water every 2 miles or so, with occasional longer breaks to buy a bottle of Gatorade, stretch or use the restrooms. In contrast, today I never stopped. I would walk for about 1 minute while drinking or consuming GU, and I'd keep my stopwatch running to discourage me from resting too long. This worked for breaks at mile 2, 5, 7.5, 10 & 12.5. At 15, 17 & 19, I needed some rest, so I would walk and drink but stop my watch so I could relax.

I had contemplated carrying my little camera, but I knew there'd be no time to dilly. It was a nice place to run, about 16 miles of trails and 5-6 miles of asphalt road. The scenery was very nice, and you could contemplate some nice landscape photos taken there, but I only saw one very odd thing. I'll get to that. On the route, I passed a half-dozen bikers in the first 5 miles, then saw basically no one for nearly 10 miles. Then a few more cyclists. I didn't think anyone else was nuts enough to run around, until I saw one lady. But she was walking. Not only was she walking, she had a rope tied to her waste and she was dragging a tire behind her! Wish I had the camera for that.

Now you can see my route on a map, and if you're observant you'll see I went on a completely unnecessary 1/4-mile detour. D'oh! Those extra bits at the start & finish really suck! The run itself was good. A slow & steady 10:14/mile pace, slowing a bit in the end, but never quite crashing. I was dying for water near the finish, and I sucked down 32 ounces within minutes of finishing. You can see all the run details here. Oh, about those Gatorade bottles. I noticed during the run that the back of my neck was getting sore. Which isn't unheard of. But it kept getting worse & worse. By mile 16, it really hurt. I think by carrying those bottles for so long, it affected my stride and I must have pitched my neck forward. So yeah, last time I'm carrying 48 ounces of fluids in my hands. Live & learn.

Lori chasing Sam

The Day of the Donut II

2009-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Who woulda thunk it? Just over a year after the first, groundbreaking Day of the Donut,, it's time for version 2.0! Flickr caved again, and will provide free donuts to folks at Embarcadero Plaza Thursday at 4PM.

So please join in the fun. Meet up at local donut shops with friends, bring in a dozen for the office, or just enjoy one in the peace & quiet of your home. Also, be sure to photograph and video the day's event. Enjoy your donuts!

Ode to DMU

2009-04-21T14:56:00.001-07:00

Ode to DMU, originally uploaded by jakerome.

It either makes perfect sense or it's completely inexplicable. That's just the way it is.

20 Hats

2009-04-19T09:53:00.001-07:00

20 Hats, originally uploaded by jakerome.

I wear many hats.

1. Gift from SWAT team member, 2. Received at Super Bowl pre-party, 3. In goodie bag from 1st marathon, 4. Benefit as Boston Beer Company stockholder, 5. Freebie via Mom, 6. Corporate swag, 7. From mom or stepdad, 8. Free hat from hotter-than-heck marathon that was a training run, so I bailed at 20, 9. Bought at local running store, 10. Bought after epic Catalina Marathon performance, 11. Bought as back-up running hat, 12. Found floating in lake while kayaking, 13. Bought at family camp, 14. Freebie after Palos Verdes Marathon, 15. Purchased at Wrigley Field, 16. Abandoned by dad after he visited, 17. Finally replaced white fabric hat, 18. Bought at Lids in Redondo Beach, 19. Gift from mom to replace sadly lost famous cap, 20. Giveaway from the LA Clippers

The Day of the Donut is April 23.

Dear geniuses at Google Adsense

2009-04-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

Congratulations. You have prevented me from using Adsense, and have guaranteed that any future blogs I create will not be on the Blogger platform, and will not use Adsense. What happened? I dunno. A few years ago my Adsense account, which had amassed close to $2 in earnings, was suspended. I didn't really care. Recently, I went to add ads to my Blogger blogs since it is recommended in so many different places. Only to discover that my account was suspended. I appealed and was rejected.

Soon, I realized what triggered the account suspension in the first place. Several years ago, I set up a blog for my Mom on Blogspot, back when it was the leading blogging platform. At some point, Google made it real easy to put Adsense on the page, so I added it to her blog. She didn't really know what it was for & often clicked on the ads. That's probably what triggered the problem.

Of course, I have no idea if Google would care about this, but since I already made my one appeal, they no longer here to wish from me. Yup, the Google Hive Mind works in mysterious ways, and they can not run the risk of human interaction. Oh well. Now, I'm not looking for sympathy. But remember, if you ever get on Google's bad side, they can and will suspend your account or accounts, and they might even let you "appeal" your suspension-- but only once, and they won't explain their decision. Don't make one mistake, because there will be no warnings. There will be reasoning given for the decision.

But don't worry, Google's slogan is "Don't be evil" so clearly they will act as a benevolent dictator. Trust in Google.

Catalina Marathon, 2009 Edition

2009-03-17T19:01:00.001-07:00

So after my epic race at the 2007 Catalina Marathon, and a respectable finish at the 2008 Catalina Marathon, I knew that I'd be back for a third try at the Catalina Marathon. Unlike 2008, this was no ill-conceived venture. Nope, this time I had trained hard, running 3 times over 22 miles including a truly epic run from San Pedro to El Segundo that went over the top of the peninsula. So I was confident, and estimated my race time at 4:20-4:40, although I would have been shocked to come in under 4:30. In retrospect, that was a pretty narrow range that really only took into account my fitness and not race tactics-- my last 6 marathons were perfectly paced, but was it realistic to expect 7 in a row?

The course, as hilly as ever. Take a closer look.

So now in my 3rd year, I've developed a little bit of a reputation for my race reports and my photography, especially those that I've snapped during the race. You can take a look back at photos from 2007 and 2008. As always, I carried a small Canon point & shoot with an old iPod armband for the in-race photos. This time, I carried along the Pentax K100D w/ 50mm f/1.4 to get pre-race photos, and my friend Vinay took some finish line photos w/ the Pentax K20D and 50-135mm f/2.8 before I snagged it from him to take way too many photos in the next few hours. Cause that's what I do. But enough of that. If I'm not careful it'll take me longer to write my race report than it did to run the race! Here are the links to this year's in-race photos, and the pre- and post-race photos.

This year, for the first time, I wouldn't be running alone. My friend & former co-worker Jake S. would be running alongside me this year. At least that was the plan. Sadly, his knee was bothering him and he decided it wouldn't be wise to run the very hilly course on Catalina. At least not all 26.2 miles. We hatched a devious plan. Jake S. would start with the walkers at 6:30 AM, and walk until I caught up with him, then run with me for the next 10+ miles. So that's what we had to look forward to that morning. Oh, and what a morning it turned out to be. The evening before was mellow, we ate an early pancake dinner and sat back to be inspired and lulled by Endurance, the tale of Haile Gebrsellasie. Then it was off to a night of typically restless sleep. We we prepared for the morning-- with a 7 AM start time on an island 20+ miles away, we better be! The alarms were set for 3 AM, 5 in total. The first one woke me, and I just turned off the rest. With 4 solid hours of sleep under my belt, I was ready to take on the day. We dressed and ate (2 bananas and a bottle of Gatorade) real quick, and headed out the door. It took only 10 minutes to drive the 8 miles, unheard of in Los Angeles, but I suppose the roads are typically quiet at 3:30 AM. The boat left promptly at 4 AM, and while Jake S. might have been happy with a bit more sleep, it wasn't going to happen. Some others on the boat did get some shut eye. Now, as many of you recall from last year's report, the boat ride was very unpleasant. This time, the seas were calm with only a gentle side-to-side swaying. No one said a word, but once we arrived in Two Harbors at 5:30, all anyone could talk about was how much nice the boat ride was this year. No kidding!

The boat from Avalon arrives in Two Harbors

But hey, that's the boring stuff. No one tunes in to read about lame breakfasts or smooth boat rides. We want to hear about the hills, the pain, the scenery, the runners and the finish line. So let's get it on with then, m'kay? Before I knew it, Jake was heading down the road with the walkers and I had 30 minutes to kill before the start. As I noted above, my fitness was good, with one notable exception. I had somehow managed to gain about 5 pounds in the month before the race. Ugh. Would that haunt me? Well, soon the hundreds of fellow wing-nuts gathered near the start line, including a pair of very enthusiastic runners looking forward to their first Catalina Marathon. And at about 7:04, we were off. The first 4 miles are absolutely brutal, over 1000 feet of climbing with a "little" downhill mixed in. And on these early climbs, my legs were not happy. I trained hills, but these really hit me hard. My pace was a little better than last year, but it still took about 48 minutes to cover those first 4 miles.

The earliest of the brutal climbs

After mile 4, things get a little more reasonable for a while. I mean, 100-400 foot hills are no walk in the park, but at least I've been able to get in a good rhythm over these parts. Now, running with the camera for hundreds of miles now I've learned a few things. First, I have to at least pause for a split second to get a decent photo, even if the camera is still strapped to my arm. And no matter how well planned out, you can't really run and photograph at the same time. Thus, there's almost never any shots while I'm running downhill, and even shots on the flats are rare. So I take a lot of photos of the climbing. Like really, a lot. And one particular genre of photos has turned out to be my favorite-- looking back at the hiking marathoners. Understand, a lot of these are people who normally run marathons in 3 1/2 to 4 hours. In other words, these folks are serious athletes. All of them walking. Take a look.

The climbing, the climbing, the climbing

You got it? Crazy climbing. So I cruised up another "little" hill (200 feet) before a big downhill, where I was reunited with Jake S. It was good to have a running companion for these lonely miles, actually one of the more scenic parts of the course. We ran along, a couple more ups and downs before we reached Middle Ranch. Since his knee was hurting him and I needed to bank minutes on the downhills, I usually ran ahead of Jake S. on the downs and let him slowly reel me in on the ups. Ah, and then Middle Ranch. At mile 11.5, we reached a recent low, only 200 feet above sea level. Then the long, slow climb. I described this part of the course as "the silly" before "the stupid." We climbed 750 feet over the next 5.5 miles. There was still another 500 feet of climbing before the big drop. Jake had pulled me all through Middle Ranch, we kept plodding along at a nice pace, passing a lot of folks. The Middle Ranch stretch looks flat, and after the race a few people remarked to me that they were disappointed they had to walk on this "flat" section. As my friend Jim Vendlinski used to say, this was a "false flat." Even the flattest section climbed 100 feet each mile.

So far to run

But that was just the warm up. Then 400 feet in the next mile! Pumphouse Hill is always a killer, but in a way it's a relief, because I know once I get to the aid station atop, it's mostly downhill from there-- if still a long way to go. The signs littered the hill again, this year conservation was the theme, as the signs were apparently recycled. On Pumphouse Hill, everyone walks. I may have jogged for 2 minutes total, and the climb left me with some left in the tank-- only took me 12:41 that mile, only my second slowest of the day! Of course, I snapped a few shots, and since I liked the video I took last year I took another this year. Take a look below.

After that, Jake S. stuck with me a few more miles until we hit a decent downhill. I was feeling great at this point, so I told Jake S. that his job was done, and I was all on my own from here on out. Now, at the aid station atop Pumphouse Hill, I saw the fruit there and I was compelled to eat one orange section. That was probably my first sign of troubles to come, but I didn't know it at the time. I should've eaten a lot more. So I kept cruising along, passing folks on the hills with my slow jog as they quickly walked. But soon, my hands started tingling and I unwisely ignored it. I was making good time on the downhills, but I was a little slow. Soon, we crested the last climb and it was 1600 feet straight down into Avalon. There was an aid station, but I skipped that because, well, because I'm an idiot!

Running shoes, before & after

After running a mile in a decent 8:30 or so clip, my condition took a turn for the worse. I got really light headed, and after passing one runner on the descent, I joked to him that he should grab a medic if I passed out. A minute later, I realized that was a real possibility. In years past, my heart rate reaches about 170 near mile 20 and increases as high as 180 at the end of races. This time, my heart rate dropped to 145. I figured this could only mean one thing-- my brain wasn't getting enough energy and was shutting my body down. I walked for a minute, sucked down a GU and staggered on to mile 24.5 or so. At the aid station this time, I had 6 cups o Gatorade and my strength began to return. After a horrible 10:30 mile, I managed to run the last mile in about 10 minutes flat.

And then, just like that, I could see the finish line. Vinay was staking out the finish, and got several photos of me as I crossed the finish line in about 4:42:23. I figured I lost about 5-6 minutes in the last few miles after the brain tried to shut down the operation. Still, it was a few minutes better than 2008, but well off the epic time I had in 2007. Nevertheless, a tremendous race. Immediately upon crossing the finish line, I headed straight to the oranges and ate, no joking, between 4 and 6 oranges in 2 minutes. I wasn't feeling good, but 10 minutes was all I needed to recover. Then I grabbed the camera and shot a few dozen finishers, and I identified many of the runners using the official results. These photos, I won't finish uploading for a week, so check back for more! Check out ASI Photo for official shots from the race. Since this is feeling like a link dump, check out the awesome in-race video from SoCalRunning.com, too.

About 40 minutes later, Jake S. ran across the line, just behind his doppleganger. He had decided to run the last mile after getting caught up in the enthusiasm. After Jake S. finished, we took the traditional finish photo and went to Busy Bee's for a Buffalo Burger post-race lunch.

And that was that. A few hours we were back on the boat to Marina del Rey, with arms, backs, shoulders and necks that would be sore for hours. And legs that would be sore for days. The boatride was nondescript, and I found plenty of interesting things to photograph on my way out. I'll upload those over the next few weeks. I'm exhausted!

The 2009 SACL Tournament/ El Segundo edition

2009-03-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again! Here I'll post a constantly updating leaderboard for year 12 of the original SACL-style NCAA tournament competition. Here are links to the 2007 and 2008 editions. Also check out the Google Spreadsheet for more details.

Updated w/ Vinay's NEW leaderboard.

Photo Madness! 2009

2009-03-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

Totally Off-topic: Check out the photographs & my race report from the 2009 Catalina Marathon.

Sweet Sixteen!

Here are the brackets:

Epic South Bay run

2009-02-23T20:40:00.001-08:00

Epic South Bay run, originally uploaded by jakerome.

I've been running on Palos Verdes since 2001 when I first ran the PV 1/2 marathon, and it's been my preferred training spot for long runs since I moved to Los Angeles. At first, I'd run along the coast then a few miles into Palos Verdes before heading back. Later, I'd drive to Redondo with friends then run out & back from 10 to 20 miles. But the big breakthrough was in 2007, when I got dropped off near the Trump golf course, then ran over the top of Palos Verdes-- 1500 feet at the top-- all the way back to Manhattan Beach. That's still my fastest-ever really long run, I don't know what got into me that day!

Ever since then, I started making the run over PV the cornerstone of my long runs-- it was the only decent way to train for the Catalina Marathon. Now I drive there & run, or I bike there and do 10-mile runs, and still occasionally make the long run from my house. But last week's run was something special.

Mom dropped me off in San Pedro at Point Fermin, at the entrance of San Pedro Harbor and the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. From there, I ran along the coast following the course of the Palos Verdes Marathon until it reached the Trump National Golf Course. From there, it was up the Palos Verdes switchbacks. And all the way to the top of San Pedro Hill, nearly 1500 feet above sea level! I actually ran non-stop from the golf course, an 1100 foot climb over about 3.5 miles. Damn. So once I got to the top, there was still the matter of sneaking around the fence in the middle of the road.

But this was only 7.5 miles into the run! Really, check it out at MotionBased. The downhill of PV is always nice, then the long run home. All told, about 2000 feet of climbing (only half of the Catalina climbing!), 22.5-23 miles and probably 3000 calories burned. I extended my run all the way across Rosecrans into El Segundo. I did that, since I wanted to run through every city in the South Bay! San Pedro (Los Angeles), Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo!

If you want to mimic my South Bay near marathon, I've mapped it out on Gmaps Pedometer, too. I would have run all the way to Imperial, except I really didn't want to walk all the way home.

Blogger sucks

2009-02-15T11:19:00.001-08:00

Really, it might have been a good platform 3-4 years ago, but it's completely stagnant. I most bothered by the spam comments. I've turned on every feature to reduce spam, but still it gets through. Google seems to lack the wherewithal to actually take proactive measures to reduce spam. It's pathetic, really. Not only that, I even turned on moderation for comments on old posts, and still the spam comes through! Even worse, after I delete the spam comments, they remain in the sidebar I have on the right side of my screen. That's kicking sand in my face, Google.

It's no good anymore. I'll certainly be moving to a different platform for my next blog, and I'll probably get a custom URL as a first step to moving my current blogs to a new service. It's sad, really. Blogger was fine, but it's fallen way behind and Google shows no interest in supporting their millions of customers. Another black mark for Google.

Now that's what a hamburger's all about!

2009-02-14T23:15:00.001-08:00

Now that's what a hamburger's all about!, originally uploaded by jakerome.

Enjoyed a department field trip to In-n-Out and tested out the new lens.

Have we talked about Twitter?

2009-02-04T21:19:00.000-08:00

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter pretty often these days. It's tough to explain. Mostly I tweet about politics, gadgets & photography. Follow me on Twitter!

Diamond Valley Lake Marathon & Half Marathon

2009-01-24T23:50:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post about this morning's half marathon. Today I woke up before 6 AM and drove to Hemet for the Diamond Valley Lake Half Marathon. A very nice race, and the marathon looks like more fun since it runs around the entire 21-mile circumference of the lake, plus another 5+. The half marathon is an out & back. Both courses are run almost exclusively on hard-packed dirt trails except when running over the dams. Really nice views, and great weather.

I'll keep my race report brief. I wasn't fast-- 2:01:22. I ran about 2:02:30 in the first half, 59:20 in the 2nd half-- nice negative splits anyways. I was definitely working at the end, as my heart rate hit 185. My strong pace helped my pass 26 runners after mile 3, while I only got passed once.

But enough about that. I took some photos too! Check out the whole set on photos from the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon & Half Marathon on Flickr (many more will be added until probably mid-late February, so check back). Here are some more of my favorites.

Isaac reacts to our new president

2009-01-20T10:55:00.001-08:00

Reactions: Isaac, originally uploaded by Jayel Aheram.

Flickr friend Jayel recorded this short video, documenting how Isaac responded to the newly minted Commander-in-Chief's inaugural speech.

Yes we can.

2009-01-19T22:29:00.000-08:00

Today is the beginning. At 12 PM tomorrow in Washington D.C., Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. I am honestly excited & hopeful for the country under our new leadership. I believe that Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to bring together our nation, every citizen in the country. One man can only accomplish so much, but if we all work together-- liberals and conservatives, men and women, the young and the elderly, new citizens and old, the skeptical and the hopeful-- we can forge a more perfect union. What the future holds for this nation under the leadership of Barack Obama for the next four years will be decided not by the man himself, but by all the people of our country. His success is our success, and his success depends on all of us. As he reaches out across the partisan divide to rivals like John McCain and independent-minded folk like Joseph Lieberman and Colin Powell, Barack Obama is already demonstrating how he will lead our nation. Everyone will be disappointed at times, myself included, but as he builds coalitions across the nation, Barack Obama will have the ability to create better policies, with more public support.

It will take hundreds of millions of people, working together at times and as rivals at times, but we will move this nation forward. The United States of America is admired across the world for our openness, our freedoms, our technologies and our innovation. Together we can extend our leadership, and serve as a better example to the world. Yes we can.

Today is the beginning.

Solid Squares: The Book

2009-01-17T23:17:00.000-08:00

The less I say the better. I'm ordering one for myself. What do you think?

Solid Squares

By Jake Rome

Book Preview

Landing

2008-12-26T12:37:00.001-08:00

Landing, originally uploaded by jakerome.

On a very clear, cool day in Los Angeles. You could see for hundreds of miles ... unless there were hills in the way.

Max loves biking

2008-12-12T18:28:00.001-08:00

Max loves biking, originally uploaded by jakerome.

Max saw that puddle, and decided he wanted to ride his bike through it. He plowed through it at least 20 times... his favorite par was falling over his handlebars.

6th photo on the 6th page

2008-12-04T14:29:00.001-08:00

Swim (2), originally uploaded by jakerome.

I guess it's a Flickr meme? I'm pretty much obligated to participate.

Put up or shut down, Palm

2008-12-01T19:57:00.001-08:00

my palm pilot is dead, originally uploaded by svanes.

There it is, the once ubiquitous Palm III, which alongside the sleeker Palm V, was the flagship device of Palm during its heyday, when the company was valued in the tens of billions of dollars and was destined to be in the hands of every person in the country. That never happened, but at least the Treo 600 was a groundbreaking device that was years ahead of its time. Sadly for Palm, they spent the next 5 years selling basically the same device well after the market had passed it by.

As its share price has plummeted by more than 90% over the past few years, the appeal of Palm devices has descended alongside it. Oh, the form factor was ergonomic, but you really need to update your form factor more often than once every 5 years. The Windows Treos have gotten decent reviews, but they stand out as anything special. The Centro is a nice, solid device, but it's still running an OS that was showing it's age 5 years ago. You can't even compare the web browsing experience to an iPhone.

So now, the company's life quite literally hangs on their ability to come out with a 3rd ground-breaking gadget. Everything rests on Nova, Palm's supposed 2-year late answer to the iPhone, after everyone from Samsung to HTC, RIMM and Nokia have already revealed their pretenders to the smartphone throne. At this point, even the true believers are doubting Palm. Really, if Nova isn't a big hit, I think there's a better-than-even chance than Palm will be history in a year. So why would anyone buy a new phone from a company that may not last 12 months?

Palm Inc., it's time to put all your cards on the table. You may be quite proud of the secrecy that surrounded the Foleo. And you're also painfully aware of what a costly diversion that was, and even more so how much the secrecy itself cost. Customer feedback was quick & brutal-- a decent idea sorely lacking in the capabilities demanded in a sub-notebook form factor. What did Palm gain out of that? Nothing. So Palm, you may have a winner on your hand. But no one will believe it until they see it. No one will recommend your devices, since your survival is in question.

Preview Nova now, Palm. If it's crap, you might still have enough time to kill the program and shift to an Android/ WinMo future. If it's all that you've claimed it to be, your survival will not be in doubt, and sales will pick up, while your most loyal fans wait for the device to hit the streets. There really are no benefits to keeping Nova hidden any longer, whether it's an iPhone-killer or Foleo part two. In short, you might as well release a Nova preview now, or just shut down and close up shop.

The Making of a Rainbow

2008-11-28T16:44:00.000-08:00

There it is. 100 photos arranged in a rainbow mosaic. Sixty-seven of my photos, and 33 photos from other people (used with permission, of course). But what does it take to create that? It takes a lot of work, broken up into two tasks: collecting the photos and arranging the photos. First, collecting the photos. It started out as a lark, when I cropped square a photo I took at the end of the Thurston Lava Tube in Hawaii and uploaded it to Flickr. It was quite popular, and spurred me to look back to see what other solid colors I had posted. Turns out, I already had a gray photo that was cropped from a Catalina Marathon pic. I continued on, and my 5th solid color was a baseball field, and at that point I realized square crops was the way to go.

I continued along with pretty much solid colors. Then I realized that solid colors didn't have mean the photo was bland. The lava pic below stood up well in its own right, as did this unexpected photo of a stop sign. With those first few successes, I knew it was a full-fledged project. Hence the Square Images of a Single Color set on Flickr. So I searched far and wide for suitable subjects, but I knew that if I harnessed the power of Flickr, the project could be even better. So I licensed all these images with a Creative Commons - Share Alike license allowing anyone to re-use them as long as they extended that courtesy. And, I started the Square Images of A Single Color group, where any Flickr member could add their photo, and I encouraged everyone to license their contributions the same way. And it's worked! I've added almost 230 of my own photos, and the community has added another 200 more.

Now on to part two... what to do with these photos? My original idea was to use them as tiles in photomosaics that recreated a different photo, in what would be an odd combination of irony and pure genius. But I need several thousand tiles to do that well, and I'm not there yet. But still, I came up with other projects, most of which are in the Solid Square products set. You can see I've tried many different things-- mosaics made of different colored stucco, mosaics from the Getty Museum, mosaics of food, and a whole bunch of color theme mosaics. All green, blue, red, gray or brown. Or rainbows. One of my favorites is the chess board seen below, and that's also when I realized an essential trick-- the gradient works better going from corner-to-corner than going from top-to-bottom.

Now, that was the inspiration. With enough tiles, I could make a great spectrum. But without the grays and browns to break it up, it would be much more important to put the images in the correct order, with hues going from red to violet. The first step was to label the hues. I used this Image Color Summarizer to find the hue, saturation and variance for each photo, and tagged each photo. For example, a bright, saturated red might be tagged H5, S80, V75. I did much of the tagging using the very cool Photophlow web app, which was much easier than doing it right on Flickr. I initially tagged 100 of my photos, then I chose 33 other photos from the group, added them to my account, and tagged them as well. And then, I placed all 133 of those photos in a single set and arranged in order of hue from red to violet using the Flickr Organizer. I call this set the Color Reservoir. I expect it to grow with time.

Then I created a new set from those 133 photos, and deleted 33 to leave 100 photos covering the full spectrum, trying for as much variety as possible, with vibrant colors. These were also in the correct hue order. Then it gets tricky. I actually wanted the spectrum to go corner-to-corner, so I needed to rearrange them into a suitable 10x10 matrix. So I sat down with pen & paper, and mapped out the order. For example, the first row would have tiles 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, 29, 37 and 46. Row 2 needed tiles 3, 5, 8, 12, 17, 23, 30, 38, 47 and 56. And so on. To actually arranged them, I opened up the ordered set in one window, and in a second window I put everything in order. After much work, I had the full 10x10 matrix in the organizer. From there, I used FD's Flickr Toys to create three 10x3 and one 10x1 mosaics. I then stitched those 4 mosaics together on my Mac. It took a few more minutes to fix the links so they would correctly point to the other contributors, and then I uploaded it. Presto! Probably 3-4 hours of work spread over several days, but the hardest part was tagging everything and I won't have to repeat the process. Here it is, in full glory. Credits are listed below the photos. Thanks to everyone for contributing and encouraging me. I hope you enjoy this photo mosaic.

1. Violet (Bougainvillea), 2. Martino's doodles, 3. Red (stop sign), 4. chrstphre, 5. Red (Tiles), 6. Orange (hard sand), 7. Golden (pelican feathers), 8. Into the wild, 9. Yellow-green (shrub), 10. Green (Candlestick grass), 11. bluest girl, 12. honey.huckabee, 13. Red-orange (sign), 14. andertho, 15. Orange (seascape), 16. Orange (stucco), 17. Yellow (can't remember), 18. Yellow-green (plants), 19. Green (leaves), 20. Green (plants), 21. Red (sculpture), 22. Red (garage door), 23. Sparty Lea, 24. Orange (sunset surf), 25. Orange (dip), 26. Golden brown (samosas), 27. Green (buds), 28. Green (crabgrass), 29. bluest girl, 30. Blue green (hot ocean waters) 31. bluest girl, 32. Orange (coat), 33. Orange (pumpkin), 34. Yellow (leaves), 35. Yellow (trucks), 36. All-Seeing angler, 37. Green (grass), 38. Green (wall), 39. christophre, 40. Blue (wall), 41. D40 student, 42. Orange (last one, I promise), 43. Yellow (space hardware), 44. Martino's doodles, 45. Green yellow (Temecula shrubs), 46. Green (ocean slime), 47. Green (vending machine), 48. Mawhrin Skel, 49. jef safi, 50. Blue (sky), 51. Mr. Wizzard, 52. BeautyIsAs, 53. Lucy Nieto, 54. Green (sparse vegetation), 55. More green, 56. bluest girl, 57. Blue-green (ocean and shadow), 58. Blue (sky/ ocean), 59. Blue (garage door), 60. OSD 61. jef safi, 62. Yellow (pole), 63. Green (grass), 64. Green (budding shrubs), 65. Turquoise (mount), 66. Blue-green (Waikiki beach), 67. Blue (sky), 68. Blue (water), 69. Blue (sky), 70. BeautyIsAs, 71. Martino's doodles, 72. Green (blurred leaf), 73. Green (clovers take 2), 74. D40 student, 75. Blue (wall), 76. Blue (stucco), 77. Blue (sky, yet again), 78. Cheewy, 79. Purple (little flowers), 80. Pink (tiles), 81. Green (Highway shrubs), 82. Green (grass), 83. Turquoise (scopes), 84. Blue (garage door), 85. Blue (Saturn V support bolts), 86. Martino's doodles, 87. christophre, 88. Purple (flowers), 89. bluest girl, 90. Purple (sign) 91. Green (plants), 92. Kimmy Danger, 93. Blue (pool water), 94. Lucy Nieto, 95. bluest girl, 96. bluest girl, 97. bluest girl, 98. Purple (sign), 99. Violet (flowers), 100. Violet (flower)