Tag: family

The Whole Fam Damily

Melissa & I had a busy Thanksgiving holiday break. We travelled to four family events in four days. On Wednesday it my niece Vivian’s first birthday party. On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my dad’s extended family in Danville. On Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving with Melissa’s family near Rockford. Finally, on Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom’s extended family near Indianapolis.

Since both my brothers were visiting with their families from Texas, this was the first time my mom’s extended family had all been together since well before my nephew, cousin, and niece were born. We commemorated the event with a family photo.

The Bassetts

Grandma and Grandpa with 3 sons, 2 daughters, 5 significant others, 9 grandsons, 4 significant others, 1 great grandson, 1 great granddaughter

The Rebel

In 2003 I wanted a SLR camera to replace my old Vivitar, but at this point I was already accustomed to the extraordinary convenience of digital cameras. Digital SLR cameras existed, but they were targeted solely at professional photographers (and they were priced accordingly). That is, until the end of 2003, when Canon released the Digital Rebel (EOS 300D). The Digital Rebel was the first digital SLR (DSLR) camera priced under $1000, and it wasn’t targeted at professional photographers. It was targeted at me.

Shortly after the camera was released, Digital Rebels could not be found anywhere. There was a huge demand for this device and it was sold out of every store that carried it. I went to cameras stores. I went to electronics stores. I went to generic stores that carried cameras or electronics. While visiting my grandparents for Christmas my dad accompanied me while I looked at half a dozen stores in Evansville, IN. I think he thought I might be a little crazy looking high and low for a camera. I mean, it’s just a camera right?

Back home in Champaign I put my name on a waiting list at a camera store, and I made daily visits to Best Buy. Eventually, a guy working at Best Buy was kind enough to suggest (quietly) I check back on Wednesday morning. I checked back Wednesday morning, and they had just received two Digital Rebels. I immediately tried to acquire one, but there was some bozo right in front of me (the store had just opened) who was looking at it. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! JUST LET ME BUY MY CAMERA!!!

After five or so of the most impatient minutes of my life the bozo walked away and I was able to purchase the camera. Finally. I left the next day with my parents to go to Texas to visit my brothers for Christmas, where I was first able to test it out. It was amazing.

I’ve now had the camera for almost five years. A few days ago the four-digit photo counter reset to zero, meaning I’ve taken over 10,000 photos with it. It’s still great, but it’s showing its age. So I’ve decided to retire the Rebel. Two days ago its replacement arrived, a brand new Canon 50D. This new camera takes (significantly) higher resolution photos, has better low light (high ISO range) performance, has a gigantic high-res LCD screen (the 3″ display has the same resolution as my first 15″ computer monitor), works with all my old accessories (lenses & flash), and (thanks to an extra attachment) can wirelessly transfer photos to my computer and phone (which I’ve wanted for quite some time), and can directly geotag photos.

Hopefully the next 10,000 photos will be as great as the last 10,000.

The College for Kids

During the summers when I was growing up in Danville, the local community college put on courses covering a variety of topics for, well, kids. It was aptly named College for Kids. The courses counted for no credit, just pure educational enrichment. As you can imagine, they weren’t wildly popular, but there were a few highly motivated youngsters who showed up ready to learn.

One summer I took an arts & crafts class. The summer between 5th & 6th grade I took a photography class. I don’t really remember why I thought I was interested in photography. Perhaps it had something to do with the camera shop down the street from my grandparents’ house. I would walk down there and look at all the neat equipment for hours. The course was taught by a photographer at the local newspaper.

The first day of class I showed up with my mom’s fixed-focus point-and-shoot 35mm Vivitar camera. The instructor gave each of the students a roll of film and assigned homework to take a bunch of photographs, enough to fill the roll, before the next class. He would develop them all (for free), then we would start learning what we could do to take better photos. Each class we picked up a new roll of film and turned in our previous role. In these days, long before the advent of the digital camera, film and development were somewhat tedious and expensive, so this was the first time I really had the opportunity to waste film by taking whatever types of pictures I wanted.

The class was amazing. We learned about framing & lighting. We learned how to operate really nice cameras. We even learned how to develop black & white film (color film being more difficult to develop). I was hooked. A few weeks after the class ended I took $120 I earned from my job as official scorekeeper at the little league park all summer, walked to the camera store down the street from my grandparents’ house, and purchased a used Vivitar SLR camera body and a 50mm prime lens. A couple months later I saved up some more money and purchased the matching 135mm telephoto lens. Nothing on this camera was automatic. It required manual focusing, aperture, shudder speed. It even required manually winding the film between photos. It was actually somewhat difficult to operate, but it was worth it.

I loved that camera. I used it to take photographs for school yearbooks and newspapers. I photographed family gatherings and sporting events. I took the camera with me to my job at ASP the summer after my freshman year in college. I used it all summer long to preserve many wonderful memories. Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends. At the end of the summer I packed up the camera (and all my other stuff) in one of our vans. We stopped at a few work sites in a different county to help out for a few days. I never saw the camera again. I still don’t know what happened to it. My best guess is that somebody stole it, though I can’t rule out the possibility I simply misplaced it somewhere.

I replaced my beloved Vivitar with a cheap point-and-shoot camera. The photographs weren’t as good, but it was much cheaper and easier to operate than a SLR. In 2001 I replaced it with my first digital point-and-shoot camera, which was amazing (I took 240 photos while hiking on the first day of our honeymoon). It wasn’t until 2003 that I finally got another SLR camera, the Digital Rebel.

The Big 3-0

Q: Was there a defining moment in your life when you made a decision that changed the course of the rest of your life forever?

A: I walked out of a bar on my 30th birthday and ran 30 miles cold turkey. It hurt bad, but it changed the course of my life ever since that faithful event. –Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man)

Today is my 30th birthday. The Big 3-0. We spent the last two nights partying with friends and family. Today, I spent much of the day running. Inspired by the story of Dean Karnazes, now one of the best endurance runners in the world, I decided to run 30 miles on my 30th birthday. And as if that weren’t enough, I also chose to run the 5.5 mile Allerton Park trail race.

Foo Dog statue at Allerton Park

more statues at Allerton Park

Last night at dinner with my family we reminisced of my first trip to Allerton Park as a young boy with my grandparents, aunt, & brother. My grandmother and aunt talked with disgust about rumors of wild parties & orgies that supposedly took place at the Allerton estate while Robert Allerton was living there decades ago. They then asked me if I knew what an orgy was, to which I (as a 9 or 10 year old) apparently responded, “No, and I don’t want to know.”

Gardens near finish line

In addition to the beautiful gardens on the grounds, Allerton Park has some of my favorite trails in the area. The only other time I ran the race was 2003. That year I was in very good shape. I ran the entire race in 10th place. Then in the last half mile seven people passed me. This year I am in roughly equally good shape and I hoped to equal or better my previous result.

I arrived early to get in a good warmup (and start working on my 30 for the day). I’ve run this trail 4 times in the past month, so I knew it fairly well. I was amazed to see how high the water in the Sangamon River was, givin the small amount of rain we had this week. Apparently this river has a very large watershed. The trail was very muddy, and flooded in dozens of places. Most of the flooded areas could be avoided by running to one side of the trail or the other. There were four or five places where the water simply could not be avoided so we had to run through. A few were only ankle deep. One was close to knee deep.

The trail was very muddy, with four or five water crossings

I started the race near the front. I was in 6th place at the first turn when we headed into the woods. I stayed in 6th place almost the entire race. I passed another runner around mile 3 to move into 5th, but that runner passed me back around mile 3.5.

The 5.5 mile race course makes a loop around the Sun Singer statue

With my heart rate over 180, I was really starting to tire by the time we reached the Sun Singer. I generally try not to look behind me in races, but I did at this point and I was kind of glad to have a lead of around 40 seconds over the next runner behind me. From there I eased up a little and cruised the remaining 1.5 miles. I still ran hard, but I tried not to overdo it. I finished in 6th place overall (out of 396 finishers), 2nd place in my new 30-34 age group. I was very happy with the placing. My time was slower than I would have liked, but so was everyone else’s time. The trail was really slow today.

Rob finishing the race (photo by Kelly Bails)

I chatted with some friends at the finish line, grabbed some water and bananas, walked back to my car, changed shirt/socks/shoes, and started running again. Very slowly. Along the way I helped out my friends from Second Wind Running Club (who organized the race) by taking down the flagging tape that marked the course as I ran. I cut the loop a little short so I could make it back to the finish line for the awards ceremony. I received a race towel for finishing 2nd in my age group. As I sat on the grass I stretched out quite a bit. Running that hard really left my muscles tight, and by that point I had only run 12 miles.

After the awards I ate more and started running again, still very slowly. It was rather uneventful until mile 22 or so when I started to have a lot of pain in my right hip flexor. I stopped to walk, but that didn’t help much. Around that same time Melissa called me on my cell phone to offer moral support, which helped. My plans were in serious jeopardy and I was still 2 miles away from my car. So I walked about a mile. My hip wasn’t getting any better. I started running again. I immediately noticed my hip hurt less when I was running than when I was walking. If that wasn’t motivation to keeping running I don’t know what was.

I limped along at 12 minute per mile pace for the remainder of the run. I passed the imaginary 26.2 mile mark (marathon distance) at 5:09, probably the slowest I’ve ever covered that distance in five attempts. I’ve previously done 2 marathons and 2 ultramarathons. Even though this 30 miler wasn’t actually a race, I’m probably going to call it an ultramarathon anyway.

Running through the water crossings on the last lap of the 5 mile trail was pretty unpleasant. My feet and been wet for over 5 hours and now they were sopping and I feared I would get blisters. I looked at my watch as I passed 29 miles and realized I could finish under 6 hours if I didn’t dally. So I actually picked it up and ran closer to 10 minute pace for the last mile. I finished the 30 miles in 5:59:04.

After the run I hobbled back to the car, took of my wet shoes & socks, and drove 30 miles home barefoot. I shoveled food and gatorade into my mouth the entire way home. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stand up without too much difficulty when I got home and my hip no longer hurt at all. Even now, 7 hours later, I’m still able to move around. Tomorrow will be another story though.

This was the farthest I’ve ever run (I’ve done 28.4 miles on two occasions) and it hurt. It hurt more than I expected. It was the race that did me in. Had I run slowly the entire time I don’t think I would have had as much difficulty. Fortunately, I never bonked, and my muscles never cramped up. Had it not been for the late hip flexor pain (or the water crossings) it would have been a truly delightful day in the woods.

The Carpenter Park Cyclocross Race

Photo by Eric Smith, all others by Melissa

On Sunday Melissa and I headed to Carpentersville, a northwest suburb of Chicago, for the Carpenter Park Cyclocross race. This race is #4 in the Chicago Cyclocross Cup, a weekly series of races each fall.

Cyclocross is a fascinating type of bike racing. It began a hundred or so years ago as a way for road cyclists to maintain their fitness in the off season. The race organizers go out of their way to make the race as hard as possible. The races have…

bumpy grass,

steep hills,

lots of turns,

barriers to run and jump over,

sand,

etc.

Riders make loops on a relatively short course for a set amount of time, kind of like a criterium. Cyclocross bikes are kind of a cross between road bikes & mountain bikes. They basically have the frame of a road bikes, but wide knobby tires and cantilever brakes to allow mud/grass/leaves on the tires to pass through.

This particular event had multiple races for different categories of riders. I raced twice, first in the Masters 30+ race in the morning, then later in the category 4a race in the afternoon (this is why I’m wearing long sleeves in some of the photos and short sleeves others).

The masters race lasted 45 minutes and it was exhausting. Cyclocross is anaerobic–a 100% effort the entire time. I started towards the back of the pack and moved up several places during the race. Passing is a challenge, because there are so many tight turns. I ended up 19th out of 31 riders in the 30+ division. My friends Greg & Gene raced at the same time, though in different divisions. Gene was 18th in the 40+ division and Greg was 4th in the 50+ division.

Between my two races we watched our teammate Anona finish 4th in her first cyclocross race, the womens category 4 race.

The mens category 4a race was much bigger, with 52 people starting at the same time. I got off to a bad start and spent most of the race wasting energy passing people. Fortunately this race was only 30 minutes, and it went much faster. I finished 29th. Two other local riders fared slightly better. Nick was 7th, and Dan was 18th. They both intended to ride the cat 3 race, but they arrived too late and rode the cat 4a race instead.

After the 4a race we checked the results and we were about to leave when I looked up and saw Erik the Bike Destroyer riding the cat 4b race, so we stuck around and chatted a bit with him as he collapsed onto the ground after the finish. Ah, cyclocross.

So, I wasn’t terribly successful, but I finished both races (unlike my 1st cross race) and I had a great time. I’m still pretty new to this. These were my 3rd and 4th cross races and they were good learning experiences for me. I’ll probably try some more this fall.

After the race we made the obligatory stop at Veggie Bite in Chicago. We met my cousin Scott and his lady friend at the Wicker Park location (to which we had never been). It was much busier than the south side location where we’ve gone before. The BBQ tofu was fantastic.

The Glen

As a child growing up in Danville I used to love to go to the nearby county and state parks with my grandparents, aunt Marcia, and brother Travis. We would go hiking and fishing for hours on end. Kickapoo, Kennekuk, and Forest Glen were my favorites. As an adult living in nearby Urbana I still visit these same parks, though I forego the hiking and fishing in favor of trail running and occasionally mountain biking.

This morning I went with a group of local trail runners over to Forest Glen county park southeast of Danville. We ran the backpacker trail, which is somewhere between 10 & 11 miles (there’s so much elevation change the GPS I was wearing did a poor job measuring the distance). I’ve run this trail twice before and every time I come away thinking this is one of the hardest trails in the area to run.

The first third of the trail is deceptively simple. The middle third becomes challenging. The final third is brutal. The latter half of the trail follows the Vermilion river bluffs and the trail traverses many hills that are steep and/or tall. This most difficult section comes right at the end when you’re already tired from all the previous hills.

A few of the runners brought their dogs out. I was half expecting pandemonium, but it worked out pretty well. I only tripped on a dog one time :)

The C4[2]

This past weekend I travelled up to Chicago to attend a Mac software development conference called C4. This was the third year the conference was held (named C4[2], the previous two editions were C4[0] & C4[1]), though it was the first time I attended it.

It shares much in common with WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference, yet there are many stark contrasts. WWDC has been growing at an unmaintainable rate. This year there were around 5000 attendees. This C4 conference had 170 attendees, including many well known and respected names in the world of Mac software development. Both conferences include technical presentations on various development topics. WWDC sessions are presented by Apple engineers, but C4 sessions are presented by other application developers.

C4 is not widely publicized and I just happened to find out about it by reading other developers’ blogs and Twitter posts. I quickly became excited and signed up a few hours after registration opened, which was fortunate because it filled to capacity a couple hours after that.

The trip started last Friday morning when I rode the Pocket Rocket to the train station in Champaign. Melissa accompanied me on her bike to see me off. When we arrived at the station I folded up the Pocket Rocket, put it in a big nylon carrying bag, walked in, picked up my ticket, and sat down in the waiting room. The Amtrak train was almost an hour late, but before I knew it I was showing the conductor my ticket and boarding the train. This was a somewhat new and interesting experience for me, as I had never ridden on a train around these parts.

I arrived in Union Station in Chicago and headed straight to the food court, as it was past lunch time by now. I lucked out to find a Mexican restaurant, where I could get a veggie burrito, connected to a Cinnabon.

After partaking in the delicious meal I headed outside, unpacked my bike and rode off. I had a little time to kill before the start of the conference so I took a quick trip over to the lake shore path. Next I hit up the Michigan Ave. Apple store. I arrived at the hotel where the conference was to take place plenty early and waited around for a few hours. Lots of other conference attendees were arriving during this time and I chatted with a few of them. The conference started with a dinner and a couple opening sessions. It was after 11 pm before the conference ended. I whipped my bike back out and rode about four miles north to my cousin Scott’s apartment, where I would be sleeping. Or so I thought.

I arrived. We caught up a bit and talked about bikes. I met his friends. It was now approaching midnight and his neighbors were still having a raging party upstairs. The music was unbelievably loud and people were literally jumping up and down. I finally fell asleep somewhere between 1 am – 1:30 am. The party was still going on. Thank goodness I can sleep through anything.

I woke up bright and early at 6:15 am. At some point Friday evening a bicyclist from Chicago I knew from races we have done together contacted me and suggested I join his team for their Saturday morning training ride. I hadn’t been expecting to do this sort of thing, so I was a little unprepared, but I like to be spontaneous. I met riders from the XXX Racing team at Wicker Park and we took off heading north.

Chicago has ridiculous traffic, lots of stop lights, and plenty of potholes. I had been wondering how these guys trained in this and I got a crash course (not literally) in big city training. A group of nearly 60 (3-4 times the size in my normal training rides) rode about 25 miles to Highland Park. It was a pretty easy pace on the way up. Half (including me) turned around and headed back to Chicago. The ride back was a lot crazier. It basically turned into a road race where 20 or so riders were all jockeying for position at 28 mph. Meanwhile traffic was all around us. We had to slam on our brakes for a couple stoplights. It was a little more dangerous than my typical training rides, but it was never out of control. I handled it pretty well on my little bike and I got lots of surprised comments about how well the bike did. I love this little thing.

I ended the 50 mile ride back at Scott’s, then showered and biked back downtown to the conference. There were more interesting talks all afternoon. Between talks, during meals, etc. I met lots of really interesting people who were working on a wide range of projects. There were developers who worked solo in their spare time, people from small, 3-15 person companies working in small teams, people (like me) from medium, couple hundred person companies, all the way to people from Adobe, which employs thousands.

That night was a pizza party, where I met more interesting people. Again I rode back to Scott’s late. Again his neighbors were throwing a wild party. Again I fell asleep despite them.

I slept in slightly longer before Scott and I took a ride down the lake shore path all the way to his office at the University of Chicago. We almost went past Barrack Obama’s house, but Scott couldn’t remember which street it was on. I tried out his fixed gear bike and he tried out the Pocket Rocket. It was an interesting experience. After my recent purchases, a fixed gear bike is really the only kind missing from my collection… but I’m not in any real hurry to get one. It was a little too weird for my tastes. I never really felt safe and secure on it the way it do on… well, any other bike.

I attended more conference sessions on Sunday afternoon. The conference ended with a coding competition, somewhat similar to the defunct MacHack conference. Eight or so developers showed off simple iPhone programs they had written using GPS/location functionality with the theme “paranoia.” There were apps detailing crimes that had take place near you, all the way to a “spy” stealth distress beacon. The eventual winner was a little off-topic, but was technically interesting so most attendee voters overlooked that detail. Somehow it combined an iPhone, a Wiimote, and a Mac to build a simple gesture based drawing program. The contest winners were awarded a MacBook Air, and dozens of software applications donated by conference attendees (including a free copy of my application Mathematica).

The conference had ended a few hours before my train was to depart back to Champaign so I rode around downtown for an hour or two.

Chicago’s Magnificent Mile

The Sears Tower

After my joyride I returned to Union Station, packed up my bike, and went straight to the food court… only to find everything closed. What? It was 6:45 pm. In a panic I went back out and walked a couple blocks, lugging my heavy backpack and my bike in its bag with me. I found several restaurants. All were closed. Ridiculous. Time was running out so I went back to Union Station, bought $10 worth of overpriced junk food, and boarded the train home. The Fig Newton’s were good, but I would have preferred dinner.

The ride home was fairly smooth. I fell asleep pretty quickly in my exhausted state. When I woke up a short while later I set an alarm on my phone to ensure I wouldn’t sleep through my stop in Champaign. It worked. Another short bike ride later I was finally home and very quickly fell asleep in my comfortable bed.

So that was my weekend, and as Melissa speculated, I was rather proud of myself to have done the entire thing without the assistance/hinderance of an automobile.

The Truck Stop Bag

After living in Nicaragua for two months I returned to the U.S. on a business trip. I purchashed many supplies to bring back to Nicaragua– more than I could fit into my luggage. My mother came to the rescue with the truck stop bag. This is a huge backpack with dozens of zippered pockets that she purchased at some truck stop for some ridiculously low price, like $8. We travelled all over Nicaragua and Costa Rica with this bag. It literally ripped apart at the seems and Melissa sewed it back together.

Anyway, we’re on our way back to Nicaragua for vacation (currently waiting to depart O’hare). We wanted to travel light so we didn’t check any luggage, just a duffel bag and (you guessed it) the truck stop bag. Fully packed it’s almost as big as Melissa.