Tonight was my first night back to the gym after a lengthy hiatus.  It feels really good to go in there and come away exhausted.

For those who don't know, I have Sarcoidosis, and it hurts.  It physically hurts, it diminishes my physical capacity, but worst of all it's mentally and emotionally taxing.  It's primarily confined to my lungs so there are no outwardly physical manifestations of it.  The downside to that is, people, especially people whom I'm closest to, tend to "forget" or just not understand – if they can't see it, it must not be too bad.  "It's not cancer, right?"  Well, it's there, and I can't ignore it because it causes me physical pain and reduces my physical endurance.

So, between the sarcoid; being supremely busy with my wife and boys (the twins are now four); working; travelling; etc. I've been avoiding the gym.  I've tried to keep doing *something* like pushups and situps, but the truth is, I just became so exhausted and frustrated that I even started slacking on that.  Well, I'm happy to say that I've been hitting the treadmill at home and I've built up enough stamina to head back to the weight room.  So, tonight was my first night back.  Probably won't be able to move tomorrow, but I like that feeling.

 It's a vicious cycle when you don't work out – you become too tired to work out, so you don't go; when you don't go, you don't build the stamina and fight the fatigue. That's a mountain with a snowball that's hard to stop.   But, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  Hopefully tonight will be the first night of my comeback to fitness.  I'm setting realistic goals for now – first to make it a habit again, and second to build up the stamina and fitness level to lead a healthy life not just for me, but for my wife and sons too.  There was a time when I resigned myself to 40 or 50 as my life expectancy.  I'm going to do everything in my power to stretch that to 100.  100?  Ok, 90.

So, it feels good to be back, and I look forward to many more dates with the weights.

Cheers,

Goody

We made it to Japan. 13 1/2 hours on a relatively full 777. We left Sunday morning from DFW at 10:10am and landed at NRT on Monday afternoon at 2:20pm local time. We flew up over British Columbia, Alaska, part of Russia, and down to Tokyo, so from that aspect the flight was pretty cool.

Clearing immigration was interesting – there’s a checkbox that says “Are you in possession of Narcotics, Marijuana, Opiates, Stimulates or …. Other Drugs.” I have a prescription with me, so to be honest, I checked “yes.” I don’t think that’s what they meant. After I handed the paper to the immigration officer his eyes got huge. He did a double take then asked me “What?!” in that why would you admit to this tone. I handed him a note from my doctor and explained that I thought it might fall under “other drugs.” Glad we got that all straightened out.

We leave next Sunday to come home. We’ll leave NRT at 5:30pm and arrive at ORD before we left at 3:30pm the same day. That shouldn’t mess with my internal clock too much
</sarcasm>.

We have Tuesday to ourselves so I’m trying to talk a couple of people into going to Mt. Fuji. It’s 1500 Yen ($15) to take the train down from the hotel. Brian said he’s up for it, so we’ll see.

I didn’t realize that our hotel was this close to the Tokyo Tower, so we’ll definitely make sure to go see that while we’re here too.

So, here we are.

I’ve put a few pics of our arrival up here, but I’ll probably break down and set up a flikr account later. Until then:  Japan Pics

Update 05/06/2008:  I set up the flickr account here.

Sayonara,
Goody

Wow, this is right on time, as usual.

Let’s see. Chicago –> CAK was….mmm…. oh, here it is, Friday, 22 February. So, what is there to say? A lot, really. Most of the people I see F2F have already heard the adventures over and over (and over). I’ve never been accused of being boring.

The Training

Sam and I went to Chicago for training. Regarding the training, it all went very well, and we’re now both certified to install and configure the Sphericall system. Not much else to report on that front. However, our training partners were from the UK. Cambridge, that is. Mike and Andy. Couple of great chaps, they are. Although, I imagine Andy would rather be called a bloke, whereas, Mike is a fine chap. As we spent a great deal of time exchanging humor and colloquialisms, Andy pointed out how “Mike is a posh loke. For example, Mike has a gar-A’ge, whereas, I have a gA’-rage.” Mike and Andy were loads of fun. Mike couldn’t stop pointing out how “cheap the beer is [t]here”, while I couldn’t stop pointing out maybe it’s the exchange rate. Either way, a good time was had by all. I think.

The City

Well, other than Elmo’s Tombstones – While You Wait, we never made it there. Drove back past it on the way to O’hare, if that counts.

The Flight Home

Ahhh, this is where the story begins. O’hare. Terminal 2. Concourse F. Gate 11. 6pm. If you’ve never been to O’hare, then let me confirm the rumors: it’s very large, and it’s very busy. But, gate 11, now that’s a story all its own. It’s an unwritten Stephen King novella. (Maybe it’s an unwritten episode of The Colbert Report.) Either way, if you haven’t been there, think 1408. If you haven’t seen 1408, I’ll do my best to describe the scene.

Gate F11: Chicago’s O’Hare International airport.

I enter Terminal 2 and start the long walk toward the end of the airport – concourse F. After the trek down the unending corridor, past untold masses of travelers, vendors, and the TSA, I finally arrive at the end… of concourse F. I look around and all I see are people. Seats filled with hundreds of people. Their faces glaring at me through the fog of delayed flights and cancellations. Their eyes, piercing my soul with a thousand silent screams for mercy. The air is foul – dank and musty. What’s that stench? It’s sweat. It’s people. It’s delayed travelers.

I look around and see gates 10, 12 and 14, but no gate 11… or 13 either!. Where are they? Where is IT? It must be here, unless the airport architects were superstitious and feared the number 11 too. No, it must be here somewhere, it’s printed on my boarding pass. Then I see it. A sign pointing downward toward a set of stairs, and a broken escalator that’s covered with caution tape. The sign says… “Abandon all hope, ye who enter F11.”

As I approach the stairs, the air thickens. The stench becomes more nauseating. The air down there looks like hot Phoenix asphalt in July, but it’s Chicago in the middle of February. It can’t be over 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the heat. I can feel the heat rising from the stairs. I pause, but my heart races. I don’t want to go down there. I have no choice. Somewhere, beyond the final stair, is a plane. My only hope. My salvation awaits…. down there. (it’s like when you’re 4 and your parents forced you to eat broccoli, but you didn’t want to, but you really wanted the pudding for dessert. I digress.)

I begin to descend. Step. by. step. One at a time. No sudden moves. Stay alert. The mighty Cerberus awaits. The air is getting hotter. The stench grows thicker. My eyes, they burn. The final step. I’m down… there. More people. Hundreds of people. Weary, broken souls. The sweat. The smell. The… freakin’ trash. Man, don’t they ever clean this place?! It’s the forgotten gate of Hell. O’Hare F11. It’s old. The seats, the carpet, the walls, the doors – all old! I look around for an empty seat (two really, Sam’s with me, but the buddy system isn’t as dramatic). There are none to be found. It’s standing room only waiting for the Inferno Express, muahahaha!

Our My flight is supposed to depart at 7:55, but it’s only 6:30. So, I wait. I wait with the others. The other souls also condemned to a wait time of misery and despair. Praying against the odds that their flights won’t be delayed or…[gasp] cancelled. I make my way through the trash and the filth, past the vermin, to a seat in the corner. I’m surrounded by, and filled with, fear and loathing in Chicago.

So, that’s pretty much it. Our flight actually left right on time, and thanks to the jet stream, we arrived at CAK a few minutes early. But that gate – that gate is absolutely disgusting. Someone should really clean that place. It stinks, and the trash barrels are overflowing.

Conclusion

All told, Chicago was pretty fun. We learned a lot about the new system, hung out with some great guys from the UK, saw some good live music, and made some new friends. As they say – It dudn’t git much better’n at.

Cheers,
Goody

I’m in Chicago this week for training.  My employer recently purchased another company and I’m here to learn their systems for eventual integration with our software.

Day 0:

Our flight from CAK to ORD was delayed by an hour.  Not bad considering the person at the ticket counter initially said it would be at least 3 hours late before we even took off.  Total late:  66 minutes.  When we landed however, there was “a boarding issue with the plane that was occupying our gate,” so we had to wait until another became available.  I’m betting the “issue” was related to the firetrucks and ambulances at the gate in front of us.  Just a guess.

Getting through ORD was surprisingly easy.  Our bags were on the belt when we got to the baggage claim – in and out.  We caught the bus to the Avis lot, got our Malibu (surprisingly nice car) and set out for the hotel.  The hotel is in the North Shore area, approximately 14 miles from ORD.  This is an important point.

For some reason, we didn’t get the “Where2″ garmin nav for our rental.  This $10 saves our company a lot.  The only map we had said to take 90/94 east.  This is an important point.  Get a map.  Go ahead, get a map, I’ll wait.  Look up Chicago and look at route 94 from ORD to downtown.  It goes North and it goes South.  It doesn’t go East and it doesn’t go West.  The signs however say 94 East or 94 West.  That’s it – no 94 East to the freakin’ Detriot this way or 94 West to Fargo that way.  The signs suck.

So, after a while (waaay more than 14 miles) I said to Sam, “Sam, I think we’re going to Indianapolis.”  Sam agreed, so we decided to get off at 63rd st. and get oriented.  The neat thing about 63rd st. is that you can get off of 94 NorthSouthEast, but not on.  The other interesting thing about cities in general is the abundance of one-way streets.  After driving around for a few minutes we stopped at the red light in front of Elmo’s.  A block north of Elmo’s is Rambo’s Liquor.  It’s an interesting part of Chicago that we otherwise probably wouldn’t have experienced.

Fast forward – a few minutes, several turns, and numerous blocks later we figure out up from down and we’re back on 94 West, which is really 94 North.  70.3 miles later we arrived at the 14-miles-from-the-airport hotel, check in, and head to  Flatlander’s for dinner.  Flatlander’s is a nice micro-brewery in the North Shore with a great atmosphere, great service, and great food.

So, here I am 11 hours after I disembarked, I’m safe and sound blogging on the free Wi-fi.

Let’s hope Day 1 holds as much adventure as Day 0.

Ever look at some code and see anything similar to this:

//
// make sure we're not null
//
if (m_settings[item] != null)
  return m_settings[item].ToString();

Every Day? Me too.

Ever wonder why so many programmers assume the double identity of the variable they’re currently working with when they write the comment?  “make sure we’re not null” As though, at runtime, the developer suddenly becomes null too.

Interesting.