Personal Motivation

Well the long weekend is done, and a great one it was.  With Keri visiting her brother, I had the opportunity to keep a fellow triathlete company on her long ride on the Saturday.  I joined her after signing up for the Ironman Calgary 70.3.  We both then proceeded to ride the course in both directions.  1st out to Ghost Lake and then back from Ghost lake.  Total distance 164km.  Sue did amazing even with me on occasion pushing the pace on her.  The comment I'll never for get was: "Frank are you trying to ride a 180Km time trial?"  which was her nice way of telling me that the pace was a little fast and could we slow down.  Thank you for the great ride Sue it was appreciated.

On the Sunday, I decided to go for my long run to train for the Lost Souls Ultra which I'm registered in this year.  A great training run is to run from the bottom of Moose Mountain starting at Hwy 66 to the top of Moose Mountain.  Total elevation gain of about 4000 feet.  I made not bad time, in getting up there in 2:05.  I spoke with David the fire watchman at the station.  This is his 1st year at the station we chatted about the weather and lightening strikes etc...  Then it was time to head for home and ran back down to the car.  I was home by noon so that I could welcome my soulmate back into our home.

On the Monday, it was time to head out for a great hike which I had never done before.  Up to the top or Mount Indefatigable.  It took us 2 hrs to reach the top, all the while we were heckling our fellow adventure runner Neil Runions, who had just done Death Race 2 days before and whose quads were still sore from the race.  He climbed the mountain ok, however, coming down was a bigger challenge.  His quads lasted about 30 minutes before he had to turn around and come down the mountain backwards.  The groups heading up had a good chuckle and were wondering whether this was a new technique.  Good on you Neil for enduring the pain and making it down safe.

So what is on the agenda for this weekend?  Well tomorrow is a 5-6 hour trail run, namely, Powderface trail with our friends Cara, Trevor, Angelique and my beautiful wife Keri.  It is a great way for Keri and I to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary.

On the Sunday it is time to spend some time cycling and we're riding 70Km with our friends Janet and Bruce.  They are now tapering for Ironman Canada.

Have a great week and chat next week.

Well I'm back into the fold at work.  I took some much needed time off and travelled via bicycle from Hope, BC to Barkerville, BC.  A total of 600Km in 6 days.  The views were amazing and the history was intriguing.  We traveled from Hope to Kumsheen to Ashcroft, to 100 Mile House to Williams Lake to Quesnel to Barkerville.  Check out the pictures on Flickr under the name of fvandongen.

Last weekend I completed the Sylvan Half triathlon, and it was a challenging day.  The swim was choppy, the ride was rolling and the run was nice and toasty.  I managed to complete the 1/2 Ironman distance in a time of 5:38:06.  Not bad considering that I did not run much for a month prior to the race due to a sprained ankle.

Now it is time to begin the training for the 100Km trail run in Lethbridge.

It is now a long weekend so I'm off to enjoy some sun and welcome my fabulous wife back on Sunday.

Sorry I missed last week's blog entry.  I was off on the Friday thus did not write anything for last week.

This week was an interesting week.  Tuesday was Canada Day and thus it broke up the week for us Canucks.  Keri and I enjoyed a long ride on the Saturday with an out and back ride over Highwood pass.  It is of course training time for Keri and I for our TourBC bike ride in a couple of weeks.

This is our 2nd time riding with the tour, and I intend to enjoy it this year by making sure I stay with Keri for the entire trip and not consider it a race.  No sense hurrying this year on the tour as I do not need to setup a tent and get a mattress inflated.  I guess I'm getting old as I prefer to tent in a trailer rather then in a true tent.

On the Sunday, Keri and I joined the TrailTrash gang for our Sunday long run of 27Km for me and 30Km for Keri.  Why only 27Km for me?  Well, I managed to sprain my ankle twice during the run and had to sack out the run by borrowing Alan's poles to help me run the trail.  Alan, I'm forever in your debt, as you were suffering already due to lack of nutrition, and then then top it off I take your poles away from you.  You are truly an angel on earth and we appreciate all you do for us.

Monday was a  work day with the following day being   Canada Day.  Keri and I joined two friends for a ride to Lake Louise and back, and left Keri to fend for herself on the ride.  I am truly sorry for leaving her on the ride and just hammering the ride.  I will not make that mistake again.  In the future we will make proper plans and ensure that we know up front whether we're training for a race or making the ride a fun ride.

Now Stampede is upon us and so it is time for life to take a breather here in Calgary at the greatest outdoor show on earth.  We normally attend the Stampede round up, but with Finger Eleven playing the day before the round up, we're selling our tickets and are heading to the Coca-Cola stage instead and will listen to Finger Eleven instead of Billy Idol, Joan Jet, etc...

Also the Calgary Marathon in on Sunday this coming weekend and there are 3 participants from the Barlow Running group entered in the full or 1/2 marathon.

Good Luck to Carolyn, Paul and Tony as they go for their belt buckles.

Have a great week.

Frank

This week I was listening to several tech podcasts and there are some interesting developments happening in the world of the internet.  Cloud computing is taking a turn and really showing why it will be the future of our applications.  one of the largest drawbacks to cloud computing is that the solutions have always relied on your connection to the internet.  What is this connection is broken?  Well your application stops working.  Now what if we code the applications so that they are closer to a thick client application?  Well, as long as the application is fully loaded in memory and accessible through the browser, and is truly stateless, then there is no reason why things would not keep working.  We've seen many cloud based applications now leveraging proprietary technologies such as Adobe AIR as well as Microsoft Silverlight.  I have no issues with proprietary solutions except for the locking in of customers to a particular solution vendor.  I'd rather see things that are open source and give me as the customer the choice on whom to work with.  This is where some of the latest solutions coming out are based on.

  Sproudcore is one of these frameworks.  It allows you to develop your application (in this case on a Mac) and then generate the code so that it is all javascript based.  You then deploy the code on your web server.  You then have a rich client application which is stateless and can be run disconnected from the internet.

Another solution out there is 280north.com This company created a framework based on Objective C which transcodes into Javascript.  If you go to their site, you'll see an application which is in beta right now, named 280slides.  280slides allows you to create powerpoint presentation within your browser.  A great example of what the future of cloud computing is all about.

What excites me about cloud computing is that it gives each user the flexibility to select their own OS to run on.  For corporations, it provides them with the ability to completely lock down the desktop and make your applications available through a browser using a unified desktop, containing the essential applications they need without the worries of virus intrusions etc...

Gone will be the days whereby vendors dictate where your applications will run, instead us as users can decide what application we want to run, and all you will need is a browser, local disk or network disk.  The PC/Mac can then truly become a commodity product, whereby everything comes down to the browser.

I see exciting days ahead for the users.

Frank

Well the big news this week was the Apple keynote speech and the availability of the iPhone in Canada starting July 11th.  It is about time too.  We've had to hack the phone for the last year to make it work in Canada, when there really was no need to.  I cannot wait to get my hands on one, as surfing the web via a blackberry is horrible.  The announcement of a tonne of applications for the phone does not hinder its appeal either.

The last big thing they announce was the replacement for .mac.  Which was also long overdue as not many people found value in the service.  Replacing .mac with mobile me, is a good thing and makes the iPhone that much more appealing.  The ability to synch your contacts, email, calendar and iDisk is a great service for any user.  The question I have is how can we make the merging of Enterprise and Home user easier as the two worlds right now are very different.  Ideally I want one device to handle everything.  Of course the challenge is to ensure the security of the enterprise is not compromised while providing the flexibility for t the home user.  One day we'll figure out a way.

Have a great week.

Frank