The 2010 LA Marathon

Yesterday I ran the LA Marathon.  It was long and hard, just like I’d expected.  But around mile 18 something happened that I didn’t expect.  I was running alongside a kid my age who was audibly in pain.  I asked him if he wanted some of those jelly belly sport beans.  He said no and that his muscles hurt but I told him some carbs and electrolytes should help with that.  This was the same thing that had happened to me on my last marathon and what helped me was when someone gave me some of the same beans.  I gave him the whole pack and told him they can’t hurt and also chewing the beans will make a nice distraction.  He was surprised and thankful.  I then said bye and continued running along.

I’d forgotten about him but later, after I’d finished the race, he found me and thanked me and told me they really helped.  It further solidified for me the main reason I run marathons.  I think it’s ez to focus on The Marathon as an individual race with 1 clear superstar winner but the reason I like the marathon is because everyone runs the race together.  All ages, all sizes, all races, everyone!  Just like life we’re all in it together.  It reminds you that yes you can go through life alone but it’s always so much more rewarding and so much more fulfilling to do it together.

The Train

Jason Mraz. My headphones are hurting my ears. The train is stopped. The people behind me are idiots. Haha. Soon I’ll be sitting on a 45 ft sailboat and drinking a nice cold miller light. The train starts to move again. It’s averaging 50 mph. It’s mesmorizing to watch the scenery fly by. It reminds me of Europe. (the act of looking out the window, not the scenery). I don’t like much of Jason Mraz’s album.

Trever says …

“May your life be a wild fire, burning uncontrollably, with creativity as it’s spark.”

Late night ramblings

Lying in bed. Barker at my feet. I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Someone is showering in the apartment below me. A car just passed by. Exactly one year till the wedding. I blink. It’s our 1 year anniversary. It’s hot in the valley. The fan helps a little. Just finished packing for a camping trip this weekend. It’ll be Vals first camping trip. I’m so excited. I hope she enjoys herself. Still not tired. I think I’ll play peggle on the iPhone. Good game but 5 bucks is too much. Should have been 2.

Summer time BBQ

The distinct smell of rib eye cooking over the grill, jack Johnson humming along with his guitar, the occasional flare up, I’m aiming for 155 degrees. Medium well. I sit back in the cold metal chair in the courtyard of our apartment complex. I haven’t grilled for a while. I think I’ll start doing it more. A neighbor walks by. I bought a fishing pole today. 7 ft and I drove it home on my motorcycle. Quite a feat. Let me tell you. Can’t wait to eat. So hungry.

Skype on the iPhone – Dropped calls

This is basically going to be a re-post of something I just posted in a thread that I just found regarding Skype on the iPhone and dropped calls:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=316561

I have a 16 gig 3G iPhone with the latest firmware installed (2.2). I recently downloaded Skype and bought a subscription to call anywhere in the US and Canada for $25/year.  Great deal because now I can reduce my plan and save some money!   Also, when I travel (like on my upcoming honeymoon) I can call anyone I want at home from my iPhone.  Messing with calling cards while I was in Europe lately was NO FUN!

Anyway, yesterday I made my first test call yesterday and had the call drop within the first 20 seconds. I then called back the same person and the conversation lasted 4 minutes or so. No problems. The sound of the connection and everything was good.

Today I got to work and, since I’m on a different wifi network, I began experiencing the same problem that many of you are writing about. My calls wouldn’t last more than 14 seconds.

It happened 10 times in a row, so I went into the settings and turned off the wifi and turned it back on. It didn’t help so I then turned off 3G and locations services. I was then able to make a 10 minute call. I then went back in and turned both back on and now I’m on a call that’s lasted 20 minutes so far. I’m on hold listening to music (DMV). I figured they’d be a good test number b/c you can hear the quality of the automated services and the hold music.

Bagels and jazz

TGIF. Every Friday we have bagels at work. This week 2 co-workers brought their instruments to work to play. I can tell it’s going to be a good day. 🙂

The Compton Initiative

Yesterday my fiancee Val and I woke up at 6 in the morning and headed to Compton in order to help volunteer with a group named, “The Compton Initiative.”   They are a group of 1,000-2,000 people that meet several times a year in order to work together to clean up the city of Compton.

I had no idea what to expect and I was really impressed when we arrived.  There were tons of people helping to park the cars that were arriving, and we were checked in and fed breakfast within 20 minutes.  Next we found a sub group to join and off we went to paint Whaley Middle School.  So many people came together from so many walks of life.  Within 3 and a half hours the entire middle school was painted.  It was so amazing to see so many volunteers come together and contribute to something so much bigger than themselves.  I can’t wait to volunteer for their next project.  I’m sure it’ll just as much fun as this one.

Organizing into sub-groups early in the morning.

Val, reloading her paint brush.

This was our wall to paint. It went so fast!

Paint.

More Paint 🙂

Thought this wall looked good.

Painters everywhere!

Toward the end of the day the pro’s came in to pick up what we missed 🙂

At a certain point I was in charge of reloading the paint distribution stations! Pretty important stuff.

Lunch!

Dad & Val running the distro station.

Teamwork.

Whole building painted in like 15 mins! haha.

Lunch – Hot dogs, chips & a soda… mmm.

Me, Val, Gwen & Dad

Cold soda’s on a hot day… mmm.

Dad, Gwen & Flow

Gwen & Flow

Dad & Gwen

My first Sprint Triathalon.

This past weekend I competed in the Kring & Chung Newport Beach Triathalon. It was a Sprint Triathalon so it consisted of a 1/2 mile swim, 15 mile bike and 3 mile run. I’ve been training for the past 4 months so I was definitely ready for it but it was hard!

One thing that definitely worked against me was the fact that I was training mostly at the gym. So when I swam that 1/2 mile in the Newport back bay, the salt water was making me sick and I think b/c of my nerves I was having a hard time controlling my breathing. About 1/2 way through I just realized I was going to have to breathe every other stroke, instead of the way I was training, which was every 3 or 5 strokes. The other challenge was trying to swim in a straight line from buoy to buoy.

Next came the bike. It felt good but again I wished I had trained more on a road bike. I had spent most (99%) of my training on the cycles at the gym. It would have been a lot more prudent to train on a bike and even on some hills. (There was 1 hill on the bike portion of the Tri and 1 on the run… tough stuff!)

Last was the run. My legs felt like jello right when I got off the bike. I was ready for that b/c people had told me it’d happen but it still feels pretty crappy. I was totally exhausted by the time I started my run but I chugged along and finished in 1 hour 43 mins and 20 seconds. Not bad for my first time but I know I can do way better 🙂

One thing that really helped me was I bought a wetsuit at Triathalon Lab in Redondo beach.  It really helps you float A LOT and makes the swim much easier.  From what I understand a wetsuit gives you an advantage in the race no matter what.  Also I barrowed my cousins Bianchi road bike.  If I didn’t have that the bike portion would have been so much harder.  That is a great road bike!  I also bought Triathalon shorts and a cycling shirt from REI.  Both weren’t completely necessary but they made the experience so much more comfortable so I’m glad I had them.

This week I started training for my next physical endeavor. It’s a half marathon in San Diego. Wish me luck!

Standing on the beach at 6:45am.

The Swim. 1/2 mile.

Ready for part 2!

What a bad ass 🙂

Grabbin the bike and gettin ready for a 15 mile bike.

So hard!

At this point I’m pretty much exhausted.

Sweet Victory!

My number.

My love 🙂

Support team.

Support team.

Chiparaki

Hanging out in china town with Dustin & friends.

Greg Guzman – Future UFC Champion

Who's Next?!

Greg Guzman is an up and coming MMA Fighter form San Jacinto, CA.  His record is 5-2.  His style is a wrestler who likes to stand and strike.  Check out his new webpage.

www.gregguzman.com

[Designed by Valerie Guzman. |  Video by Trever Jones.]

Kulaks Woodshed

Valerie and I went on a walk tonight with Barker and stubbled across something 3 years too late.  Kulaks Woodshed.  A place where people can come and play at open mic nights or learn music at a workshop.  But more importantly it’s a place where the community can come and sit, hang out, and listen to some good music.  (Dogs ok)  (Barker was stoked).  They have a great live webcast that you can watch from home!  Enjoy.

Weather Reports – Email/Rss/Desktop/iPhone

Since I ride a motorcycle as my primary source of transportation and have a sailboat as my secondary source 🙂  I always need to keep a close attention to the weather.  Weather.com is a great rescource to do that.  They have an hour by hour forecast which I’ve found to be right on and they also have the ability to send you email alerts, or you can subscribe to their RSS feed,  and even put an app on your desktop or iPhone!  These guys are aweseome.

www.weather.com

Friends don’t let friends blog drunk.

A San Jacinto Easter Weekend

I sit comfortably in a soft recliner, the sweet smell of cupcakes slowly fills the room. Vals dad watches intently as Chivas battles of out on the tv. “I got these at pier one,” Val and her mom cook in the kitchen, I never want to forget this moment. I never want to forget any moment. I’m tired and sore, we painted gregs house today. The living room. It was a lot of work but it looks pretty good in there. His place is really coming along. My hands smell of apulstry cleaner. I’m in the process of detailing Vals car. It’s long overdue. Tomorrow we’ll be at Vals Aunts. It sounds like fun. I hope the food is good. I miss my boat.

What is Vivus?!

My close friend Jovan <aka teh sweetest science> recently flew across the US in order to work on an interactive art installation piece.  His goal is to be able to merge his background as a DJ with interactive art & video in order to sweeten the live experience of his sets.  It’s pretty amazing!

“Developed upon the principles of open source culture and design, VIVUS – in the immediate sense – aims at providing an entirely reproducible, cost-efficient blueprint for any and all who wish to synchronize, simplify, and concurrently command more control of their audio / visual presentations.”

http://vivus2012.com/

Sailing Adventures

Yet another successful sail this past weekend in Long Beach. What a great time! Beautiful weather, good friends and great sailing! 🙂

San diego – Ocean Beach Park

Just picked up some mast steps in San Diego. Got a great deal on craigslist! Now it’s time to walk around and take in the beautiful scenery.

Party time

Hanging with Alex and Salina at their new place.

Emailing video to an iPhone

If you want to email a video to yours or a friends iPhone, it isn’t easy.  And if you search online there isn’t a solution that pops up within 5 minutes of searching.  So… after struggling to figure it out all morning I thought I’d post a how to:

(Quicktime Pro Required)

*Important note: Your video can’t be larger than 10mbs.  That’s the unofficial limit on a file size that you compress using the “movie to iPhone” feature in Quicktime.  In order to bypass this you can upload to an FTP or other video hosting site.

Step one.
Export a full res Quicktime out of your video editing system (Avid, Final Cut, Premiere, etc.)  If you’re not using an editing system then skip this step.

Step two.

Open your file in Quicktime and select movie properties.  Movie properties can also be opened by pressing + J.

Step three.

Select “Video Track” and rotate the video one time 90 degrees in the Flip/Rotate area.  This will automatically cause the video to open in Landscape mode once it is emailed.

Step four.

Choose Export – Movie to iPhone.

Bam you’re done!

Another way you can also do it is to skip steps 1-3 and just simply export to iPhone.  However it won’t play in landscape mode when you email the video.  If you want it to toggle between landscape and non landscape you can upload the file to an FTP and then email the link.  This will then use the web browsers auto toggle capabilities to be able to watch the video in landscape and non landscape mode.  Using FTP will also allow the file to be larger than the unofficial 10mb limit.

More detailed instructions:

http://homepage.mac.com/qt4web/compressforiphone.html

Oreo’s & Milk

A small snack, a reward for working 13 hours and counting, a cleaning supervisor is walking around the office checking nooks and crannies to make sure the cleaning crew is doing their job, I’m inpressed, I hope she doesn’t score me next 🙂  I’m tired.  I work a lot.  It’s worth it but it’s tiring.  I’m sitting at a coworkers desk, it’s cluttered, it stresses me out.  I’ll probably be here 3 more hours.   A lot needs to be done.  I wonder when I’ll get to edit full time.  A tape deck rewinds in the background, it blends in with the melodic mechanical hum that fills the room.  Well back to work.