Gold Rush Adventure Race

Well for the past several weeks I've been training for another adventure race. This one is located just down the street in Woodstock, GA, whereas the last race I went to was in Toccoa. That makes for not such an early morning of race day. This race has the same layout and general characteristics of the first one I did in that it's a combination of mountain biking and running with a little bit of orienteering involved. We chose to do the 6 hour race which has now been lengthened to an 8 hour race. There are 12 hour and 24 hour versions as well but they are a little too much for our team. The 8 hour race would be more than enough.

I've been mountain biking and running to get the stamina for this race but I think I'm a little short on the running training currently. I wish I got a sooner start to train. Instead of running some days, I've been heading down to the Silver Comet after work with some guys from work to ride on that trail about 20 to 30 miles or so. On August 15th we have planned to ride the entire length, 100 miles in one day! I think my legs can propel me that far, I'm just worried about my butt on that little bike seat for about 6-7 hours!

Well after this weekend I'll post our time and ranking in the Gold Rush race. Pray that we do well and don't kill ourselves!

Also, check out this funny anti-Obama video

"Even works on a Prius!"

NASA's new mission

Is it just me or is NASA's new mission to "reach out to Muslim nations to help them feel good about their contributions to math and science and engineering" a HUGE waste of time and money! Not only that, I think it's very condescending of NASA to even have this initiative. To me it come across and NASA begin like a big brother and saying "don't cry Muslim nations, see look at all the cool stuff you've accomplished, like inventing number and stuff, see you're cool, I swear." To go along with that, what accomplishments have "Muslim nations" brought to math, science and engineering in the last say 1000 years? It seems to me, and I could be wrong, most advancements in those fields comes from Europe, America, Japan, etc. How many Noble Prizes in Physics has someone from a "Muslim nation" won? No idea.

Not only is it condescending but why the heck is this NASA's role? So we go from the shuttle missions to NO MISSIONS AT ALL, because the Constellation rockets are scrapped, to diplomatic roles across the world. Wouldn't it be more diplomatic if NASA BUILT SOMETHING that the world could get behind? Just saying. I'm no genius but not having a shuttle replacement was extremely stupid in my opinion. Having more and more private exploration is looking better and better and getting all of this government bureaucracy out of the way so we can actually do something.

Here's the article

Summer Harvest

The carrots are in! This year in the early Spring I decided to grow a few carrots which I had never done before. I planted a row of seed about 3 feet long (I have a small garden!) and waited a few weeks for any growth. I was going to thin them out once the seeds germinated but nature did that for me I guess. Only 3 plants made it and rooted.

I kept them watered and such until yesterday when I decided to pick the last two carrots. The first one I picked last week and we added to a vegetable stir-fry. I picked one, washed it and ate it right away. Man was it good! It was a good feeling trying to grow something for the first time and have them survive! These carrots were pretty easy to take care of, just make sure they have water and since the roots go down deep, they can resist some drought conditions (or if we go on vacation for 5 days). The only down side is you have to really get down and get your hands dirty just to check when they are ready. I waited for the foliage to get nice and big and then I dug a test hole to see the carrots and noticed they look like the size of the carrots at the store, so I decided to pick them.

This year we planted:
Tomatoes - 2 plants
Cherry Tomatoes - 1 plant
Green Peppers - 1 plant
Chili Peppers - 2 plants
Lettuce - 2 plants
Carrots - 3 plants
Garlic - 1 plant

I think I'm going to try something new again this year and replant the lettuce, carrots and garlic in August and have a fall crop to harvest in October sometime.

Should be fun!