Andrew Bird at the Roseland

Photo credit: gussifer (this is actually a picture of the show the night before at the fillmore in san francisco)

Last night's Andrew Bird concert was the best I've seen in a long time, which is saying something because I've made it to my share of shows recently.  Anyone familiar with Andrew Bird's style of performance has an idea of how this might go, and if you aren't just plug his name into youtube and you can get a pretty good idea.  AB loops bits of music - many times starting with a plucked pizzicato violin part, could be for four bars or sometimes 8 or 16, and then begins layering on all kinds of accompaniment, including whistling, hand claps, vocals, bowed violin parts, etc until a song emerges.  He's perfected the art of doing this in such a way that at a certain part of all these loops the song just kind of snaps together.

Loney Dear, a band from Sweden, opened the show.  This wasn't the kind of show where you're blown away because everyone is so good.  AB definitely was the part that will stick in my mind.  Loney Dear had a couple of flavors of indie-pop, the acoustic/plaintive/quirky kind of song (which I generally like a lot) and the overwrought epic (which I generally do not) loaded with keyboards.  They were fairly inventive in their stage show, singing off mic or conducting sing-alongs (generally a risky move when you're the unbilled opener) which were quite enjoyable.  Overall though, I won't be buying the album.

When AB finally came out he played mostly songs off of his new album Noble Beast.  I do have this album, although I haven't had a chance to get into it as much as I might like (due to my newfound obsession with The National).  My unfamiliarity hardly mattered, though, as AB's infectious excitement over the new material sold the songs and the melodies flawlessly.  He is one of those performers who puts heart and soul into what he does.  The concert reminded me of the aspects of music that go back for centuries, as a cross between a religious service and a communal gathering.  If I hadn't bought his album already I definitely would have after this show.  In fact, I recommend you do so as well.

The one slight criticism I'd have of the show is that AB is perhaps just a wee bit bored of playing material off of Armchair Apocrypha, his last full album.  I say this because on some of those songs he was loose or inventive with the melodies and their rhythms in a way that kind of detracts from the original song.  For instance, one of the best things about the song "imitosis" is the syncopated rhythm of the vocals in the verse, and when they're stretched and stylized they lose some punch.

But this is a small trifle in an overall great performance.  I loved it and I can't wait to see him again.

Presidential Day Rally for Schools - February 16th 2009

Many of you follow my updates on twitter and Facebook and are therefor aware that Jen gave me her terrible cold.  This one is a real pain in the butt, and I'm still in the part where I feel worse each day rather than better.  Despite all this, tonight I'm braving my way through the haze of Kleenex and Nyquil to let you know about a really important event coming up on February 16th at the Salem state capital to support public school funding in Oregon.

There are many aspects of the funding picture that just don't add up for Oregon schools.  Did you know that the Oregon school year is shorter than any of its surrounding states?  In Portland the school day is the shortest of any district in Oregon.

The Governor's proposed budget for this biennium falls $199 million dollars short of the essential budget level for 2009 - 2011, which is the amount needed just to keep funding at its current levels.  But the governor's budget was proposed before the latest economic news was issued by the Oregon State Economist's office and is now seen as an optimistic proposal in Salem.  The schools are facing a short-fall for this year, which means they won't be able to pay their bills for the 2008-2009 school year without further cuts.

Oregon's children don't vote or write checks for campaigns (and can't drive themselves to the rally).  That's why it's so important that we get a great turnout at our Monday February 16th President's day rally to demand adequate funding for our schools and other programs.

If we want our legislators to stand up for our kids we need to show them that they have support when the going gets tough.  And the going has gotten tough.  If you'd like more information about the rally please email me at dave dot worth at gmail dot com, or sign up directly at http://stand.org/or/rally.  We even have buses coming directly from Portland schools to get you there! 

A canceled Marathon and the plan for moving forward

I can't believe I haven't updated the blog in all this time, but I think it's probably related a bit to the fact that the Marathon I'd been getting ready for during most of last year was canceled and Jen and I couldn't run it.  We had a freak set of snow storms right around Christmas here in the northwest.  The Marathon that we had signed up for was the Olympia Christmas Marathon, which was scheduled for just a couple of days before Christmas.

Once we got a foot and a half or so of snow here in Portland Jen and I started to feel worried.  We would check the Marathon website incessantly, waiting for the bad news that finally appeared on the Friday before the Marathon.  The Marathon had been postponed for a week.

Even without the snow storm I was worried about the Marathon, since the whole experience was so new for me.  The training is kind of weird because you do these super long runs getting ready for the race, including a 20 mile run that I completed a couple of weeks before the race.  Then the schedule tells you to do a taper, where you drastically reduce the miles you're running leading up to the race.  At the time I finished the twenty miler I was feeling relatively confident, but as the miles eased up and I was having some trouble with my hip I was feeling less and less sure of my ability to do the race.

I tried to take the extra week of training in stride, but since this was my first marathon I began to feel more and more nervous.  Unfortunately, it was all for naught because the snow kept coming, and not melting, so much so that the Marathon was eventually canceled.  Jen and I ended up going to the bed and breakfast we had reserved anyhow, and it was a nice mini-vacation, but definitely a let down.

On the bright side, because I wasn't putting so many miles in I was able to start riding my bike to work again, which is a really great thing for my mental health.  Jen and I decided that we'll run the 15k Shamrock run in March, which we began training for.  As part of this training I'm incorporating some speed work, which is super hard, but I am starting to notice an improvement in my time already. 

During the marathon training I started using a tool called mapmyrun.com to track my mileage and training.  One of the features of mapmyrun is the ability to update my twitter feed with workout information. Since my twitter is set to update my facebook page, the workout information would show up there as well.  Since the marathon training was over I went ahead and turned this feature off, figuring that it this point it felt pretty narcissistic to let everyone know every time I went for a run. 

Narcissistic or not, though, I noticed that I was a lot less motivated to do the runs & etc without the updates on.  After a brief hiatus I went ahead and turned the updates back on.  Hopefully my followers on twitter & friends on facebook don't find this too annoying.  Think of it as your way of supporting me, because I do get a lot of motivation and support from the great comments I receive. 

And yes, we will be running a marathon... it looks like instead of being in Olympia during December, my first marathon will be on Sauvie Island on July 4th.  If all goes according to plan, our second marathon will be the Portland Marathon in September.

Christmas Tree Decorating

It's been almost two weeks ago now since we put up the Christmas tree, but I just now have a chance to share some of the pics.  We got a really great tree this year from a new favorite on Fremont St.  It's a family owned business that's super-friendly.  They have this device where you can put the stump of the tree into a shaker that gets all of the rain off the tree before you load it up to come home (a must have for Portland).   Once all the rain was off the tree they put it through a binder for you before you're ready to go.

Here's a shot of us with the tree pre-decoration:

 

As usual, Andrew helped me string the lights on the tree:

 

And the finished product:

As kind of a neat aside you can check out our Christmas tree pics from last year to see how much the kids have grown (and how much weight I've lost).

Snow Day

It's about 25 degrees in Portland, Oregon, with about two inches of snow on the ground at our homestead. 

When we woke up early this morning there was only about a half inch on the ground.  Brianna and Andrew had a swim meet, so we headed out the door and watched the snow come down as the kids swam.  (More on the meet later, lots of pictures to post).

After the meet we came straight back home and have been pretty much inside all day, with the kids making short sorties outside every couple of hours to throw snowballs and get super cold hands which they can then place excruciatingly onto my cheeks.  Today we watched a movie, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, started our gingerbread house, and made a delicious salmon dinner.  Overall, a very agreeable winter day.

Portland has already cancelled school for tomorrow so Jen will be home with the kids.  Unfortunately, since I work for the electric company, I must go to work tomorrow come hell or high water.  Based on the wind I'm hearing outside I wouldn't be surprised if I got called in to work tonight.  Thank god for Trimet, they've got the buses chained and ready to go.

The only thing I'm worried about is the marathon on Sunday.  Olympia is supposed to be having the same weather as Portland that day, and right now they're calling for possible freezing rain and temperatures in the lower 30s, which would be awful and possibly a show-stopper for me.  As it is I wasn't able to get my 8 mile run in today, which definitely puts a cramp in my mood if not my training. 

Think warm thoughts and terribly wrong weathermen for our marathon day, we need all the help we can get.

Lessons in Running II: The ego filter

One of the amazing things about running for a long ways, or probably doing anything kind of extraordinary, is the reaction you get when you tell other people what you are doing or planning to do.  It's truly amazing how human minds are put together to filter every piece of new information that we receive through our own filter.  Our brains are put together to respond to new information by parsing what that information means to us personally. 

When you're running a marathon you get to experience this all the time.  Here's how the conversation goes:

me: I'm getting ready to run a marathon later in the month.
them: Really? Where at?
me: In Olympia, it's just a little marathon on the Sunday before Christmas.
them: I can't run, I have bad knees.
me: ok.

A good percentage of people, upon learning about something another human is doing, have the involuntary reflex to either join them in that activity or to reject the possibility of joining them based on past accomplishment or personal obstacles.  The funny thing is that I never asked anybody else to run.  I just said that that's what I'm doing. 

I know a number of people reading this are probably recognizing that they've participated in this conversation with me.  I really don't intend any harm or shame in pointing this out, it's just an interesting aspect of how our human brains are put together.  It's almost an involuntary reflex.

So to address the issue directly, I must admit that I do feel in the dark recesses of my mind like many people *think* that they have bad knees or some other personal situation that keep them from running, but just have never really had a good first-hand experience of running. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I thought *I* couldn't run because of my knees before this year.

I know that in the past I've started running and made some bad assumptions that ended up causing me to give up on the whole thing before I really got out of the starting blocks, so to speak.  I would become inspired to run and put forth great energy to do so, but without prior knowledge on how to best get started I was doomed before I ever started. 

I would figure I would try to run a mile at 10 miles per hour, which seemed to be a pretty low baseline to start running.  I would start these self-directed programs without a good pair of running shoes, figuring my gym shoes would probably work until I met some kind of criteria for commitment that would make the trip to the fancy running store worth it.  I wouldn't have much more direction or much more of a plan than to run as far as I could until I felt tired and then walk until I felt like I could begin running again.

The problem with my approach was that I was trying to do far too much too soon.  Since I was out of shape I would get out of breath easily, and then I felt like I would need to stop. I felt terrible for not being able to run for farther and the whole enterprise would be kicked off in a state of failure and shame.  Not an inspiring place to begin a new routine.

So what did I do differently this time around?  Really I kind of lucked into figuring out a better way. 

I've tried off and on over the last few years to start running, usually linked to an attempt to quit smoking.  This time around was no different.  I quit smoking in July of 2007 and with that event came the same jittery nervous energy that always accompanied quitting smoking.  I was looking for an outlet for all that bottled-up crazy when I ran across a blog post on lifehacker about the Couch to 5K program.

I bought a nice pair of expensive shoes from the fancy running store and I've been jogging since. After the 5K program I moved on to a 10K program which had me running 3 days a week and now I'm nearly done training for a marathon. 

It's funny because this is not something that would probably have been possible for me if not for the internet.  It is this particular delivery method for the message that would get me active. More to the point, I can't think of any other way I would ever be able to successfully start running.  I'm that kind of self-directed, personal research biased, own-counsel-holding person who needed to read all of the information and educate myself before I was willing to give it a true go.

I do think that at least 80% of the people out there have the capability to run at some level.  It just takes knowing how to get started and how to manage the program so that we're not overdoing it right out of the box.  If you don't choose to run, that's fine too.  Just because I like broccoli doesn't mean the whole world has to eat broccoli, but let's recognize it as a choice.  The biggest lesson for me is to remember to congratulate others on their successes before I put my ego-filter on and go through the list of why I can't do the same thing.

Lessons in Running

Today I completed the longest run I'll have before the marathon - a 20 mile run that took me around my neighborhood in northeast Portland and then down to my work in downtown Portland and back. The route looks like this:




As I was running today I felt great. These long runs are
always a good time to think through what's been going on in my life and how I feel about different things. It's a weird Zen state that one enters into, very peaceful and objective. The Zen of the iPod.

As far as the run today went I made it in just over 4 hours, which is about on target for what I thought it would be. I anticipate finishing the marathon on 12/21 in just over 5 hours. Today at around mile 18 I got this great feeling like I could do anything, and for the first time I realized I would complete the marathon. I know it'll be fine now, and a euphoria came over my whole body.

Of course, when I got home I stretched and took a shower and then laid on the bed, at which point every muscle and tendon below my waist decided to form into tight little angry balls that are still hurting me now. But I'll be fine by tomorrow or the day after.

During my run I was inspired to post about the different strategies and life lessons that the marathon training has taught me. I want to get this down before I move on with my life and the insights I've had float off into the ether.

The thought I'd like to share with you now is this: no matter how bad you feel when you're running very long distances, don't stop or give up. Walk. It's amazing what walking can do for you.

Firstly, sore and cramped muscles that are rebelling are placated. Panic is avoided and rational thought is given the opportunity to return. Running creates a sense of other-worldliness in which
you are simultaneously both very aware and very separate from your body. By walking, you can focus on what you are feeling and what might be causing your problems.

Luckily, I've had a pretty healthy time of it as I trained for the
marathon, but I did have at least one occasion where I felt seriously ill during a run. (Never mind the time last May when I fell and broke my elbow - then got up and completed my run before going to urgent care.) Walking for a little while gave me the time and presence of mind to make a good choice (to call Jen to consult) and ultimately to end that run early. Likewise, during my 18 mile run I would have given up at mile 15 or so if I hadn't taken the time to walk about a mile or so until my muscles loosened up and the pain in my joints subsided, after which I easily completed the run.

I've always been pretty patient, but I think this lesson is also
helping me in my daily life. It's a good lesson that when
things aren't feeling right or a situation is calling for drastic
change, sometimes the best thing is to ease up on what's
occurring at the moment. Maybe not halt completely, but slow down and think through the inputs that I can observe and what hidden message might be escaping me in my haste to finish a task. I might indeed decide to bag my current course of action and take a completely different tact, or it might just be that I need a new emphasis in what I'm doing now. Either way, letting up can give me the breathing space to validate what I should do next.

I'm Published

I received an email today from the managing editor of schmap guides letting me know that my picture of the KOIN building has been accepted as part of their application for their new iPhone app showing information about Portland.  You can see the picture I took right here.

How did this all come about?  This is actually a picture I took last May after Jen and I completed the Cinco De Mayo run in downtown Portland.  You may recall this picture of me enjoying a beer after the run.

When I uploaded these pictures to flickr I also did so under a creative commons license, stating that the picture may be used by anyone so long as they a) attribute the picture to me b) don't use it in a commercial manner and c) share the picture or any work resulting from the use of this picture under the same license.  By using creative commons one effectively says "hey, I've got some work here and I don't have any problem with others using it". 

In this instance, the folks at schmap then contacted me to let me know that they would like to use this work in a commercial product, and asked if I would be interested in submitting the picture for them to do so.  If I had wanted to I could have said "sorry, I want you to pay me $50 too."  This would have been my prerogative.  I didn't however, and I gave them permission to use the photo if they wished.  Thus, voila.  They have a free picture and I have a blog post.  The system worked just as intended.

If you don't already share your work using creative commons I'd encourage you to give it a thought.  Similarly, if you have need to use photography, music, or videos, I'd encourage you to seek work provided by creative commons license, and to follow the protocol for attributing per the license.  It's a great resource and many sites have built-in options for searching for creative commons content.

Thanksgiving

Well, Happy Turkey Day Everyone!

We had a great time - it was a small laid-back deal with just our
family and our friend Heather, who also spent Thanksgiving with us last
year.

The menu was:

• Salmon with creamy garlic sauce
• Roasted Potatos with fresh rosemary, garlic and olive oil
• Challah Bread (from our friend Gail)
• Green Bean Casserole
• Creamed Corn
• Salad
• Numerous Appetizers
• Snow White Cake with Cranberry filling
• Apple Pie

As usual, we went around the table and shared what we were thankful
for.  For Brianna it was: Family, Jen and I (for cooking good
food), and her pets.  For Andrew it was: Family, leftovers,
and his legos.  For Jen it was: Family, good food, and
friendships.  For Dave it was: family, not getting injured
during Marathon training, and our pets.

Linux off a USB stick

I've been thinking about the things that I have learned over the last few days.  Sometimes you go through times in your life when you're absorbing more of the information around you.  More open to the little lessons of life.

Firstly, I've learned that Ubuntu Ibex and Fedora 9 from a USB drive is a wonderful thing.  The distros are basically the same running Gnome, with one very important difference; the package managers.  Not long into my experience with Fedora I remembered exactly what was such a pain about it going all the way back to when it was redhat.  RPM hell.  Conflicting dependencies, inability to work around the rpm manager, the limited availability of apps, and the feeling that the good folks at RedHat are far more concerned about their enterprise server business than the desktop user experience. 

I am now happily back to Ubuntu. The add/remove programs app manager is a pleasure. As we speak I'm using Ubuntu off of a USB stick on my work laptop.  It's pretty sweet.  I've got a 4GB jump drive and I set up the other 3GB as a persistent overlay.  I'm becoming quite addicted to having my own computer setup wherever I go for whatever hardware I can get my hands on. 

The only limitation I've run into so far is that there doesn't seem to be a very good WYSIWYG blog editor for linux.  I'm open to suggestion if someone has something that they like, but all I've seen is blogtk and drivel.  They're both fine enough, but they are not WYSIWYG and for some reason I don't seem to able to add titles to posts in either one, which is ridiculous.  I'm very spoiled from using Microsoft Live Writer in windows.  I diss MS as much as anyone, but Live Writer is a killer app.  My normal course of action on a linux machine would be to run the app I like under Wine, but unfortunately Live Wrtier doesn't work in wine.  :(  Epic Fail.