2008 Christmas Tree

We had a break in the weather today where it was warm and almost sunny. Since I am away next weekend racing down in Sacramento for the CIM, we headed to the tree farm to harvest the family tree for 2008.

We have gone to the same place for the last 3 years: Vandermost Christmas Tree farm on SW Vandermost Road off of Scholls Ferry. You can cut down any tree on the acreage for $25. Small or large.

We tend to go large and have been happy with the 2 past years trees.

This year I made sure to pick a handsaw that was sharp. So once we had hiked through the "forest" and found our tree, the work of cutting it down was vastly easier than last year.

So with little incident, the beautiful tree was loaded on the car, driven home and is now waiting to be decorated in the front room.

Thanksgiving Running: Give 'n Gobble 5 km

We generally try to do a race Thanksgiving morning ever since moving to the United States in 1999. The weather in Portland has generally been warmer than Minneapolis for running on turkey day.

This year we ran the Give 'n Gobble 5km in Sherwood, Or. A map of the course can be found here.

I raced the 5km as my last speed work leading up the California International marathon on December 7th.
I ran OK posting a 19:05 (6:08 minutes per mile).
1st in my age group and 7th overall.
The legs felt good. I just could not quite find a groove with the course. A little climbing and such in the first 2 miles and then about 1 mile of paved trail running. The trail is fun but not conducive to really fast times with some really tight corners that I ran tentative with the moss and frost. I know, excuses, excuses :-)

I then back-tracked to find Trisha and the kids and ran in with them for about the last mile. Cole's ears where cold as it was about 33 F but the sun was out. Leah was dragging when I met them but boy did she pick it up on the downhills. They did great keeping moving by alternating running and walking. Pushing to the finish, they finished their first 5 km race in 41 minutes (13:11 minutes per mile).

It was great to see our friends from church out doing the 10 km: Jon Lindsey, Jason and Jennifer. I went back again for more cool down to run in with Jon for the last 3/4 mile. Maybe next year we will move up to the big race as well :-)

The race was well organized with the route marked extremely well. Russ Zornick was doing the timing so I would expect the results to be up here soon (possibly as early as tonight). (UPDATE: results are up here and WOW...the race had 702 people running the 5 km!)

Happy Thanksgiving. Boy are we blessed!
Now off to EAT!

An Important Day for EclipseCon 2009

Which of the following are true about November 24th?

• The start of the week that holds American Thanksgiving?
• The day the lead singer of Queen died?
• The day that the Brady Bill passed the United States Congress?
• The last day to submit a proposal for EclipseCon 2009?

Answer: All are true.

This post is about participation in EclipseCon 2009.
We have 5 Domains with 19 categories designated for the conference. We even have an Other category to not miss anything cool and interesting.

So what is your passion: Emerging technologies? UI? C/C++? E4? Web tools?
Submit a proposal for what you love to talk about.

Maybe you would like to share within the Committer and Contributor category?

In the Committer and Contributor category:

• You can tell us about your peer and community interactions or your successes and failures with ecosystem building.
• Do you have insights and experiences on how to work in the open, or how to foster or be a successful contributor or committer? Please don't limit yourself to just Eclipse experiences. Other communities experiences can be very relevant.
• If you are an expert on the Eclipse foundation and its governance model, licensing or the Eclipse IP process, share with the rest of us.
• The Eclipse development process...a whole world unto itself ready for you to help us explore.
• How did you start your Eclipse project, foster its growth and sustain its maintenance?

No matter what category your presentation would fall under, write up your proposal and prepare to share your expertise with a submission.

Florida Sandcastles

Our family spends a lot of time on the beach when we go to Indian Rocks, Florida. We keep busy building creations in the sand. Everything from plain piles of sand to snapping turtles to standard castles.

Some of us are the designers and the diggers, some the sculptors and others the supervisors, critics and admirers.

These are our creations for Florida 2008.

We imagined.
Then we enjoyed building and playing with the sand.

We also made sure to run around laughing as the sea reclaimed the sand we had borrowed.