I’ve been getting a pretty good amount of riding in lately on the road bike trying to get all trained up for 24 in the OP including a lunchtime jaunt up snowbowl road. I’m not a particularly good climber on a road bike, and well, this IS the middle of winter, so I was expecting to be 40-45 minutes at the fastest up the road. Much to my surprise, I was right around 36. Don’t know if that’s a PR or not, but it’s certainly up there.

In case some of you out there are not yet on Facebook, you too can join the club. One of the little gems that’s been floating around facebook for the past week or two is a chain letter of sorts called “25 things”. I normally am not a participant in these sorts of things, but after the first week of being ‘tagged’, I was bored in tahoe and sat down to compose a 25 things list. Although I’m sure many of you have seen this already, since a large portion of the readers on this blog are probably on my ‘friend list’, I’m re-posting it here anyways. I’m sure many of these will be painfully obvious if you read this site with any regularity (especially #1), but maybe there’s a few gems in there for you. Enjoy.

1. I write a blog, and have for many years. It now resides at www.handlebarsandwich.com. It is truly about nothing and everything all at once.

2. My website was originally called “3dmobility.com” and I programmed the entire thing in 2001 from scratch in php, including a bulletin board, a gear review section, a journal (before they were called ‘blogs’), and a photo album. Believe it or not, it was the ‘cool thing’ to do at my school. Yeah, that’s the kind of place RPI is. If you want a good laugh, look it up on the way back machine.

3. I was taught the basics of programming by a comp sci major freshman year of college at 1am one night. It’s been downhill since then.

4. I was a band nerd in middle and high school. Tenor Sax until senior year when I picked up the baritone for marching band. I went to band camp for all 4 years of high school and never managed to stick a flute anywhere dirty (although I know how to play that too).

5. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until after finals my sophomore year of college. Then I got drunk on hard lemonade and fuzzy navels. I didn’t like beer until about senior year of college.

6. I not only was a member of a fraternity in college (chi phi) but I was actually the president for a year as well.

7. I secretly wanted to play drums instead of sax when I started band in middle school but was told that everyone wants to play drums, and so I would never make it. I regret this, and still want to play drums. I’ve taught myself enough drumset to keep a beat over the years, and actually almost bought a drumset about a year back.

8. I secretly wanted to be an industrial designer instead of an engineer when choosing colleges, but was told that everyone wants to be an industrial designer so I would never make it. I don’t really regret this, because I’ve met a lot of industrial designers who have no concept of what could actually be physically created. I would still like to do industrial design, and would put it on a ‘dream job’ list, but I’m glad I’m an engineer first.

9. I love to cook, and wish I could do it more often. I thank my mom for that.

10. I also know how to sew, and actually own my own sewing machine. I’ve hemmed, patched, and even sewn clothing and custom camping gear. Again, I thank my mom for that.

11. I bought a POS fixer-upper house about 2 years ago, and have been fixing it up ever since (and probably will be for a while). I thank my dad for those skills.

12. A recent conversation with Ben Withey which hit home: “What’s up Nathan?” “Eating some homemade BBQ” “Did you make it in your new crockpot?” “Yup” “You know, most people have a crockpot they’ve never used, and I’d be willing to bet that you’ve used yours several times since you got it a couple weeks ago.” “Hasn’t left my counter since I got it.” “You really don’t know how to do anything halfway, do you?” “Nope” – I feel this sums me up pretty well.

13. I’m an Eagle Scout.

14. Because of Boy Scouts, I’ve been to the boundary waters 3 times, sailing in the florida keys twice, hiking in New Mexico (Philmont!), and whitewater canoing and kayaking in West Virginia. Not to mention camping in all weather from 100 degrees to -20 degrees. I could probably survive in the wilderness for an indefinite amount of time if I needed to because of these experiences.

15. I worked in an outdoor store as my first job, and it taught me more about customer service than I could ever imagine. It also set me on a life of never paying retail for any sort of gear unless absolutely necessary.

16. Because of this job, my mom actually called me in ‘sick’ the second day of my senior year of high school because I was whitewater kayaking in north carolina. I look back on that and simultaneously realize how incredibly cool my mom is, and how ridiculous it was that she did that for me.

17. All my friends in high school called me Nathan, all my college friends call me Nate, flagstaff is a mixed bag. Interestingly, I don’t mind either one, but always introduce myself as Nathan.

18. I homebrew beer, in 10 gallon batches, from just grain, hops, and water. Out of the two years I’ve been doing it, I’ve only ever had to dump out one batch. And, if I do say so myself, the other batches have been pretty damn good.

19. I was in the juggling club freshman year of college, and can pretty much juggle 3 of anything. Yes, that includes clubs, machetes, fire, bowling balls, and chainsaws (if they’re special juggling ones). I can also do devils sticks and the diablo (which was kinda my specialty, google it if you’re confused).

20. I ride a unicycle. Not as much lately, but I used to mountain unicycle a lot, and got into unicycle trials for a while too. I also have an ‘impossible wheel’ which I know how to ride (again, google it if you’re confused).

21. I sleep an average of about 5.5 hours a night. I feel extremely tired the next day if I sleep more than about 7 hours. It stems from what I now realize was insomnia during high school. It also allows me to pack all the crazy stuff I do into each day.

22. I race a singlespeed mountain bike, primarily in 50+ mile races and 24 hour races. I’m pretty decent at it, mostly because I’m stubborn and have a high pain tolerance, not because I’m that great an athlete. (a resting heart rate of ~80 does not a good athlete make)

23. I am a technology fiend and a self-proclaimed geek. I love gadgets, computers, and cool software. I love open-source software, and run Linux on all my personal computers. I also read over 50 websites every day through my google reader or general internet habits. I scaled that back from closer to 100 about 6 months ago.

24. I telemark ski and have for about 5 years now. I gave up many years of snowboarding for the allure of backcountry skiing. I now don’t think I could go back.

25. I have a special talent for breaking things. This transends pretty much everything I do. If anyone is ever looking for a product tester, I can probably put it through it’s paces. Maybe that’s why I became an engineer so I can figure out how to fix or improve those things I break.

For some funny commentary on this circulation of facts on facebook, check out this link (which, ironically, I found through a friend on facebook. . . )

I also promised some fun links, and so I will attempt to deliver something interesting.

There’s a guest blogger on Boing Boing that I’ve really been enjoying. I believe he’s from arizona, and he’s done a couple of ‘series’ posts that I’ve really enjoyed. The first set is simply titled “Homage to Arizona”. Check out the five post series here:
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He also did a series on “charts”. I wasn’t hugely enthralled by the topics of the graphs, but it really appeals to my desire to visualize data. I do a lot of data crunching at work sometimes, and as much as the numbers can teach you, I always feel as though a visual aid can really drive home a point.
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Along those lines, one of the posts pointed to a cool site called Graphjam. I recently added it to my google reader list, there’s some pretty funny ones on there.

Enjoy.