Had a good time

My first half. It felt good. Rewarding. Like all my training paid off. I kept 7:57 mile pace. Well, didn't keep that pace, but averaged it. Overall 1:44:02. I'm very pleased with myself.

Hey, there's more if you care to read!

So I'm in line for the bathroom about 20 minutes before race time. And I'm finally getting near the front of the line as they're doing the national anthem. And I'm shaking it off as the gun goes off. But as I exit the outhouse I see the New Balance pace group for a 3:20 full marathon, which is only slightly faster than the pace I had wanted to keep anyway. So the timing was impeccable.

The course went out toward the Budweiser brewery and around. Too bad they weren't giving beer instead of gatorade. But once around the brewery (the same, usual, lovely, grainy smell made my mouth water) things thinned out a bit. For about a mile I was talking to a guy who was at school in Rolla. And the whole time I stuck with the 3:20 pace group. My parents were there cheering us on: I saw them at the start line and again around mile 6. Ran up by SLU where there the grades started getting to me. Mile 8 a full marathoner (his second, but the first was about 10 years ago) struck up a short conversation. I could feel myself slowing a bit by now, and the 3:20 group had pulled ahead. No worries, I was near the half turnaround anyway so I couldn't keep with them much longer. Mile 9 I got a pretty bad side stitch. Going back up this stretch I saw first Lindsey (doing the full) then Kristin and my sister (both doing the half). About this time I was passed by a guy just flying, with two prosthetic legs. Absolutely amazing, from a human perspective and as an engineer. Just past SLU campus I saw Jeremy doing the team run. By this time I was really dogging it. The cramp had gone, but I was feeling overall fatigue. Miles 11 and 12 were the toughest. Mile 13 I started feeling it again, looking down Market to see a giant flag over the start/finish area with the Arch as a backdrop. I finished strong, getting energy from the crowd near the finish line.

So I started too fast, slowed down, but still finished right about the time I had hoped/expected. I'm looking forward to running another half within a year, maybe a few 10Ks too. This was great fun.

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Google is taking over the world

First a great search engine, then Gmail, now maps. Google is taking over the information superhighway, in a good way.

In a previous post I talked about some software called Keyhole that overlays maps with satellite images and other information, letting you pan and zoom in real time and even get cool 3D views. Well, Google bought Keyhole some time back, and now I notice that Google has a beta test of Google Maps. I've played with it for all of about 3 minutes and already I like it better than Mapquest and Yahoo Maps. It's real-time pannable, so you don't need to click back and forth to see different parts of the map, instead just drag it. And you don't need to type complete addresses--you don't even need addresses at all! You can search for "good pizza in st. louis" and (if such a thing existed) you'd get a map of St. Louis with the good pizza places highlighted. Then you can click the location and get driving directions to or from that place. Click a step in the directions to see a close-up of the intersection. You can get a satellite view with one click as well. Click the final location to find web pages about the restaurant. Yes, this will be the new way I find myself when I get lost.

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Relax.

I handed in my thesis today. This was a "draft," meaning it is pretty much done but I'll have to fix the formatting to conform with the rigorous university guidelines. And it would probably help to get some feedback from my committee as well. But having turned in my 54 pages takes a lot off my mind.

We met at engineering campus this morning and headed over to the med school early. By 7:00 we were setting up the MRI scanner to do a phantom study, basically putting precision-machined pieces of various metals in a tub of copper sulfate to see how badly they'd distort the images. From our results we're hoping to be able to determine a maximum amount, particular shape, or minimum distance to be avoided in order to use these materials in our device while allowing the radiologist to get a clear picture of the injury site. But for now it was just fun to play with a really expensive really strong magnet. To give you some idea of what 1.5 Tesla is: it is 50,000 times stronger than earth's magnetic field, 5 times stronger than the magnets that pick up cars and trucks in the junkyard. And it was all ours for two hours.

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How archaic!

I actually used a 3-1/2" floppy today...because I had to!

I did this because for a pretty nice mechanical tensile test machine, the materials lab has it hooked up to an old computer.

Other neat stuff from the halo project front:

• I bought supplies for an experiment the other day. It cost less than $3 from Wal-Mart. On the list: Dixie brand plastic storage containers, 3 gallons of water, and 1 pair of pantyhose.
• I just printed 54 pages for the draft of my thesis. I turn this document in tomorrow morning.
• I get to wake up super-early tomorrow to play with 1.5 Tesla of imaging goodness.

We met with a patent attorney last week. I had a bunch of drawings to prepare after the meeting. I haven't heard back from the lawyer yet, but I'm sure everything will be taken care of.

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Welcome the new Mr. and Mrs.

Mr. and Mrs. APRIL FOOLS PRANKSTERS!

Wow, some of the phone calls I got....this was too much fun.

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Major purchases

I'm surprised I've been able to keep quiet about this till now...I'm bubbling on the inside.

Earlier this week I bought a ring and a pair of tickets to Vegas. K and I are going to get hitched the "old fashioned" way...

I'd write more but I've got a plane to catch. I'll be back Monday, a changed man.

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