Friday, September 28, 2007

More Geek - Less Cyclist

Wow - It's been a long time...

For the last several months I have been telling myself over and over that I have to come up with a schedule of some kind, and begin posting again. I am sure by now that I have lost all 3 regular readers. But with the primary focus of this blog being cycling and considering the small amount of riding I have done in the past several months my lack of motivation to type should be understandable.

This is not to say that I have been doing nothing...

For the past year I have been working on a team doing a rewrite of a major enterprise information system for state government. During that time I switched primary databases from SQL Server to Oracle, and moved from working on projects alone to working directly with 5-7 people on the web front end, and another team of 10 responsible for the desktop app and the database. As I type the new version is being moved into the production environment and being tested.

As my responsibilities in this project wind down, I find myself faced with taking over a group of web site projects left behind by an employee who moved on to greener pastures. While it is never fun to take over someone's code, it guarantees that I will have plenty to do for the next several months.

I was fortunate enough to go mountain biking for the second time this year last week. I went with several co-workers early last Friday morning and rode a portion of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail near the University of Utah. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I was clearly in last place the whole ride. While I recognize that taking 40 lbs. of the rider would do wonders; it would be great if I could find a way to pick up a new mountain bike. The one I have been using is my fully rigid Mtn Tek I bought in '92 and use for commuting in the winter (when I commute...). I don't think an aggressive full suspension bike is a requirement, but a couple inches of front shock travel would sure be nice.

So...

Here is my plan. I want to post twice a week at least. Anything else would be a bonus. It's looking like the way for me to stay motivated is to plan one mid-week post on an IT or programming related topic, and one weekend post on cycling, hiking or the other outdoor fun stuff I try to do. In between I may try to do brief posts, pass along interesting links with a little comment, or I may just keep my mouth/fingers quiet.