Well, it was another quiet week here at the Barnes house. I ran 12 miles with Wendy on Saturday, and up at Mt. Peak on Sunday. I’m still fretting about Rock-n-Roll, which is silly, because I have no control over the weather. It will be what it will be and I will have to live with it. I have been suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out) as the last two weekends have had lots of races in our area. I’ve seen pictures and read reports, and so wished I was there! On the other hand, I’m still working my way through my recovery from the heat-related issues of the last marathon. It seems like it is taking a long time to bounce back, yet I am seeing incremental improvements. It often takes as long as six weeks after an episode to feel fully recovered. Like I said before, it’s a good and not-so-gentle nudge to remind me of what I already know about my limitations.

The rest of my time has been taken up by the gradual closing of our program at the college. I have attended the last day of three preschool classes, a good-bye tea hosted by the college president, a wonderful gathering of coworkers, both past and present, to celebrate the retirement of Virginia, our program assistant, and also to celebrate the years of support and education for families that our program provided. The Parent Ed program has been supporting families in our area for 36 years. The amazing part of this story is that Virginia was there as a parent in the program when it started, as a college instructor until last year, and as the program assistant for the last several years. She has made a difference in the lives of hundreds of children and families over the years – a real cause for celebration. All the endings have been wonderful and bittersweet. I’ve heard it said several times over the last few weeks, that “without Parent Ed, our family would not be what it is today.” I’ve found myself in the position of buoying the spirits of others, reassuring them that we made a difference and that yes, it is difficult and not what any of us wanted, but that we will all make it past this closure. I have worked hard to keep my equilibrium through it all. I’ve been packing up files for archive, and packing up my office, and today hosted the last teachers meeting, and the last staff luncheon, each adding to the emotional roller coaster that comes with the end of an era. Right now, I have a headache that won’t quit, I suspect it is due to suppressed heartache. So, I have ten days left till my final day….

However, there is a bright side. There is that point that we’ve all heard about, the point where a door swings softly shut, bringing darkness to the room. But all the while, as the door is moving, another door is slowly swinging open, allowing a bit of light to creep in, till slowly, slowly, the room is filled with a soft glow. That is happening for me. I’m going to leave you right here, knowing there is more to come. Next week, I’ll fill you in on what was on the other side of the door… and I’m ever hopeful that there will be a race to report on as well!

I often get asked what books I recommend for learning or mastering (X)HTML, CSS, PHP, AJAX, etc, and I’m always at a loss of what to tell people.  See, I’ve never specifically went out and bought a book for any of that.  Everything I’ve learned over the years has been through experimentation, viewing examples, tearing [...]

Here is a web development timeline starting from 1990 through 2009 and how all the client and server side versions have evolved.
URL: http://tinyurl.com/cetjjp
Source: Wikimedia.org

If you’ve ever made a pie crust from scratch, you’ll know that there is fair amount of crust dough that gets cut off and made into oddly-shaped bits of non-pie dessert.. To me these are the best bits and the ones I can devour quickly without destroying the whole pie before the [...]

First posts are terrible, if you’ve never written one, I suggest you try.  The problem with first blog posts, is that they are never actually about what your blog is about.  This blog for instance, it’s about what I’m doing with the Pierce College website, advancements in web technologies, things I find interesting, etc. But [...]

Nothing too exciting this week. I was happy to see sunny mornings and warm temps of 60 this week – right up until about mile three of each run. Then my chest would tighten up and the run would become a struggle. I spent the entire week with a knot in my chest and feeling lethargic. I decided to give myself a break on Thursday, so I’d be rested for Friday’s 15 mile run with Wendy. I was worried enough that I came up with a plan: I asked Eric to drop me off at the meeting spot so I could call him to come get me if I ran into problems. Lucky for me, Friday morning was gray and cool, and once we were out on the trail, even a bit breezy. Margaret had come to run with us too, and we enjoyed a good 14 miles. We cut it a bit short so everyone would have plenty of time to make it in to work.

I didn’t run yesterday, instead I went to what I’m not-so-fondly referring to as “the meeting from hell”. (Having to do with a side project I’ve taken on, and may regret…) Today I ran 9.5 miles at a fairly quick pace – for me anyway: 11:20, including walk breaks. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but recently I’ve pulled off some five mile runs with an average pace of less than 10:30, again, including walk breaks. I’m getting faster, but certainly can’t sustain it over the long distance.

I got a new pair of shoes last week. I bought my last pair on February 15th, and I started thinking that my shoes weren’t lasting me very long. I can always tell when it’s time for a new pair because my feet begin to hurt. They actually began to hurt a few weeks ago, but I was trying to stretch out the usage. Once I finally got the new ones, I sat down to see what the deal was. I knew I had run a 50K, a 100K and three marathons in those shoes. Well, I was surprised to discover that I’d run 580 miles since February 15. I figured about 40 of those miles were done in my trail shoes, so 540 miles were on the old shoes – in about 3.5 months. That falls right into the 500 mile range that the shoe manufacturers cite. Don’t they usually say 6 months or 500 miles? It also explains why I’m buying shoes every three months. Too bad I’m not faster so Asics would sponsor me and send me shoes!

That’s it. A quiet week, a post without pictures, a report without a race. Might be that way for a while, as I’m actually trying to behave myself this summer and stick to my promise of not running summer marathons and ultras. After the Seattle Rock-n-Roll at the end of the month, my next one will be Michelle’s Grande Ass in September. That’s right – we’ve brought back our popular Starbucks-to-Starbucks marathon. We are limiting the field to 50 runners and we already have 30 signed up! Let me know if you want in…I know the RD quite well!

Read this for Friday
You know what to do.

CONFERENCES WILL BE HELD IN THE LIBRARY.
If you need to sign up, post your request in the comments section.
TIME: NAME:
8 =
8:20 =
8:40 =
9 =
9:20 = glenn almond
9:40 = Katie Bronzini
10 = Phil Mauss
10:20 = Kyle Fagan
10:40 = Bryan Torell
11 = Ann Thompson
11:20 = Kristina Carr
11:40 = Danielle de Leon
12 = Joseph Macniak
12:20 [...]

Summer hours start on June 22nd.

Monday  - we open at 8:00.  9:00-noon is Design Squad.  12:00 to 2:45 is Open Time.  We close at 3:00.
Tuesday  - we open at 8:00.  9:00-noon is Design Squad.  12:00 to 2:45 is Open Time.  We close at 3:00.
Wednesday  - we open at 8:00.  9:00-noon is Design Squad.  12:00 [...]

Read this for Thursday
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