Balloon Fiesta 2014 time....

Oct 6, 2014  - Here is a time lapsed video from the Honeywell parking lot.

Oct 7, 2014 - Here is another time lapsed (yes I love this video option on my iPhone) from the Honeywell entry sign.  This has a good view of the balloons as they initially lift off.

Oct 9-12, 2014 - Wow, what a 4 day weekend!  I helped support a MeetUp event for a Houston group N.E.O..  This event started on Thursday and ended on Sunday.  The Houston people drove the 13 hour trip each way.  The total number of people were anywhere from 15 to 20ish people, it was a full house.  Most of the people had to sleep on the floors in my house, but some slept in tents in my back yard and a few others had a hotel elsewhere in the city.

Wells Fargo's first balloon launch with the American flag

The weather was a huge factor in this event, winds and rains prevented some activities from happening.  Since the group arrived mid day on Thursday, we decided to do a small hike at the West Side Volcanoes.  This was a small introduction hike to get a sense of where the group stands on hiking ability here at altitude.

On Friday, which seemed to be a bad weather day, actually turned out to be one of the best days for a mass ascension.  Jonathan, Dhruv and myself drove Boaz and Colleen to their private balloon flight then the three of us went straight to the Balloon Park.  I was certain it would be canceled but was pleasantly surprised when the first two balloons launched (Wells Fargo carrying the American flag).  The park was just inundated with balloons in 360 degree from our view point.  It was amazing.

After this morning event, the group gathered back together and decided to visit the San Antonio hot spring in the Jemez mountains. Once we reached the turn off, we decided to not make the 5 mile drive (or hike) to the hot springs due to weather and bad roads.  We instead drove the scenic roads to Los Alamos, then Santa Fe with many stops on the way for pictures.  We found a small, quaint restaurant where we found an electric leprechaun.  This was an amazing day for our group.  We heard some amazing stories about each person.

On Saturday morning, 4 of us (Jonathon, Dhruv, MK and myself) took my truck to the Balloon Park while the remainder of the group took the white van.  This too was a great mass ascension day.  Lots of pictures were taken.  We took some group pictures with a few ladies from the group (pyramid comes to mind).  After meeting up with the remainder of our group we decided to hit the Sandia Mountains.  10k trail south was our focus.  This was an easy hike out to the ledge where more pictures were taken.  The return was my option to get some exercise, so took it a little faster than the group, but I knew the route was well labeled and easy for them to follow.  We then drove the remainder of the Crest road to the crest to enjoy the views in the cold wind.  Rain was on the horizon and very beautiful.  This rain canceled that night's Glow-deo.  We drove to Sadie's restaurant and sat at a large line of tables on the patio.  After dinner, we headed back to home base (my house).  We stayed up late drinking and playing UNO.  The music was way too loud (thanks Dhruv).

Sunday morning, we slept in and then everyone got ready to leave.  Packing and cleaning up a bit.  I give hugs to everyone as they leave and say my good-byes.  It was nice to get my house back, but it was sad to see everyone go (bitter sweet).  I made some great friends during this event.

DropBox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8kvvxseqrzku0l9/AABBzB5-Hs455QdP0t-7KSLwa?dl=0

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B49JSwTmRO7VMGh5N1g2RktDSU0&usp=sharing

Havasupai Trip Post Report

I just got back from the Supai/Havasupai trip yesterday.  Wow!  The falls have to be the most beautiful natural things I have ever experienced.  It is everything it has been made out to be.

Before I go into the trip, I need to list my packing items and go over which worked and which didn't.  This will help me (or anyone else) when trying to determine what to take.  The time line was to camp at hill top on Wednesday night then hike down early Thursday and return Sunday early morning (6/11/14 - 6/15/14).

Description

qty

cash	20
medical card	1
credit card	1
driver's license	1
emergency contact/information	1
UNO cards	1
large zip lock bag for trash	1
dehydrated meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner)	3,4,3
hiking snack (dehydrated fruit, bars, fig newtons)	10
water in camelback, nalgene	2+1 liters
water flavoring with calories	5
honey packets (taken from Whataburger)	5
tea bags	5
whisper light	1
large fuel canister filled with white gas	2
lighter	2
titanium pot with lid	1
titanium spork	1
cup	1
foldable plate/bowl	3
small sponge	1
dish soap	1oz
olive oil	1oz
sun block small bottle	3oz
lip balm	1oz
mesquito spray	1oz
hand santizer	3oz
body wipes	15
biodegradeable soap	3oz
deodorant small bottle	3oz
mouth wash	3oz
tooth paste	1oz
tooth brush	1
toilet paper small amount in zip lock	30
camp towel	1
medical pack small	1
medium zip lock bag for toiletries above	1
backpack	1
day pack	1
tent (rainfly, tent, footprint)	1
sleeping pad	1
solar charger (nomad 7, guide 10, 4xAA charged)	1
caribeaners for solar panel to hook to backpack/tent	4
bluetooth speaker	1
hiking poles	2
sleeping bag	1
paracord with caribeaner for hanging food/pack	25'
head lamp with fresh batteries	1,3
iphone with motionx maps downloaded	1
iphone water proof bag	1
corded earphones	1
big brim hat	1
sun glasses	1
underwear (non cotton)	3
shorts (non cotton, pants+shorts)	3
shirts (non cotton)	3
socks (non cotton)	4
bag for clean clothes, doubles as pillow	1
sealer bag for dirty clothes	1
sandals	1
trail shoes	1
rain pancho	1
small light/latern with fresh batteries	1,4

Things to do differently/better:

I would have brought my car camping stove with all the cookware to make a great meal when at the parking lot at the hill top.  Also, my ice chest with cold drinks.  The reason, is that the hill top the night before is like a tail gate party.  Everyone is cooking and chatting it up.  The extra cold drinks and plenty of food would not only be good for myself but also for anyone around that I would like to share with.  Also, when coming back after the trip, the extra drinks might still be cool enough to drink.  I slept in the bed of my truck on Wednesday night at the hill top using my sleeping pad and sleeping bag.  The only problem I had was that I forgot my headlamp in the bed of my truck when I left for Supai village (turned out that it wasn't a big deal since we had a great full moon).  I didn't use the bluetooth speaker (our group was anti music).  I really didn't need my Whisper Light and fuel.  Our group didn't announce their packing items so it was unclear who was already bringing a stove...etc.  I didn't need the mosquito deet spray.  When I entered into Arizona (I live in NM), my bank debt card no longer worked as a credit card.  This made some things a bit difficult for me on the travel there.  Some of the gas pumps defaulted to credit and would not work.  I had to go inside to pay in person using debit and my security code.  This is fine except at my last stop I went to a food establishment on Route 66 (Snow Cap) and they didn't know how to do anything other than "swipe" the card; which only used credit, so I had to pay in cash.  I should have brought more cash, but I was lucky enough that it wasn't a real issue.  I didn't take a rain pancho but the weather was forecasted clear the entire duration.  Just in-case you might decide to have your backpack transported up for you (either by helicopter or mule), it would be prudent to have a large tag to attach to your bag with your contact information.  Although we had purification tablets from our group leader, I would recommend to bring some.  We ended up being short on water for drinking and cooking when we reached Beaver Falls.  Also, my toiletry zip lock bag was not perfect.  The toilet paper got wet due to putting other moist items in this same bag (tooth brush, wet wipes).  The wet wipes worked great for cleaning myself up at the end of the day but the package (reseal flap) tended to not stay sealed.  Sleeping was hot and uncomfortable.  I'm thinking a hammock would be much more comfortable and lighter to carry.  Lastly, since we (our group size was 7) used water for cooking, cleaning and drinking, we used a lot of it.  We had a lot of small (1 liter or less) bottles which made filling up a pain and often.  The water source can have long lines.  It would be better to bring a large gravity feed bag or a large collapsible water container just to leave at our camp site.

Things that worked great:

The amount of food I initially planned for was too much but I ended up bringing less (2 one person Mountain House, 2 two people Mountain House, 2 packets of chicken, 1 packet of pasta, 1 packet of rice, 6 packets of oatmeal with nuts).  This left me with one large size Mountain House and two packets of oatmeal left over when the trip was over.  I brought a two liter water bladder with a 1 liter nalgene, both filled for the trip down.  This turned out to be too much liquid for me.  I only drank about 1 liter of water (NOTE: everyone is different with respect to amount of liquids needed).  I think I'm not drinking enough during my hikes (as noted by my urine color) but I felt great the entire duration.  I'm very glad I brought the day/hydration pack.  It was needed for the various hikes to the more distant water falls (Beaver Falls).  I used my clothes, packed in my sleeping bag stuff sack, as my pillow which worked good.  I also bought a special bag to place my dirty clothes in which you can roll out the air from.  Since the dirty clothes were part of my pillow, I didn't want to have the nasty smell around me when I was sleeping :-).  The hiking poles WERE INVALUABLE!  I'm am very glad I had them.  They give you a bit of an arm/shoulder workout, but they help so much with balance, speed, forward propulsion...THEY WORK!  At the last minute, I bought a small light/latern.  I thought, instead of bringing the extra batteries for my head light, I would put the batteries in this extra light source.  It was a good thing I did that since I forgot my head light in my truck, plus the lantern was great for around the picnic table and not too bright to be annoying.  Although the bugs loved it too which attracted some bats too, which was ok since I hung the light high enough in the tree above us.  Another note, the villagers sell items such as cold drinks, huge tacos and fry bread (along with their grocery store items).  This is where the extra cash comes in handy.  I believe they accept credit cards in the village but I wouldn't chance it.


Wednesday 6/11/2014
I woke up around 7am with plans to leave Albuquerque, NM around 9am.  The drive was determined to be around 8 hours (plus ~1.5 hours for stops).  I wanted to reach the hill top around 7pm to avoid most of the heat from the day.  I made the mistake of not considering the time change and arrived at the hill top around 4:15pm.  There were plenty of cars, but I was the only person there.  I used the restroom (which was actually kinda cool even during the hot day) and walked around.  Note, there is no water at the hill top.  Around 5-6pm, more and more cars started to arrive.  I was able to nap a bit in my truck while waiting for the Houston NEO group to show up.  They were flying in to Las Vegas from Houston.  It turned out that they showed up very late in the day, considering we had plans to leave in the morning around 4am.  The hill top was reminiscent of a tail gate party.  Everyone was out cooking, drinking and chatting to each other.  This is the reason I think a grill and a cooler full of drinks would be a great idea.  Maybe even a chair and canopy....hmmm.

We started our hike relatively late, around 6am.  I was behind Alex, who carried a very very fast pace and a heavy pack.  I tried to keep up but he lost me a few times.  This meant that both of us left the other 4 behind as they took a much more enjoyable pace.  I really wish groups like this would agree to stick together.  I believe that would be more enjoyable for everyone and safer.

Alex and I arrived at the Supai village in about 2.5 hours.  We went to the office to get our wrist bands and then made a "bee line" to the camp grounds to try and get a good spot.  We ended up fairly close by to the only drinking water source.  After some thought, it might have been better to be at the back end of the camp grounds under all the heavy tree line and near the stream.  We could use a filter to drink from this stream, plus the shade would be so much better during the hot day (the water probably makes the nights cooler too).

Since the majority of our group was a bit slow to reach the camp ground and Alex had to go back to the village to get his extra bag/tent; I ended up going to the Havasu Falls.  My God it is incredible.  I'm not too used to seeing waterfalls but I cannot imagine it being any more beautiful.  The water color is just such an incredible turquoise color.  The cool (slightly cold) water temperature was a very welcomed contrast from the heat of the day.

Our camp neighbors were about to leave and left us some of their goods.  This means extra fuel canisters, coffee, coffee filters, plates, bowls, etc.  This is the norm, to have people give items away the day before they are leaving.  If you walk around the camp grounds, you will likely see "FREE" signs next to fuel, food and other various items.  This makes sense since the fuel cannot be taken on a plane for those who flew in.  Also, the hike up is a bit of a workout, that removing unnecessary weight is to your benefit.  Actually, on the way out on early Sunday morning, Alex took a solo tent someone left behind.

Thursday 6/12/2014
We woke up and started to make our breakfast (oatmeal with various nuts for me), and we made the coffee our generous camp neighbors gave us.

We packed up our day packs with water and food for our day's worth of hiking.  We first went to Mooney falls.  This is located at the end of the camp ground.  To get to this fall you must scale down the cliff which is a bit intimidating.  You go thru a few small tunnels and scale down the hill side using chains and ladders.  The only issue is that there is traffic going both up and down which makes things interesting.  Mooney falls is incredible.  We were able to climb behind (well almost behind) the falls on the travertine walls.

After a few hours at Mooney, we dried ourselves up and started to hike to Beaver falls.  This was several miles down river.  There were a couple of stream crossings, so make sure you have water shoes available.  It might actually be best to wear them for the entire hike, but make sure you have socks on too.  Rocks tend to get in your water shoes and/or are a bit tough on the bare foot skin.  We arrive at Beaver falls and it wasn't a tall falls like the others but it still was incredible.  When we got there, we saw several Long Horn Sheep.  They are incredible climbers.

After cliff jumping into the waters at Beaver falls, we started to cook our food.  We realized that we didn't have enough water to hike back (after using our water for cooking).  So we fill our bladders from the water in the river and add some purification pills.

When we got back to our camp, our 7th group member Victoria was there.  She arrived late due to other obligations.  She pretty much brought everything in her pack but took the helicopter from the hill top.  She mentioned how hard the hike was and I thought "wow, she hiked down with all this gear?"...except she was referring to the hike from the village to the camp ground (~2 miles).

What a great day.

Friday 6/13/2014
We woke up to our breakfast and coffee.  We had 3 Jetboils going full time each morning.  Invaluable.  This day was a "Victoria" day.  We already visited all the falls we wanted, so we were just showing Victoria around the block.  The first stop, Mooney falls.

I was worried that she would not be able to do the climb down the cliff to the falls.  She was wearing high heels for God's sake :-) (really).  As we started down the climb, we approached the first tunnel, and I heard the fear in Victoria's voice when she said she couldn't do this.  I know this had to be one of the most difficult things for her to do.  With coaxing from our group, we helped her down to the bottom and she nearly broke out in tear.  She overcame her fears and did something most people never achieve in their life time.

We were all wading in the water, when I see Victoria walk over the edge of a small fall, which others were jumping off of.  Next think I know, she jumps!?  Wow!

Saturday 6/14/2014
On last day, I bought a cold Dr. Pepper for $2.  I gave up soda about 4 years ago and decided I really deserved this one luxury :-).  It was good.  I was burping up the sweet 23 flavors I used to enjoy in my previous life.

We had planned to wake up in the morning at 3:30am.  The reason for the early time is because some of our group members wanted to fly out on the helicopter, and to do so you must put yourself on a waiting list.  Everyone else is also wanting to fly out, so the wait line can be long.

Sunday 6/15/2014

Around 2:30am I hear Boaz walking around the camp and I hear someone say "Everyone is already leaving!".  We decide to get up at this time to try to beat the long line to the helicopter.  I was able to pack up my items pretty quickly.  We had a couple people in our group that was a bit slower, so we ended up walking to the village and expecting to meet these other people there.

Alex, Sneha, and myself met Jennifer and Boaz at the village's helicopter pad.  Alex and Sneha pay to have their back packs taken by the helicopter.  Me?  I'm hiking out with what I came in with (minus some food).  People are already in line for the helicopter; actually, it looked like some of them slept there.  Wow...  After the backpacks are dropped off and we top off our water bladders (spigot at the village office); we start the hike up to the hill top.

The moon was full and bright.  This was a relief to me since I had left my head lamp in the bed of my truck.  I was worried that I wouldn't have light to hike to.  The temperature was great.  There was a cool breeze blowing.  Perfect conditions to hike back to the hill top.  Alex and I were on a mission.  The mission, beat the helicopter to the top.  Unfortunately, Sneha got left behind :-(.  I felt bad about this, but a mission is a mission.

We pass people sitting in shade resting, fast and slow hikers.  I felt really good, but I attest this to living at 5200 feet.  The village is around 3000' and the hill top is around 5000'.  That is my new sweat spot for elevation.  Alex kept a very fast pace.  His foot started to cramp up but he kept going.  We finally took a break partially up the 1.5 mile switch back just before the hill top.  This last 1.5 mile ascension is the real work.  It hurt me quite a bit.  My nose started running during this climb and sweat started dripping off my face.  This last climb had a good amount of sun too.  On the switch backs, my back would be towards the sun and I would see my shadow in front of me.  I would yell "backpack shade!" since my pack was tall enough to block the sun from me.  Yes, I know...we were getting dehydrated.

We see the office at the hill top, and knew we were almost there.  Finally!!!  The top.  We high five each other and gloat about beating the fuck out of the helicopter.  I don't think the helicopter even left for its first trip.  Booyaa!

At the top, there were quite a few people getting ready to go down.  What?!  Kinda late to start....it is going to be a hot hike for them.

Here is my Motion-X GPS data from my iPhone:

Jun 15, 2014 5:46 am

Name:		Supai To Hill Top
Date:		Jun 15, 2014 6:46 am
Map: (valid until Dec 13, 2014)		View on Map
Distance:		7.87 miles
Elapsed Time:		2:41:34
Avg Speed:		2.9 mph
Max Speed:		9.5 mph
Avg Pace:		20' 31" per mile
Min Altitude:		3,093 ft
Max Altitude:		5,162 ft
Start Time:		2014-06-15T12:46:33Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	36º 14' 01" N
	Longitude:	112º 41' 18" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	36º 09' 36" N
	Longitude:	112º 42' 34" W

Getting ready for Havasupai hike

The Houston Meetup group N.E.O. is hosting a co-op hike/camp to Havasupai camp ground in Supai, Az.  This will take place with another hiking group in Nevada.

I took over a spot from someone who could no longer go.  The cost was $120, which includes entry fee, 3 days of camping, environment fee (not sure what more...?).

I have been wanting to do this trip for quite some time.  I'm very excited about getting ready for it and have been laying out my gear in preparation for this hike.  The hike will be ~10 miles one direction.  The first 1.5 miles of the hike down will be very steep, which means the last 1.5 miles hike back up will be tough.

My old sleeping bag took up way too much space; nearly 1/2 my back pack.  I went to REI and bought a new Marmot synthetic bag.  It is a mummy style rate at 32 deg.  It is very light and packs small.
http://www.rei.com/product/845984/marmot-cloudbreak-30-sleeping-bag-

I plan on taking my MSR Whisper Light with my small bottle filled with white gas.  I'm hoping this will be enough fuel for 3-4 days, expecting not being the only person to use it.  Also, I just bought some carbon hiking poles.  They are a Costco brand, but had very good reviews for the price.  I'm also bringing my Goal Zero Nomad 7 and Guide 10.  The panel might be overkill, as the Guide 10 is good for 2 full charges of my iPhone, plus I can bring another set of charged batteries.  Instead of the extra set of batteries, I think the solar panel would be funner to use.

Here is a picture of my gear laid out.

From left to right:
Marmot sleeping bag, Osprey back pack, REI solo tent, Thermarest pad, food in dry bag, MSR Whisper Light with Ti pot and fuel, toiletries in zip lock, medical pack, carbon hiking poles, hiking snacks in zip lock (on top of insulated dehydrated meal holder), foldable plate/bowls, soap/evoo/sponge/rag, towel, paracord with 2 cam clamps, solar panel/batteries, bluetooth speaker, headlamp, 4xAAA batteries, UNO cards, dry bag for small items, Marmot bag for holding clothes and acting as my pillow, sandals, hiking shoes, clothes.

I'll have to practice this weekend hiking with this pack and the poles.  I'm thinking about taking my pack to REI to help get it fitted to my body.

More to come....

6/6/2014
OK, after work today I went straight to REI.  I bought a few small items to bring with me to the Havasupai trip.  I bought another pair of shorts (on clearance :-) ), a small lantern/flash light, a sealed bag I will use to store my dirty clothes in (you roll it up and the air evacuates the bag).  Also, I bought another pack of Mountain House (just for backup).  Ever since I lost my small pocket knife, I've been wanting to replace it.  It becomes invaluable for various things; very useful...gotta get another one.

6/9/2014
I just tried to pack my back pack and realized it all didn't fit.  Ugh!  I removed some of my food and clothing.  I wanted to bring extra food in-case something went wrong or I just got more hungry than expected.  After re-packing my backpack with the reduced items, but without the water bladder, it weighed in at ~29lbs.  Yikes!  That is a tad heavy for this hike.

I might have to reduce more.  A few items that I probably can do with out: bluetooth speaker, UNO cards, Whisper light (replace with Budweiser stove), day pack, small lantern/light.

Note: my new Marmot sleeping bag packs so small!  I love it so far.

Mac Book Pro

I just bought a Mac Book Pro!

I have been looking for a Macintosh (preferably, a laptop) for a few months now.  I've been wanting to get into iOS developement (iPhone apps), for awhile.  I was contemplating building a hackintosh desktop, and still might do it, but decided to get this laptop for now.

It is a late 2008, with 15.4" screen, 2.4 dual core i5 processor, 4Gb (2 x 2Gb simms) of DDR3 RAM, 500Gb hard drive, and dual Nvidia graphics cards.  It had only 250 cycles on the battery (which I think 500 is the degenerating point), and is in Normal condition.  It has Mavericks 10.9.2 already installed.

The owner wanted $600, but I paid $575 for it.  EBay normally sells these for around $700-$800 and they sold for over $1200 new.  Yes, it is an older computer and not top of the line.  I'm not too sure if it even does Air Share with my Apple TV (I hope it does), but it is what I need to work on XCode.

I downloaded and installed XCode last night and played a bit with some template examples.  I didn't have too much time to tinker as I went out to a free screening of "A Million Ways to Die in the Wild West"; very funny movie...but very adult humor.

I need to now figure out how to connect my dual monitors to this laptop to have a comfortable work environment.  I plan on spending a lot of time on it :-).

Jay Benson's Triathlon

Wow!  I sucked....

I was in the third wave.  We start off by running a, slightly further, 5k.  I was having a hard time keeping up with my group.  I ran about an 8 minute pace.  But, I knew this was only the beginning of the race.  The bike will be where the time will be made up.

The bike was crazy.  As we came out onto Central, it was a gradual climb with head wind.  The gradual climb went into a steep climb.  This climb was much of the first half of the bike course.  At the turn around on 98th street, I knew the fun was about to begin.  Coming back on Central, going east, it was down hill and down wind.  Yes!  I topped out on my highest gear, tuck, look at my computer and see "45mph".  Cool.  As I'm coming up to an intersection, I see a cyclist laid out in the road with the cop moving towards him.  Looks like a car crossed when they should have waited.  That looked painful.

Coming into transition, I crossed over my right leg a bit early, but had enough speed to carry me up to the dismount line.  I grab my goggles and swim cap.  Run towards the pool and jump in.  The swim is 8 lanes of 50 meter swimming (400 meters).  It was very nice since the lanes were wide and one direction.  In the deep end of the second lane, I saw a race belt with a bib at the very bottom of the pool (funny).  I was caught up by another male contender, but in the last lane, I passed him and got out of the pool before him.  I think he might have been in the next age group up from me.  He patted me on the back and said "good swim".  That is the mood of triathletes, always good natured, helping one another.

After my race, I cheered on the other swimmers and walked around.  The food was a bit lacking, but I managed to still stuff my face with cookies and bananas.  I saw my results (not on the podium), so got my bike and went to Subway.

TODO: Work on my run and breathing.  Work on continuous swimming.  Continue with spin class to help my bike strength.  Drop some lbs; I'm too heavy to be on the podium.  Get a new water bottle for my tri bike.

results

Getting ready for Jay Benson reverse triathlon

Bib #87

http://www.nmsportsystems.com/portfolio/jay-benson-triathlon-may-11-2014/

I haven't been exercising much for the past 4 months.  It is a mix of several things: winter weather, changing jobs, moving, etc...  But, the last few weeks (after finishing flooring in my house), I have been going back to the gym and doing lots of spin, treadmill running, and swimming.  I've tried to get outside and ride and run a bit too, but it is only possible on the weekend.

I have signed up for the Jay Benson triathlon which will be on Mother's day.  My swim lungs are not up to par, but the run and bike will be the most important part of this triathlon.  I'm still trying to get my breathing acclimated to the altitude change from Houston to Albuquerque (~27' to 5100').  When I'm getting into the higher heart rate level (level 4, 5) is when it starts to affect me.

Another concern; I want to use my HED tubular 3 spoke carbon wheels, but there are issues with goat heads (thorns) here in Albuquerque.  Mostly along the trails but I would not bet against getting a flat even on the main roads.  I can either put flat gu in my tubes or just use my clinchers which has flat gu + tube thorn strips between the tire and tube (heavier but will not get a flat).

See you at the races!

Java Programming

I've been working on a few little programming projects geared towards my new hobby of triathlons.  Sometimes I get spare time in-between projects and use this time to practice and improve my programming skills.

Note, all of these projects were created using Netbeans 7.1.  This means that to run any of these programs you will need to have the newest Java Runtime Environment (JRE).  Download it from Oracle's site.  If you feel a bit frisky, you can download the JDK or Netbeans, then ask me for the project files so that you can modify any of the programs for your unique needs.

RaceEvent

Google Drive location

The first item I created was a listing of races by regions.  I use www.runningintheusa.com alot to find races I want to do.  Mostly, running events are listed here but you can also find triathlons.  The issue I had with this site is that I wanted to see all races in my area but only for certain counties (e.g. Harris and Galveston).  The site didn't allow this way of selection.  That is the reason for this project I call RaceEvent.

Currently I have preset locations under Texas, but it could be modified uniquely for each user.
Here is the application at initial start up.


By default, the Starting Date is set to today's date and the Ending Date is left empty which signifies to use the last day of this year.  If you double click on either of these date fields, it will set to today's date.

Race Type can be any of the following:



Once you have your date(s) and race type selected, you can then select or multiselect the locations you would like to see races for.  Here I'm selected races that are only in Galveston and League City cities and anything in Harris county.

 


Pressing the Search button now will command the program to data mine the web site for races with your defined criteria.

You can now click on any of the Race Name active links in the main display window to view the web page for that race.  Note, displaying of these web pages might be better done in your native browser, as my application doesn't handle all HTML very well :-).

Note, once you click on a Race Name link, if a USATF map is found in association with that race (the race name, city, state need to be as found on usatf's database), then the USATF Map button in the upper right hand corner will become enabled.  Click on this button will bring up a new window where you can view all the images of the route submitted to usatf for certification.

You can press the Races button to return to the list of races from your last search.

BikeFitter

Google Drive location
Google Drive location of library needed (only jmf.jar is actually needed)

BikeFitter was my way of figuring out how to self bike fit myself on my Cervelo S1.  One of the issues with bike fitting is that you need to measure some angles while sitting on the bike.  This is difficult to do for a couple of reasons.  1) You need to have a tool that measures angles between two point (e.g. between the knee and the ankle).  2) You need to make these measurements while trying not to modify your sitting form.

BikeFitter is a basic program that allows the user to either snap pictures from within the app or open an already saved image.  Once the image is captured and opened, then using the mouse, the user can draw two sets of lines and BikeFitter will display the angle between these two lines.

Here is an image of BikeFitter with an image opened.

Note, the Webcam menu item is disabled because the computer I'm running BikeFitter on, doesn't have a webcam attached.


Now I can draw two lines to find angles.  Note, by default, the line color is Pink and the text color is Blue and the curve color is Blue.

Since the colors are a bit dim on this image, I can change the text to Green and the curve to Orange, and darkening the shades of the curve then right click the image to bring up a menu which allows me to clear all line and redraw the same lines.  More than one set of lines can be made at a time.

The user can rotate the image once.  Here I rotate the image 90 degrees.  Note, the current drawings stay on the image until the user right clicks the image to clear them all.

TriEstimate

Google Drive location
Google Drive location of parsed race files
Google Drive location of library needed (everything but jmf.jar is needed)

Note: directory structure needs to be as follows.

• triestimate.jar (any location, for example your Desktop)
• lib/jcommon-1.0.17.jar (in lib folder; lib/ is located at same level as triestimate.jar)
• lib/jfreechart-1.0.14.jar (in same lib folder as above)
• triestimate/Races/* (all race files in Races/ folder which is in triestimate/ folder; triestimate/ is located at same level as triestimate.jar)

TriEstimate was create to help me determine what time I should expect to complete any triathlon distance.  I was looking for a good app on the iPhone, and at the time there was none.  I decided that this is a fairly easy task to get the distances for the race, then the known pace from the user in swimming, biking and running.  Then I try to factor in the other little variables, such as choppy waves, wearing a wetsuit, pool swim over open water, etc.

As I had more and more time to spend, I added additional functionality.  One was to have the ability to not only determine the predicted finish time, but to then see where that would place me in a given race (if that race's results are available in this tool).

Since I was getting race result data for this tool, I created a python extraction tool to make data mining race results much more convenient.

On start up, here is TriEstimate.

And here are the other tabs (T1, Bike, T2, Run and Place).

Once the user enters all their information in Swim, T1, Bike, T2 and Run, they can then go to the Place tab and select a Race and an Age Group then press the Place Me button.

As you can see from the image above, I would place 309 Overall (which is in the 83.06% of all racers).  I would place 34th place in the M40_44 Age Group (which is in the top 89.47% of this age group).

Another additional feature I have added, is the ability to view the race data and to do searches within each race file (e.g. if you want to search for your times) or to search for a keyword in all the race files.  This allows the user to find all of his/her race times.  Note, the keyword entered can be a regular expression pattern.  This allows a more powerful search option.  So if I wanted to search for "O'Neal" and some races have it spelled as "ONeal" and some as "O'Neal" and others as "O Neal", then I can use regular expression to search for "O'?Neal"; without the quotes.  This says the " ' " is optional ? (0 or 1 occurrences).

Here is the search results for "O'?Neal".  Note, I only have certain race data available.  More can become available as time permits.

Or a search can be done on an individual race.  When this is done, the tool will highlight the first occurrence of the keyword and the title will show you how many matches were found (in this case only 1).

In addition, graphs of the race data can be viewed by selecting a race and pressing the Graph button.  Within the graph window, selection can be made for the Average Finish Time, Average Swim Time, Average Bike Time, Average Run Time per age group.

 

The last new functionality I added was the ability to have the user enter their own configuration values.  In this application I had to determine what it meant (with respect to time) to have rough or very rough waters, or to wear a wetsuit, or to have head winds, or positive elevation.  This was mostly a guess.  So I added a new window to allow all these values to be modified.