Got out this weekend for a bit of snowshoeing. My mom bought some snowshoes for Amy and I for Christmas and it was the first weekend that we’ve been able to get out and give them a test run. So Sunday morning we drove up to Roseville REI and picked up a 2010 Sno-Park Pass and then headed up to Donner Pass to do our first run. Parking was easy, and it was just a short walk from the parking lot to the left of Boreal under I-80 to the north where the trail started. There were a lot of dogs and Brodie didn’t know whether to go and play with them or roll around in the snow. To say he likes snow is an understatement.
We headed up the hill and into a meadow covered with snow. There were trails going everywhere so we opted to follow a trail that meandered through the meadow hoping that it went somewhere interesting. After about 10 minutes the trail left the meadow and started climbing up a hill. Within about 5 minutes of climbing I could definitely feel the altitude but it was just so quiet and peaceful it was worth all of the work. We stopped where we had a bit of a view and shared some water and a Clif Bar and Amy fed Brodie snow.
As we approached the highest elevation we would see for the day, we could look back across the valley and just see the top of Boreal (see image below). We wandered around along the top of the trail looking to see where we could drop back down to the meadow when we caught sight of another trail and were able to move down the hill and come out north of the meadow, after about 10 minutes of walking we were back in the meadow and headed for the car.
I was surprised about how much work snowshoeing was, but the rewards were definitely worth it. We were able to get outdoors and take the dog for a walk and see some really great views. We debated going into Reno for dinner and to see some friends but we got a late start and figured we wouldn’t get home until 10pm if we went to Reno and we both had things that needed to be done before work on Monday. So we dropped back into Auburn, stopped at Ikeda’s for a burger and headed home. Brodie slept in the backseat the whole way home.
First off, we’re heading into the rainy season here in Northern California and I have made some riding commitments for this year that are gonna require me to ride rain or shine. I went down to REI and picked up some warmer bicycling clothes because I was just sick and tired of freezing all of the time. All in all, I would just like to say wool is gooder.
Not a lot to report this week about things other than mileage, and that I’m having a good time training at the moment. It provides a nice break in my day and gives me a chance to clear my head each day. I’m also focusing on my diet trying to shed some weight to help ease the effort required per mile, it seems cheaper than buying a lighter bike. So I’ll probably be giving information about that when I do these weekly updates.
Information of interest for the first week of 2010 were :
starting weight : 242 lbs (Unfortunately, I weighed in the evening for the starting weight, and in the morning for the ending weight. This skews the results for this week, but all future weighing will be done first thing in the morning)
ending weight : 234.5
total mileage : 124.2
total ride time for the week : 9:40:14
total calories burned this week while bicycling : 8,622
This shocked me a bit because I’ve never run into a problem with the evaluation of the boolean operators. I suspect this is because I make liberal use of parenthesis when I’m writing out SQL statements. However boolean operators are evaluated in the following order : NOT, AND, OR. As I said it’s not a huge problem to deal with, a few parenthesis will fix any issues that you might encounter, but it could create some interesting problems if you aren’t aware of it and the parenthesis keys on your keyboard is broken.
The new year always brings with it the optimism that can only come with a perceived “clean slate”, a chance to start over and actually make good on your commitments to yourself. The ability to prove to yourself and others that if you commit to something you will have the integrity to follow through, this time. In the spirit of this notion, I have identified a couple of technical areas where I really want to spend some time getting a deeper, more complete understanding.
One of the these things is SQL Server. I spend a lot of time working with SQL Server and I have a good understanding of SQL Server but as stated previously I would like to spend some time getting a deeper understanding. The great thing about doing something like this is that it tends to generate a lot of interesting things to write about. So I’m going to start a new series of blog posts called the Sql Server Notes. To give myself a framework on which to learn these new things I am going to be working towards the SQL Server Database Developer Certification. I think this will provide a good study guide for me to gain the sort of deeper level of understanding I am looking for, and it will give me something to show for it when I’m done. Please note, the focus here is to really gain an understanding of SQL Server and the Certification is a secondary benefit of the study.
The posts in this series might not be very long, and they will probably be known to most people, but they will be things that I either find important to know, problems I find in the reading/study materials that I am using, or other random bits of information. I will try to make at least one posting a week and keep it up until I have finished my studies. Hopefully we can all learn something new, if not, at least I will have worked on my writing skills and put up a good amount of updates to the site.