This morning my oldest child and I ran the Twin Cities 5K, starting and finishing at the state capital. It was her first race of this length and we finished in just under 39 minutes. I’m such a proud running dad!

This makes me even more motivated to do well tomorrow, which is starting to look like it is going to be too hot. The blisters this morning were fine, though, so I’m in a good state of mind overall. Now I’m off to one final round of marathon golf training at Willinger’s this afternoon…DK

Our desks are almost ready to go in the new office space. These setups are just like directors used to have at my last job, but I don’t have to put up with any big company hassles. Sitting behind them brought a huge smile to my face all day long.

The past two weeks were really busy–the painting was finished, the projector arrived, carpet and baseboards were installed, a hole was punched through the outside wall for the air conditioner, the electrician came to wire the AC with the special plug it needed, window blinds were ordered, phone lines were pulled and Comcast installed our business class internet access. I moved the rest of my boxes out of the old office and unpacked them yesterday.

We made a few trips to IKEA and Target and today we ordered our new red leather coaches for the coders lounge. There still seems to be a lot of items on the to-do list, but it’s finally starting to come together. More pictures soon…DK

Hooray–fall colors have arrived in our yard! I’ve been so busy the past few weeks with the new office, I literally needed to stop and smell the roses today. I read that this is the last weekend of good colors on the North Shore and I hope we can get out for a roadtrip somewhere in the region before they are all gone.

Weather for the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday looks OK–overnight low around 45/high near 75–and the colors along the Mississippi River should be fun to see. Hopefully I won’t be too focused on leg cramps and blisters to notice…DK

Today we took the family to visit the Minnesota Renaissance Festival outside of Shakopee. The weather was great, the crowds were large and the turkey leg was tasty. We also visited with artist John Lange of Fountain City, Wisconsin, who makes the most beautiful copper tree sculptures. I hope to make a deposit soon on a 53-inch bare tree scultpture for the dining room wall…DK

This morning I ran what will likely be my last longer training run before the Twin Cities Marathon. I ran with a group that was following the course for the TC 10 Mile race, held the same morning as the full marathon. I was quite happy with my pace and time (10:14 minute miles) and felt OK afterwards. At least until I discovered that I had some of the worst blisters I’ve had in years. I need to figure out something for race day, which is now less than two weeks away…DK

This week I had a troubling issue at work I’ve never seen in all my years of working with technology. Making matters even more frustrating, it just cleared up by itself today with no action on my part.

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• Apple 17-inch iMac G5 Computer (more pictures)
• Burley Encore Bike Trailer (more pictures)

Computer details: This is my wife’s home machine and was purchased May 24, 2005 from Amazon (part#M9843LL/A, 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive). Another 512MB of RAM was purchased from Other World Computing, for a total of 1GB. Everything works great–she just wants a laptop for graduate school and has ordered a MacBook. The trackball is not included, but I will throw in the external iSight camera with the original keyboard and mouse. eBay says it’s worth about $800.

Burley details: Purchased about three years ago from Penn Cycle in Eagan, this nice bike trailer seats two small children and has a “trunk” in back for groceries or books. It folds flat for easy storage or transport and was lightly used (the kids are too big now). We did not buy the stroller attachment, but that would be easy to find used. Here is the original product page from Burley. eBay says this is worth about $200.

If you are interested in either item, or would like more information, please contact me…DK

UPDATE: both items have sold…DK

My dad turned 60 last week and we really surprised him (even though I almost blew it the night before). I told him I was taking him to the Twins game against Detroit and out for dinner before the game. We also told him my sister couldn’t get off of work (in Duluth) and that my brother wasn’t able to visit (from Orlando).

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The kids started lessons again at Wise Swim School in Apple Valley this weekend. I just love the programs and instructors at this school–highly recommended…DK

Today Apple announced revisions to the iMac line of consumer desktop computers. Processor upgrades are always nice, but the big news was the new top model, the 24-inch iMac. To me, this seems to be a great value at $1999 ($1899 education pricing). That was the price of a 23-inch flat panel monitor by itself not that long ago.

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