The Lebanon Hills Regional Park borders Eagan and Apple Valley and contains a really fun series of mountain bike trails.

I think my bike is a little too small, but I got it as a free credit card points reward way back when. It will have to do for now, but I may invest in a pair of $35 riding gloves at some point.

Last night was my third time on the trails and I like it more and more each time. I love that it’s so close, has great scenery and variety, isn’t too difficult for a beginner like me and (probably best of all) is free.

The parking lot is almost always full of cars, but I never see too many people on the trail itself. Since it’s around six miles all in the same direction, I can see where that would happen, though. The only thing missing is a drinking fountain in the parking lot.

Way to go Dakota County!

I used to bet on the horses a lot during my high school and college days – handicapping has a lot of appeal to people who like math and numbers. Never was really very good at it, but I have a lot of theories to use to help me place bets.

Before leaving home, I printed out the jockey and trainer stats for the current meet, along with the Daily Racing Form’s listings for the night. My biggest strategy to making picks is to look at which horses have the best jockeys and trainers. I placed about $45 in bets and left with about $110, so it was a good night for gambling.

It was also fun spending time with our group of friends. We love our kids, but you really need to get away every once and a while. Happy birthday to Gina and thanks for the invitation. Oh, and where are we runnin’?

I knew things were bad across the river compared to the Wild, but wow. I sort of felt the same way I did when going to Circuit City just before they shut down. Attendance was supposedly 13,119, but I’d be surprised if there were half that many in the building.

The Wolves lost their 11th straight home game 110-99 to the Washington Wizards, a team that ranks lower than Minnesota in the standings and lacks any big-name stars. I felt sorry for the guys trying to sell season tickets after the game – even at $5 per game, that’s a hard job…

I used to like horse racing a lot while I was in college. The Daily Racing Form has tons of stats and I had all sorts of techniques to try to beat the odds. Like all gambling, though, the only way to win is to become the house.

No big winners or losers among our bets – but then again, my bankroll was only about $10.

Kid two came along and loves watching the big animals up close. The night’s races run pretty late, though, so we left before the end.

Can’t beat $1 nachos and Mountain Dew though…

Last night Jake and I went to the Giants-Blue Jays game at AT&T Park on the bay. We sat way up high, but the seats were great, halfway between home plate and first base. We had perfect views of the water–I don’t think there is a bad seat in that place.

The Giants won 4-3 after Barry Bonds hit his 747th home run to center. I don’t follow baseball much, but I do know about the Bonds scandal/excitement. Either way you look at it, it was cool to be there.

We had to have the signature “Gilroy Garlic Fries,” but I’m still regretting that decision today. At least I can say I tried them once. Lunch today at my favorite San Francisco 50s joint, Lori’s Diner, is sitting much better. I ordered the hot, open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy fries and a real cherry Coke–excellent!

Tonight is the Apple Design Awards and Stump the Experts, but I may have to return to the hotel to get caught up on work. Tomorrow Jake and I are splitting out early on the conference to play a twilight round of golf at Harding Park.

It has been a very stressful few weeks at work for me–way too many projects going on all at the same time. I like being busy and juggling things, but the 14 hour days are starting to wear on me a little. If the big dollars were rolling in, that would make me feel a little better, but as it is now, it just means I’m working for less money per hour now than I did in college. I still enjoy it overall, though, so I’ll keep plugging away and hopefully the big payday will come eventually.

Here are some of the things going on in my world right now:

• Los Angeles School. We signed a contract to help manage a charter school in the Los Angeles area beginning this fall. This project will involve travel, technology planning, training, purchasing, installation, security, remote access, network management, video conferencing and web development. All with a limited budget, too. I am excited by this one, but it carries a moderately high level of risk.
• Golfing in Minnesota Website. The first of a planned nine Minnesota Publishing Company websites, Golfing in Minnesota is in full swing (pardon the pun). The framework is in place and now I’m adding data and news on a daily basis. It’s great to be back in the golf business again, but the amount of information we are dispersing is staggering. The tees above are part of our new promotional campaign.
• Andrew Tank Golf. The assistant men’s golf coach at the University of Minnesota has hired us to do a personal website, following on the heels of the sites for head coach Brad James and the Golf Institute.
• The creators of the Minneapolis production of Bush is Bad – The Musical have hired us to do a show site similar to the one from the New York production.
• The HSRA/Studio 4 network of websites need some significant work done this summer to strengthen our branding, prepare for the LA school (and a potential 2008-09 New York school), raise funding for capital projects and roll out the new version of our student information management system, Project Excellence.
• Technology plans (and wish lists) for HSRA and the LA school need to be updated for 2007-08.
• The 2007 Tapemark Charity Pro-Am golf tournament at Southview Country Club in West Saint Paul is rapidly approaching (June 8-10). This will be immediately followed by Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
• A new charter school in St. Paul wants us to write a tech support proposal for them that would start this fall.

Those are just the things off the top of my head–there are many others in our project tracking system.

Busy, busy!

When we ordered the pool table for the office, we also bought a ping pong topper so we could use it as a conference table. I hadn’t actually played ping pong since college and forgot most of the rules (more at Wikipedia). Late last week, we set up the net and it’s been non-stop ping pong during break times since then. It takes more skill and physical effort than I remember, so not only is it fun, it’s good for you!

In honor of the new Twins season, here is a picture my brother took from spring training in Fort Myers, Florida, a few weeks ago. My dad, sister and brother went there for the first time this year and had a great time. Professional hockey, golf and football are more my thing, but I’ll likely be a bigger Twins fan if they ever get that nice new stadium built…

What a finish to the season too! Hope they can sweep Oakland and beat up on New York too…DK