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2006 Get in Gear 10K

Posted April 29, 2006

Wow, what a crappy day for running! The temperature was 47 degrees with an east wind at about 15mph and a constant drizzle. The gun split called out at mile one was 10:20, while my split at mile two was 18:45–quite a bit faster than I wanted. I was trying to keep up with two women running a strong pace, but they left me in the dust by the half-way point. My gun split at the 5K mark was 28:30 and I ended up with a 55:28 chip time (a new 10K PR). My legs feel pretty good and the only issues I had were the crappy weather (I can already feel a cold coming on) and my aerobic performance (my breathing was heavier than normal for almost the entire race). I am going in the right direction with this race, though:

  • 1999 – 1:01:15 (9:53 pace)
  • 2002 – 1:07:04 (10:48)
  • 2003 – 1:00:32 (9:45)
  • 2004 – 0:55:41 (8:58)
  • 2005 – 0:57:43 (9:18)
  • 2006 – 0:55:28 (8:56) – PR

Up next: the 2006 Heart of the City Half Marathon in Burnsville, Minnesota on June 3, 2006.


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Marathon Training

Posted April 24, 2006

This week I received my entry form for the 25th running of the Twin Cities Marathon, to be held Sunday, October 1, 2006. Since I’m attending the U.S. Open in New York this year during Grandma’s Marathon weekend, TCM will be my only marathon this year. I met my last marathon goal at the 2005 Grandma’s, when I finally finished that race in under five hours. So it’s time for a new goal and I’ve decided to aim for a new PR (currently 4:42 at the 1995 TCM). This, however, means I need to actually train. I started this weekend with a 4-mile run that went well and plan to run the annual Get In Gear 10K next weekend.

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Backyard Visitors

Posted April 17, 2006

A few of the visitors to our backyard this week…DK


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Willingers Course Review

Posted April 17, 2006

Willingers is a Golf Digest four-and-a-half-star rated course in Northfield, Minnesota. They are celebrating their 15th season this year and I had the chance to play my first two rounds of the year there last week.

Willingers has always been one of my favorite courses in the state. It is close to the south metro (15 minutes from Eagan), doesn’t have any houses around it, is fairly priced, has a friendly staff and is a great design by my favorite local architect, Garrett Gill of River Falls, Wisconsin.

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Minnesota Wild versus Chicago at Xcel

Posted April 12, 2006

Last night we went to the final home game of the season for the Minnesota Wild. They won 2-0, but it’s sort of sad that the season is over. Of course with the Masters last weekend and the Twins home opener history, it’s now time to switch to summer sports. I have my first tee times scheduled, but I’m also thinking about joining the Wild season ticket waiting list for next season…DK

Edited to Add: Pulled the trigger on two spots in the warming house tonight.


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7MM Site Updates

Posted April 10, 2006

Based on feedback, I’ve made some changes to the site since the launch. There are several new sections in the fetishes area:

I’ve also added some iTunes functionality to the footer area and the music page and added a webcam image to the contact page. I appreciate the feedback and will continue to make improvements down the road…DK


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Hanz Erik and the Hims at Fine Line

Posted April 9, 2006

Fine Line Music Cafe
CD Release Party
April 8, 2006

Copay Album Cover

Official Band Site
MySpace Profile

Last night my wife and I attended the CD release party for Hanz Erik and the Hims new album, Copay. This was only our second concert we’ve attended at the Fine Line and I’d forgotten how small that space is–especially with the upstairs seating closed. The acoustics were very good and the main floor was crowded.

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Apple Boot Camp

Posted April 7, 2006

I am by no means an “Internet pundit” on any issue, but a lot of my friends ask me what I think when Apple comes out with something new. I will write short posts when this happens and will link only to the best of what I see–there are plenty of other places to find links.

Earlier this week, Apple announced Boot Camp, beta software and instructions to run Windows XP on Intel-based Macs. In a nutshell, you can buy a new MacBook Pro laptop, Mac mini or iMac, install Windows XP with Boot Camp and have a computer that runs both Mac OS X and Windows XP natively. A “boot” screen appears on startup and you decide which operating system you want to run and away you go. Switching from one to the other requires a reboot.

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Creating Files for the Video iPod

Posted April 2, 2006

When I picked up a 60GB video iPod, I felt like I did when I first discovered MP3 music files. Back then, SoundJam made it easy to take my library of CDs and rip my own digital versions of those songs. Now I wanted to do the same thing for all of those DVDs on my shelf. The movie industry makes this more difficult with region codes and encryption and the file sizes and processing power required are also an order of magnitude larger.

After spending several weekends reading online tutorials and experimenting with different programs, I have finally found a process that I’m happy with. It’s not perfect, but it creates a nice balance between file size and picture quality. It also let’s me queue up files to process overnight, which is handy. I’ve now filled up the iPod and have started using two external hard drives to create an archive of movie files that can be swapped with the iPod (one for movies and one for TV shows).

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