Race Report: Get In Gear 10K

Today I ran in my first race of 2006. It was 50 degrees and rainy. Yuck. I lined up as I always do, right at the front. With 5000 people mashing through a 30 foot wide street it can take minutes just getting to the starting line so I've learned that being at the front is a big advantage. Although you have to learn patience because many many people are going to pass you and you don't want to chase. You have to run your own race.
The races started and we're off. It clears out quickly and I'm feeling good though wet. I reached mile one with a time of 7:35 and a heart rate of 143. Not bad for the first mile and about where I was hoping to be. Mile 2 was even better at a pace of 7:03 and a HR of 165. I was watching my HR fairly close and was going to let it govern my legs. 165 bpm was still good.
Now we turned off West River Road onto the Lake St bridge over the Mississippi and right into the wind. So now we have rain and wind. A guy about my size comes by me so I drafted right in behind him and follow. On the east side we turn onto East River Road and the wind is once again blocked by the trees. Thankfully.
My pace for mile 3 was 7:35 and my HR climbed to 170 - still ok but getting up there. We go through the water station but I, as usual, don't bother. It's hard to gulp water while running and for this length it's really not necessary. The race started to slow and many of the people I saw pass me are now slipping back. Bad pacing on their part. I did a system test at mile four - pace; 7:28, HR 176, legs; strong, lungs, breathing hard but regular, body; wet but warm. I see that my HR is high so I decided not to press for the last 2 miles. I just kept the pace.
Mile five - pace 7:35 HR 176. Between mile five and six we crossed the Ford Parkway Bridge and head for the finish line. I finally make my last push. I started passing a lot of people on the bridge and reached mile 6 with a 7:22 pace but my HR is now at 180. I knew I could hold that heart rate for the remaining 2/10 of mile that makes up the difference between 10 kilometers and 6 miles.
I sprinted the last 100 yards and finished in 46:13. I was hoping for sub 48:00 so I was very happy. But now the rain was really coming down so I jogged over to the free food tent, grabbed a bran muffin, milk, and power bar, then started the quarter mile jog back to my truck. A good start to the racing season. I was surprised at how consistent my pace was.
The hot shower felt really good when I got home.

Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison
Last night I attending a lecture by author Harlan Ellison. Ever since I saw him at a writers conference during college I've loved his work. His screenplay for the original Star Trek episode 'City on the Edge of Forever' is considered by most to be the high water mark for that show and has been named one of the top 100 TV episodes of all time. But more then the 1000s of stories, screenplays, and awards, he is probably most famous for his mouth. He loves to talk and will say just what he thinks. He pisses off a lot of people but in the end he was probably right and they just didn't want to hear it. He talked for 3 hours, mostly stories and memories of his 50 or so years in sci-fi (a term he hates because he has written so much more then that). At one point he started a story about working at Disney for only 4 hours but somehow ended up talking about insulting (inadvertently of course) a former KGB agent at a Swedish gala. At one point late in the talk, he was try to hold a microphone and a water bottle. Moments later a lady in the audience yelled out "You're talking into your water bottle!" Harlan lost and we all laughed.

Ellison's books are hard to find because I believe he controls the distribution but if you ever find one of his short story anthologies, they are some of the wittiest and smartest you will read.

First Animation

In 1999 I started taking animation classes at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I was already working in computer animation however I wanted to do something of my own as well as learn more. My first class was traditional 'cell' animation which was even more fun because it got me to draw - something I wish I would do more of. For our final project we had to create a 60 second animation. Usually that would mean 600 to 700 drawing but I decided to do what is called limited animation. Basically artists use one drawing and move it around or pause often on a still image. I ended up being a bit ahead of the curve because now most cartoons on Cartoon Network are done in this style.

'The Nissa' is an idea I still think about and would love to do more with. This project was done as if it were a trailer or advertisement of a movie. The Nissa is a troll that is assigned to protect a house. The main problem for him is the house itself and all it's annoyances like dust bunnies and electrical shorts (as briefly seen in the trailer). He flies around on a magical hammer that might just be smarter then the Nissa is. It helps him out. Oh, and he turns to stone during the day which accounts for all those ugly 'statues' in the gardens.
The narrator in the movie is me and the story I tell is not completely true, although my Dad did talk about the Nissa when I was very young. The Nissa (or Nisser) is a part of Norwegian folklore and is a very michevious troll. The most famous story involves the Nissa, a farm girl, and a bowl of oatmeal.
I did this project in Macromedia Director because that was what our Professor knew. Everything was first hand drawn, inked, then scanned into my computer. My friend Bryn Hendrickson (a comic artist himself) helped me ink the backgrounds. I would really like to redo 'The Nissa' in Adobe After Effects because I could do a little better job with the better tools. Would that make me like George Lucas? Should I leave it as is?
nissa_final.wmv

Surfing

CR_beach-sunset-pink

Last April Linda and I went to Costa Rica for my 40th birthday. It was my wish to attend a surfing school so we went to Cork Carroll Surf School in Nosara, Costa Rica with 3 friends. Nosara is a small village that is 2 hours from the nearest big city. The last hour was on gravel, thou the paved road was not much better. We stayed for a week right at the school. It was all inclusive. The food was basic and delicious. If we wanted a beer we simply went to the bar and got ourself one. I felt like I was at my own cabin. Rick, the owner, and his ragged band of surf instructors were wonder and I can't say enough to recommend it. We will be back.

I've uploaded some of my favorite shots to my Flickr site. Many of you might have already seen them. Truth be told, Linda and our friend Ann Lund took many of the shots of us surfing. The surf school is even using some of them on their website, including me on the homepage! The one posted here is one of my favorites. It reminds be of the poster for 'Endless Summer', a surfing movie.

Sketch09

sktch_09_pima02

This was one of my favorites and one of most enjoyable drawing days I had in 2005. It was while Linda and I were in Tucson for her tennis tournament. Near Tucson is the Air Force 'boneyard' where some 4000 decommisioned jets are stored. There is also a huge air museum there that anyone can wander around. I spend 4 hours walking around the planes, photographing and sketching in the 100 degree desert sun. It was so quiet that I could hear the creaking and groaning of the metal flexing in the heat. It was so cool. The B-58 has always been one of my favorites jets. It's big and fast! It even looks fast sitting in the desert.

When I got back to the hotel I showed the sketches to Rich, the other husband that came along. He glanced at it then put it down. As I was talking about my day he picked up the sketchbook again and exclaimed, "Wait, you drew these?!?". He had dismissd them as something I had bought.

More sketches

I've added the rest of the sketches that I plan to post to flickr. There are more but I decided to just hit the highlites. I'll single out a few to write about in the future but for now you can find them here.

Spelling Disclaimer

I'm going to apologize just this once for all the past and future abuses to the English language.

I've been a horrible speller my whole life. I can still clearly remember spelling tests at South Jr High. Week after week I would have to tell Mrs. Carney and the whole class that I was logging in another 'F'. I like to think that life is all about balance - so the fact that I have better then average skills to draw some how lessed my grammatical skills. Even writing email is a chore for me because I either a: spend too much time writing and rewriting to get it right or b: fret about how I must sound like an idiot.
So...
I'd like to just say that I am not going to sweat the spelling and grammer in this blog. I would rather it be about my art and less about my writing skills. If I took the time to write better I would probably end up not doing it at all.

Update: I have corrected this 3 times since first posting it. Grr... no more!