Mike’s World

This weekend it was very, very hot outside. 100 degree highs and humid on one day. I try to get out and walk every day, but this weekend it was something I just could not do, because of the heat. I had to think of a way to get out and exercise, but stay cool. I decided it was time for some bike together again.

Before I had problems sitting down for so long on the bike, would get numbness and whatnot. Before going out this weekend I decided to get some biking shorts, and man did that help! I was able to do 30 miles on Friday evening, 50 miles on Saturday and 40 miles on Sunday, all with very little pain and soreness.

On Friday I decided to go to downtown Minneapolis, just to see how long it would take. The weather was warm, but it was not all that bad, as it was in the evening. I found that I was able to go faster than I could before, so this whole weight training thing might be helping.

Saturday I went downtown again, for my trainer session in the afternoon. I then biked around downtown a bit more, went out for dinner at Manny’s Steakhouse then went out for more biking around downtown and uptown Minneapolis before heading back home. When all was said and done, I had gone about 50 miles.

Sunday I wanted to go and see a movie, and get some exercise in. I ended up biking from my house to the Showplace 16 in Inver Grove Heights. I biked up there, had a bite to eat, saw Clerks 2 and headed home. It must be a uphill ride there, because it was much easier getting back then getting there.

All in all, it was a good way to spend a weekend with excessive heat. Just had to keep the wind going, and keep hydrated.

This month has been a very interesting one at work. Late last month our customer canceled a large I.T project due to cost over-runs and changing business needs. This project had been very trying to design around both on a technical architecture point of view, and on a infrastructure side of things. The true scope of the project was not known at initial implementation and every time we would start to get a handle on the size of the project, it would grow. We had constant challenges working with this moving target. I think we did a good job at being flexible to meet the needs of the project, in the end due to reasons outside of us, the project is not off of our plate. It is unfortunate, as if they could have made it work, I think in the end the customer could have seen some good cost savings by moving ahead, if they could have kept the initial scope under control. In the middle of the project they acquired another company, and I think rolling that company in to the project might have contributed to some of the scope creep.

As with any large company, any time you announce you are taking a large write-off, the investors want cost control right out of the box. This has caused a complete re-focus on what I am working on. This month has been all about finding ways to save money for our customer everything from large consolidation plans that could save millions to rethinking on how we handle disks which save hundreds of dollars. It sounds like everything is on the plate. We will see in the end what works, and what does not. It is always difficult balancing the supportability of an environment with trying to reduce costs in the environment. I always tend to lean towards higher availability, and therefore more costs, and it is hard for me to change that mindset.

For the first time in quite a long time I made it out to Valleyfair, an amusement park located in Shokopee, MN, which is for the most part THE amusement part in Minnesota. I have fond memories of going to Valleyfair during the last week of school, walking all around with my school friends and hanging out. I had never done the rides that much when I was younger, first had no interest, then was not able to. The other memory I have is that one day McDonald’s Twin Cities had reserved the entire park for the McDonald’s employees, and I do think thats the last time I had been to valleyfair until now.

First when I was real young, I had no interest in going on all the rides, they scared me and I did not like being scared. When I grew out of that, I was not able to do any of the rides because of my weight. I would do the carousel, thunder canyon, and that was about it. I would do some of the shows, and the imax theater, but most of my day was spent watching people.

Last month I saw an ad for Valleyfair, and that got the idea stuck in my head, that it would be fun to make it out to valleyfair now that I am able to do so. I wanted to go with my sister, as she was in town, but she has a baby on the way so I decided that it was not a good idea to do that. I worked out my schedule, (personal trainer and all) and decided to make July 15th the day. Man was that interesting.

For some reason, that week it decided to be the hottest week in who knows how long in the Twin Cities. On Saturday the 15th, it ended up being 99 degrees, but thankfully it was not all that humid, and it was windy. I have never gone to valleyfair and gotten the full experience. This time I wanted to get my moneys worth. I showed up at 10:00am, and was not planning on leaving until they close at 12:00am, which I did pull off. I also wanted to do every ride, which again I did mange to do. I managed to not loose my lunch, or even get real scared on any rides, but I will admit that towards the end of the day, my throat was sore from all the screaming.

I am very glad I went, as I had a blast. I do plan on going at least 2 more times (once with some friends, and once when they have the park all setup for Halloween), so I look forward to both of those events.

This year I did the hometown 4th of July thing. The city of Richfield does a halfway decent hometown 4th of July thing.

On July 2nd, I went down to check out the little carnival that they setup for the 4th of July time. After my evening walk, decided to head down and see what rides they had. I had never done any rides before because of my weight, and I was planning on going to valleyfair, so this might be a good trial run. I ended up going on two rides, one was called the starship, and I can not remember what the second one was. It was a very strange feeling, but I enjoyed myself.

On July 3rd, I had gone down to the park a classic car show. Nothing real interesting, just a bunch of old cars, but I was a bit upset I missed the big one they have in Minnesota because I was in Philly, figured this might give me some cool cars to look at, but ended up being very disappointed.

On July 4th, I started off by firing up the grill and grilling up some hot dogs for lunch, then headed down for the parade. They had a good 80 participants for the parade, and its your normal cheesy parade with bands, people in cars and a handful of floats. Our US congress rep, who has been our rep every since I was born, is retiring this year. I remember seeing him in the parade every year, and the only thing that I remember from the parade is that it seemed a bit off not seeing the old guy in the parade.

In the evening on the 4th I started to smoke some pork and veggies on the gill for dinner. Went out for a nice walk and had dinner and walked down for the carnival and fireworks. I was a bit bad at the carnival, I had a Carmel apple, some mini-donuts and some cookies. I ended up feeling sick, my guess is from the deep fried donuts, but they tasted good. Walked around the carnival a bit, just killing time until the fireworks started, and then made my way to my chair. I must say, I was impressed with the fireworks show. They had a good variety of colors, pops, bangs, booms, and it lasted a good 20 minutes. After fireworks I was not very tired, so I walked around for a bit before heading home for bed. It is funny watching all of the people try to get out of the city after the fireworks. The place ends up being a madhouse.