A Ride To Rochester in the Snow



Distance: 40.29 miles
Moving Time: 3 hours 22 minutes

ITIL Question of the Day

Which of the following BEST describes a Service Desk?

A. A process within Service Operation providing a single point of contact
B. A dedicated number of staff handling service requests
C. A dedicated number of staff answering questions from users
D. A dedicated number of staff handling Incidents and service requests

ITIL Question of the Day

Which of the following BEST describes when a Known Error record should be raised?

A. A Known Error should not be raised until a temporary resolution or workaround has been found

B. A Known Error should be raised at any time that it would be useful to do so

C. As soon as it becomes obvious that a quick resolution of the Problem will be found

D. Immediately following the Problem resolution, so a permanent historical record of all actions is retained in case of a recurrence.

ITIL Question of the Day

Which of the following statements BEST describes the aims of Release and Deployment Management?

A) To build, test and deliver the capability to provide the services specified by Service Design and that will accomplish the stakeholders requirements and deliver the intended objectives

B) To ensure that each Release package specified by Service Design consists of a set of related assets and service components that are compatible with each other

C) To ensure that all Release and Deployment packages can be tracked, installed, tested, verified, and/or uninstalled or backed out if appropriate

D) To record and manage deviations, risks, and issues related to the new or changed service

2010 Olympics

I am currently in possession of the following 2010 Olympic event tickets:

2/21/2010 - Biathlon - Men's 15K mass start, Women's 12.5K mass start

2/23/2010 - Nordic Combined - Team event (Large hill and 4x5k relay)

2/24/2010 - Alpine Skiing - Women's Giant Slalom

All are medal competitions, and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with these tickets (which I had to scramble to pick, since I ordered towards the end of Phase I ticketing).

Now if I can only get some snowboard tickets and some cheap accommodations I'll be good to go.

A New Years Eve Set

NYE'09 Set by numbersix

Brave New World feat. Nick Clow (Nick Bridges Stripper Mix) - Bodyrox, Luciana

Robot Rock (Soulwax Remix) - Daft Punk

Poker Face (Lies In Disguise Remix) - The Toxic Avenger

Ghosts N Stuff (Original Mix) - Deadmau5

Standing In The Way Of Control (Soulwax Nite Version) - The Gossip

NY Lipps (Kawazaki Dub) - Soulwax

Funkytown - Lipps Inc.

Street Justice (Teen Wolf Remix) - MSTRKRFT

Green Light (MSTRKRFT Remix) - John Legend & Andre 3000

Complications (Original Mix) - Deadmau5

Move For Me (Extended Mix) - Kaskade & Deadmau5

Move My Body (Original Mix) - Tiga

Positif (Original Mix) - mr. OIZO

Who is #1?

On Halloween we did a party. A sample of the songs I spun are below...

*** Oops Mixwit is gone. I'll post tunes again when I figure out a good way to do it ***

Which American accent do you have? Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Whistler 08

I think I've been to Whistler about 10 times.

Here's some pictures from this year: http://malzahn.smugmug.com/gallery/4234126

Here's a new blog where I attempt to remember every ski trip.




.

Take this as a hint

Grand Blanc Data

Above is the HR and Speed graph for the group part of the ride.
The total ride was 50.1 miles in 2:35:22

The final 15.1 miles of the group portion:
Duration: 36:35.0
Avg HR: 179
Max HR: 189
Avg Speed: 24.7mph
Max Speed: 39.3
Avg Cadence: 96
Max Cadence: 114

The variation in effort (indicated by the rising and falling HR) during these last 15 miles probably caused the most trouble.

Change of Scenery
I decided to go do the Grand Blanc Tuesday ride yesterday. I needed a change of scenery for my Tuesday ride this week. In Birmingham I've had a lot of issues with getting caught at lights or getting behind the wrong guy in the pack. I needed to do a ride that was more pure cycling, less silliness, and less of those crazy tactics unique to Birmingham (for instance, need to get a gap? no problem, pass that car ahead at the stop sign!!!). Grand Blanc is the anti-Birmingham ride.

In terms of organization and safety Grand Blanc is a symphony orchestra. Birmingham is punk rock.

Grand Blanc is a meditation on cycling. Birmingham is a prison riot.

If Grand Blanc were a movie it would be "Breaking Away" or "Chariots of Fire." If Birmingham were a movie it would clearly be "The Road Warrior" or better yet "Mad Max - Beyond Thunderdome."

You get the point. 60 miles of smooth rolling terrain, and they don't even break laws!

Unfortunately, none of this changes the fact that Grand Blanc is very fast and has few stops. And unlike Birmingham, there aren't many short cuts to catch back on. You drop and you are usually done.

My undoing came about 27 miles in after doing my last nanosecond pull. I went to the back of the paceline and kept right on going. The ride continued on in the distance as I got reacquainted with my lack of POWER. The good news is that the solitary ride back to the car was pretty enjoyable.

I will post some HR data tomorrow to show how this lovely ride has devistating consequences for the power challenged rider such as myself...

Today, Mike Bliss, Kevin Skipworth, and I rode from Royal Oak to Stony.

I didn't use the GPS, but here is some Polar data:
Distance: 56.7 miles
Time: 4:46:36 (not counting a stop at Starbucks)

Climb up Dutton Road: 2:26.1 (I think this is my record. I seem to nip a bit off of it every July.)
Stony Pines start to finish: 5:29.5

I need to get faster in the Pines. I should be under 5 minutes. I think these 3 things will help:
1) buy a tubeless wheelset
2) don't be as tentative in the corners
3) get on the power more exiting each turn

I can do #2 and #3 right away. #1 will have to wait...

Anyway, it was a fun ride. Thanks Mike and Kevin!

I did the Boyne Marathon yesterday. It was a good race for me. I finished 4th (one spot out of the money). My inability to hold a wheel though means my past 3 races have been long time trials. I need more speed endurance before Ore to Shore.

Kevin and I do another epic.
It's Addison again, but this time 70+ miles with Markwood, Drahner and Dequindre climbs thrown in. We also hit Stony.

Went to Addison with Kevin and Mike:




If I wasn't so tired I'd figure out how to merge these 2 pictures together.

Full Motionbased detail here:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=2603278

Kitt Peak/Gates Pass


After climbing Kitt and flatting on the way down, Terry and I decided to do a quick ride up Gates Pass. It's short, but it's a heck of a 10 minute effort.

Here's a picture taken last year of the final ascent.

Mount Lemmon


If you look close you can see me in this picture.

Here is a dot race of my last 3 climbs of Mt. Lemmon.

Terry and I attended the Nova National MTB Race. That's Geoff Kabush in front. He eventually won the race.

More pictures here