Dexter's Folly (Last Night)

Dexter fans: this post references last night's episode. If you haven't seen it, you may want to wait to read this.

First, I noticed a filming error. When Dexter's going through one of the empty houses, you can see a face in the bottom left corner of a set of jalousie windows. I thought that someone was watching him, but it's part of the film crew.

Now for the mistake Dexter made: he should have taken care of Trinity after hitting him with the shovel. When Trinity was on the ground, Dexter should have injected him with that sodium-whatever-it-is that he keeps in his syringe. Even though the little boy was sinking in the concrete, there was no chance that the concrete would have set up any harder during the time it would have taken Dexter to incapacitate Trinity. Dexter would still be able to rescue the boy and he would have had the opportunity to kill Trinity that same night.

Maybe they had to write that kind of mistake into the show to set up the final two episodes, but I don't think that Dexter's character should have gone for the boy first. Maybe this is part of his changing as a result of having children himself, but the old Dexter would definitely have taken care of business with Trinity first...especially because he knows that a new kill cycle is just being started with the boy, so there are 3 more people in immediate danger. Bad Dexter.

Pick #165

Monsters of Folk - "Say Please" from their self-titled release

Pub Run

Yeah, pub runs are great. You get some friends together and run from one bar to another. Take turns buying pitchers and take it all in. The event itself is only part of the experience. There's also the anticipation: "hey, are you doing the pub run on Saturday??" and the post-event: "man, that was so cool when those kids on bikes followed us to the next bar."

I've always wanted to do a pub run race. Teams of 3 or 4. At each stop, each team has to consume one pitcher and every teammate has to down at least one glass. The team can't leave to go to the next pub until everyone on the team has finished the beer. Ironically, I think that the experience wouldn't be as pleasant if they were races like the beer mile. What really gets to you when you combine drinking and running is speed. You don't want to drink too fast and you don't want to run too fast. Drinking too fast makes it slosh around in your stomach when you run. Running too fast makes it slosh around in your stomach. There's also the increased chance of hurting yourself. And one last problem with a competitive pub run: finding enough people down to do such a thing to themselves. It's way easier to throw together a friendly pub run.

Pick #164

The Rifles - "When I'm Alone" from No Love Lost

Road ID Firefly Supernova

I just got a Firefly Supernova by Road ID. Mine's blue. It's tinier than I imagined. I clipped it to my backpack for my ride home tonight. I still want to test it out running. I wonder if it will bounce and annoy me.

I'm always curious how I look (how visible I am) on my bike at night. I really want to get in my car and watch someone else ride my bike. Anyway, tonight I settled for dropping my backpack at my driveway, facing down the road. Then I rode my bike to the end of my road and I could still see the flashing light. Road ID claims that you can see the light from up to a mile away...that might be a little far fetched or under perfect conditions or something. This light was still very visible from a quarter mile away. The light is supposed to be omni-directional, meaning it doesn't matter which direction it's facing - you'll still see it from any side. I pushed my backpack over and looked at the light coming out of the side of the Supernova and it was not nearly as bright. You could only see it faintly at about 100 meters.

I'll see how well it holds up...it's supposed to be waterproof down to 300 feet (a light like this would be sweet in low-vis water). It's small enough that I can keep it in my backpack. The packaging says that there's a bike mount for it, but I can't find one on roadid.com. If I like it, I'll probably get another one or 3 of them.

Tri the Rez Recap

Alright, Saturday was the big day. No, not the Great Floridian iron-distance race...not my Granny's 80th b-day...but Tri the Rez. We had packet pickup on Friday and it's a good thing so many people came to get their stuff early because we had a chance to learn what we were supposed to do and it made packet pickup on race morning easier.

We ran into a few snags before the race started. For instance, I realized that I didn't have a lead-out vehicle for the bike. Also, we weren't able to get on Lost Lake Road to mark the pot holes and the turns until 8am (right when the race starts). We were short staffed on volunteers and had to reassign people from one job to another (e.g. body markers became intersection people on the bike course). A couple other snags: didn't have water at the finish line for about the first 60 finishers, didn't have run course marked on the ground which led to 3 runners making a wrong turn and getting DQ'd and I feel responsible (but I gave them awards anyway because they would have won their age groups even if they hadn't accidentally cut the course...and free entry to next year's race since I thought that was fair). I also hear that there was a bit of a bump coming out of the water on to the boat ramp...maybe we'll come up the beach next year...

Overall, I got lots of positive feedback from participants and spectators. I think I did a pretty good job of throwing things together in the 3 months that I had in which to do so. Most everything ran according to plan and ahead of schedule on race day. I think the missing markings on the run course were the worst part of the day, so that's not too bad. There was someone who was having trouble breathing in the swim and the Rez lifeguards did a great job getting him out of the water and into the hands of the FSU First Responder Unit who did a great job of taking care of the situation. The FHP did an excellent job of managing traffic on the bike course (so I'm told...I never got to see the bike in action). I think people liked the awards and there was a good deal of door prizes for the size of the race. Results were posted online before I got back home!

Looking forward to next year...

Zit Popping

The coolest way to pop a zit (or bug bite) is definitely to pull out a hair that's growing through the bump.