My favorite band, Zero 7, will be dropping their new album in the US on September 8th. This will be their fourth studio album (after Simple Things, When it Falls and The Garden and is titled Yeah Ghost.

They’ve released one track on their website which - well, I’m not a big fan of. The sound seems to be more pop than lo-fi/downtempo, which is what they have been known for, and why I love them. But, we’ll see, September 8th, how the rest of the album plays.

Another noteworthy point is this is their first album without vocal collaborator Sia. Offically Zero 7 is Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker but since she’s been on the previous three albums I always consider her part of the Zero 7 name. No more it seems. Would have been great to see the return of Sia or perhaps Tina Dico or Mozez; however, they all have their own things going on now.

This time around they are collaborating with the likes of soul/jazz artist Eska Mtungwazi, folk singer/songwriter Martha Tilston, and electronic hip-hop performer Rowdy Superstar. Looks like an interesting and eclectic line-up for sure.

Despite my misgivings about the first released track, I’m still psyched to hear the rest of the album. However, bummed about the wait!

Here is the track listing for the album.

1. Count Me Out
2. Mr. McGee
3. Swing
4. Everything Up (Zizou)
5. Pop Art Blue
6. Medicine Man
7. Ghost sYMbOL
8. Sleeper
9. Solastalgia
10. The Road
11. All Of Us

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The three of us decided to go out for Mexican food Sunday night (well, Mandy and I did, Miranda doesn’t have a say…yet) as we were running some errands later in the afternoon and realized it was closer to dinner time than we thought - it was dinner time.

We ordered Miranda a quesadilla which came with rice and beans for her dinner. She’d had one before at Red Robin and devoured it, so we figured she would like this one as well. She took a few bites, but we found she really loved the rice that came with her meal. Here’s a video of her shoveling it in. She did a good job with the full size, adult spoon!

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Found in an email at work today:

“Children are great imitators. So give something great to imitate.” ~ Anonymous

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I’ve had jamesenloe.com registered for a couple years now, but have not done anything with it, other than point to this domain. I figured eventually I would migrate to using that domain over jitteryjim.com, which I have been using for the past nine years (sounds crazy to say that, but it’s true). The, I found flogr.

Flogr? Huh?

Yeah, flogr. Flogr is a bit of php and html code that takes your flickr photos and puts them in a very nice, professional display. It was easy to set-up, and I got near immediate feedback from the current developer. I liked it so much that I set it up and running on jamesenloe.com.

So, photos can be viewed via my flickr photostream or at jamesenloe.com. Clicking on the “Photos” tab at the top of each page here will redirect to the new site.

Cool.

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For my running activities, I use my Suunto T3 with the optional Foot Pod - this allows me to track my speed and distance as I run. I find it quite useful: if a section of a run feels particulary difficult I can check my speed and see that perhaps I’m pushing harder than usual, as an example.

The thing I don’t like about it is the calbration: to ensure its accuracy you have to calbriate it, meaning running at distance you know to be true (1 mile, for example) and then stop the Suunto and check the distance. You can then make an adjustment up or down to ensure it is set at a mile as well. I went through this when I first bought the watch two years ago by running a half mile on a high school track and then setting the calibration. I haven’t messed with it since then.

But…when I ran the 5 mile Spring Dash at the end of April I found a discrepancy between what my watch said and what the course was. The couse (as mentioned) was 5 miles, the Suunto told me I had run 5.35 miles. Uh… Maybe their course wasn’t exact and was a little long, but not that long, no way.

I didn’t get around to recalibration until today. Yesterday I got in the truck and drove my run route and found a landmark at one mile. Today, I ran it and found at the one mile mark my Suunto read 1.05 miles. I calibrated the Foot Pod and set it to 1 mile and finished my run (5.25 miles).

If the Pod were GPS operated I would not have this problem and I am bummed now that I didn’t get the GPS Pod instead. But, now that this is calibrated I at least know that my running distance is more accurate, even if it’s longer.

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Last of my catch-up photo posts. Two days missing from this week. Now that we are into nicer weather, I hope to stay with this a bit better than I have the past three weeks.

May 10 - Mother’s Day

May 11 - No Photo

May 12 - No Photo

The next few are from a short vacation trip to Montana and were among the favorites taken for that day.

May 13 - Poppy

May 14 - Out the back door

May 15 - Grammy and Poppy

May 16 - Point of interest

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Week ten of my semi-project. Three missing photos.

May 3 - Coming in Hot

May 4 - No Photo

May 5 - No Photo

May 6 - Camryn

May 7 - In Bloom

May 8 - You Can’t Catch Me!

May 9 - No Photo

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Catch up post! I’m a few weeks behind in posting my photos. Still striving to get one in a day, but there will be some gaps. Looking forward to picking this back up as it feels like forever. Of course, some days I took several photos, so I chose my favorite one from the day and included it.

April 26 - Watching Over

April 27 - No Photo (I suck)

April 28 - Cutie in Hat

April 29 - First Cup

April 30 - Enjoying a snack

May 1 - Who’s the short chubby guy in red?

May 2 - Can’t have fire without wood.

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Zero 7 remains one of my most favorite bands. I have acquired all the albums (Simple Things, When it Falls, The Garden) both EPs (EP1 and EP2) plus almost a dozen live performances. There is just something about their music that grabs me and won’t let go.

YouTube has a whole live concert from 2004 broken into 14 parts. I have the audio but had never seen the video before a couple days ago. I made a playlist of the whole performance so it can be watched start to finish. Click the aforementioned link, or view it below. There are a few technical goofs, plus it is typical YouTube quality, but still a great performance.

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Another week of photos from around and about. Not much experimentation, I’m afraid. Mostly just straight photos. I’ve fallen behind on my reading: I need to get through the user’s guide so I better understand (and can then utilize) the functions of the D90 as well as a couple other books that I feel will be useful (Understanding Exposure and Understanding Shutter Speed). But, in any case, here’s the photos for this week.

April 19 - Let’s Go This Way

April 20 - My Girl Loves to Swing

April 21 - Reverse DOF

April 22 - Just had to try this

April 23 - Diggin’ on Baby Einstein

April 24 - Flowers in the Front Yard

April 25 - Breezy Saturday

There you have it! Another week. Thanks for viewing.

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Sunday morning I went for a little run: five miles, with 1,425 other people.

Sunday was the 27th running of the Coeur d’Alene Spring Dash. Funny since Mandy and I had never heard of it, and she grew up here. Shows how much we pay attention to local offerings.

I like to run. It’s one of the few physical/sports activities that I feel like I am somewhat good at. I’ve been getting out a few days a week on lunch while at work. I usually have time to get in 3.5 - 4.75 miles, depending on how I feel that day. This was my first outside run of 5 miles (I’ve done 5 and 6 miles on the treadmill this year). I hadn’t run in a timed race like this since I did Bloomsday in 1996, and I was far from a runner then. Not that I’m all that much of one now. I do ok, but I’m no athlete by any means. It’s something I enjoy doing and that I want to get better at. It’s good for my health, my heart, and my head.

I took off on Sunday with two goals: a) maintain an 8 mph average over the 5 miles and b) finish in 40 minutes or less. If I did the first, I should be able to do the second. I use my Suunto T3 watch with a FootPod to track my speed and distance while I run. It’s a good gague: when I saw myself dipping down to 7.5 mph I kicked it up; if I were pushing 9 mph, I dropped back a hair.

According to my watch, I met the 8 mph average, but my time was 40:14, a few seconds over. (Interestingly enough, I learned that either their route was off or my FootPod needs calibration: it claimed the route was 5.35 miles.) My official time was 40:17 which was good for 174th place. The lead runner came in at just under 25 minutes.

Overall, I was pleased with the run. It was fun, I only got cut off once, my legs felt great throughout, and I stayed warm enough. My favorite part of the day was Mandy and Miranda watching me come across the finish line. Mandy said that it was cool and that she was proud of me. Who could ask for more?

I know I am not in the best of shape and am not the fastest runner, and I don’t do the longest distances, and I am fine with that. I don’t post about this stuff to brag but because I enjoy it. I’m 38 and would bet in the best shape I’ve been in in the past 15 years. I may weigh more than I did when I was, say, 30, but the 30 year old me could not have run 5 miles; even 4.

It was an encouraging run, and I want to do more. There is a half-marathon in May, but I’m not sure I’m ready for 13.1 miles. I need to get out more than I do now and do some longer distances. But, I am going to keep my eye on the calendar and see what other events are coming up that I can get out and enjoy.

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Before we get to the Easter videos, here’s one from April 9th of her on her slide. We were surprised to see her able to go down the slide all on her own; in the past she would get to the top step and need help getting here bottom on the top of the slide so she could go down. Not anymore, it seems!

Now, on to the Easter videos, or at least the first batch.

These are from a community Easter Egg hunt held in Dalton Gardens in a small park. It was raining and cool out, but that did not keep people away, as can be seen in the videos. The first gives a look at the 1-3 year old section, the second is the actual hunt. Miranda kind of gets lost in the mix at times; it was pretty chaotic. The whole event lasted no more than a minute. Enjoy! More Easter videos soon.

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Still at it! Still taking pics. Usually daily. Sometimes. A few.

Easter is included in this week and I took more than one photo. The whole set can be seen here on Flickr, of course. In the meantime, on with the rest of the week.

April 13 - Keyboard Girl

April 14 - Self Portrait

April 15 - Now and Then

April 16 - Fortis B-42 GMT Chronograph

April 17 - Miranda playing with her kitchen

April 18 - Christy and Camryn

Some of these I like this week. The watch photo was the only one that turned out in a very disappointing evening of watch photo attempts. I like the then and now photo, it turned out better than I thought it would. And, the last one came out good as well, considering it was un-posed, just Christy on the phone; I like the composition.

So, still at it. Still feeling like I both suck and am ok at the same time, which, sucks. It’s one of those things - like so many others - that I need more tom to devote to it, but I just don’t have it.

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So…what the hell was I thinking? Sure, 100 burpies in 100 days, sounds fun. Yeah, sure it does, until you start doing it.

As of April 18 I’m 1/3 of the way to my 100 burpies in a day (what the hell am I talking about? Follow this link.) The challenge has a simple concept, for each of the 100 days you do the number of burpies for that day’s number. So, day one, you do one; day 10, you do 10; day 73, you do 73; all the way to 100.

I will say, that I can feel a difference. Now I can do 10 in a row without wanting to vomit up my kidneys - that feeling now takes 15; it took 5 when I first started. I am actually pleased with this whole task, which, to be honest, I was not sure I would stick with at first. The reality of it is that the task does not really take that much time. I can knock out 15 in probably less than two minutes (guessing, totally, but probably pretty accurate).

In any case, I’m on track for my 100 and sticking to it. Except…I do plan on taking two days off for my rafting trip the first weekend in May. Given the event I do not see fitting in the burpies for those two days, so my final date will be extended.

Look for another burpie update when I hit 50!

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Missed April 5th, it seems. Dammit…

Having a hard time with this lately. I haven’t had the motivation. Seeing some of the amazing stuff people do is both inspiring and demoralizing all at the same time. Makes me feel like I’ll never get there, never be much more than a hack with a camera beyond his skills. This week pretty well represents that.

April 6 - Moon through the Trees

April 7 - Enjoying the Spring Day

April 8 - I See You

April 9 - Lonely Lost Kite

April 10 - Yellow Bush

April 11 - Cracker Feet

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