I made a new place for myself on the web. Allow me to introduce BrendonConnelly.com. I intend the site to be a kind of jumping off point for all my stuff. Work stuff, web projects, etc. Just basically an extended resume of sorts. I won’t actively blog there, I’ll just update when needed.

Gram Hazel is staying with us for a couple of days after my mom’s wedding (yesterday). Gram is full of funny sayings. I’ve got to write them down so I can remember them!

• For cryin’ in a bucket!
• Heaven’s to Pete!
• Oh, fiddle faddle!

Truman was going around yesterday saying “heaven’s to pete” and I think Amy will assume ownership of “for cryin’ in a bucket!”

I’ve been watching John From Cincinnati and I really dig it. The acting is weird–sometimes a bit flat, and sometimes just strange. The premise of the whole show is strange, though, so I’m never really sure if the weird acting is intentional. Also, I’ve only seen three episodes so maybe it’ll become clearer down the line.

The show is about three generations of a surfing family (Yost) in Imperial Beach, CA and a seemingly slow new guy who drops in on their lives. The new guy, John, clearly isn’t human. But it’s only clear to the viewer, not to the Yost family. I’m saying that John isn’t human only because he can make stuff materialize and he doesn’t poop or pee (the script kinda goes overboard to point this out). Lots of surf themes and spirituality themes run through the show, which is a great mix for me. I love it.

The back story on some of the cast is pretty interesting, too. The youngest Yost, Shaun, is played by Greyson Fletcher, who is Christian Fletcher’s son. Christian Fletcher was an early surfing aerialist, and in the show Shaun’s dad, Butchie, was credited with popularizing aerials in surfing. In addition to being a former surf star, Butchie is a burned out drug addict which makes the parallels between Greyson’s real life and show life even more interesting, since his dad Christian went through a period of time where he dropped out of the surf scene and became too involved with drugs. Finally, Greyson’s grandpa and grandma are Herbie and Dibi Fletcher who are well-known in the SoCal surfing community (even the global surfing community). Herbie and Dibi are consultants to the show.

More interestingness: my surfing buddy Pete has another surfing buddy, Steve, who writes for the show. In fact, I only heard about the show from Pete when Steve started working on it. Previously Steve served various stints with Surfer Magazine and Surfing Magazine as editor and publisher. Steve is also Tony Hawk’s older brother.

Kem Nunn, author of The Dogs of Winter, which is a decent surf-themed novel, is one of the creators of the show. There are tons of surf community connections all through the show. For example, the surfshop employee Kai is played by Keala Kennelly who is a well-known surfer/competitor. There are also cameo appearances throughout by pro surfers. Just that angle alone makes for fun watching.

The spirituality themes are scripted with a pretty heavy hand but perfectly matched with the surfing themes. I think it brings an element of intrigue and authenticity to the show. Most surfers I know find a certain depth of spiritual satisfaction in surfing. I’m sure there are other genres or subcultures that’d also be well matched for the spirituality themes, but this matchup works well for me and, I’d guess, most other surfers with spiritual interests.

I’m probably a terribly unsophisticated viewer, though, since lots of critics are panning the show altogether. I bet the critics don’t surf.

I recently watched The Fog of War, which is a documentary about Robert McNamara. McNamara was the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. He was appointed by Kennedy and fired by Johnson, with whom he clashed. McNamara, prior to being the Secretary of Defense, was the first president of the Ford Motor Company outside the Ford family. Fascinating guy.

The movie is essentially an extended interview with McNamara when he was 85 years old. It’s interspersed with archival footage, which is pretty interesting in its own right.

If you’ve ever been sort of confused about the politics surrounding the history of the Vietnam War, this movie won’t clear things up for you. You will, however, get a great dose of insight into one of the key players of that period. This is definitely on my “recommend” list.

A while back I bought a GPS receiver which I’ve been using on my monthly hikes so that I can geolocate the photos I take. That’s pretty fun, and the GPS itself is cool technology. I’ve also been geocaching, which is basically like a worldwide scavenger hunt where you use your GPSr to find “caches” that other people hide. You sign a log book and often swap trade items. It’s great when I travel since it gets me out of my hotel. Plus it’s a nice outdoor family activity, and Truman digs it.

This week I placed my first cache. It’s an admittedly easy find, and it’s been logged a few times already. I think I spotted one of the cachers this morning on the way into the office!

I was initially going to place this cache under a railroad trestle in Newberg. In fact there are several trestles in town that I thought would be great spots for hiding a cache. As I read further into the rules of geocaching.com (which is the online database that stores the locations of caches), I learned that such placements are prohibited. Between trespassing and danger, there are lots of good reasons for that. I’d still like to get a danger cache placed. Maybe up in a tree or up a rock climb or something.

Just watched a fantastic film called A Map for Saturday (website). Well worth watching if you’ve traveled a bit, are planning to, or just like watching movies about travel. It’s a documentary that one dude shot while he traveled the world for a year. Basically chronicles the backpacker ethos and life on the road. Really great movie, but not on Netflix yet. Buy your copy on the website above. Worth the cost!

Relays for Life are happening all over the place this month. Ours is coming up this weekend. We’re hanging out with Amy’s former co-workers on Friday and Saturday. Tru will be camping with us and it oughta be super fun! If you’d like to contribute to our campaign, you can hit this page and drop of a couple bucks. 🙂

I’ve been still, as in ‘not running.’ I’ve been active though–hiked a mountain, did a 5k, did an adventure race. And I walk stairs instead of elevators when I get the chance. I’ve got a 5k coming up this Monday. I’m in L.A. (at a conference) and the weather’s been nice. The 5k will be at 4pm on Monday, so it’ll be warm running. I haven’t run since I arrived on Thursday. I’ve intended to run each morning, but always wake up too late. Then today I resolved that I’d run in the evening, since I can’t be relied upon to run in the morning. But I’m going to visit relatives today and tomorrow, which’ll probably preclude any running. So I probably won’t run again until tomorrow evening, which I’ll take slow. Then the next day will be the 5k.  So I’m hoping that, at the very least, I’ll have run twice while I’m down here. Hopefully more.

I did nab some geocaches yesterday, and there are several more within walking distance that I’ll try to get before I leave. So there’s that, too.

Amy, Asher, Truman and I are participating in this year’s Relay For Life with some of Amy’s coworkers. We’re aiming at raising $2,000 (our whole team, not just our little family). If you’d like to contribute, hit this page.

Don’t worry, I’ll remind you again later. 🙂

This past weekend we went over to Redmond to hang out with our friends Troy and Ruth and their kids. A while back Troy invited me to run in a 5k called Heaven Can Wait. I thought that sounded cool so I registered online. A few days later Troy called back to see if I’d want to do a 5-hour adventure race the night before the 5k. I was a little apprehensive and said no at first. He explained more about it and it didn’t sound like you had to be a total superman to do the race, so I said I’d go for it. Eventually we had five guys on our team–four of whom I already knew and one guy who I’d met once before.

If you don’t want to read all of this, and just jump straight to the pictures, here you go!

So the big day came and we all (our family and Ron and Erinn’s family) drove to Redmond. Hung out with Troy and Ruth and the kids for a few hours, then Troy, Ron and I piled ourselves and our bikes in Troy’s truck with his friend Cory (one of our teammates) and headed to Bend to meet our fifth teammate for the race. We hung around the starting place (a pub) for a half an hour or so, until the race started at 7pm. Just prior to the race beginning we were given maps of the Bend area, with instructions not to open one of them until the start of the race. When told, we opened the mystery map and found that we had a few “checkpoints” in Bend that we had to find on foot. So we started running. We ran around Bend for a little over an hour, finding checkpoints and noting their codes on our maps. There were other teams to deal with along the way, so sometimes we had to be a bit stealthy when finding checkpoints.

Once we’d found all the “on foot” checkpoints we ran back to where our bikes were locked up, jumped on them and headed a few miles out of town to some local singletrack. Got there around dusk and spent another couple of hours riding around and never found a single checkpoint. That was alternately fun, frustrating and nerve racking. Fun because singletrack is fun to ride; frustrating because we backtracked a lot and never found a checkpoint; nerve racking because riding on singletrack in a forest at night by headlamp is….nerve racking. You’re always waiting to hit an unseen rock or hole or downed tree, etc. Plus, since I didn’t know the trails, I rode in back–in the dust. Did you know that dust reflects off of lights just like fog? I didn’t, but now I do! More nerve racking moments when you’re speeding downhill in the dark, faster than you can reasonably stop if you do happen to find a tree in your path, trying to see through dust-fog that has essentially blinded you!

Anyway, we got through that and decided that we should really try to hustle back to town and pick up the two mandatory checkpoints that were attended by people. After some navigational struggles we arrived at a mysterious pipeline that was about 10′ in diameter. Our instructions told us to put on our climbing harnesses (which we’d be running and riding around with all night) and climb the pipeline. We did it and eventually determined which way we were supposed to run on the top of the pipeline. Went about a quarter of a mile until we ran into a guy who was manning the high end of a zipline across a river. There were a half a dozen people in front of us, so we waited our turn then clipped in and zipped across the river in the pitch black. On the other side we started running back to our bikes so that we could hop on them and get back to the pub in time for the midnight end of race deadline.

We were already disqualified from the race, since we didn’t have time to hit the second mandatory checkpoint (which consisted of getting naked and traversing a bridge over the river. The naked part was so you didn’t drown if you went into the river with shoes/clothes/pack on. Sorry to have missed that. NOT.

Anyway, we were riding back to the pub and were only about 10 minutes away when one of our teammates rode off the sidewalk into a drainage ditch! Pat got scraped up pretty bad, but shook it off and we made it back in time. Disqualified due to missing the second mandatory, but still felt victorious!

Got home and in bed by 1am. Woke up at 6:45 when Asher came crashing in on my sleep. Ate a little breakfast then headed out to the 5k which began at 9am. Ran a really slow race since my legs weren’t exactly recovered from the previous night’s efforts–ran about a 30 minute 5k, which included walking a couple of sections. Lungs and heart felt great, but my legs were just beat.

Got back to Troy’s house, ate lunch, packed up and drove the 3 hours home. Actually, Amy drove the last half hour because I was just too tired to keep driving. I spent the rest of the day drinking fluids and not peeing–I was so dehydrated that I needed all the water I could get (and that was after drinking 2 full liters of water in my backpack during the adventure race). All in all, a fun weekend!