I competed in Master's Class at the Rushmore Highland Games in Rapid City, SD.

16# Open Stone 19.00 ft. (12)

16# Hammer 41.37 ft. (11)

16# Sheaf Toss 12 ft. (11)

42# Weight for Distance 15.52 (11)

Caber Toss 72# by 15 ft., didn't turn it but got 30 degrees, (11)

28# Weight for Distance 23.11 ft. (10)

42# Weight for Height 10 ft (6)

Over all 2514 points (decathlon scoring) for 11th place out of 12.

Making progress as these are all better than I did at Highlands Ranch with the exception of Open Stone. I put a 17# stone 17.95 ft. Braemar style there, and should be good for over 20 ft. using a glide.

In Search of the Warrior Spirit by Richard Strozzi Heckler documents a project to teach awareness training to a group of Green Berets. This training included meditation, bio-feedback, and Aikido. Strozzi Heckler seeks to separate the essence of being a warrior from the mass industrialization of modern warfare. While generally interesting, the book spent too much time on the author's angst about teaching professional warriors.

Jeff Faust has a nice write up on the DC/X reunion. The DC/X was a prototype rocket vehicle that operated the way God and Robert Heinlein intended, VTOL (Vertical Take-off Vertical Landing). It was a part of the Strategic Defence Initiative to support frequent, low cost access to space and was killed by anti-military elements in the federal bureaucracy. NASA is now busy reinventing expendable launch vehicles.

DC/X did prove the concept viable and others are working to build upon its legacy. Armadillo Aerospace and Blue Origin are entrepreneurial efforts to develop economical VTOL launch vehicles in the X Program tradition, build some prototypes, fly them to find the weaknesses, improve them and fly again.

When I upgraded my Thinkpad to Fedora 9, I saw that Erlang version R12B was in the distribution, so I decided to install it. I first looked at Erlang about 10 years ago and found it interesting, but didn't have a specific use for it and have mostly been using Python in the intervening period because it's "good enough" and has very nice syntax.

Erlang is a functional language for building reliable, concurrent, distributed systems. It's declarative rather than imperative, with a syntax somewhat like Prolog. This takes a little getting used to, but isn't a significant barrier. With the rise of inexpensive multicore processors and ubiquitous networked computing, Erlang is becoming more compelling and it's time to revisit it.

In Defense of Self: How the Immune System Really Works is a thorough introduction to current scientific thought on immunology. The immune system is a wonderfully sophisticated protective shield against the innumerable microbes that would make us lunch in short order given half a chance.

Protecting against both foreign invaders and our own cells that threaten us in the form of cancer, the immune system has evolved to deal with a diverse and constantly changing threat. This book explains the various ways that the immune system works, and how it sometimes fails. In addition to infectious disease, cancer and auto-immune diseases such as arthritis and allergies get coverage.

After upgrading to Fedora 9, WiFi didn't work on my Thinkpad x60s. After futzing around with it for a while, I discovered a little switch hiding under the front edge of the machine which controls all the wireless functions (WiFi, Bluetooth, and apparently GSM) was in the off position. It was apparently bumped to the off position while I was travelling in places where I only had wired Ethernet access.

Would that manufacturers still provided a comprehensive printed manual for their hardware. I'd gladly pay for it.

I competed in my first Highland Games today, the Rocky Mountain Highland Games in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. I had fun, learned a lot, and wasn't last in everything, so it was a successful experiment.

In Strong Enough? Mark Rippetoe reflects on his thirty odd years of barbell training. He argues that strength is the foundation of fitness. While skill and endurance are important, adequate strength is a prerequisite for their expression. Improved strength directly translates into better endurance and enables the performance of skilled movements.

Rippetoe presents his rationale for basing a fitness program on the slow lifts (squat, press, deadlift, and bench press), opines on the usefulness of various pieces of personal equipment, and discusses biomechanics and lifting form. He addresses training considerations for youths, women, and masters athletes. Despite some overlap with his other books, it's a fun and worthwhile read for those interested in strength and fitness.

We took a semi-random walk North and West for our vacation. We took US-287 North, and except for a short stretch of I-80, followed it all the way to it's terminus in Montana. Along the way we passed through Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

Continuing Northwest to Glacier National Park, we stayed a couple of nights at the Isaac Walton Inn on its southern boundary. This century old inn is an active Amtrak depot co-located with a BNSF helper engine facility. The helper engines boost long trains over the Continental Divide. This is a must stop for railroad buffs.

Heading northwest into Idaho we ended up at Priest Lake for a couple of days. It's a beautiful and somewhat remote glacial lake on the Canadian border. The Old Northern Inn there was built as a hotel by the Great Northern Railroad and was renovated a few years ago as a Bed & Breakfast. Highly recommended.

Heading back toward Colorado, we didn't have time to tarry, but did take in some beautiful scenery. It was a great road trip, but it's good to be home.