This Week: 34 Miles Biked, 8 Miles Run

February 28, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Ride to work.While I’m sorting out this problem with my leg I’ve been biking a lot and taking it easy on the running. West Coast Roadrunners ran 10 miles today. I think I wisely decided to rest this one and opted for a 20 mile bike ride through San Diego. It was amazing. Hillcrest to Point Loma’s Liberty Station, along the harbor, looped shelter island, to Seaport Village, past the ballpark, through Balboa Park, past the Hillcrest farmers market and then home. It was a gorgeous day. I intend to do another 20 miles tomorrow, but this time I think I’ll head out to Pacific Beach ans. I’ll be sure to bring my camera.

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17 Miles Run And A Few More Biked

February 26, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

I usually post this at the end of the week, which would have been last Sunday, but between the arrival of Roe and the stomach virus Tara and I were infected by last Saturday night :-( I’m running a bit behind.

I ran 9 miles on Saturday. There were lots of hills on this course and my pace was a disappointing 10:26 (iirc). Hey, I still stoked ran 9 miles. This was my longest run ever.

I’m still having a lot of problems with my left calf. It’s a line that runs from the inside left ankle to the knee and it feels almost like a pinched nerve. It is sufficiently painful as to be capable of almost bringing a tear to my eye. I have no idea what’s causing the problem, but nothing I’ve tried to date is alleviating it. I’m going to check in with a doctor and a chiropractor ASAP.

My training this week:

Feb 21 Feb 22 Feb 23 Feb 24 Feb 25 Feb 26 Feb 27 Feb 28
9 miles OFF 40 min (missed – vomiting :( ) 12X30/30 (sprint intervals – I just ran 40 mins instead) OFF
(I ran 35 minutes)		 45 min
(I biked because of my left leg)		 OFF
(I plan to do 6+ miles biking)		 10 miles
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Roe 2.0 Product Launch

February 19, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Roesevelt David Fulkerson was born February 15 at 23:20 PT (-8 GMT). He weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. I say Roe 2.0 because my name is Aaron Roe Fulkerson. However, to be accurate he’s actually a 5.0 release. My Great Grandfather was named Newton Roosevelt Chrisope. He went by “Roe”. He begat two sons, one of which he named Bobby Roe who begat a son and two daughters , on of which was named Roeann (crap, I forget my mother’s middle name). Roeann begat two sons and a daughter. One son, Eric Daniel, begat two daughters, one was named Madeline Roe. The other son, the cooler and more handsome of the two, was named Aaron Roe, that’s me, who begat a son and a daughter. The son was named Roesevelt David.

Tara, Roe, AaronCan you believe how great Tara looks? This photo was taken about twenty minutes after Roe was born!

Tara and I decided to spell it “Roesevelt” to prevent him from being nicked “Roo”. I suspect Geoff “Kangaroo” Norton would have liked this though. I suppose since I have a niece with “Roe” in her name this could make Roesevelt’s version number 5.2…Anyway, David is also my father’s name. Hence, Roesevelt David Fulkerson and that is the story of the name for those of you who asked via Twitter and Facebook.

So, the birth. Tara, Ashby and I went for a nice long walk in Balboa Park in the morning. Tara was experiencing severe leg cramping and back pains. The back pains were clearly contractions, but the leg cramps we weren’t sure about. At first we thought maybe she was just really dehydrated, but Tara being a runner is obsessive about hydration and this seemed unlikely.

We cut our walk short and headed home. Tara Googled leg cramps and pregnancy and discovered this can signal the baby is dropping. When this happens sometimes the baby can place pressure on a nerve bundle and cause symptoms that feel just like leg cramping.

I suggested Tara take a nap since her contractions were spaced out and if she were to be in labor it would be good to be rested. She agreed and when she woke we called our Doctor and was instructed to head into the birthing center.

Ashby, Tara and I arrived at Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla at about 3 pm. Her contractions were a couple minutes apart. By 10 PM she had only progressed to 5 cm and the Doctor decided to use an IUPC to determine the strength of her contractions and to gage the effects of Pitocin, which she wanted to introduce to move things along. Thirty to forty minutes later Tara was completely dilated and the nurse and doctor were rushing to get into position.

Contraction. Push three times. “There he is, he’s almost out”
Contraction. Push three times. “Ok, he’s out. Let do one more push.”
Push. Done.

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Wow, it was that easy. God bless epidurals. This was completely different from Ashby’s birth.

Speaking of Ashby, she’s been amazing. She is totally into being a big sister.Thanks to a friend of Tara’s she even has a special “big sis” shirt. Her and I have been spending a lot of time together and I’ve been pumping up how special she is for being a big sister. We also had many books about being a Big Sister Coupon For Free Ice Cream. ROCK!big sister that we’ve been reading to her over the last several months. We attended a big sister class as a family. She had big sister presents from Roe when he was born. I’ve added a song about being a “big sister” to my repertoire of songs I sing nightly (mostly Cat Stevens and the Grateful Dead tunes).

During labor I was twittering status updates. I have this setup to also post to my Facebook account, which is nice because I don’t know anyone outside my professional social network that uses Twitter. My intent was to create a record of the events as they happened. Also, it’s a nice way to pass the time and soothe the nerves. Here’s my twitter stream from the time we got to the hospital to the time our family arrived home.

A 28 photo slide show of the birth (it’s PG, nothing gross):

In conclusion, I’m blessed with a gorgeous, healthy and wonderful family that I love dearly. Man am I lucky!

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16 Miles Run

February 17, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

NOTE: I was wrote this post last Sunday, but I didn’t publish it because we left for the hospital to give birth to our 2nd child: Roesevelt David Fulkerson. I twittered the birth and I’ll be publishing a blog post ASAP about Roe and the birth.

Time for my weekly training update. First, let me remind myself here that I started running with my other  shoes at the beginning of this week. Shoes are good for 300 miles and I’m rotating two pairs to make sure I have shoes for the Rock and Roll Marathon on June 1.

This week was especially hectic at work as I finished a time consuming project. As a result I missed running one day :-( , which means I only got in three runs. My run on Tuesday was 3.74 miles through downtown and in the rain. My run Thursday was a great 5 mile run through Mission Hills. The Saturday run was a brutal 8 mile run that began at Morley Field to the North of Balboa park. The run was partly on muddy trails and consisted of running up and down canyons. It whipped my ass. Rion did fantastic with a 9:40ish pace. My pace was terrible at 10:49.

America's Finest City - Half Marathon 2008My left calf is giving me problems. My muscles in the calf and shin cramp up so tight that it is difficult to even walk. When this happens it’s always within the first two miles and I have to stretch it vigorously for it to loosen up. This happened to me after the first canyon during the 8 mile run yesterday and it took me a half mile to get the calf to loosen so I could run again. I never know when to expect it to give me problems, but whenever it does it leaves me feeling not in control. It’s very frustrating. Also, after runs along the right side of this left calf, from just above my foot (on the right side) to just below the knee on the inside of the leg and what feels to be under the calf muscle I have a sharp sustained pain that does not feel like a pulled muscle, but more like tendon strain.

I spoke with one of the WC Roadrunner coaches about strategies to help. Obviously I’m already stretching the hell out of the problem (left) calf before every run. The coach suggested: stretch it more, run on your heels and also toes during warm-up to stretch it more and work it with “The Stick“, which I’ve been considering buying anyway.

My training schedule this week:

Feb 14
 Feb 15 Feb 16
 Feb 17
 Feb 18
 Feb 19
 Feb 20
 Feb 21
8 miles OFF 40 min (missed) 25 min 45 min 35 min OFF 9 miles
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Dimsum And Chinese New Year

February 10, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

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A couple weekends ago we celebrated Chinese New Year with some friends by going to Jasmine for Dimsum and dragon dancing. Jasmine, off Convoy in San Diego,  is great dimsum at a very reasonable price.

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Legal Andrew: Facebook Isn’t Private, and 7 Other Things You Should Know

February 10, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

My God, this is retarded:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

via Facebook Isn’t Private, and 7 Other Things You Should Know « Legal Andrew.

This is bizarre. You’re agreeing to give Facebook license to do whatever they want with your content? What if I post photos of my children? Oh Gee, they can include that in a cigarette advertisement or some other offensive product. This is insane. They also do not make any guarantees about security or privacy.

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danger smells like clean socks: quote of the day

February 10, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

“To achieve success in the United States a man must be able to do two things well. First, he must be able to think and speak on his feet with conviction, and secondly, he must be able to write a good letter.” – Charles Willeford (1958)

via quote of the day – danger smells like clean socks.

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Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;

February 9, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

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Unexpected Garden

February 9, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Last week when I took a long bike to work I stumbled upon an amazing garden on the East end of Balboa Park. I had to stop snap some photos:

This garden is quintessentially San Diego. You can find the garden here:

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&s=AARTsJpwiciXJ77w2ngOAx7cjLUH2luFBA&msa=0&msid=102429951002318966609.0004627d5aa70ddc42392&ll=32.73268,-117.145758&spn=0.003159,0.00456&z=17&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

I’ve always stopped at the fountain in front of the Rueben Fleet Science Center, but the bridge over Park Blvd takes you to the above park.

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9 Months Pregnant

February 9, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

9 months pregnant. Roe is due in just a few weeks.Tara is uncomfortable and she is “R E A D Y”.

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We’re all excited. Ashby attended a “Big Sister Class” yesterday. It makes her feel special and was nice for her to hear from others what to expect.  Tara is still running a couple miles a few days a week. As you might imagine, she gets a lot of looks.

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12.5 Miles Run, 11 Miles Biked

February 8, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Kind of a slow running week. I over did my runs early on in the week and I‘ve had problems with my left calf and achilles tendon for most of this week. So, I took it easy on my feet and used my bike more than usual.

I ran 7 miles today. My pace time was 9:36 minute miles. Euh, not exactly what I had hoped for, but given my lack of running this week I’m ok with the performance. It was a nice run that circumvented Coranado. It rained off and on the entire time, which felt great.  My training this week:

Feb 7
 Feb 8 Feb 9
 Feb 10 Feb 11 Feb 12 Feb 13 Feb 14
7 miles OFF 40 min 45 min OFF 40 min OFF 8 miles
UPDATE: Tara brought to my attention she did this run with WC Roadrunners (same running club), but pushed Ashby in the stroller the whole distance. She did it in about 10 minutes longer time. Wow.
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You Had Me At "**** YOU"

February 7, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

We have been aggressively hiring sales persons at work. We have used a recruiter out of Los Angeles called CyberCoders to build our sales team. They specialize in engineering talent, but our man Vahid has been very effective with inside sales (sales engineers) talent. In fact, our entire sales team is built from Vahid’s referrals. By the way, the rates are very reasonable. I recommend Vahid highly.

In the interest of readers who too are hiring we’ve begun employing OMNIA personality testing for candidates that make it through initial interviewing. It’s too soon to tell how successful this is, but it preliminary results are very positive.

At this point you might be wondering about the relevance of this blog post’s title. Well as mentioned, Vahid at CyberCoders typically sends us well qualified candidates, but this week a whacko managed to slip by his usually effective screening. In Vahid’s defense, the guy looked good on paper. A US Army veteran (++) that served in the first gulf war. He made Sergeant quickly (++). He’s educated (++). However, he was weak on relevant work experience and most of his experience was short term or contractor (–).

The candidate arrived for the interview appropriately dressed. He spoke articulately enough and initially Rion thought he might make a decent candidate, but he had some concerns. Nonetheless, Rion brought me in as he always does with candidates that make round two of interviewing. The interview deteriorated rapidly. The candidate exhibited disturbingly poor listening skills. It became clear he was less entrepreneurial and more of a temporary employee pedigree. Finally, he became awkward and a even a tad manic near the end of the interview. It was a clear pass.

Rion notified the candidate the next day we were passing and wished him luck. About 12 hours later, shortly after 2 AM, Rion and I received the following email:

I found out that I was not selected. I’d hoped against hope that I would be, but in the nearly 15 minutes Rion left me sitting in the receptionist area, LATE for our interview, I knew I wouldn’t be chosen.

During that period, I had an opportunity to observe your personnel. From what I saw, they are 100% white guys, 20-to-30 years old, who wear shorts and flip-flops to work. As soon as I saw that, I KNEW I wouldn’t be hired. I’m a black guy in my late 30′s. As qualified as I am, I knew you wouldn’t feel I’m a fit for your culture of 20-something white boys who wear shorts and flip-flops to work. Let’s be real; you know it and I know it.

I did my best during the interview to persuade you that I’m the PRACTICAL, most experienced choice, but clearly your culture won out.

I have no idea who you hired, but I’d bet $1000.00 you hired a 20-something white boy, FAR less experienced than me, who would LOVE to wear flip-flops to work.

It’s sometimes very difficult to hold my tongue, and I’m trying not to say, “FUCK YOU, racist bastards” or “I don’t know what that smell is in that total dump of an office, but whole place smells like feet”. It’s difficult to restrain myself, but I’m able to hold my tongue in these matters and would NEVER say things like, “Weird, ugly kike who BADLY needs a haircut!!!”

Wow. Good thing he “held his tongue”. As Steve pointed out, he could have just ended the quoted sentences with a ‘?’ and it would pass the FoxNews slander test. Also, I guess he is not fond of Iraqi food. We had Shwarmas, hummus, etc… catered that day. Flashbacks?

MindTouch Inter-Galactic HQ

In all seriousness, my first reaction was to feel sorry for the guy. Times are tough right now. It sucks for a lot of people. Obviously, it’s not a happy time for this dude. I’ll be honest, for a fleeting moment I got little defensive and pissed off. I thought: fuck you man, I spent four years of my life busting my ass starting two non-profits and helping two other non-profits that were all tasked with serving under-served minority communities. Again this was fleeting.

As I am often want to do, I made light of the of the email with humor and imagined myself sending the following email with the subject: “you had me at ‘fuck you’”

Thanks for your candid and insightful email. Your statements about us being racist flip-flop wearing white boys, ugly, weird, and kikes in need of haircuts really opened our eyes. Will you come back for another interview? You had me at ‘fuck you’. I think we’ve made a grave mistake.

The MindTouch Rabbit is wicked at ping pongI can tell you this email did make me reflect on the diversity of my work place. We employ 6 women (21% of our team), 1.5 Jews, 1.5 Latinos, 1 Indian (south-Asian), 1 Asian, 1 French national, 1 German national, 1 German that was recently naturalized an American citizen, 1 UK that was recently naturalized an American citizen, 1 Luxembourg national, 2 Russian nationals (living in Russia), 1 six foot rabbit, and the remainder are run of the mill American “white boys” in flip-flops. Living in San Diego it is difficult to be more diverse.

Finally, I promptly emailed Rion and asked him to draw up an offer letter for the fellow. Just kidding. ;-)

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Frickin' Unicorns And Rainbows. On Demand. Sweet

February 3, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Cornify

^ Click it. Click it. ^ Thaaank you Cornify. There is also a browser bookmarklet for adding Unicorns and Rainbows to any site you visit.

@cshirky: http://www.cornify.com/ Teh awesome. The internet is done, we can all go home and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.

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ITT Certificate Of Social Media Expertism

February 2, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Awesome! Learn how to leverage the word of mouth passionate grass roots landscape of 2.0. I’ve registered. Have you!? This is from DamienH. Titter titter…. :-) Obviously this extends my previous Social Media Expert post.

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19 Miles Run 3 Miles Biked

February 2, 2009 — Aaron Fulkerson

Last week I miscounted my miles. I ran 14 miles and biked 9, not 19 run. This week I did run 19 miles and also biked 3. I know, I’ve got to get my bike out more.

The longest run I’ve done to date, in my life I believe, was this last Saturday when I ran 6 miles with West Coast Roadrunners along San Diego harbor. My pace was 9:28/miles. My last 5 miles were all right around 9:10. Basically, I’ve shaved 2 minutes off my pace in the last 4 weeks.

My training schedule this week:

Jan 31
 Feb 1 Feb 2 Feb 3 Feb 4 Feb 5 Feb 6 Feb 7
6 miles OFF 35 min 40 min OFF 40 min OFF 7 miles

I’ve been using Tara’s Garmin Forerunner 405 for tracking my pace, distance, splits, etc….  The hardware is excellent. The software is crap. I spent an hour and half trying to get the damn thing to sync my runs and maps to my computer before I gave up. :-(

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