Christmas Greetings

Once again it is that time of year again - the inflatable snowmen are up on the roof of the house across the street. Land Park Drive (one of the main streets near my house) looks like Disneyland with everyone competing for the best display of lights. Oh and this year there are some particularly tasteless examples... definitely some candidates for the Ugly Christmas Lights website. (Thanks for the link Janet). Haven't people heard that we have a bit of a situation going on with this global warming thing - we are supposed to be conserving not lighting up the night sky!

OK, enough of this Scrooge like behavior, I really am full of the joys of Christmas - so long as I keep away from the Shopping Malls that is.

As you can see below we were out for the annual Infostat office lunch this week - here we are standing under the Christmas tree looking relatively joyous and somewhat festive. (more photos)



Again this year I am using this blog as a proxy for a Chrismas letter. It's a periodic ongoing Christmas letter that continues throughout the year saving you the trouble of having to read it all in one go.

So I would sincerely like to wish all of you a very happy Christmas - even if you have your house festooned with enough lights to be seen from Outer Space. May your Holidays (that's the politically correct term these days - right?) be joyous and may we all be grateful for what we have in our lives.

And if you haven't seen this White Christmas flash video, its pretty cool, check it out.

The California International Marathon

It was the 25th running of the California International Marathon in Sacramento on Sunday – and of course I couldn’t resist doing it. The weather conditions were perfect – cool, dry, just a little windy. However, as usual with my recent marathons it was 16 miles of wonderful enjoyable running, about 4 miles of not so great, but not too bad running followed by 6 miles of walking with the occasional bout of really ugly running. At 4 hr 53 mins it was one of my slowest times but I suppose I did eventually finish so it can’t be so bad.

I just need to be smarter and not do these things unless I am ready for them – I should know that by now and I know I have said the same thing before many times. Actually the marathon is not really my distance, I enjoy the halfs or 30Ks much more. Perhaps I will stick to those for a while.

However, don't count on it. I am already registered for the Death Valley Marathon in February - now that should be a good one!

Auto Racing at Thunderhill

This weekend I did something I had never done before – I went to an auto racing meet up at a racetrack north of Sacramento called Thunderhill. My friend Tim from Houston was over participating in a 25 hour race (1 more hour than Le Mans). He races Mazda Miatas and he and 2 other drivers were on a team that took it in turns driving over the 25 hour period.


It was actually quite exciting – when the race started the noise was quite deafening and the speed was cetainly scary. They would come barreling into the corners at what would appear to be impossible speeds and somehow come out the other side intact - something to get the adrenalin going for me as well as the drivers.

So we hung out for a while and eventually the adrenalin rush wore off – how long can you watch cars going round and round anyway. We got to hang out in the pits and watch the crews at work. Not quite your Formula 1’s 8 second refueling and tire changes, but it was somewhat choreographed.

I actually got to sit in one of the cars – a stock Mazda Miata with a serious roll-cage and only one seat. Just getting in was a quite difficult process – you have to somehow thread yourself through this roll cage assembly into the seat. And getting out was even more difficult – a procedure requiring strength, agility and a certain degree of limberness. Apparently to be licensed to race you have to be able to disable the car, activate the fire extinguisher system and extract yourself from the car in 15 seconds. It took me a couple of minutes at least, as I had to rest halfway through the process and I wasn’t even encumbered by a helmet and any harnesses.

Racing cars may not be in my future, but I can see where the attraction and excitement is. Here are some more photos.