Ryan's Personal Webpage

So I've been using Windows 7 for about a month now, and am happy to say it's a vast improvement over Vista.  In honor of the official release, here's a link to some of the awesome new keyboard shortcuts (finally, a hotkey for "create new folder!!!!)

http://lifehacker.com/5390086/the-master-list-of-new-windows-7-shortcuts

Last weekend I did my third international distance triathlon -- the Patriots International in Williamsburg, VA.  With school starting and other stuff going on, I definitely wasn't able to devote as much time to training for this one, and I felt the difference on the course.  Still, I ran a 3:02, only about 5 minutes slower than the last one I did.

We swam in the James River, which proved to be a real challenge, as the first and final legs of the swim course went cross-current, which made things VERY choppy and difficult.  Then we had to walk through water about 2 ft deep for a good 100 yards, and then run probably 1/4 mile to get to transition.  Overall that made for a pretty tiring set up to the bike ride. 

I was disappointed with my speed on the bike, because I had been focusing on improving that in the month or so leading up to the race.  The run was nice and flat, and I was able to keep running for basically the entire distance, which is a first for me on a race of this length.

All in all it was a nice way to end my tri season, even if I wasn't thrilled with my performance.

You can check out the results here. 

We had a great time hiking North Carolina's Pilot Mountain with some friends over Labor Day.  This peak looks as if someone just took a plug of rock and yanked it straight up out of the ground.  We hiked up next to the cliffs and safe some incredible rock formations.  Later on, we went through gorgeous forests and saw the ruins of (what we think was) a tobacco drying barn!

Overall an awesome hike.

The fine folks over at LifeHacker pointed out this great article in the New York Times about how to improve your handwriting.  It never occurred to me to abandon looped cursive (which I was taught in school like everyone else) for an italic print like the author suggests.   I also highly recommend the "alternative grip."

Op-Ed: The Write Stuff

My good friend Cameron Decker has found a unique way to combine his passions for law enforcement and medicine.  His courage and devotion to service are truly inspiring.

Way to go, Cameron!

Check out the news story and video on KHOU.

Well, any of you that have visited my action figure page know that I'm sort of into toys and popular culture.  If you've been watching TV you may have also noticed that there's a blockbuster G.I. Joe movie coming out in a few weeks.

Now, I don't know whether the movie will be good or bad (though I have my suspicions...), but if you're at all curious about G.I. Joe, I hope that the movie is NOT your first introduction the brand, its characters, or how it fits into the rich history of American pop culture.

To keep that from happening, check out this video that Paramount has put together.  It sums up G.I. Joe's history pretty nicely:

Joseph came to visit this weekend, and we had a great time hanging out with him and showing him around Chapel Hill.  On Sunday he, Katherine and I showed off our UT pride as the "Tri Texas" relay team at the Triangle Triathlon.  We had a blast!  The results are here.

Besides the tri, we also visited Maple View Farms (which has amazing ice cream), the Duke Gardens, hung out at Weaver St., and ate at Top of the Hill.  All told it was a pretty awesome "vacation" right here at home.

Katherine and I spent Friday night camping out near Boone, NC.  We decided to drink deep of American culture on Independence Day by cooking hot dogs and s'mores over a campfire!  We also brought along Dolly for her first camping experience.  She did fine on the hikes, but once we got to camp I think she missed her usual couch and blanket :-) 


You can't imagine how wonderful the weather was in the mountains - daytime temperatures were probably around 75, and it was in the upper 50s at night, all with very low humidity.  On Saturday we went on a 7 mile hike at midday and barely broke a sweat!  It was a great getaway. 

So last week I learned that I had the ability to install 3rd-party Java apps onto my Sony Ericsson W810i cell phone, similar to the way you can with an iPhone.  I thought that was cool, and tried out a couple, but found that they wouldn't do much of anything because of file permission problems on my phone's operating system.

To make a long story short, I googled around and ended up de-branding and unlocking my phone.  Aside from making the above-mentioned apps work better, I ALSO (unexpectedly) unlocked several new features that AT&T had blocked!  So now I have airplane mode, more camera settings, increased text message storage, voice-activated dialing, and a really cool music program with a metronome, pitch finder, and guitar chord generator!  Why would AT&T disable these features???

I don't know, but after unlocking my phone and hacking around with the software a little, I feel like I have a BRAND NEW toy to play with

If you have a Sony Ericsson phone and you're interested in this, you might check out the SE-NSE Forums .  This is where I learned how to perform the unlock.

I've updated the triathlon page with some new event times and thoughts about the sport.

I spent most of this past weekend outside.  On Saturday Katherine and I went hiking at William B. Umstead State Park down by the airport.  Then, I spent the night camping at Uwharrie National Forest with some friends.  The day hike took us through some very peaceful woods; the National Forest wasn't that remarkable really, but it was great to spend a night out of doors again.  We at like kings, too!  One of the friends I went with is an extraordinary camp chef.  We made elk kabobs over charcoal, and had deer sausage and eggs for breakfast.  Both dishes were AMAZING.

I'll post pictures soon.

I've compiled some of my best / favorite pictures from various trips and activities on the gallery page.  Feel free to download any that you like to use as desktop backgrounds.

Check out the changes here and here

This is my to-do list for updating the content on my website.  Stayed tuned throughout the summer and you should see these things being added:

1. making the "About Me" current
2. updating the interactive resume page
3. Links to more photos, either through Picasa or Flickr
   
4. Adding a new page for Triathlon (replacing "Staying Active" page)
5. A page indexing all the songs in my music library
   
6. Downloadable desktop backgrounds, made from photos I've taken on camping trips
7. Several new pages under "Hobbies" - Orbiter Space Flight Simulator, Computer stuff, changes to the Action Figures page
8. Who knows what else?
   

Well after a long hiatus from the site (and a year in grad school to keep my free time occupied) I've discovered the wonders of PHP!  Using this I've finally been able to realize some of the features I had hoped to put here.  You'll now notice things like:

• random pictures and quotes at the right
• much richer, more frequently updated news thanks to the CuteNews script
• a hit counter
  
• hopefully more content in the near future, now that I can stop focusing on back-end issues