CharmingGeek.net Funness

I started running my senior year of high school. I did one season of cross country and half a season of track. It was the only team I’ve been on since tee ball.
I really like to run though, and it’s the sport of choice for geeks and introverts, so ever since I’ve kept up an on again, off again affair with running. I haven’t done a lot of races because I like running — not competing — and one of the reasons I like running is because it’s something I can do on my own. With that in mind, I never understood why I should pay $25 to run 5k down a city street with total strangers at my elbows when I could run 10 in solitude through a state park for free.
I am trying to do more runs now just to give myself a goal and to do some things with other people I know who do such things. So I signed up for a 5k in March with my coworkers. I hadn’t run in a few months, but it’s a 5k. I could do that cold. I ran for a couple of days starting a week before the race, and then I mangled my foot in a bike accident. Broken toe, sprained ankle, and a chunk of skin missing the size of a baseball. That thing was nasty. Still up until the day before the race I thought I might run. I was trippin. Just then I started to realize how bad it was.
That same weekend I signed up for the Army 10 miler in October. Well, injured foot and all, I just started running again on Monday. 3 miles Monday, 5 today, and I really hurt. I know my body though and I’m sure I can be up to 10 by next weekend.
Of course I found out today that I’m going to be on a business trip in the Mojave Desert the weekend of the race. Me and plans don’t go together so well.
Still, I need to get back into the running routine so I’ll keep it up. I want to be ready for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in the Spring and the Rock n Roll half marathon next summer. Even if I can’t actually go to the races.
So, I’ll see you out on the W&OD!

I’m going to Uganda! I depart August 3 to spend two weeks in the internal displacement camps of the Apac province in Northern Uganda. Although the violence caused by the LRA in the area has greatly subsided over the past three years, the threat of renewed violence and kidnapping still keeps most residents of these provinces in such camps. However, the greatest threat to these people today are the lasting effects of war and displacement: poverty, malnutrition, orphaned children, teenagers with memories of being forced to commit acts of violence, young mothers who were victims of rape, an AIDS rate close to 50%, and a cramped climate that encourages the spread of disease.

In less than a week I’ll be bouncing over the back roads of Uganda, heading toward the displacement camps of the Oyam district (formerly Apac) in the country’s north. I’m going with 7 other friends from the Arlington campus of Frontline and meeting with an organization called Global Refuge International. Over the course of 14 days, we’ll be working through GRI to visit 9 displacement camps in Oyam, providing medicine, education, care, and encouragement. The official language of Uganda is English, but the most widely spoken language is Ganda. In the relief camps of the north, we will meet very few people that speak either language.

Nearly all of the residents of these camps are from the Lango and Acholi ethnic groups. Combined, these two groups make up less than 10% of the population of Uganda. The Acholi and Lango dialects share 90% of their vocabulary in common, so they are mutually intelligible, but there is still a distrustful divide between the two groups. Global Refuge has been in these camps for some years now and most of the leadership and day-to-day service has been handed over to natives of northern Uganda who are familiar with the customs and know the people intimately. Pastor Walter is a native of the region who works in the 9 camps, knows virtually every family, and is tirelessly discipling the displaced people of Northern Uganda.

Due to international pressure and aid, the Lord’s Resistance Army has been pushed back into Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past three years. They still make frequent trips across the border to carry out terrorist missions and to kidnap child soldiers. The LRA has never been very popular, but is even less so today, and the only way they can get soldiers is to kidnap and brainwash them. Ugandan soldiers patrol the border regions to prevent major attacks, however there are reports of these soldiers allowing some attacks against civilians or even carrying them out. The catch is that when there is no longer a rebel threat, the international military aid Uganda has been receiving will dry up. So the military is pressed to look successful, but not too successful.

Today, the Acholi and Lango people are threatened more by the results of this 20 year battle than they are by immediate violence. For nearly a generation, these people have been forced from their homes, villages, and livelihood. Access to water is limited. Poverty and hunger are ongoing themes. Countless orphans have been created by war. Children have disappeared by the thousands. Some eventually escaped the slavery of the LRA, but returned to their people broken and traumatized by the violence they had seen or committed. Many have even been forced to kill members of their own family. Systematic rape created countless teen mothers and spread HIV to the victims and their children. Having already received a foothold, HIV spreads rapidly in a promiscuous society where the family has broken down and many of the refugees

Here’s a video I filmed a while back on my way in to work. It’s about 1/2 of my trip (the camera messed up 20 minutes in). There was no sound, so I dubbed in some random techno (all of which you can download for free from download.com).
Part 1

Part 2

Here’s something I can associate with:

I’m in the process of moving. I think Monday, my coworker Brian described this as the slowest move ever. Probably. I’ve been packing and moving and unpacking for about 3 weeks. One more trip to make. As much as I love my old bachelor pad with the gorgeous view, I’m really looking forward to being out of it. My new place out in Reston is so much more convenient to the places I actually go. It cuts my trip to church in half and my average trip to work is less than half of what it was. The cost is all the trips on the toll road, but with what I’m saving in rent, I can easily handle the $2.50 a day. There’s a one-lane bridge on the road to my office in Sterling. Seriously, Virginia DOT? A one-lane bridge?

At 12:10 AM
Why is there such slow traffic
On I-66?

I’m sitting at waffle house right now waiting out a thunder storm. The gentleman next to me just ordered and specified twice that he wanted his eggs scrambled with American cheese.
I’m here thinking “Whoever decided to call pasteurized processed cheese food ‘American cheese’ should win a marketing award.” Somehow they took the lowest form of “cheese” known and turned it into something patriotic.
I sure hope in other countries they’ve never heard of American cheese. Otherwise, it has to be the biggest insult against Americans imaginable.

I read today that Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April as compared to the same time last year. That was a “hmmm” moment, but the number alone didn’t mean much too me. 1.4 billion is a huge number. I can’t even wrap my head around that, especially without context.
Fortunately, I turned up the DOT Statistics on Traffic Volume. The estimated total miles driven in the US for April were 245.9 billion, down from about 250 billion last year, or a decrease of 1.8%. This change isn’t in isolation though. The trend tells more of the story.
I think this graph speaks for itself:

This is one of my favorite songs.

That whole “band of brothers” thing we bikers have is cool. I mean, we all wave, and we immediately have something to talk about. And the wave is cool. It says, “I’m tough, I’m cool, and I’m friendly.”
But most of my riding is done either on interstate or on city roads, and I have only so much attention to give to anything that’s not currently threatening my life. So let’s both focus on getting home from work for right now.
When you see me riding the back roads of western Virginia on the weekend, shoot me a low wave. I promise to reciprocate.
That goes for you scooter guys too. Say hello!