Chad Things

Yesterday was the big day. For me, this year’s thanksgiving was especially big, for several reasons. First, i ran my first real race – a half marathon. Second, I got to enjoy the big meal with my family on Tybee Island, a mini-vacation for the 10 of us. And third, after thinking about it, I have much to give thanks for.

First lemme tell you about the half marathon. It was the Atlanta Track Club’s Half Maration, starting at 7am on Thanksgiving day (route). I had to get up at 5:15am for that – that’s 2:15am California time – so thats like crazy early for my body. But i did it, and my younger sister Leslie and her husband were there with me. Luckily it wasn’t too cold, but it did rain on us, which sucked. I ended up doing quite well, beating my secret goal of doing it under 2 hours – 1:56 to be exact. Hurray. After the race they gave you a medal, powerade, water, bananas, snickers protein bars, among other things. But the best part is that you burn tons of calories .. so later that day i was super hungry and got to eat enormous amounts of turkey and sides – guilt-free.

After the race in Atlanta we drove 4-5 hours down to Tybee Island, which is near Savannah on the coast of Georgia. My sister Lara and her family sold their house in Ohio this summer and moved down here for a year. Just because they want to. My kind of family. The house is gorgeous – 3 bedroom with a deck (and hot tub) with a gorgeous view of the coastal marsh and setting sun. We had alot of traditional items for us Norwoods – Turkey, dressing, stuffing, cranberries, Ham, corn, mac’n’cheese, broccoli cheese casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls, and mixed vegies. Mmmmmmmm….

Most importantly, I give thanks. I am so thankful to have such a good, solid, family. We don’t always get along, but for the most part we are very compatible, and I really enjoy spending time with them. I also have to give thanks for my friends, which are just as important to me as my family. These are the people with whom i spend most of my time – i have fun with them, i learn from them, and i get help from them when needed. I also give thanks for my life so far – the opportunities I’ve had with education, jobs, traveling, and the ability to choose where i live and how i can spend my time. For that i must give thanks to being an American. I truly feel blessed. Amen.

I love Mountains. Wednesday I drove 3 hours south from SF to Mt. Carmel, one of my favorite day hikes from the Bay area (gotta love unemployment). The hike was about 10 miles roundtrip, starting from Bottcher’s Gap up to the peak of Mt. Carmel. From the 4417 foot peak of Mt. Carmel you get a beautiful 360 view, including the ocean to the west, Carmel, Monterey and Santa Cruz to the north, and the mountains east and south. Specifically, I love looking east and south at the huge mountains of the Ventana Wilderness – some peaks are over a mile high (and right next to the ocean). Along the hike you get diverse views and varying vegetation. Some parts are hot/desert/shrubs, other sections had lush vegetation along the creeks, and there was also some parts that felt like east coast – big oak trees with Fall leaves on the ground. Beautiful. Only thing that sucked was lots of gnats in the beginning – but its nothing if you come from the east coast like me. I still recommend it to anybody in decent shape – took me 3 hours to hike up, 1.5 to go down, with 45min break up top.

Next i want to do a weekend trip to Sykes Hot Springs (thanks Mark Verber), (nytimes). Hopefully in December.

I’ve always loved them – both as a participant and as a creator. Yep, i’ve created them before too – for friends in high school and college. But yesterday i was a participant in one here in SF, put on by Go Game. And it was awesome.

It was called the “Everywhere Game“. You create your own team (they recommend 4, but we had 6), you need web-enabled cell phone and a digital camera capable of pictures and video. Using the phone, you retrieve your missions and answer trivia. The missions often involved going somewhere, noting a sign or picture, then combining that with other clues to get the answer. Once you submit the answer on the phone, they supply the next mission. They grouped several missions together in different neighborhoods. For example, we did about 4 missions around the metreon, then did a bunch around union square, then hit the marina.  At the end we all met up at the mezzanine to watch team submitted pictures and videos and see who won.

These Go Game guys have been around, had some good challenges, but the game was far from perfect. Most pictures and videos submitted had problems, and twice during the game their servers went down. Our team did well, getting over 90% of the answers correct within the time limit. We got more points than the other 3 teams we spoke with, but still got less than half the points the winning team got. How is that possible? The go game people don’t disclose how people get points, or what is the worth of points. I remember the old scavenger hunt days – you get a list of a bunch of things and you can decide if you want to do easy things for small points or hard things for lots of points. This game seemed to randomly assign missions – except that the winning team was friends with the go game people, so it may not have been so random.

That said, our team had a blast and i’m totally down to do it again. Only $10 and proceeds benefit Alex Smith Foundation.

Have you ever done one?   Where was it, and would you do more like it?  Leave me a comment.

(Updated list of runs below)

I’ve always craved exercise regularly, whether its been mountain biking, backpacking, or dancing all night. But these days i want easy, cheap, regular exercise that doesn’t take too much time – and running fits the bill perfectly. I find myself doing things “runners” do, like checking out running websites, looking for interesting runs around SF, looking for “good” running shoes, and .. yes .. running races. Thanksgiving day, I’m running the 4th largest Half Marathon in the United States in Atlanta with my sister. Hurray.

I’m actually surprised that i’m able to run these days without the knee problems i used to have. I attribute that to my more disciplined approach of exercising more regularly and ALWAYS stretching after I run – i never stretch before. I also have coffee in the morning, then run before lunch while i’m still got that delishous caffeine in my system. I’m surprised by how much energy i have to run – an hour is over and i’m not even tired. I usually just run for 30-60 mins around the mission, castro, and noe valley, but heres a few of my longer runs:

2008 UPDATE – find my runs on motionbased, super easy with new GPS watch.

Sun, 12/2/07, I ran a DSE 4 mile run along Embarcadero in 30 mins exactly (7.5 min/mile).

Thur, 11/22/07, I ran a Half-marathon in Atlanta (13.1 miles) in 1:55 (115 mins, 8.1 min/mile).

Tues, 11/6/07, I ran from 116 to Ocean and back (11 miles) in about 110 mins (8.2 min/mile).

Tues, 10/24/07, I ran from 116 to Heron’s Head Park and back (7.3 miles – extra mile in park) in about 70 mins.

Also, check out the SF bike map – it shows how steep streets are – good for runners and bikes.

Yeah, i said it. I lost my California Drivers License, so i goto DMV to get a new one, and they said .. “Sorry, can’t give it to you, NC is blocking it on PDPS. You need to call the North Carolina DMV”. “Wha? What is PDPS ??” “Nationwide computer system, no details available, but you need to clear it up with them”. “wha?”. So I called NC DMV and after 20mins on hold and being shuffled around i learned they wanted $50 for a 1994 speeding violation. Wha? 13 years ago? doesn’t that stuff expire? And besides, i remember that – i paid it all – it was settled. But the NC DMV woman on the phone is a robot, and either I play ball or I don’t get my PDPS cleared. So i sent them a check. Stupid Problem Driver Pointer System. Now i have to wait for NC to process that before i can go back to CA DMV.

This weekend, from Friday to Sunday November 9-11 2007, is the Green Festival in SF. As you can guess, its a conference about all things green related – greentech, sustainable business practices, working with your environment, and many other good and wholesome things. They have tons of speakers, millions of booths (ok, not really a million), and lots of cool peeps.

Oh chad, what is this hippy crap? No, seriously – Learn a little bit about the environment you live in. You vote on election day, why not vote with your dollar and make the world a better place? Wow, this kool aid is gooood. Try to check it out.

And its not too late to help out – if you volunteer for a 4.5 hour shift, you get in for free and get prizes. I signed up, so should you!

Chad Volunteer – Friday 12-4:30pm – Box Office Lobby Host
Shayna Volunteer – Saturday 2-6:30p – Gift Center host
Sarah Gill – Saturday 1-6 Green Team

Friday 4pm – Global concerns, local actions
Friday 5pm – Innovation for Sustainability
*Friday 6pm – Bennet Freeman from Calvert – Investing Green
*Friday 7pm – Deepak Chopra

*Sat 2pm – Marisa Handler (brasstax friend)
Sat 3pm – Lessig – Green culture (using technology)
Sat 5pm – Mark Anielski – Economics of Happiness
Sat 6pm – Riane Eisler – Real wealth of nations

*Sunday 12pm – Marie Kerpan – Green Careers
Sunday 3pm – Chris Daly – Sustainable SF
Sunday 3pm – Fair Trade
Sunday 4pm – Derfel and Fenster – Sustainable Business

Update: Elections Results added in parenthesis
From sfgov – 35% voter turnout: 150,000 of 420,000 registered SF voters

Everybody should vote – AND should spend some time understanding what they are voting on. Do your homework – Official SF Dept of Elections (my sample ballot) and with these voter guides – False Profit, SFBG, SPUR, Green Party, SF Chronicle, Usual Suspects.

Here’s my recommendations for San Francisco:

Mayor: Newsom will win by a landslide, so have fun – Chicken John (Newsom got 74%)
Sheriff: Michael Hennessey (74% for Hennessey)
A – Yes – Muni reform (Yes 55%)
B – Yes — Commisioner Hold-over (71% Yes)
C – No — Ballot reform (68% Yes)
D – No — library (74% Yes)
E – Yes – Mayor MUST meet with Supervisors – (51% No)
F – No — Airport Police – (51% Yes)
G – No — GG Park Stables – (55% Yes)
H – NO — Parking – (No 67%)
I – Yes – Local small business – (59% Yes)
J – Yes – Wifi – (62% Yes)
K – —– Street Ads – (62% Yes)

A – Muni reform – Yes

Muni has got problems, so you might want to vote no on this, but more important is that we send a message that saying public transportation is more important than adding more parking spots

B – Commisioner Hold-over – Yes

Closes loophole reducing political pressure commissioners and board appointees, letting them focus more on their jobs.

C – Ballot reform – NO

In effect, fixes half of a broken system, allowing special interests to get away with stuff.

D – library – NO

This seems good, but not fiscally responsible enough. Hopefully this will fail and a better one will appear on the ballot next year.

E – Mayor MUST meet with Supervisors – Yes

Forces Mayor to do Q&A with Board of Supervisors once a month. Last year 55% voted yes on a similar measure – but that one was not legally binding, this one is. Some say this is just squable between Mayor Newsom and Chris Daly, some say it may won’t help and just take people’s time away from other things .. i say its a step in a right direction,

F – Airport Police – No

Give airport police retirements same as SFPD. I say no, SFPD is tougher job, more expensive city, they should get more retirement

G – GG Park Stables – No

Not fiscally responsible – doesn’t follow normal procedures – why are stables that much more important than other stuff?

H – Parking – NO NO NO

Backed by billionaire Don Fisher, this just adds parking downtown so he can easily sell more condos. Bad. But worse, is the magnitude – you want 20,000 more parking spots? HELL NO.

I – Local small business – Yes

Help local small businesses get on their feet – Good for SF, doesn’t cost much. Matches with my theory that big corporations are better for many things economically, but not ALWAYS better for society. This gives local small businesses more of an even playing field.

J – Wifi – Yes

A step in the right direction on helping get wifi to everyone

K – Street Ads – Maybe

I don’t really care about this one. Gives muni money for selling ad space on bus shelters. Good cuz it brings in money to Muni, bad cuz we don’t need more clear channel ads.

Another awesome Halloween in San Francisco. Sigh. Brasstax Renegade Sunday was one of the best, as were the parties the night before. I really love this town – so many people dress up. And not just simple costumes – people are clever and creative. Stuff like “vampire gopher”, miss teen south carolina, 80 year old grandma, blades of glory, john nash, speed racer 5, or good ol’ alice and wonderland.

Halloween night fell on a wednesday this year, and I cannot believe how many kids were roaming Fair Oaks. The secret kid hideout – between like 21st and 26th, half block from dolores, there were 6,289 kids. Well, something like that. Our friends Paul and Rosemary had about 20 peeps over to pass out candy – their 4th year doin’ it. Super fun – especially the candy storm – thats when we threw tons of candy out onto the sidewalk and the kids come running.

After that we went to Amnesia for vaudville show put on by Stars & Garters. We’re talking live music, comed acts, song and dance, garters and corsets, booty and titties, blood and guts (it is halloween). The place was a bit too crowded,
otherwise well done. Check it out.

Who doesn’t love halloween? Every year i have fun, but there’s always that “What the hell do i wear this year” dilemma. Well, this year i went back to my roots – beer and music. I seriously considered being a giant speaker – but its a bit too impractical for an active guy like myself. So that left me to stare at my favorite beer – Racer 5. While looking for a giant beer bottle costume, i noticed a speed racer outfit, and thought “Speed Racer 5” would be a good double costume. A couple days later, it was made (yes, i made the whole thing with some guidance from alice)

In searching for pictures of what speed racer and racer 5 looks like, i came across this awesome site called beeroftheday.com. It’s a really nice site – clean, tight, “less is more” philosophy .. great for when you’re drinkin’ beers.

I love wordpress.com, but I’m finally ready to move on. They are a free site, and i’m glad i started off blogging with them, but now its time to run my own site.

Welcome to ChadNorwood.com. I have much more control here over themes, plugins, stats, among other things. For now, i’ve picked a basic theme to get the ball rolling, ya know, get the new URLs up and running. Expect it to look a little different over the coming weeks.