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The Events that are: My Life

Things that go on in my life that cannot be catagorized somewhere else, sort of a catch-all

The Workout Plan

I’ve been wanting to work out for a couple of months now, but A) I’ve been to lazy to actually go to the gym and B) even if I did go to the gym, I wouldn’t know what to do.

I was talking with Bob over the weekend and he mentioned that he was going to start working out again. I asked him how he works out and he told me about a program called CrossFit that he’s been following. CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program whose specialty is not specializing. [1] Everyday, CrossFit posts the Workout of the Day (WOD) on their website and you can go do it.

This is pretty much exactly what I was looking for!

I’m tweaking the program a bit to fit my schedule better. So here are my rules:

  1. Do the CrossFit WOD from either CrossFit or FrontRangeCrossFit, I can pick after looking at each work out. If one of the sites has a “rest” day, I can do the previous days workout provided I didn’t already do it yesterday.
  2. I will take three days off a week: Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday.

Usually there are two rest days in a week. However, I’m not usually on campus on the weekends and I usually try to not be in Golden. Also, Tuesday’s completely suck for me in general.

It’s also nice that they have some video of the different workouts and all the workouts are scalable and substitutable. I started today with:
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Run 400 meters
Max rep Pull-ups

We’ll see how this works…

[1] http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html

A Really Short Review of Avenue Q

First, a little bit of background: Some time ago, I was shown a video of World of Warcraft players “lipsyncing” to a song called “The Internet is For Porn.” Pretty much ever since, I’ve wanted to see the show. I was hoping to see it a few years ago when I was in Las Vegas, however I never got around to it. Fast forward to now, school is selling discounted tickets and I manage to snag the last two.

Wow, what an amazing musical. I would describe Avenue Q as Sesame Street rated R. And I think that’s a pretty accurate statement. The puppets are all designed by Rick Lyon, who has over 25 years of experience and used to work with the late Jim Henson. There are also several interludes which are highly comical…trust me.

In short, Avenue Q is what you get when people who watched Sesame Street as a kid grow up and are allowed to produce musicals; which is not a bad thing, mind you, it’s a great thing.

Having said how great it is, though, I must remind you that it is a rated “R” show. And despite the fact that show is about puppets, the kiddies should not be in attendance. Really.

But you should go and see it and I highly recommend it.

Photo credit: http://blog.dispatch.com/mgrossberg/musicals/

Response to My FOIA

Last fall, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S Customs and Border Protection. Well, it took them about 11 months, which is 10 months longer then the guidelines state, but I finally received my request today.

The letter reads:

Dear Mr. Ferguson:

This is the final response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), dated September 26, 2007, seeking information relating to you in the Automated Targeting System (ATS).

A search of the CBP, ATS database has produced 5 pages responsive to your request. Of those pages, CBP has determined that certain portions of the enclosed documents are exempt from disclosure pursuant to Title 5 U.S.C. § 522 (b)(2)(low), (b)(6) and (b)(7)(c).

Exemption 2(low) exempts from disclosure records that are related to internal matters of a relatively trivial nature, such a internal administrative tracking.

FOIA Exemption 6 exempts from disclosure personnel or medical files and similar files the release of which would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Exemption 7(c) protects records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

You may appeal the deletions to the Office of Regulations and Rulings, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Mint Annex 5th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20229. Your appeal must be made in writing within 60 days after the date of this notification. Both the fron of the envelope and the appeal letter should contain the notation “Freedom of Information Act Appeal”. Please notate file number 2008XXXXX on any future correspondence to CBP related to this request.

Sincerely,

Mark Hanson
Director, FOIA Division
Office of International Trade

There were five enclosed pages, most with some form of redaction. Here’s the first page:

All the black ink is redaction done by Customs and Border Protection. All the blurring is done by me. And no, the irony of redacting an already redacted document obtained through a FOIA request is not lost on me.

Your Prerogative

If you follow politics at all, you know that the DNC was just here in Denver. I managed to avoid most of the hoopla, expect when the English division of Al Jazeera decided to come to Golden. I’m really not quite sure what to say about this:

From www.rockymountainnews.com:

The city manager of Golden, Colo., [Mike Bestor] has decided to withdraw his invitation to let the Al-Jazeera news network broadcast from a barbecue in his backyard on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.
….
Bestor made his decision after a City Council meeting Thursday at which residents complained the event with the English-language service of the Middle East news network would be disrespectful to veterans and active U.S. soldiers.

While Bestor is well within his rights to rescind his offer to Al Jazeera English, I think it was incredibly foolish to do so. Especially while hiding behind the asinine idea that it would be disrespectful to veterans and current U.S. soldiers. Government officials, which Bestor is, should hold themselves to a higher standard and should lead by example, not by pressure.

What You Leave Behind

It’s taken about seven months to get here, but 7,920 minutes later, I’ve finished watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It’s kind of bitter sweet, really. DS9 was a great series. But I must press on.

Latest Details of The Star Trek Project:
Minutes Seen: 21370
Minutes Left: 11976
Episodes Seen: 466
Episodes Left: 271
% Complete: 64.09%
% Left: 35.91%

I’ll be starting Star Trek: Voyager, which I hope to finish sometime early next semester. Then it’s on to Star Trek: Enterprise which I hope to complete before I’m done with school. Finally, Star Trek comes out on May 8th, which is the day I graduate. Coincidence? I think not. I’m planning on going to the midnight showing of that to complete my Tour de Force.

You’re Gonna Want to Read All of This

Today is the beginning of fall semester; my last fall semester. I’m aware that this is monumental moment, however I can’t quite bring myself to really believe that this is it: the beginning of the end of 17+ years worth of education1.

And yet it is.

This past summer has been amazing in many ways. I had some amazing conversations with some amazing people, both in my personal life and at work. I still don’t have the future planned out, but that’s okay.

At the end of my high school graduation speech, I quoted a famous Churchill line, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” I think I was about four and a half years too soon on that remark.

This, my friends, really is it. I’m getting ready to write the last chapter in a book I like to call Andrew Ferguson: The First 23 Years.

Thus I think it’s fitting that while I work on closing this chapter and book in my life, I am able to announce the title of my next book – Andrew Ferguson: The Boeing Years.

As my third internship with them was coming to an end, Boeing elected to offer me a job for after graduation.

I accepted.

After some time off to catch a breather, I’ll be returning to my group sometime in the late summer of 2009.

So, stick around. This year is going to be crazy-awesome and as Frank Sinatra sang,
The best is yet to come, and, babe, won’t that be fine,
You think you’ve seen the sun, but you ain’t seen it shine

1 I would actually argue that learning is a lifelong adventure. I hope to never stop being educated. So really, this is the end of my formal education – at least for the time being.

Summer Wind

As July finishes up, so does my summer vacation. Less then three weeks remain before my final year of college starts. This summer has been a rather interesting one. If I had to put word to it, I’d describe it as: low-key.

Many of my friends have graduated from college and are getting jobs in The Real World©. My brother and one of my best friends are on mission trips in Europe for the summer. The dynamics have changed for sure.

That’s not to say that I haven’t enjoyed my summer. On the contrary, I love returning back to Seattle. Sailing and hiking are definitely two things I enjoyed doing and I wish I had more time to dedicate to them. I haven’t been climbing or camping yet, which is sort of a bummer. Hopefully I’ll be able to get to those before I start school.

Heads up: any outstanding chits, beers, IOU’s, etc should be redeemed before I leave Seattle on 14 August.

And guess who sighs his lullabies – through nights that never end
My fickle friend, the summer wind

Our Man McConnell

I’m not sure where to start with this story. It is one that has been in the making for at least the last ten years1, some might argue even the last twenty-three. I’ll skip the boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl part and go straight to the boy-gets-married-to-girl part.

Saturday night was the first time one of Us got married. To think that ten years ago, we were sitting around playing video games; and then to think that a decade later, we would be here: celebrating the union of two wonderful people and loss of our friend Kelly2.

Kelly’s marriage raises the bar for all of Us and is yet another reminder that I’m growing up. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few days pondering.

But enough of my doom-and-gloom thoughts. Kelly and Kristin’s wedding really was spectacular. It took place in the wonderful backyard of Kristin’s parents’ house in New Castle. The weather was pretty much unbeatable.

At one point during the reception, I caught a glace of orange out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to see what it was: the plastic-like tablecloth the cake was on had caught fire.

I jumped up out of my seat and ran over to put it out. I got a round of applause and everyone at my table was relieved to find out that I was solving problems and not causing chaos. Staples thinks I should have snapped on my latex gloves3.

Around 11:30pm, Kelly and Kristin finally departed in Kelly’s rebuilt baby blue ’65 Nova Wagon.

Photo: Copyright 2008 Jen Emert

  1. How long I’ve known Kelly/been in TheBS, more or less. ↩

  2. I kid. I kid. ↩

  3. This an another story that I should probably tell at some point. ↩