A bunch of old posts!

Fast forward another couple years. God damn, time sure does fly. I haven't even been to livejournal.com more than five times since 2006... surprised I remembered my old password.

A quick update, for sake's sake.

I'm (at least for now) the fastest roadie unicyclist in the world for any distance between 5km and 50km, and maybe other distances too, we'll see. I've got International Unicycling Federation world records in the 10km and 42.2km races. And LOL, the average speeds are only 18.6 and 18.05 mph, respectively. If a guy like me who sits on his ass all day writing code and eating burritos can have world records as a unicyclist, it's pretty clear that unicycling as a sport has quite a ways to go. BTW, Denmark is awesome! (That's where the races were!) It's just getting started, and I'm lucky to be in the right place at the right time, that's all. :-P Gotta love geared hubs! Pics of the big 36" geared unicycle at http://gallery.me.com/cedwall#100495 !

I got me a motorcycle, which is awesome! 2006 Ninja 650R. Built a bike rack for it, and soon will add the unicycle rack!
Check out http://gallery.me.com/cedwall#100680 for pics of the rack and the bike!

Haven't swum in ages. I got myself relatively strong back in January of 2008, and actually got one of my old AAAA times back I used to have, after swimming for only 10 weeks. I know I can go back and kick ass if I decide to, but I just don't seem to have the drive or discipline any more. I have too much fun with my life, building things both physical and abstract, riding things everywhere (bikes, unis, motos, anything!). Once swim was gone, my life quickly filled in the giant hole, and I can't seem to open up a new hole to fit it back in. My choice, my loss. Tradeoffs are the way it is.

Also, it's really sweet to be single. I can spontaneously ride my motorcycle from Southern California to Northern to drop in at work for a while, without checking in with anybody. I can spend my evenings writing code, or enjoying the awesome hills wherever I am, and I get to decide to do these things less than ten minutes before I actually do them. Gets kind of lonely at times, but I sure do get along best alone, at least right now. The time will be right someday, just not now. And damn, when I go back and read all those old posts... whoa, I had it bad! I can't help but laugh, and I bet the majority of the folks who read them thought I was full of crap. Well, I meant every word, as naïve as I was. (I'm still pretty durned naïve, I'll bet. You can never be too careful about how you evaluate yourself.) It's hilarious, though, how you always think your feelings, when you're feeling them, are the ones that break all the records. I sure did at the time, but I didn't know that's what was going on. If I did, I'd probably have caught myself a little bit and kept my ramblings in check. Hell, life is good.

I also work for Apple developing MobileMe's web based user interfaces... also super fun. I'm damn lucky to be there, too. Northern California's where I want to end up as soon as I get myself OUT of school. Hit up www.me.com! I worked on MobileMe gallery in particular, but I have my fingers in some other parts of the product as well. It's so satisfying to work on things that people actually use and hopefully enjoy. I can't imagine not doing as good a job as I can possibly do when I'm putting together a feature, because anything less than as good as I can swing just feels like cheating. I'd hate for people to use something like that!

And check out http://gallery.me.com/cedwall#100664 for a beautiful motorcycle ride I did up there back in September '08 with my camera doing long exposures... moon out, clouds hundreds of feet below. I couldn't ask for a more beautiful universe in which to live.

And, I think I'll leave it at that. Most likely, nobody will even read this, but that's fine. I'll see you, whoever "you" are, in another few years when I randomly decide to leave another tidbit.

Ha-HA! I'm just posting this for the hell of it. I'm bored and procrastinating. I haven't even been to livejournal.com in almost three months. :)

I've got a seven-page essay due tomorrow at 12:30... it's tomorrow at 1:15 AM right now... and I haven't done any reading in the class for the last ... ever. Haven't started yet. Procrastination is beautiful, no?

I'm a cyclist now! Swimming has long been over and done. It's been a year and three weeks since I've been competitive. I have a racing bike built from parts given to me from six different amazingly generous people, which absolutely rocks. It's about 17.9 pounds with crappy wheels and pedals, and will be in the low 16's when I finish spec'cing out those parts. Full Dura-Ace, 'cept for an Ultegra chain. Frame by Russ Denny It flies.

School chugs along. Life as usual. Oh, Jess and I have been broken up for two and a half months now, too. Haha, almost forgot. It was fun while it lasted, very very fun. Rocky, but fun. She's much happer now... much more herself. I'm doing better, too. I've got time to be on my bike. I can get home from being on a wheeled vehicle at one in the morning, and next morning no one will ask me where I was that night for dinner. It's strange, but I've gotten used to it fast. Huge parts of me miss it, but I can't see myself with her anymore.

I got scared (in a good way, kind of) the other night! Two girls who shall remain unnamed came in and asked me to take my shirt off, citing a rumor that circulated "without origin" that I... yeah, without a shirt on. I obliged after making a really embarrassing scene of "oooookaaaaayyyyyy.... are you surururrreeee???". I really do embarrass myself in front of the opposite sex. Hell, they asked for it, I should have whipped that thing off and showed 'em my stuff... or, whatever's still there after a year of relative inactivity. :) :) :)

The unicycle rocks. I can hop stairs pretty reliably (and skip two steps at a time when jumping down the stairs!) and clear four feet sideways-jumping now. I'm getting better little by little, and it's fun. Younger brother just learned how, too, and he rode his to his high school for the first time the other day, where he got a crowd around him. Must've been fun. :) I'm still not nearly as good as Todd!


Well, this turned out longer than I anticipated. Perhaps I still have some posting-spunk in me yet. Must work on essay though. It's 1:20. Now'd be a good time to start.

This journal was good while it lasted, but I think I've outgrown it. I feel no desire to post here anymore. Who knows, I might grow into it again later.

Time for bed. Tired from cycling, need to sleep for Human Interface interview at Apple tomorrow. Haven't swum with CAST in about nine months. I might break up with Jess. :(

Times have changed. Overall, I think for the better. Damn, have they changed. Damn, have I changed.

I'm going to go to sleep.

I'm making an entry in the Student Housing Planner-Handbook Cover contest thing for a 400 dollar rent discount for next year's housing. The contents of the panoramas will be changed to the proper pictures of the respective places, but for now, from top to bottom, they consist of Mesa Court, the view from my back yard in San Diego, some random place in the Portland, Oregon airport, and Mesa Court. Oh, and the top middle pictures is of Mesa Court, facing the volley ball court looking toward Commons. :)

I was trying to make the top look like there's at least some element of depth; UCIrvine in front of the backdrop and "Undergraduate Hou..." in front of UCIrvine.

I live here. Ironically, the only thing I don't like about UCI is the swim team. Everything else is better than I could have ever asked for. Enough said.



I think I want to quit swim. If it wasn't for that, I'd be having the time of my life. Not kidding, it is insanely awesome here. :)

I like riding my bike. Took an hour and 10 minutes of bike riding, not counting time spent waiting for the ferry, so that's like above 20 miles an hour average! :) :)
And there was this section on Washington street where I was holding steady right with the traffic, which was all going at least 50-60 miles an hour. Yeah, it was downhill. Big rush. :)


This was for a beach party with some of my friends, who I all love. I'm going to miss them a lot.

Just did a 45.2 in a 75 all-out backstroke this morning in practice. That's right on pace with my 1:01.23 I did back at Zones last year that won and got me a Junior National time. And that time is one I consider nigh-impossible for me to touch. I touched it today. In practice. I'm going to rip its insides out when we get to Sectionals. I'm talking somewhere in the 59 second neighborhood.

This is about what the pool feels like:

I started making an airplane today. This is how far I got. Time to dope it and cover it in tissue, add gear and hooks for rubber bands, add a propeller, and fly it. Sleep first!

Talking with someone close to you is the greatest thing in the world. I wish I could say it more eloquently, but nothing I can say can do it justice.

God rocks.

Bliss. Absolute Bliss. :)

These are some photos I took with my new camera up at the Mission Viejo Nadadores pool. I think they're pretty cool, especially with the people doing butterfly shot behind the block. So much fun to try to make cool photos.











I guess I have to say now that they're all copyright 2005 me... :)

How do you do three 600 IM swims, each one faster than the last, when you barely have the strength in your body to take one more stroke, much less finish out the 25?

How do you keep going fast for two and a half hours, when your body is sucked dry after the first?

How do you always forget how good it feels to taper and really rock the world after training like this?

How do you get anything else done in the summer, like a job, or a class, or even just hanging out with your friends, when all you have the energy to do at home is sleep?

How do you pull?





Four more weeks of this. It's going to pay off. I can feel it.

Off to get the almighty 17"

YEAH!

Wham-O!

Chalk that down to six lives. Starting over again tomorrow. :)

Now that I've been inside my laptop and changed out stuff and put it back together and all that, I've fallen in love with it again... The 17" is an insane step up from anything this could imagine doing, but... I like my nice little old laptop!! It feels like a new powerbook now that it's together again! I'm going to open it up again to re-glue a couple of aluminum pieces together in there to make it exactly the way it was when it was new, save the dang dent in the rear right corner. Such a wonderful laptop!

It has served me well. Hopefully I pick up the 17" tonight. Pictures will be abundant. Yes. :)

Oh, and here's something that was so exciting that I took a picture of it. I was going so fast in there...

Last night I got about half the sleep I got yesterday. The following, thus, bothers me to no end:

Wow, wow wow wow. I did a 26 from a push in a 50 freestyle toward the end of practice, and my last fast swim of the day was a 58 in a 100 freestyle, in which I beat Brandon.

The agents are dead. It just required me to dip into my third of nine lives. No, I'm not a cat. I just have nine lives. Two down, seven lives remaining till Game Over.

I'm good for now. :)

In other, more important, less important, different news, ... I hate it when I do things that should embarrass me but don't, because it reflects on J, too. Whether or not she feels embarrassed by my little after-sprint antics that are very stupid and need to stop, I don't want to give her cause to be. She's awesome.

Just hacked open my computer, and wow, was it hard and long and fun and even maybe a little bit scary. I put in the best available mobile slot-loading optical drive in existence today. Fun. So fun. :)