DarqByte

As I’ve said before, I’m posting video-game related stuff over at my OMGN blog, Gamer of Darqness. And here’s a post I want to share — my account of the building of Beast!

So yeah, I know I haven’t been posting here much lately. I’ve been working hard on OMGN, what else do you expect? Haha. Well, this post is mostly just to let you know that I’ll be doing my video game blogging over at OMGN. This morning we launched user blogs over at OMGN, which allows any user on the site to blog. It’s pretty simplistic stuff when compared to WordPress, which runs my blog here. However it’ll suit my video game blogging needs, and I think it’ll help drive traffic to the site over there as time goes on.

I don’t blog much about video games here anyway so it won’t impact much of what I would or would not have posted here. But I just wanted to give all of you a heads-up on my other blog.

Yesterday marked a very historic moment for me personally. Yesterday at approximately 1:30pm Pacific time, OMGN was relaunched. The new launch is known as OMGN4.

This has been a long time coming. OMGN’s eventual relaunch is the reason that I haven’t been posting on my blog much or doing much else in my spare time, especially since school let out for the summer. But fear not! OMGN has relaunched! The announcement of the relaunch is on the site.

Really, I’m just posting to finally say something here on my blog about all of this. This is big for me. This is the first full-on redesign of OMGN since I launched it back in 2002. It’s been almost 8 years and now the site will finally be running a worthy code and database structure. The design is simpler and less crowded than it’s been for years, and I’ll be exerting more control over the content to ensure higher quality standards are met. OMGN has sucked up a lot of my time lately, and now it can take a little less. But I’m not going to just rest on my laurels, no. I’ll still be working on it and making it better than before.

As  a matter of fact, I’m going to run off and play some Final Fantasy 13 because I’m planning on reviewing it for OMGN. Interestingly enough, I’ve already achieved quite a lot of what I wanted to do over this summertime: relaunch OMGN, finish some books I’ve ordered, play some games, do some side work. Ahh, summer.

Ok, so I’m not an expert on Net Neutrality nor do I ascribe to know every little detail of the potential for the FCC to reclassify parts of the communication structure so they can begin regulating the Internet. But here’s the situation where it stands right now.

Where We Are Now

Right now, the Obama administration has suggested for the FCC to reclassify some communications so that it can begin regulating the Internet within the United States. Currently there is no regulating body for the Internet in the USA, so basically anybody can do anything on it, period. The Obama administration sees this as a potential threat to the openness of the Internet because without regulation, Internet service providers (ISPs) can do whatever they please with that access. Allowing the FCC to regulate the Internet allows it to tell ISPs what they can and cannot do, where right now ISPs have pretty much a free reign. Without regulation, ISPs cannot be forced to abide by Net Neutrality.

The status quo of ISPs is that nobody really does this kind of thing en-masse. There were a few instances recently where some ISPs tried blocking torrent access, which in some lights is understandable. Torrents are massively peer-based downloads that allow you to get parts of a file from all over. A lot of torrent activity is illegal, but at the same time there are plenty of legal uses for torrents, so blocking them outright also blocks legitimate use. While none are really using these tactics, some have suggested they might to increase their bottom lines.

Ok, What’s Net Neutrality?

I’m glad you asked. Net Neutrality is the idea that ISPs have to be neutral about the content flowing through their networks. Net Neutrality (NN from hereon out) means that an ISP cannot look into the content any of its subscribers is accessing for any reason other than legal issues. There are a lot of proponents of NN and from what I’ve seen and understand, not a whole lot of consumers that don’t want it.

Without NN, ISPs can basically do whatever they want in regards to the content flowing through their networks. There are plenty of worst-case scenarios out there when it comes to this subject, so we’ll stay away from those as they’re unlikely. After all, even if ISPs start going against NN and use content requests to make decisions, consumers won’t stick with an ISP when they have a choice for another if their current ISP starts getting too draconian.

One great example I found online mimics the tiered strategy that television service providers use to make tiers of different channels, like so:

From charlesgarwood.com

In this example, you would have to pay your ISP $10 more per month to be able to access music-related websites and services, such as iTunes. Yes, in this example, not only would you be paying anywhere from 69 to 129 cents per song, you’d also be paying $10 per month to your ISP for the right to access iTunes’ Internet services at all.

Another example of what an ISP could do is dropping the transfer rate of traffic. So instead of blocking access entirely, an ISP could just put certain traffic at a lower priority in terms of speed. If this were the case, then you could have reduced service to iTunes unless you pay $10 more per month.

Now let’s apply a different tactic to blocking or slowing service. Instead of charging the consumer extra to access those websites, an ISP could instead charge the website operator some fee to keep their website on a normal service level. So unless Apple pays your ISP in some fee structure, the ISP could simply block or slow traffic to iTunes because Apple wouldn’t pay the ransom, err extortion, err fee.

These are just some examples of what ISPs could do if they were not bound to NN. I’m sure creative executives could come up with all sorts of ideas to extract more money from consumers and website operators alike.

So What’s The Government Planning?

The Obama administration wants the FCC to reclassify parts of communication so it can regulate the Internet. Without a regulator, ISPs can do whatever they like including making decisions based on the content running through their networks. However if the FCC were regulating Internet usage then ISPs would be bound to whatever decisions the FCC makes. The idea behind this, as far as the Obama administration goes, is that the FCC will enforce NN  thus ISPs won’t be able to use any tactics like I’ve described before.

But Regulation Is Bad!

A lot argue that government regulation is bad. Sometimes it is, sometimes the government can overreach and over-regulate things. However in this case, the lack of regulation means ISPs can gouge consumers and limit access in whatever ways they deem fit. This is an instance, in my opinion, where adding a regulatory body does more good than harm. Sure, we want the government in as little as possible, but regulations also make sure companies aren’t engaging in activity that is contrary to the public interest, such as limiting website access.

One could argue that this would be opening the door to a “government takeover” of the Internet. This is far from the truth. Regulation is not the same thing as a government takeover. We already have government regulation for automobiles because without it, there’d be no safety standards. This is much the same thing. The public’s interest in unfettered access to the Internet is at stake here. A government takeover means the government would run the Internet, and that’s not the case. The government would just start telling ISPs what they can and cannot do.

Sure, someday the government could abuse this regulatory oversight to start doing some things ISPs might have done. They might mandate some sort of limit on torrents or make sure all content gets filtered by the government. That’s what China does, pretty much, and I don’t ever see that happening because US citizens would riot if it did. Hell, I think some citizens might riot against an ISP if one truly broke against NN.

Companies Can Do Whatever They Want!! It’s Their Network!

Well right now, yes. But what I’m paying for is access to the Internet. Not for my ISP (which happens to be CenturyLink) to tell me “Hey Robert, you can’t access CNN.com until you pay us $5 more per month!” If consumers went into purchasing Internet access from an ISP with the intent to buy unfettered access, such is the case now, then that access should remain unfettered.

Sure, most companies can do whatever they want — within the limits of their regulations, of course. Saying that a company should be able to operate its business however it wants is a weak argument, in my opinion, because look at the BP disaster. Hell, they were regulated and it still happened. It’s obviously a case where the public interest is better served in actual regulation, rather than allowing BP to do whatever the hell it wanted, thus ending up in this massive oil leak. Companies should be able to operate as they see fit, but within acceptable boundaries.

They Don’t Need Regulation

Quite the contrary, I believe ISPs need regulation. Especially to keep them from breaking against NN. The whole idea of the Internet is this open massive platform allowing people to push out whatever they like for anybody to access. The Internet is like a massive Democracy in some respects. People “vote” for what they want by visiting those sites. But if ISPs start limiting access in some arbitrary manner, then that freedom is lost and those “votes” can’t be cast. Imagine if ISPs restricted access to Twitter in its early days. It probably wouldn’t have taken off. Say what you will about the time-sink that Twitter and Facebook are, but if your access to them was restricted or you were charged more to access them, those two would also be ones to suffer. So while you’re arguing an ISP should be able to conduct its affairs however it sees fit, realize that the consumer and Twitter/Facebook are also “harmed” in this instance.

Specific Arguments

No Regulation = Free Speech

Someone mentioned that keeping the government from regulating the Internet is the safest way to maintain free speech… I disagree. Without NN, ISPs can block or slow access to all sorts of content, which is against free speech, or at least free access to it. If ISPs are allowed to pick and choose the content they deliver, then they’re restricting free speech, which is unconstitutional. Thus, you might even say that the government has a responsibility to ensure unfettered access to the Internet.

Companies Already Charge For Faster Speeds

Well yes, they do. But they charge for faster speeds for the entire Internet, not just some sites selectively. What you’re paying for there is just a fatter pipe with more bandwidth to be able to download things faster. So let’s extend this argument out and say, “What if an ISP simply slows speeds to CNN.com, but doesn’t block it, and charges for faster access?” This is still an instance where the content is dictating the service and the ISP exercising authority over the stream of packs you’ve requested.

The Internet Is A Priveledge

Again, I disagree, to some extent. If you can afford to pay for the Internet you should get it all. More and more of our daily lives are online and more and more depends on the Internet. Imagine the world without the Internet today. No online bill pay, no Netflix streaming… No eCommerce. Sometimes you actually need access to the Internet to get some things done. The US would grind to a crawl without the Internet in this day and age.

Status Quo Is Just Fine

Given that ISPs are currently not engaging in anti-NN behavior, for the most part, then the status quo is fine. But the status quo assumes they won’t reverse and start going against NN. And the status quo means they still can should they choose to. We should definitely not allow them that opportunity to limit users’ free choice of what they want to access online.

The Free Market Works

Did the Wall Street and mortgage meltdowns not convince you? A lack of regulation there is definitely a big contributor to why that happened. The free market does not always work, regulation is still required to ensure the proper operation of a market. This is more of an idealogical issue anyway, so I know I won’t really convince anybody on this one.

Also, one note on free markets. If a market was 100% free then monopolies and collusions could exist, which means if the ISP market was a 100% free market, they could all collude to block FoxNews.com unless you paid $50 per month to gain access. And legally you could do nothing about it. Personally, I don’t like Fox News, but it’s still wrong dammit.

A Christian ISP Would Want To Block Porn!

This was an interesting one and caused me to ponder for awhile. Currently there exists no Christian ISPs in the US. The function of an ISP is to offer access to the Internet. A Christian ISP would want to block anything they deem non-Christian… But I’m going to point to what the Internet currently is and should be. A massively open and 100% accessible platform of websites and services. And I’m obviously of the opinion that access to it should always be fully open. Thus, if there were a Christian ISP, then I would disagree that it should be blocking content because I fully believe in NN.

On another note, I’m a practicing Catholic and if I were subscribing to a Christian ISP, I would not want them blocking any content. Client programs can be installed on the user’s end to block access. So if a user doesn’t want to allow access to things inside their home they can, but the ISP doesn’t get to do that across the board for people that don’t want it done.

I mean, think about it. Every Christian is different. Let’s imagine MyChristianISP.com (trademark pending, haha) is my provider. I want to look at Site A (not a porn site), but Site A offends about 55% of all MyChristianISP.com subscribers, so it gets blocked. Do you see the problem here? 45% of my fellow peers that are fine with accessing that site can’t. That kind of control belongs with the users.

Government Shouldn’t Run Companies For Themselves

Fully no. A government should not be 100% in full telling a company how it can run itself. But we already have government regulations in place to prevent illegal monopolies or from firms using their market power to gouge consumers. There are limits to what is acceptable for a company to do.

Companies are like people. They are entities in the eyes of the government. If you were to say that the government shouldn’t run people’s lives, then you’re basically saying the government need not exist and anarchy can rule the land. It’s preposterous. Companies, just like people, should not be allowed to do whatever the hell they want, because it may not always be in the public’s best interest. This argument allows a company to price discriminate based on age or religion. It allows a company free reign over whatever it wants to do.

Obviously there needs to be a line drawn somewhere, and I’m all for a line being drawn that includes NN as the rule of the land.

Personal Notes

Personally, I believe the Internet to be this big open playground where people can put up and access whatever they like. Any content restrictions should be on a user-by-user basis, thus limitations should exist in home networks and home machines, not at the ISP level. It is not CenturyLink’s place to tell me what I can or cannot access. I am paying them for access to the entire Internet and that is how it should remain. Just because television and radio have different access levels doesn’t mean they should be extended to the Internet.

If you’re reading this post and you don’t know me very well, you may not have picked up on the fact that I run websites. Now you understand another reason I am so adamantly in favor of NN. Without NN, there is the possibility that I could face fees with any number of ISPs to keep OMGN from being added to a “slow websites” list. And if there are 100 ISPs in the country all asking for a $5 fee per month so they won’t slow access to my website, suddenly I have to pay $500 per month to keep it online.

Fuck that. America is all about people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and making it for themselves. I cannot do that with my websites if I’m subject to countless fees because there is no NN. It’s completely against the American dream, folks, to start allowing ISPs to restrict access to the Internet in whatever ways they see fit.

I understand the potential for a slippery slope in regards to allowing the US Government to regulate Internet access. At some point in the future it could suddenly reverse course and start censoring things. But the US Government has a pretty damn short history of censorship. There’s a much lower likelihood of that happening than for ISPs to start restricting access to content, because they’ve talked about it. In this case, I’ll take the evil of the US Government over the evil that is John Doe ISP Corporation. ISPs have an incentive to censor Internet access, the US Government – not quite as much.

The whole thing here is that Internet access via an ISP should be 100% free and clear. That’s what consumers are paying for and that’s what they should get. It’s not a case where the ISP should be able to determine what their networks deliver. They’re in the wrong business if that’s the case. An ISP is supposed to allow access and not dictate what people can get, because if an ISP is the only Internet provider in town, then you may get no other choice but to use them and only them. The ISP should not care what you’re accessing, only that you’re paying for that access.

Final Note

I feel very strongly about this issue because I am an IT professional, a user of the Internet and a website operator. Thus I hope you understand why I feel the way I do, even if many of you are afraid of what more US Government regulation may do here. I’m more afraid of what ISPs may do, thus my stance on the subject. I’m sure the fact that this post clocks in at over 2,800 words also illustrates how passionate I am about the subject.

[Update]

Read Marek’s comment on this post, he makes a very valid comment. He cites that if an ISP started restricting access to a particular website and required users to pay for that website, then the ISP would reap all of the profits of that pricing structure whereas the website owner would not only get none of the profits, but would also suffer degraded traffic to their website because not everybody would pay for the access. This is in stark contrast to how television service providers work, where they pay subscriber-based royalties back to the operators of the channels that are in said tiers, such as premier sports channels you have to pay extra for. That was a point I was originally starting to think about when I started writing this post but promptly forgot about and never expanded upon, but Marek poses a very, very good point.

Many people are aware that my approach to the MBA program at UNLV has three tiers to it, in terms of my performance.

1. Get a 4.0 grade-point average
2. Get better than a 3.56 GPA
3. Get the degree

Obviously, the top tier is a 4.0 and the best I can possibly do. Better than a 3.56 is my next target should I fail in getting a 4.0, because 3.56 is what I had in undergraduate studies. I had a 3.4ish in high school, so if I get better than a 3.56 then I’ve improved my GPA at each successive degree level. Finally… Obviously my lowest desire is to get the damn degree.

I’m mentioning all of this to illustrate that I’m trying to challenge myself to do as good as I can possibly do. I’m not posting this so people think I’m trying to show off or think I’m better than anybody else. It’s all about achievement here. I know my GPA may not make any difference in my career at all, but I’m still trying to challenge myself to do as good as I possibly can and to really, really learn the material.

Anyway, I’m fairly certain I can kiss a 4.0 goodbye. I took my economics final on Tuesday. I knew going into it I’d have to virtually ace it in order to get an A for the course. I was mistaken on the grading scale for the course and the threshold for an A was higher than I thought. Combine that with my A- average scores on my two prior exams and I had an uphill battle… So I went into the final thinking I had a good chance. Multiple review materials were distributed to the class and we had a review session on the last day of instruction. I felt I had near-mastery of everything in the review materials and session. It was all mostly computation, but there was a little bit of theory and graphing in there. But I felt really good about all of it.

Final exam comes. And the reviewed material accounted for maybe 35-40% of the actual final. The rest was either barely a blip in the review materials or it was very theory and graphing heavy. So I felt woefully under-prepared for what actually was on the final.

I pretty much hold myself and only me accountable for my grades, but this is an instance where I feel a little wronged. The entire class and I were basically led to believe we needed to focus on the review materials and review discussions, which I’m sure most of the class did. But I felt totally blindsided by what was on the final. I know I’m not the only one, as one of my classmates commented on a Facebook status update of mine saying about the same thing (Amy Walker).

There was a little bit of this kind of thing on the second exam in the course too, but not near to the extent it was on the final. One of my classmates had taken this instructor before and he mentioned this kind of thing very early this semester. I didn’t dismiss what he said, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be just as bad as he made it out to be.

It’s not like I want my grade unilaterally adjusted. Actually, I don’t even know what my grade is yet, it hasn’t been posted. But likely, because of how I felt I did on the exam, I think I have a B+, which will really tick me off. I don’t even necessarily want to take a different final. I just want the situation addressed and for the instructor to take a second look at how he’s handled the way he designs his reviews and finals so that it’s more fair to the students.

Gah.

A local church here in Las Vegas, Christ the King, is hosting a Second Chance Prom that pretty much anybody can attend. I was unable to go to prom in high school with Laura because, well, I was dating somebody else at the time. She didn’t have the kind of prom she’d really want to have. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t go with her.

Well, thanks to CTK we get a mulligan! But I haven’t asked her to prom yet. I want to get one million group members on Facebook to show her that she should go with me! So if you’re not already a group member, join the group and help me out. I may end up recording when I ask her and post that on YouTube. We’ll see. The more people join the group, the better chance of that happening!

Well, in the spirit of the KISS song, “They call me Dr. Love!” Actually, I have been called Dr. Love before. And since this post is all about what people call me, I’ll give you that story too.

So over time it’s occurred to me what people call me on a daily basis. The only reason I’ve noticed is because some of my family members notice when I get called Rob and they can’t believe I’d be willing to be called that. Hell, some of them still call me by my kid name that I continually ask them not to use and to call me Robert (or Rob) instead. And a couple still call me by my really kid name, which is pretty much sacrilege these days as far as I’m concerned!

My cousin is on board in calling me Robert, actually. Thank God. And my Dad will occasionally remember to call me Robert. If you’re one of my childhood friends or family and are still calling me by either of my kid names… Robert works just as well. Trust me. I prefer it greatly.

All of this whole “what do I want to be called” stuff has been interesting to ponder. When I drove down to Arizona for Christmas Eve this last year, I learned that my grandma on my Dad’s side had always wanted my sister and me to call her Gran, not Grandma as we always do. I was completely unaware of this, so I’m making a conscious effort to call her Gran now.

See that’s the thing for me. I want to be called Robert (or Rob). Which is why I don’t understand the unwillingness of some people to call me that. I understand that a lot of my family has called me by my kid names for my entire life and that it’s a big change for them and they can only think of me as those names. I get that. But really, my wish is to be called Robert… Really. Haha. I’m trying to change what I call my Gran after 26 years of calling her Grandma, so if I can make the effort, can’t others?

Yeah, you all know who you are.

Anyway, I always introduce myself as Robert. Ever since the beginning of 9th grade I’ve introduced myself as Robert. And I get called Rob about half of the time, and I find that quite interesting. Laura‘s step-dad, Ron, prefers to go by Ronald (and yet I still call him Ron, I need to work on that) and always introduces himself as such. He says in New Orleans, his hometown, nobody ever really calls someone else by a nickname. They call that person by their real name. I think it’s just a part of culture here out in the western US, and maybe elsewhere. It just happens.

So I get called Robert and Rob a lot, but what about other names? Here are some that I get called on a regular-enough basis that I can remember them:

• Ludwick
• The Lud
• The Spartan (that’s another story entirely)
• Sludgewick (creative)
• Spudwick
• Robbo
• Roberto
• RobZone (sweet!)
• Dr. Love

So yeah, the story on Dr. Love… I’ve always liked that song by KISS. I first heard it in the movie Detroit Rock City. I ended up downloading it. Soon it became a part of jokes for me where I would tell people “They call me Dr. Love.” See my last post if you’re unclear as to why I make jokes like this, haha.

So anyway, I once said this to a coworker back when I worked at Swim2000. He said he didn’t believe me, so I said “Nah, everybody does, even Bruno.” Bruno is the owner. So he went and asked Bruno and of course Bruno denied it. Well two days later I was leaving and he and Bruno were still in the office. I said something along the lines of “see ya tomorrow” and Bruno chimes in “Ok, see you tomorrow Dr. Love.”

Thus, I have actually been called Dr. Love.

[Update]

Late addition to the list: Fludwick

Well, not really. However, in some cases, people do think I’m a bit arrogant! I don’t really think so myself. However, through various means (i.e. The Robert Zone being everywhere) I’ve become a bit more aware that some people do think I’m a little full of myself. A bit arrogant. A bit too self-confident. Well here I am to dispel that myth!

You might find me sometimes posting on Twitter or Facebook something along the lines of “I’m the man.” Heck, you might even hear me say it in person. Usually, I’m saying this in jest. As a semi-joke. A lot of times I’m just talking about something I’ve done that may or may not have been relatively difficult. And as a joke, I’ll just add in as a quip “I’m the man.” Now, am I really the man for having solved some strange programming issue or having hung a picture on the wall perfectly level? No… Not really. The man would have done all of that in his sleep while saving millions of orphans from thousands of simultaneously-burning orphanages across the entire globe. Without breaking a sweat. Oh, and while performing a few marriage ceremonies too.

Anyway, while I am confident in myself and sometimes am proud of the things I’ve done, I don’t truly think that I’m the man or that I’m God’s gift to women (although that’s entirely possible). Really, I’m just overplaying my hand a bit to make a joke. But I guess what’s really lacking is my delivery. Perhaps if I injected a bit more sarcasm or something of that nature into my jokes then people would get them more.

Some might say I joke like this because I lack self confidence. That I’m overplaying my hand because I’m insecure… Again, perhaps that’s true. But the fact remains that I only make jokes like that if they’re relatively relevant. Alright, I admit, sometimes I’ll say I’m the man after having done some mundane thing, but still. I know I’m a good software engineer, so when I say I’m awesome because I did something, what I’m really saying is that it took some skill to do whatever I did and I am proud of having done it.

I suppose if you really, really knew me, like Laura does, then you’d know I was only joking. Alas, not everybody knows me as well as my wonderful wife does, thus I decided to blog about this to help dispel the myth of the man, the legend, the center of the Robert Zone… Me.

But really, am I the man? God’s gift to women? Does every straight woman and gay man want me? Heck, even lesbian women and straight men, perhaps? Who knows! I mean, I am pretty awesome. You know that Dos Equis guy? The most interesting man in the world? Yeah, I’m only lending him that title until he dies… Lol.

Ahh, the Muddy Buddy. Something I thought I was in decent shape for. But was I? Fuck no. Haha.

Prep

I got up at 6am this morning and got myself and my stuff ready to go. Headed out the door at 6:30. I had with me a full change of clothes, a towel, two bottles of water, my bicycle helmet I just bought yesterday and me. Drove off to Andy‘s place because we were driving together. He had the mountain bike, I had the truck. It works. Haha.

From Andy’s we drove down 215 and hopped off at Eastern to get a small breakfast at Denny’s. I had this new “Slamwich” which is basically their Grand Slam ingredients on a sandwich. It was pretty tasty. We hopped across the street to Chevron and Walgreen’s to fill up the bike’s tires with air and grab some AAA batteries for his helmet-mounted video camera. So cool.

In case you’re wondering, we were dressed in Steampunk attire… Just thought I ought to mention that…

Anyway, we arrived at the race and signed our waivers and got all of our numerical decals. Ran back over to the truck and got our outfits finalized and numbered up. We got back to the stage just in time for the final announcements of some details we needed. Once the announcements were over, we met up with Ginger who took my truck key and my wedding ring and Andy and I scurried off to make ourselves “as light as possible” for the journey, if you catch my drift.

The First Three Legs

Here’s where things got interesting. I thought he and I were in Wave 1 because the waves are ordered by gender and the combined age of the partners… However, we weren’t, we were in Wave 2. Sadly, I told Andy right before they were letting Wave 1 bicyclists go that we were in 1, so he took off with Wave 1 and I had to wait until the Wave 2 runners. I thought he would be way, way ahead of me when the first leg of the race ended and we made the bike swap.

I ran for most of the first leg, about 75% of it, and climbed over the climbing wall obstacle that was there. I looked for the bike in the bike drop area and… Not there. I stayed around the area for about 5-10 minutes, looking over the bikes a few times and asking a couple of the attendants what I should do. I actually thought that Andy was disqualified for leaving out a wave too early and I didn’t know about it. Just as I was about to talk to one of the coordinators, Andy showed up.

It turns out that Andy had technical difficulties with the bike and didn’t end up getting it ride-worthy until Wave 3 went out, so I had a head-start on him and didn’t even know it. So anyway…

The second leg was marked by a lot of damn uphill hiking with the bike. And a big, big puddle of water that I wasn’t expecting and couldn’t power through on the bike. The obstacle at the end of it was a balance beam, which was initially difficult for me to overcome because my legs were feeling a bit shot at this point. There was a lot more hiking to the race than I anticipated, so I wasn’t fully prepared. Grr.

In addition, the bike was having chain slippage issues. The chain kept slipping between the chosen gear and one below or above it, and it was making life riding it difficult. I ended up stopping trying to ride it uphill because it was damn-near impossible and required an enormous amount of physical exertion that way.

The third leg was me walking about 75% of the way. I just didn’t have any juice to really get it going until the last quarter of the leg when I jogged in the rest of the way. The obstacle at the end here was a crawl underneath some netting. I wandered off to find the bike, only to see Andy hadn’t leapfrogged me, so I waited and talked to some random guy.

Andy showed up and gave me the bike. Off I went…

The Last Two Legs

The beginning of the fourth leg was already a doozy. There was a big stretch of mud. I don’t mean watery mud here. This stuff was like wet clay. Very, very thick and gooey stuff. The further you got, the deeper and thicker it got. And to top it all off, the second half of this stretch actually did have a big puddle on top of all of the mud, so… Holy crap. About 75% of the way through the non-puddle stretch, I almost lost my balance. In attempting to keep it, my right foot kept sinking deeper and deeper, and once I steadied myself, my left sunk deep as well. I was very worried I was going to lose my shoes and have to ferret them back out. Thankfully, I yanked my right foot and got moving again.

The bike was monstrously difficult to maneuver through all of this. For a little bit of the non-puddle I carried it. Once I got to the puddle, I decided to just plow through the puddle. There was a bank on the right side that looked just like the non-puddle section I got through, but it was tougher to get over there initially and also didn’t seem like it was supposed to be part of the course. I picked up the bike and kept it on my chest and sloshed through the puddle section. It was quite fun, I had a good time making a mess and big splashes. I hadn’t gotten that muddy and dirty in years, it reminded me of when I was a kid. Loved it.

At the end of this stretch was a small hill that was giving people fits because they couldn’t get traction thanks to all of their mud, so I helped a couple people up and was off on my way.

Most of the beginning of the fourth leg was uphill with a few downhill and flat spots, so I actually got to use the bike a bit. I climbed up this massive hill to see a nice, long, downhill slope for about three or four tenths of a mile, so I was looking forward to coasting, using the brakes a bit and just gliding through to the fourth obstacle and the fifth and final leg.

Sadly, this didn’t get to happen. About a fifth of the way down this nice downhill slope, the back tire on the bike popped. Big, loud pop. After I got off and started walking it down the rest of the way, some people expressed dismay that it had happened to me. It happens. It sucked, but it happens. I eventually got to the obstacle, which was a cargo net on the side of an inflatable slide. Said slide was the way back down on the other side.

I started walking off on the fifth leg and figured I’d jog it most of the way, but stopped and headed back to the obstacle area so Andy and I could walk the remainder together. It was a good walk, we got to talk about random shit and see if we were going to be dead last in the race. This leg took awhile simply because we absolutely had to walk it the whole way.

We got to the end and then had to deal with the final mud pit. My God, what an interesting way to end an already muddy day. We had to crawl through a big massive mud pit that had small hills and obstacles that kept us low and in the pit. Once we got out, out entire fronts were just massively covered in this light grey mud. Most of our backs were too, and mud had gotten inside both my shirt and my vest. We looked like we’d slept in the mud.

The Aftermath

Our official race time is unknown because we were supposed to leave in Wave 2 and I didn’t know what value the timer had at that point. And since Andy didn’t leave until Wave 3, who really knows. The race started at 9am and we got in at 10:57am… So we took a few pictures and meandered over to the “shower,” which was really just a massive water pipe and about 30 hoses all spouting out some really damn cold water. And it was only mid-50s and overcast for the race, so it wasn’t entirely pleasant, getting the mud off of us. We collected Andy’s bike and headed back to the truck.

We had Ginger and one of Andy’s friends there with us, and they helped us change, mostly by helping us get our shoes off and holding up towels so we could be modest. The interior of my truck doesn’t have much mud in it at all, but the bed does. It actually looks like it’s been used as a truck, haha!

I dropped Andy off at home and drove home myself. Took a nice, long, long shower, got some pho with Laura and read a chapter for my economics class. And here I am, writing this insanely long post that almost reached 1600 words. Maybe some photos in the future, or perhaps Andy will post some on his blog soon.

It’s been said before that I don’t venture outside my comfort zone much, and that’s probably true. I tend to not initiate hanging out with friends, I often let them do so. I don’t just jump at the chance for new experiences that often…

So here I was, sitting at home poking around Facebook and talking to Laura and she started telling me I should do this Muddy Buddy thing with F. Andrew Taylor. I had actually just seen Andy post something on Facebook, looking for someone to run this thing with him, and Laura started talking to me about it, saying I should volunteer to do it with him because he really wanted to do it.

So I did a quick bit of research on what the Muddy Buddy is. It’s a 6-mile course where you trade off every other mile who is riding a bike and who is hoofing it on foot. Every mile there’s an obstacle that the two members must clear before swapping the bike. And at the end is a big mud pit the two have to slosh through.

I sat for a moment and thought “I dunno, do I really want to? Does it sound like fun? It sounds like… Wait, wait a minute. What the fuck. I never do anything different or out-of-character or interesting. I’m in.” Thus, I informed Andy he had his muddy buddy and that I would join him on this trek.

This spur-of-the-moment decision now has me making damn sure I get to the gym this week. Not that I haven’t been hitting up the gym, but if I’ve got things or errands to do right after work on Mondays or Fridays, I don’t make the gym. And I was marginally sick last week, so I didn’t work out after classes, either. So I’m making sure I get to the gym and do a combination of walking/running machines and the bike machines.

On a side note, I’ve also begun my ab exercises. I need them, badly. My gut sucks.

Anyway, so since then I’ve been also looking into just what I’m going to have to wear for the event, and it seems a lot of people dress up in interesting (to say the least) duds for the race. I’m not sure Andy and I are going that far, but I do want to make sure I don’t ruin any of my good stuff and that I’ll be appropriately dressed for the weather. I don’t want to be mega-freezing or dying of heat exhaustion either.

The race is out at Lake Las Vegas, and Weather.com lists the expected high at 57, so I… have no idea what to wear yet. Probably a short sleeve shirt and pants. Maybe I’ll wrap a longer-sleeve shirt around a bar on the bike or something, who knows. The course is here.

In final prep before the race, I plan on taking my bike at home out for a bit and getting used to riding again, on Saturday. Then the race is early Sunday morning, like 9am. Should be fun.