I still enjoy torturing my body a bit.

Here are a few pics from my recent triathlon. These were taken at race #2 from the Central Florida Triathlon Series on July 20.

Race #3 is coming up next month on August 17, and I hope to take off about 4 minutes from my time, which would also put me in the running for first in my age group.

I am hoping to be able to trim one minute from each event and hopefully get my transitions down to about 45-60 seconds a piece. I am way to slow in the transitions and need some work on getting through them.

My official results were:
SWIM (.25 mile): 7:25
SWIM TO BIKE TRANSITION: 2:06
BIKE (8 miles): 24:27
BIKE TO RUN TRANSITION: 1:06
RUN (3.1 miles): 25:49
FINISH: 1:00:51

Overall I am happy with my time, but I am competitive and always want to improve.

Sure, most people think that blogging, or more specifically bloggers in general are really social people, but I tend to think that at least for some it proves to be quite the opposite. Of course a lot of this depends on whether you are talking about being social online or in the real world.

I am pretty social online, I chat throughout the day with other bloggers over Skype and Google Talk, and send more than my fair share of emails, but at times I can go days without dealing with a real person outside of my family.

While there are different styles of blogging, I will focus on what I know and what I do, tech blogging. Few will argue that its a hard field to get into, and a very competitive field once you are in.

This makes it difficult to break away from the computer, there is always that new idea that pops into your head for a post, or that new breaking topic that you want, or just feel the need to cover.

But that is the issue, there will always be that one more. Of course, when you are putting your all into succeeding its hard to make a break and say enough is enough, at least for a while.

Hence the reason I just finished writing 3 posts, and editing 3 others and am still working on this one at 10:33 on a Friday evening.

This is something I obviously still need to work on, knowing when enough is enough.

I have come to realize that this is not healthy, don’t get me wrong, I am healthy physically, but need to make an effort to break away to stay healthy mentally. Long story short, its time to take a break.

Strangely enough this post began as a recap of a recent local blogger meetup and my upcoming conference plans, that said I am going offline for a while.

Today was the first day that the new .me domains were available for sale, and things did not go as smoothly as many would have hoped. For those who may have missed it, of course if you were around Twitter at all today then I am sure you have already seen the frustration.

Many of the issues seem to have come from those attempting to register their domains with GoDaddy, but I cannot say that was the only registrar with issues. I would chalk that up to most of the people I am friends with or follow online just prefer to use them.

The .me domains were a little on the high side at $19.99 per year with a two-year minimum, but we did get some sort of discount because my order only came to $35.98 total. Of course already having the .com, .us and .tv version of my name I thought I should go ahead with the .me also. Plus I am planning to consolidate my emails and the .me will make for a cool address, I think.

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Honesty disclaimer: I think that was the most difficult post that I have written to date, and it really has me struggling with what is right and wrong. It also has me worried what may happen should I push this dream to far.

I have dreamed, worked and achieved my goal. I am now living 100% off income from blogging. Well that in addition to my wife’s income, but my income from blogging, although it could always be higher, is at the goal point that I set for myself and it is where it was when I left my 9-5 job two years back.

I will say that my income is far from a six-figure blogger, but it’s enough to give me freedom from a 9-5 office job, along with some flexibility.

Based on that I should be happy, hell I should be thrilled, but I am having seconds thoughts as to the path that I have chosen, and sometimes dream of just how easy I had it when I had a real/office job. I must also say that I am not ready to go back to that path, not yet anyway.

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Not much to really write about, I find these office tours are much better if done with video. This particular video was shot using a Flip video, so I apologize in advance for any lack of quality. If you have any questions or comments about my setup, post away below. In the meantime I hope you enjoy seeing where I spend majority of my day, and sometimes nights.

You can also check out the full version of the above image on my Flickr photostream.

While the cost is minimal, the protection that is offered is, well, priceless. In addition they also offer a lifetime warranty.

I have been using the invisibleSHIELD to protect my current iPhone display for a long time now, and have used them in the past on various iPod’s as well. They are pretty simple to apply, and with just a little time, they can be applied nicely, and without any bubbles.

By far this is my favorite way to protect the displays on my devices.

So the time has come once again for another purchase, well actually two. July 11 is coming near and I want to have the invisibleSHIELD ready for the morning I get my phone so I can apply it as soon as it comes out of the box. The full coverage shield for the iPhone 3G is $24.95 with a front only for $14.95 and a bad only for $18.95. I can understand why you would want to protect the front only, but the back only sounds a little strange to me. It is nice though to at least have the option.

But perhaps, best of all if you pre-order the invisibleSHIELD for the iPhone 3G then you will save 20%.

I have also recently purchased a Zune 80 and although the screen is pretty scratch resistant, I figure I may as well get some extra protection. Just in case. For the Zune 80 the front only screen is $11.95 and the full coverage option is $24.95.

Total price for me, $21.52 with a savings of $5.38. Well worth not having to worry about scratches.

I did go with the free shipping though, so I will have to keep my fingers crossed and hope it arrives in time. But it looks like I waited a little to late. I could have paid extra for quicker shipping, but I am feeling cheap.

I have recently purchased a Microsoft Zune and since then have really enjoyed using it. It has also taught me something very important, something that should have been obvious, yet is never bothered me before.

DRM is bad and possibly even evil.

I currently have (and use) an iPhone and iPod Shuffle on a regular basis, and I have used and purchased music from iTunes since it first launched, I was also always more than happy and content using it and did not care about the included DRM, because I am a Mac user, and it was never an issue. I had been an Mac user before iTunes and its likely that I will continue to be a Mac user long into the future. Of course I also never thought I would buy (and enjoy a Zune) so switching back to a PC at some time is a possibility.

However, moving back to the DRM, it never seemed to matter or bother me because I had always just assumed that I would never use a portable player besides an iPod.

But now I have the Zune and the Zune Card, which I have downloaded quite a bit of music for and use my Zune Card daily when listening to music while I work and also use the Zune in my car. However I still want to purchase some music because my wife still uses her iPod and I still use an iPod Shuffle to run with and I still also use my iPhone as a media/music player.

This means DRM or the lack of DRM is now very important to me. I do not want to be able to share it with everyone, but just so I can actually use it, (in a manner that I consider fair-use) on both my Apple product and my Zune.

Enter the Amazon MP3 store…

I first used Amazon MP3 yesterday, they have a nice download tool for the Mac as well as Windows and Linux. It enables one-click album purchases and even adds them to iTunes automatically, assuming you are on a Mac or Windows machine. Which solves my issue, I still can use these tracks with iTunes and my Apple products and now I can also drag the MP3’s to a CD or portable drive and move them over to my PC for use with my Zune.

The DRM-free tracks are fairly priced and they come in MP3 format at 256kbps. I already had an Amazon account for book purchases which means that the MP3 purchases are tied to the same account. So the initial download was quick and easy. The downloads are also fast.

Its safe to say that at this time my future music purchases will be via the Amazon MP3 store, its also safe to say that I will also continue to use (and enjoy) my Zune as well as iPod Shuffle and iPhone. If you have not already I would highly suggest giving the Amazon MP3 store a try.

[Amazon MP3 Store]

Trent Reznor has once again offered up some free music, this time its a five track sampler for their upcoming “Lights In The Sky - Over North America 2008 Tour.”

The little sample, as per the post on NIN, was to allow the fans to get familiar with his new band lineup, which includes Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini, Josh Freese and Justin Meldal-Johnson.

I had been disappointed that they still have no Tampa (or Florida for that matter) date listed, but after reading the latest statement from Trent, it makes me wish even more that they will still add one. He is claiming that this new band is “unquestionably the strongest lineup I’ve EVER had.” Having been fortunate to see them a few times in the past, this just makes me want to get a ticket even more.

Oh well, enjoy the free MP3’s, I know I will.

[NIN]

Well I sat down today and made my commitments to a handful of endurance events for the remainder of the year. I have four confirmed and still have some hope to get a fifth in.

I am now signed up for and committed to the Central Florida Triathlon Series, which is a three race event. They take place over the summer, each about a month apart, the first event is just a few weeks away on June 22, then July 20 and finally August 17 and each consist of a .25 mile swim, 8 mile bike and 3 mile run. If you are from the Florida area and into triathlons I am sure you have heard just how nice it is to race in Clermont. I am a little nervous, I have done numerous triathlons in the past ranging from a short sprint distance all the way up to Ironman distance events, however I had strayed away from triathlons in favor of running events and this will be my first in a while. It should be a great series though.

Then after these triathlon events are wrapped up I am also signed up and committed to the John Holmes 50k (about 31 mile) trail run, that is done here where I live in Brooksville and takes place on October 11. I had a really good event the year before, (that is where the above pic was taken, that was about the half way mark), then last year had a horrible day and ended up pulling myself from the race due to severe dehyration at about the 29.5 mile mark. Sadly I could not even stand long enough without getting dizzy to even walk (or crawl) the remaining 1.5 miles. So this year I have something to prove.

Otherwise I have once again signed up for the NYC Marathon lottery with hopes of getting lucky. Should I get picked that should prove to be an interesting event as it takes place on November 2, just a few short weeks after my 50k trail run. Oh well, it will make for a good mental test.

Moving into next year, I have hopes to move into an early season Half Ironman sometime around May, where they typically have an event in Orlando Florida, but will have to see how the training goes before I commit to that. I am also hoping to get another full Ironman and a full 50 mile trail run under my belt within the next 1-2 years.

A while back Darren over at ProBlogger had asked his readers that purchased his book to take a photo with it, and sadly its taken me way longer than it should have to even take the picture. Based on that you can imagine I have yet to start reading it either. I am kind of bummed about that but it comes with good reason. I am in the process of finishing up some work contracts and have recently picked up some additional blogging opportunities. If all goes well I expect to be able to blog near 100% in the not to distant future!

While I am VERY far from making the 6 figures that Darren’s book covers, I still feel some accomplishment of being able to do what many dream of doing.

So, with that, I promise I will read the book soon, and also promise to post a review once completed.

[ProBlogger.net]