How to look like a giant nerd while running a 5K

Click to make the giant nerdiness more giant.

I need to make this an ongoing "how-to" series. I really excel at looking like a giant nerd in various situations.

Tomorrow morning I'll be running the Pumpkin Push 5K at Seward Park and trying to break 30 minutes. You can find out what happens here. The suspense!

Considering that my food intake today included pizza, Halloween cupcakes, more Reese's peanut butter cups than I care to divulge and one giant Santa mug (you heard me) full of beer from the office kegerator (YOU HEARD ME), it'll be a miracle if I break 30.

No matter what, I'll have a heck of a time. Plus, my very favorite holiday is this weekend! It just doesn't get better than this.

Which reminds me... How to look like a giant nerd on Halloween (2009 style):

How to look like a giant nerd in your high school yearbook

I was 17 in 2004 and could not vote in the November election, so I decided instead to create this super awesome t-shirt — using red Sharpie and Scotch tape, thank you — to peer-pressure my 18-year-old classmates into voting. Preferably not for George W. Bush, but I didn't state that on the shirt.

I guess I should have. Oops!

This is a friendly reminder to all of you to VOTE this week! You have until Tuesday, November 2, to drop your ballot in the mail in Washington state. If you're reading this in another state, you should do your voting thing, too — whatever you need to do. Then go do a keg stand, because the other kids are doing that, too!

Ahh, I miss college.

Speaking of silly, regrettable things... it's not a great idea for a Senatorial candidate to shove fliers under the windshield wipers of all the cars in the Park & Ride, ANDY HILL, because when it rains, as it often does IN SEATTLE, you look like a huge jerk when people have to spend three minutes peeling your soggy face off of their windshields when all they want to do is go home, heat up a Hot Pocket and watch Dancing with the Stars.

I didn't vote for you anyway, dude.

So that's all I have to say right now. Vote. I'm not gonna say VOTE OR DIE, because, wtf? Is that a threat? Vote or don't vote. But it'd be pretty cool if you did vote.

As my super-cool high school friend Carl, who now works for Congress, reminded us everyday citizens on Facebook, "Decisions are made by those who show up."

(That quite possibly came from The West Wing. Amazing.)

**Random memory update: I don't recall a whole lot from 1996, but I do remember quite vividly the mock presidential election we had in elementary school. My family had just moved from Seattle to northern Indiana; I was in 4th grade. I voted for Bill Clinton. Nearly everyone else voted for Bob Dole (this was Indiana, remember). Even then, at 9 years old, I remember being like, "Bob Dole? Really, guys?" I just love voting.

The photos!

If I do say so myself, the coolest photo from the hike on Saturday is this one of Aaron climbing a giant tree stump that looked like a piece of broccoli (click photo for larger view):

I'm sure he's happy that he beat out trees, a waterfall and random mossy things for best photo. America's Next Top Model status! (So many hours of my life dedicated to that show, my God.)

We used his Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens (I have no clue what I just wrote) for these shots, and he also did some magic tricks with Lightroom, I believe.

I was obsessed with trees that sported ugly protrusions. Again, ANTM-style, I was all, "Give me pretty, but make it ugly. I said ugly-pretty!"

I also liked this tree that looked like a claw. It reminded me of the Fremont troll's claw-like hands. Check it.

And here's a leaf. A leaf on a log.

"This will be a good one for the blog," said Aaron:

Please note that I'm rocking a Jansport, thank you. And I'm glad the camera is hiding my face, since I found myself making all kinds of crazy faces while taking photos. I believe the crazier your face is while shooting, the better the photo. Truth.

This one might be straight out of the camera. Aaron might have taken this one, too. This is the flowy water look I was trying to learn about.

Aaron took this one. This little guy grew out of the top of a tree stump. So cute!

This one reminds me of the Henry David Thoreau quote I keep in the right margin of this blog, which I shortened a bit, but says: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I hadn't actually been to the woods in a while until Saturday. Despite its name, Woodinville doesn't exactly count. It was peaceful and fun, and as much as I enjoyed seeing the sights through an awesome lense, I liked seeing it all in real life even more.

Some things just can't be captured in a photo. I remember I was trying to take a good picture of something interesting and finally just stepped back and said, "Maybe I'll just enjoy it in real life for a sec." Of course, I can't remember now what I was looking at, but I enjoyed it at the time, and that counts just as much as a cool photo, I think.

I had Aaron take this last photo because I knew I'd never remember where we were. This was a nice, easy and very pretty hike, and a great place for me to start learning about photography from a very patient teacher.

I highly recommend that you go to the woods sometime.

Awesome/exhausting weekend

It started with a hike.

My friend Aaron, a knowledgeable and talented photographer, was cool enough to go on a hike with me Saturday and show me how to use his ridiculously nice Canon camera. Most of our conversations went like this:

"So, if I want to make the water look flowy, the number needs to be high so that the shutter speed is... slow?"

Typing that now, I have no idea if that's right. He taught me about ISO and aperture and other stuff and my brain just does not grasp it all very easily. But, I know way more now than I did before (I think??) and I'll only learn more with time, reading and practice.

Best of all, there was a super sweet waterfall at the end of the hiking trail, which Aaron swore he did not know was there, but it made for some cool pictures.

This photo was taken with my phone. There's Aaron playing a fun game with his camera practically in the water. He's much more adventurous/brave than I am!

I'll post some actual pictures I took when I get them and we'll see if they're any good.

Today was the Dawg Dash 5K at my alma mater, the University of Washington. The race started and ended in Husky Stadium, which was also where I started (Dawg Days orientation) and ended (graduation) my college career. I'm sure that's symbolic somehow.

You can read about my super awesome 5K playlist (played on my gangster iPod mini, which worked wonderfully), the rain magically clearing up for the race and my new personal best 5K time here.

Yes, that's a plug for my new little running blog. I figured I wouldn't bore you with a bunch of running stuff here. I'm too busy boring you with other stuff!

Side note: How cute is my mom?

Speaking of other stuff... I've been slacking on my push-ups. But, as so often happens at my house, a random push-up challenge commenced on Saturday and some personal-best records were set. My mom did four — she had never done even one before. I did 10 — the first seven pretty easily, then numbers eight through ten with great, head-bursting effort. Aaron did 50, but he's a guy, so whatever.

Also, I'm doing another 5K next weekend. Also, I really need to construct my lobster costume for Halloween (meant to start today, took an epic nap instead). It should be a good week leading up to another fun weekend!

Side-side note: Congrats to my dad on his engagement yesterday! I don't write a lot about my dad here, but we're very close and I'm so happy he's found a wonderful woman who loves him [almost] as much as I do. We don't always agree on everything, but he's the most important man in my life.

He's always in the front row of every event I participate in, from my pathetic attempts at junior high track meets and random award ceremonies to high school and college graduations. He's right there, filming everything and snapping photos like it's the Olympics. He's listened, given advice and cried with me over multiple heartaches and heartbreaks. He never hangs up the phone without saying, "I love you." And I'd need all the fingers and toes of an entire army to count the number of times he's said the words, "I'm proud of you, Dev."

I love you, and I'm proud of you, Dad.