I've decided to focus a little on freelance consulting.  I'm mostly looking for small to medium projects that fall in the realm of either web design or process automation, such as with Microsoft Excel.

One area where I would like to improve my personal skills is Adobe Flash.  I want to look into doing more extensive design work with Flash-based pages but I also want to get more familiar with vector graphics.

My goal is to have a solid business plan and documented marketing concepts by the end of May 2010.

As I sit here redesigning davidcarr.org, it dawns on me that I kind of wish I had captured a screen shot of each previous generation of the site.  It would be neat to see the transition/improvement across time.

I have all the backups (I think) from the past 12 years.. I guess I could pull those out, but I guess I'm not that disappointed.

I've been working to put together a new website for The Katie Caples Foundation to advertise their charity cycling event, The Katie Ride for Life.  The event is held each April in beautiful Amelia Island and I rode it last year for the first.  It's a beautiful course and goes toward a wonderful cause.

The site is located at: http://katierideforlife.org

Their new website allows visitors to register for the event, review information about safety and training, or learn about the Foundation itself.  I have some ideas for sprucing the site up a bit more, but those will have to wait until after this year's event when the site can stand a day or two of partial downtime.

Introduction

I chose Beach2Battleship in Wilmington, NC as the venue for my first Iron distance triathlon based on a number of factors. First, the location is much less likely to experience hot weather on race day, as opposed to Ironman Florida, which is on the same date. The course is known to be more or less flat and the swim takes place in the a channel of the Intracoastal Waterway where the tide is usually coming in at the start of swim, so swim times are generally a little shorter. Since swimming is my weakest discipline, I figured that this was probably the best event for me for a fall race. Factor in that my training essentially fell apart during the summer (after being sent twice to Hungary on business) and a course with no real hills or heat, combined with a bit of a current on the swim, and I had the perfect venue for my first Ironman triathlon.

On October 3 and 4, I will be cycling more than 170 miles to raise money to fight Multiple Sclerosis. Formally called the MS-150 Ride, this event starts in Jacksonville and takes cyclists down to Daytona, where they stay overnight before heading back the following day.

This is my first time doing the event as I just started cycling in November 2008. It is one of the main training rides for my upcoming Ironman event a month later. My goal is to cycle down to Daytona and run five miles before joining the festivities that will be ongoing at the time. I hope to finish the run without vomiting, hitchiking, or dying.

The BikeMS event is first and foremost a fundriasing effort. It raises money to fund research to cure MS and my personal goal is to raise $1000 by September 26. I can't do this alone — I need your help. To donate, please visit http://bikems.davidcarr.org

I am riding with my friend and co-worker, Chris, who has participated in this ride for many years. He is a close friend (one of the groomsmen in my wedding) and an avid cyclist. He was also my boss for several years. He and I have been riding together to train for this event for a couple of months now.

I believe in 'racing with a purpose' and while this isn't technically a race, I am riding in memory of my grandmother who died when I was six. She had suffered with MS for several years and had lost part of the use of her arm. I am also riding in honor of a friend from high school, Diana.

Please take a moment to donate to this very worthy cause and check back here after the event for pictures and an update.

I chose the Gulf Coast Triathlon as my first half-Ironman event, mostly because several friends from my triathlon club were also doing it. The event is held in Panama City Beach, Florida near Pensacola. I'm from Florida, so I'm not sure why I didn't think about the fact that this is a race in a Florida beach community in May. Maybe that wasn't the smartest of ideas for someone who dislikes racing in the heat, but by the time I thought through this, I had already paid the race entry and raceday was quickly approaching.

Yesterday was the 2009 Katie Ride for Life, a cycling event for novices to serious riders to participate and raise funds to increase awareness of the importance of organ and tissue donation and encourage Floridians to make a positive decision about donation.

It offers several courses, ranging from 31-miles (50 kilometer) to 100 miles. I participated in the 100-kilometer (62 miles) event and had a wonderful time, while raising money for a very important cause. Overall, there were 550 riders registered for the event, which started in Amelia Island, just north of Jacksonville. The course was fantastic, with most of it taking us along roads covered with tree canopy and past the coast in Fernandina Beach. This year the event also added 5- and 10-kilometer walks for folks who do not cycle.

It was a beautiful day for a ride, starting out at about 60° and staying sunny all day. There was only supposed to be a slight breeze (4-6 mph) during the time I would be riding, though the wind speed by about 10:30 or 11:00 was closer to 12 mph, which makes for a bit of a challenge when riding into the wind along the coastline. For about 30-40 minutes, it wasn't much fun, but once we got a little bit inland and started riding through Amelia Island Plantation, it was all worth it.

I ended up on a team that a friend of mine rides on each year, called Team Liver Families. A couple members of my triathlon club rode with us as well. Most of us did the 62-mile course, though my triathlon friends went on to finish the 100-miler.

Jennifer and I ran the Gate River Run this year, for our third time. We had a great time, both running very good times and enjoying the post-race hours with friends. Jennifer set a new personal record this year of 1:53, whereas I ran about the same time as I did in 2008.

There was a little more going on this year and we met up with groups of friends from both Team In Training and my triathlon club. We managed to get most of the members of the Hammerhead Triathlon Club together for a group picture before the race:

The weather this year was the best of all the years we've run, especially in comparison with the 40 mph wind gusts last year. This year was cloudy the entire time which kept the temperatures around 60° and comfortable.

There were a few problems with water stops not being able to keep up with filling the cups (I grabbed my own water at a couple of them) but none of them appeared to actually run out of water.

We hung out afterward for an hour and a half or so and then headed home to take a well-deserved nap.

The third and final stop of the Waldo Triathlon series was March 8 at 9:30AM. This was intended to be my second triathlon, having done the sprint distance in the second stop and now the Olympic (also called international or intermediate) distance for the third stop.

Since I was forced to drop from the second stop last month, this will actually be my first time putting all three sports together into one triathlon event.

Pre-race

We left Jacksonville at 6:00AM to head down to Waldo, which is just north east of Gainesville. Packet pick-up started at 7:00 and it didn't really seem to make sense to stand around for two and a half hours, so we aimed for arrival at 7:30 or shortly thereafter.

Packet pick-up (if you didn't attend the previous afternoon) is on-site near the transition area. The race staff were unable to locate my packet, so they created a couple of makeshift numbers (one for bike, one bib) for me and off I went.

I got a good spot in the transition area (always prefer to be on the last rack off the aisle in the closest row to the bike exit) and set up my gear. I checked the air in my tires and was finished by about 8:15 or so. Since the race didn't start until 9:00, this gave me some time to stand around and relax with my wife and our friend, Tiffany, before donning my wetsuit and heading to the start area.

So, today was my first triathlon. It was a sprint distance event (swim 750m, cycle 20km or 12.4 mi, and run 5k or 3.1 mi) and the idea was to make whatever novice mistakes I was going to make during this event. I'm doing an Olympic distance event (twice the distance of a sprint) next month, which is my chance to apply all the lessons I learned from today.

Pre-race

It would be easier to simply tell you what went RIGHT today. For starters, I forgot my USAT membership card, which means I had to buy a one-day membership for $10. I was able to email my receipt to the race director, so that worked out OK.

Then I realized I had picked up the wrong pair of cycling shoes. I brought the size 47s with no cleats, rather than the size 48s I replaced them with and on which I mounted the cleats that clip into my pedals. After some deliberation, I decided to just do the bike portion in my running shoes and hope I didn't slip off the pedals too much. I can tell you after today that this is harder than one would expect. It takes a lot more effort to push the pedals when you're used to pushing/pulling. Lesson 1: Check equipment on more time before leaving the house.. and move the old shoes where they can't end up in the mix again.