l33tsp34k. Or “Elite Speak” as the i-wish-i-was-a-hacker-but- i-don’t-know-anything-about-programming- or-server-protocols-so-instead-i-spend-a-LOT-of-time-in-chatrooms- trying-to-convince-newbies-that-i’m- elite-because-i’ve-got-nothing-better-to-do type people like to call it. You know, dorks. Now before i get lambasted, let me point out that just about anyone that is reasonably proficient with computers knows how to sp34k (3)l33t - it’s just goes with the territory. But most of us read it more than we write it because frankly we don’t have the time to use the shift key that much. It’s all a matter of priorities: are you finishing up that programming project that is due tommorrow morning? rallying a DOS attack against this or that manifistation of “the man”? or are you staring at your keyboard trying to come up with another cute way to represent a letter poorly that everyone else has somehow missed? -shrug-

Anyway, with that introduction i can now tell you about a funny link and a useful utility for those of you wanting to enter the mysterous world of l33tsp34k. Christian Hacker.org has created a new translation of the bible: The New Hacker Version (NHV). Complete with several levels of leet speak. If you follow a link you can translate any text you want into the various levels leet speak (and ghetto too). The following is my title in higher levels. 3nj0y.

MED: $c077′$ $0@pb0x: 7#3 W0rld @cc0rd!ng 70 $c077
HIGH: $ <077'$ $0@|> b0X: 7|-|3 \^/0r|_|) @ <<0r|)1|\|9 70 $<077
EXTREME: $????'? $?@???> <: ?|-|3 ????? @?????1?? ?? $????

• Christian Hacker Bible Translation

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A nice video capturing the Bay Area Seqway Polo Team in action. Set to music to heighten the excitement.

• Seqway Polo

Nasa’s probe Cassini entered orbit around Saturn and began sending back disturbing pictures about what the Empire is doing with their bloated construction budget. Oh, I mean it sent back some pics of the moon Mimas

Death Star Moon

Something to think about:

Today, I was back in the saddle of the bike I know and love. It did take a bit of adjustment since my bike is better -er- different than the MT bikes i used in Guatemala. For instance, I almost lost it when i slammed on the brakes and discovered significantly more gripping power than I had become accustomed to during the last week.

My ride was progressing nicely, I was easily staying at 18-19 mph during the straight-a-ways and keeping my average speed above 17 mph which would give me a time of under 32 minutes. Unfortunately, it had rained and cutting a corner to avoid a jogger onto a bridge caused me to invent the wooden slip’n slide. The wreck nicely bruised my right hip and ripped my rear derailer completely off my bike. The fun part was then carrying my bike back the mile and a half to where I had parked. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get my bike fixed.

6 Mile Bike Time - 32:00 pace

UPDATE: The bike shop had to order parts so I won’t get my bike back until Aug 2nd.

A quick link to find out how old you are - in case you forgot. And it tells you how old you were when certain events occurred. Sure to cure boredom for up to 2 minutes. :D

• I’m how old?

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I’m back! Trying to take advantage of the “blood-packing” that naturally takes place at higher altitudes, I went for a 2 mile run today. It definitely took longer for my breath to get heavy and I recovered much quicker than previously, but I was hoping for even more progress. Perhaps the long journey back caused some back sliding.

2 Mile Run Time - 18:34

Got internet again. the shift key on this thing sucks so i’ve stopped using it. yesterday we kiyaked or however you spell that. And that was pretty much it so i went for a 25 min run in the afternoon. the villagers got a kick out of the crazy gringo running down the dirt road. today we did a half day hike up “golden hill”. it was steep with really loose dirt so it was interesting. then we hike around the city as a tour — oh yes and we got to ride in the back of a toyota pickup which is apparently a taxi down here.

Hello all from Guatemala. That’s right I’m training for a sprint triathlon in another country…. yes I’m crazy and so is this keyboard that i’m typing this out on. Some of the keys are just missing. Anyway, we did 30 km of hard MT bike riding today. I only fell once after trying to replicate a jump over a creek that Kevin pulled off and made look sooo awesome!

If i am noticably absent for the next week it’s because I’m out of country, but don’t worry soon I’ll be back and stronger than ever. :D

I suffered several setbacks on my training ride today including a two foot diameter tree across the trail, a set of RR tracks that threw me out into the road (luckily I missed the oncoming traffic), and a construction project that cut off the end of my route. Thoroughly ticked off about how this hindered my pace, I decided to begin my multi-event training and ran two miles today as well.

9 Mile Bike Time - 35:15 10-15 min later 1 Mile Run Times - 9:29 & 9:37