Robert J. Faulkner

So, I’m really excited about an opportunity that was passed my way this week. A friend of mine is a member of the Plainfield Rotary club (Rotary International?). One of the things they do is give a college scholarship to a high school student from each of the high schools in their area. This, obviously, requires fund-raising events. One of the events they have coming up will be a silent auction at which I will have a photograph up for auction!

I am, obviously, very excited for this opportunity not only because it’s for a great cause but also because I’m very proud of this particular photograph and I’d love to see how it is received by the general public. So, I am having the photo framed this week and will have the opportunity to get my name out there as a photographer for the first time. How cool is that?!

It’s almost the first of the year and I need to get my butt in gear for a few reasons. First, I need to lose some weight. Plain and simple. But the more motivating reasons are that I agreed to take on some interesting and difficult events this year, and if I’m going to be prepared to complete said events, I need to start training. Hard.

So, the first event on the calendar is the Tough Mudder competition in West Dover, VT on May 7, 2011. This is going to be a beast of a competition and I’ll be happy to finish. If it goes well in Vermont, I’ll probably enter the event in Wisconsin at the end of July. We’ll see if my military schedule will allow for that.

The next event is going to be an Olympic length triathlon. My good friend Damion and I decided we want to accomplish this kind of event in 2011. We still need to pick one out, but I’m confident we’ll get it done at some point in the year.

The third event I’m hoping to complete is the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa or RAGBRAI. I can’t take loads of time off work to do another cross-country trip but I can probably manage a week and this event would be a great opportunity to ride in an organized cycling event. Again, participation in this event will be only if my military schedule allows the time.

So, what am I going to do to train? Well, first off, lots and lots of cardiovascular endurance training. I’ll be running, riding and swimming to get my heart and lungs into shape. Add to that lots of core body work and legs to be prepared for the running in Tough Mudder and the triathlon and all the cycling in the triathlon and RAGBRAI.

So that’s what I have going on. I’m building some binders to track my training and fitness and I’ll be kicking it all off next week. Anyone want to join me?

Twice this week I started writing a blog post and have gotten sidetracked before I wrote anything worth posting. The third time is the charm, right?

I haven’t written anything here since I returned from my cycling trip this summer and I want to get some use out of this website, so I’m going to try to create some reasons to write. We all know I’m a techie guy and I have some expensive hobbies. So I’m going to write about what I know. I’ll be creating 3 new categories for my blog. The first category will be ‘Photography.’ I’ve been asked to recommend cameras to a number of people lately so I’m going to start writing about cameras and photography here. That way I can refer them to my website rather than typing out lengthy emails. Plus, I might drive in some regular traffic and new readers.

The second category is going to be ‘Windows to Mac,’ which I expect will change over at some point to just a category on ‘Mac.’ I have had my 15″ MacBook Pro for a full week now and I think it will be interesting to create a little diary here of the roadbumps I encounter as I stop using a Windows-based PC and become a Mac user.

The third category will be a little more loosely defined but will probably be called something like ‘Coffee, Tea and other addictions.’ As I develop opinions and preferences in my choice of beverages, foods, and other vices, I’ll write about them. Expect this category to wander a bit and maybe change names a few times.

As I’ve visited my own website this week I’ve been going through the unapproved comments to my blog posts and I’ve made a decision. Anyone I don’t know, who attempts to link to another website or otherwise advertise a product or service in a comment, will be immediately marked as spam and not published. It was a pretty easy decision to come to. On the other hand, if I know you, and you’d like to link to your own blog or website in my comments, please do. I will gladly help you generate traffic to your site by linking to it from here as long as it’s appropriate.

So, I’m blogging again. We’ll see how long it lasts and how consistent I am.

As always, thanks for reading.

Rob