My Kryptonite

This seems kind of strange to say since I'm not Superman and I certainly don't have any super powers (though that would be cool). Truth is I'm a below average runner who struggles with running as much as everyone else. A more appropriate title would be "What makes a slow guy go slower?"

The answer, heat and humidity. I run year round in Michigan and we get a wide range of weather. I've run in wind, rain, sleet, blizzards, and sub zero weather. (The last one was cool because by the time I finished my eyelashes were starting to freeze together.) But I would rather run in any of those instead of heat.

There is something about the heat that totally drains me. I know some people love the heat, which doesn't make sense, but most people feel the same way I do. I'm told it is good to practice in heat so I can become used it, but I still avoid heat as much as possible.

One thing I have learned the past couple weeks when dealing with the heat is I need to slow down my goal pace. Running in heat is much more difficult than cooler temps and is a bigger strain on your body. So I'm learning to slow down for 2 reasons.

1) If you hit your goal pace in the heat, especially on longer runs, it will take your body longer to recover. This could really wipe you out for the next couple weeks causing your runs during this time to be slower.

2) Not reaching my goal pace is very defeating for me. Hitting my goal pace is invigorating and energizes me for my next run. While I know I won't hit my goal pace every time when I repeatedly miss my pace it is very discouraging. Running is very much a mental sport and requires a belief in yourself. When I miss my pace doubts start creeping in.

I realized when the heat/humidity is high I need to adjust my goal pace. There isn't a scientific number, it's just a guess. You have you know your body and make adjustments that seem to fit you best.

For example. Thursday I had a 6 mile run, 2 miles at 9:35 pace, 3 miles at 8:00 pace, 1 mile at 9:35. When I walked outside I immediately knew it would be tough. The air was thick and it didn't take long for breathing to become difficult. The first 2 miles were fine. But when I started the 8:00 minute pace (the first 1/2 mile uphill) I quickly ran out of steam. I had to walk several times and I ended up doing those 3 miles at a 9:07 pace. If I had reduced my goal pace to 8:25-8:30 I think I could have made it without walking and still hit my adjusted goal pace. The effort would have been about equal to the 8:00 pace under normal conditions.

When it's hot don't be too hard on yourself if you are having trouble. Just do your best and dream of cooler days.

No Shame in Walking

I remember the day when I ran 2 miles for the first time without taking a break to walk. It was quite an accomplishment for me. I can't remember how much training it took for me to get there but I was proud of myself.

Since then, whenever I increased the length of my runs it was always a challenge. Sometimes I would have to walk to finish. Other times I would complete it nonstop.

Until recently I was always ashamed when I had to walk. It drove me nuts when I couldn't run all the way through. I felt like I had failed.

Yesterday I ran 20 miles for the first time. For me that is a long run. I'm not ashamed to say I had to walk some of that distance. I had to walk quite a bit the last 2 miles.

When we increase the distance of our runs, whether it is 2, 5, 7, 10, or 20 miles, we are pushing our bodies past the normal limits and our body doesn't like it. We are apprehensive before we start, hoping we can make it. We are exhilarated when we finish because we have reached a new goal and did something a short time ago we may have thought was impossible. Reaching those new distances is a huge challenge and something to be proud of.

Yesterday when I was running, sometimes walking, I knew I wasn't doing this for anyone else, only myself. So it didn't matter what others thought, even when they passed me while I was walking and drinking some water. I was running to prove to myself that I could do it. When I finished 20 miles I was tired, sweaty, and my feet hurt, but I finished and I was proud of myself.

This isn't about not pushing yourself. Just by going out and running and trying to reach new goals you are already pushing yourself. I'm just saying, sometimes we need to walk. Don't give up. Don't be too hard on yourself. There is no shame in walking. I know there will come a day when I can run 20 miles without walking. Someday you will also reach that "impossible" distance nonstop. Just keep running.

When Buying a Camera-Part 2

On my previous post about buying a camera I discussed the importance of choosing the features you are looking for before going into a store. Today I want to discuss doing research so you can get the best camera. Proper research will show you which is the best model and could maybe save you hundreds of dollars.

There are a couple websites I like to look at when I'm researching. The first one is http://www.bestinclass.com/digital-cameras. This is a great website which allows you to choose what kind of shooting you will do and the price you are willing to pay. For example, young children and pets for a price under $300. After you give the parameters it will present to you the 5 best options. Then you can narrow it down further by choosing more options, or choose a specific manufacturer or even a color.

This website is a great starting point to know what you are looking for and the recommendations come from photographers not manufactures. The only downside is I found not all the recent models are listed. One model that I was looking for specifically came out in March 2011 and it wasn't even on the list of possible cameras yet. While the list may not be complete it is still a good tool to use to get an idea of what you need.

The 2nd website is http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/ They have buying guides, forums, a section for beginners, and lots of other information. It also gives reviews of hundreds of cameras. It even allows you to do a side by side comparison of 4 cameras to see which is best for you. Each camera has 18 pages of technical specs and evaluations, which I love. Going through this site and comparing several cameras can potentially save you hundreds of dollars. Let me give you an example.

My wife and I are looking at purchasing a new DSLR (big camera with interchangeable lenses). We've dreamed of getting the Canon 5D, it's a full frame camera that takes beautiful shots. It's our dream camera. But it costs $2600 just for the body. That's not realistic for us today so the next step down is the Canon 7D. Another fantastic camera, but still is $1700 for the body only, still out of our price range.

But I started doing some research and found that the Canon T3i ($800), 60D ($1100), and 7D ($1700) all had the same sensor. The sensor is the component that actually takes the shot and is responsible for the quality of the picture. Since the most important feature to us is the quality of the image that caught my attention. I jumped on the dpreview website and went to page 10. Noise & Noise Reduction. (Noise is the little specks of discoloration that can be seen in a picture. This is typically seen in shots done in lower light. Low light requires higher ISO settings which allows the sensor to see more light. higher ISO means more noise, which means lower quality. The better the camera the better the picture in low light high ISO situations. I'll explain more in another post) This page allows you to compare identical shots side by side from up to 4 cameras. Perfect for comparing quality.

In the screen shot below you can see the comparison between the 3 cameras. The ISO is at 6400 and the shots are nearly identical.

Further research shows that the main difference between the cameras are FPS (frames per second), number of continuous shots that can be taken, and the durability of the camera. So the end result is that when you look at the pictures the quality will look the same no matter which of the 3 cameras you use. More FPS and durability is nice but since those were not the features which were a high priority to us it was not worth an extra 40% or 110% increase in price. By knowing what features we want and doing the research we can save a lot of money and be confident the T3i will produce high quality pictures.

It does take some work and may be tedious for a non-geek, but I'm all about value. I think it's worth the effort. If nothing else it will help you sound more intelligent when you are shopping for your camera.

Have a great night!

Office 365 ROI for Mid-size Business

I recently read an article about the ROI for mid-size companies using Office 365. I won't bore you with all the numbers and how they gathered the data, which I always find interesting. Toward the bottom of the report it said the "study was commissioned by Microsoft and delivered by Forrester Consulting group".

Forrester is a reputable company but if Microsoft commissioned it you have to look at the methods very closely. I've seen similar studies before and I always adjust the numbers to reflect what I feel is a more accurate result. Despite my adjustments (which I can easily defend with real world evidence) the ROI and cost savings are very impressive. In fact, the savings are impressive enough that you need to justify NOT going to Office 365.

Here is the link to the Forrester report if you want to read the whole thing. Warning, it will download a PDF file from download.microsoft.com.

I will leave you with some customer testimonials that are quotes from the report. I believe they say all that needs to be said on why Office 365 is an awesome product. 

 

Have a great weekend!

-  “The cost savings that we see from a cloud-based solution are reason enough to choose Office 365. It saves the company money and allows our IT staff to work on business problems and add more value to the company.”

-  “I looked at running a basic set of servers, and at first thought, this would be the right way to go. When I took into consideration all of the hardware and licensing costs, as well as the complexity, I realized I didn’t want to manage it all myself and that Office 365 was the right solution."

- “Peace of mind is the biggest benefit for me. Knowing that someone else is taking care of everything is great.”

 

- “We had a single Exchange 2003 server that had been deployed a very long time and was not well maintained. I needed to find a way to migrate to the latest solution but manage it with limited staff"

- “I am a co-owner and also responsible for the overall management of our servers. This is a constant concern for me since we don’t have a lot of IT staff. I am tied to my servers, and for me to go on vacation is rough. When I put SharePoint in the cloud, it became easy for me to go on vacation. I could have hired a lot of staff, but that would have been a more expensive solution. It is a big win to move everything to the cloud.” 

Accidental Rest Day

The alarm went off at 5:23 this morning to wake me for my 7 mile run. I stumbled out of bed to turn off the annoying sound that woke me up and I felt it right away. The "it" was a splitting headache. Actually, it was more like a shooting pain through my right eye. The thought of running with such a bad headache didn't sound too pleasant so I hit the snooze button to think about what my next steps should be and to get 7 more minutes of sleep.

When the alarm went off again I sat on the edge of the bed trying to decide if I should run or not. The headache was powerful and I knew it would be a rough run if I followed through. So I gave in and crawled back under the covers. I immediately feel into a coma like sleep and slept for another 1 1/2 hours.

My plan was to go for a run tonight about 8:30 after I got back from my son's swimming lessons. About 5 minutes before I left I realized my wife had plans tonight also. She told me several days ago, I just forgot. Rather than leave my kids alone while I run, which would be a bad parenting move, I decided maybe I needed a day off. No matter how important a dream is, my family is always more important and they take priority. 

The reason I adopted a morning run schedule is so there would be less conflict with family activities. This is a prime example. But I haven't missed a scheduled run in months and I know 1 missed run will not keep me from my goal.

This brings up another thought I had. When I went to bed last night I was exhausted, very tired. My wife says I was grumpy, which I was, but we won't talk about that. I had a busy weekend without enough sleep and my normal weekly schedule had not allowed me to catch up. I'm sure I needed the sleep and hopefully my long run on Saturday will reflect my extra rest.

Running is very hard on your body. It is tiring, requires a lot of energy, and mentally draining. A runner, especially a long distance runner, requires a good amount of sleep. Since I've started running I've noticed a big difference in my sleep requirements. When I first started running I felt like I could never get enough sleep. My doctor, who competes in triathlons and also does sports medicine, said that is normal and my body would adjust in a few weeks. He was right. But I learned I can't "cheat" on my sleep anymore. I used to be able to get 5-6 hours of sleep once in a while, but I can't do that anymore. I try to get 7-8 hours every night and that makes a big difference in how well I run and my ability to deal with life. My good friend Ben Eggers wrote about this topic (Stress and Rest) recently in his blog Confessions of an Average Runner.

So if you run, make sure you get adequate rest. Don't worry about the occasional missed training run, you can still hit your goal. Keep your life in balance and keep running.

When Buying a Camera-Part 1

There are so many options, features, models, and brands it can be overwhelming. There are a lot of good cameras out there, but probably only a handful that will meet your shooting needs. To help you narrow down your choices it's important to pick a couple features that are "must haves" and a few that "would be nice to have".

Some features to think about

- size/portability

- image quality

- optical zoom

- shooting conditions-low light, action, sports, stills, portraits, landscapes, travel

- waterproof/dustproof

- video-yes/no HD or standard quality

- changeable lenses (DSLR)

- manual controls

- brand-Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc.

- price

(Notice NOT in that list is megapixals (MP). I'm all for the latest cool gadget but unless you print wall size photos you will not see a difference between 10 MP and 14 MP.)

For example: Recently we bought a camera. We wanted it to have high quality pictures, because picture quality is very important to us, put it in our pocket for portability, it had to be durable so we could take it to the beach, and it needed the video feature since we don't have a regular video camera. Something nice to have would be HD video and the more optical zoom the better. So that means we need high quality, portable, waterproof, and video.

We walked into a camera shop and told them what we needed. The clerk was able to show us a couple different cameras that would meet our needs.

Another example is when we want to replace our big camera. We will need a DSLR Canon to fit the Canon lenses we already have, high quality pictures that can be taken in low light situations. At a price we can afford. This really limits what we can get. DSLR cameras allow you to control the settings more (manual controls) and also to change lenses. The price limit will allow us to purchase a T3i, 60D, or a 7D (if we are lucky) and all those cameras take great pictures.

The key is knowing a couple features want, then going to the store and intelligently explaining what you need. A camera is not just a financial investment, but an investment in your memories. So you want to make a good decision.

In a future post I will explain some more technical things to research in a camera. Have a great night.

The Run I Needed, Sort Of

Went for a 15 mile run today. I finished, which felt good after I bombed my long run last weekend. An important accomplishment to stay encouraged.

The downside is I finished at a 9:56 pace, 18 seconds slower than my goal of 9:38. I was doing fine and on pace until mile 12 then hit a wall. Not sure if the issue is the heat or my conditioning.

I've been doing really well hitting my goals in the short and medium runs during the week, but I've struggled with the long runs the last 2 weeks. Wonder if my goals are too aggressive. I will evaluate again next week after my 17 mile run. Until then, all I can do is keep running. 

You can look at my training log to check my progress. Have a great weekend!

Just Keep Running

There are a couple of things I've learned since I've started running.

1) Runners, even marathoners, are not superhuman athletes. They are just normal people with some determination

2) I'm genuinely impressed with anyone who is runs.

I've thought about running a marathon for 20 years. I thought it would be cool to say I ran a marathon but never put forth any effort to accomplish that dream. Even when I started running a couple years ago I never thought I would be able to run a marathon. It was just something that would be too hard. It would be too painful. I'm not strong enough to do it. (you can insert your own excuse here) But the more I ran the more I realized marathoners weren't amazing elite athletes, they just didn't quit, they wouldn't give up. They got up everyday and worked towards achieving that goal. In the rain, snow, and heat. They got up and they ran. They ran when they felt like it and they ran when they didn't want to. They believed they could achieve that goal, they kept pressing on, and they did it.

Slowly, I started believing the same thing. I realized I can achieve what I once thought was impossible. I became determined to complete my goal. Now I have no doubt I will complete a marathon. I may have to walk some of it, I may be slow, but I will complete it.

I also know it takes an incredible amount of determination to be a runner. It's not easy to drag yourself out of bed before everyone else and go for a run. It's difficult to tie the running shoes on after a full day of work. That is why I'm impressed with anyone who has the determination and discipline to be a runner. It's easier to sit on the couch and eat ice cream, sometimes it's more fun too. Whether you are running 20 miles or 1 time around the block, it's awesome. You are showing determination and strength to go out and do something most people will not do.

I know what it feels like when you are saying to yourself, "What am I doing out here, I should still be in bed.". I know what it feels like when your legs don't want to move and you go anyways.  I know how it feels to be totally intimidated when you see someone running effortlessly on the side of the road at faster pace than you can sprint. I know the embarrassment of trying to run 1/2 mile and needing to walk home, then having a neighbor ask how far I went.

All runners have good days and bad days. All runners have days when they wonder why they are doing this. They also have days when they feel like they could run forever. That's why I'm writing this blog. As a below average runner I want to share my experiences on my way to my first marathon. So people can find hope in themselves. So we can encourage each other to keep going. I'll share the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Already had an ugly run last week). It's all part of the journey.

In the interest of full disclosure I've decided to have my training log on a link in my blog. This includes my goal times for each run and my actual times. You can find it in the right hand column. I promise to be completely honest with my times, no matter how humbling it may be. I run every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, so check my training log to see how I'm doing.

So whether you are running 1/4 mile or 15 miles, don't become discouraged. Just keep pressing on. You have already shown the determination necessary to someday run a 5k or even a marathon. Just don't quit. Keep running.

You Gotta Have Bandwidth

And lots of it. While BPOS and Office 365 are great products one of the challenges is migrating the email data to the cloud. While migrating data to another on-premise server your connectivity will typically be 100 mbps or 1 gbps. Even with a 100 MB pipe you can move a lot of data in a few hours. But a small company will typically have a 512 kbps to 1.5 mbps Internet connection to move data to the cloud. So how do you move a 75 GB email store to the cloud over a 512 connection? (I've had to do it.)

With BPOS you really had to be careful because there was only 1 way to migrate, push the button, let it copy, and setup the clients. The migration could be staged, doing a few users at a time,  but that will drag out the migration and there is a lot of functionality lost during the transition.

Thankfully Microsoft learned from this and greatly improved this migration process. They now have 3 distinct migration techniques: Cutover, Staged, and Hybrid. Let me briefly explain each one.

Cutover - the whole company moves at once. flip the switch, migrate the data, setup the user.

Staged - move a few users at a time, but the Microsoft system and the on-premise system don't integrate at all, therefore losing functionality during the transition.

Hybrid - this completely integrates the on-premise and Microsoft systems which allows you to migrate at your leisure and causes no disruption to the users.

The Hybrid solution should be used for all migrations except for the reasons below

- extremely small companies (less than 20 users and under 10 GB of data)

- companies that want to be completely serverless

- companies that don't have and will not buy the hardware for the migration

I cannot stress enough the importance of a migration that is low impact to the users. The cutover and staged migrations tend to be more rushed and are more of an "all or nothing" when migrating the users. Once the user is migrated they either can't be moved back (cutover) or is very difficult (staged).

What makes the Hybrid solution so fantastic is the seamlessness to the users and the ability to migrate the users at a "casual" pace. It also allows the company to use whatever bandwidth is available. It also allows more flexibility during the transition. User disruption is time and money lost.

Migrations need to happen. When they do the user should not need to worry about if it will work for them or if they will lose any data. A migration should be a non-event to the user. Anything less than that and money is lost.

Getting Our Camera Wet

Water and cameras. Those are 2 things that typically don't go together. We recently made a purchase that allows us to do the unthinkable, put our camera in water. Let me explain.

We have a Canon Rebel XTi for a DSLR. This is a nice camera, but as you know DSLRs are heavy to carry and way too big to be easily portable. About 3 years ago we purchased a  point & shoot Canon PowerShot SD770 IS, (yes, we like Canons)This was a great small camera that we could put in our pocket and take everywhere with us. My wife usually had it in her purse and we took it everywhere we went, the store, the beach, church, or taking the kids to school. We followed the mantra of every good photographer "always be prepared". 

A few months ago we noticed a small spot through the viewfinder of our beloved PowerShot. We asked the guys at the local camera shop to try to clean it for us. They said it would cost $100 just to look at it with no guarantee it would be fixed. The spot was most likely a piece of dust. Though faint it was too much to use for Cindy's work. We gave it to our 9 year old son who was delighted to have his own camera.

Meanwhile we needed another point & shoot, but we were too frugal to buy one just yet. We borrowed our daughter's when we needed a small camera. This included a camping trip I took with my son's cub scout troop. Having a pink camera on a cub scout adventure was painful to my male ego. I lost a few masculinity points that weekend.

We finally decided we couldn't wait any more and a few days ago purchased the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS10. We had 2 main requirements for our new point & shoot 1) high quality shots 2) waterproof/dustproof/shockproof. This little baby does all that. Waterproof up to 10 feet, shockproof (which means you can drop it) up to 7 feet, dustproof, freezeproof down to 14 degrees. Some other nice features were 14 MP, 1.5 fps, 4x optical zoom, 20 scene modes, and 720p video.

We tested it out this weekend which included putting it underwater in the kids' kiddie pool. We are very impressed with it. I haven't had time to figure out all the controls so these shots were just in Auto mode. I also did minimal post processing, mainly to help with the color, especially the underwater shot.

Most major camera manufactures have their own waterproof model, including Canon. But we decided to go with Panasonic instead of Canon because according to the camera shop guys the picture quality was almost identical and the Canon was almost twice as much. 

The quality and controls are not the same as on our DSLR, but the pictures are good, much better than with our old P&S and it has more features. Most importantly, we can finally take a camera to the beach without worrying about it being destroyed.

I Miss Cold Weather

According to my marathon training schedule (which I will talk about more in a later post) I had to run 13 miles with a 9:35/mile pace. I had run 13+ miles multiple times at this pace and faster. My best time was a couple weeks ago when I ran 11 miles at an 8:50/mile pace. So I got up this morning confident I could reach my goal.

I got up at 8 AM, had a quick breakfast and prepared to go. Armed with my camelbak and an Apple Cinnamon Hammer Gel I stepped outside ready to tackle my weekly long run. As I stepped out the oppressiveness of the heat hit me hard. It was already almost 80 degrees and very humid. I've run 7-8 miles in this kind of heat, but never longer than that. I knew today's  run would be a good learning experience. Even if I had to run a little slower to adjust for the heat that would fine.

I decided to try a new trail I've heard a lot of good things about, the Reeds Lake Trail. The trail is a few miles away, has a 4.5 mile loop, then a few miles back. Perfect for my run today. It started out smoothly, lots of rolling hills, and I was able to keep a 9:00-9:15 pace. The trail is really beautiful. I wasn't sure where I was going so I just followed the semi-steady stream of bikers/joggers/walkers hoping they were going the same direction I wanted to go. 

About mile 5 I was really feeling the heat. I felt like I was running through peanut butter and the hills seemed 4 times bigger than they actually were. I was really missing the 50 degree weather I have been running in. I was exhausted and couldn't see myself running another 8 miles, so I started walking. The problem with walking is when I've done it once it is very difficult to stay motivated not walk or stop again. So I walked a little ways, sipped from my camelbak and ran some more. Had my gel, drank more water, ran some more.

Somewhere between mile 6 and 7 I was really worn out. I was only 1/2 done and mentally could not see myself pushing through. I briefly considered calling my wife to come pick me up. But then realized since I wasn't even sure what road I was on she would never find me. I also thought, "I've never had to call her before and I'm not going to start now." So I pressed on.

About mile 7 I found my 2nd wind and started running at a good pace again. I was able to keep this up for while. I stopped worrying about my time and focused on finishing. By mile 8 I was wishing I had not forgotten to apply Body Glide to prevent chafing, but I continued to press on.

I ran some and walked more than I wanted but I finally made it home. I cut the run short at 11 miles, my pace was a disappointing 11:12. I hate not completing a run and rarely have to resort to that. But today I was just glad to go as far as I did. I realized I'm not ready for warm weather running, but I better figure how to adjust because August is coming soon. I also need to start running earlier in the day to help with the heat. But for now I'm sitting in my house enjoying the a/c. Live to run another day.

What is this Cloud Thing

As I mentioned in a previous post Office 365 was officially released this week. This is Microsoft's Cloud offering to companies. Microsoft and many other companies are investing a lot of money into this technology. The IT culture is definitely moving in this direction and it offers huge benefits to companies who take advantage of it.

The consulting company I work for has been very involved with Microsoft's cloud offering since it's previous version, BPOS. We worked hard and I'm proud to say we were the top seller for this product in our state. We migrated more companies to BPOS than any other Partner.

Office 365 is an upgrade from BPOS and we, along with the rest of the industry, have been anxiously awaiting it's arrival. It promised to be bigger, faster, and more aerodynamic than it's predecessor. It's a great product. The hosted offering offers 90-95% of the features the on-premise solution does. It's an excellent product!  Friday, June 24th, we signed up our first Office 365 customer. Proud to say we had the first signup in a 5 state region. We have several other customers ready for us to implement it for them also.

So what is this "cloud thing" and why do I think it will revolutionize the IT industry. The "cloud" simply allows a company to have their data hosted by someone else. In the case of Microsoft they host Exchange (email), Sharepoint (files and collaboration), and Live Meeting. This is big deal because it allows a company to focus on what they do, instead of worrying if their servers are working. This is especially nice for small companies who don't have an IT staff. It helps large companies too because it allows them to focus their IT resources elsewhere, whether it is hardware, software, and manpower.

I used to support the Exchange organization for a large company, 10,000 mailboxes. It sounds cool to say, but it was a lot of work. High availability, 8 servers, 75 stores, 3 TB of data, endless backups, constant maintenance, and always on call. When I started researching the hosted solution Microsoft was offering I couldn't wait to get started. I'm all in favor of letting Microsoft deal with the servers and mailboxes instead of me.

So in short, Microsoft will host email, sharepoint, and Lync in military grade, redundant data centers. That is something very few companies can afford, especially small companies. They offer high availability, with all the features, and at a cheaper price than it would cost to have the server yourself.

This technology is only going to grow and I'm looking forward to seeing where it will end up. I'm excited we are on the front edge of the technology.

Let it Begin

This has been a big week for me. Office 365 moved from beta to "live", I officially started training for my first marathon, and I'm starting my blog. This is clearly an indication I need to get out more.

Let me explain who I am and why these things are such a big deal. My name is Allan Tobey and I work on computers for a living, otherwise known as a "Geek". I'm a Senior Systems Engineer (consultant) and have been in the field for 16 years. I've done a wide range of things but the past few years I've specialized in Exchange (email) and "Cloud Computing". What is second nature to me on the computer most people think is amazing. But don't be too impressed, if you did something everyday for 16 years you would look pretty amazing to the average person too. Office 365 is Microsoft's latest installment of "Cloud Computing" technology that will revolutionize how companies deal with their IT needs.

I'm also a runner. I started out as a casual runner about 4 years ago and hated it. I would run 1-2 miles on the treadmill during lunch just for exercise. I was slow it was torturous. But I stuck with it. A couple years ago I no longer had a treadmill I could use so I started running outside and began to enjoy it. One and half years ago I progressed from casual to serious runner. I wasn't fast and I still couldn't run very far, but I was gradually increasing my mileage and going out 3-4 times a week. I enjoyed pushing myself and the sense of accomplishment when I got done. I started to feel better and I found I was dealing with stress better. I was hooked. In January of 2011 I signed up for the Grand Rapids 25 K River Bank Run in May and the Grand Rapids Marathon in October. I completed the 25 K and I'm looking forward to my first marathon in October.

I also really enjoy photography. To say I'm a photographer might be a stretch, but I am trying. I became interested in the technical side of it. I can talk aperture, ISO, and shutter speed with the best of them, but I struggle with the creative side of photography. Sometimes I'm even challenged with the basics, like focus. I can take a whole bunch of pictures and end up with only a few in sharp focus. I scratch my head and wonder what happened. How hard can it be with an expensive camera that has auto-focus. Nevertheless, I persist and keep trying to improve. My wife, Cindy Tobey, is an amazing artist and is also a writer\designer for a scrapbooking magazine. She's been able to help me a lot with my shooting. She is also constantly pulling from our pool of photos for layouts in the magazine. Because of this I've had many photographs published, and even had one on a magazine cover. Now I'm trying to achieve consistency and creativity in my shots.

Life is full. That is what makes it exciting. I'm always striving to improve in the things I do, that's what pushes me forward. During this journey of improvement and growth I'll share the things I learn, the victories, and the blunders. Whatever happens I know it will be fun. I'll even share a lame joke once in a while, after all, that's what geeks do.