Primal Quest and Other Thoughts

Now that I have completed the Primal Quest and also completely neglected this blog for well over 6 months - I am back. PQ was a success with a 15th place finish and also a full story at http://eaglinar.blogspot.com/

My thoughts for today have turned to energy infrastructure and particularly transportation. There has been much musing and betting over what technology will replace fossil fuels. Right now my bets are really on electric vehicles (I've looked at hydrogen - but simply see too many problems establishing the infrastructure to support it. The world in a few years will have two major changes; one will be a very strong switch to hybrid and then fully electric as we create better batteries, the other will be the more localized generation of electricity. Some breakthroughs in solar and wind will allow individuals to be able to generate power locally and easily. Putting these 2 together does make this my bet. For folks who have been avid readers of my blogs - look to this one , I will be posting more regularly and giving "my thoughts".

Primal Quest - Is it difficult

So now the PQ is partly a challenge for the mental aspect. One thing that is pretty cool is that it is named one of the 7 most difficult. The coolest thing on this is that the endurance folks can look at it and see what the other 6 are.... So now I am contemplating how I can compete in the others. The Hawaii Ironman looks like a pretty easy second. The Badwater - though incredibly challenging might also be one to shoot for. I'm not sure about events like Dakar (I'm not a driver) or the Idarod (not a dog sledder) - but who knows, maybe there is time to learn.

Anyway - this one is worth checking out. And stay posted for info on the Swamp Stomp and be sure to check out my mapping at http://trailmaps.pbwiki.com/

http://www.sportales.com/Extreme/Seven-Hidden-Wonders-of-the-Sporting-World-The-Seven-Most-Spectacular-and-Hardest-Sporting-Events-in-the-World.80053

Trail Maps Wiki

I've created a wiki site for lovers of trail maps. Of course being a wiki site I am looking for folks to contribute information about parks, trails, biking, and paddling and increase the content of the site. The wiki is at http://trailmaps.pbwiki.com/ and the password to add materials to the site is simply maps. So far I've been the only contributor - but I am hoping soon someone will be the second person to add park/trail/bike/paddle/hike information to the site.

Use of Wiki's

I am now experimenting with some technologies that might be useful to many of the faculty here. The technology that I am playing with now is wiki's and collaborative technology. A wiki is website or similar online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. Some uses for a wiki are described below with a real example of a wiki I created for those purposes. The great thing is you can use a wiki for just you - or as a collaborative approach AND you can do it at any level.

Wiki for class support for a single class http://cet4429.pbwiki.com/

Wiki to support a large scale research effort and documentation for that effort (including project management) http://ucf-sage.pbwiki.com/

Wiki to present a final research report (this can also be a great way for students to turn in class projects) http://ucf-rainfall.pbwiki.com/

Wiki for classroom materials that can be used by yourself and others http://classroomactivities.pbwiki.com/

Wiki for a true public access and collaboration (in this example Trail Maps) http://trailmaps.pbwiki.com/


These are all wiki's that I have created in my experimentation, I hopefully will be able to over the course of the semester document how well these work and I plan to have a publication for ASEE or other journal by the end of the term.

Resolution

Since it is new years I have decided to push for a solid resolution. I have done a great job of keeping my adventure blog up to date and I also feel that I had a pretty productive year for 2007. I have not kept this one up to date and I have created so many great materials for this blog or a possible wiki. One thing I did do already this year is get much of my research materials online and available to the world. I also established a wiki for trail maps at trailmaps.pbwiki.com that I hope will catch on.

What I plan to do this next year is try to act on more of the ideas that I have and do a better job of managing my time to make this possible. This will be critical as I am now training (physically) about three hours a day and I still spend a lot of time on nonproductive pursuits. The plan is to move towards more productive things and better managing both time and information. I've got plenty of ideas there too... Oh yea and I will also be posting a lot of the ideas I have to this blog - we'll see where that goes.