Forty six hours. Nearly two complete days. Think about what you have done in two days and that is how long I worked. I woke at 6a on Thursday and did not get to bed until 6a on Saturday.

It was one of the most challenging things I have done. I have stayed awake for 30+ hours before, but have never had to focus on one thing and work for nearly two whole days.

Once the clock passed 35 hours I started to see things. A small hole by a door was a spider on the wall. A stack of papers in the office was fluttering in the wind. An image on Yahoo News became animated. When a word had two i’s I saw one. But, I continued to program. Making CurlTV dynamic and working on the payment gateway was my mission.

When someone says “I stopped at a green light today” you know we were all feeling the pressure and fatigue.

With the help of the others who were in it for the long haul CurlTV launched. Sadly it was not on the 15th as we had hoped, but later the next day in the afternoon thanks to the continued efforts of those who had already put in a lot of hours.

I wish I could tell you that when I got home I slept for 12 hours, but I was only able to get seven in before I woke up at 1p. Although it was not long before I went down for a 90 minute nap. After an eight hour sleep this past night I am feeling a lot better. I lost a lot of sleep and doubt I will be able to make it up, but I am no longer speaking in gibberish or seeing things.

From this past Sunday until Saturday morning I put in 89 hours of work. So when someone asks me when I did last week I will most likely give them a blank stare and try to remember where the days went. Although CurlTV is not over with, there are still a lot of features that need to be added but hopefully without the excessive time.

At least tonight is the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday, so they are my rewards for surviving and making it through this week.

As I near the 24th hour worked (6a-Thursday to 6a-Friday) I am reminded of my last marathon of this nature. Oddly enough it is almost eleven months ago to the day that I did my job marathon with STATUSfirm and Dell.

Interesting what happens in a calendar year.

Now, here I am working on what will be a 30+ hour work day for STATUSfirm in order to complete a project. The time sheet for this week has looked really skewed. As the week progresses so do the hours worked.

Stay tuned and hopefully some time today CurlTV 2.0 will be online and ready to roll.

Floyd Landis is guilty and about to be stripped of his Yellow Jersey from le Tour. His Pro racing team, Phonak, has fired him and once the ruling comes down from the International Cycling Union he will be stripped of the title.

I really wanted to believe that Landis was innocent. I wanted to believe that such an effort was still possible with only a man and machine. I wanted to believe that pro athletes were honest. I wanted to believe that a thirty year old could become a hero. I wanted to believe it all.

His effort on stage 17 was one of the greatest efforts by a single man, and now that was all a lie. Perhaps part of what Landis did was him and not the drugs, but no one will ever know and the opportunity for Landis to clear his name is becoming slimmer as each day passes. I wanted to believe you Landis, I really did.

From one cycling sport to another, I present to you what is the greatest effort performed on two wheels.

Back in 2000 Carey Hart landed the first back flip in competition. It started a revolution in freestyle motocross (FMX) as tricks became more difficult and innovation was taken to the next step. Six years later, Travis Pastrana has added another revolution to the back flip.

At the X-Games Pastrana busted out a double back flip to win the gold medal for Best Trick. The judges gave him a 98.6, one judge did not award him a 100; but everyone knows it was a perfect run.

Pastrana has had a very interesting career. He was a promising motocross rider, but injuries and bad luck kept him from reaching his potential. He won several titles but was never healthy enough to defend come the next season.

Although when he took to freestyle he was a different rider. He stayed healthy enough to compete and brought new tricks to the game, added new combinations and would use the whole course as he went onto win gold consecutive times.

In today’s world Pastrana is a different type of athlete. He lives a clean life style, respects the fans and has done what he wanted while ignoring the critics. Sadly there are not many left like him, and while he is only 22 there is a lot that Landis, Bonds and a majority of other athletes can learn from Travis.

Once a month Jenna works weekends and I am left to my own devices, this is how I amused myself. The following takes place between Friday night to Sunday afternoon:

I met Dad at South Common Cineplex at 6:40PM on Friday evening to see Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. We were hoping to get in line at 7PM for the 8PM showing.

Fortunately Dad got there before I did and heard that it was sold out until 10:00PM. Not wanting to go home empty handed he bought two tickets for the 10PM showing; we had some time to pass.

We walked over to Montana’s and enjoyed three pounds of wings and a pitcher of Rickard’s Red. The first two pounds of wings looked pretty easy, but their wings are quality, not quantity. As we got our bill I saw that the Eskimos game was being rained out. The walk to the theater from Montana’s is not very long, but if the apocalyptic rain hit us it would seem a lot farther.

After waiting ninety minutes in line (we were 7 and 8 in line) we were allowed to enter the theatre and wait for good ‘ol swashbuckling good times. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Pirates movie. What is not to like? There was pirates, undead pirates and Keira Knightly; a perfect trifecta.

Dead Man’s Chest was fantastic. It was a long movie but totally worth it. There were some nice throwbacks to the first movie as well as some history given to the main characters and the movies mythology. Davy Jones and his crew looked fantastic.

The production and special effects crew stepped up their game on this movie. It is only a year until the final installment of the movie is released, but it seems like such a long time, especially considering the way Dead Man’s Chest ended.

I took advantage of the good weather this weekend and put some time on my bicycle. Saturday I did the 20KM loop in decent time, but the wind held me back from reaching my 2005 lap time. On Sunday Aaron and I did a massive ride to Leduc and back, a distance of 40KM.

Aaron had an advantage of doing that distance several times before inviting me along and it showed as he held a steady pace and lead most of the way. Sometimes when I finish the 20KM loop I feel good enough to do it all again, just so I can get a taste of 40KM.

I think I have changed my line of thinking on that one though. It is almost like going from Base Camp to Camp 3 on Everest without having time to adjust, it came as quite a shock.

I will need a few more attempts at the 40KM loop to get into a good pace. At the end of the trip we did it in 63 minutes, just a shade slower than Aaron’s fastest time; so not a bad start to the 40KM by any means.

It seems my rain dance powers still continue. I spent several hours cleaning the Jetta this afternoon. It was washed, waxed, cleaning inside and polished on the out. And not more than an hour later the clouds rolled in and started to rain. At least the car was clean for a little bit. I picked up a pretty big sunburn on my back for my troubles too. Win some and lose some I guess.

The summer of sport just got a little less exciting as the World Cup finished today. Because I was washing the Jetta I missed most of the match but I was able to catch extra time and on. I was rooting for France.

I really do not have a team in the World Cup. Canada is a few tournaments away from being good. I am an England/Ukraine mix, but both of those teams failed to make it to the final, so France was the next obvious choice.

Although when Zidane was ejected from the game, and thus not being able to participate in the penalty kicks, his teams chances looked a little less solid. Italy made up for losing the World Cup against Brazil in penalty kicks years back, so I suppose karma helped them through this one.

It seemed like an exciting match, I wish I could have caught more of it. At least the Tour just started so there will still be great sport action to catch before I leave for work. That is all for now you salty land lovin’ dogs!

Update: As I wrote this post the rain was coming in and it looked like all was lost on my cleaning efforts, but a few drops fell and that was it. All I want is a clean car to take to work, just one day, and then it can get dirty.

Just over three months ago I went to Fernie for a ski trip. While the skiing was fantastic, I came home with an unfortunate souvenir.

I tried various methods to alleviate the pain and the bruising, but saw no success. I lived with the black toe, keeping it in hiding most days. Although when it became sandal season the black toe was displayed for all to see, although few commented on it.

Once it became apparent that the nail was separating from the toe I took drastic measures and put some tape around the toe to prevent any abrupt nail removal. It felt awkward for the first few days but then the tape posed no problem.

After playing street hockey during our lunch hours I experienced some discomfort in the toe area. It would pass and I would not think about it again until the next hockey session. A few days of this cycle passed and I decided it was time to investigate the toe and reapply new tape.

To my surprise the nail was nearly off. In fact I could lift the nail off the toe in a clam shell-like manner. With Dad having a medical background he determined we could cut off the nail close to the edge so it would get a chance to dry out and not get caught on any clothing.

And, now, for your entertainment purposes here are some pictures of the toe. This is before I applied the tape that lasted for five days. And this is after Dad cut off most of my nail.

I did some research and I do not think there is a Toe Fairy, because this would have been payday!

Also, check out the previous post for a sample from the System Of A Down concert if you have not already. The light editing I did really brought out the vocals. I should post a before/after editing sample so the powers of post production can truly be realized.

If it is not broken, do not fix it. That is a golden rule, and one I have come to know all too well in the last ten days.

I have been running my main computer off of water cooling for nearly three years now. I planned on using this machine even when I bought a laptop, it was still good for what I needed to do on it. I was becoming leery of the water cooling abilities and decided to switch over to an air cooled system.

After I bought a new case, several fans and I was ready for the switch. My first obstacle came when I was missing a critical part (socket 478 retention guide) and could not proceed with the install. Every store I called did not have this part in stock, and when I did find it the cost was $38.

Memory Express was my saviour, as they also had it in stock and for a lot cheaper. Although after a very unfortunate day I left there without my retention guide. I called in the morning, confirmed they had them in stock, but when I arrived in the evening they were all sold out. Not just in Edmonton, but in their Calgary stores too.

A week passed and not wanting to lose any more time on my projects (as I am still editing the Matthew Good DVD and The Strokes audio) I decided to fork over the $38 and buy the retention guide. Road block after road block.

I had everything set up in the new case, but then the machine did not power on. The fans were spinning but it would not power anything else. Hours of troubleshooting led me to find that the power supply was faulty. I made an emergency drive into Edmonton to have the power supply replaced. Just my luck, when they tested the power supply it worked.

Ninety minutes later I return home with a power supply that is in a bitchy mood and a motherboard that is unhappy with the new case. I decide to forget the new case and move everything back into the old case, the one that was previously used for water cooling. I set everything up, throw the power switch and…nothing.

Now neither power supply will work and I am past my seven day return period for the hardware I originally bought at Memory Express. Where does this leave me? Most likely with a faulty motherboard and no known good parts to test with.

If it is not broken…