I was looking for a new flash drive aka thumb drive and found this wonderful item:



Get one at Amazon for yourself, as a gag gift, or even a stocking stuffer...

A game called Planet Explorers just became available in Early Access style on Steam. It is available for PC Windows, Mac, and Linux. I am writing this as of version Alpha 0.82.

This week, save 40% off Planet Explorers on Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/app/237870/



The graphics are beautiful:



I had no stutter or performance issues at all on my Ubuntu 14.04 system. From Additional Drivers, I am using the NVIDIA binary driver - version 331.38 from package nvidia-331.

For reference, my hardware includes...

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
NVIDIA Corporation GK106 [GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost]

Gameplay seems to have some features of Minecraft... within a few minutes I was able to dig for stone and metals, harvest plant life, hunt animals for meat, and get attacked by some kind of predator. The online videos I have seen show people building defenses and other structures.

Here are additional screenshots from my Linux system:

I recently had a chance to do some trail running in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After checking the maps near our rental cabin, the nearest trail I could find was the Cataloochee Divide Trail. I was able to get to the trailhead after about a 20 minute drive.

One word of warning... there isn't much parking at the trailhead at Cove Creek Gap on Cove Creek Road. I have read other hiking reports on the web that suggest parking at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Gap or at The Swag Country Inn (SWAG), but I recommend reading those reports for all of the caveats.

Parking and restroom facilities are available in the Cataloochee Valley itself and there are many connecting and loop trails that lead back up to the ridge trails.



I ran from the trailhead at Cove Creek Gap to the McKee Branch Trail and back again, which according to the trail signs was 4.6 miles each way.

Although tree growth obstructs much of the view of the surrounding mountains, there are a few places that offer spectacular views:



The trail was very runnable and much of it looked like this:

The Melon Run on the 4th of July is a Gainesville tradition.

My finish time for this 3 miler (not a 5k!) was 17:46 and I was able to win my age group and bring home a nice watermelon as an award.



The Superman shirt is from the Under Armour Alter Ego collection. I raced in my blue Inov-8 Bare-X Lite 150 shoes.



Race results are posted here:

http://georesults.racemine.com/Start-...un/results

Update 7/2/2014: The information below has been up dated with the latest info provided and includes minor schedule changes for the July 3 meet

The Gainesville, Florida track community is offering a series of Free Summer Track Meets at Fred Cone Park. I have attended the first two meets. It has been a lot of fun with plenty of different ages and performance levels. It is great seeing the kids out there. The electronic timing is appreciated. Thank you Gaine sville and everyone involved who have put in the hard work to make this event happen.

Come on out and have fun under the lights!

When: Thursday nights on June 5th, June 19th, July 3rd, and July 17th

Location: Fred Cone Park - East Unive rsity Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641 (Google Map)

The MS Word document provided by Coach Larry Holsey for the July 3 m eet is available here: https://db.tt/lAoKjhRF

I have reproduced the content and schedule below for convenience (as in, I'm not official, I am just sharing the info rmation I have been given)...

About:

• No registration required, just show up at the starting line and run.
• Electronic Timing by Half Mile Timing.
• Participation Ribbons given to kids at the end of meet
• Concession Available

The meet follows a rolling schedule (one event immediately after the other) with the following event start time estimates:

Running Events
6:40pm	200 meter hurdles	All Ages
6:45pm	50 meters	All Ages
7:00pm	800 meters	All Ages
7:10pm	40 Yard Dash	All Ages
7:30pm	300 meters	All Ages
7:45pm	Community Walk	10-minute community walk
8:00pm	4x100m Fun Relays	Parents / Coaches / Kids / All Ages
8:20pm	1500 meters	8 and up
8:30pm	100 meters	All Ages Competition - Bring it on
8:50pm	200 meters	All Ages
9:00pm	3000 meters	All Ages

Field Events
6:30pm	Long Jump	8 and Up (Two Jumps)
6:30pm	Shot Put	All Ages (Bring your own implement)

For More Information and Sponsorship Help:

Larry Holsey, 352-281-2630
The Gainesville Striders Track Club
http://gainesvillestriders.org

or

V12 Athletic
Daniel Medley

Woops! While trying to update some Geeklog plugins to help fight the Spammers (I am getting hundreds and hundreds of bogus user registrations per day), I broke parts of the site. I am normally more careful about making a backup immediately before starting an upgrade, but in this case, I had Faith and Trust.

And Backups... luckily.

Site restored.

And so I announce... I might be making changes to the registration process to help combat the high volume of spam account creation.