LA Marathon

I am running LA-Marathon on Mar 20th, 2011. I am pretty excited about my first marathon. I am going to run 26 miles and 385 yards. My goal for this marathon is 9.5-10 min/mile, which translates to about 4 hrs 10 mins.

Countdown

Yosemite trip

In a few words, a must see place after Niagara falls, Grand canyon, and Oregon.

This is the most exciting trip that I have had in a while. Myself and Srinivasan traveled to Yosemite park. I had traveled to San Francisco from Irvine, visited Yosemite for day and back to Irvine.

Driving to Yosemite through Hwy-120 is, "the way", to reach the Yosemite valley. 1.5 hrs of the drive is through forest, mountain and wilderness.

I have added places that i have thoroughly enjoyed during the yosemite trip.


View West Coast Tour in a larger map

You are more than welcome to add more interesting locations to this map.

Runner's World - Quotes

The Runner's World magazine provides insight information on running. They also send daily quotes, once you sign up. Some of the best quotes that I have seen till date are

1. Just do the best with what you have, and you'll soon be doing it better - Gil Hodges.
2. I ran and ran every day, and I acquired a sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never, give up, no matter what else happened - Wilma Rudolph.
3. Even when you have gone as far as you can, and everything hurts, and you are staring at the specter of self-doubt, you can find a bit more strength deep inside you, if you look closely enough -Hal Higdon.
4. It is the runner in me who can make peace with her body and the passage of time - Kristin Armstrong.
5. Running creates a sense of balance in my life. It's a great feeling to just get out and lose myself in a run - Jill Biden.
6. You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone - Percy Cerutty.

Running gives me time to clear my head, relax, enjoy the surrounding and listen to your inner thoughts - Hariprasath

Personal Webpage

I have updated my personal webpage at www.eecs.oregonstate.edu/~venkatha
It contains everything from research to running.

How to fix IEEE bibliography Style in Mendeley

Mendeley is an awesome reference management software. I have been using it extensively to maintain references. It has a minor problem in bibliography style for IEEE format. It becomes annoying as soon as you export citations to word. I have tried to fix it and was successful to some extent. The default IEEE format available in mendeley is the following bibliography style.

[1] K. Superman, G. Batman, I. Green Lantern, and S. Spiderman, " Saving the world from evil guys," Super Galactic Journal, vol. 46, 2010, p. 620.

IEEE Style manual suggests a different bibliography format.

Excerpt from 2009 Style Manual of IEEE on bibliography format :
Articles listed shall include the following information in the order shown:
a) Last name of author or authors and first name or initials, or name of organization
b) Title of article in quotation marks
c) Title of periodical in full and set in italics
d) Volume, number, and, if available, part
e) First and last pages of article
f) Date of issue.
This requires the bibliography to be in the following format.
[1] K. Superman, G. Batman, I. Green Lantern, and S. Spiderman, " Saving the world from evil guys," Super Galactic Journal, vol. 46, pp. 620, Apr. 2000.

If you are dependent on mendeley, you would want a fix for this bibliography style. I have a fix which displays bibliography in the correct format except for the month. This is better than previous version available in mendeley.

How to fix IEEE format.

Locate the "ieee.csl" file in the mendeley installation folder. It should be present in C:\Program Files\Mendeley Desktop\citationStyles\default, if you are using windows.

Line 124 to 128 will contain the following.


<date variable="issued" >
          <date-part name="month" form="short" suffix=". "/>
          <date-part name="year"/>
        </date>
        <text macro="page"/>


Replace the above lines with the following

 <text variable="page" prefix="pp. "/>
        <date variable="issued" >
          <date-part name="month" form="short" suffix=". "/>
          <date-part name="year"/>
        </date>

Few steps before wrapping up.
1. Change the title of the .csl file.
-The title can be found in the 5th line
2. Finally, change the update tag in line 23.
Mendeley does not recognize this as a new style, if you do not update this tag.
Save and Exit.
The new style should appear in the citation style in mendeley as IEEE_Fixed.
The citation will look like this
[1] K. Superman, G. Batman, I. Green Lantern, and S. Spiderman, " Saving the world from evil guys," Super Galactic Journal, vol. 46, pp. 620, 2000.

If you find a fix for displaying month correctly in the IEEE format, please let me know.

WhiteSalmonRafting

Things to Do

1. Rafting.

2. Kayaking.

3. Wind-Surfing.

4. Wind-Sailing.

5. Boat-Riding.

Affordable Place to Go

Wet Planet

I had a great time with their 1/2 day trip in White Salmon River. Class 3/2 rapids in White Salmon River with great ecosystem. The White Salmon river flows with evergreen forest on one side and desert vegetation on the other side. The river flows through a huge lava pipe that was created by Volcanic Mt. Adams. The rocks are volcanic basalt and the view is great. There are huge caves which were used for the lava flow by the Mt. Adams. Overall, its an amazing place to visit/camp/raft and hike.
View Oregon Tour in a larger map

Customizing Google Maps

View Oregon Tour in a larger map

Google Maps allows you to add photos and custom icons for your travel map. You can create customized maps from My Maps section. Also, You can customize the location photographs to display your pictures.

The icons in the map can also be changed according to your taste. I have added the following icons

Lighthouse
Caves
POI

You can add a route with several location pointers. I have also added a custom polygon overlay to indicate special point of interest.

I have embedded pictures of my visit in the icons. Instead of the public picture from google maps, your picture will be loaded. You can check this by clicking on the icons.

The google-icons can be found here