I really don’t understand some people … why is someone else’s success a reason to send hate mail?
Recently, the Diabetes Daily blog published a piece about Deven Pearson … a Type 2 diabetic that lost 160 lbs and got his diabetes well under control.
Soon after the article was posted, Deven started getting hate mail.
OK, first and foremost, this isn’t going to be an in-depth, expert, evaluation of road cycling on Maui … it’s just my impressions and opinions. If you want something more, I suggest you take a look at Tom Meloy’s very nice writeup from a few years ago.
On a recent vacation to Maui, I decided to rent a bike and try some cycling. I did, and here’s what I found…
First, a caveat … I’m by no means an expert on social media or ‘business’ social media.
I’m just going to tell you some observations I’ve made over the past few weeks.
Lately I’ve been getting requests to connect, on LinkedIn, from people I’ve never met … and have no idea who they are.
One of the things I like to do when I’m cycling, is keep track of various statistics related to my ride.
This includes things like speed, cadence (how fast I’m peddling), and heart rate.
To do this, I have a number of sensors that connect to my bike computer (Garmin Edge 810). The sensors communicate with the bike computer using a low power communication mechanism called ANT+.
There are, however, some advantages of being able to track the sensor data on my iPhone in the various fitness apps (Strava, Endomondo, iBiker, etc). The problem is that the iPhone needs an adapter to receive the ANT+ signal. It’s not a big adapter, roughly the size of a charging cable connector. In addition, the adapter is currently only available for iPhone 4S’s and earlier … it uses the 30 pin connector. There are no ANT+ adapters for iPhone 5’s & newer (which use the lightning connector).
iPhone 4S’s & newer do have a variation of Bluetooth called “Bluetooth Smart” … also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE). SOME fitness sensors support BTLE, but very few support both BTLE and ANT+.
This is where the 4iiii Viiiiva Heart Rate Monitor comes in. It functions as a heart rate monitor with both ANT+ and BTLE communication. In addition, it can act as a BRIDGE between other ANT+ sensors and feed the data via BTLE.
I rode another metric century!
Steve and I did the 62 mile route in the Evanston Bike’s North Shore Century.
It was a fun ride and well run … although there were a few gripes (that I won’t go into). There are a few take aways for me in relation to the Tour de Cure.
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Have you ever had frost build up in the ice dispenser chute on your General Electric side by side refrigerator?
I did … and it took me a bit of time to figure out what the problem was.
At first I thought it was a bad seal on the door of the freezer. But the seal was actually fine and, if it had been bad, the frost would have been on more than just the ice dispenser chute.
Here’s an example of the ice dispenser chute AFTER I removed a bunch of frost…
(the broken plastic was from when I was a bit ‘over enthusiastic’ at removing built up ice)
After a bit of research I determined that it was the flapper that covered the chute when the dispenser wasn’t dispensing ice.
Well, it’s that time again.
The 2013 Tour de Cure is over and was an unqualified success.
Time to start thinking about the 2014 Tour de Cure.
I’m setting my goals pretty much the same as they were last year … I’m going to ride a metric century (100 km / 62 miles) and raise at least $5000.
To sponsor me, please visit my tour page “Ride With David“.
Once again I’m taking on the mantel of captain of Team RED. For the 2013 ride we raised, as a team, $50,000 and recruited 90 riders. For 2014 we’re shooting for 120 riders and $60,000.
Normally, when you view the property pages on Eclipse items, the pages show up in alphabetical order.
Sometimes this isn’t what you want. While I was working on my RCP project I found the property pages usually didn’t show up in a pleasing order, so had to figure out a way to control the sort order.
Yesterday I bought a new tablet … the Google Nexus 7.
Initially I liked it … it had a nice form factor, it’s light, has a nice display, and a powerful CPU.
I played around with it yesterday and today … but I’ve decided that I’m going to return it.
My intention was to use it as a smaller tablet for traveling (so I don’t have to haul around my laptop AND iPad).
The other day, Ginny and I were riding in Busse Woods.
Busse Woods has 3 major trails … and they have color coded arrows to indicate which way the trails go.
Ginny asked me how she would know what turn to take when she came to a trail intersection … so I came up with the following poem…
Don’t take brown, you’ll just have to turn aroun’
Don’t take black, you’ll just have to turn back.
Just take red and you can go straight ahead.
OK, yeah, I’m easily amused.