Where does one start when he wants to hit so many different points that cover so many different areas all to make one point. I hope that makes sense because if it didn't I'm dead in the water. My singular point is .... simple. No seriously I want to talk about how things are now TO SIMPLE. But before I start I am strongly encouraging my readership (real word??) to chime in. Even to the point of me using your words to help make, break, support my point.

So where did this all begin. To be honest I wrote a post titled "To Easy" about a year ago but it was just a jumbled mess so I never posted it. (And how is this different from all my other posts?) Being the typical engineer I wanted more evidence, more facts and more concrete reasoning to support my specific statement. Finally two events completely set the words in motion. The first bump was after seeing the latest "thing" release from the fruit company. The second came from the DailyMile website when it was announced that they now have a team. As you can see I will be pulling from all walks of life to support my single final point.

So lets start with DailyMile (DM). DM is a social site that also happens to be an online training log. I say happens because their site lacks so many features that almost all the other online training log sites have it's striking. For example, and it's a simple one but really highlights my point. If I enter a time of say, 23:15 for a run, they don't give you that info in your workout posting. Instead you just see 23min. Nor can you find that actual number anywhere in your posting and that's just one of many features they don't have. Yet, DM is growing by leaps and bounds and shows no sign of slowing down. I've also noticed that the users have a tendency to overlook the obvious and sometimes go as far to paint the site incorrectly. In this videocast I saw from some DM users they called all other sites old while DM is new and better looking. They even went so far as to say they don't have those forum things that no one uses any more. I'm big time paraphrasing but you get the idea. Problem is DM has nothing new about it. Actually they have alot of what everyone else has had for some time including forums. Now don't get me wrong, when it comes to social + athletes talking and meeting online, they got it totally dead on perfect. As for the training log part, they're a C grade at best. Because once you get past all the flashing stuff you find alot missing. That's why I use Buckeye to store all the data I care about. When I mention Buckeye to others I am constantly told that's it's old, doesn't look good and is hard because they use forums. So in the end, the training log that is the easiest to use yet supports the least amount of features, seems to be the winner. (If anyone out there can get me web stats on the different training logs I'd love to see them.)

Next up, the worse-est named product I've seen in a long time. But first think back to a time when everyone drove a manual transmission. It wasn't that long ago when every car on the market came with some kind of clutch or shifting mechanism. I say it that way because my father had an old Impala that had three speeds on the steering column. It took some getting use to but like anything else, with a little practice it was easy. Now you have to ask to get manual. Making it even funnier to me is the price. 800 to 2000 depending upon make model and features just to get rid of the clutch. But the spending doesn't stop there. Oh no you now have the unique gift of being forced to have your brakes replaced sooner then if you had a clutch. With a clutch you can down shift which saves your brakes. So you save money on the initial purchase AND you improve the wear and tear on your car. Then there is the improved control you have over the automatic drivers that is huge. Can automatic drivers down shift and such? Sure but how many actually even touch the shifter once the thing is in D? So why would people pay more money up front and over the long run of their car? Because it's easy.

That was the exact reason why one of the teachers at school said that they can't wait to buy the new fruit product, "it's easy to use." They admitted that they were disappointed that it lacked some basic features they really wanted but in the end, it's ease of use was paramount. I told them that there were other products out there that cost less and did more. They didn't want to hear it and just like DM above the looks and it's ease of use spoke volumes even if it limited what they could do.

So here we have three totally different markets with competing "products" and in all three cases, the more expensive, less feature rich product beat out the more robust, cheaper option because it's apparent ease of use. Now the fruit company hasn't sold any product and won't do so for another 2-3 months??. But the auto market has spoken, we want automatics. I need better stats but a quick look see into twitter and facebook and DM seemed to be the talk of the workout world.

As you can see this isn't a tech entry per say and I do have additional examples that I would like to share, but that's it for today. I plan to add additional evidence tomorrow and maybe even use some of your feedback in future posts. Till then ask yourself, are things getting To Easy?

Thanks for reading.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 1 comments

We've all seen the funny bits in tv and movies about people joining dating services and having to fill out some long form to help find your match. So to all my married and unmarried readers, you're all single. ;-)

1. What is your favorite color?

2. Are you cold or warm blooded?

3. Conservative, Middle of the road, Liberal?

4. Which do you prefer? Movies, TV, books, internet, other.

5. Meat eater, vegatarian, vegan, other?

6. Left Handed, Right handed or Ambidextrous?

7. Visual, auditory, or textual?

8. Multitasking, focused, alittle of both?

9. Shy, quiet, boistrous, loud, talkative, social, or other?

10. coach potato, weekend warrior, athlete/enthusiast, obsessed endorphin /extreme athlete.

And to be fair my wife, the other single person in the house, and I will answer first. Me - Green, Warm, conser, Internet, Meat, Left, Auditory, Multi, social, athlete, Lucy - purple, conserv, cold blooded, Movies, Meat, Right, Textual, focused, shy, weekend warrior.

have fun.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 2 comments

I've been quiet about Health Care because I like to understand (as much as possible) the information from all sides. In this case both sides are missing the elephant in the living room; or what ever that expression is.

The problem doesn't lie in our presidents socialist health care plan

nor does it lie with the "We don't want more govt, we want less" attitude.

So where is the problem? Well if you ever watch Nightly Business News

on a local PBS station you would have the same opinion that I do. Follow

the money and you'll find the problem. In this case, medical billing, pharmaceuticals, and insurance companies. For the last 10-15 years the price of supposedly keeping your self "Not sick" (and I'll get back to this point some other time) has risen to a level that is beyond insane. The above mentioned areas are raking in huge profits at the expense of the US people yet no one wants to call a spade a spade. Health Care should not be a normal business especially when they block all other choices. For evidence of this check out the Supreme court ruling that upheld another ruling which found the AMA actions "lawless." I hate to bring technology and computers into this but doesn't that sound like a certain SW maker? Problem is when MS was spreading it's lies about its own pathetic security issues and how Linux was garbage they weren't dealing with people's health. At least not directly. The AMA, an organization found guilty by two different courts, were messing with people's health and well being for no other reason then profit. If you need more evidence of questionable behaviour read almost any prescription drug for their possible side effects...scary huh?

Now before I go on do I think every doctor, researcher, etc etc wants to harm people? Absolutely not. But if you think they understand alternative health care be warned. I once heard a paediatrician equate Chiropractic care to "getting your nails" done.

So we have three groups of "people" who pretty much control almost everything having to do with health care and are willing to do "lawless" acts to protect their profits. It's also on record that millions of dollars are spent by these "people" on lobbying to make sure nothing changes. Folks, they are the real problem. What I'm about to say may not sound viable but unless I see something change in a big way I don't see it getting any better. In fact I expect it to get a whole lot worse.

Simply put Health Care should be a non or small profit business. Just as people shouldn't be teachers if they only get into it because of the vacation time, no one should go into the medical field to make millions. When you have board members and publicly traded companies who are constantly being pushed to earn bigger and bigger profit margins

something has to give. From what I can see, the quality of care is what's giving. The number of nurses per patient is appalling. The amount of time a doctor actually spends with you in his production line set up, abysmal. Yet at the end of each year a group of people will gather round and decide what cuts can be made to increase profits for the next fiscal year. Sorry but health care should not work that way. The health industry has been left to their own devices and have proved they cannot self manage. Do I want more govt in my life? No, no one does but unless someone pulls the reins in on the entire health care system Obama care or Palin care or Monty Python care will never work.

Category: Family | Permalink | 0 comments

With the new year in full swing and a bunch of stuff out of the way, I'm getting back to doing a weekly TQ. So let's have some fun.

Even at an early age everyone wants to be "cool." It's a hard to define THING that some people seem to have. Then there are the people who are cool that everyone wonders how they got that title. So let's see who you think is cool and who is not. BTW, anyone who answers with anything to do with apple is the ultimate in NOT COOL. Let's try to move beyond a company that makes computers shall we? ;-)

1. Who do you think is Cooool and why? (Ex. Joan Benoit is cool for winning the first ever women's marathon at the 84 Olympics....two weeks after surgery. Joan is cool ...Period. )

2. Who do you think is NOT cool independent of what the media, the press, or the writers say? And why?

Have fun.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 2 comments

Droid

For those of you who don't follow my twitter updates (good for you) I have been given the chance to demo the new Droid for 30days. Supposedly if I like it I can move to that phone and trade in my Curve. To be honest out of all the phones out there, this is the one that really has my honest attention. Yes some of the Nokia beasts are beyond awesome but getting one in the US for anything less then 500 is just crazy. Again I won't be paying for Droid but will try to make full use of it at work.

Curve

So far the Curve has served me well, very well so my concerns with it are small.

1. Syncing with GoogleApps (Which the school district is moving too) doesn't always work. When it does it's great but it's not 100%.

2. Prices of apps. There are alot of apps out there but man are they pricey.

So we'll see. When I get it I'll post again to let you know how it goes.

Apple Security

Or should I say, the lack of it? When the whole 6month wait for Java patch thing happened I thought maybe it was a licensing issue. Appears it wasn't

"Apple has finally released a Java for Mac update to fix multiple security flaws that were patched upstream more than six months ago.

The fix comes three weeks after developers released proof-of-concept code to demonstrate the severity of the flaw and to nudge /embarrass Apple into shipping the patch."

Hey everyone makes mistakes. They were probably working on their supposed tablet and forgot all about sending out updates. Then I read this:

"The vulnerability was addressed in FreeBSD and NetBSD last last summer.

And shortly thereafter Google and Mozilla, among other vendors, did the same.

But Apple apparently has not yet updated its software to incorporate the fix.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"

So lets map this out. Summer equals June, July and Aug. At best this issue is Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec and now Jan. Meaning 6months old or 8months in the worse case scenario. If MS were to ever leave an issue for this long you'd see another batch of white background video ads touting the benefits

of moving to a different platform. Yet here we are again talking about

another serious security bug found that is not being acted upon. I'm

sorry, you are buying a "premium" (Tim's correctly used word)

product they should be acting in a premium way. So far history is not

on their side but luckily for them hackers have left them alone. Errr

except at security contests. ;-)

Linux

Oh and update your Ubuntu machines there a few bugs needing updates that are at least 2weeks old. Geez what took them so long. ;-)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 5 comments

As I sit and watch the SuperPrestige Hamme-Zogge CycloCross race (legally) I wonder if I was born in the wrong country. But enough about “what ifs” lets talk 2010 in the US.

Gardening

Given all the rain we got in June this past year I was pretty happy with what the garden produced. This year I plan do to a lot of the same but in smaller batches. I will again cut back on tomatoes and as a result I'm dropping cherry tomatoes. I became a huge fan of having a slice of fresh tomato in my sandwich on a daily basis and Lucy didn't really want the small versions in her salad any more. In the pepper arena our testing proved out what I can and cannot grow given the zone I live in. Next year will see 1 plant of Jalepeno and 1 of Serrano. (tomatogrowers.com) Tomato Growers has some very early sweet peppers but again not to many. I planted enough Cukes but the rain took most of them away. So no change there. Beans were another properly planted crop that was ruined via the rain so again 4 plants should be fine. New for this year will be Onions, potatoes, and garlic. How that turns out will be interesting

Training

Since I'm not fighting off an injury this off season things have gone a lot better then last year. It's nice to build endurance the right way; slowly and without rushing. Hopefully this year we'll see me take another step forward. I'm working very hard to build on last year's success because the inevitable day will come when age will be the real limiter. Until that time comes I will continue to push in hopes of getting faster and stronger. Mind you at 195 race weight there is still only so much I can do. But hey that's life. You can either complain or get to work.

Work

So far work has been ok because it's mainly focused on PC repair which gets somewhat boring over time. I'm hoping that in the near future my job will expand and I'll be doing more demonstrating, teaching and learning new things.

Well that about wraps up today's post.

Category: Family | Permalink | 2 locked comments

Twas the Night before Christmas and all thru the Falconportal house,

not a piece of hardware was stirring not even my logitech mouse.

The bicycles were all hung in their racks all nice and neat

In hopes that St Nick would bring me a nice new San Marco seat.

Both children were tucked in all snug in their beds

While visions of 1000 piece lego sets danced in their heads.

With Mom in her warmest fleece and I in a tshirt

Were hoping for a full nights sleep, if the baby's teeth didn't hurt.

When without notice, our home security alarm was set ablaze

I stumbled down the stairs still half asleep and in a daze.

Who could be the one who be so bold?

He even left the door open and man was it cold.

After closing the door and locking it tight

I freaked out, flipped out, and could not believe my sight.

It was some dude with a large bag in something that appeared to hover.

I was scared and decided to run and find cover.

He called to me, yelled to me, then started to explain

That feeding eight full grown reindeer was to much of a pain.

He had upgraded his sleigh in an attempt to modernize

And had scored this baby on ebay with free shipping as it's prize.

I grabbed my jacket, and proceeded to unlock the door.

Being a typical guy I wanted to see more.

It was true that his new sleigh was the envy of every man.

It had heated seats, a flat screen and it's own wireless LAN

He explained that only children would receive toys from his bag

I was hoping for something hi-tech and thought that was kind of a drag.

Upon seeing my face he was shocked by my sullen look.

Given his wondrous powers I'm guessing he read me like a book.

He was quick to point out that I had a really great life.

Two wonderful kids and a beautiful wife.

But he saw that I enjoyed a really good hi-tech toy

And knew that every man enjoys once again be a little boy.

So he told me to step aside so he could finish and avoid being late

But right before he left he told me my gift was a Kernel Security Update.

With my network security back in it's proper space.

I stared into the sky as I watched him leave my peaceful place

I was wet, cold and chilled but not longer distressed

So I'll end this poem by saying, "Merry Christmas to all, good-night and God Bless!"

Category: Family | Permalink | 1 locked comments

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year. Featured artists: Gilles Costard,Rastachild, Aygan, Project Artifact, Exit Stage Left. Please send all feedback to atrfeedback[@]gmail{.}com.
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments

As you might have noticed this is another week without a TQ. Trust me I have tons of ideas just not enough time to organize them into some type of coherent list set. This years holiday season is proving to be quite insane. Adding to that insanity is Joshua's current teething issues. It appears he has not one but two molars coming in so sleep, quiet, and calm are not filling our humble abode. But we'll get through it. To prove my point Lucy slept with the baby in our bed while I slept on the futon mattress on the floor in the baby's room. The reason for this is simple, Joshua would not let Lucy get out of his sight without letting the world know so I set up the mattress and slept on the floor in the baby's room. Other then getting to bed later then normal it was actually and decent sleep.

With more and more of my friends getting, having, and wanting Facebook accounts, the pull to finally break down and sign up is growing. But I gotta say their privacy failures continue to keep me at bay.

With only one weekend to go before Christmas wouldn't you know it but it looks like 7-11 in of snow is on it's way. If that happens my mountain bike riding would directly depend on whether the studded tires I buying from a riding buddy give me enough grip. Trust me if they do I'll be out there. Nothing beats a slow but awesome ride in the snow. Its beautifully quiet, if the sun comes out it's easy to see and you don't need brakes since the snow automatically slows you down unless it's a really steep hill. Plus the riding is tough so you get a great workout. Win win win. ;-)

Finally my first work bench is 90% done. I only need to add two drawers but I can use the bench in it's current state. I play to write up a blog entry to encourage others to build their own bench as well. Very satisfying experience given my lack of wood working. Not to mention I got 4X the table for the price I paid for the parts. Look for the entry with pictures showing the progress and final product.

Well that's all for now. I'm tired and it's late so please excuse all the typos. I'll try to fix them tomorrow if I get enough sleep. ;-)

Pray my son sleeps through the night for everyone's sake.

God Bless.

Category: Family | Permalink | 0 locked comments

Large media companies are out of control. I'm constantly pointing that out in this blog but I still get the odd email telling me I'm just an immoral pirate who steals music. Funny how they over look all the Creative Commons music I play during my podcasts, how I don't download any RIAA music what so ever nor do I support any digital music stores. I have said and will continue to say buy used. Half.com, friends, local music stores, etc etc. No DRM, automatic back up, etc etc. So when I read today that the music industry is outright stealing from the artists to the tune of millions of dollars you understand why I see no reason for labels at all. The internet allows direct access making them worthless in the whole process. They are a dinosaurs which needs to die off paving the way for artists and fans to connect directly. Once that happens artist could choose their own revenue streams, payment policies, give-aways, etc etc.

When you read the following, keep one thing in mind, they are stealing just like the "file sharers" are yet, they are making millions of dollars from their actions while "file sharers" (mostly) make nothing.

"The pending list among the lawsuit's defendants has topped 300,000 songs from both large and small artists alike—300,000 songs that the labels are openly admitting that they have not secured the rights for. In the complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the record companies have been unjustly enriched by the use of their unauthorized music (they have, after all, been selling the music without permission and not paying out). "

Artists Lawsuit

Get out there an support your independent artists.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments

I've been in the market for a GPS unit for some time now. With all the mountain biking, hiking, trail running and road biking in different areas I always thought it a good idea to have one but, as always, was too cheap. Thankfully prices are dropping and sensitivity is getting better. My current favorite is Garmin eTrex Legend H which I've seen as low as $118.

So today's questions are as follows:

1. Do you own any form of GPS unit? If yes which one(s)?

2. How long have you been using GPS units?

3. When lost driving how do you get your self "found"? (stop and ask, map, gps, wet finger in air...)

4. Tell us your worse "I'm sooooooo lost how am I am ever going to find my way home?" story.

Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 4 locked comments

Let's start with MS and their admission that they had some code that broke the GPL. From what I've read so far they have handled it pretty well. Admitted they made a mistake, pulled the code then decided to release it via GPL. I know of some bloggers and such that want MS strung up but in this case I don't see the need. They messed up, admitted fault and are making it right. I don't see how they could do anything else. They have also said they are looking into improving their code review process so this doesn't happen again. Like I said, mistake, fix, move on. So well done to MS.

The latest numbers from the web broswer world are always fun to look at. But I gotta say after seeing them I have to ask a question of my fruit users. Notice I said users, not the fanboys. The last time I checked, it was following a full moon, high tide, black friday and all, Apple was at 8% of the PC market. Aside from the accuracy of the numbers the browser data shows Safari at 4%. (Fine fine fine, 4.3) Does that mean half the users are NOT using Safari and instead using Firefox? Why?

ARS did a review of the new Droid phone and I must say that I feel validated. Actually I feel validated twice but we'll get there.

In the summary of the review they had this to say about the Droid.

"It all depends on your preferences in phone features. If multitasking matters, the Pre and the Droid are your only choices. Droid lets you play music on Pandora, navigate, and check Twitter all at the same time, with no lag and no delays. If you're looking for a media player phone or a camera phone, on the other hand, you might check elsewhere. It just comes down to the feature set you're looking for."

Which sounds very much like what I said when I compared the Raspberry and the ifruit. The additional support for my view came in the way of a fight. A prize fight that is. Cnet does these wacky prize fights where they pit competing products against each other. The ifruit won but the final word was along the lines of:

"The droid excels as a phone while the ifruit excels as a multimedia device."

To hear it for yourself head over to cnet to see the fruit win by tie breaker. BTW, how do you market a device where it's biggest weakness is in it's name? i - phone.

Oh and don't even bother getting annoyed at the categories or scoring, the prize fight is more entertainment then actual review. For evidence of this notice how multitasking is a mere casual mention while the Included Google maps with voice (free) is compared to a soon to be released app (meaning it doesn't even exist yet) which will run $99. Like I said, entertainment at best.

We'll end with a nice entry about Linux security. Or should I say how to make sure you got the basics set up properly. *gasp linux isn't perfect? No unlike other OS', linux understands that Security is not a destination but a process nor is any bit of code ever truly perfect.

So read on and be safe out there.

May the Source Code be With you. ;-)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments

When the whole Mark S/Ubuntu comments went live the flame wars regarding sexism in the tech place, in linux, on mars, etc etc really came out. I hate doing this but, I feel a preemptive strike is in order just to set the tone. My wife has a Masters in CS and when it comes to coding/design she is by far my superior. The number one in my graduating EE class was a women. One of my former cube mates' wife is an engineer. At the vocational school where I subbed last year there is a women in the Engineering Shop. Can you see the pattern here?

So let's just make the statement. Unless women are presented with barriers that men do not have, I don't see the need to convince or encourage or whatever word works, women to get into tech. If a women is interested then by all means join the club. Sit down, grab an area (EE, CE, CPE, CS, etc etc) and have at it. Just whatever you do don't get in to it because some bean counter says we need more women. I don't see tons of public school programs encouraging more male students to get into Child Care so why should we do the reverse?

One of the quotes from the article sums it up nicely.

"Whether OS development needs more women "is debatable," he added. "I believe a woman should do what she loves, same as a man. If that is Linux development I say welcome to geekdom, here is your pocket protector. But unless there are obstacles being placed in the way of women developers, saying we need 'more' of a certain race or sex in a chosen field just smells too much like quotas to me." "

And we all know what quotes get us? Exactly. ;-)

Category: Family | Permalink | 2 locked comments

If you want a google wave invite email me. Or you could send me a direct msg via identica or twitter.

So far for me, it's yet another email account to keep track of.

We'll see.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 0 locked comments

The calendar is nice, the included GPS with turn by turn is beyond awesome. You can speak into it and it will find an address. The slide out keyboard is weird but very usable so I'll remain neutral on that. It can multitask, it can email, gmail, twitter, and a whole host of things. The camera is probably the best I've seen on any phone I've played with and the screen is huge and absolutely crystal clear. But if I took away one thing it's this.

This phone is a beast. It's like plutonium or something because it really does feel like you are holding something very well built and solid. Even when you slide the keyboard out it feels solid with a nice mechanical click. As a self defense item it would totally do 2d20 damage easily. You get hit across the head with this thing, you know about it.

But I would still destroy it on my very first mountain bike ride unless I housed it in bubble wrap.

Definitely a nice phone and yet another phone I will not be buying. ;-)

Category: Technology | Permalink | 3 locked comments

It's not every day a large company releases a brand new operating system. From a geeks points of view, it's darn pretty cool to watch it happen. So here are today's questions.

1. What did you think of the new Google OS?

2. Were you impressed, neutral, or disappointed with what you saw?

3. What do you think of the whole cloud computing thing, now on the verge of supporting an OS?

4. Do you think MS has anything to worry about with this new OS? Does Apple? Does Linux (Yes I know it's running the linux kernel)?

Enjoy

Category: Technology | Permalink | 12 locked comments

Aside from the whole anti-Catholic anti-Christian stance from all the cool people at /. I found this story via their rss feed. Vatican Debates Possibility of Alien Life. Beyond the typical posters who haven't clue about church doctrine I found few that could truly articulate what the church has taught up to this point.

Simply put, it's God world and we're just living in it. Last time I checked we fail to exist if not for his love. So if God wanted to create us AND something else he can do whatever he likes. Which brings me to all the wasted energy regarding creation. Think about it, if man can create movies that do a darn good job of making them look like another time period, don't you think GOD, who created all that we know and see, could have created the world in 6 days yet made it look like 6 bazillion old. Or visa versa? No one knows and as far as I'm concern, no one knows. That's why they're all call theories. Aliens could land tomorrow and my faith in God wouldn't be in question at all. I would be in fact yelling, "don't trust them, ther're lizards who want to eat us. "

------------

Next up Robbery Suspect Cleared By Facebook Alibi.

We obviously don't know the details but come on, didn't anyone associated with this case know about VNC?

--------------

Our last story deals with Public School Teachers Selling Lesson Plans Online.

My initial reaction of confusion turned to disgust pretty darn fast. As a former teacher I find this act disturbing and clearly someone needs to step in. Why? Because who writes a lesson plan in a vacuum? No one that I know. When I wrote mine I consulted with other teachers, books, web sites, etc etc. Heck my education helped me to write them. Should my former EE teachers get a cut? That's why I gave mine away. I posted them to my school web site for everyone to see, review, comment on and consult with me. How does any teacher state with a clear conscience that they created their lesson plan with no outside influence, information or idea? My father taught for nearly 30 years and my sister-in-law is somewhere around her 7-10th year. She is constantly refining her plans due to what the students say, act and do with her plans. Do the kids get credit for helping to weed out the rough edges?

Plus at the most basic fundamental of TEACHING how can you in good faith charge a co-worker? Shouldn't you be helping the new teachers and in return obtaining new ideas from them? Teachers are suppose to work together to benefit the STUDENTS. You don't get into to teaching to get rich. You do it to help the next generation make our world better.

I'm sorry but I don't agree.

Category: Family | Permalink | 1 locked comments

Note and disclaimer: I did not request, pay for samples, nor am I associated with the makers of the following product. Simply put, someone offered, (as you'll read) I tried it and what follows is the review/opinion of that product.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before I begin, let me lay my cards on the table with regards to weight loss products. They're junk, garbage, crapola, or more specifically an utter waste of money. This comes from 28 years of running, close to 20 years in triathlons and 3 years working for both Nature Foods and GNC (college job). For me nothing beats good healthy food, exercise, plenty of sleep and managing your stress levels. Throw any of those off and you'll struggle to lose. Eat to much, eat garbage, etc etc and you're doomed. Have tons of stress in your life with no way of dealing with it and the body will react. Just ask me about that last one. You first year teaching is nothing but stress and it showed. I was watching what I ate and trying to workout, but the weight went up alittle. The stress was affecting my sleep which started the downward spiral. Second year I dealt with the stress much better and voila, the weight started to come off. So it may come as a shock to you that I am currently trying the BodyTrim On-The-Go Weight Management system. Here's the how and why.

As you know I'm on the training log site Daily Mile. One of the people I talk with, read my 2010 goals which stated, I want to lose more weight. Let me be clear, if I hadn't written something about losing more weight, and he would have offered the products he sells I would have told him to pound sand. But he offered in a very no pressure way to send me something in response to my post. I accepted and have in my possession a box of 30 pouches to sample. Given all the packaging I have seen over the years both as a employee of health stores and as a consumer my initial reaction was not good. On the side of their green box is a chart discussing Body Mass Index. The chart in itself is not the problem. The problem lies with the lack of body types. As you know there are three main body types: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. None of that is mentioned. So when I look at the chart I find that I am slightly overweight. I currently have 13+% body fat so I don't agree. Looking back to when I was lifting heavy I weighed 232 and was around 15%. According to their chart I was obese. So I'd advise them to either dump the chart or add more detail.

To clarify I am not only losing fat but also muscle. When I was lifting heavy my muscles grew to support the heavy loads like they are suppose to do. But I no longer want my muscles to perform that way. I want them to act more in the endurance arena then strength. This means I don't need the extra mass. That is why I now lift with lite weights but high reps in a circuit workout. I have also lowered my protein intake since I don't have the same muscle mass that I use too.

(time lapse to trying actual product)

Each packet contains their own special (guessing proprietary) blend to help you with your weight loss. Upon reading the ingredients you'll see the same stuff you always see. Something for fiber, something for energy, something to make it taste good and some form of anti-oxidants. So lets start with how it mixes. Unfortunately it doesn't. As you can see from the picture, after mixing for about 1-2 mins with a spoon the water had turned color but most of the product remained on the surface just floating there.I also have a protein powder mixing container which I got some years ago as a free add on to an order I once placed. It has a mesh like screen on the inside of the container that helps mix powder in fluid. It did not work either. If it requires anything more then just a spoon/special container to fully disperse the powder in liquid then it shouldn't be called “On-the-Go.

To properly test how this product I changed nothing in my current diet and drank it with one of my typical mid morning snacks. 1 oz of Almonds, 1 oz of Raisins. I found the drink to be rather sweat and clearly not something I would enjoy drinking all the time. Plus the chalky powder left on the top made the first few drinks rather intense with the rest just mildly flavored. After about 10-15 minutes I could feel the caffeine kick in. As you know I enjoy a good Red Bull before a workout/race just as much as the next guy but I don't walk around every day strung up on caffeine. For me having this much caffeine in your system every day is a turn off. I understand that caffeine is a thermo-genic (raises the body's temp in an effort to burn more calories over the course of the day and helps control hunger) but my wife already calls me a spaz. I don't think she'd appreciate me being even more of one. Not to mention that if I did ingest this product on a daily basis the body would acclimate/adjust and I would need to increase my intake to maintain the desire effect. Clearly not something I am prepared to do.

To be fair I don't plan on throwing this stuff out nor will I give it away because I think it would make an excellent pre-workout meal aid or a nice supplement to my pre-ride shakes after work. Meaning I can use a blender to help disperse the powder and/or be able to split the serving in two to help limit the caffeine all the time hiding the overly sweet taste.

Summary

Good:

Plenty of Caffeine to get you through the day/workout

Easy to carry pouches

Low Carbs and Calories

Bad:

Overly sweat taste – Not something you want every day

Price a bit high for what you're getting. Multi Vit + Caffeine pill would be cheaper and give almost same result.

Ugly:

Does not mix at all

No way to adjust for body weight.

Final Say

Thanks for the chance to try your product but, no sale.

If you would like to contact the DailyMile person here is his profile:

trinrgy

Category: Sports | Permalink | 2 locked comments

There is a scene in the movies Spaceballs where the Hero, LoneStar, tells the princess to bring only what you need. Given the serious *snicker nature of the movie she takes her industrial strength hair dryer which looks to be the size of a small tricycle. That's what triggered today's questions.

1. You've just found out that you won a weekend get away. Besides the typical clothing, what would you bring for fun? Books, hand held games, Kindle, etc etc?

2. You decide to down size house wise. What are you willing to part with?

3. What item will you absolutely not give up and it will go with you to your new place?

4. Out of all the pcs/ laptops etc you've owned, what is the one system you could never part with?

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 4 locked comments

Download if you dare. ;-)

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Featured artists: Halloween Edition. So Good its Scary! - BlackAlexxx, Of The I, Myven, JT Bruce, and Dan Hyer. Please send all feedback to atrfeedback@gmail.com.
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments