Gossip

I'm sitting here at BMI (Bloomington, IL Central Illionois Regional Airport AKA CIRA) airport and recalled a conversation I overheard last time I flew through here. I don't often travel through BMI because I sometimes can get better travel times through CMI or simply ORD. But this week I am and thought I'd post this little bit of gossip I fell into.

I'll give some background here so you the reader can understand how BMI is setup. All shops are prior to entering security. Once you pass through TSA there are no shops. Quite frankly, I don't understand this because it is a fairly new airport and most people will spend their time behind security but this is the way it is.

There is one feature on the upper floor where some vending machines live. So we can at least buy liquids once through. However, there is also a coffee machine supplied by one of the local companies. It is on the honor system. Take a cup, pay $1. Get a refill for $0.50. Not a bad deal for a hot drink once through.

Now comes the juicy bit. The conversation I overheard was between two guys. One was (I assume) some one who worked for the airport. I saw him overseeing some maintenance work that was being performed on the building. The other man was only someone associated with the honor coffee. Both were well dressed (i.e. business casual). The coffee man was complaining to the airport guy that their company had noticed they seem to be selling more coffee than they are collecting in the money box. The coffee man had a camera put up and tied to a VCR in their office. They recorded people and it turns out it isn't the passengers stiffing the coffee company it is the airport workers (yes, apparently also including TSA agents). Juicy news, eh?! It is a shame we can't get a copy of the video. Technically it is in a public area (I'm pretty sure public money was used to build the airport) so it should be releasable.

Perhaps someone with some journalistic sense can get the tape from the coffee company. It would certainly be interesting to watch.

iPhone 3G & WEP hex password

I have not been able to get my iPhone 3G to connect to my Linksys router. I have lots of other computers hooked up to the router using WEP and can not be changing my security settings on the router. If anyone knows how to get this to work let me know.

Apple - Support - Discussions - 3G IPhone won't connect to WI-FI ...

I just got a 3G iPhone and am having trouble connecting to my Linksys router. It finds the connection fine, and prompts me for a password, but won't accept the password. My old iPod Touch was able to connect using the same settings without a problem... am I doing something wrong?

Elastic laces for your running shoes

One of my colleagues, Julia Weatherby, pointed me at these elastic laces for my running shoes. I got mine this morning and laced up my running shoes and what a difference they make! Shoes feel snug and I know when they start expanding the laces will expand with them. Way kewlness!


:::::::: Yankz! - Sure Lace System ::::::::::

Travel a lot?

As an AA Executive Platinum I spend a lot of time on airplanes. I found this set of forums one of the few where other frequent fliers hang out. You can get some good tips on here.

FlyerTalk Forums

Ugh, nothing more frustrating than yesterday. All of the sudden when I plugged my iPhone 3G into the laptop it wasn't popping up the option to select which app to use to transfer the photos. Then, in Scanners and Cameras Windows XP didn't seen the iPhone! Double UGH!

With the iPhone 3G plugged in to the laptop I went into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Device Manager and saw under the USB entries one for "Apple iPhone" which I deleted. Immediately XP found new hardware and installed a different driver called "Apple Mobile Device USB driver" ?? Dunno what is going on but now the iPhone 3G is getting recognized and I can transfer the photos over.

This has to be some weird interaction with iTunes as I installed iTunes AFTER I had been plugging the iPhone into the laptop.

iPhone 3G

I haven't owned anything from Apple since the Mac IIci. Though I did get my wife the iPod I ended up using my own MP3 player to play music. But now that the iPhone 3G is out I figured it was time to move up off my Nokia N75 which is a great quad band phone but on the IBM Corporate Managed Program is next to useless otherwise. So I am once again carrying two cell phones... sigh.

I'll say one thing, the iPhone 3G is impressive. At least here in San Francisco where I'm working this week. We'll see how it goes next week back home in Bloomington & then Chicago, IL.

Can I Resist the iPhone 3G? - By Reihan Salam - Slate Magazine

Ever since the Apple IIe, I've thought of Apple computers as the pinnacle of design excellence.

Road warriors with skin conditions are the exception

Sorry, but being able to travel with only carry on luggage with the current liquid restrictions is impossible for those of us with psoriasis. Medicine like Chlobetasol which I carry in gel form because it lasts, well, forever doesn't come in 3 oz sizes and even if it did I wouldn't risk travelling with that little. I can be gone 3-4 weeks at a time (especially when I travel internationally) away from home so no matter what I need to check a bag. Besides the Chlobetasol I have t-gel shampoo which contains coal tar that helps relieve psoriasis outbreaks. There again since I may need to apply it to my body having only 3 oz (or 100 ml) of it is not safe for me.

I am a road warrior. American Airlines Executive Platinum with 1 million miles so I am also life time Gold and I'm working my way to 2 million miles and life time Platinum.

At least for me I don't have to pay the checked luggage fees, yet. American Airlines is not charging us with status on the frequent flier program with this fee.

I did at one point manage to get everything including all my liquids into a regular sized carry on bag. That was the same week that the liquid ban was instituted so I had to check my bag on the way home that week. I have not been able to travel since without checking a bag.

Practical Traveler - Air Travel - Checking Baggage? Not at These Prices - NYTimes.com

True road warriors never check a bag if they can help it, bragging about their ability to go more than a week with just three pairs of underwear and four pairs of socks.

Facebook

I have to say that as a mobile employee one of the things I've missed is the camaraderie I see at the companies I visit. They recognize birthdays, special events and people always seem to know what everyone is up to. But as I'm on the road I have yet to have anyone at my company even wish me happy birthday much less know about any other milestones I've achieved. My 5 year anniversary came and went without anyone knowing.

And now there is Facebook. I know when my colleagues' birthdays happen and I get a chance to write "Happy Birthday" on their facebook wall. How nice is that? I think I can appreciate the social network aspect of these sites. It is also interesting to see everyone trying to aggregate their data on disparate sites. That is one area I'm interested in because, quite frankly, there are too many social networks. Even internally at my company we have social networks and while it is all interesting I don't have time to participate on multiple networks. For now I do keep up on facebook.

Facebook | Home

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/20/Swatters-tricked-ATT-while-making-fake-911-calls_1.html

There are somethings I do not understand. What those people did simply boggles the mind. Just think if they used that time differently and for a better purpose.

Amazon.com: Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store

This looks interesting. But probably not something I'm going to get any time soon. It just comes down to that I'm trying to REDUCE the number of gadgets I carry around with me. Adding yet another gadget is not in my plan. Now, if it could replace my MP3 and internet capable cell phone at the same time THEN I'd seriously consider this. But they'd have to get it down to the size of the Treo to make it manageable.

For me a combination of the iPhone and Kindle would be slick.

Blogger Bar :: Firefox Add-ons

Blogger Bar :: Firefox Add-ons

Testing this out. What I don't like is the popup window is too small and for some reason they disabled the ability to resize the window. Why?! UGH

Cool security cartoon

I like this.

Frank Cotham : “Security is lax on this side.” - Cartoonbank.com
Frank Cotham : “Security is lax on this side.” - Cartoonbank.com

Powered by ScribeFire.

Okay, as you can see from my last post I have a new Treo 700p that I purchased while I was in Dallas. I played around with uploading a photo directly from the phone and posting it to my blog which worked!

I spent the last two weeks in San Francisco and really enjoyed the nice weather out there. Today in Central Illinois I'm looking at 3 inches of snow right now. So I probably will not get a run in today so it was a good thing I got out yesterday.

Speaking of running, I got the Jabra BT8010 bluetooth stereo headset to see if I could go running and listen to my MP3s without a wire dangling from my head. The Treo 700p can output bluetooth (with the Softick Audio Gateway) in stereo. Sure enough, not only did this work but the headset stays on very nicely even while running. Okay, I'm probably not as fast as some of you folks but the headset stayed on my head.

I've also been using Treo Launcher http://palmgadget.com/lnchr.html which I am impressed with enough to seriously consider purchasing.

Another thing the Treo 700p can do is play movies. I have been using the At Large Recorder with my Slingplayer to record movies to watch on the airplane. But that has been a hassle as I have to then move the movie onto an SD card. I've since purchased a Neuros Recorder 2 http://store.treocentral.com/content/accessories/52-143--1262.htm which is actually a good deal if you get it with the SD card. I hooked it up to the DirecTV Tivo and recorded a couple of movies I had racked up in Tivo. Then I downloaded free, open source TCPMP and played the movies back! I also tried Kinoma (which a lot of sites recommend) but couldn't get it to find my movies on the SD card and not sure what I have to do to get it to work. Though Kinoma does have pretty cool Internet radio access that even works when I'm not in the Sprint Power Vision areas (older, slower Vision access).

Talk2Phone is the last application I've been playing with primarily because I can't get the default phone application to dial conference call numbers with passcodes. Seems the only way to do this is to set up speed dial numbers which is unworkable for me as the conf calls I dial into can number well over 10 a week and they are all different numbers.

All in all I'm very pleased with the Treo 700p. It is also nice to have eliminated carrying 3 different devices and pull some gadgets out of my laptop bag that I will no longer need.

Finally, if you haven't been looking IBM has pushed through $100/sh for the second time in the past couple of weeks. Good news for me!

Qwerty

another test

I know this is off topic but something different and fun to watch. We went to a Cubs game for Sandra's 40th and here is some video I shot of the Golden Knights US Army skydivers landing at Wrigley before the game. Sorry no sound because my camera doesn't do sound. But I will hopefully get a decent digital DVD camcorder some day soon.

Flocker

I just downloaded flocker  to try out.  I'm posting this with flocker.  Lets see how good it works.

One thing I do not see is a way to put image files into a posting.  But it does let me save to the local disk and publish which is nice for being able to work offline.

Blogged with Flock

Having never realized I was running 11k on my long runs (1h30+) I figured today was the day to try and do a 15k. And I did it! 2h06 but I did it. See the Garmin data on the left which shows the route I took along Constitution Trail. The Google Earth map you can see the far north part of my run brought me within eyeshot of I55 which is the highway to Chicago or St. Louis. That was the point I turned around and headed back. I did little of a diversion near the end of Constitution Trail to make sure I got 15k in. I think next time I just need to push out a little further toward I55 so I don't have to do the diversion which isn't any more interesting than the trail. Now that I've done my first 15k I'm really motivated to try it again. Although next weekend it looks like I'll be busy putting in a new sink (currently in boxes in the living room) in the 1st floor bathroom so I may not have time to do such a long run for another fortnight.

About 40 mins after I got back home from the 15k I started to get REAL cold. I mean so cold I switched into my warm sweats. That has never happened before. I guess I'll have to do some reading on that phenomena.

Yesterday I got my new Forerunner 205! And I took it out this morning. As you can see I am running a lot further than I thought I was! I always thought I was doing about 5-6k and turns out I'm doing close to 8k! That is fantastic. I love the integration with motionbased.com and google earth. You can see two different views of my run.

So, now that I know how far I'm going I will use the virtual partner function in the Forerunner to start increasing my speed.

Before doing any exercise program consult with your physician to make sure you can do it!

Okay, so you're now on your new asthma drugs (like Singulair) and need to get back into shape. Here is what I did. If you're anything like me you spent the better part of 40 years unable to really exercise because you basically couldn't breathe. Your muscles are not used to doing much except lugging your heavy weight around.

First off, you probably also take some steroidal nasal spray. I find it really causes my sinuses to run. Get a sinus rinse. I found one at my local Walgreens. The sinus rinse is basically a small plastic pot that you fill with saline solution and clear out the nostrils. Do this before exercising and you'll enjoy it so much more.

Next thing is to dedicate yourself to doing this. I found that trying to exercise in the evenings was impossible. I am generally spent after work and too tired to do anything. Plus, spending time with the wife is more interesting than exercise. I had to find a time that worked and I find that getting up earlier worked the best. Yup, 5am. That gives me time to wake up and get out of the house by 6am which leaves plenty of time to exercise. Conversely, that means going to bed earlier in order to get enough sleep. Melatonin is your friend here. Pop one around 7pm and you'll be ready to sleep by 9pm. Add a glass or two of wine and you could find 8:30pm very doable. One thing I noticed is that during the winter months I didn't have to worry about sunscreen since sunrise often occurred after I finished my run. But once spring/summer came along I found that I easily got caught out in the sun. Sunscreen is a must because you are going to be spending a lot of time outside and it is important to protect your skin.

For all of this excercise plan get a good pedometer. I found the Omtron at Walmart and it worked the best out of all the ones I tried. It is a little pricier but the $5 pedometers are a waste of money.

Here is the plan I followed once I got onto Singulair. Depending on your asthma level YMMV but hopefully you can use this as a base for your plan.

This plan is based not on speed or distance but time. The amount of time you spend on the exercise is more important than either the intensity or the speed at which you do this. So, don't worry about intensity until you're down to within 20-30 pounds of your ideal weight for your height. Focus on the amount of time you spend exercising.

In addition, ignore the scale. Weighing yourself can be depressing especially when you hit a plateau. I hit a plateau where for three months I was losing no weight yet I had lost 4 inches off my waist. Avoid weighing yourself if at all possible. When I am losing weight I won't weigh myself more than once a week (typically on Saturday). If I hit a plateau I switch to every other week or even once a month. Until I see that I'm losing weight again I do not go back to the weekly weighing schedule.

Change your diet to a high fiber diet. I know, it goes against the low carb craze but low carb is not good for you and a high fiber diet is now thought to help with diseases like diverticulosis. Believe me, you don't want to get diverticulosis because it leads to diverticulitis which hurts a lot! So start eating granola, oatmeal and high fiber breads (those with 8 grams or more).

Phase One
Day zero (start) to about 3 months

Walking. Basically you want to walk as long as you can to start. Slowly, once a week, try to lengthen your walk by one or two blocks. When you get to 62 mins on your walk for a couple of weeks you've reached the goal for this phase and can move on to the next phase.

Walk every day of the week. You are only allowed to take a day off for really, really bad weather. Otherwise you are out there every morning.

Weight loss during this phase about 10-20 pounds. Walking is too low intensity to really lose any weight but the goal for phase one is not about losing weight but building up strength in those muscles you haven't used for decades.

Phase Two
3 months - 9 months

You need to start stretching before exercising from here on out.

Start running the last 3 blocks of the walk. Again, slowly once a week try to start running a block or two earlier than the previous week. Eventually get to the point where you run the same walk that took you 62 mins. Again, don't worry about the speed of your running/jogging. I had speed walkers passing me during this phase. I focused on spending the time. How often should you run? I tried to keep to at least 5 days a week during the early parts of this phase.

Eventually you'll find that you are improving on the time it takes for the run/jog. You'll eventually fall to the point where you're spending less than 40 mins. It is time to get your time back up. Just as before, increase the distance you run by a few blocks each week. Get the route up to the point where you're back at 62 mins. In this part of the phase I tried to keep close to 7 day a week schedule but with bad weather I more often had 5-6 days per week.

Sometime, once you reliably get to 62 mins on your regular daily run, during this phase perhaps once a week or once every other week you should try to do a 90+ minute run (I max out at 97 mins). Do this only on a weekend and when you first do this plan for nap time in the afternoon. It took me a a few months before I could do the 90 min run without needing a nap in the afternoon. Longer runs also mean more risk of jogger's nipple which seems to be well documented outside the USA. Although if you run into this see your doctor since it could also be breast cancer. A Band-Aid (plaster), I find the "flexible fabric" style works best for me, is the easiest way to prevent the problem with a couple of strips of waterproof tape to help hold it in place.

Weight loss during this phase is unpredictable. I hit plateaus yet I was losing inches around my waist. Don't weigh yourself too often during this phase. Much like phase one this phase is more about building up the strength in those muscles.

Once you've been able to go 3-4 weeks (not contiguous) of 7day/week running or you can do the 90 mins run without needing a nap you're ready for the next phase.

Phase Three
9 months to 15 months

This is the phase is where weight starts to peel off. Your running time should also be improving and you find that you periodically have to keep increasing your distance to keep the time at 62+ mins. I also make sure that I have several hills in the daily run to try and increase the level of exercise for the legs and butt.

The once a week 90 min run should also need adjustments to keep the time over the 93 min mark.

Weight loss seems to be steadier in this phase than the first two. Although plateaus do still happen they tend not to take more than a month to break through.

End of Current Plan

That is the end of my plan because I am at the 15 month mark after starting Singulair. I don't think I am a particularly fast runner. Though I think a speed walker would have a hard time passing me like they could when I was in month #8. You can see from my other blog posts on the changes I've made to my route to keep my time up.

I also found during the latter part of Phase 2 that an MP3 player and good music was helpful in holding a pace.

I did start using a heart rate monitor. When the weather got warmer I had to quit wearing it because I developed a rash where the chest strap was. Nothing I tried would stop the rash and finally not wearing the HRM was the only way to stop it. I guess I might start wearing it again when it cools off but right now I have my eye on the Garmin Forerunner 205 which looks really impressive. Maybe I'll get one in about a month.

I did 3 hills again this morning. There was a weak drizzle and I've run in much heavier rains so it didn't bother me too much. At least on my run I thought through some more points of the latest article I'm working on.

Sheba is staying home with me since I'm working from home. This dog does nothing but sleep all day long.