Silflay Hraka

Isn’t it always like this? You spend a few hundred dollars on a new electronic gadget and a year later the company goes and makes a better version.

Last July, I spent something like $200 bucks on a Garmin Forerunner 301 combo GPS and heartrate monitor. I’ve been wearing it when I bike or run and it tracks my pace, distance, time, heartrate and calories burned just for starters. When I finish exercising, I hook it into my laptop’s USB port and download all the data into a training program that lets me chart my workout and compare it to past workouts. I cut nearly two minutes off my mile splits between the time I bought it in July and the end of October.

I liked the product enough to buy my dad a Forerunner 101 for Christmas, but I do have a few problems with the product. For one, it takes for damn near ever to pick up the GPS satellite signals. It can take as much as five or six minutes. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but its more than enough time to stretch and warm up. When you’re stretched and ready to go, you don’t like to wait around for your GPS to figure out where it is.

The second problem I have is that it sometimes loses the heartrate signal from the chest strap. There are gaps in some of my charts because it just stopped tracking the heartrate data. It’s a little annoying when you’re an information junky like myself.

Lastly, it’s just a little clunky. It doesn’t really look like a watch, unlike comparable systems from Timex or Nike. It looks more like you’re wearing an obtrusive little box on your wrist. While it’s a nice conversation piece, it’s not too fashionable or aerodynamic. I still prefer it because the Timex Bodylink comes in four separate pieces and the Nike system doesn’t have a GPS. Neither does the system from Polar.

Evidently someone at Garmin figured all this out. The new Garmin Forerunner 305 supposedly has a better GPS antenna, an improved radio-frequency heartrate monitor and a more stylish watch-like design. It still looks a little clunky, but it appears to be an improvement over the 301.

It doesn’t look like the new features are revolutionary, but, of course, I want it. Maybe I’ll sell my 301 on Ebay and use that money to upgrade. It looks like I could probably get one for about $280 bucks. I’m not sure it’s worth it. Maybe I’ll wait another year and see what the Forerunner 310 looks like. Maybe they’ll be able to shrink it a little more. Maybe it’ll be able to play MP3s. Maybe they’ll make it bluetooth compatible. Maybe they’ll make it waterproof and I’ll be able to swim with it too.

I’m sure they’ll add something else to the thing, especially if I buy the 305. I mean, isn’t it always like that?

Sony playing a Cheap Trick on musicians?

According to a lawsuit by Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers, Sony is stealing from its own artists now. What I don’t understand is why Sony continues to sell a single product. They haven’t been truly innovational in over ten years and their sense of corporate ethics has apparently gone into the toilet. I actively avoid Sony products now and I wish everyone would. This is a company in crying for extinction.

Want to help? Buy an HD DVD player rather than a blu-ray DVD player. Buy an X-Box or Nintendo Wii rather than a PlayStation. Buy a Samsung television rather than a Sony. It’s not like any Sony product is top-of-the-line any more. The days of the Sony Walkman and Trinitron technology are long gone.

BOYCOTT SONY!

I’m spending an evening in tonight. I would’ve gone out, but I have a cold. It came on some time Thursday and was in full swing by Friday morning and has lessened somewhat, but hasn’t entirely faded away as of today. I don’t feel too horrible. I have a scratchy throat, itchy eyes and, judging from the color of the stuff, some kind of toxic waste coming out of my nose.

In short, I’m sick and have been for several days.

This was a rather unfortunate turn of events since I was due to run the Owl’s Roost Rumble 5k this morning. I briefly toyed with the idea of bailing on the race but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For one, I bailed on a race last weekend and didn’t want to ditch another. For another, I put in a lot of time preparing for the race. I had a carbohydrate-rich pizza for dinner on Friday night, for example. I’d also taken the time to purchase a Red Bull and a banana for my breakfast. I didn’t want my prep work to go to waste.

Lastly, it cost me $15 dollars to register and, well, it cost me $15 dollars to register. Yes, I pay to run. Some people might find this to be a little unreasonable since running can be done for free. Most people I know would pay good money not to run and certainly wouldn’t pay someone for the privilege of running. But when you pay to run, you get t-shirts and other free swag like carb jelly. All-in-all, it’s worth it.

The race was actually an off-road trail run and started at 8:30 this morning. There was also a half marathon that started in waves between 8:00 and 8:15. I briefly toyed with the idea of running the half marathon event, but distance running isn’t my forte. I don’t really pace myself well and I tend to discover new and interesting kinds of pain after about five miles. The 3.2 miles of a 5 kilometer race are about the ideal distance for me.

I started the race at what I considered a safe pace, one that would get me to the finish line somewhere in the middle of the pack or maybe just inside the top half. I generally don’t worry about competing. It’s usually all I can do to finish. The last race I ran had about 360 runners and I finished a respectable 93rd. Not near the front, but not too poor of a showing.

About a half a mile in, something changed. I don’t know what prompted it exactly. Maybe it was the young lady easily keeping pace at my side, somehow offending my male pride. Maybe it was watching one of co-workers loping along effortlessly a few strides in front of me. Whatever it was, something touched a competitive nerve. I decided it was time to pick up the pace.

I put a little distance between myself and the young (cute) lady and started stalking my co-worker. A tenth of a mile later, I managed to slip past him. This salvaged my pride a little, but I’d discovered the joy of passing people. So I passed a few more. I’d pace myself behind someone for a while and then pass at an opportune moment. The trail wasn’t too wide and there were lots of roots and several nice mud puddles. One poor young woman went down in a heap in the midst of a particularly squishy patch, right in front of me.

Being the gentleman I am, I went around, rather than over her.

Eventually, I found there were fewer and fewer people in front of me and more and more people behind me. This was a new experience for me. I am much more used to people passing me. As the crowd in front of me thinned, I found that I was now running to stay ahead as much as I was running to catch up. I kept expecting to hear someone coming up behind me waiting for their chance to pass. All I heard behind me, however, was the sound of the person I just passed falling further behind. Well, that and the sound of my own incredibly labored breathing.

I was running way too fast. I’d abandoned any kind of pace I thought I could maintain. I was probably a mile-and-a-half into the race and I could see maybe five people in front of me and I had absolutely no hope of catching anyone else and precious little hope of staving off those behind me. I wear a heartrate monitor when I run and a quick glance showed my heart beating at 197 beats per minute.

My max heart rate is 185 beats per minute. I usually achieve that somewhere near the end of my run. Actually, when my heart beats that fast, it generally signals the end of my run because I find it damn near impossible to continue. But here I am with my heart beating something like twelve beats per minute faster than I’ve seen it all year. I am sucking in air in huge gulps. I am wheezing like a blast furnace. And then I remember I have a cold.

When I stop coughing, my lungs feel like they’re on fire. The hill I am climbing seems to have no top. There’s a young man two or three strides ahead of me and the young woman I just passed is somewhere back there stalking me. Incredibly, against all evidence, a voice inside me tells me that I could pass the guy in front of me if I wanted. I ignore it and let him stay right where he is. There’ll be no more passing for me. He’s welcome to all two of the seconds he’ll finish ahead of me.

At the three mile mark, the trail comes out of the trees and heads uphill towards the finish line. (Uphill. Why must the races always end uphill?) I am tempted to stop and walk the rest of the way. I’m dying. But I can hear the woman behind me getting closer, dammit. With ten yards to go, she pulled dead even with me. I had to sprint to finish one second before she did. My male pride would rather have me keel over dead on the spot than let a woman pass me at the end of I race I’d nearly killed myself to finish, as you may gather from the charts below.

As it is, I didn’t die, as you can probably tell. I did, however, spend some quality time puking over a lovely split-rail fence onto an anthill.

In the end, it was worth it. I didn’t win, place or show, but I did finish 16th in a field of 133 racers. I was 7th in the men’s 30 to 39 age group. This was by far my best finish in any run ever, including my rather undistinguished track career in high school. After I finished puking in the woods, I was really psyched. I almost wish I had tried to catch that guy in front of me. I would’ve been in the top 15. If I cut another minute off my time, I could even get into the top 10. If I can cut five minutes out of my time, I might even win! I figure all I have to do is drop ten pounds and…

Well, that’s a dream for another day. 16th was good enough for today and I thank God for getting me there. It was a good feeling and I’m pretty sure that cute girl really enjoyed hearing me brag about it. She was especially impressed with the vomiting, I think.

I can’t imagine why she didn’t want to give me her phone number. She was probably intimidated by my superior running skills.

Yeah. I’m sure that was it.

Seapup has inspired me to think we need to start our own fishing trips out to Vera Cruz. Of course, we would need something a like this. After a few cold ones, I figure we could get this at least 50 yards up on the dry sand! This would be too much fun!!

I was walking around downtown Greensboro a few weeks ago, enjoying my lunch break and some sunshine, taking in the scenery. When I walk, I generally daydream about something or other. It’s typically a good time to sort out whatever thoughts are flowing around inside my skull.

On this particular afternoon, I noted that one of the buildings I’ve coveted in the past was up for sale. (I did say I generally daydreamed while walking, right? Sometimes I day-dream about buying and renovating one of the buildings downtown. No, I don’t have that kind of money, but dreams are free.) The building in question is the old “Security Van Lines” building on Barnhardt Street. It’s right off South Elm next to the Jae-Mar Brass company and between the two sets of train tracks that divide downtown.

One of my particular friends and I looked at it a few years ago. At the time it was mainly being used for storage by some construction company or other. We were talking about opening some kind of bar or restaurant or some combination of the two.

While I still daydream about buying and renovating this particular building, my eye and mind were focused on this particular day on the painted sign on the back of the building. I saw it and began to take note of just how many of these painted advertisements are on the buildings downtown. I’ve been seeing these types of signs across the South all my life, but I guess I’ve never really taken note. To me these old and fading signs capture something of the spirit of an older and fading South, one that was more…innocent? Genteel?

Something about them captured my imagination and I spent a good part of my lunch break one afternoon taking photos of all the cracked and fading signs I could find. When you stop and take the time to look up and around, you find more than you realize are there.

It makes me a little wistful for younger days when I see signs like this. I harken back to the days when you could get Coke or Pepsi in glass bottles and you could still get a nickel for taking the bottles back to the store and it reminds me of the smell of the feed and seed store in my home town.

Anyway, I thought I might share some of the photos. I’ll post more later and make this kind of a series. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do.

While we’re talking about the ‘Worst Product Name Ever” here on the big board, there is a decent discussion as to the “Worst Beer Ever” taking place over at the ‘Fishin’, Drinkin’ & Stinkin‘” blog. Be sure to check it out and let your opinion be known.

Nintendo Revolution renamed ‘Wii’ .

This is what happens when you give marketing too much power at a company. They come up with highly conceptual names and taglines for products. Sure, they have their reasons and it all makes perfect sense…to them. Unfortunately, the high concept stuff doesn’t usually trickle down to the consumer.

Using all the marketing wisdom of a cane toad high from licking itself, Nintendo has chosen to call their upcoming game console ‘Wii’. That sound you hear is the resounding thud of thousands of jaws hitting the floor in shock at once.

Wii, pronounced “we” or “oui” or “whee” or “wee” or maybe even “why”, supposedly brings to mind the concept of togetherness and is supposed to highlight the innovative controller. “Wii” makes me think of urine.

The console had been code named “Revolution”, but that was evidently too plain for the marketers at Nintendo. Maybe too American. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe Nintendo doesn’t think it can compete in America any longer, so they choose a name that primarily appealed to Asians. From an American point of view “Wii” could be an Asian name or character or word.

I can’t see something called the “Wii” catching on in America, no matter how revolutionary the controller might be. Can you imagine one American teen telling another American teen that he or she received a “Wii” as a Christmas gift?

“What did you get for Christmas?”

“I got a Nintendo Wii.”

“You got urine from Nintendo?”

“No, it’s not urine from Nintendo. It’s the new video game machine.”

“Oh. So it’s not urine. It’s crap.”

“Right.”

My prediction is that the Wii will be the straw that breaks the back of the camel that has been carrying Nintendo in the horse race that is video gaming these days. Nintendo will be forced to abandon the hardware market and join previous also-ran Sega in the gaming software industry.

I was just looking over this here blog and re-read my post about Shiner Bock vs. Rolling Rock and other beers and it got me thinking about what might be the worst beer ever.

Struggle as I might, I cannot think of a single beer worse than the canned Rolling Rock I took on that particular fishing trip. It’s been a few years so I’m struggling to remember exactly what was so bad about it, but I know it left a bad taste in the literal and figurative mouth of almost everyone on the trip. I want to say it was exceptionally…dry…if that term can be applied to a beer. Rather than waiting for the morning after to get the dehydrated hangover headache, you got it while you were drinking the beer.

Some of you fella’s help me out. What exactly was so bad about it again? Other than it being totally rancid garbage, that is. And I don’t mean rancid as in "skunky beer". I think we all know what constitutes skunky beer and I think we’d give ol’ Rolling Rock another try if the beer had just been skunky. It was just plain old bad in a regular sort of "this is what it’s supposed to taste like every day" kind of way.

I think Rolling Rock has to get my vote as "Worst Beer Ever". The only other beer that might come close in my book is Bud Light. Talk about making love in a canoe. I’m not a fan of Coors Light either, however. I also recall not being particularly fond of Abita’s Turbo Dog the only time I ever had it. I guess I’m going against the grain there.

What’s everyone think? What’s the worst beer you ever had? I know Icehole will probably agree with me on the Rolling Rock. Maybe Dawg. Any other nominees? Let’s come up with a top ten list of shitty beers. We’ll do it for humanitarian purposes, as a warning to others kind of thing. I’ll start.

Top 10 Shittiest Beers Ever

1.) Rolling Rock

2.) … 

Marburg Vaccine Effective on Infected Monkeys – New York Times

Government researchers in the United States and other countries have been trying to create vaccines against Marburg and Ebola out of fear that the viruses could be made into weapons. In 2004, two accidents were reported in which researchers stuck themselves with needles contaminated with Ebola, one at Fort Detrick and one in Russia. The American never got sick, but the Russian died.

The Tale of Lee Fowler, as told by the blog StateFans Nation (which is a good one).

In addition, read this to see his take on how Fowler flubbed with Beilein.