Month: March 2007

Erg blogging — Saturday 5K and small improvements

Today is the sixth row since getting back on the erg following 120 days of recovery from a trashed sacroilliac performed while sculling in early November. Easy-does-it is the rule for the first week — with the usual sore shoulder and back muscles as my body gets back into the unique cycle of rowing.

Yesterday was a rest day — NYC and travel — so coming off the rest I was a lot faster and set my personal best for the week, 20 minutes, 20 seconds for the 5,000 meter segment, averaging 2:01 minutes per 500 meter split. Not bad for week one, and a four second split improvement from my 2:05 on day one. Keep in mind that in full shape I am generally cruising in the 1:45-1:55 range (think of splits as the basis “mile per hour” measure in indoor rowing.
I do a 500 meter warm up at a very easy pace, loosening up for the most part. The 5,000 is when I turn on the iPod and crank at a loping 24 stroke per minute pace, focusing on length, a long recovery (the return part of the stroke) and a solid drive, taking great pains to focus on posture and back alignment. I program the RowPro to keep me in a 25 spm band, and a 150 heart beat per minute band, that generally sees me peak around 170-180 bpm during the final sprint.
Feels good to be back on the wheel of pain.

The Daily Erg – Rowing Science

The Daily Erg – Rowing Science
Rowing Blogs – Weekend Reading Anyone?

“Technorati … lists 168 blogs with rowing as one of their topics! Of course not many of those have rowing as their main topic. Here are a few of the blogs that I have had the pleasure of reading over the past six months or so. If you have a chance please take a look at the work of other rowing bloggers”

Rowing Science has a list of rowing blogs I need to check out.

Okay — no erg today for me as I am in NYC and not staying at a hotel with an ergometer. Concept2 used to provide an “erg-finder” database, but it’s always a pain to locate, and I need to del.icio.us the location. I did get a ping from Jeff Wagner at ergscores.com offering to help me with a WordPress plug-in to send my scores to his service: “If you get those scores into ErgScores.com we’ll develop a WordPress plug-in to make you Erg Blogging a lot easier.”
Jeff — I’d be into it. WordPress is the center of my online life these days.

The plan for the forthcoming week of erg is to let my neck and shoulder muscles recover from week one, then get back on it on Saturday with another 5,000 meter piece (5K is a good piece as it lines up with the regular testing interval used by coaches of 20 minutes, and is a close approximation of a head race, ie The Head of the Charles. It’s long enough to hurt, but short enough not to be boring.).

The plan is to build up from 5K to 30 minutes to 10k to 60 minute at a low (18-22 stroke per minute ((SPM)) pace and a low heart-rate, say 120 beats per minute (bpm) or less so I can start burning fat. A tedious month of that, mixed in with on-the-water rowing commencing the weekend after next on my annual return to the water date of St. Patrick’s Day, and I may be able to consider some mid-spring racing at Narragansett Boat Club or the Charles.

Location Context « Cheaper than therapy

Location Context « Cheaper than therapy

“Location is one of the most basic yet important discoveries man has ever strived to make.”

Benjamin Lipman makes a strong case for why GPS-enabled electronics represent the next phase of consumer electronics. I agree, having regrets over getting the non-GPS BlackBerry Pearl, and having used the Garmin StreetPilot C330 that Ben advocates (and gave to me as a gift) last weekend to explore the Westport, Mass. area — an adventure that would have been impossible without the device.

Location-aware applications could be huge, with initial impact and experiments coming from “friend-finder” models, as well as “what’s your Twenty, Big-Buddy” questions, as Ben points out: “where r u?”

Goal blogging

Jason Calacanis is “fat-blogging” — chronicling his diet.

Debt bloggers talk about how they are reducing their credit card debt.

I’m thinking of “erg blogging” — a combination of a fat-blog and a training-blog to chronicle my attempt to get into mega-shape on the rowing machine and single scull. Following three months of crippling back pain brought on by a bad row in early November, I am back on the erg, doing about 6,000 meters a day, using my Lenovo x60s ThinkPad and RowPro 2.0 software to log my stats (speed, splits, calories, heart rate, etc.) and uploading them to the online rankings hosted by the erg’s manufacturer, Concept2.

Given that erging is about the worst thing in the world — total mechanical self-flagellation — and that most reasonable people would regard an erg as a modern torture device, I am sure erg-blogging will have all the drama of listening to someone talk about their weight.

Anyway, what got me on the erg topic was a couple random things.

First, Concept2 has a great user video contest going on. The finalists can be viewed here. This will give you a sense of how weird rowers are.

Second, I missed the recent CRASH-B Sprints, the world indoor rowing championships, but my best-buddy, Doctor D. did not. The goal of an erg-blog will be to place in the top ten in the 2008 CRASH-B’s. My personal best is a 6′ 28″

So, I don’t know what an erg-blog will do every day. For instance.

I erged this morning before taking the train to NYC. I try to erg six days a week, with one day for muscle recovery. Since I won’t get home until tomorrow night, I will consider Friday to be my rest day.

I erged for 5000 meters and finished in about 20 minutes, 30 seconds. A terrible time, but this is the fifth straight day of erging and I have a bad sacroilliac to be careful about. I should be doing 5,000 meters in, oh, 18.30.

I listened to my iPod —

  • Pixies: Where is my Mind?
  • Mission of Burma: That’s When I Reach for My Revolver
  • Soundgarden: Rusty Cage
  • Dead Kennedy’s: Too Drunk to F$%K
  • Scissorfight: Kancamangus Mangler
  • Deftones: My Own Summer
  • Rob Zombie: Scum of the Earth
  • B$%^hole SurfersMinistry: Jesus Built My Hotrod
  • B$%^hole Surfers: Who Was In My Room Last Night?
  • Ministry: New World Order

I dunno, erg blogging, could be a non-starter, could be a public humiliation. I will need to confess all sins of fatness to make it work. Time to drag out a scale and tell the tale of the Toledo.

Why blog on a train?

Because with WAN EVDO you can.

I was just spared having to present a weekly review via cellphone and thus turn myself into the person everyone hates on the train — self-important/cellphone man — lord knows there is enough of them in the car with me right now. What no one understands when they are babbling in public is, of course, that the other side of the conversation is opaque to the overhearers. I once took the train from Zurich to Geneva and listened to a guy say “D’accord. D’accord.” (french for OK) about a bazillion times.

So much for using travel time to clean out inboxes or read novels. With wireless it just keeps filling up.

The Idiocracy is upon us

Last month I watched Mike Judge’s hysterical view of the future, Idiocracy, which predicts a future where stupidity rises to the top in the evolutionary process as smart people are more selective with their birth rates than stupid ones. Luke Wilson — who improbably is frozen into hibernation, only to thaw out in a garbage avalanche — is the smartest man in the world.

Which isn’t saying much.

Anyway, Luke has to save the world from starvation as the idiots have decided that water is for toilets only and that all crops should be watered with Brawndo, a sports energy drink that flows out of even the water fountains.

Today’s front page of the New York Times gives us the great news from the soda companies that they will introduce “new carbonated drinks that are fortified with vitamins and minerals.”

One exec argued at an industry conference, that “his diet products should be included in the health and wellness category because, with few or no calories, they are a logical answer to expanding waistlines.”

Buzz About Wireless – Sprint launches customer forums

Buzz About Wireless – Welcome

Former colleague points out that Sprint has launched a user community to fight the perception the company doesn’t listen. Interesting format — semi-blog, semi-forum, definite community. Cingular has had a more traditional threaded forum for some time, using users to help users and promoting the more prolific and helpful to the status of “cell tower.”

Interesting developments — part of a trifecta as Mark Hopkins in our proactive support team would put it.

  • Monitoring — the listening post that seeks cries for help and aggravation.
  • Forums — a company hosted facility for users to help themselves and seek guidance from other users … as well as company expertise.
  • Blogs — the company’s communication channel for presenting its story, but also permitting customers to freely comment.

Tristan at Sprint writes in the welcome post at Buzz About Wireless:

“I have been with Sprint Nextel for almost three years. In that time I have learned a lot, both directly and anecdotally, about what our customers think of us via other boards, in our retail stores, reading emails, the list is pretty long…not all the stories are good.

Here are some of the weaknesses I have heard from you:

• We don’t listen.
• We have lost the human side.
• We haven’t really helped you.

To prove we are listening we have taken on launching this community to open an honest dialogue about wireless technology and service. I believe, along with many other folks here at Sprint, this community will be an excellent place to start having conversations that are meaningful to you and us.”

Ed Foster’s Gripelog || Lenovo, CDW Get Kudos From Readers

Ed Foster’s Gripelog || Lenovo, CDW Get Kudos From Readers

“What surprised me most about Lenovo was the suggestion by many that things have actually gotten better since the China-based company took over IBM’s PC business. “I have never seen a company stand by its warranties as well as Lenovo,” wrote one reader.”

When you’re on the front lines and hanging out in the open with your cell phone number and personal email available for unhappy customers to call — and they do call — it’s easy to lose sight of the good side of caring about customer service and product quality. Every now and then something great gets said, and that makes it all worth while.

DST? WTF? Change your fricking clock

I am amazed at the mounting hysteria among IT people about the upcoming clock change on March 11. Thanks to a congressional act, we’re getting rid of daylight savings time three weeks early this year, and I for one, am glad for it.

But … you’d think Y2K was coming back to haunt us for all the noise being expended talking about it. So Windows 2000 users won’t get an automatic update … um, probably Microsoft Me and Bob users won’t either. Will planes crash, power plants go dark, and cats start dating dogs? Yeah. Just like they did in 2000, when everyone toasted the New Year expecting looting to break out by dawn.
Here’s one example from ZDNET:

“Some say those companies that don’t pay full attention to the issue are in for a rude awakening.

“We’ve been aware of the DST changes since late last year. But the tools and patches keep changing, or weren’t available, which made it difficult to create a solid plan,” said Warren Byle, a systems engineer at an insurance company. “This change might go smoothly for those who are prepared, but I think it will be the ‘Y2K that wasn’t’ for the rest.”

The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions, causing late payments. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours.”

I have a solution. It’s called changing the clock. You know the drill. Go to the clock and spin the hands forward an hour? Do the digital equivalent on your desktop and be done with it. And sure, any IT person who doesn’t reset the server clock should get spanked.