Fitbit Challenge Walk Pictures 1 (Back East)

As luck would have it, the arrival of our fitbit devices at work came just a couple days before I was to travel East for a visit back to Niagara Falls and Buffalo, NY. The main purpose of the trip was to visit family and friends who I hadn't seen in a few years, so I was worried about fitting in the time for daily exercise walks. I needn't have worried...

The trip started excitingly enough at Seatac airport. Since I have a policy of demanding to opt out instead of walking through airport RAPISCANCER machines, the TSA (Transportation Stazi Administration) conducted their usual "4th amendment free zone" patdown and then freaked when it turned out there was gunpowder residue on my backpack (from having used it as a range bag previously). In the end, the TSA cretin and his supervisor reached the brilliant conclusion that I was not the bleeding edge of a hitherto unknown terrorist organization of 50-something computer programmers. If this is happening thousands of times across America daily, it's obvious that sequester budget cuts have NOT gone deep enough!

Enough ranting...during the flight back to New York state I had a 3 hour stopover in Chicago's O'Hare Airport and managed to do some of my daily walking by walking laps around this moving walkway.

Apatosaurus? Bah! You'll always be brontosaurus to me.

Most of my visit home was spent visiting family in Niagara Falls. An especially cool bit was that my mom is also a walker and so we did walks around Goat Island together every day that I was home. Goat Island is about 1.4 miles around, so a couple laps of it got me through a good sized chunk of the days step goal.

It's funny the way that we forget how amazing things in our past were. When I was growing up in Niagara Falls, I didn't think anything about what spectacular luck it was that I could just walk here anytime I wanted. Certainly some of the best memories of my youth are of times spent here by these stunningly powerful waters rushing to plummet over the cataract...time spent bicycling or walking or in the company of a lovely woman. But being back for a visit brought it all back...

One of the other nice things about being back in Niagara Falls is that the Canadian border is also right there. My mom and I also took the opportunity to drive across and see Niagara-on-the-Lake, an especially British-flavored town just across the Niagara Gorge from New York where runs into Lake Ontario.

Battles in the War of 1812 between the US and Canada were fought in this area, two centuries earlier. Niagara-on-the-Lake was burned to the ground (and Buffalo was razed also, in retaliation)...
 

On the way back from Niagara-on-the-Lake, we stopped to look at Brock's Monument, in Queenston Heights. This second monument to Major-General Sir Isaac Brock (whose leadership repulsed an invading US militia...an early lesson in why Americans visiting Canada should BE POLITE) was damaged by lightning strikes in 1929.

During my visit to NY, I also spent some time in Buffalo, visiting with a good friend and exploring. These two photos were taken in the arty Allentown district.

Like the Niagara Falls Reservation, Delaware Park is the result of a brilliant parks system design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, When I lived in Buffalo, this was another area that I was drawn to and which provided priceless opportunities for recreation in the heart of a busy city. Nestled in one corner of Delaware Park is the Buffalo History Museum, which inhabits the one remaining building from the 1901 Pan American Exposition.The exhibits include illustrations of items invented or manufactured in Buffalo, along with historical artifacts from the city's long and vibrant history.

On the other hand, maybe Buffalo would have a more robust economy now if they had thought through their "local products" a little more thoroughly!

These two photos were taken while walking around the Niagara Falls Public Library, a FANTASTIC resource when I was going to school there.

One photo that I took walking through The Book Corner, a fantastic local bookstore dating back to 1927.

What he said...

"What did I want?

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and to eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be the way they had promised me it was going to be, instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is."

- Robert Heinlein "Glory Road"

Work Fitbit Challenge

Helping employees stay healthier is a topic that is on a lot of employer's minds these days: health care costs continue to rise and healthy employees are also more productive. The company where I currently work has come up with a fun, proactive approach to improving employee health that is also having benefits in terms of inspiring social interaction between employees.

This all started about a month ago when our CEO sent out mail announcing a fitness challenge using Fitbit pedometers to track exercise, with gift certificates to be awarded based on maintaining various step counts, using the 10,000 step recommended range (link link) as a goal. The terms of the challenge are quite clever, awarding various levels of prizes for any substantial, consistent exercise. In addition, interested employees were given a fitbit pedometer, a purchase that indicates substantial employer interest in investing in employee health.

This is what the pedometer looks like after a morning walk around town. The fitbit syncs with various phones directly. Data can also be uploaded through your computer by plugging in a USB dongle and downloading software from fitbit,com.

While I've had a long term fitness habit in place via 10 years of membership at the YMCA and riding a bicycle on the Centennial Trail, I've actually seen some health benefits after 3 weeks of using this device, since I'm now doing more consistent walking on top of the more intensive cardio activity I'm used to. This makes sense, since my job as a medical programmer is a relatively sedentary activity.

Walking has also given me opportunities to get out and see some cool stuff, so I decided today to start adding blog entries including pictures of cool stuff that I've seen along the way...

US Political Primer: 1990 - 2013

Just in case others are missing it, I thought I'd comment on the pattern that I keep seeing in American politics:

1) Egregious government abuse of power is revealed, making the complaints of 1776 seem amusing and quaint

2) Whichever party is not in the White House complains a bit

3) Whichever party is in the White House whines that the previous administration did it too

4) Republicans try to make some dumb anti-abortion laws and piss people off

5) Democrats try to make some dumb anti-gun laws and piss people off

6) The media get into bed with the White House and explain that it's too late to worry and LOOK, A KARDASHIAN BABY!

7) Most people argue about TV shows and celebrities

8) Government continues abusing its power...and laughs at us.

Could use geek/user feedback on personal project idea - 2 alternate user interfaces

I'd like to solicit feedback from other geeks about a little home project I've been playing with and a couple different approaches to the UI/UX.

The basic project is a database browser, which loads the schema at start time and lets you navigate along the key links.In this case, I've set up a small library cluster schema that tracks books and holds on them by patrons.

Both UI ideas are coded using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) in C#. But I present the forward and backward links in a couple different ways and would like feedback about which looks better/cooler.

Look #1: the panes on the left and right are WebBrowser controls, with link info formatted up in simple HTML. I create a summary of available links and but that in a table on top; those links take you down to the table containing detailed links in the lower table. When you click on a link in the lower table, it navigates to that node in the center and that node's forward and backward links replace the previous ones.



Look #2: the basic function is the same except that the web browsers with their tables are replaced by pairs of list views. The lower listview is populated when you click a line in the top. You then press a Go button to do the navigation.



Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

How does a geek pick a sports team to root for? Saved by roller derby...

A little over a year ago, I started going to roller derby because I know some people who participate in Everett's Jet City Rollergirls and thought it sounded pretty cool. It's been a blast watching games and the community is awesome, so I'm glad I started going! I generally make every game of the season and volunteer here and there with bits like setup and tearing down the floor after matches.

One question I'm sometimes asked is which team I'm rooting for. That's a hard one and a little complicated. Let me explain...

Jet City has 4 regular teams: the Pink Pistols, CarnEvil, Camaro Harem and the Hula Honeys. (There is also an all-star team called the Bombers) When these home teams play against other teams, it's easy to say who I'm rooting for because naturally it's going to be Jet City. The hard part is usually deciding who to root for when it's a bout between Jet City teams.

Part of the problem is that I've never been much of a team sport guy. That comes in part from the trauma of rooting for the Buffalo Bills in FOUR fricking Superbowls.I've always preferred individual sports like motorcycle riding, target shooting and climbing, too. There haven't been any team sports before that have interested me on a consistent basis.

What's the big deal about that, you might ask? The big deal is, knowing what the criteria are for picking the team to root for. Is it the winningest team? Is it the scrappy underdog? Is it the team where you know the most people or that just somehow appeal to you more?

In Jet City, the fact is that the Pink Pistols have won the most matches since I've been going to watch. They consistently score highest. They've got some dynamite players. But for some reason, I tend to prefer watching the other teams play more. They all have up days and down days but one of the coolest matches I've seen was the grudge match between CarnEvil and Camaro Harem the night of the championships last year. The lead changed hands several times as I recall. Everyone was playing their heart out and it wasn't clear who was going to win. It was a real game! It was fucking AWESOME.

It was like a time in California when I was visiting some Canadian friends who had a Foosball table in their living room. We started a game and 2 of us sucked (yeah, I was one) so the guys who had the house switched the teams so it was more even and a real battle. It was GREAT!

So, I don't need to specifically root for the team that always wins (yawn) or the scrappy underdog. I am rooting for the Hula Honeys over Pink Pistols tomorrow but honestly, I'm looking forward to the rematch between Camaro Harem and CarnEvil more. I don't know if I'm rooting for one of them over the other, there are neat people on both teams. If it's a spirited match and nobody gets hurt, it'll be the best game ever, in my book.

GO CAMARO EVIL!

Treatise on the Seattlewolf (Not for everyone. For hipsters only!)

(With apologies to Herman Hesse)

There was once a man named Harry, called the Seattlewolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes, recycled, drove a Prius and was a human being. Nevertheless, he was in reality a wolf of Seattle. He had learned a lot of what clever people learn. What he had not learned was to find contentment in himself. The cause of this apparently was that at the bottom of his heart he knew (or thought he knew) that he was not a man but a Seattlewolf. Clever men might argue the point of whether he was really a wolf or whether he had just learned to drive in Boston and liked to question authority rather than simply leaping to obey it. 

And so the Seattlewolf had two natures, a human and a wolfish one. This was his fate and it may well be that it was not an exceptional one. There must be many people who have a bit of the dog or the eel or the sea urchin in them without experiencing any extraordinary difficulties on that account. In some cases, having the nature of a sea urchin can help deal with things like life in a cube farm. In Harry’s case, however, the wolf and the Seattleite did not go the same way together but were inconstant and deadly enmity. When there are two who are in one blood and one soul then life fares ill.

Now with our Seattlewolf it was so, that in his conscious life he lived sometimes as a wolf and sometimes as a Seattleite. For example if Harry paused to worry about the oppression experienced by the dwarves in Latvia or waited a couple extra turns for other drivers to go ahead at a 4 way stop, his “No, you go first” wave was followed by the wolf baring its teeth and laughing at him. At the same time, at times when Harry was overcome by frustration and passed a fast lane camper hard enough to make their ears bleed, the Seattleite in him chided him and considered switching to decaf mochas or chai.

It still remains to elucidate the Seattlewolf in relation to Seattle’s infamous fast lane campers. To take his own view of the matter, the Seattlewolf stood outside of convention and when in his car, was primarily dedicated to getting from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. Besides this, he was secretly attracted to the world of mellow, calm drivers, to their lack of stress and healthy blood pressure. Now what we call the Seattle driver is a type of person who is always striving for balance and complete safety from risk. What the Seattle driver strives for in the main is to have all lanes of every road moving at exactly the same speed so that everybody crosses the finish line at the same time: the fast, the slow, the brave, the timid, the skilled driver and the hapless spazz.

Seattleites seem to thrive on being scolded and the Seattle driver seems to rejoice at being scolded by ads sponsored by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, an agency which seems to specialize in producing inane safety ads with juvenile tag lines such as “Click it or ticket” and “Drive hammered, get nailed”. Perhaps it is staffed by the children of the geniuses of the 1950s “Duck and cover” atomic bomb safeguards. In any case, Seattleites seem to think funding it much more important than ephemera such as bridge repair.

Harry, on the other hand, always snarls and turns off the radio when Washington Traffic Safety ads are aired. He knows that speed limits around Seattle are determined by taking freshly lobotomized 10 year olds around in cars and setting speed limits 10 mph lower than speeds at which they can safely operate a car in that location. What he finds astounding is that so many drivers still insist on driving 5-10 mph under those speed limits.

How can the Seattle driver survive in a world in which getting from point A to point B may even be a job requirement and yet most drivers seem to have the goal of doing everything but that? The answer goes: because of the Seattlewolves. Because it’s hard to say “Well, I just couldn’t help it, everyone was going slow” when you see someone going faster and actually getting someplace ahead of you. One fallback of the determined Seattle driver is to point at the person ahead of them and say “He was going 20 mph faster and we’re both here now!” To which the Seattlewolf driver would reply, “Yes, but I had more fun.”