Heather, On Tech

Feel the Burn with Daily Burn

I have a confession to make: I'm over 40.  Yes, it's true, although I don't often like to admit it.  I'm over 40 and turning gray and wrinkly.  But, I've decided that I'm NOT going to get fat!

Back in December I started getting back into shape.  I have never been "fat" by anyone's standards (except perhaps my own) - I'm 5'8" and with the exception of being pregnant, the most I've weighed is 135.  That's not "skinny", but it's far from "fat."  Anyway, I decided I wanted to rock a bikini this year when taking the boys to the pool, so I started getting back into shape.

I had heard of Daily Burn (aka Gyminee) via Techstars, and so that was the first place I looked to find a good workout.  I didn't need to join Weight Watchers or any other diet community; I'm not so much "dieting" as "getting fit," after all.  I got on the site and found the perfect workout: the bikini workout!  So I made a note of it, but had to join the site (which was free) in order to keep up with the exercises I needed to do.

Then, after a few weeks of exercising, I started entering the food that I eat, because I was curious as to whether I ate as poorly as I thought I did (meaning "unhealthy").  As it turns out, I'm actually a relatively healthy eater, but like most people I'm a bit heavy on the carbs most of the time.  I'm one of those people who never seems to eat enough fat (even the good kind) - but that's partially because my body does NOT process fat and if I eat anything with a lot of fat in it, I'm running to find a bathroom in very short order.  I can't decide whether this is good or bad, since I can pretty much eat whatever I want to and not gain weight - I just have to suffer the consequences of a nasty public restroom to allow for all the food to - ahem - pass through me.  Quickly, and without warning.

Anyway, now I'm completely addicted to this whole Daily Burn thing.  I enter my workouts and runs.  I enter every bite of food I eat.  I update my weight daily.  The last part is the most frustrating because it's not coming down as much as I'd like, but you know, when you're only trying to lose five pounds, you really can't complain. :)  I. Love. Daily Burn!

So, if you're looking for a workout routine, need some diet advice, or wonder whether you just eat garbage, check out Daily Burn. They have free accounts or Pro level accounts (which add many other awesome features), and it really just takes a few minutes a day.  You can sign up with a friend and motivate each other as well - which is always a nice way to challenge yourself and them.

iHat MP3 Beanie

So, now it's cold.  I live in Florida, and the high today is supposed to be 46 degrees F.  That may not be so cold to people "up north", but that is usually the low this time of year, not the high.

On days like today, when you want to listen to your mp3 player, but you know, you don't want your ears to get cold, you could try the iHat MP3 Headphone Hat.  It's essentially a beanie with built-in speakers!  Just plug it into your mp3 player and go.

The hat costs about as much as a regular set of headphones, at $25 and can be bought at Gadget4all.com.  Too bad it doesn't have bluetooth/phone capabilities, then it would be perfect!

Hat tip: GeekAlerts

Organize Your Legos With Box 4 Blox

Do you have kids who love Lego's?  Do you have roughly 10,000 of them laying around your house in various areas, and you step on them in the middle of the night?  Do you spend hours a week looking for "that one part" that Junior just has to have right now?

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you need to read on.

Anyway, other than the blocks being on the floor (for which there is really no cure other than to train your kids well), the other hassle is the question, "Mommy, can you find me some fire?  I really need some fire for this <insert destructive device here>."  (Remember, my boys are just five and seven years old, so "finding things on their own" lasts about five minutes.)  Now the fun begins.

We were keeping all the Lego's in a giant box.  It's actually one of those fold-able cubes.  So, how do you look for a smallish piece when you need it?  You dump out all 10,000 pieces and sift through them.  Sometimes it would take hours of searching.  You can't just pick up handfuls and dump them back in the box; you have to sift through each handful.  Tedious and boring, not to mention aggravating for the kids trying to patiently wait for the coveted block.

So I did some searching.  I didn't want to organize the blocks by colour, or snap them on top of each other, but I wanted to organize them somehow.  Size seemed like the reasonable approach, but how to do it?  Compartmentalized storage is easy to come by; I could use tackle boxes or sewing boxes or little tool boxes or whatever.  But nothing really appealed to me.

Until I started searching on the Internet and came across Box 4 Blox.  It looked a little cheesy, but I thought it was perfect.  It's an inter-locking stack of boxes with smaller and smaller holes in them on the bottom, so the Lego blocks use gravity to sift through.  The smallest pieces end up on the bottom, and the larger pieces stay on the top.  I ordered two sets of them and they arrived in short order.

We've been using the Box 4 Blox or a little over a month now.  I am so happy I bought these!  It's rare that the boys call me for help to sift through the blocks anymore.  They just take the boxes apart and look for the piece themselves.  Everyone is much happier and I don't spend hours looking for that one special pieces.

The box sets are just under $30 but in my opinion they are worth every penny.  I need to get two more boxes, but I'm actually waiting until after Christmas because ultimately I might need about three.  The site claims the boxes hold roughly 1,500 pieces, but I'm pretty sure I got more than that in there.  I did leave the "giant" pieces out though.

The owners are located in New Zealand and email you a few times to keep you posted on when the boxes have shipped, when they should be there, etc.  I like that personal touch, as I am a small business owner myself.  I'm really big on customer service and they certainly provided that (even though I didn't need it for any problems).  Despite them being a world away from me, the boxes shipped from within the US and I actually received them in about a week.

If you need to organize your Lego's, this is a great solution to your problem.  Of course, I haven't figured out how to get the pieces to put themselves in there, but at least I don't have to individually place each tiny Lego blog into a specific section; I can just shake the box and they all go quite nicely to their intended home.

One Remote all Daddies Should Have

OK, well, Mommies too.  It's a "Control Your Kid" remote.  And, as you might have guessed, it doesn't work.  Doesn't even require batteries.  But the buttons are good for a laugh!  They include (but are not limited to):

• grow up
• say please
• eat greens
• say thank you

You get the idea.  The "say please" and "say thank you" buttons would be worn out at our house! 

Yeah, this is a dumb toy, especially since it's $6.99.  But that might be worth it on those really "bad" days that you can't take any more of your children's shenanigans!

Available from Think Geek.

Oooogly Shoes

I have this thing for ugly shoes.  I have no idea why, but I pretty much always have.  Maybe it's because I'm a woman and I really just don't want anyone else to have the same shoes as me, but I have found that if the shoe is ugly, it's likely to be comfortable, and not make your toes shaped all funny and pointy.  Yeah, the hot chicks in stilettos all have ugly feet, trust me.

Anyway, this year is no exception and while on vacation in Boulder, Colorado I bought some shoes that are, shall we say, horrid.  They are Vibram FiveFingers shoes (which is really funny, because who has fingers on their feet?), and they look incredibly strange and uncomfortable, but they truly are not.

I expected the toes of these to drive me batty, but actually they kinda give my toesies a massage every time I move my feet, which is nice.  The only down side is that there is absolutely no padding in the bottom, so it takes some getting used to.  But then again, that's the whole point; to feel barefoot without worrying about stepping on glass.

They do come in a full-shoe version and many different colours.  Unfortunately pink was the only colour they had in my size, and since pink is ugly, I had to get them (my first choice was black).

So, if you like going barefoot in public, but don't really want to get your feet all cut up, give these a try.  They are really comfortable, and if nothing else, they are bound to get a conversation going.

Maybe I *Do* Give a Flying F*ck!

Think Geek has the most interesting toys!

This is the latest weird one - one which I should certainly get for my cube at work, if only to show them that I really DON'T give a flying fuck.  Of course, given that fact that at least one person would complain ("Oh my God!  I feel faint!  I saw a bad word flying through the air!"), I guess I should refrain.

This is a remote controlled word, "FUCK", which flies through the air like a helicopter.  It only flies for seven minutes, and charges for 10, but seven minutes is more than enough to piss someone off. :)

You can buy yours from Think Geek for $19.99.

Luke Arm Makes Progress

I wrote about the Luke Arm some time ago - you remember, the robotic arm that's amazingly like the one Luke Skywalker got in The Empire Strikes Back?  Anyway, according to Engadget the guy who created it, Dean Kamen, has made some serious progress with it.

Now it has neural interface.  That means the user can move the Luke Arm just like their own.  By just thinking "I want to pick that up".  That is just bitchin'.  They've also made progress with making the arm able to pick up heavier objects by using inflatable bladders in the chassis.

Robotics has come a long way.  Before long they'll be looking just like Luke's hand in the movie - and nobody will even notice that a person is "missing" a limb.  I hope the Luke Arm is able to deliver when it's widely available!

Beam Me Up, Scotty...

I admit it, I'm a Trekkie.  But only for the original series.  I had the biggest crush on Captain Kirk (who didn't?).  Watching it now makes me cringe, but I can always be persuaded to watch the Tribbles!

So, ThinkGeek has come out with the real Star Trek comunicator.  It looks and sounds like the real thing, with recordings from the show.  You can get one for just $29.99.  I want one really badly but I can't figure out what on Earth I would use it for.

Now, if they made one that was a working cell phone (which was spawned from the Communicator, you know), that would be cool.  And it would have to be a transformer so I had my QWERTY keyboard...hmmm...Maybe by the time Little E needs a phone...

Bose In Ear Headphones Revisited

I've talked about my Bose headphones that I got for Christmas before, but I wanted to give you an update.  Just for the record, I absolutely LOVE these things!

In addition to all the stuff I said before about them, I wanted to let you know that the lanyard provided with them really does come in handy.  When I first got them, I wondered why anyone would need the lanyard, but now I know.

After wearing them for several weeks, I kept getting frustrated because the wire is coated in some rubbery material, as opposed to slick plastic.  This may not sound like a big deal, but when you wear your cord inside your shirt, it is.  The rubber "catches" on your t-shirt and pulls down on the cord, causing the phones to become uncomfortable or eventually fall out of your ears altogether.  Obviously Bose does their market research.  The lanyard manages to prevent this from happening.

Here's how it works.  When you see the lanyard (neckstrap), it looks a lot like the straps you put on your sunglasses so you can hang them around your neck when you take them off.  Simple enough.  However, the directions provided with the headphone describe putting them on upside-down to what you would think is the logical way for them to attach.  Picture this: when you are wearing your sunglasses, the lanyard is up around your ears/temples somewhere, right?  Not so with the headphones.  When you wear the headphones, you want the neck strap to be down, around your neck, flat on your chest/shirt area.  This keeps the cord form pulling down, because the pulling is negated by the neck strap. 

I'm sure that doesn't make any sense if you're reading this.  Just trust me in following the directions provided.  It made a world of difference in my comfort level with these awesome headphones.  If I can manage it, I'll upload a picture of it around my neck so you can get the idea.

Happy running!

Ooooh, and I was Thinking About a Rogue???

I just read on Wired that GM is thinking about making the new Camaro with a hybrid engine.  As in "gas-electric".  As in "not a total gas guzzler".

Very interesting.  I doubt it would be very practical considering having two children, but then again, moms can be cool, right?