Week in Review–April 9th, 2011

I’ve long since wondered what to do with all the random tidbits of things I collect each week – or the little thoughts that don’t quite make for a full post.  But I finally came up with a solution: The Week in Review Post.  This takes the place of my Weekly Mailbag – which is over on Slowtwitch.  These are just quick snippets of things that I’ve found interesting.  Nice and easy Saturday reading.  Plus, a recap of my Weekly Mailbag post a well.

So with that, let’s get into the action!

Weekly Mailbag Over at Slowtwitch.com:    
You could wander on over to Slowtwitch and read a weekly mailbag, it just wouldn’t be this weeks.  Mostly because I simply haven’t written it yet.  Fear not – I’ll find some fun questions in the next 24-36 hours and it’ll be up soon.  I’ve been trying to slowly get it back to a Monday/Tuesday schedule, so this may be my opportunity!

You can read all my past weekly mailbags at Slowtwitch here.  Or the pre-Slowtwitch days here.

Posts this past week:  
A wide variety of posts this week covering quite a range of stuff.  The most popular was definitely the Nike+ GPS watch, lots of interest there! Here’s all the stuff that landed on the front page:

Sunday: Week in Review–April 3rd, 2011
Monday:  We’re not in Kansas anymore…or wait…are we-
Tuesday: The Elusive Non-Gadget Mailbag
Thursday: A brief look at the Nike+ Sportwatch GPS
Friday: Tip of the day- Avoid Doing The GPS Dance

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:  
Here’s a small smattering of links I found interesting this week:

1) How to REALLY get your city to notice potholes: As a follow-up to last week’s post on potholes, I offer you the always entertaining Steve in a Speedo suggestion…but it might involve lava and fire.

2) Bike DC and Bike to Work Day Registration is open: For those of you DC based folk, make sure ya register for these events…especially if you plan to bike to work and want the free t-shirt.

3) A hard look within: I thought this was a great post from Pro Triathlete Mac Brown, essentially a pretty blunt and painfully honest look at how his race went at Oceanside.  (via Slowtwitch)

4) Man Completes Marathon inside London Eye: Ever wish you could run a marathon on a giant Ferris wheel?  Me neither.  But, it makes for an interesting story.

5) The Best Degreaser: As always, the Cycling Tips guys deliver on an interesting article.  If for not other reason than to remind you that you’re slackin’ in the bike cleaning department.  Speaking of which, as soon as I click publish on this post, I’m going bike cleaning…

6) A whacky NYC bike arrest story: It’s hard to find a good title that really encapsulates this story.  But essentially girl is biking, cop car cuts off her path, she then gets chased and arrested by unmarked guys.  Whacky.

7) How a blind person runs solo: A great video that runs through how it all works.

8) Garmin wins Twitter Brand Wars: Regardless of where you stand on GPS companies, I thought this was an interesting interview regarding winning the Twitter brand new awards.  Companies go head to head in a NCAA Final Four style showcase responding to customer questions/issues).  Pretty cool.  I can say that I do not tweet from the track in between my 400’s…though I will give props to Jake for managing to do so.

9) Something I can’t quite explain.  I occasionally include non-sports stuff in here.  The video at that link talks about using huge billboard sized imagery within communities to try and bridge the gap in areas of civil or social instability.  As someone who’s travelled to a number of the countries in the video, and someone who loves photography – I found it pretty interesting.  The video was part of a larger TED talk.  Highly worth the few minutes.  Just trust me on this.

Random Note #1:

Earlier this week I was a guest on Geeks in Running – a podcast about all things running.  They had me on to talk about my top gadget picks of the year thus far, and gadgets in general.  It’s nearly an hour packed with all sorts of entertainment and information, especially if you find gadgets of any sort interesting.  Check it out!

Random Note #2:

Turns out, the Nike+ Sport Watch GPS is just as susceptible to screen cracks as the FR310XT.  While I haven’t had any of my FR310XT’s screens crack (despite dropping them more times than I can count), I know folks that have had the issue. As it seems, my luck ran out yesterday.  As I grabbed a backpack I had put it in (the watch doesn’t exactly mesh well with a business suit), it fell out onto the floor, cracking the screen.  While still functional, it just doesn’t look quite as pretty or classy anymore.

I rang up phone support, which issued a return authorization to get it swapped out (thanks!).  Regrettably, they don’t have any more in stock for quite some time, so it’s a one-way deal at the moment.

On the bright side, as you can see – the distance/GPS accuracy was much improved after a firmware update – and seems on par with the Garmin FR310XT I was wearing at the same time (5.04 miles vs 5.01 miles).  And I do give props to Nike (regular support, no special treatment) for the ability to return it (which I will do as they gave me RMA labels to print out…as soon as I can get a non-cracked replacement ordered).

Hope your having a great weekend all!

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