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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
Great to see the distance issue is fairly cleared up on the Nike. Great form factor. Still planning an in-depth review?
Yup – still planning it. I had initially planned it for late week of the 10th, or perhaps early the following week. But, at this point I need a new unit to be able to do all the final photos/etc… – so it might be a bit before I can get that.