Nike+ is amazing!

So I've been playing a bit with my new toys tonight as a break before getting back to work. And I have to say that the Nike+ system is pretty darn awesome. I ran a mile warmup, then trained the system using a mile run on the track down the street, and then took a nice 3 1/2 mile run to finish things up. It's just so cool to see your pace as you're running and not have to worry about GPS coverage like with the garmin. I'm so glad I went this way instead of getting the garmin! Oh, and in case you were wondering about accuracy, it was within 2% for the mile after the training run, so that's pretty darn good!


And possibly the coolest part....the graphs!!! :) Yes, I'm an engineer ;)

running like crazy....

This week has been excellent running wise. Of course I'm so so so far behind with work stuff, but I got in 3 of the 4 runs for this week, including a 20 miler today! Today's run was a lot of fun. I ran on the lakefront path in Chicago from the Aquarium to the north end of the path and back. Such a nice run and I'm totally feeling great afterwards!! I'm so excited for the marathon coming up in four weeks!!

If anyone wants to run any part of the marathon with me, let me know! I should be running at a 9:45ish pace and walking a block after each water station so going for an average pace of just over 10 which is what I ran today for my 20 miler.

back home...

I've made it home from LA and Ubicomp. It's been a busy day at work after taking the red eye in this morning. The rest of ubicomp was as great as the start of it was. Lots of really interesting talks, great lunches and dinners with fun and interesting people, and all ending in a really great closing keynote by brenda laurel, formerly of art center, formerly of interval. She had a great talk on using nature as an inspiration for design complete with a video of her hugging a tree :)

Overall, I like the more art/hci centric ubicomp from this year. It's certainly given me a lot to think about, as well as a lot of insipration for the two CHI submissions I'm working on right now. Now I just have to get through this next week and I'm home free and will have free time again! Yay! It's going to be one heck of a week though...

ubicomp community

Some interesting thoughts on the ubicomp community emerged today in my discussions with a bunch of people....

1) The ubicomp community is an interesting group of people. We do research that the government potentially would be really interested in, but none of us would ever take government grants or want our work to end up in such a scary place for such scary uses.

2) Ubicomp always talks about privacy. What if we spun that around and talked about creating systems to build trust.

3) Ubicomp terms are really beautiful words and phrases. Bruce Sterling gave the keynote and talked about all the great words that we use: "ambient awareness" "internet of things" ... I'll put more in here later when I have time and remember them.

world's fair

So I was running on the treadmill at the hotel tonight and they had this special about the columbian exposition in chicago in the late 1800s and there's this tent and what does it say on it??? Yuengling. You could get yuengling in chicago in the 1800s but not today! Boo!

hi from newport beach!

it's hot, it's sunny, it's relaxinig. That's what's important :)

sick...

Some of you may have noticed my absence from all things AIM, blogging, email, etc. for the past two days. Sadly being super stressed and some bad food led me to a few days dealing with some food poisoning and not leaving my bed. I'm starting to feel a bit better now and can eat again, so hopefully I'll be back to normal soon. Sadly, it looks like the 17 mile run for tomorrow is off.

826

ZoneTag Photo Thursday 12:04 am 9/14/06 chicago, il
Originally uploaded by bentley79.

I just got back from my orientation at 826CHI. I'm super excited to be volunteering there. It looks like I'll be helping out with afterschool tutoring every other thursday which should go well with me trying to work downtown on thursday :) And I'd like to help with the occasional in-school tutoring as well where we go into classrooms during the school day and help teachers with their writing lesson plans for the day!

The people at 826 are just totally awesome. It looks like it's going to be so much fun!

logic

ZoneTag Photo Saturday 11:29 pm 9/9/06 chicago, illinois
Originally uploaded by bentley79.

So do they use MSG or don't they. It would appear that their "NOT" is NOT'ed :)

woodie on education

Thanks to Ann for the link! Woodie has posted a talk about engineering education, training vs. education, and what schools like MIT need to do to better give people the experiences they need for this creative world. Woodie rocks! Just skip to 32 minutes to see his talk...

One thing that I think of as being really interesting is that MIT students tend to be seen by the outside world as being really theoretical and not very practical. I've heard that too a few times since being at MIT and I think it's a really interesting observation especially since I didn't feel that way when i was there. Of course I spent most of my time UROP'ing and taking some more hands on classes, but still, the school that invented 2.70 and 2.009 should hopefully give students the hands on creative experiences that they need to suceed.

happiness

So any blah-ness that was going on over the past few days was totally erased with a day in the city today! I took the express down with my friend jen and found out all about the Evacuation Drill that was going on in the loop today and found out where not to go today! After a nice walk down to Harold Washington Library, I was in and out in 15 minutes with copies of three articles I wanted to read for some papers I'm writing. Work downtown went well too!! Besides lots of meetings I got some other work done while being super motivated by views of the park, fountain, and lake! Lunchtime was spent in the park with some chipotle and jamba.

After work, I had my interview at 826 CHI. It was a lot of fun and it looks like I'll be helping otu with some of their in-school tutoring as well as some of the after school drop-in tutoring which will be awesome! I'm super excited!!!!! :) All of you into writing and teaching should help out too!

frustrated...but excited...

This past week has just been kinda blah. I've felt a bit frustrated and sort of just blah all week. Too much to go into here, but some of you got the whole story...and you guys rock by the way! Anyway, I'm super excited for tomorrow! Not only am I making a early morning trip to Harold Washington Library, the most awesome library anywhere, but I'm working downtown the rest of the day, and then going for an interview to volunteer at 826 CHI!!! SO SO SO SO SO excited :) Now only if the rest of my day weren't filled with meetings, I could actually get some work done! :)

fun weekend so far...

ZoneTag Photo Saturday 5:05 pm 9/2/06 chicago, illinois
Originally uploaded by bentley79.

It's been a good weekend so far! When some plans for friday night fell through a friend invited me to a party at his place on the south side. It was a good time, and good to catch up!

Another impromptu activity came up with a trip to wrigley yesterday! Connie had an extra ticket in some good seats in section 202. Excellent to see the game even though they lost. But a fun day at wrigley followed by a beer at Yak Zies and dinner up in Evanston at Blind Faith.

I think I'm going to work a bit today. If anyone wants to do something tonight, let me know!

So much for my "do-nothing" weekend :)