Mattazuma's Revenge

Go look at my photos on Vox!

I am posting old vacation photos on my new Vox blog.  It is much easier to post pictures there (I may have mentioned that in an earlier post).

My photo blog is here.

Back to School

My sister tells me I haven't been posting enough.  I'll try to be better about daily posting.

I am going back to school for the next five days review for the Patent Bar Exam.  When I pass the test (in a month or two), I will be allowed to write patents and file them with the US Patent & Trademark Office.  I am hoping to turn this into a side job that will help to pay off my school loans, since my current level of poker playing isn't going to pay the loans off.

The class is from the Practicing Law Institute, which was recommended to me by multiple people.  I hope the class is good, because it will make up for all of the E-Mail they send out trying to sell me other stuff.  They send out way more E-Mail than any other company I have ever purchased anything from.  I probably get two E-Mails every three days from these guys.  Plus I get at least one catalog in the regular mail each week from them.

Right now I am listening to the pre-course CDs.  The instructor is very good, because he's kept my attention on the materials and not on all of the other stuff on my desk (or the Internet).

Nike + iPod - 1st Experiences

I bought the Nike + iPod kit for my Nano, not long after Nike released them. 

I finally got the transmitter attached to my shoe a few days ago.  I used the method described here to sew Velcro onto the tongue of my left running shoe and the other side of the Velcro is glued onto the transmitter.  I tried to use the transmitter without the Velcro and about a mile into my run on the treadmill it flew out of my shoe.

Here's what my shoe looks like with the transmitter attached:

And here's a close-up of the transmitter:

I ran a little more than 4 miles today and the transmitter didn't move at all.  Also, with the lower laces loosened up a bit, it isn't uncomfortable to have it between the laces & the tongue.

The software on the iPod works great, although I need to calibrate the transmitter to my stride length.  Right now it is too optimistic about my speed.  The real test will be next week when I run the Judicata 5k race.

The biggest problem with the software is the  voice is too loud.  They need a software option to change the volume level.

All in all, if you own a Nano and you run even a little, you need this thing.  Heck, it's only $30.  Also, I think the 1.2 firmware update makes the nano work better.  I had some crashing problems with the previous software versions.