February 2007 – Page 4 – My Thought Spot

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today we went out for lunch. Wednesday evenings are hectic and dinner is not really an option. Plus, we rarely go out to eat at night. We have our big meal during the day and then a light meal usually around 5 or 6 in the evening.

Today we went to Boston’s. The place was packed. There were so many big parties there that we ended up at a folding table in the middle of the smoking section. Fortunately for us the groups that were there were mostly high school kids. So there was not smoking going on around us.

I had spaghetti and meat balls with a side salad. My wife had nachos. Our kids at pizza and macaroni & cheese.

To make it look romantic and like I was in charge, she passed me the money under the table so I could pay.

Cool trash

It is not often that I get to find good trash off the street. Normally I look out and see the neighbors digging through my trash looking for good stuff I have thrown out. But, today it was my turn. My wife came in the house and said the neighbors had thrown out a computer case with a power supply still in it. I snatched it up.

What was funny was that the trash truck had already come by, but left the computer case. They typically don’t take anything but basic trash that is in bags. Stuff just sitting out gets left behind.

It took a while to clean it up. I have not yet tested it to see if the power supply is working. It seems to be a fairly nice case. Most people just buy a computer and know nothing about their case. But there are better and worse cases out there. I bought a cheap case a few years back and am still suffering with it. I may swap this one out for my current case.

You don’t find good trash just every day. So it was worth blogging about.

Digital Hero 3

I saw a camera the other day that is just what I have been looking for and then some. Priced at about $50 more than I want to spend, and not a shipping product yet, makes me have to put this off. But I wanted to tell you about it.

It is called the Digital Hero 3 by a company called GoPro. It is a 3 mega pixel camera that attaches to the wrist. It folds down out of the way when you are not using it and then folds up to take pictures. It is waterproof down to 100 feet. It takes 30 fps video as well.

There is a page with some videos and photos taken with the camera.

I am primarily interested in a camera I can take running with me. Not for races mind you. But I run in some interesting places and streets and often think it would be cool to have a camera with me. It would not be something I would take on every run, but the occasional run would be fun to have a camera on board. Also it would be a help to take pictures of the cars as they drive over me and someone can identify the vehicle when they spatula me off the ground.

It would have been great to have this camera on the trip to see the whale sharks.

The Amazon link is for the older version of the camera. The new one is set to go on sale this month and should list for $140.

Bill Gates’ Quote

This from the book: The Road Ahead published in 1995. From chapter 3 titled: Lessons From The Computer Industry.

When you have a hot product, investors pay attention to you and are willing to put their money into your company. Smart kids think, Hey, everybody’s talking about this company. I’d like to work there. When one smart person comes to a company, soon another does, because talented people like to work with each other. This creates a sense of excitement. Potential partners and customers pay more attention, and the spiral continues, making the next success easier.

Conversely, there is a negative spiral companies can get caught in, A company in a positive spiral has an air of destiny, while one in a negative spiral feels doomed. If a company starts to lose market share or delivers one bad product, the talk becomes “Why do you work there?” “Why would you invest in that company?” “I don’t think you should buy from them.” The press and analysts smell blood and begin telling inside stories about who’s quarreling and who’s responsible for mismanagement. Customers begin to question whether, in the future, they should continue to buy the company’s products. Within a sick company everything is questioned, including things that are being done well. Even a fine strategy can get dismissed with the argument “You are just defending the old way,” and that can cause more mistakes. Then down the company spirals. Leaders such as Lee Iacocca who have been able to reverse a negative spiral deserve a lot of credit.

I found the quote humorous 12 year after it was written. Microsoft is now the company that is languishing with the world wanting to know “who’s quarreling and who’s responsible for mismanagement” at the mother ship.

I found this book in the local library. It had been donated, but had not yet made it to the shelves. It is a first edition, first printing. Funny, but I cannot imagine there needing to be a second or third printing. I do know there were other editions.

I read the book back about 10 years ago. It is interesting to read it now. If you don’t know about the book, he basically looks at “the information highway” and tries to predict where we will be 10 years in the future. I am only on chapter 3 right now, but it has been interesting the thing he has gotten right, and humorous the things he has missed horribly.

I plan to give some examples along the way as I read this. In the mean time, i found this “10 years later” review.

Good running week

I only ran 2 days this week, but put in quite a few miles. All told just over 12 miles.

Tuesday my son and I ran for 1.5 miles at a pace of 12:01 per mile. Then I followed that up with a 3.7 mile run on my own at a 10:49 pace. I did some great stretching after that run. I have been working on some serious hip and leg stretches. After getting all nice and warm after the runs, I worked out quite a bit of soreness that had been building up over the last week.

I did not get a chance to run on Thursday, which is a normal running day.

Today we went for a 2.1 mile run at a pace of 12:13 per mile. It was long run day for me, but I was busy trying to get my main website back up and running after being hacked this week. So I compromised by having a shorter run at a faster pace. I started the second run after a 20 minute break from the first run. I ran 5.1 miles at 9:44 pace. That is a great pace for me for that distance. I really did not feel like I was working that hard. The 2 mile warm up was a help. So though it was not an 8 mile long run, it was still a nice 7 mile day.