Run To Win – New Site Design

Screenshot Run to WinOne of my favorite running related websites is Run to Win. Blaine has just rolled out a new site redesign. It is good to see the changes. The old site was nice, but this one brings a bit of freshness to the content. Seems to be more “social.”

Run to Win is a running related blog. It covers news and information related to runners and running. Sometimes there are book and product reviews. Blaine has been putting up more videos lately that are themselves the blog entry. He tries to inform the readers/viewers of any breaking news in the running world. One thing I like about the site is that there is not too much information. Sometimes sites are overwhelming and hard to keep up with.

Currently Blaine is running a giveaway to celebrate the new website. Jump over to Run to Win to see the details of the contest.

If you are a runner and like to keep up with major news in the running community, then be sure to check out Run to Win. There are also running related products for sale at the site.

Recent Projects

While it has been quiet here, I have been actively putting out content in different venues. Some are very targeted and therefore don’t really fit here at My Thought Spot. However, I wanted to share some of the projects here as a way of informing and inviting you to join in any that seem appropriate.

Deaf Ministry
First we have been busy with the deaf ministry here in Argentina. You can read about our ministry and get updates at www.dpeach.com. I will be posting a new prayer letter there in a couple of days. We have started our second round of sign language classes at the church. That is going well. I am also taking a sign language class at the local deaf club which gives me many contacts with the community.

Missionary Talks
Missionary Talks is going well. While I have not had a lot of interviews lately, I have been very encouraged by the feedback I get from some of the recordings. The most recent interview was with a family who is currently raising their support. God used a Missionary Talks interview to teach them of a ministry where they could be involved.

If you are on Facebook you can join the Missionary Talks page by clicking the “Like” button at the top. You will be informed of all future episode releases right in your Facebook news feed. I also post short clips from interviews that are interesting, but don’t seem to fit with the rest of the show. Consider the Facebook page to be like the bonus features on a DVD.

I use my @DavidPeach account on Twitter to share ministry related news. That would be our personal ministry, or information about Missionary Talks.

Missionary Geek
I started a new website a few weeks ago intended to share news and information from the technology world that would be of interest to missionaries. It is called Missionary Geek. Missionary Geek also has a Facebook page that you can join. I look forward to sharing things through the website itself as well as news and information links via @MissionaryGeek on Twitter.

Discover Spanish With Us
While our Spanish vocabulary site, Discover Spanish With Us, has been sporadic since we left Mexico, I have been trying to keep it updated recently. It is a website where my wife and I type up an occasional new word that we learn. We tell how it is used. These are usually not normal words. The purpose of the website is not to teach a person how to speak Spanish, but how to use certain words (as we understand them) that may not be as common. The secondary purpose is that people would leave comments and tell us how we might be wrong on the usage, which then helps us become better speakers of the language.

Info Barrel
I have been writing articles at Info Barrel that don’t seem to fit anywhere else. I mentioned this in a previous post. I was planning to give a weekly update with a list of all of my articles that I wrote. However I probably will just highlight certain ones on occasion. My articles range from beekeeping to podcasting. There are also articles on riding bikes and taking pictures.

Running
On top of all this, I am getting my running back under control. I have had a pretty miserable year since September of last year. I was plagued with different injuries dating back to October, 2008. Everything seems to be back in order and I am bringing my mileage up again. I am almost back to running as much per week as I was when I was in my best running shape.

Thanks for checking out the projects I have going. Join me in the different communities if they are appropriate for you.

Location Based Games

Have you played any location based games like Gowalla or Foursquare? I have been playing them since the end of 2009 and have enjoyed the gameplay of some of them. I have not played SCVNGR much, but it seems to be making a big splash in the industry for its creativity in getting you to do more than just show up at a location. They seem to be working harder with location managers to get special promotions for game players too.

I have mostly enjoyed Gowalla since it allows you to pick up items and drop them off in other locations. It also looks nicer.

Foursquare is the BMOC (big man on campus) in the location based game space. If you had to choose a winner, this is probably the one. But since the games all play differently there is nothing to say you can’t play all of them.

I have not been able to play Facebook Places because it is only available to people inside the US.

Whrrl has not excited me that much. I have played it some, but I don’t see the point.

What games do you play? Why do you like that one better than the others?

My personal Grammar Girl

Grammar GirlThis week I got a chance to talk with Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) on the phone. She was interviewing me for her Behind the Grammar podcast. The interview we did was for episode 18 of her show. I have been a big promoter of her podcast and her whole network since I first heard about her over 4 years ago.

I mentioned the interview on Facebook and a friend commented about her own personal “Grammar Girl” in high school. I too had my own Grammar Girl in college.

English never was one of my strong subjects (come to think of it, I don’t know that I had any except skipping classes). I guess I speak English well on a basic level, but knowing the rules and making the right choices on tests always eluded me. High school English did not go well and neither did college.

Since then I have had good friends who have helped me clean up several usage errors. Learning a foreign language has been a huge benefit too. However, before I got to the point of getting help I had to take freshman English in college. Mrs. B was my tormentor teacher.

I sat on the last row to the teacher’s left. We were in alphabetical order and Penny O sat in front of me. Mrs. B allowed us to grade each other’s quizzes. We were welcome to trade papers with anyone around us. I found a sympathetic soul in Penny, so always chose to trade papers with her. I never remember Penny ever making a mistake on her quizzes. However, she almost ran out of ink each time she had to correct mine.

The fact that she never missed a question impressed me enough to soften the blow of how much work she had to do to grade my quizzes. She would turn around with a very sympathetic look on her face as if to say “Oh, you poor boy.”

Maybe I am the reason Penny became an English teacher. Perhaps she couldn’t stand the thought that there were other people in the world like me.