Alan Webb 1 mile video

Alan Webb broke the American record two weeks ago for the 1 mile race. He did it in 3:46:91.

I saw a video of it yesterday. Even though I knew he was going to break the record, I still got caught up in the excitement and emotion of the commentators.

There is a hi resolution version and a low resolution version of the video. It took a while for the hi-res to load in, but that is the one I watched. Apparently many people are having trouble getting it to work. So the low-res may work better for you.

This video is done by a company called Flocasts. They do videos for a couple of different types of sporting events. Their FloTrack division covers track and field. Just buzzing around the site, it looks like they have training programs and such. I have just seen a few videos from them. They do a good job with those. From what I understand, they are doing the filming themselves. They are not pulling news feeds.

Even if you are not into track, it is really neat to watch him break the record at a very small track meet.

Are you digital yet?

I bought a new camera when we were in the US. Our old camera was being fritzy. This new one cost just $100, though I realize that it is not a high end machine. I did not have time to really research out a camera like I am wont to do. Also, I did not have a lot of money available for the project.Samsung 630s

Since I will probably buy a much better camera at a later time, this camera fulfills my desire to have a small, low cost camera that I can take running with me as well as be a great camera to keep handy at all times. I looked at some of the Nikon digital cameras that are available. Especially the smaller compact ones. I like that they use standad SD cards as opposed to a proprietary system like Fuji or Sony.

The Samsung camera won out because it fits all the requirements I had set forth in a previous post. The only rule I broke when buying this camera is that I bought a 2 GB memory card with it. The card only cost $20 and was just $2 more than a 512 MB card. Though that card will hold 600+ pictures at this camera’s best quality, I think it would be foolish to put that many on there. I like to pull the pictures off my camera as soon as possible. I rarely have more than 20 pictures on there before I dump them to the computer, unless I am out to something special for the day and I take a 100 shots or so. But then they get moved to the computer as soon as I can that evening. In the old days if you lost a roll of film to a tragedy, you lost fewer than 40 pictures at the most. If you filled up a card with 600 pictures and had a tragedy, it would be much more devastating. I would encourage anyone to shy away from having your large memory cards maxed out.

I recently saved 253 pictures for a lady who’s memory card got corrupted. It was really just dumb luck that I was able to do so. I was sick about the whole thing because she is someone who highly values her pictures, but has fallen into the trap of buying 1 and 2 GB memory cards and filling them up just because they are cheap.

Digital is becoming much less expensive today. You can get a fairly good quality camera for $100. There is really no reason to do without. With digital you can shoot as many pictures as you like without any further cost. With digital the cost is all up front. When shooting film the cost of the camera is cheaper, but you never stop paying for the privilege to shoot.

[This is a sponsored post.]

Lunch

A few weeks ago the podcast Podictionary aired an episode that featured the word lunch. This was a word suggested by my son.

One day he asked me why the word breakfast was what it was. I was able to answer that one. It is the time you break the fast that you had been on all night. Interestingly, the word in Spanish has exactly the same meaning. Desayunar is the infinitive. Ayunar is to fast. Des would be the breaking, or not continuing the fast.

He then asked me about lunch. I had no answer to that. I told him I would ask the Podictionary host about doing an episode on it, and he did.

If you like words and their origins, Podictionary is a great podcast for you.

Adventures of Spot and Fluffy

Yesterday my wife and I got up and did our respective things. She went downstairs to get the coffee going and I checked the email inbox (like I do about 350 times a day).

Shortly my wife was calling me downstairs to help with “a problem.” I got down there and she was looking around on the floor for something. It was Fluffy the hamster. Somehow, he disconnected his water bottle from the side of his box. Then he used the extra height that the bottle provided to jump up to the ledge of the box. He pulled himself up and over the edge.

How he got down from there is not known. He could have jumped the 3 feet from the table to the floor. Or he may have jumped onto a backpack that was sitting near. Either way, it was quite a leap of faith.

We found him under the couch making friends with a dust bunny.

As soon as we put him back in his cage he was jumping up as hard as he could trying to grab the ledge and pull himself out again. He is quite adventurous.

This morning our daughter was talking to Spot, whom she had already declared was sleeping. We tried to explain that they like to sleep during the day. It is something that you explain hoping that the 3 year old will understand, but knowing you will probably have to say it a few hundred more times before it sinks in.

A short time later, she jumps back a little bit and screeches, “Oh No! Spot’s awake!”

I think I would be too if a giant human were standing over me singing and talking as loud as she could while I was trying to sleep. Hmm, not much unlike the music our neighbors play all night.

Gadget blog

I came across a gadget blog today that seems to showcase the bizarre along with some useful. To demonstrate, there is a post about the Bomba Alarm Clock. It is both bizarre and useful.

Though I was made aware of this site via a sponsorship deal, I have already subscribed to it through my RSS reader. It looks like something that I want to keep track of for some time.

There is not a lot of content on the site yet, but there is a never ending supply of odd gadgets coming out. The pictures are what make the site. There is some good text as well, but the pictures are what grabs your attention.

[This is a sponsored post.]