BenSpark.com

Sometimes You Gotta Cut It Down

Drew — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:12:53 +0000

Less is more. Our neighbors are having a tree removed. So all day this tree guy was cutting off parts of the tree and as he did so more of the sky was visible. I’ve lived in this house for over 20 years and seeing something completely new was really incredible.

Seeing the tree coming down and how different and open things looked it made me think a bit about blogging. Often we are tempted to write too much, fill our blog with extras, ads, chicklets and widgets. It feels to me that we need to have some blog spring cleaning. This would be a time when we clear out all the garbage that is filling up our blogs. Once we remove the clutter many will be able to see something they might not have seen before, like content.

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Revolutionize a Healthy Working Environment

Drew — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:16:27 +0000

I’m participating in a contest sponsored by ClockSpot an online time clock company. To participate I will be answering these questions.

“If you were responsible for producing the next revolutionary technology, what would it be? How would you use Clockspot to help your endeavor?”

I work in an office, an office with lots of low rise cubicles. I sit for about 15 hours a day between commuting, working and later watching TV. Because of this sedentary lifestyle and my lack of major exercise I have gotten fat. About a year ago I learned about the Treadmill Desk and the concept of NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up my own Treadmill Desk but I have not found the type of desk I’d really like. So this is what I would like to create.

The TreadRider Workstation

TreadRider Workstation

I’ve been reading more and more about James A. Levine, M.D. of Minnesota. He has created an “Office of the Future” with Treadmill Desks and a two lane walking track for meetings. That is great and all but with the focus simply on walking I think that people will get bored quickly.

The TreadRider Workstation would be a combination Treadmill/Recumbent Bike/Desk. This would revolutionize the way that people work and workout.

Let’s talk about the Treadmill – Since the main purpose of this treadmill is to be a part of a productive workstation it does not need many bells and whistles like high speeds or high inclines. When you are working and walking you will walk at 1 – 1 1/2 miles an hour. This is about constant motion to burn calories and not necessarily to push you into a high impact workout. The speed of one mile an hour is a natural speed at which people walk around the office most of the time so while it seems slow you can burn over 100 calories and hour and put in an eight hour day and now you’ve burned 800 calories in the day. So the treadmill can be very, very basic and still accomplish the workout goals. The treadmill could be lifted up and out of the way to clear space as well as for easy cleaning around the station.

The treadmill would also be completely integrated into the workstation and it would record your miles walked, calories burned and heart rate (with a monitor). I would also want to have the treadmill connected to ClockSpot so that when the user connects their laptop to the workstation and the treadmill starts up the user is automatically logged in to work for the day, disconnecting the laptop logs the user out for the day.

We’ll talk about the recumbent bike. The recumbent bike will be at a right angle to the treadmill so that this unit could be placed in the corner of a room or you could connect two TreadRider Workstations together. You could put four of them together too so that people could work on projects together and discuss with each other. I would also have the recumbent bike able to be lifted up off of the floor to be out of the way.

The Workstation – This would be a height adjustable desk that would have a docking station, wireless mouse, keyboard and a large monitor 23 inches at minimum because eye strain is a concern especially when being so further away on the recumbent bike. This could easily be solved with the ability to swing the monitor on an arm closer to the user. The station should also have cupholders for water and an integrated ipod/ipad dock and speakers. The desk itself will be able to rotate ninety degrees and come down in height to be used with the recumbent bike. The keyboard can be pulled forward and set on an incline so that your legs do not bang into the desk.

Many people have created their own versions of the treadmill or recumbent bike desk but none of them have the integrated productivity focus of the TreadRider Workstation.

We need to do something to battle the epidemic of obesity in this country and soon others. By integrating ways to incorporate NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) into your employee’s daily life you will revolutionize your workforce.

I’d like to thank Clockspot and FuelMyBlog for this contest and giving me the motivation to put out this idea.

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MakeBeer.Net Made a Timely Delivery

Drew — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:34:07 +0000

Photo-A-Day #1804

Today my All in One Brewing Kit arrived from MakeBeer.net. A little while after I got home the UPS guy came a calling. He left my this Coopers All in One Brewing Kit. I asked him if I had to sign for the box, he said no, but he’d love some of the beer.

From MakeBeer.net

I attended a beer tasting party put on by Karen (@karengarcia) & Joel Garcia (@joeldgarcia) and Wade Tonkin (@affile8warrior) of GTO Management. The beers that were at the party were from Coopers, the brewery that makes the All in One Brewing Kit that just arrived.

From MakeBeer.net

I really enjoyed drinking the beer and I read about how easy it was to make my own beer at home with the kit. I want to try it out for myself so I can truly attest to the ease, the taste and the fun of making beer at home. The kit has everything I need and if it works as expected I will order more kits to try different flavors.

From MakeBeer.net

As I make the beer I intend to make videos showing you just how easy (I hope) it is to make beer with this kit.

I was given a code for me and for my readers, it is BENSPARK and it gets you 10% off purchases of $50 or more. The code lasts till 3/31. There is another code for free shipping so if you think one is better than the other then go ahead and check them both out.

All links to MakeBeer.net are Affiliate Links.

I hope that everyone had a great Saint Partick’s Day. We enjoyed a delicious boiled dinner and had enough left over for corned beef hash for tomorrow night. Eva was cute in her Saint Patrick’s Green today too.

From MakeBeer.net

Me, I only had a green shirt for my morning workout and totally forgot to wear green all day. I have a bunch of green dress shirts, too. Shoot.

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Springtime Guests

Drew — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:09:53 +0000

Photo-A-Day #1803

Hanging out at the house I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw this big guy. Yeah, it was fairly large and crawling along the wall. I watched it for a bit then got me macro lens and shot a few pics of it. Then Oliver knocked it off the wall and I got rid of it.

I think Vimeo is trying to make me buy their professional version. I uploaded a video this morning that I made last night with Eva. I uploaded that video this morning at about 9:00am and it still has not processed. It is a simple 9 minute video book review that I did for Read to Me, Dad and I’d love to post it but have not been able to yet. I like Vimeo overall because it looks cleaner than Youtube and you don’t get that many knuckleheads leaving ridiculous comments. So I enjoy vimeo and am leaning towards paying for the year subscription especially if I am going to do more of these video book reviews for Read to Me, Dad.

I learned how to do a few things today. I learned how to add an opt in box to my facebook fan page and profile. That was pretty good information. With that info I added the sign up e-mail for BenSpark’s Personal Branding BootCamp to mt Facebook profile and to the I’m Not A Famous Blogger “Un-Fan” page.

I also learned about a plug in called Rapportive. I blogged about it over at Blogging Tips.com.

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Follow my journey to become a homebrewing hero.

Amazon is where I do most of my online shopping. I Love Kindle Books.

Pretty, Pretty Princess

Drew — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:21:51 +0000

Photo-A-Day #1802

Eva has been on a Princess kick lately. It could be because we have been reading Disney’s Princess Treasury (aff link) to her each night. Eva has given all of us in the family names like Cinderella, Snow White and Prince Eric. Eva herself is Ariel and she tells people that she is Ariel.

Yesterday I took Eva with me to Super Stop & Shop. We were in line to pay and Eva asked the cashier what her name was. The cashier told her and then asked Eva what her name was, her response “Ariel”. She did the same thing with the girls behind us at Church, too. She cracks me up.

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Follow my journey to become a homebrewing hero.

Amazon is where I do most of my online shopping. I Love Kindle Books.