I was pretty disappointed in myself for not finding the time or having the same focus as I committed to running in April, so I set a goal for myself to run 100KM in the month of June.

Running 100K in a month would mean that naturally, I would have to increase my distance for every run.  Previous to the month of June, the longest distance that I ran was 5.75KM.

The first Run, I aimed for a goal of 6K, then pushed it to 8K.  On June 30th, I was able to complete a 12K run!!

It’s interesting because I look back on how I felt when I started the Couch to 5K program, struggling to complete 60 seconds of running.  5K seemed like such a long distance, 10K seemed impossible.  The day that I completed the 12K run to reach the mark of 102Km in June, I felt such a huge sense of accomplishment.

Moving forward, I have signed up for the 2010 Detroit Half Marathon (21K) in October.  It is a lofty goal, but I have 3 months to train for it.

This year really was a step up. I was given access to take photos from the bench and from within the rink after the game. Having that close proximity to the players allowed me to get some great shots.

Spending the weekend down in Brantford also gave us the opportunity to meet a lot of the players on the other View Askew teams.

Aside from taking pics, I also designed an iPhone app for the tournament that featured all of the View Askew teams. I will do a post on the app in the next few days.

I just wanted to drop a huge thanks to Ming Chen he really is the MVP of the View Askew organization.

All of my pics from the tournament, can be found here:

Day 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eplatero/sets/72157624205809682/

Day 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eplatero/sets/72157624218270814/

Day 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eplatero/sets/72157624218380378/

I’ve done it!  10 weeks ago, I started my Couch 2 5K running plan again after taking 4 months off.  In 2010 I made a real commitment to the plan and really stuck to it.  I am very pleased with the results.  In the month of April alone, I really upped my game and ran 68Kms.

Looking back starting at week 1, I remember running for 60 seconds thinking that there was no way I could do this.  On Sunday, I ran my first 5K race in under 30 minutes.

Here are my C25K stats:

Weight Lost: 12lbs
Time Run: 14H14M

This past Sunday, I ran in the Forest City Road Race for my first race ever.  My goal was to run 5K in 30 minutes.  In the end I ended up with a time of 28:36 and came in 123rd of 500 runners.  Never in my life would I think that I would be running 5K or participate in a run for any cause.

I’d like to thank all of those who sponsored me for the race, your donations were very much appreciated by the Thames Valley Children’s Centre.

Photo by Jason Fredin

So, whats next?  Tomorrow,  I will be starting a “Freeway to 10K” program.  I plan on running a 10K race by the end of summer, and my big plan is to run in the New York City Marathon in November 2011.  That gives me 16 months to train for a 40K marathon.  It is a huge goal I know, but 8 weeks ago, running 30 minutes straight seemed impossible to me.

Today, was a day from Hell…. Started off OK, but slowly went downhill.

This afternoon I had a video shoot that started off very well. There was a slight hiccup when we noticed that we forgot 1 half of our wireless lavalier mic across town, but somebody went and grabbed it with 2 minutes remaining before the main focus of the shoot that we were hired to do started.

After two hours of shooting, I looked at the second camera and noticed some green banding across the image…. basically meaning that the footage from the second camera was now unusable. Because of the time limitations of shooting DSLR, for corporate presentations, we run a two camera shoot and offset the start times so we can deliver a seemless video file covering the entire event.

After seeing this image, I was very distressed.

Notice the Green horizontal banding across the image?

So this means that we are going to have to send a camera off to Canon to get repaired, and I’m going to have to work some major magic in Final Cut Pro to deliver this video.

10 Minutes after this, I received a phone call that clouded my head even more.

After driving back to the office, I thought that it would be best if I took the cameras back with me and apply the new firmware update and see if I could resolve this green banding issue.  When loading the camera case into the car, I put my iPad on top of my car.  THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I NEVER DO!!!

Driving home, I heard a rattling noise on my car, and looked out the rear view the and saw something black fall from my car.  It took a few seconds but then I pieced it together….. IT WAS MY IPAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I stopped the car, turned around to pick it up, got out of the car just in time to watch a pickup truck run it over.

It was truly one of those “NOOOOOOOOOOO” moments.  The thought actually crossed my mind about running out in front of the truck, but it all happened so fast.  Hoping for the best… my heart sank as I picked it up, and turned it on to a white screen with coloured lines.

.

I honestly think that the iPad did survive the actual fall from the car, the apple case i bought does provide some protection.

The back of the unit is very dented.

So, the perfect end to the day.

I really did enjoy having my iPad, even for 12 days.  I guess lesson learned, NEVER put anything on top of your car!

Very often as a consumer, we tend to get ignored by the manufacturer.  How many times have we purchased something only to have it break or malfunction past the warranty date or the 30 day return policy.

When I started my Couch to 5K program (post here) I “hacked” my Nike+ sensor to fit my Adidas shoes.

By the second week, I purchased a proper pair of Nike+ shoes so the sensor was used how it should be and more accurate.

During my Couch 25K training, I have been using both Nike+ and RunKeeper Pro.  Both essentially do the same thing, but offer different types of analytics.  There are features that I like in both, and so when I run, I have both apps running.  It has served me well because there has been instances where one of the apps has failed and the other one kept going for me.

During my run in February during -7 degree weather my Nike+ sensor stopped working.  Not a huge deal becuase I have been using RunKeeper Pro on my iPhone to track distance, pace etc.  I wasn’t pleased but was taken care of.

2 weeks after that, during my run in nicer weather, my Nike+ sensor stopped tracking during the run.  I figured that the battery was dead as it was very intermittent.  After looking at pricing a replacement out at the cost of $34 Canadian, I posted this tweet:

I drew a line in the sand, and chose my loyalty to RunKeeper.  I wasn’t going to pay for a product that guaranteed 1000 active hours and only gave me 14.    The person running the Nike+ twitter account obviously saw my tweet and posted this:

I gave them the details, and received this Direct Message:

Today, the replacement sensor arrived in the mail in an envelope with “Happy Running” written on it.

My hats off the Nike+ for using Twitter to deliver customer satisfaction.  I was ready to drop using the product and go 100% over to RunKeeper. Not because of the money, but the fact that I would be replacing sensors every 3 months.

Word of mouth is such an important way to market your product, if you have a great experience you may tell a few friends, if you have a bad experience, you will go out of your way to tell everybody you know.  If  a manufacturer goes above and beyond, it should be shared with anybody willing to listen.

Thanks Nike+, I’ll be using my new sensor on my run tomorrow and at my first 5K in May.

Since January 27th when Steve Jobs announced the iPad I knew that I had to have one.  Being a developer on the platform now, it is almost a necessity as all of our future apps from RedCat film will be iPhone/iTouch/iPad compatible.

This is the first time that I have directly dealt with the Apple store on a huge product launch, and I do have to say, Apple really knows what they are doing.

We arrived at the Apple Store in Clinton Township around 10:30am on April 3rd and were greeted by an Apple employee.  He asked my last name, punched it into his iPod Touch and found my reservation for 2 iPads.  We picked up 2 additional units, were in and out of the store within 10 minutes.

Now onto the device.  I do have to say that it is indeed a game changer.  I’ve had a Hackintosh Netbook before, but found my use dwindled after the first initial novelty had worn off.  Typing is really a non issue on the device, the keyboard is very responsive and easy to use (in fact, I am doing this blog post using the Wordpress iPad app).  Apple really hit the nail on the head with this device.  I really do feel that it is the “In Between” device fitting in with my iPhone and Notebook.

Speed: This thing is FAST!  I cannot believe how fast it is on tasks such as browsing and email.  I will have to go out on a limb and say that the browsing experience is faster than safari on my MacBook Pro.

Build: The first thing that got me when I unboxed it was the weight.  I was surprised on how much it did weigh.  After a day with it, it became a non issue.  The display on this thing is awesome.  Both Photos & Video looks incredible on this.

Battery life has been incredible on this thing.  I’m used to having my iPhone dead by the end of each day.  The iPad has had major use in the first few days, and I finally charged it last night.

Apps:  While the iPad app store is still in it’s infancy as of this moment, I didn’t feel as though there was many “Killer” apps, YET. I am anxious to see what this thing can do after developers have had the unit for a few months.

Surprisingly, all of the offered twitter clients are flawed.  I am waiting for Tweetie to release their iPad version.

iBooks:  I did love the ebook reader on the iPad, but where it does fall short is the iBooks store.  The buying process is easy, but the titles are very limited.  I did buy my first ebook: “Viral Loop” by Adam L Penenberg and did get 60 pages in on my first reading experience.  Apple also bundles the iBooks app with a free Winnie the Pooh book, that I did read 20 pages of to my daughter.  I was pleased that Amazon did release a Kindle app for iPad, and I find that I have been using it as much as iBooks due to the vast selection that Amazon offers in it’s book store.

Along with the unit, I purchased Apple’s soft case.  It’s pretty good, but I’m not sure how it will stand up to day to day use.

Bottom line: This is a device that will be part of my lifestyle for quite a while.  Using it, I have found that both my iPhone and Notebook use has declined.

Music (Original Score): Up, Michael Giacchino WON
Animated Feature Film: Up, Pete Docter WON
Costume Design: Nine, Colleen Atwood NO
Writing (Original Screenplay): The Hurt Locker, Written by Mark Boal WON
Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side WON
Visual Effects: Avatar, Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones WON
Cinematography: Avatar, Mauro Fiore WON
Film Editing: The Hurt Locker, Bob Murawski and Chris Innis WON
Sound Mixing: Avatar, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson NO
Art Direction: Avatar, Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair WON
Best Picture: Avatar, James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers NO
Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart WON
Documentary (Feature): The Cove, Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens WON
Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker, Paul N.J. Ottosson WON
Makeup: The Young Victoria, Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore NO
Actress in a Supporting Role: Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air NO
Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds WON
Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon, Germany NO
Documentary (Short Subject): China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill NO
Music (Original Song): The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart), from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett WON
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): In the Loop, Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche NO
Directing: Avatar, James Cameron NO

itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id354102052

It’s been 4 months since I have posted a fitness related activity. I haven’t really done anything fitness related and fell back into old habits. At the peak of my fitness activities back in October, I was one run short of finishing W4 of the Couch to 5K program. and was down to 180lbs. Fast forward 4 months. I am back up to 195lbs, and once again, not eating properly.

I’ve decided to start the C25K program again (for the third time) and this time run it to completion. To ensure that, I have set myself a goal and signed up for the Forest City Road Road Race (5K) on May 2nd.

This time around, I have a couple of new things in my arsenal.

Due to the winter weather, and that I will be running in the snow, I received a pair of traction aids for my shoes over the holidays from my wife.

I also purchased the internet scale from Withings.  A geeky purchase, but will allow me to track my progress.  It works with RunKeeper and Weightbot for my iPhone.  Withings also allows some great API access that I plan on using in the near future.

Week 1 Breakdown:

Starting weight: 195.0 lbs
Ending weight: 192.4 lbs
KMs run: 11.3KM

C25K – W1D1

C25K – W1D2

C25K – W1D3

Taking 4 weeks off has truly brought me back to Week 1. I found myself getting winded in the 60 second running portions. A far way off running 5 mins straight that I was doing last October.

What we did was, using a logitech quickcam, we took a picture of the live performance every 15 seconds, then uploaded the pic to our webserver and ran a javascript to refresh the image every 25 seconds.  For the audio, I had to contact a company in California to let us use their RealMedia streaming server.  This fed the webpage with the audiofeed that the user first had to download real player.

Here is our original blog post about the event:

February 14th: Johnny’s Rocket Room. Our live show on this web site. This show had a couple of new events for the band. The first being the debut of the newest song to the reel live set, “I hold crush” and the second being reel’s first live show on the internet. We would like to thank the following people who helped make the show happen: Nick Linedecker at Kern Internet Services in Bakersfied, CA, Copyland Systems for supplying the hardware to make the show be broadcast. We would also like to thank the following people who helped to promote the show: Chris Gordon and Karen Murray from 103.1fm “The Hawk” for having us the program “London Live”. Janice Zolf at BBS Communications for the spot on Entertainment Desk on TV-London. And last we would like to thank all the people who came out to the show and tuned in on the internet.

The blog post on WayBack Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19970422164648/www.execulink.com/~reel/reelnews.htm

Here is the CFPL news coverage:

Sometimes, it is nice to walk down memory lane….

Tracey and I attended a great Q&A session with Kevin Smith @ Roy Thompson Hall last night.  Kevin was really on top of his game and had some great stories about about his experience directing Bruce Willis, and his fun take on Avatar.

While Kevin’s “wake and bake” attitude certainly hasn’t dulled his sharp wit, it certainly has effected his style of dress, i mean a bathrobe now?

We look forward to visiting Brantford again this year for the Walter Gretzky street hockey tournament!

The rest of my pictures from the even, are here.