I bought a Suunto T4C watch a little over a year ago. I use it heavily. After getting used to some of the baffling UI functions I enjoyed the relatively accurate(compared to Timex and Polar) heart rate information I got. And then the heart rate strap (sorry, the "comfort band") broke. It was a pretty poor design to start with, a couple of crappy little plastic clips which had to get pressed twice per workout. Contrast this to the robust "hook" design for the Timex. Fine... I will just order a new comfort band. But here is the catch: a new comfort band is $65!!! Wow, they design it badly and then overcharge for a replacement. I don't often call people for warranty items as I do tend to use gear heavily but c'mon, $300 for the watch and it breaks in a year. So I call... and get someone on the phone which was nice. I explained the situation and she routed me to a web form. I explained that I am outside the US; can they ship abroad? No. Can they expedite this so that I can get it the next time I am in the US? No. But they will be happy for me to ship the comfort strap to them and do what they can. So I explain that really this is tough, why not ship the comfort band and I will send mine in when I am there. "We can't just go and give out free product" she replies. Huh? That $300 and the hassle of sending the damned thing in because of their bad design choices wasn't free, it's a pain. So she offered to transfer me to Finland. Which sort of makes sense since Finland is in Europe. But I decline because a) I am fed up and will just go buy a Timex and never deal with Suunto again and b) getting transferred to Finland sounds sort of ominous, something they do to hardened criminals. But I digress. Bottom line: I had a Kindle that broke once. I called Amazon and they sent a new one and then got the old one when I could drop it off; the didn't once tell me "we can't just send out product". I bought three extender batteries from Monoprice; two didn't work but they send replacements and I sent the broken ones back; I don't even know who Monoprice is or where they operate from but they too trusted me since I had already given them some money. My son's iPod was damaged, Apple just handed him a new one and apologized. And you know what... I buy products from Amazon, Monoprice, and Apple as a result.

We drove to Burgenstock* yesterday which is near Luzern. This is a lovely day-trip from Zurich. Burgenstock itself is a glamour resort (apparently). It opens in late March so everything was closed when we got there. I suspect in the real season very wealthy stroll about and enjoy the views which are spectacular. The image below is from the top of the mountain. The structure is an elevator which goes all the way to the lake (you can catch a ferry to and from Luzern).

It's not a wilderness hike, it's not quite as rugged as we were looking for. But on a lovely spring day when we had no plans it fit the bill nicely.

Here is the map (surprisingly Live maps found something in Switzerland. That is a first!)

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* How do I get umlauts in Live Writer? Alt+0252 should do the trick but Writer misinterprets this. So does Word of course which has it's own key combination which I can never remember. In Word you type Ctrl+Shift+:,  then the letter and voila, umlauts. This doesn't work in Live Writer though.

Let's have breakfast in bed I am losing the family weight bet by a handy margin. Ouch, gained 4 pounds this week. Not good. It turns out that instead of breakfast in bed I actually may have eaten the entire damn bed. Back to the coffee diet I guess.

Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times By the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma this article suggests that eating "food" as opposed to "nutrition" makes sense. Not a revolutionary concept perhaps but something that I take to heart. It is too easy to get caught up in making sure I eat protein for instance. I know that my body does best when I increase the level of protein I eat and lay off some other areas. But that doesn't mean my body handles all good protein sources equally. For some trouble I have some trouble with eggs if they are cooked wrong; my body just doesn't like it. But yogurt? Yogurt is something that usually calms down my stomach if it's upset and gives me a decent boost of energy (of course there is a lot of sugar buried in most yogurt). Since I am running a weight loss bet with my brother, sisters, and mom I plan on spending some time experimenting with food that makes me feel good, helps me train, and sheds the pounds. I recommend the book by the way. I don't know if there is anything new in it but it puts the entire package together nicely and suggests the right outcome for food-goodness; eat vegetables. Thankfully I like a lot of vegetables but somehow they are not always convenient so I skip them in favor of a piece of bread or a cracker or a hunk of meat. But read the book. If it has caused one change in me it's that I am paying slightly more for grass-feed organic meat these days. No more grain-fed stuff if I can avoid it.

Back to the weight-related posting. Today was a pleasant surprise. I have worked out quite a bit lately but my diet has not been particularly good. Nevertheless this is the lowest weight I have seen in well over a year. I will check back through the training logs but I won't be surprised if this is the lowest since we did the charity ride two years ago. Of course tomorrow I will wake up and find my weight is 212 or something. Update The last time I was this light was August 8th 2005, so for over a year-and-a-half I have really been about this heavy. I recall slipping down to 203 at the charity ride in March, then gradually adding pounds and sticking around 208 for a while. Then by November 2005 I was 211 and essentially have fluctuated in that ballpark for a year+ now. We'll see if I can stick this 207.5 for a few days before popping the champagne, but I like the overall trend this year.

Podophile » Blog Archive » Waterproof your Nike+iPod shoe mod i may wind up needing one of these before too long. My other option is to build one out of an old tube, duct tape, and a zip-tie which should also work. UpdateI am changing the title here since spammers are hitting this article. I am also removing the ability to comment.

Kokopelli Trail Info Okay, maybe this is another good event to tackle this year.

Winter Triathlon this might qualify for an event... march 4th is definitely within reach of me doing this one event. Might be a fun weekend getaway.

One thing is for sure... I need to lose weight. Losing weight would help me ski better. It would improve my running speed. It would allow me to climb better on the bike. Oh yeah, it would also make me a healthier person. My first New Year's Resolution then is to lose weight. This morning I am 212.5 pounds. By the end of the year I want to hit 190. I haven't seen 190 pounds for a very long time. Losing 22.5 pounds at this stage in my life will not be easy. I have added an extra pounds every year or so since high school. That's sad given that I have run a few marathons and did Ironman in that time too. Specific mini-goals in order to lose weight:

1. Have a weigh-in chart in the bathroom. This reminds me to step on the scale daily.
2. Limit or reduce alcohol consumption during the week. I will give myself a grace period on the weekends but I pour too many empty calories into my body.
3. Reduce the amount of time I spend online. When I am not online I move around the house, I fiddle with things, I play with the kids. That keeps me happy and burning more calories than I otherwise would. It is amazing how, outside of my daily workouts, sedentary I am.
4. Two hours of exercise per day, five days per week. I may wind up doing more than that with especially active weekends, but 10 hours each week is a solid goal. Depending on the exercise that burns 8000-10000 calories which would cause my weight to drop if I just kept the calories coming in in check.
5. By January 10th I will have a training schedule together which includes one marathon and one ridiculous, you-must-be-kidding me event.

That's it for now, but I will post from time to time on this subject and report my progress. For now I am off to the gym.

It's almost that time of year. Since my birthday follows New Year's Day I tend to make the start then. But I begin the work of thinking about goals on the first, tomorrow. What are the candidates this year:

1. Losing weight, as always. This year I think the specific goal needs to be somewhere in the 15 pounds range. As part of this I need to set some calorie goals and eat more healthy food.
2. Exercise: there will be a training program on the books. I don't know for which event I will train, but it will be something. I drift without this.
3. Ironically, less computer time, especially at home. When we lost power a few weeks back we couldn't use the computers and it was interesting to see how little I had to do at home without the computer. I could spend that time reading, fixing the house, playing games with the kids, etc. Somehow having the computer that accessible is taking up all of my free time.
4. Kick-start language lessons. I'm not sure if this will be Spanish or Italian, but I want to make a specific goal, e.g. 30 minutes per day and stick with it.

Anyway this is what I am starting on tomorrow. I need the event to train for; I cannot find anyone willing to be my partner for the trans-Canada mountain bike race so that is out.