Map Your Walking, Running or Cycling Routes

I recently learned about a new tool on the web called GMaps Pedometer where you can map your walking and running routes and print or share them. Mapping a route with this tool shows you both distance and elevation gain. It’s much easier than trying to drive your car around to see how long your route is – especially when some routes are walk/runnable but not drivable.

The site is http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/. Note the link at the bottom left of the page to “Usage instructions” to see how to do it.

You can see a sample map here.

Meeting Story Going Public

Last month I posted the story of how Walter and I met and mentioned that one of my favorite blog authors (Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users) was looking for stories about people whose lives had been positively affected by an online experience. Of course I had to respond by submitting our meeting story along with a photo of the two of us.

Yesterday I got an email back from Kathy Sierra. She said our story was exactly what she was looking for and asked to use it. She condensed the story to a short paragraph and will be sharing it along with many others as part of a video presentation in the opening keynote of SXSW Interactive Festival this coming Saturday in Austin, TX.

SXSW is a conference for web designers, programmers, tech entrepreneurs, bankers, investors, and educators. There will be panel discussions and education on topics from web design, usability, and blogging to wireless innovation and new technology business models. This thing is big. There were 4700 in attendance last year and I see that one of their speakers this year will be Dan Rather.

Kathy's presentation is meant to inspire web developers, software programmers, etc. about the value of their work in connecting real people. After all, if it weren't for folks doing that kind of work there might not be a Walter and me! This page has a photo of Kathy from when she spoke at SXSW last year.

And here I thought Kathy was collecting stories for some kind of school project (she mentioned her daughter was helping her after all). Of course I gave Kathy permission to share our story. She tells me the video will be posted online near the end of March. How cool is that!

Walking to Whistler Via Anchorage

At my office they are doing this PACE study (stands for Promoting Activity and Changes in Eating). Every few months they come up with a new way to inspire us to get more exercise and eat better. This month it’s a 3 week challenge for 40 of us to walk a certain number of steps which we turn into a virtual walk from Seattle to Anchorage to the Four Seasons Resort in Whistler, BC.

They gave us all pedometers and water bottles and we have to turn in our steps once a day. They also posted some reasonable walking routes from the office that are doable on lunches or breaks.

The goal is to raise our awareness of how much we move and inspire us to walk more. So far I’ve tried out the walking routes and I’m doing a respectable job on my number of steps.

Each week there is a raffle drawing for a gift certificate to Whole Foods or REI from those who have turned in their steps. What I appreciate is that it's noncompetitive. You don't get penalized if you didn't walk enough steps. Any competition is with yourself.

My friend who is organizing this "walk" had some extra pedometers and offered me one for Walter if he would do this with me. He took up the challenge (once I explained to him that no, we were not actually walking to Anchorage) and he has gotten back to walking every day.

At the end there will be a grand prize raffle drawing and the winner gets a summer weekend trip to the actual Four Seasons Resort in Whistler!

Is Spring Coming?

Well it seems like that crazy little groundhog in Pennsylvania doesn't know anything about the Pacific Northwest. Earlier this week we got another dose of winter. Or as Steve Pool of KOMO-TV described it "not a brush with winter, but more of a tickle."

On Wednesday I drove to Olympia early in the morning to take my mother to a doctor appointment. When I got to Olympia it was snowing lightly. There was a dusting already on the ground as you can see in these pictures:


All day long the weather went from snow to hail to sun and back again. Very crazy! It was the last day of February and it's unusual for this area to get snow in the lowlands so late in the year. Most people are ready for it to be over, but I was kind of excited about it. Check out this video:



I don't like it when the snow gets dangerous to drive in, though. As we drove home from Oly in the evening there was more of the snow and hail, especially between Olympia and Tacoma. This video is a compilation of 4 different snippets taken between Olympia and Tacoma.

In the first piece you can see how the hail is starting to pile up on the side of the road. In the second piece you can hear the hail as it clatters against the windshield. The third piece shows a patch of blue sky in the distance and the hail/snow blowing across the roadway. The last section features the pileup of hail on the windshield. It's so fine it looks like snow, but if you look more closely it appears like tiny styrofoam all piled up. The audio on that one features KOMO radio where they were interviewing callers about snow reports in different areas. Pretty interesting.




Once we passed Tacoma you would never know there had been anything but beautiful sunshine all day long. The road was bare and dry. When we got home to Seattle it was starting to snow again. Turns out that it was snowing heavily north of Seattle and south of Olympia. The towns of Everett (north) and Centralia (south) got 5 to 7 inches each an dof course locations to the east in the foothills (like North Bend) were also blanketed. I hear it was really beautiful, but we missed the worst of it in Seattle.

As the rhyme goes March has come in like a lion. Let's hope it goes out like a lamb!

Mr. Gates Sighting

I went to Microsoft's "Big Day" event today down at the Convention Center. It was their big launch thing for Windows Vista and Office 2007. It was really pretty fun and I learned a lot.

But better than that -- I got to see Bill Gates speak in person!! As long as I've been in this town and working in IT, it's the first time he has been at an event I attended. Apparently I wasn't the only one a little gaga because as soon as he stepped out on stage the camera phone flashes started going like crazy.

He did a good job with his presentation of course and it was a pretty fun day.

Cancer Treatments for Genora

As I've talked about before my mother-in-law recently had a mastectomy. A few days ago she had her first appointment with an oncologist to determine what course of treatment will be necessary once she is sufficiently healed from the surgery. The verdict was a bit harsh. She must undergo chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy. It seems like a lot, but was not unexpected.

My sister-in-law will stay with Genora in North Carolina when she gets the first of her chemo treatments. I think that's in early April. I wish we lived closer so we could help with things like transportation back and forth for treatments. Please keep Genora in your thoughts and prayers.

Spring Is Coming

Part of our work to ready the apartment for inspections included doing a little work on the balcony - reorganizing, tossing old plastic pots, etc. I have three pots of tulips out there. As you can see they are coming up and will hopefully provide a nice blooming display in a month or so. It's so much nicer to look at these pots and the pansies on the rail instead of just the freeway view and the mall.

Photo of Walter

I really liked the new haircut Walter got a couple of weeks ago so I took a picture to share with his mom. It took several tries to get a photo without a funny face because Walter started getting silly on me, but I love the big smile in this one. I thought you might enjoy it too.

Dragon ... I Mean Draggin!

I've been away from the computer for a few days. You see, today we had apartment inspections. Each year our landlords inspect every apartment to make sure there is no damage they don't know about and take care of any problems they see. I suppose it's a good thing, but it is also a pain in the neck. Especially for someone like me who does not excel at housekeeping.

We worked on the apartment for three whole days plus 3 hours this morning (got up at 4am). That's why I'm "draggin'" today. I purged a lot of stuff and the place looks a lot better. Maybe one of these days I will learn not to be such a packrat.

A Poem for You

I was cleaning out some old files and came across this poem. I found it a long time ago on PostcardX and have been saving it to share with you.

Canned Laughter

I’ve been catching laughter
Snatching it out of the air
Jars of children’s giggles
I gathered at the fair

I’ve been catching laughter
With a net spun from dreams
Barrels full of chuckles
Bursting at the seams

I’ve been catching laughter
Tuck them under my arm
Plant them in my garden
Soon I’ll have a funny farm

© Barry Courtney
of Australia

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day everybody! I hope everyone enjoyed their day.

The other day I heard a couple guys on the radio talking about Valentines Day in a rather cynical manner. I understand that lot of men feel that there is just too much pressure on Valentine's Day, it's too commercial and the whole holiday is just a bad idea. In fact they mentioned a web site which promotes a movement against Valentines Day. (No I did not take note of the site's address.)

My feeling on the subject is that it is completely up to each individual couple as to how they want to celebrate Valentines Day. Some people choose to go all out and spend a lot of money. Other people don't celebrate at all. And there are many of us in between. If someone is feeling "pressured" about the day I believe that is a communication issue between the two people in the relationship. If you are going to be involved in a relationship with someone communication is important. I believe that the problem (if there is one) needs a conversation ... not a movement.

As for Walter and me, we like to go out to a nice dinner on Valentine's Day and we get each other fun mushy cards. This evening we went out to Bahama Breeze which is one of our favorite restaurants and had seafood and key lime pie. For us this is the perfect way to celebrate. How about you? If you have a special way to celebrate leave a ntoe in the comments.

Our Meeting Story

One of my favorite blogs is called "Creating Passionate Users." I find lots of good inspiration there for the part of my job that involves technical training. The blog's author occasionally posts something off topic but interesting. Yesterday I found this post asking for web/personal stories. She was looking for stories about people whose lives had been positively affected by the web.

If you know Walter and me you know we met online a long time ago. Now I think that's a pretty positive outcome! I couldn't resist - I sent in our story. For those of you who don't know it, I share it here too:

My husband and I like to say we met on the Information Superhighway when it was but a dirt road. We first connected when we were both members of CompuServe in 1984. For many years they had a feature on CompuServe called CB Simulator. There were different channels you could go to and talk (type) to people. It was much like chat on the internet today. We were casual friends at first, then grew into very close friends. Things turned romantic in 1986. We communicated by email, but also by phone. The phone bills were astronomical! I remember a couple in the $800 range. Yes, that's for a month. Thank goodness long distance rate plans have changed since those days of AT&T.

Walter came to Seattle to visit me in person for the first time on August 31, 1986. He was living in Lexington, Kentucky at the time. A couple plane trips back and forth for each of us, and he moved here to Seattle in February 1987. We married August 29, 1987 and have been happily married ever since - that will be 20 years this year!

Walter is legally blind and I think it's quite possible our paths would not have crossed if it were not for CompuServe's online services. Walter still has the same email address today that he used when we first met.

Okay, that's your romantic story for Valentine's week.

Too Funny!

Thank you to Colette for sharing a really funny video with me today. I was busy and didn't have time to watch it until this evening, but it cracked me up! I thought you would enjoy it too, so I wanted to share it here with you. As Colette suggests make sure your sound is on and be sure to watch the whole clip. It's about 6 minutes. Enjoy!