Wired up and ready to go

FitBit and Timex Ironman on my left, Road ID and Polar
heart strap readout on my right. Hmmm, clowns to the left
of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

When I prepared to go for a run this morning, I strapped a heart monitor around my chest, the heart monitor readout and a Road ID bracelet on my right wrist, a Timex Ironman watch and a FitBit Flex on my left wrist.

The heart monitor strap/readout (a birthday gift from my sister) displays my heart rate and keeps track of calories burned, highest heart rate and average heart rate. The Timex records the time it took to take my run and the split times if I know where my mile marks are. The FitBit Flex (a birthday gift from my son and daughter) records steps as well as route taken, number of miles, active minutes and calories burned.

And the Road ID bracelet helps identify me - and find my wife - if I drop dead during my workout. (Seriously, during a vacation a few years ago in Delaware, a vulture followed me around during one of my runs.)

Being so wired up enables me to gather a lot of data about my workouts. And I’m a geek in that regard. That’s what happens after years of working as an operations director for a newspaper company where measurement of performance of various pre-press, press, and post-press  functions is an important part of the job.

It all begs the question: Why?

In my effort to keep this body of mine functioning for as long as possible, I use the data to gauge how all my 61-year-old original equipment - back, knees, hips, shoulders, etc. - is doing relative to fitness, weight, and assorted aches and pains.

I can gauge what kind of workout to have on a particular day - light, medium or heavy - based on the kinds of workouts I had the previous days. And I can calculate when I might be able to cheat on my calorie intake with an extra beer or two, or maybe a bowl of ice cream, or even a plate of Buffalo wings.

There is some question as to the effectiveness of some of this technology, however. Being wired up and ready to go doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere when it comes to overall health..

NBC’s Today Show, for example, had a report recently that FitBit users were gaining weight.

The problem is one of false positives. My FitBit tells me how many calories I’ve burned and how many calories I can afford to eat with an eye toward losing weight. But if you’re eating the wrong kinds of calories, you’re going to gain, not lose, weight.

So for today, I’ve had a Greek yogurt and fresh blueberries - coming in at about 100 calories. With the 1,492 calories I’ve burned thus far, according to FitBit, I have 2,113 calories left in my bank to consume for lunch, dinner, snacks, etc.

The Today Show report said: “Weight loss is more an art than a science. While we might like to think it’s a simple calculation of calories in and calories burned, most of us have numerous, fluctuating variables in our personal weight-loss equation.”

If a consume 1,000 of my banked calories with high salt, high fat, high sugar food, I’ll be on the wrong side of all this technology.

Could I live without all these gadgets? Sure. But it’s helpful that the data tells me where I’ve been (literally, the GPS unit on the FitBit maps where I’ve been) and gives me a good idea of where I need to go.

The revenge of technology

I am convinced that certain mechanical and technical products have a soul, or, lacking a soul, they at least have a mean streak.

I think cars know when they are about to be replaced.

I think computers know when they are about to be replaced.

The jilted Gateway laptop.

I have memories of cars - a ‘67 Rambler Ambassador, a ‘76 Dodge Dart, a string of Volvo sedans, a string of Honda Accords, and a Mazda 626 - developing odd mechanical quirks as I was in the market to replace them with something newer.

The windshield wipers on the Rambler stopped working. An Accord engine light kept coming on. The Mazda transmission blew up.

Today, I’m having a direct experience with poor behavior on the part of the laptop - a Gateway NV54 - as I replace it with a new Surface Pro 2 from Microsoft.

Just this morning, I experienced a screen freeze three quarters of the way into a daily job I have each day to update a web site.

The screen freeze wasn’t new, necessarily. It’s been happening on and off and I’ve developed a workaround involving Clt-Alt-Del and re-logging into the computer.

This time, however, the computer didn’t respond. The hard drive light, just kept blinking and blinking and blinking and blinking ...

It was as if the Gateway was saying: “Ditch me for some sleeker model, huh?”

I lost my work.

I firmly believe the Gateway knew I went to the Windows Store on Thursday and purchased its replacement, the Surface Pro 2.

My Gateway has become underpowered and, to an extent, obsolete to my current needs. I wanted a powerful, fast processing laptop to work with by day, and a tablet for leisure and entertainment by night. Also, the Gateway weighs a beastly seven pounds, an anchor to be lugging around when I travel, while the Surface Pro is about three pounds.

Sleeker model, for sure. The Surface, for me, fit the bill.

I have a fair amount to transition in terms of files, extensions, etc. that I need to port over from one computer to the next, so I still need to lean on the Gateway for certain parts of my work.

But I don’t know what I can say to the Gateway to keep it happy, keep it in check for the next week or so. Thanks for the good work over the last few years? Thanks for the memories?

If it’s any consolation to the Gateway, I’ll keep it around for a bit because you never know: New technology can rise up and bite you in the ass too.

Old habits r hard 2 break

"The Elements of Style" -- the elegant little book on correct writing -- celebrated its 50th anniversary last week.

I have an original 1959 printing, courtesy of my father, also a writer.

During my many years as a newspaper man, "The Elements of Style" and "The Associated Press Stylebook" were my sacred texts. Any question about how to write something or about usage had an answer in one or the other.

The AP Stylebook has been updated many times over the years. Back in 1984, for example, it did not have a reference for the Internet.

"The Elements of Style," by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, hasn't changed too much. It's in its fourth edition, having been updated last in 1999.

As a Baby Boomer who's making a concerted effort to navigate his way online, I find it hard to unlearn the style of Strunk and White in favor of the shorthand style that electronic communication sometimes demands.

I always want to write in complete sentences. I always want to have a subject and verb. I always want to use proper punctuation, and proper capitalization and proper voice. I always want subject/verb agreement and noun/pronoun agreement.

Email became the first excuse to write in a tone and manner that was both abbreviated and, quite frankly, often lacking in style. It became worse as we exchanged emails using the BlackBerry keyboards, and it became worse still when we began texting off the cellphone keypad.

The new ways we write to to each other cramp the style of "The Elements of Style."

Are became r. To became 2. Oh, my God became OMG. Honestly, I need a glossary to help me sort through it in the same way I needed "The Elements of Style" and the AP stylebook.

But I refrain from using the abbreviated language of cellphone texting at a 160-character limit and the micro-blog Twitter at 140 characters.

I won't substitute the online shorthand for the words. You won't see me use SWAK for sealed with a kiss.

I actually find myself becoming a better writer and self-editor. By using whole words within a character-limited box, I shrink my thinking about what I want to say to its essence. Say it, say it clearly and say it in 140 characters or less. It's the haiku challenge of online communication.

"Omit needless words," Strunk and White advise.

Needless words, indeed.

At 55, I feel a kinship to my 50 year old book: We're both a bit dog-eared and maybe a little outdated, but still fundamentally sound.

Does this technology make me look fat?

Most of us, when we think of technology, regard it in terms of machines: computers that compute faster, electronic servers that host infinite information on the internet , even cars that because of technology are more powerful yet more fuel economical than their predecessors 20 years ago. Not many of us, however, regard technology and clothes in the same thought.

Yet, technology has made great strides in the advancement of how clothes function, especially in the field of sports.

Take swimming, for example. Speedo has introduced a new swimsuit called the LZR Racer. It's expected to play a significant role in the Summer Olympics next month in Beijing, China. It was already the talk of the competitive swimming community during the recent Olympic trials for U.S. swimmers in Boise, Idaho, where records fell like a house of cards. The full-body LZR actually squeezes the body with 70 times more force than its predecessor, actually making the body more sleek -- and therefore less resistant -- through the water. One Italian swimming official described the suit as "technological doping."

We've come a long way baby from the little Speedo brief that Mark Spitz wore in 1972.

This compression technology has made its way into other sporting attire as well, both for the professional and more casual athlete.

I have two such pieces of clothing -- a compression top for winter running and a full-body wetsuit for my recent pursuit of learning how to surf. My problem with the compression technology is that it is very revealing. There's no hiding a body flaw with something that is so skin tight in can almost make the individual hairs on my chest show through. And my primary body flaw during these days of middle age is belly fat.

My belly isn't Type 2 diabetes threatening bad. Admittedly I could lose 10 pounds. In my normal day-to-day clothes it really doesn't look too bad. But my normal day-to-day clothes tend toward generously-waisted pants and loosely fitting shirts. It's when I stuff myself into those compression suits that it's an eye opener, in more ways than one.

To begin with, just getting into a compression garment is an aerobic exercise in itself, the equivalent of at least a mile on the treadmill at an 8 minute, 30 second pace. It can take your breath away with all the grunting and straining and effort to literally stuff 175 pounds into something seemingly made to hold 100 pounds.

I thought I might need something in the roomy size for my wet suit, but Tyler at the Summer Sessions surf shop in Rye, N.H., was careful to fit me to make best use of the technology that's meant to keep your body warm against the extended exposure in the cold ocean water of the Atlantic. He wanted me in a wetsuit that was as tight as possible without restricting my ability to breathe. I learned after the first day on the beach to get into my wetsuit beforehand at home ... best not to scare the little kiddies and their mothers with the grunting and swearing required of getting into the thing. Maybe that's why surfers are confined to more remote stretches of beach.

If nothing else, the compression running top and the surfing wetsuit give me the visual incentive to maintain an exercise schedule and try to eat a sensible diet that leans more toward lower fat foods.

Sure, the clothes make the man. But do they have to scare the women and children in the process?