Technology

See the information I secured from wearing a Garmin Forerunner 405CX wrist watch and chest heart rate monitor strap when I climbed a nearby mountain this week.  Click to enlarge.

        

       Have a good week!

My hike route up Pilot Mountain and performance data during the 4 mile walk and climb.

The red line across the top is heart rate superimposed on the elevation change.

I walked on the road down the mountain with the route and data displayed here.

What Would You Do?

How much flow of cold water passes through your faucets when you open hot water spigots? See the the pictures below for these measurements in my house at two locations.  It bothers me to know these amounts of clean water are wasted while waiting for the warmth to arrive to begin shaving or bathing.  I capture these amounts at one lavatory and use the bucket of clean water for household uses and not let it be wasted down the drain.  I know there are systems available to make hot water instantly appear when the faucet is opened.   I believe it would cost $500.  I'm thinking about having a plumber look at my piping and quote a cost.  What would you do?

 

Have a good week!

 

Three quarts of cold water flows before warm water arrives.

The same in the bath tub as the lavatory above at the other end of house.

Barn Quilt

A tangram is a seven piece set of two dimensional shapes that form a square when fitted together.  A barn quilt is outdoor art attached to a barn.  The art is usually multicolored designs painted on square shapes of plywood.  See this link for more information about barn quilts in Western North Carolina. http://www.quilttrailswnc.org/

My wife and I received the barn quilt shown below and installed it on a storage building on our property.  This tastefully designed tangram was created and made by our daughter-in-law and given to us as a gift.

Have a good week!

I prepared the site for art installation

Our daughter-in-law designed and painted the tangram.

The vibrant colors standout among the background.

The view from the road as one drives to our home.

My New Toy

Click on the link below to see statistics of a recent walk I did that went back and forth up and down hills.  Click on the aerial view of the map to see the actual landscape.  Click the triangle on the map to see heart beats per minute superimposed on the elevation along the time line.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62322566

This information was captured using a Garmin Forerunner 405CX.

The data is transferred wireless onto my desktop computer when I come within 10 feet of my desk.

Pretty cool.

Have a good week!

Quality Family Time

I hope your holidays were quality family time.  Between Christmas and New Years Day, my wife, our daughter, and I worked to assemble this 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  Over the course of four days we gathered around the dining room table and searched for puzzle pieces that mated one to the other.  This puzzle was especially hard because of coloration and the large number of pieces.  We had great difficulty with the border and were probably 75% finished before the perimeter was correctly completed.

The three of us had interesting small talk as we huddled around this objective for many hours.  We'd quit for meals, breaks, naps, phone calls, and trips to the store.  We thought of giving up, but persevered to completion before we drove to Raleigh on Wednesday to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art where many works of the late artist and illustrator, Norman Rockwell, are on display for a few more weeks.

Have a good first week in 2011!

Closing in on the final 1,000 piece jigsaw

Success