daverea.com

Today offered an afternoon too beautiful not to mix in a run, so after I left the office, the first order of business was to grab a stretch and hit the road. After all was said and done, here are the stats:

[Air Temp] 44°F
[Time] 41:25 min
[Distance] 4.11 mi
[Avg. Pace] 10:04 min/mi (sad!!)
[Avg. Heartrate] 165
[Calories] 851 (based on ∑HR and my weight)
[Total elevation change] 149 ft.
[Nice bicyclists waved to] 3
[Un-nice bicyclists waved to] 1 (not even a hello nod! meanie-head…)
[Discarded roadside 40-ouncers counted] 6

One stat less conducive to bite-sized listing is the number of drivers I watched whose eyes never glanced up above the level of the steering wheel for the entire time their faces were visible. Those who’ve driven with me, and especially those who’ve asked me to identify street signs at a distance, know that my vision is pretty darn good – and when I see a driver looking down from the moment they come into view, until after they’ve passed me, even I don’t always believe my eyes.

Sadly, all four drivers I saw doing this in the space of forty minutes were probably sending or reading text messages on their cell phones – they seemed to be looking too far down, for too long a duration, to just be checking their speed or odometer. Further supporting my theory, all were relatively young – gray hair, Buicks and Crown Victorias (hallmarks of people who aren’t stereotypically text-message-savvy) were notably absent from the dataset.

Either way, I’m glad I got out for the run. I’m chalking my crumby pace up to the few steep hills that I encountered, that pushed me into a self-imposed “heart-rate cruise-control” walk after the ticker topped 175. With a flatter course, I’m pretty confident I could comfortably clear a 10-minute-mile, which’ll be good when it comes time to run in the Pittsford Triathlon in June!

As if our kids weren’t babied enough by the countless special interest groups that purport to act in their best interest, a coalition of childrens’ advocacy groups has now demanded a ban on employer use of online postings in personnel decisions. Yep, we’ve got some real winners out there.

Apparently, this latest cadre of the incessantly-concerned is worried that the kiddies might post something online that hurts their chances for a job or a college admission later on. I can just see the hand-wringing now: Little Johnny isn’t responsible enough to correlate cause and effect right now, so just in case he posts something on twitter next week that might keep him from getting that paper route he’s been hoping for, we should make sure the Daily News can’t not-hire him because of his blog.”

This just highlights two of the things I’m sick of, but that just seem to keep coming out of the mouths of the nanny-staters. For one, saddling businesses with all sorts of obscure laws that limit what they can and can’t do in hiring decisions is really wearing thin. It’s a free market, and if I’m going to pay someone out of my hard-earned profits, it shouldn’t be a problem for me to take a peek at that person’s myspace page to see if they’ve got a level head on their shoulders. If I don’t like what I see, then it’s my prerogative to pick someone else. The nanny-staters who push for this sort of thing aren’t kicking in any money for the paychecks of the slacker employees who their policies prevent me from not-hiring…

But more than this, I’m sick of people not being held accountable for doing stupid things on the Internet. If you miss a job opportunity because you posted dozens of “look what I’m doing instead of working” entries in your livejournal account during business hours, how is it your next prospective employer’s problem? The same thing goes for the people who’re silly enough to post their addresses, phone numbers, vacation plans, and all the other intimate details of their lives online. If you don’t stop and think long enough to recognize what in your life is private, and then keep it that way, then “permissum user caveo” to you. That’s let the user beware for those not quick enough to hop over to Intertran…

If you get a chance, at least give the article a read… The last two quotes are definitely the most priceless! (*sigh*)

After visiting our local Verizon store and checking out their handset and smartphone offerings, I’m convinced that yesterday’s blog – concerning Tuesday’s announcement of Verizon’s open-network certification process – is more apropos than ever. What a sorry crop of phones.

Kelly and I spent the better part of an hour perusing the Verizon store – and to their credit, they never harassed (or even spoke to) us once – but unfortunately there wasn’t that much to see. We started out with the Blackberrys and Palm Treos, which were disappointing at best.

The Windows Mobile version of the Treo (unsurprisingly) wouldn’t even function, while the PalmOS version is a decided step down from the 2001-era Sony Clie that I pocket daily (and that’s still running like a champ). And for all the hype that Blackberry devices have received, they still have a pretty terrible interface. The icons are tiny and a perfect example of one of my strongest techie pet-peeves: mystery meat navigation. Despite trying several of the built-in fonts at various sizes, I was unable to find a display setting that didn’t cause eyestrain – and eventually I left the store with a headache.

While I have plenty of other complaints about the Blackberry and Treo devices, I’ll stop here in hopes of dodging the ire of their near-religious (and, apparently, entirely irrational) following. Perhaps their popularity is borne of the lack of anything better? Oh, wait, can’t make that claim either – or I might find myself confronted by an angry mob of iPhone aficionados.

On to the phones. After playing with the “smart” phones for a half-hour or so, Kelly and I moved on to the more traditional handsets, perched around the perimeter of the store. I’ve got to give Verizon credit for bringing back live demos – little irked me more about phone shopping in 2004-2006 than taking the time out of my day to visit the store, only to be confronted by a room full of dummy phones. But that’s about where the good vibes ended.

For the last 2 years (nearly to the day), I’ve carried a LG VX8300 phone. It’s not exactly sexy, slim or svelte, but it’s reliable, it works well, it has the features I like, and I can’t remember a single time when it’s crashed. The 8300 feels well-built and sturdy, and despite having an all-plastic shell, the materials have a quality feel to them. Not so with the current crop of phones from Verizon. Nearly every phone we picked up – no matter the manufacturer or the price – felt cheap and flimsy. Those that were working had slow, clumsy interfaces with poorly-placed pushbuttons. The mechanisms – whether they were slide-style, flip-style or rotators, felt as if they’d break after a few weeks of use. There was one lone exception – a beefed-up but consummately unattractive ruggedized model from Casio. In all, the selection motivated me to take even better care of my VX8300, since it doesn’t look like I’m going to be replacing it any time soon!

Verizon, let’s hope your new “any apps, any device” push brings in some new blood. While the smartphones we test-drove yesterday might appeal to corporate execs with no other option or gotta-have types seeking a status symbol at the price of usability, they won’t cut the mustard with customers who truly demand excellence. And while the handsets we gingerly tried out yesterday might appeal to teenagers (or preteens?!) whose quick-to-break hardware will just be instantly replaced by overprotective parents anyway, they’re not going to hold water with people who want (or need) a simple, reliable, attractive phone that doesn’t trade usability or dependability for a trendy opening mechanism.

At this rate, the Android handsets can’t arrive fast enough!

If you’re like me, and looking at Verizon’s depressing lineup of phones makes you feel like you’re standing on the street (in the rain) looking in at the party, then hope is still on the horizon…

As of yesterday, Verizon revealed their new process for phone vendors to certify devices for use on the Verizon network. While it’s certainly not “open” in an anything-goes kind of way (a-la homebrewers and open-sourcers rejoice), it does go a long way toward making Verizon more competitive with the GSM carriers. With Android phone prototypes making headlines in the tech press and appearing in Google’s youtube videos, Verizon’s move to openness can’t come soon enough.

It’ll be interesting to learn whether Verizon’s new certification process applies just to phone hardware, or if the phone’s OS and applications fall under Big Brother’s watchful gaze too. Given the popularity and proliferation of alternative firmware for things like wireless routers and GPS navigation units, the potential for open software (Android included) running on new open hardware platforms is exciting. Along these lines, hopefully Verizon’s process won’t include requirements that phones lock out OBEX and USB downloading of captured media! I’m sure Verizon’s customers (or at least the ones that pay attention) are poised and ready to breathe a massive collective sigh of relief if that pans out…

Our new-every-two anniversary date is coming up on Tuesday. Barring any expiration dates for the NE2 discount, maybe I should hold off on replacing my (heretofore completely reliable) LG handset for a few more months??

[hat tip: Phonescoop and my buddy Jeff for pointing me to them...]

(3.14)159265358979323846

As of 5:30AM, it looks as if last night’s predicted ice storm was yet another overprediction on the part of the weather folks. They’ve been pretty good at making those this year, as not one of the eight-or-so winter weather watches they’ve kicked off has turned into anything.

Not that I’m complaining! Quite the opposite, it’s a Very Good Thing that last nights predicted “half inch of ice” turned out to be more like a slight glaze. I’d rather be overprepared than caught playing catch-up, so I’ll count last night’s non-event as a blessing.

Thanks to the good folks over at andymoore.com, daverea.com now comes in a spiffy mobile edition! Just point your cell phone’s web browser over to daverea.com, it’ll automatically detect your tiny “window on the world”, and serve up the goods to fit.

Since yesterday morning, the forecasters have been warning of an inbound winter storm that’s due to hit upstate New York tonight. Warm, wet air from the Ohio Valley is colliding with cold air from Canada, and the wintery mix that’ll result is on the docket from 8PM onward.

Foremost on most folks’ minds is that 17 years ago today, Western New York was hit with a severe ice storm – one the weather folks called a hundred-year storm – and most people were without heat or power for over a week. We burned our fireplace almost continuously for that period, and for me (an energetic 11-year-old at the time) it was one big living-room campout. I fashioned electric candles from 9V batteries and bulbs gleaned from my numerous Radio Shack projects, and we counted our blessings – not the least of which were gas-powered appliances!

Nowadays, I take a little different approach. There’s a generator and three tanks of gas in the garage and the cars’ fuel tanks are full, so we’re ready for at least a little while without power. Carrying on the tradition from ’91, we’ve got a gas stove and gas water heater at the ready, though this time around our fireplace will probably not be doing any heating (helps to have some wood on hand for that).

If this does turn into an ice storm, I’ll post updates here as long as there’s power and an Internet connection to use. Maybe some photos too…