Well, here we are… the start of 2007. I hope everyone that reads this made it through the New Year’s celebrations OK. I certainly did… I partied like it was 1999 (note to Price — that was waay overrated). Yep, that means I sat in my basement rotating between watching the nutcases in New York elbow each other trying to claim the square inch of pavement closest to Ryan Seacrest, and the movie “Click”, which we didn’t even manage to finish before giving up and going to bed.

Anyhow, being the start of a new year means… new resolutions! I make them every year, although I rarely put them down into actual words. I’m going to do that here this year, and maybe the fact that I publicly out them will help me stick by them more faithfully than I have in the past. So here it goes…

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I’ve been playing around tonight trying to set up my new Polar F55, which I bought with my part of my $250 “Wellness Dollars” I earned through a new program at work (I also have a Cateye Enduro 8 cycling computer on it’s way). It’s a pretty complex little gadget and will take me some time to learn and use all the features. Hopefully it will serve as a little extra push to keep up my workouts. Between that, my cell phone + headset, my pager (when on call), and other stuff, I’m beginning to feel like Inspector Gadget (or Luke Skywalker). Go Go, Gadget FitnessWatch!

Outside of that, had a good day. Woke up w/the kids and got them breakfast (cereal, of course) while the wife was at the grocery store. We then played for a little while… listened to some Christmas music, etc., after which they helped me wrap presents for mommy. After naptime, we watched “VeggieTales” before they went to help mommy bake cookies. I wanted to help, but instead spent nearly 2 hours on the phone with Best Buy (more on that saga later). After that, just misc. stuff. We went to grab something quick for dinner, so I drove through a couple of neighborhoods so they could see the lights. I needed this vacation time! It’s been awesome just to hang out and relax with the kids. I have to admit, I’ve worn nothing but pajama’s since Tuesday night. It’s awesome!

I ran across a really cool web site today, http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/. This web site allows you to measure a distance (very handy for running/walking/cycling), calculate approximate calories burned for that distance (based upon your weight), view the elevation changes for the span, set mile markers, print a map, and even export the map to a GPS! All of this is free, using Google’s Gmap API’s.

There is also another version of this at http://www.mapmyrun.com/, which is quite similar and allows you to add some additional points of assistance such as water, first aid, etc. Mapmyrun can also export to Google Earth to provide 3D images of your map (although I’m not quite sure what benefit that brings you), and allows for a few more factors such as age, height, and speed, in calculating potential calories burned.While playing around and mapping a few known distances, I found these to be fairly accurate. I mapped out a route I typically ride on my bike and it came out to just over 11 miles. That’s pretty accurate and close to what I measured with my car. The down side to both sites, of course, is that if your neighborhood is newer (like mine) it doesn’t show up on the map. In that case, it does me little good in trying to map those short “around the neighborhood” jogs. But I can see a real benefit here for longer distances, or if you want to map a run while out of town.

Give it a spin, and have fun!

Some of you may recall my entry back in early March (’04) titled All You Can Eat. In that post, I outlined a problem I had with overeating and controlling my weight. Since 1994, I have slowly grown from 190lbs to roughly 260lbs. I was way overweight, miserable, and tired. I couldn’t stand it that my once-strong body was running out of steam by climbing a simple flight of stairs. My belly was in the way of my health, and my happiness.

This update is to let everyone know that things are changing for the better.

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I have a problem, and I’m admitting it here.

The problem? I eat too much, and I don’t exercise enough.

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