Ernie, my orange tabby cat, cuddles up to Gracie, my chocolate lab, whenever he gets a chance.

  

It has been raining here quite a lot lately, and the mushrooms are popping up all over the woods...and they come in all shapes, sizes and colors! Today when I took the dogs for a walk in the forest, I snapped some pictures with my IPAQ Voice Messenger winmo phone.

Posted via web from Out & About

  

My home is probably one of the few households in Douglas County that relies on an antenna for television viewing (no cable or satellite tv at my house).  Over the last couple of weeks, the quality of the TV reception for WSB-TV Channel 2 has decreased noticeably.  I guess I’m lucky because a friend who lives in Austell reports losing the WSB-TV signal altogether.

After looking over WSB-TV’s website, I fired off an email to mailto:talk2us@wsbtv.com, and got a quick response, from a real person:

“Thank you for writing to us.  We definitely appreciate your loyal viewing.

WSB-TV began the process of changing out our DTV antenna last week on Tuesday morning, Aug. 25th.  Our over the air signal could be affected for the period that the workers are on the tower.  We have maintained close contact with that crew.  Wind and rain have impacted the progress of their daily schedule.  Our current estimate is that our signal will not be at full power until the first half of the week of September 14th.

You might receive our signal sporadically and at varying strengths during this time.  Our signal will return in force once the upgrade is complete and, depending on where you are located, you may even see a noticeable improvement.  This is the reason for the move.

We hope for your patience during this process of upgrading our signal.  Would you please share this with your friend in Austell or let us know how to contact him or her?  We will update you again as to when we are a firm go with a return to full power.

WSB-TV”

Thanks to WSB-TV for a thorough, satisfactory and personal reply!

  

I finally got serious about running again and I am delighted! Over the last few weeks, especially since the temps got cooler, running has been a pleasure.  I feel like I’m starting to get into a groove and am motivated to continue on.

I think I’ve worked out my GPS tracking issues and have managed to track some of my more interesting runs on Trackr and through Vida One MySportTraining and VidaOne GPS module.  Here are two routes I captured through the VidaOne GPS module: 

Down to the Creek & back up the hill	Boundary Waters Blue Trail
My usual “down to the creek and back up the hill” route.  This route is about 2.5 miles long and is difficult simply because there is a steep incline all the way back.  I have not yet been able to run all the way back up the hill but I am seeing progress and believe I’ll master the hill in September	I ran two loops on the Blue Trail last Saturday.  This was an exhilarating run because I had not been able to complete even one loop without having to take some walk breaks.  A sure indication of progress and improved fitness

 

Trackr is a cool, free windows mobile application that I use to track my progress when I’m out running.  The software uses my winmo phone’s data connection to upload my progress to my Trackr web page at the time I am out running.  My saved tracks can be viewed on my Trackr web page with a map, satellite or terrain overlay.  I’ve linked my Trackr account to my Flickr account, and if I take pictures on my runs and upload them to Flickr, links to the pictures are posted on my saved track (Trackr matches up the date and time of Flickr photos to approximate locations on saved tracks).  You can click this picture to view the saved track on my Trackr page.  If you click on the blue camera icon, you can view a picture I took at the end of Saturday’s run.

I have completed most of my runs with my very favorite running partner, Gracie.  Gracie is my 4 year old chocolate lab who is always ready to run and has no problem keeping up with me.  In truth, at my present running pace, Gracie probably views these runs as just a quick trot around the neighborhood.

 

One of the benefits of running “down to the creek & back up the hill” is that sometimes Gracie gets to play in the creek, which she enjoys tremendously.

 

Gracie keeps me from getting too focused on time or pace. During any run, I can almost always count on her to take at least 2 poop and 5 pee breaks.  Most of the time she stays focused on the task at hand, but sometimes tempting distractions run across the path (squirrels, ducks).  She can be a very powerful dog during those times, but she’s only gotten away from me once (and that really was my fault for not proactively reining her in when I saw trouble approaching).

Software / Hardware used

• Trackr
• VidaOne MySportTraining
• VidaOne GPS (you must have MySportTraining installed on your device to use this software)
• Hardware used was either the HTC Fuze or the HP Ipaq Voice Messenger

  

Posted via web from Managerial Decision Making

  

While visiting my Father-in-law recently in Black Mountain, North Carolina I stopped by the newly opened Dynamite Roasting Co., a new coffee shop that roasts fair trade, organically grown coffee beans.

The coffee shop is in a quaint little house on the side of the road and what an amazing roasting machine!  No coffee was being roasted when I dropped by and, unfortunately, I left before the next roasting, but I’ll be sure to drop by on my next trip in the hopes of seeing this roaster in action (and the store includes free wifi) . . .

Location

Dynamite Roasting Co
3198 U.S. Hwy. 70, West
Black Mountain, NC 28711

  

Philippa Raschker grew up in Germany, but moved to the United States in her early 20s.  She now lives in Marietta, GA.

At the Masters World Track and Field Championships in Italy in 2007, she walked away with 10 gold medals.

The 61-year-old athlete is the world champion of the 100, the 200, the long jump, the high jump, the triple jump, pole vault and the hurdles, among other events.

Philippa Raschker interview, growingbolder.com, 1/17/2008

 

More Reading

“I Want to be a Winner,” Second Wind: The Rise of the Ageless Athlete by Lee Bergquist, pages 81-93

At 62, age not an obstacle, AJC, July 12, 2009

  

An early morning trip to the farmers' market was very fruitful! Yum!

There's nothing finer than the sight, the feel, the smell, the taste of a juicy Georgia peach.

  

Roasting beans makes plenty of smoke! Did you see the smoke signals?

Roast settings used in today's roast:

Stage 1: 350 degrees f for 3 minutes
Stage 2: 400 degrees f for 3 minutes
Stage 3: 450 degrees f for 3 minutes

I could see the beans were getting too dark during Stage 3 so I set to Cool after only 1 minute in Stage 3.  The beans are darker than I'd like, but I'm sure the coffee will taste okay.

Posted via email from Out & About

  

Quite a few needlers made it to June’s meeting – some old friends and some new ones.  It is really amazing the diversity of talented folks who make up the needle nerds.

Here, Jolie knits a beautiful beaded scarf:

A close-up of Jolie’s scarf:

Carol is becoming quite an accomplished tatter:

Isn’t it pretty?

And of course, Sandra’s work is just marvelous:

 

If you didn't make it to June's meeting, we sure hope to see you in July.  Because July 4th is on a Saturday and some of the needle nerds will be taking a long weekend, July’s meeting will be moved to Monday, July 13th at 7:00pm at Michaels on Chapel Hill Road. 

Till then, Happy Needling!

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