SculptDC

It’s been a little more than three weeks since I started spin and yoga. I’ve done spin once or twice before but I’ve never tried yoga. How much of a work out can riding a bike and stretching be?

I’m a runner; I aim for five days of running, 30 miles a week and a 7’25” pace. But with the holidays, travel, work schedule, cold weather, etc. I thought I’d give something else a shot. So I started spinning and yoga at SculptDC. After a few classes, I’m hooked. I’ve been enjoying the fast pace of the spin classes as well as the instructors. The instructors really push you to give your best. When they say “give me your best for just 30 more seconds,” no matter how hard the day was, I just dig in and deliver because I know that I get out of spinning what I put into it. And I’ve got a lot from spinning. I feel leaner and stronger because spinning at Sculpt DC mixes in core exercises, weights and resistance. It’s a strong 45-minute full workout.

Once spinning is over, it’s time for Yoga. Once I started my first class, my preconceived notions were gone. Yoga is a workout! Core, chest, arms, quads and more are quickly being put to the test as we move from one position to the next. I’m not coordinated and I normally wouldn’t do well in classes like this, but the instructors helped me get the poses down. And again, when I leave the class, I feel like I’ve come from a workout. Many of the Yoga poses are the same motions that are incorporated in a crossfit workout, but somehow Yoga is helping me get to where I want to be faster.

 

Check them out @sculptdc 

Home brewing

Sometime in mid-October, on a whim, my girlfriend and I bought a Brooklyn Brew Shop home brewing kit from Whole Foods-Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC. After brewing and bottling our first beer, I’m kind of hooked. We are currently brewing an IPA (we bottle this Wednesday) and this past weekend, we cooked up a jalapeno saison. The first beer that we made, bottled and drank was the grapefruit-honey ale and it was pretty good. It had carbonation, alcohol and tasted better than I thought. The IPA brewing now, I think will be a disaster, but I can’t wait for the saison. I think we did everything correctly and I can’t wait to bottle in two weeks and drink in four.

The one-gallon kit comes with the grains, hops, yeast and other ingredients to make a one-gallon batch (enough for about 9-10 bottles). The kit also comes with sanitizer, tubing and the glass jar (carboy). What you’re going to need are two big pots that can hold at least 5 quarts of liquid a big strainer (the 8-inch was too small) a dark place to put the brewed beer and time (the whole process takes about 5 hours…but I think we can get it down to about 4).

We’ve since purchased a hydrometer (which we broke), the aforementioned 14-inch strainer, plastic bins, more no-rinse sanitizer and a mini-syphon. But all the home brewing stuff is pretty reasonably priced and hanging out at breweries or home brewing shops is sort of inspirational.

If you do it once, this kit isn’t worth it. Go buy yourself a great six-pack. But if you think you’d like to make some beer a few times, go for it. This is a great way to spend an afternoon.

Our first batch…not bad.

Super Bowl Monday

I Googled “American bars in Tbilisi” and came across The Hangar Bar, an Irish pub owned by an American from VA. She said they’d be open. When we got there, the owner told us she was not going to stay open for the entire game because the American Embassy, which initially said they were bringing 25, flaked. So at 4:30am, we were thrown out. However, the owner did buy us beer.

I’m now in my hotel room watching my girlfriend’s TV via facetime. God bless you Steve Jobs.

Yet Another CEO Apology Video

As the world awaits the launch date of iPhone 4s, BlackBerrys around the ceased to work. Asking millions of people to wonder why they are still using a BlackBerry. I’m number one on that list.

In what has become commonplace, Research in Motion CEO Mike Lazaridis, delivered a direct-to-camera apology to BlackBerry users in what has become Public Relations 101. It started with JetBlue CEO David Neeleman YouTube apology for JetBlue delays and cancellations of flights.

Public Relations professionals need to come up with a better way to express sorry and quell consumer discord. This direct-to-camera mia culpa is becoming old fast.

Does anyone really think that Lazaridis is concerned that BlackBerry can’t receive message? Maybe. But what keeps him up at night is the 60 percent drop in stock price because BlackBerrys are becoming obsolete and they can’t figure out what to do. This is just the icing on the cake and some PR flack is making Lazaridis be the public face.

Here are some other apologizes, aside from the Netflix guys hanging out by the pool, the all look pretty similar:

In this video, Toyota went old school and did a fake interview with their President. In this video Jim Lentz looks like he’s conducting an interview with a reporter, he’s not. What he’s doing instead is reading talking points off of a teleprompter and news stations around the world cut that package and put it into their news story as if he’s being interviewed by a reporter. No one is asking Luntz and questions. Many news organizations stopped taking these fake interviews or will use a disclaimer that this is Toyota’s company video:

Notice that Lentz is looking to the side and not directly at the camera. The direct-to-camera apology for YouTube was first used by JetBlue

Domino’s has pulled down their apology video 

Spirit of thermometer

Spirit of thermometer

Originally uploaded by Jason Rosenberg

A cool picture I took of the World’s tallest thermometer in Baker, CA.

Sharks with freaking Laser Beams

Check out this video from 1969 about laser beams posted to twitter today by AT&T tech labs. It introduces tattoo removal, holograms and talks about what will become using lasers for CD players and more.

Towards the end of this video, there’s a segment about how lasers will allow for video phone calls and using home phones to dial for stock quotes.

 

It’s worth watching if not for the 1960s futuristic sound track.

Click this link to watch the video about Lasers!

But here are the AT&T “You Will” ads that I loved as a kid.

 

Two cities, one Andrew Jackson

I was in the lovely city of New Orleans on a Sunday and I walked through Jackson Square. There I snapped this photo of the Andrew Jackson statue:

 

The very next day, as I’m walking to work…I pass by the other statue of Andrew Jackson:

 

A lesson in SEO

The topic of SEO or search engine optimization has been in the news recently since Google changed the way search is done via their algorithm. I’m going to recommend checking out the most recent On the Media where they address the issue and it’s possible that AOL overpaid for the Huffington Post since sites that churn out repackaged content also known as content farming will be downgraded in Google’s new search.

This weekend, someone at The Washington Post hit the publish button too early and an article was published with place holder text in place where the headline should go. Headlines are being written for search engines meaning the headline may not represent what the article is about, but the most titillating aspect of the story for the sake of searching and clicking.

Below is a picture of how The Washington Post gets clicks:

Add something cool here -->

 

Not to be outdone, The LA Times uses another form type of trick the get people to click on links. It’s called the oldest trick in the book: pictures of hot women (note my own use of SEO language)

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog

Please don’t hate me. I’ll be back soon.

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