Good year, bad year.

Looks like we may finally get the start of winter this weekend, but I offer one last comparison and then I will stop beating the dead (dry) horse.

Last winter, December 31, 2010 over at the library parking lot.

This winter, January 16, 2012, same parking lot.

Sad, sad dog.

When are you in good enough shape?

Our CrossFit workout this morning was to do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

1. 5 pullups
2. 10 pushups
3. 15 deep squats

I grunted, sweated, and gasped for air, but I was ok with my 10 rounds, plus the first two exercises of the 11th round.  That means I did 55 pullups, 110 pushups, and 150 squats.  Then I looked up at the board and saw a few of the people had done over 25 rounds, with one woman doing 29.  I'll leave it to the curious to do the math, but she did an INCREDIBLE number of reps in 20 minutes!  I don't even have a dream of being in that condition, but I walked away thinking that I should be aiming for 15 or 17, which is a long, long way from where I am now.

On a similar topic, a friend and co-worker Linda Bonanno was describing some of her fitness plans for 2012.  She mentioned her body fat percentage and I was curious about how you can measure it.  I ended up buying these remarkably cheap plastic calipers and using this web site to do my own calculations.  As before, I was happy until I really started thinking about it.

Here is a chart showing percentage body fat norms:

Description	Women	Men
Essential Fat	10-13%	2-5%
Athletes	14-20%	6-13%
Fitness	21-24%	14-17%
Acceptable	25-31%	18-24%
Obesity	>32%	>25%

I clocked in at 16.5% which is right in the middle of the fitness row.  Good enough.  I'm certainly no athlete.  Then the math struck me.  Weighing 170 pounds and having 16.5 percent body fat means 28 pounds of fat.  I know we all need fat to stay alive, but next time you're in the grocery store, pick out 28 pounds of meat and throw it in a bag. Suddenly it doesn't feel quite as "fit".

The things Park City does for snow

OK, so this is a record dry year and the resorts are dying for some snow.  People have been praying for snow, dancing for snow, wearing their lucky skis, and not a damn bit of it has been working.  So far the nice people at Deer Valley have used 200 MILLION gallons of water making snow.  What's next?

Clearly it is time to bring in the experts. Today I went over to Park City Mountain Resort to see Indians from the Northern Ute tribe do a real snow dance.  First I wandered over to check the snow conditions.  This little kid said it all:  not looking too good.

So crank up the Indians.  Apparently this same tribe stopped by the 2002 Winter Olympics to help out. The first guy gave a snow prayer in English.  His clenched fists seem to be saying to the snow Gods "don't make us come up there and kick some butt."  That was my thought anyway.

The next guy did a similar set of prayers, but in his native dialect.  He tossed some snow and burned some incense to help.

Then the real dancing started.  I loved this guys hat.  It looked like a turkey feather duster.

This was one of the younger dancers.  Very colorful and very energetic.

Of course it's the youngest kids that look the best.

And when the young boy got out to dance, he was ripping it up.

As much as it seems funny that we are looking for some help with the snow, the dancing was impressive and the crowd loved it.  There were hundreds of people watching and everyone enjoyed the show and hope it works.

iPhones and iPads? What's for what?

I am a professed technical geek with an interest in whatever gadget has come out lately.  It is amazing that I managed to go through most of 2011 without a tablet.  For my 50th birthday, Julie got me an iPad, so now I don't feel left out.  I have been an iPhone fan for years and have dozens of applications running on it.  How would an iPad be different?  What will I use it for? Now that I have used it for a few weeks, I am beginning to find new habits.

The thing I love about my iPhone (or any decent smart phone), is the combination of computing power and portability.

• When running, it is my music and my GPS tracking
• When driving it is my maps and directions
• When traveling, it helps pick things to do and places to eat
• It's the camera that's always in my pocket
• It's the quick read or game while wainting in the doctor's office
• It's my star map and bird book, whenever I wish I had one
• It's my email when I won't be near my computer for a while

All these things are really driven by the fact that my phone lives in my pocket most of every day.  It is always there and now that I got off of that piece-of-shit AT&T, I am always connected.

The iPad is obviously different.  You can bring it in your briefcase, but who am I kidding?  I haven't worked in years. It is only really portable in the "better to travel with than a laptop" way. So, how do I use it? Mostly for reading.

• I am a news junkie.  There is a wonderful app called FlipBoard.  It is a tremendous example of how a user interface should be built.  I enjoy sitting down and reading through articles, many of which I might not have ever read otherwise.
• Facebook is easier and more interesting from a tablet. It's nice to use while sitting on the couch, and much easier to read and type on than my phone.
• Just browsing through things like the TiVo guide.  When you have TiVo and HBO (free for 12 months), the trick is finding the movies you want to see and recording them. Doing this with a TV remote and a crappy guide is painful.  Doing it from a tablet app is easy and fast. There are lots of examples of these little niche applications, but the more you look, the more you find.
• Reading magazines and watching live TV both work, but aren't quite ready for prime time yet.  The magazines still suffer from user interface problems and pricing issues.  The live TV is actually ready, but is mostly hampered by contractual limitations with networks, stations, advertisers, ...  
• Lots of people play games on their phones, but with 50 year old eyes and fat fingers, that tiny iPhone screen leaves a lot to be desired.  A tablet is much better. If you haven't seen the graphics capabilities on these tablets, they are stunning.

So, at least for the way I live, a tablet is a nice to have, but a smart phone is a have to have.   It will be interesting to see if this changes over the next few months. 

Want to get the most out of your phone or tablet?  Talk to friends about what their favorite applications are.  I welcome your suggestions here!

A serious Alpine Coaster

My dad sent me this video.  We have an Apline Coaster over at Park City Mountain Resort, but it just doesn't compare to this one.  What a great way to take advantage of having a big mountain and some extra ski lifts come summer time.  Looks like a rush!  Next time I am in Austria....

Technology at the ski resorts

I heard something on the radio that got me thinking about how the ski areas are beginning to adopt technology to improve their customer service. I thought it might be fun (since I can't actually ski) to show how the three Park City resorts are progressing.

Park City Mountain Resort
Oddly enough, PCMR seems to be the furthest along, which is amazing because they don't seem to spend much money improving the resort itself.

• Tickets:  PCMR was using hand scanners for tickets for quite a while.  The old solution was to have a ski pass printed with the date it was valid.  A human had to check it at every lift.  The hand scanners are a decent improvement because the information about a ticket's validity is stored and updated in a computer.  Get a 10 day pass and every day it gets scanned, it automatically deducts a day. Lose your ticket?  They just cancel the lost one in the system and give you a new one. This year PCMR made the big jump to RFID-based passes.  You get a pass with a tiny chip in it.  You put the pass in your pocket and go ski.  Gates automatically check your pass and allow you onto the lift (or not).  Faster. Easier.  No digging passes out for a human to read or scan.  Huge improvement!
• Smart phones:  PCMR just released a pretty cool app for iPhones and Android.  You get the normal ski maps, weather, and lift status, but it also adds the ability to buy additional days for your ski pass (no lines to wait in) and to use the phone's GPS to track your skiing all day.  It can give you all sorts of great stats about where you went and how much you skied.
• Old technology:  As much as they have done a nice job with the new stuff, they can't seem to keep the Town Lift running, which provides the ski-in/ski-out for everyone staying around Main Street.  They also made a big deal about a new (small) wind turbine they installed. It hasn't worked since December.

Deer Valley
The mantra at DV seems to be that having customers interface with machines is bad and interfacing with people is good. 

• Tickets:  It is as old as it gets.  You have to go to a sales desk and either buy a ticket or pick one up if you bought it online.  Bought a 10 day pass?  Every day you want to ski you head back to the counter to get a new ticket. You attach the ticket to your clothing and every time you get on a lift, a human reads the date.  Lose your ticket, pray they believe you.  Want to buy another day, get back in line.
• Smart Phones:  DV also came out with a smart phone app, but it seems like they took the cheapest route possible.  They worked with a company called iMap which just stuck some DV specifics into a generic weather app. You can see the weather forecast, a useless map showing the topology of all of Utah, a snow report, and for the lift status, they just redirect you to a DV web page which has no navigation.  Pretty sad.  I hope this was just a temporary solution.

Canyons
Canyons has been putting a lot of money into improving their infrastructure with new lifts, overhauled restaurants and a nice apres ski area.  Technology? Not so much.

• Tickets:  they are where PCMR was last year, with the hand scanners and computerized tickets.  Worse than PCMR's new RFID system, but better than DV's 1950s solution.
• Smart Phones: Nothing at all.  Even DV's weather app looks good by comparison.  Hopefully it is because they are trying to do something more useful.

If you want to see where things are really heading, check out EpicMix by the company that owns Heavenly, Vail, Keystone and others.  Watch the little "What is EpicMix" video.  They have even started hooking all the on-mountain photography into the RFID chips, so that any pictures they take of you show up in your online account and you can post them to Facebook or Twitter with a single click.  It is a single solution for all of their resorts and the pictures are free.

I am hoping that Deer Valley and Canyons step up their game and at least catch up with Park City, but ideally look ahead to what companies like Vail are doing.

An evil stair case?

About two years ago, I was walking down our stairs with a big box in my hand.  My foot slipped on the last step and I fell forward.  Fortunately, I was unscathed.  Unfortunately my injury-free landing was mostly due to my holding the box in front of me and letting it slam into the wall, taking out a chunk of drywall.  Better it than me.

Julie wasn't so lucky.  Last week, the same evil flight of stairs caught her with some Christmas decorations.  She ended up twisting an ankle on the way down and was in a lot of pain.  We did the x-ray thing to make sure nothing was broken and then she did a very good job over the last few days of RICE:  Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation.  It is the first time Julie has EVER been on crutches. 

Today she went to a local doctor to make sure it was a sprain and not a ligament tear (which can require surgery).  Here's her doctor.  Recognize him?

Probably not, but let's try again.

It's Eric Heiden.  I am slowly getting used to running into Olympic competitors on the streets of Park City but this is amazing.  For those who recognize the name, but not all the details, he won five speed skating gold medals in the 1980 Olympics, set gobs of world records, and eventually became a professional bike racer, even riding in the Tour de France.

In addition to meeting one of the most successful athletes of our time, Julie found out that there are no torn ligaments and she can start easing back in normal life.  As with so many injuries here in Park City, the recovery plan is "Let pain be your guide."  They should save time and just put that on the highway exit sign coming off I-80.

More magazine deals

Not sure why, but recently I feel the urge to share some great magazine deals.  While many magazines are suffering from reduced quality, Wired magazine continues to have excellent in-depth articles, great photos, and even a quality print.  Here is an opportunity to get 3 years for $11!  Not only do you get the print edition, but it also allows you to access the online version for free.

Go here, add the magazine to your cart, then enter "SLICKDEALS" for the coupon code.  It will only be $11 and there is none of those automatic renewal garbage.  I'm not sure how long this will last, so if it is too late, bummer.

By the way, while I can't say the same things about quality, you can also get 3 years of Popular Science or Rolling Stone for $11 as well. 

MovNat for exercising

Yesterday I wrote a long blog about how the population is growing fat in a hurry, and how I decided to stay lean to avoid the Zombie Apocalypse.  My friend Tim Huntley suggested I visit a web site at www.movnat.com.  This site promotes a form of exercise where you "move naturally", which sounds good until I watched the founder in what is supposed to be a promotional video.

I will leave it to you, but I ended the video less than motivated to join in.  Start the video and then follow along with my expected injuries below.

• 0:03 - Torn up feet
• 0:18 - Scabs on stomach and chest
• 0:32 - Bad grass itch on back. More scabs.
• 0:57 - All feeling in feet gone. No skin remains.
• 1:20 - Slip on rock from bloody feet.  Probably my death.
• 1:28 - Food poisoning
• 1:33 - Broken leg from jump.
• 1:41 - New hernia, ripping through the mesh the surgeon put in last year.
• 1:52 - Fall in river.  Log falls on me.  Untold broken bones.
• 1:57 - Gravel in rectum with untold consequences.
• 2:23 - Dislocated shoulder
• 2:49 - Fall off log, breaking whatever remains intact.
• 3:25 - Salt water pours into all the exposed wounds.

Thanks, but I think I will pass on this one.

Is this human evolution, and if so, what now?

I was reading an article about how we have offset some of the huge technology improvements in automotive miles-per-gallon with two things: bigger cars and bigger butts.  We all know how Americans drive much bigger cars now, with the transition from cars to monstrous SUVs being the most obvious example.  What floored me was how much weight we humans have put on in a very short period of time. 

The CDC reports that since 1960, the average man's weight has gone from 166 to 195, up 29 pounds!  In that same period, women have gained 24 pounds.  We refer to that blob of fat around the belly as a spare tire, and now I know why.  We have added about the same weight as a car's spare tire, and in only 50 years!

The car manufacturers are struggling because they spend money, time and technology changing from steel to aluminum to composites, all to drop weight.  They eliminate spare tires.  The change the transmission systems.  All with the goal of reducing weight to improve mileage.  What do we Americans do?  Take that new car and drive it to McDonald's.

Evolution?

But this got me thinking about more than mpg.  There is a lot of debate about evolution, mostly framed as religion versus science.  Some strongly believe that evolution is a farce and that humans were put here by God, exactly as we are today.  The other side believes that humans evolved from apes, which evolved from  little mammals, which evolved from fish,.. or something along those lines.  Others try to find a happy union of the ideas: yes, we evolved, but it was because God guided it that direction.

No matter which way you look at it, we are evolving now, and at an incredible pace.  We are evolving to match changes in our environment, where interestingly enough, we are instigating all the changes.  We don't hunt our own food any more.  We don't grow our own food any more.  Hell, we don't even walk to the store to buy our food any more.  We hop into one of the previously mentioned SUVs and drive to the store.  The demands on our body don't tend to be out of necessity.  We don't have to haul water and chop wood. We turn on the tap and crank up the thermostat. Many of our physical demands are just self inflicted, like a run through the park, a trip to the gym, or a game of hoops.

So where does this end?  Do we eventually evolve to blog people with little stubby arms and legs?  Do we get so disease prone that we go the way of the dinosaurs?  For those with strong religious views, where is God taking us as a species?  It's hard to imagine that this is on a path to something better.

What To Do?
I am torn with what to do in 2012, and some of it revolves around eating end exercise.  From all the media hype, I have two options:

• The Mayans are right and the world will end late this year. In this case, it should be a year of partying, eating and drinking.  To hell with all those trips to CrossFit and long runs really make me tired. So what if I weigh a bit more at the end of the world?
• The Zombie Apocalypse will occur.  I have seen enough movies and TV shows to convince me that this is the more likely event.  If this happens, I think that lean speed and endurance will have a huge impact on whether you'll be eaten or not. Lots of weights and agility for tree climbing.  Quick feet for good fakes. Do zombies know how to ski?

So, I think I will lean towards the second choice, fight against the evolution of my species, and train to survive the inevitable onslaught.  After all, if neither happens, I will be better off and my SUV will get better gas mileage.