When I was younger, I loved to be barefoot when outside… but broken glass and trash made me less enthusiastic about doing it. In my teens, I would take jogs around my neighborhood on the sidewalk/asphalt without any shoes on because it “felt” better and more efficient…. meaning that it felt like I could run faster and with less energy. Nowadays, I don’t run so much… various medical/health issues prevent me from doing too much out in this Florida heat. However, when I first heard about Vibram’s new FiveFinger shoes, it was like a dream come true.

I must say… these are NOT the type of shoe that you should buy without trying them on first. As you can see, they look like feet… so if your feet don’t fall into their template, they can be rather uncomfortable. Also, the sizing is not always the same. For example, my measurements put me in the men’s 42 size, but the 43 fit & felt better.

After the first day of wearing the shoes, I noticed that my right, pinky toe hurt from wearing the shoes. Apparently, it seems that my pinky toes are a bit longer than the template of the shoes, but there are velcro straps on the back that I’ve learned to adjust to allow for a better fit. As I can’t wear these to work, I can’t wear them ALL the time, so I can’t tell if they have had any positive effects on my lower back pain…. so that may take some time to find out. However, when I wear these to walk down to the mailbox, I notice that I feel more balanced and… like when I was barefoot… I seemed to walk faster with less energy.

The razor-sliced traction on the soles really do give so better grip on wet, slippery surfaces…. but, just as it you were barefoot, you WILL notice that tiny rock that just hit you in your instep. ;o)

I plan on getting another pair (black “Classics”) for just indoor use… like at a gym or exercising at home or something… at least, until I decide to get a third pair. hehehe

Do they feel funky? Sure… if you’ve worn regular shoes for most of your life, it’s going to take some getting used to. Are they hard to put on? The first few times, yes. Again, it’s a new experience, so it will take a few times before your brain and feet “figure it out”.

Overall, I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the Vibram FiveFingers. They are as close to being barefoot as you can get…. they are stylish… they are conversation starters (not something I particularly enjoy)… they are great for all sorts of weather and activities… and they won’t break “most” pocketbooks. (@ $80)

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Website: www.vibramfivefingers.com
Style: Sprint
Color: Khaki/Putty with Clay sole
Where Purchased: Fit 2 Run (Int’l Mall, Tampa FL)
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I got a pretty nice-looking 1-year anniversary card in the mail today from Smart:

It’s cool that Smart teamed up with American Forests to plant a tree for every Smart bought in 2008.

Can’t wait to see how well the Smart EV goes…. then I’d truly be were I want to be with an electric car. (none of that half-ass hybrid crap for me)

In other semi-related news, I was disappointed to hear that the starting price for the Chevy Volt was pushed up to $40K (they were pushing for $20-$30K initially). To me. that’s close enough to the price as the Tesla Model S ($49K) to just buy the Tesla instead…. it looks far better and has many more features, imho.

With people estimating the future Smart EV to be around $27K, I don’t think it’s worth it…. only if it feels/drives like the gas version I have now. It’s jerky transmission is a big annoyance when driving around… and the light weight makes you wish you stayed home on windy days or in the rain.

Hopefully the batteries will and enough weight to the car to eliminate those bugs.

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Anyhow, the other day, my wife had a client come to get their haircut and turned out that they had worked with neurological disorders. The discuss turned towards me and how I tend to shake went trying to do fine-motor skills.

• Flashback… I had already asked my regular Dr about the possibilities of having Parkinson’s, but that was pretty much ruled out as I don’t shake all the time or during regular tasks (like drinking a glass of water).

Well, turns out that after just a brief discussion, it may be that I have something known as Essential Tremor Syndrome. This person recommended a doctor that works out of USF’s College of Medicine that I will probably be going to see sometime soon.

I’ve been dealing with these tremors for the past 15 years or so, but never thought much of it. I noticed it mostly when practicing sharp-shooting when I thought I wanted to work for law enforcement (had already taken a pre-test and passed with flying colors). Having tremors when trying to focus on sniping put a REAL hamper on this prospect, so I gave up the dream to work for the law.

Over the years, the tremors would creep up whenever I was working with small things… actually, I just remembered something… I must have had these tremors even earlier than I thought as I remember friends asking why my hands shook when playing the piano. I would just say that I must be nervous (but I wasn’t) and leave it at that. hmm… interesting.

…oh well…

I posted a message on twitter about this (my tweets feed to my Facebook) about the experience my wife had and two friends from High School chimed in… one saying that he also suffered from ET and another sent me a link to the USF webpage (I didn’t know that was the same place Miranda was told about until later). I checked to see if they were covered by my insurance and it looks like they ARE.

My wife is always looking out for me. I’m so lucky to have found someone who cares enough about me to notice my “differences” and helps me to try and get them treated. Without her, I’m certain that I would be alone for the rest of my life… mostly because of my desire to stay home and not be around people because of my quirks.

oh… remember how I mentioned playing “Boom Blox” at the top of this post? Well, it’s REALLY aggravating for me because it deals with aiming the Wii-remote at tiny little blocks on the screen…. something that someone like myself has trouble doing to begin with! LOL

Cheers!

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….well, about a year after using it, the hard drive inside it failed…. and I mean the old “grinding disk clicking noise of death” failure. Numerous systems (Windows/Mac/Linux) couldn’t even tell there was a disk present when it was plugged in. Data Recovery software could also not find a drive…. so I bought a newer, more “advanced” version.

The 500 GB “My Book – Pro Edition”…. one specially made for use with Mac’s…. thinking it would be better….

WRONG!!!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing a problem with the external drive ceasing to be recognized by my Mac Mini. I have been using it to store our MP3’s and other media for use with our iTunes & AppleTV.

…it’s worked fine as that for at least a year or more. Now, it’s starting down a path that I fear could lead to another disk failure.

I started getting errors on the AppleTV saying that it couldn’t play whatever files because it couldn’t recognize the format…. it would even stop playing in the middle of a song/movie because of the issue as well. When I looked at the Mac Mini, I found that iTunes had stopped “responding” to anything and that I couldn’t browse to the external My Book either. The Console would show tons of “Disk I/O Errors” for the stupid thing.

Only when I unplugged the My Book did the Mac return to a normal operation state and iTunes functioned again. However, since all the media was on the My Book, I’d have to shut down the Mac, unplug the power to the My Book, plug it back into the Mac, then power both items on…. and even then, the Mac would only recognize the external drive 80% of the time.

So rather than risk losing everything, I decided to just copy it all to another drive. Well, it turns out it wouldn’t be THAT easy…. the My Book would act up a few minutes into transferring data and I’d have to repeat the whole unplug process all over again.

Thinking that an OS upgrade may help, I upgraded the Mini to OS X Leopard….. but that didn’t help.

After a bit of Internet searching, I found varying accounts of similar stories… but nothing the same. A key point that many of the stories had in common was the mention of a bad power source for the My Book. So…. I removed the hard drive from the My Book enclosure and plugged it directly to the Mac Mini via SATA-to-USB cable.

So far, so good…. it’s transferring data to the other drive without issue and has already lasted 3 times longer than it did when it was inside the My Book enclosure.

I’ve learned my lesson… sorry WD, but I will NEVER recommend or buy another external drive system made by your company again. Your internal drives have never given me an issue in the past, but the external ones? … never again.

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I *heart* technology.

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I’m talking about LASER GRAFFITI!

It’s nothing new, but I thought I’d look into it a bit more to see about doing it myself… the only thing I’m lacking now is a projector.

Here’s what I’m talking about from the folks over at MAKEzine.com: LINK

I’ve already been drawing on my walls, but it’s just not the same as drawing on an entire building!

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Link to National Geographic story – link

Technically, Mars was closest to the Earth yesterday, December 18th, at 6:46 pm EST at 54,783,381 miles from us…. but who’s counting? You can still catch a nice glimpse of the red planet if you try.

Here’s an odd tidbit about Mars:

“The combination of the thin atmosphere and low temperatures make it
impossible for water to exist as a liquid on the surface of Mars. It would either
freeze or evaporate.”

However, some scientist think that if we start producing super-greenhouse gases on the planet, it will help heat it up to semi-livable temperatures within a few decades….. and we should know ALL about Global Warming at this point. Imagine, colonies on another planet in our own lifetime!

…of course, that’s probably what they said about the Space Program in 1969 too. ;o)

Cheers!

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Miranda and I took some pictures of Sunday’s event in Hyde Park, Tampa. Check them out in my Flickr Album.

…and if you’re concerned about the safety of driving in such a small car, don’t be. Odds are that if you drive a regular sized car, you’re just as likely to be injured/killed if hit by a truck or SUV. However, you stand a better chance of survival in the Smart because it’s more maneuverable and literally a large roll cage!

Check out this 70 mph crash into a concrete wall on YouTube…..yes, I’ll be getting a Smart when they become available.

It’ll cost @ $13,500 and get @ 50 mpg. My GTI that I drive now cost about $22,000 and gets @ 25 mpg. See the savings?

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read more | digg story
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Unlike most hybrids today that run mostly on gas and partially on electric, tis car will run almost entirely on electric, but only use a gas engine to recharge its batteries.

This is a car with a fully-electric 161-horsepower 16KWH engine, powered by a Lithium-ion battery pack. The batteries can be charged via a 110 volt wall outlet and can drive for 40 miles on pure electricity (NO GAS!).

It has a small onboard gas/alternative fuel motor that can charge the batteries on the fly allowing the car to drive uninterrupted up to 650 miles!

If only they keep this car alive and not kill it like they did the EV1 back in the 90’s, I will have to buy one!

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