Two of my friends Chris Wilson and Charlotte Lowrie) have picked up the Lensbaby, and I have to admit, I'm really tempted. The Lensbaby is this funny lens with a plastic accordian-like body. You push, pull, and skew the body to focus the lens, but because the lens can move out parallel to the film/sensor plane, you can selectively focus on parts of the image, throwing the rest into a beautifully artistic blur.

It's a super fun way to shoot and forces you to really think about the composition. What's more, it's pretty cheap ($150). You can add macro lenses for another $30 or so.

It's on my Christmas list; who knows, I might even get one. If not, I'll probably pick one up for myself.

More:
Article/samples on Photoworkshop.
Gallery of photos from Lensbaby.com Lensbaby photos on FlickR.

This little doohickey is a pocket brain. The 20Q contains a neural net that plays 20 questions with the user and is apparently scary smart. I played 20Q against the web version, and it correctly guessed the thing I was thinking (a Pikachu Pokemon) in about 22 questions. Amazing.

The toy version is available for $10-14 (although the Amazon appears to be out.)

I learned about 20Q on Cool Tools. Great site. (Here's their article on the matter. It has a lot more detail than mine.)

OK, I don't really need this, but I need it, if you know what I mean (and I know you do). The Suunto G6 not only helps you keep score (most days I really need a computer to help me), but it measures your swing velocity, tempo, backswing length, and so on. After you train it at the range, it can tell you on the course if you're off your normal swing. After the round, you can download the data to your PC for more second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking.

Pretty slick, although probably not $550 slick.

All this exercise I've had recently has resulted in some pretty sore muscles. (Actually, I think it's more likely that getting old and sitting around hunched over a computer are the real culprits.)

In any case, I found a pretty slick little gadget to help me self-massage (not that kind!) some of the knots and soreness away -- The Stick. This is a semi-rigid stick with 1" plastic wheels along the length. You roll the stick over the sore muscles for about 20-30 strokes. The result is pretty impressive.

I had a guy demo this on one of my calves at the health and fitness expo before the Seattle Marathon (I just shopped -- no marathon). He told me to walk around the show and see if I felt a difference. It was clearly noticeable! The leg he had rollered felt much better. I bought one.

They come in different sizes and flexibility. I have the Original Body Stick. In addition to my workout soreness, it helps with the knots in my arms and shoulders from typing all day. I love it.

The Stick - Roller Massager: 24 Original Stick

Wouldn't you know it? A few months after I bought my Garmin Forerunner 301, there's a new one coming -- the Forerunner 305. It looks like they'll address a lot of the issues with the current generation including size and reception.

This one looks a lot nicer, but I guess I'll stick to my current one for a while. Oh well, such is the price of progress.

More details.

Thanks to Sportsim Weblog for this info.

[Updated to fix link to Sportsim article]

In my ongoing quest to get into shape and spend more time outside, I picked up a 2005 Trek 1500 today. This is my first road bike. I had done a lot of research online, but when it came to doing ride tests, I really didn't know what I was looking for. I tried a bunch of other bikes out; at the end of the day, the 1500 felt the best. The fact that it's a 2005 closeout and, hence, on sale, was a big plus. I also was happy to find one of the 1500's with an Ultegra rear derailleur and a 105 brake set. Some of the other 1500's I saw had a 105 rear and no-name brakes. Nicer components at the same price are bonus.

Of course, when you get a new bike, there's more than the bike cost. Naturally, I "needed" a computer, so I added a Shimano Flight Deck. This is a pretty standard bike computer except that it integrates with my other components; the control buttons are on the brake hoods, there are sensors that know what gear the bike is in, and it calculates cadence (how fast I'm pedalling) from a combination of the speed and gear. Slick.

Next up were clip in pedals and shoes. I went with Shimano again. I'm hoping to use the same clips and shoes for my other bike at some point, so I went with SPD-style clips on PD-A520 pedals (two sided, basic pedals) and SH-T092 shoes (ones I can actually walk in!). I need to learn to how to ride a bike with clips; I've already done the slow-motion fall twice in my garage, banging up one of my control levers, my knee, and my ego. Time to find a softer place to practice.

I added some bottle cages (blue to match the bike), a Blackburn Air Stik pump, a little adapter so I can fill the Presta valves with a Shrader pump if needed, and some Pearl Izumi gloves (full winter ones and normal shorties). I still need some riding pants and a water/wind resistant jacket. I think I can make do with my other running gear.

Jimmy at Gregg's Cycles (Aurora store) was a great help, explaining everything, making sure I had what I needed (and no more). I highly recommend the store and Jimmy.

I can't wait to go for a ride (once I figure out the damn pedals so I don't tip over like an idiot).

This is the map of a run I did in Beijing from the Grand Hyatt (lower right) to the Forbidden City (upper left) and around the hutongs (traditional neighborhoods) in the area. I just thought it was a cool shot; it's also amazing to see how big the Forbidden City is.

(This shot was generated by SportTracks.)

I've alluded to my new running toy a few times in previous posts, but I haven't blogged about it yet. The Garmin Forerunner 301 is a GPS-based workout tool. It combines a GPS, heart rate monitor, and some other training software. It tracks my distance, pace, elevation change, and heart rate as I run or bike. It also automatically calculates mile split times, tells me if I'm running faster or slower than the pace I set, and can even handle interval training (once I get around to inputting some workouts.) The 301 has a rechargable battery with good life; it recharges and downloads data to the PC via a mini-USB port -- pretty convenient.

The software Garmin provides is pretty bad, but fortunately, there's an awesome free application called SportTracks. This thing rocks. It's a good exercise log, provides tons of charts, and overlays my workouts over Google street maps and satellite maps. If you use a Forerunner, you simply must use SportTracks.

The device is reasonably easy to use to seems OK accurate (not sure if the weird paths on my maps are GPS errors, map errors, or software errors). The only downsides are that it's a bit big still (and dorky looking) and it takes a while to acquire the GPS signal each morning when I go out to run (although it's forced me to take longer stretching, albeit in the cold and rain.) Also, like all GPS units, it needs line-of-sight to the satellites in order to keep the signal. The Garmin does simple extrapolation of your path once it finds the signal again, but invariably, the path shorter than I really ran. Running under tree cover obviously poses problems (this is especially bad for me in my neighborhood.)

As many trainers advise, keeping a log is a good motivational tool as well as a good way to track your progress. The Garmin takes this to the next level and is fun, fun, fun for geeks like me.

When I was in Hong Kong a few weeks ago, I bought a Dopod 566 Smartphone. This is one of the newer Microsoft Smartphones. This phone was codenamed HTC Hurricane and is also known as the C550 if you're in Europe. Unfortunately, it's not available in the US yet (although T-Mobile is apparently going to bring it here eventually.)

It's a beautiful phone with a very sharp QVGA screen (higher res than the Audiovox 5600 that everyone at Microsoft seems to have.) Cooler (for me as the IE guy anyway) is the IE button on the phone. I also liked the music transport controls on the outside of the phone; I had planned to use the phone as my MP3 player.

So, after a few weeks of using the phone, here's what I think.

• The phone is fast. This is a big upgrade from my Motorola MPx200.
• The screen really is gorgeous.
• The transport controls are only of limited use. They don't work normally because I have the phone lock automatically after a few minutes. (I sync my work email onto the phone, so I need to have it locked in case I lose it.

• There is an apparently serious bug where the phone cannot sync music to Windows Media Player over USB. I've read reports of other people encountering this too; so far my attempts to track this down within the company haven't been successful (although I haven't tried real hard yet.) Obviously, this is a debilitating since I want to use this as my MP3 player. Right now I have the pull the mini SD card out from under the battery to sync new music -- a non-starter.
• The camera seems OK, although I haven't really done much testing of it yet. The idea of being able to shoot video with it too is appealing. More on that later, I'm sure.

So, I'm happy I picked up the phone overall; it's a big upgrade from my last phone. The IE button is a big hit on my team, and it serves my needs well. The MP3 sync issue is the only really huge problem, and I wish the transport controls worked when the phone is locked. Maybe Smartphone 2005 fixes that. I'll have to ask.

I succumbed to my latent desire to buy something from Apple; their design draw was simply too powerful. I had convinced myself that I needed a portable wifi hub for my trips. I also figured that I could use it extend the range of my existing wireless net and maybe use it stream music to a stereo.

The Apple Airport Express seemed like just the ticket. It's lovely, of course, and had all the features I was looking for, except, apparently, ease-of-use. I wasted hours of my life that I'll never get back.

I'm sure if I were a Mac user and don't have an existing network, it would have been fine. I'm not. I'm a PC guy with an existing DLink network. Pain, frustration, and agony resulted.

First, you have to install software to configure the damn thing (this must be the only router in the world without browser-based configuration). The software installer sucks. Since I had QuickTime and iTunes installed already, part of the setup fails and gives a cryptic error about failure. Now I don't know if I have enough bits on the machine to make this work. To make things worse, Apple has two products in this line -- the Airport Express and the Airport Extreme, both of which are referred to as base stations in the software but which have different configuration paths. The confusion between the two screwed me up a few times. Fine, I'm dumb.

Next, from my PC (which has to have a wireless card -- you can't bridge through a wired network to an existing wireless router), the Airport would appear and disappear, seemingly randomly. The only indication of status on the device is a single light that can flash and change color (what's next, Morse code?) I tried soft and hard resets several times (which is a real joy -- putting a paper clip into a little hole while I plug the Airport back into the power strip under my desk.) Finally, I put an Ethernet cable into the damn thing and plugged the whole thing into the wall. That seemed to help somehow, although I'm still not sure why.

Then, I can't get the thing to talk to my existing network. No indication from the useless documentation on why this might be. Finally, in the Airport Express support forums, I discover that Apple has chosen a different subnet than Dlink, so I need to reconfigure the Airport to the right IP address range. OK, now it's showing up occasionally after lots of reboots.

Then, I try to figure out how to extend my network. Turns out you need routers that support some standard called WDS, but the implementations of WDS are not standardized (one of the great myths of standards is that the RFCs clearly spell out how to create a compliant implementation). I still haven't figured out if Dlink's implementation is compatible with Apple's nor can I trick the two things into talking to each other. As a result, I failed on this front. No wifi range extension.

Finally, I configured the Airport to be a music receiver. It's got an output to connect to a stereo so you can stream music from iTunes (Michelle has an iPod and lives in iTunes). I set everything up, configured iTunes, and nothing happened. Restart the hub, restart the PC, restart iTunes. Suddenly, a new button shows up in iTunes and everything works perfectly. I'm still not sure what combination of prayer, animal sacrifice, and voodoo made this work, but it did. It's actually pretty cool.

Of course, I've screwed the whole thing up again by taking the Airport on the road with me (where I had to repeat much of this dance to get the thing working in my hotel room so three of us could connect and get our machines ready for the Hack in the Box talk.) I'm not looking forward to setting this up again, but once I do, I don't think I'll take it with me on another trip.

The Linksys adapter looks better to me for travel, plus it has a four port wired router built in too, so security will be easier and configuration might be simpler.

While I love Apple's drive for simplicity, once the wheels came off, there was nothing I could do diagnose the problem. I think it's bad design to assume something this complex will work perfectly 100% of the time. Apple: give your users a chance to fix problems. Luck is not a good customer service strategy.

[Edited to remove some factual errors. NB, I just tried to hook it back up to play music -- failed horribly and torqued my network. I hate this thing.]