Browse Category: goodies

Burning Fuel

A couple weeks ago Jes took me to the Nike Store and bought me a Nike FuelBand.  It’s basically a fancy pedometer that syncs with the Nike+ site or an app on your iPhone and shows you visually when you were most active.  Jes and Jason have had one for a month now and it seems to do what it’s supposed to: motivate you to move.  They can actually compare points and see how each other is doing.

My daily goal is 3000 Fuel Points per day and so far I’ve met that goal about 3 times per week.  To give you an idea of what the points mean, here are a few samples:

Run 3 miles: ~1500
Walk 1 mile: ~ 500
Walk the dog: 300-500 points

This is a picture of what a typical day for me looks like.  I manage to meet my goal just by doing everyday things.  It starts at midnight and you can see little peaks in the early morning, which is when I get up to feed and change the baby.  At about 9:30 am, I walked the dog and then I walked to brunch with a friend around 10:30 am.  At 1:00 pm, I pushed the stroller to the Ferry Plaza and back (about 2.5 mi).  In the afternoon, I walked the dog again and then at 8:00 pm I fell sleep until 11:00 pm.  Neato, huh?  On my stay-at-home days (only leaving the house to walk the dog x2), I still earn about 2100, which tells me that being home with the baby still counts for something.

By they way, I’m now running up to 3 miles.  It’s a slow 3 miles and I’m pretty beat afterward but I’m making progress.

Little Details

As a part of my “nesting”, I ordered the Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 Micro Lens and it arrived yesterday!  I’ve been wanting to buy a lens for close-ups for a while but they’ve always been so expensive ($500 and up).  This new one just came out and it costed me less than $300!  AND they threw in a free polarizing lens too! Yay!  I’m hoping to get some close-up shots of Kumquat when she arrives and I think I’ll be able to capture every wrinkle in her tiny feet.  For now, I’ll have to practice on the dog.

Here are a couple sample photos I took yesterday and today.  It might take a little practice to get the focus area just right on my photos but it’s already doing more than my little Canon point-and-shoot can do.

Brothers

This week I ordered the MacBook Air for Jes and it arrived yesterday in the mail.  Last night I caught him surfing the internet in “hands-free mode”.  So I snapped a photo and sent it to his brother with this message: “Hands-free with MacBook Air”.  Minutes later, we got a photo back from Jia with this message: “Call.”  I kid you not, it was NOT staged.  Jia happened to look over at Jason and this was the position that he was in at that moment.  They really are brothers…same toy used the same way.  Awesome.

Christmas before Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I hope you’re all looking forward to stuffing your faces today!  I know I am!

Last night, Jes gave me an early Christmas gift!  It came in a normal-sized Amazon.com box and inside was a smaller box – a kindle fire!  Cool!  I recently considered getting one so that I can get my magazines digitally and get rid of all my print issues to make room for Kumquat and TA-DA!  I got one!

Here are some of my preliminary thoughts after my first night playing with my new toy.

  1. It’s heavier than I expected but much smaller than Jesse’s iPad.
  2. I like the back of the device, which is a soft smooth rubber that makes it easier and more comfortable for me to hold without dropping it.
  3. The screen is glass so I can see that I’ll still need to take my other Kindle on sunny vacations if I want to read outdoors.
  4. The color display and resolution make browsing really easy on the eyes.
  5. The magazine selection is not bad.  I’m just trying to figure out how to get free issues of the magazines I already subscribe to by mail.
  6. Now I can read or browse in the dark when I’m awake in the middle of the night or early morning.
  7. I’ll be able to download children’s books in color for Kumquat to flip through later when he/she is ready.

So far, I like my new toy.  Ryan has one and apparently hates it.  I’m sure there are disadvantages over the iPad but it’s only $199 versus $499!  Thanks for the gift, Jes!  Happy Thanksgiving and Christmas to me!!

Happy Summer!

It was a sunny day today and it happened to be the first day of summer!  I came home from work to a sick but chipper husband who suggested that we take a visit to the AT&T store to upgrade my phone.  I was eligible for a full upgrade to an iPhone4 and now Husband is a proud owner of my 3GS.  Score for me!

On top of the upgrade, I got a cute cover for 50% off!  Yesh!!

Afterward, we picked up a six-pack and a pizza from Amici’s and enjoyed them up on our roof. It was a nice way to end the Longest Day of the Year.

With this view, we should hang out on the roof more often.

Happy Summer!

Lunchbox

Is anyone else sad that Borders is closing down a bunch of their stores?!  I LOVED going to the one across the street from my house and it closed down last year.  Just recently they filed bankruptcy and I got an email that the store in the mall downtown was also closing and were having a big close-out sale.

So, Jes and I headed over in the rain and I picked up a few things: a Spanish grammar book, a couple magazines, a couple travel books, and THIS AWESOME LUNCHBOX!  Now that I won’t have any Borders nearby, where am I going to buy my Paperchase goods?!