Spotted VH07V Again
Driving around the Windward side, I spied another VH07V sticker. Looks like the brand is building its popularity!
Nike Zoom Structure Is For Me
I can’t deny it. Nike’s Structure line of running shoes is for me. No matter what other Nikes I experiment with, I always come back to the Structure. I used to run in the Moto but moved up to the more supportive Structure line. I’ve had the 12, the 14, and recently, picked up the discounted 15. Darn Zappos for telling me about these shoes!!
I guess my flat feet need the stability provided by these shoes. I wasn’t completely sold on this wolf grey colorway, but in person, they’re not bad. And you know you can get away with the most outlandish, gaudy shoes while running. In fact, it’s expected!
Did I Not Blog the LunarEclipse?
Looks like I completely missed blogging about my Nike LunarEclipse+ 2 running shoes.
I got them in March after reading rave reviews online. Sadly, these just ain’t for me. They do feel hella good, but there isn’t enough support for my fallen arches. I tried changing up my running style, using the balls of my feet and reducing my heel strikes, but I’m not quite there. I can feel how the LunarEclipse is more suited to this gait, but it doesn’t come natural to me. When I’m not concentrating, I can feel my heel striking the pavement. Overtime, this shock is starting to affect my knees and shins. The discomfort comes and goes, but I think prolonged running in these will eventually lead to persistent pain. I may split my runs with different shoes to see if that helps.
I do like walking in them as with the original LunarEclipse. I gotta say that there are improvements in the LunarEclipse 2. There’s less wiggle room with a smaller toebox. The FlyWire didn’t do enough to shape the LE1 to my foot. The customized fit system and its “fingers” in the LE2 do a much better job. BUT, it’s odd to feel the fingers. I noticed that recent Nike Free Run shoes feature the customized fit system but covers up the fingers so they don’t directly touch your feet. The floaty-ness of the heel cup is no longer noticeable in the LE2. I kinda like and don’t like the floating cup in the LE1.
Style wise, the LunarEclipse 2 is eye-popping and beats the look of the LunarEclipse 1 any day. And for that, I’ll keep these LunarEclipses around.
Intrigued by the Sony HDR PJ260V Camcorder
I’m thinking of going back to a traditional camcorder to capture videos more easily than using a DSLR and more capable than my iPhone 4. After some quick research, this Sony HDR PJ260V camcorder
Besides the built-in projector is the 30x optical zoom. While only beginning my research, most HD camcorders feature a 10x or 15x optical zoom. I pretty much discount digital zoom stats.
Everything else in this little camcorder sounds on the mark too. Good low light shooting, image stabilization, good audio pickup, external mic capable, touch screen, SD card expansion, a wind noise filter, and even GPS tagging of pictures and video – all for about $500.
So what’s stopping this no-brainer buy? Since I like my Canon digital cameras, I have an affinity to Canon products. But, I didn’t really care for the video quality of my old (and stolen) Canon ZR. I still remember being wowed by the video quality of an even older Sony camcorder I had way back in the day. So I’m open to getting Sony for video and sticking with Canon for stills.
The biggest hurdle? The funky format of the video files. Ever heard of the 1080-60p AVCHD format? I haven’t. For Mac users, you have to know that 1080-60p isn’t natively compatibile with iMovie ’11. So if you can’t edit the video from this camcorder on a Mac, what’s the use?
Well, fortunately, there are workarounds. You can always record in other, lesser-quality video formats that iMovie does understand. You can convert the video as described here using a variety of tools. ClipWrap, VoltaicHD, and Aunsoft’s MTS Converter for Mac seem to be mentioned a lot. There’s also Movist and Rewrap2m4v. If the video import can be overcome somewhat easily, then this camcorder looks like a solid purchase.
Oh, you may want to consider getting an SD card and a higher capacity battery (NP-FV70, but not the huge FV100).
Added the Digg Digg Bar
I can’t keep from tinkering. After reading Think Your Blog is Done? 7 Tweaks To Kick Your Blog Up A Notch, I learned about the Digg Digg plugin and couldn’t resist. So now, you’ll see the social sharing buttons floating on the left edge of blog posts.
Featured on Dwellable
It started with a simple email from Jane from Dwellable.com. What’s Dwellable? That’s what I wondered too, but quickly I learned that Dwellable is a vacation rental service helping you find choice spots in a variety of locales.
To help customers understand their vacation areas better, Dwellable draws upon local bloggers to tell their stories, and that’s where Pulpconnection fits in. Over the years, I’ve documented stuff from around Oahu, exactly what Dwellable is looking for. At least for now, me and Pulpconnection lead Dwellable’s blog leaderboard. Yay!
Here’s the announcement on Twitter.
Dwellable's new #1 Featured Blogger, a local #oahu authority…@geewhy! http://t.co/kyoD7weM #ttot #traveltuesday
— Dwellable (@Dwellable) July 3, 2012
So if you’re hunting for great places for a vacation, be sure to check out what Dwellable has to offer. You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook and use their iPad app.
Poll: What Would the Tabasco Man Say?
After seeing the Heinz Hot & Spicy ketchup at the store, I wondered what the Tabasco Man would say about this new condiment.
What do you think he’d say?
Whole Foods Kailua Mixup
If you’re planning on taking your kids to the Whole Foods Market Kailua ice cream making activity, there’s been a mistake. This event was published in the Advertiser’s Saturday paper, but when we called to RSVP, they said the event was an exotic fruit tasting. The WFM Kailua web page describes the event correctly.
This month’s Keiki in the Kitchen explores the wonderful flavors of exotic fruit, courtesy of Frankies Nursery! For keiki ages 3-10. Free; RSVP required. Email sp.kao.marketing to reserve your spot.
The Advertiser’s (premium) web site says:
July 7, 11:30 a.m.: Whole Foods Market Kailua teaches keiki how to make their favorite ice creams.
Hmmm… not sure what happened, but I don’t think I could convince my kids that a rambutan is ice cream. Hopefully, this gets cleared up before the event.
Adding a Subdomain for a CDN
Since I’ll be doing some housecleaning re-associating images with old posts, I might as well head towards a cookieless domain to act as a self hosted CDN. Here’s what I did in Dreamhost.
- Under Manage Domains, I created a subdomain called static.pulpconnection.net. I set the option to remove www from the URL.
- I picked a user to run this subdomain.
- For the Web Directory field, I mapped it to the location of the WordPress uploads home/username/domain/wp-content/uploads
Hope this is right. Now to test…
Ooops. So that the file directory isn’t displayed if you open static.pulpconnection.net in a browser, I added an index.php file to the location that redirects visitors to pulpconnection.net.