Weird Winter

This has been the strangest winter I can remember.  The weather has been relatively warm, and we haven't gotten much snow.  There have only been a few days that I have needed to get up early (ok, who am I kidding I never get up early) to clear the snow/ice from my car.  Most of the time I am lucky enough to check my phone for the temp, and run out in my jammies and get it started up so it has time to defrost before I get in. I think the worst of the weather was a few weeks ago, it was a bit slick on a Friday night when Mikey and I were driving home, and then that following Saturday morning I needed to fight some snow and ice on my car and on the streets.

And today was no exception.  When I got out of work today, the sun was out, it as about 39°, and the dog was extra wound up! Mikey has been taking him for walks during the day since he's been off work these past few weeks. Unfortunately though, Mikey took a little spill down the stairs the other day and rolled his ankle.  Seems someone was expecting an afternoon walk. And who could say no to that smiling puppy face? 

It was a nice enough day but it was still a little cool, and getting cooler as the afternoon progressed.  I wanted to make it a quick walk, but still get enough distance in to make Dieseldog happy.  Leash strapped on, DieselCam rolling, GPS in pocket tracking our distance and time, we were off. 

Yea, I took a picture of the rest stop.

Headed down our street towards the trail, down the trail and past the Mastodon Site.  There weren't a lot of people on the trail today, and it was a bit muddy in some places, but peaceful still. It was the first time I had been on that section of the trail since they built the new stand-alone restroom at Leach & Adams.  It was a nice improvement over the Porta-John that had been their previously.  
We headed down Leach and it was just a little ways up the street that we came across my friend Andrea as she was driving home. We stopped to chat for a moment, but didn't want to hold up traffic.  

We kept on going, without much else exciting happening. Just as we got close to home we came across a lady with her rottweiler. She introduced herself and her dog, I believe his name was Zeus.  We made small talk about the boys and agreed that we will probably see more of each other as the weather warmed. 
It wasn't a very eventful walk, but it was just the right thing for a sunny February day. We don't always get a chance to take the time out for ourselves or to appreciate the weather when its not quite perfect, but definitely better than the alternative.  I'm hoping Diesel and I can start getting a few more of these walks in.

Oh, and yes, we did try the DieselCam again but I still need to work on stabilizing it.   I get more shots of his neck fur then I do anything else. That and it clips to his collar fine, but his leash pulls his collar around and then you end up with the camera on its side, and that really makes for a dizzy replay.  I'll keep working on it and hopefully I will have a neat video for you this summer.

DieselCam: Field Test #1

I awoke this morning with the makings of a good sinus attack coming on. So I opted to call in, take some drugs, and sleep it off.  When I got back up a little later in the morning, I was surprised to see that it was 45° outside, and partly sunny.  I called Mikey, and asked him how the weather was and asked if I should take the big, sleeping beast out for a walk. He thought the fresh air would do us both good. 

Considering that when this week first started out, we still had snow on the ground, and now with this sudden warm front moving in,  and the rain this morning, the neighborhood was an absolute mud pit.  Living on dirt roads has a few advantages, but the mud, lack of a decent snow plow, and the enormous potholes, are a few things that really make it not so much fun. And definitely makes taking your mutt for a walk more of a challenge. 

Well, I thought it would be fun to see how well walking Diesel in his boots would be.  A few years ago, Mikey and I bought Diesel some boots after we had gone out on Lake St. Clair while it was frozen. The top layer of the lake was an icy slush and we didn't realize until it was too late, that while Diesel had been running and chasing the four-wheelers and snowmobiles, his little paws were getting sliced open.  

So here I get the great idea, its muddy, lets put the dog in his boots so I don't have to clean up an awful mess when we get home. It was hard to get a decent, picture, but this is Diesel in his boots. It wasn't too bad to get them on him, once he put two and two together and realized that we were going for a walk, he was patient enough. Only doing one lap around the living room between getting each one on. Once we were on the road, it was even muddier that I thought it would be!  I decided to take the small route that has quite a bit of paved surfaces to try and limit the amount of dirt I would be cleaning later.  Of course the boots don't fit all that great, and so I had to stop probably six times to pull them back up and secure them.  And in the process, getting mud all over my hoodie and jeans. But we kept on trucking.

I also made the fun decision to test out my new collar cam.  I purchased the Dogtek Eyenimal Digital Videocam for Pets about a week ago, and today is the first day the weather has cooperated enough to want to use it. Having only really used it the one time, its going to take some time to get right.  It's not one of those things you can just clip to your pets collar and away you go.  My first mistake was attaching it to the wrong part of Diesel's collar.  I forgot that the weight of the clasp on the leash was going to rotate the collar, so the first 10 mins of our walk is at a 90° angle, and it eventually rotates all the way to the back of his neck and is staring straight at the sky.  And only then did I notice that. I moved the camera, and started again, only now it was facing the ground. Another adjustment. Better. It eventually rotated a bit more, less than a 45° angle and stayed like that for the rest of the walk. The other problem was that his neck fur was constantly obstructing the view. And with every step he would take, the camera would bounce in and out of his fur, also forcing the camera to have to auto-focus every few seconds.  Needless to say, it wasn't a great first walk.  The footage was hard to watch, and if you get motion sick easy, it's best not viewed at all.  

Because I know some of you may be curious about how it turned out, I did cut a one minute section off of our final 7 minutes of recording time and posted it to YouTube.  You can check it out below.  Any suggestions you might have to help stabilize it would be appreciated.  I am thinking I may buy a harness for him, and attach it to the front of that. Not really sure yet. 

Gadget Geek

Today, as Diesel and I headed out for our walk I found myself doing things, that 5 years ago, I never would have thought to do.

I pulled out my phone just about as soon as Diesel was attached to his leash, turned on the GPS function and started the Noom app.  This application on my phone then started recording my time, distance, speed and kept a map of the route I had begun. Soon after that, I found myself checking into Foursquare to reclaim my title as "mayor" of the Clinton River Trail. As the check-in was posted to Twitter, I informed my followers that I would be posting a new blog soon using the hashtag, #DieselStomping.  Along our walking route I snapped a few photos of the sunset.  All the while, the little voice from Noom reminding me that I had to step it up if I wanted to make it all 3 miles in under an hour. WTH?


Yes, this is what gadget geeks like me do.  There used to be a time when we valued and protected our privacy, but things have changed with my generation and younger. A friend and I were talking about the use of Foursquare one day and about how when we had first discovered the App, we were checking in everywhere we went. The gas station, the gym, the grocery store, the gastroenterologist. Everywhere. So for a lot of people the allure to check in was lost. The whole purpose of the app when it first was created was to make a game out of going out. And by "going out", I mean hitting the night clubs, bars and other cool-to-be-scene-at places, the person with the most points wins and is thereby considered "the coolest."  My friend went on to say that he now views the check-in process as more an advertising tool.  We are essentially selling ourselves to our friends, family, and strangers.  By checking into new, cool, or unusual places we are telling people "Hey, look at what I am doing, I like it, and I hereby endorse it."  I completely agree.  I have started checking into places again, when I think its something that people will find interesting. I hope.

And then of course there is Facebook and Twitter.  I enjoy both of those applications for different reasons.  I like that I can keep up with my friends, family and favorite celebrities (I must know what Wil Wheaton is up to, something funny could happen!) Plus, I like that I can shamelessly plug my blog to all those same people and hope that they start reading. That reminds me, I also have a Google+ account but I really haven't gotten into that one yet.

While we were out on our walk today, we were passed by a guy on a bike that had a camera mounted to his handlebars and he was capturing video of his ride down the trail and that got me thinking about what other gadgets are fun to have while out on a walk/ride.  I used to carry my iPod, still do occasionally, but sometimes I use the Pandora app on my phone for music instead.  I have thought about figuring out a way to carry and record using my Flip camera during a walk, but it would be better suited to a bike ride as I have a tripod I could use to mount it.  And speaking of going on bike rides, I recently impulse purchased a Bike Computer made by Schwinn to record my speed and distance.  I'm pretty sure my Noom app could have handled that, but what can I say, it looked neat.  And I have to be honest, one of the reasons I joined Burn Fitness was because I could plug my iPod and a jumpdrive into the cardio machines.

Something I would love to own one day, and totally do not need to spend the money on, would be this: The DogTek Eyenimal Videocam for Pets. If I had the $100 bucks to spare on something I would probably only use once or twice, this would be it.  I would be so interested in seeing what Diesel sees for 8 hours while Mikey and I are away at work. Oh, and capturing the trail from his view, that would be all over YouTube in a heartbeat. Chances are though, I would end up catching 8 hours of the dirt spot near the fence where Diesel is usually laying when we get home. But, you never really know until you get one! For anyone that is reading, this is now on my Birthday/Christmas list.

So that's my nerd list of gadgetry I bring with me and wish I could bring with me.  What kinds of gadgets, apps or toys do you bring on your walks?