Spring Break - Day 6 Thursday

Rainy day,  kids budget busted.  Indoor play most of the day while Nikki and I went up and bought a 2004 Nissan Frontier pickup. Old,  reliable and one owner.  Matches the van. 

Nikki and Robyn went to an Archery event with their Venture Crew, and Hunter, Mason and I took the new truck to Merrybelle's to get her trash taken out.  Then up to the pool for an hour of swimming, followed by Quick Trip donuts. 

Home,  worn out and down to bed.

A good day.

Spring Break, Day 4

Wednesday. A blur of a day.  I remember we sold Nikki's 2011 CBR for the asking price to a nice young girl from St.  Joseph, MO.  Beyond that - it's right fuzzy. I think I got the  turntable set up in the garage.  Played Pink Floyd, A Momentary Lapse of Reason as the first record on the new setup.

Hunter had friends over and rode bikes around the neighborhood. Alec had Chris over from across the street.  Mason had Lizzy over,  also from across the street.

Full,  fantastic family busy day.

Spring Break, Day 3

Today - mainly focused on maintaining hardware.  Took mom's Honda mower to the shop for the hard starting problem. Changed the oil and plug on the Toro and sharpened the blade.  Cleaning the garage - 2 boxes of stuff to moms for long term storage. Got a small bit of progress toward setting up the turntable in the garage for analog playback over the Klipsch La Scala's.

Nikki is nearly done with stripping and repainting her Trek bike! Looking great...

Loaded up the family for  ice cream -  supposed to be free cone day at Dairy Queen but the lines were too long.  Russell Stover serves Blue Bell ice cream and with the current Listeria scandal,  they aren't serving ice cream.  So  off to A&W  for root beer floats!

Kids rode bikes all day up to the school and back and up again.  They sure like bike riding...  Finally finding some freedom and empowerment.

Dominick came over tonight to visit Hunter - without parent! Rode his bike all the way up here -  nearly a mile from his house.  They watched some movie and Nikki took them back home.

Several calls on the CBR's -  mostly broke folks trying to jaw me down  but two real people who'll be over tomorrow to check out the bikes...

Speaking of bikes,  Mason,  the youngest,  made a great YouTube video about why to wear a helmet when riding a bike!  Helps him complete his Cub Scout Bicycle Pin!

Found out the times for Rich's wake and service.  Alec will get to drive up to Chicago with his great Aunt and Uncle - I'll run up on near saddlesore pace to crash the wake on  the FJR.  Good way to memorialize Rich - a solid 1k ride. 

Today was a good day.

-will england

Spring Break, Day Two

Day two.  First time in a long time I have slept past 6am. Up at the crack of 9. Coffee first then sort out the mess of bills that stacked up the past two weeks. A bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul,  and we're off to the church to help the Clinton Cub Scout Pack unload and return the Pinewood Derby track.

Back from that,  fielded some calls about a family emergency - more on that another day - and then off to take inventory on the Cub Scout Daycamp storage unit.  We have more than we'd hoped - good news there,  finally!

Back home and work to catch up on laundry.  Somewhere in there I forgot to eat.  But the kids have clean clothes and clean dishes to eat from.

30 minutes and I  pick up oldest son from his mom's,  then raise a glass to a good man taken too early.

Perhaps tomorrow I shall make time for the family, instead of focusing on the world around them that they just expect to happy magically.

- will

Spring Break, Day 1

Saturday was the first day of Spring Break.  Because of changed vacation carryover policy, I had enough time banked to take the week off.  So,  for the first day of Spring break, I got up at 5 am, drove down to Clinton, MO and helped the Cub Scout Pack there set up and run their Pinewood Derby.  First time they've ever had one!

Very neat experience - great volunteer parents and the scouts were all very well behaved.  Everyone had a great time,  you humble author included.

After? Costco run,  then nap.  Finished the evening out reading in bed with my wife beside me watching a movie on her laptop.

A good day.

Learning the Edge (The Galaxy Note Edge, that is)

The wraparound edge screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is a unique and curious design element on this phone.  I've just gotten my Note Edge and am working on learning what you use it for!  From PhoneDog.com, you can get to:

•     App settings and Shortcuts
•     Favorite Apps
•     Settings, including music controls, contacts, etc
•     Glowing edge wallpaper while the main screen is off
•     News ticker with scores, stocks etc
•     A night clock

This YouTube video illustrates a lot of the cool things you can do with the Edge screen - I'll be re-watching this as I learn more and play with the phone over the next few weeks:

Charging Up the Samsung Note Edge

The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge was one of the first phones with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset offering a ton of improvements and massive speed.  One of the nicer features for the rest of us is Quick Charge 2.0.  Quick Charge 2.0 offers communication between the phone, battery and charger brick to increase the voltage that the charger brick delivers to the phone.  Higher voltage means a faster charging rate.  Take a look at this graphic from Qualcomm illustrating a 30 minute charge:

With Quick Charge 2.0 you can get nearly a full charge in less than an hour - even 15 minutes of charging will get you several hours of usable battery out of the Note 4!

- Will England

Nexus 6 as a Phone

The Nexus 6 is known for it's fantastic software, top of the line hardware, brilliant screen and camera.  The Google integration is top of the line.  As a data device and tablet it's nearly perfect.  But how does it work as a phone?

Pretty well really.  Calls complete quickly and the voice clarity is excellent.  Handset sound is clear and loud.  The dialer is unique and offers a great view into your contacts, letting you see frequently accessed contacts and a quick and functional search. No more scrolling through hundreds of contacts!  Each contact has their profile image from connected social networks and you can text, email or call them from the dialer screen.  The search at the top of the dialer screen searches both your contacts and local places - a very nice touch for calling nearby businesses.

I have found a few quirks in the phone though - switching from headset or handset audio to speaker has a noticeable delay in raising the audio level.  The proximity sensor is just wonky - sometimes after I take the phone away from my head, the screen remains black; sometimes when I'm holding the phone against my face the screen lights back up.  Normally not an issue, because with a phone this big I'll use my bluetooth handset more than holding it against my face.  Another delay is in the ring tone for incoming calls - it starts to play the ringtone, pauses a second, then restarts the ringtone.  Another minor software bug, but it should be fixed in a future update.

An interesting new feature is 'Caller ID by Google'.  This is a feature on the Nexus that uses reverse lookup over the web when a call comes in to identify who is calling based on web records of the phone number.

The messaging app works well, opening quickly and showing nicely threaded contacts.  Occasionally, you will get a bug pop up where an SMS will be re-sent several times.  Sprint and Motorola are working on a fix for that and it should be delivered in a future software update. In the messaging app, you can touch the contact icon and get a quick overview of their contact information.

Call network quality is one of the best I've found - even in known low-signal areas I have yet to drop a call.  Super solid radio performance for phone calls.

In a nutshell?  Even with a couple bugs, it's a great phone experience!

- Will England



Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PAs do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.

Nexus 6: Camera Authority

I'm a big shutterbug - I've been learning about and playing with photography since grade school, even having built my own camera obscura.  I always like to test out the cameras on the phones I use.  I take a lot of sports and action photos from the kids, lots of nature photos while I'm out hiking and riding, and the obligatory cat photos when I'm home.  Most cell phone cameras have been fair at best - poor detail, washed out colors or slow.  The Nexus is none of those.  While the camera functions are relatively basic, offering only HDR+, Photosphere and Panoramic modes, the camera itself is fantastic.

As you can see in this snapshot of my Random cat, the clarity and detail is uncanny.  Each whisker and hair is captured clearly.  At a 100% crop there's no color fringing or purple edging at the high contrast areas between the dark background and the bright sunlit cat.  The many different layers of grey and hints of yellow and brown all come through with excellent clarity.

Depth of field is interesting too - this shot was at F2.0, and you actually get some background blurring and depth of field from a small sensor cell phone camera.

Running a 1/3.06" Sony CMOS sensor at 13 megapixels, the Nexus can open up to F2.0 for excellent low-light performance.  The flash uses dual LED's on the back encased in a ring for more even lighting and better flash performance.  It even offers optical image stabilization for less shake and blur when you're shooting those low-light photos!


Disclaimer: I work for Sprint and volunteer as a Product Ambassador.  The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.

Migrating to the Google Nexus 6

As part of the Sprint Product Ambassador team, I get called to test and review different phones about every two months. As such, I'm constantly swapping devices, updating software and re-downloading my standard apps from Google Play.  Usually takes a couple hours of work each time I swap phones.

Courtesy Marques Brownlee

I was pleasantly surprised with the Nexus 6 - after activating the radios, and signing into my Google account, I found that two-factor authentication is built into Android 5 lollipop.  Two factor authentication means Google will send an SMS with a unique code to devices that you haven't used before.  This helps keep your account safe.  With Android 5 on the Nexus, this is built right into the setup procedure, eliminating waiting on an SMS and copying the code from screen to screen.

The next pleasant surprise was with my apps. Switching phones frequently, I've always checked the 'back up my settings to Google', but never found any benefit to this in the past.  With Lollipop on the Nexus, the phone prompted me to restore my apps and settings from the Google Play store!  Selecting just what I needed on this phone, I clicked through and after about 30 minutes of data intensive downloading, all my apps were re-loaded on the phone.

Google has provided a knockout piece of hardware and with the improved setup in Android 5 Lollipop, I think this is going to be a great phone and a great test run!  Stay tuned for more impressions.




Disclaimer: I work for Sprint and volunteer as a Product Ambassador.  The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.

Winfield Bluegrass (Walnut Valley) Festival, 2010

Found this old video from 2010 Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival on Google Plus, backed up from my phone.  2010 - 4AM.  Even stage 5 has shut down, but the music never stops.  Random group of strangers under the streetlight in the Walnut Grove, Winfield KS.

Will England's Year in Photos 2014

What a fantastic year - I'd forgotten about some of these events, all captured from auto-backed up photos from my mobile phone.  Too cool!

January Cat Photo

Obligatory cat photo for the month.

April 2013: Tour of Honor Saddlesore 1,000 Extreme

With Nikki's prompting, I took a wander around Kansas in April of 2013 and seemed to have picked up all 7 Tour of Honor sites, pending approval. While I was riding, I went ahead and got receipts and stuff; turned out to be around 1,040 miles round trip and took right at 23 hours - that qualifies for an Iron Butt Association Saddle Sore ride.  Combine them both and it's a Saddlesore Extreme.

The Tour of Honor is a Summer long grand tour, where you ride and take photos of your motorcycle with various memorials to veterans, police and other service organizations. If you get 7 sites in any combination, you're  a 'finisher'.

I Rolled out on the stock CBR at 11:20 AM from Overland Park, KS. Rode out to Ft. Riley, Abiline KS, then Colby KS on I70. That was a *push*, keeping up with traffic, uphill into a headwind. One of the best memories was on I-70.  I'm flat out redlined, laying down on the tank, going downhill.  At the bottom of the hill, there was a highway patrolman.  I sat up, never let off the throttle and waved - I was turning 10,000 RPM and making 74MPH.  He looked at me, looked at his radar gun and just shook his head.  I can only imagine what he was thinking!

Colby at Sunset was gorgeous - unfortunately no good photos.  Abiline was a fantastic town and I can't wait to go back and explore more.

After Colby, I turned South to Sublette, KS then back East across US160 in the dark to Anthony KS. From there up to Wichita, over to Girrard KS and back to Overland Park by 10:20 AM on Sunday.

1040 odo miles, 23 hours should qualify for the Saddlesore, and I've been listed as a finisher on the Tour of Honor site. Now, what to do next weekend?

A few photos:


Loaded up for the start. Fieldsheer Eiffel tank bag, Tourmaster Cortech tailbag. Beadrider seat beads.

Loaded up and ready to go. by kcsporttour, on Flickr

Exactly 2,000 miles at the start of the ride:

Rolled over 2,000 miles at the start of the SS1K by kcsporttour, on Flickr

M65 Atomic Cannon over Ft. Riley, KS

2013_284_M65 Cannon at Ft Riley 2 by kcsporttour, on Flickr

On I-70 Westbound:

Road Shots are Fun by kcsporttour, on Flickr


Buffalo Bill Statue near Oakley, KS by kcsporttour, on Flickr


2013_284_Anthony KS 1 by kcsporttour, on Flickr

Really cool helicopter in Girard, KS.

2013_284 Girard by kcsporttour, on Flickr


1040 miles later, back in Overland Park, KS


Final milage - 1040 miles, 23 hours and 1 minute. by kcsporttour, on Flickr

The Map:

Sharp Aquos Crystal First Impressions

As part of the Sprint Product Ambassador team, I have the opportunity to try out new phones from time to time and blog about them.  Usually it's something new and cutting edge - this time though, it's the Sharp Aquos Crystal.  Quietly released by Sprint in October, this interesting handset design from a non-typical Android company is a pleasant surprise.

With a 5" bezel-less screen running 720p resolution, the phone is a full size midrange value.  The Aquos has a very clean, excutive appearance, free from extraneous branding.  From looking at it, you would think 'Seiko', not 'Sharp'.

What's in the box?  The usual phone and charger - a basic 800ma brick, suitable for your phone, but not reusable for tablets or other big battery devices.  No headphones are included.

The Aquos has a removable back panel for access to the SIM card (included) and a MicroSD slot capable of supporting up to 128GB chips, but unusually, a fixed 2040mA battery. The back panel has a fine pebbled texture for improved feel and grip.

Once it's activated, we'll test out the Harman Kardon sound and patented Clari-Fi™ technology. Sharp (or Harman) claims that the Clari-Fi technology restores compressed digital music to "its full glory for crisper, wider and more dynamic audio through your headphones or accessories."   We'll see how that works out with standard lossy MP3 files -- I should still have some low-bit rate 128 files somewhere . . .

The Aquos supports the latest LTE band aggregation (Sprint Spark) so it should offer great download speeds and long battery life in upgraded Sprint markets.  With Bluetooth 4.0, it should also provide great connections to both my calling headset (Plantronics Voyager) and my music headset (Moto Buds).

For calls, the Aquos uses a 'Direct Wave Receiver' - since it has no bezel, it has no where to put the typical speaker for the handset.  Essentially, it vibrates the entire display area for calls.  Early reports show a less than stellar sound quality, but I'll mostly be using a bluetooth headset, so not a huge factor for me.

Wrapping up the first look at the handset, you'll find the USB port on the bottom, with the volume rocker on the left side.  On top is both the 3.5mm headset jack and power button.

“Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.”

The Only Lighthouse in Kansas

Kansas has a lighthouse?  In the middle of flyover country?  Ah yup!  Just a few miles North of us, where I-635 crosses the Missouri River, you can find a lighthouse guarding the Kansas Water Intake.  I found it while researching photo tags for a motorcycle tag game.  No way to get your motorcycle in the photo, but I've always wanted to get some photos.  Today, I was on the way back from Parkville, picking Robyn up from her Venturing Leadership program, and we stopped to hike in to the river and take some photos. You can't get near the lighthouse on the Kansas side - all fenced off by the KS Bureau of Public Utilities.  But you supposedly can get some nice shots from the Missouri side of the river, where  there's public trails.

We had an hour before sundown, so we pulled out at the levy and set across the tall grass to find the bank of the Missouri River and get a few photos of the lighthouse.   Success!  Robyn made a walking stick and we bushwacked to the river!

We'd found out about the lighthouse originally from the Lighthouses of the US directory, which lists it as the Missouri River Lighthouse, Kansas City Water Intake, lighthouse USCG 5-19505.   It's owned by the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities.  The Directory notes it's still active, although we did not see any lights while photographing it.  A close crop shows it in need of repair and paint; it may have been decommissioned since the directory was last updated:

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get back out with some longer glass and get better detail shots of the lighthouse!

$5 Cell Phone. For life.

Sprint just dropped a "Go Big or Go Home" offer - three rewards for existing customers including unlimited voice minutes on your current plan, a $5 a month phone lease and a free year of service for new lines activated on your account.  Pretty cool - but when you dig into the FAQ you find the real bomb - that $5 phone lease is good forever.  You'll get a $15/month credit toward your lease payment as long as you keep leasing a phone from Sprint on a qualifying plan.  No more $200 biannual replacement costs.  Just drop the phone off at the Sprint store, pick up a new latest model phone, and it's still just $5 a month.

What happens to my $15 Loyalty Service Credit at the end of 24 months?As long as you have an active lease and remain on a qualifying plan, you will continue receive your Loyalty Service Credit.

$5 / month handset cost.  For life.  Someone just changed the game.  And listened to our current customers who've been begging for some rewards for staying with Sprint.  Now you're getting the best deal in the game.

Appears to apply to the hottest two phones - the iPhone 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 and S5 Sport.  I'd imagine it will expand to other 'iconic' devices in the future.


ObDisclaimer - I'm a Sprint employee, I work for them I don't speak for them.  And they didn't pay me to write this.  

Motorola Buds Bluetooth Headset Review

As a Sprint Product Ambassador, I received a set of high end Bluetooth headphones, the Motorola Buds, to try out.  Juvenile drug references aside, these should be some of my new favorite headphones for music and online radio listening.   With their around the neck design, they move the weight and bulk off your ears or head down to your collar.  Only the ear piece comes up to your ear.  I've been using Bluetooth Stereo earphones since the Motorola M9 series, graduating to the Altec Lansing Backbeat 9xx from Plantronics, and now to the Moto Buds. Normally, I'll listen to music at the desk over my Grado SR-60's or Sennheiser studio earphones.  I'm kind of a bigot about sound quality and noise isolation.

Unboxing and Intro

In the box, you find a simple frustration free package consisting of the headphones, a USB dongle and a ‘get started’ guide.  The ear tips are noise-isolating rubber, and three (small, medium and larger) are included in the package.  They recommend charging the headphones before use, but with no charger, how do you do that?  Fortunately, the USB port is standards compliant, allowing you to repurpose your existing phone charger, tablet charger or a spare USB charger you have around.  The short dongle could work in a pinch too.


Pairing is as simple as holding the rear power button until the status light flashes blue.  Within a few seconds of finishing charging, I had the Buds paired to my LG G3 Vigor and playing streaming music off my Amazon library.  Sound quality is clean and clear and they play nearly loud enough to satisfy a live music fan like me.  Comfort is excellent, no weight or bulk on your ears and no heavy wires wrapping around your head.  Both the Moto M9 and the Altec headphones had weight and bulk problems. These fit the bill for comfortable all day headphones!

Standby Time

Life got in the way and I forgot to use the Motorola Buds for the past couple days.  Really, about three weeks now!  Man, time flies. Even better, I'd left them powered up in the cabinet.

I'd fully charged them and played music over them for about an hour, then let them sit in the cabinet.  Fired them back up today, pressed and held both volume buttons and got a voice report that it still had over 4 hours playback time!  That's the kind of standby time I like!

Bluetooth Range

A lot has been discussed about how the Motorola Buds are a 'Class 1' Bluetooth device, giving a theoretical range of 150 feet, compared to the typical 30 to 40 feet of a regular Bluetooth headset.  In the office, I've paired them with both the LG G3 Vigor and an older Samsung S3.  With the Vigor, I got about 140 feet away before dropping music; with the older S3, I got about 120 feet away.  This is in typical cube land with metal cube walls and high RF noise levels from phones, other BT devices and ubiquitous WiFi.

Really amazing range on the Buds!

Microphone and Call Quality

The microphone on the Motorola Buds is located on the left arm, on the inside.  It's a small black slot.  It's an interesting design choice - where do you put the microphone on an around the neck headset?

On my old Plantronics Altec Lansing Backbeat headset, the microphone was located on the edge of one of the ear pieces - and was constantly getting blocked by my oversized ears, causing muffled sound.  With the microphone on the collar piece of the Buds, it should pick up your voice more clearly.

In reality, it's quite variable in performance.  If you are moving around, the collar piece will rub against your clothing, causing interesting sounds to be broadcast on your conference call.  If you're facing to the right or leaning back while speaking, your voice becomes distant.  In typical use, facing straight ahead with little movement, the sound quality is acceptable.   For improved quality, just be sure no clothing is blocking the microphone.  Additionally, you can lift up the left arm of the headset ensuring the mic is closer to your mouth.

I've read some cautions from folks who like to wear the Buds under their collar to conceal them more -- this will block the microphone and cause poor audio quality on calls. 

This headset isn't designed for the conference call road warrior, but it has acceptable voice performance with the collar mounted microphone.

Conclusion:

The Motorola Buds are more comfortable with acceptable sound quality than any prior bluetooth stereo headphones.  They offer great range and excellent battery life.  They suffer from the same audio pickup problems as most stereo headphones without a dedicated mic.  I'll keep my Plantronics Voyager Pro for conference calls, but I'm wearing my Buds every day rockin out to Moby and NPR.  You can purchase the Motorola Buds from Sprint.com for $69.

Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PAs do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.  I was not compensated in any way for this post other than the use of the device.

Pack 3094 Cub Scouting

While I've been busy starting a flame war on Facebook, my dear wife has been updating our Cub Scout Pack page making it more logical, better to read and more relevant information.  Thank you love!

http://pack3094.scoutlander.com/

How to lose weight

Someone was asking for gym and personal trainer advice to drop the 100 pounds she had gained over the past year.  (!!).  I posted the following.  Not particularly 'nice', nor did it answer her request for a 'personal trainer on a budget', but this is my world, or how I lost 50 pounds in the last couple years.

Step one. 1200 calorie diet. Mostly protein and raw veg.

Step two. Move. Breathe. Move more.

(Get the old Susan Powter book, Eat, Breathe Move. It's pretty good fundamentals.  It's also a penny on Amazon. No, not an affiliate link)

Did I mention move? Move a lot. All day. Every day. Anything. Walk. Stairs. Pick up a milk jug. Pick up two milk jugs. (don't drink the milk).

Coffee is a fantastic appetite suppressant. No cream, no sugar. Just black coffee, 3 -4x a day.

Source: Jason Ferrugia, my personal 50 pound weight loss, Susan Powter, etc.

Number one key is the healthy diet. Avoid starches. Avoid Empty calories. Organic meat, nuts, raw veg, green leafy veg is king. Brown rice. Stuff that is "low glycemic index" - look it up. But count those calories. You'll burn 2400 just sitting around, but you have to eat far less to drop weight. If you can maintain a 1200 calorie diet you'll drop a pound every 3 days. the more you move, the more you'll drop.

Yes, you will be F***ing hungry. All the time. Get used to it. Move more. Drink another cup of black coffee and move something. Rearrange the kitchen. Move. Move. Move. Move. You won't sleep much. You'll be too hungry. Tough. Get up and move something. And drink some water. Yes you hurt. Tough. Move. Walk to the end of the block. Or the end of the hallway. Do what you can do. But move.