Geek Habitat

I am really glad I wasn’t on this Lufthansa Airlines flight which attempted to land in extremely high crosswinds. Note: the did make a successful landing on their second (”go ’round”) landing attempt.  Further, for non-pilots, the yaw back and forth and the aircraft’s odd sideways, not lined up with center line, approach to touchdown on the runway *is* proper (indeed the only safe) procedure for landing in crosswinds–it’s call “crabbing”, since it looks sort of like how a crab runs sideways in relation to where it’s head it facing. Even a heavy crosswind landing in a Cessna isn’t fun… I love flying with Justin but my least favorite approach and landings are when we are faced with strong, especially gusty (wind’s there one moment and suddenly gone the next, etc.) crosswinds.  It’s like riding a bucking bronco, and I have no idea how hair-raising it is to land, but judging by Justin’s look of complete concentration, it’s no fun.

Reposted from my geekgal.vox.com blog (Dept. of Redundancy Dept.):

I love technology as much as the next geek, but when my potted plants start having the capacity to call me and demand to be watered or provided with better light (more here; don’t miss the newsreel and sample audio from an unhappy moss), I’m going to have to relocate them all to… a quiet porch somewhere.

Found on: Twitter.com (User Pothos, via Botanicalls)

I rode 14.89 miles with Justin and his BIL, David, this afternoon, and am feeling great. See the ride’s stats from my Garmin Forerunner 305+heartrate strap at http://tinyurl.com/2xaywq; you can compare my heartrate to Justin’s (his stats, here). He’s in far better cardiovascular shape than I am right now.

It was a perfect day to spend outside, so that’s exactly what we did. It’s an open windows, Thank-God-we-live-in-Texas gorgeous day, and my gardening itch has needed to be scratched for ages. I don’t have any new plants yet, of course, but at least the front and back yards are prepped and looking much less neglected.

If you’re a friend or family member on Flickr or Vox.com you’ll see pics of my rest day (no computing) doing yardwork with Sara supervising from her stroller.

Reposted from my vox blog –

I always had physical education before lunch or midday, leaving me with a (progressively less) red face for the rest of the day. A shower helps, but I’m always the beet after exertion, especially during outdoor activities in the summer.

Stats for Indoor Bike Trainer session #2:

20 min. 30 seconds sustained
(Dropped my chain 2 minutes in and reset my monitor to start fresh; also “coasted” for two roughly 15 second intervals, hence the extra 30 seconds)

Heartrate monitor:
Avg around 160 bpm (will know exact once I upload the data.)

Reposted from my vox blog (I gotta figure out which I prefer, this is getting redundant redundant.)

So I was jazzed to upload my “Indoor Bike Trainer (Day #1)” Garmin Forerunner 305 data, which obviously for an indoor stationary bike ride just amounts to TIME and HEART RATE (via the 305’s heartrate monitor), at least until my CADENCE sensor arrives (thereby delivering SPEED and DISTANCE data.)

In plain English, here’s what I did today on the indoor bike trainer:
10 min, sustained
(5 minute break to eat and hydrate–had NO energy)
15 min, sustained