Achievement Unlocked: Skydiving

Scotte Ellis, me, Chris Pirillo, Jay Batson, Dave Curlee and Lee Odden think we have the Right Stuff.

Had an amazing adventure with the US Army’s Golden Knights parachute team recently. I was attending Open Camp (a great technology and social media conference organized by Cali Lewis and Jon Pozadzides) and was invited to jump with The Golden Knights as “an incentive.” It was an an easy yes for me as I figured that when the world’s best at something asks you to join them, you should pretty much always agree.

I ended up doing a tandem jump in Dallas with the very capable SSG Jon Ewald on August 26, 2010. It was my first experience skydiving and the Golden Knights made the whole experience feel safe and exhilarating. Thanks to John Pozadzides, Cali Lewis, SFC Dave Herwig and Lt. Col. Joe Martin for making this all possible.

Check out the video below and look how my feet look for solid ground as I leave the plane. Involuntary hilarity. Many more photos from my jump are on Flickr.

Machine Man Motivation

FitBit & Nike+ SportsBand. Always watching. Always tweeting.

I am cyborg.

More than a few of you have noticed recents tweets from me along the lines of: ran 5.18 mi on 1/31/2010 at 4:43 PM with a pace of 7’40″/mi http://bit.ly/caBEXv . Actually, the tweet didn’t come from me; it was automatically generated from NikePlus.com after plugging in my Nike+ SportsBand to my PC. I authorized Nike’s site to connect to my Twitter account and so now every run gets measured by the SportsBand and the data (distance, time and pace) uploaded to Nike where a beautiful graph and running tweet get generated for your amusement. Why would I do this? Why would I want to share something as mundane/vain as my training log with everyone on Twitter?

It was a good run. For me anyway.

Motivation.

Knowing my run training is transparent and my stats out there for anyone to see is a great motivator during the inevitable times of a run that I want to ease off, catch my breath, relax a little. It’s not that every run I do is a full-on sprint, but I do have a goal in mind every time I put on my running shoes. Sometimes it’s to complete a certain distance, sometimes it’s speed and sometimes I just want to stretch my legs. In any case, the knowledge that you’ll get the results of every run keeps me very goal oriented. You’re watching and that’s motivating.

Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by that black and blue device in the photo – the FitBit. You attach it to yourself (I keep mine on my belt) and it uses a motion sensor to track your every step. During the course of a day it counts the number of steps you’ve taken, the distance you’ve traveled by foot and the approximate amount of calories you’ve burned based on the level of your activity. It connects wirelessly to a base station attached to your computer and uploads the data to FitBit.com. You customize the algorithm in the device by specifying your age, sex, height and weight on the site and the FitBit adjusts accordingly. From all the data, FitBit calculates your daily Activity Score and then compares it to everyone else using the device. I’m sorta competitive, so knowing that raising my activity level will raise my rank turns fitness into a game that I get to play with everyone else using a FitBit (Nike+ offers similar comparisons and motivating challenges on their site based on their gadget). After two weeks of use, I’m scoring right at the 50% level among all FitBit users. Grrr. How annoying! Must be better than the masses!

FitBit data after a 5 mile run. Total slug before and after.

OK, that last sentence was perhaps a little too revealing, but really that’s the point in using these things. They motivate me by sharing my performance with you and frankly, by doing that, these gadgets make training fun.

Happy Holidays!

Two hours from my Christmas Eve with family. Shot in my brother’s kitchen using my iPhone and iTimeLapse. Happy 2010!

a close shave

Smoooth

This is by far the best best shaving cream I’ve ever used. Proraso is an Italian brand that’s been around since 1926. I used to be a dedicated fan of  Kiehl’s White Eagle, but after reading about Proraso on some hipster shaving blog, I decided to try it (don’t bother asking me why I read hipster shaving blogs).

Anyways, loved it from the first shave. It smells great and only a small dab lathers up incredibly well. Lubrication is by far the best I’ve experienced. It’s also fairly inexpensive – $11 for a tube that will last you 6 months. It’s made with Eucalyptus, Menthol, and Glycerin and leaves your face tingling and super soft. Afterwards, you’ll smell like Marcello Mastroianni. Which is kinda cool.

You can find Proraso Shaving Cream at Amazon and at C.O. Bigelow.

Cheap Stuff I Like: Watch

Uncluttered interface. Stainless steel. Chronograph. Gorgeous.

I love my Timex T-Series Watch. Will you look at that face? Clean, stark, simple presentation of the time. Exactly how a watch should look. The case is stainless steel and quite beefy making it feel like a substantial piece of hardware on your wrist. It comes with a high quality leather strap that looks like it belongs on an Omega. It even has a chronograph (but really, who uses that).  Little details like the rakishly angled date nails the utilitarian but high design aesthetic of this watch. The only criticism I have is that it uses a unremarkable Phillipine-made movement rather than a Japanese or Swiss one. Still, it tells excellent time and the best part is that it’s only $64.  Save the money you would have spent on a Panerai and travel to Australia instead. Then you can take your Timex diving – it’s water-resistant to 165 feet. Get this watch. Link

Popular

I get a shout out.

I was mystified why I suddenly added 300 new Twitter followers this week until someone told me that my Twitter profile was mentioned by Alex Albrecht on Diggnation. I thought it  was due to my urbane and clever observations on life. Nope. Halo effect.

Alec is Human (after all)

A short video of Alec I put together with a little help from Daft Punk and Animoto.com. Merry Christmas!

Why

Movies fired up my imagination as a little kid. I remember loving movies as long as I can remember anything. After a day attending Catholic elementary school, I’d walk to the city library and check out every book on monster and sci-fi films I could get my hands on. In the 4th grade I memorized Vincent Price’s movie credits and talked incessantly to friends about 1920′s German expressionist sci-fi and horror films like Metropolis, Der Golem, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu. Even then I was a nerd.

Influencing my young psyche were Universal’s classic monster movies with Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and The Wolfman. Through such cinema, fantastical worlds were opened up to a kid living in El Monte, California, a first generation son of immigrant parents from Mexico. Of course, growing up in a traditional Mexican household, I was exposed to the wonderful spectacle of Lucha Libre as well.  Lucha Libre was television’s original mixed martial arts show and I loved it. Burly mas-macho men wearing elaborate masks who fought and flew inside a small ring were awesome to behold. Via a weekly television broadcast, professional wrestlers lived out simple storylines of good versus evil as either rule-abiding tecnicos or no-holds-barred rudos as they fought for supremacy.

El Santo

Legendary among the good guys was El Santo. He was a silver-masked wrestler that always fought for the side of good and usually won in spectacular style. His appeal soon grew beyond the wrestling ring and extended into film and television. He starred in 52 movies and during the course of his career took on all sorts of bad guys including spies, zombies, aliens, robots and Frankenstein – sometimes all at once! El Santo was James Bond and Batman rolled into one. I loved El Santo films for they proved that a man with some training, a mask and an outrageous sense of style could make the world safe from evil. Usually with a flying head kick.

Anyway, it’s my fond remembrances of all the adventure and excitement from childhood sci-fi, monster and masked wrestler films that first made me want to be part of the entertainment community. Then Enter the Dragon, Star Wars and Indiana Jones came along and my fate was sealed.

I guess I’m still that little kid who’s transfixed by the inspiration that story-telling provides and the magical places it can take you. I love this business.

The 666 meme

the 6th photo from the 6th page is a ghost. eerie.

Got tagged by Rudy Jahchan to participate in this 666 Meme that forces you to post the 6th picture on the 6th page of your Flickr account, then tag six more schmoes to do the same. Evil. But since I know the Elder Ones will return (prematurely) if I don’t comply, here’s my pic. It’s, appropriately enough, from Halloween.

I call forth:

1. Micki Krimmel
2. Tim Shey
3. Brigitte Dale
4. Cali Lewis
5. Halcyon
6. Ryan Block

Cheap Stuff I Like

Best $15 you ever spent!

This is one in an occasional series of posts on really cheap things that I like – either because they have an incredible price to performance ratio or they just look great. This first item delivers on both.

They are the Feiyue Brand Wushu Shoes. They’re intended for Kung Fu training but they excel for just walking around and looking great. I get frequent compliments on them and last year they were all the rage in the UK hipster scene (which drove the price to about $60). They are simple Chinese-made shoes constructed of rubber and cotton but have shown little wear after 6 months of regular use. They also provide a comfortable fit (although not a lot of arch support). I wore them all 4 days of Comic-Con and just tramped around San Francisco in them. They make great travel shoes since putting them on and off is slipper-like. Perfect for those annoying airport security checks. The only negative is the strong rubber smell when you first get them, but that wears off after a couple of weeks. Price: $14.99. Comfy, cheap shoes with a martial arts heritage. Highly recommended. Link