Monthly Archives: January 2009

Another new thing about this inauguration

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If social networking servers crash during inauguration, fine by me

There is a fear that when Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th American president on Tuesday, our population’s addiction to instant communication will cripple the networks we use for messaging.

To prepare for Inauguration Day, wireless carriers have beefed up their networks. Twitter has added servers and so has Facebook, as it hopes the increased bandwidth will prevent a crash if too many people watch and chat at the same time on its social network.

Mercury in free fall

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I am not referring to the planet, although that is also (and always) true.

I posted before about the temperatures on December 15 and this past Tuesday.
This morning I saw a thermometer reading -22oF/-30oC.

However my car, a ’95 Ford Escort, was still able to start. There was a bus waiting at the Park-and-ride, and it stopped downtown across the street from a Skyway entrance. So my total exposure to the weather was probably under 5 minutes.

I just checked the forecast. It may be a full 17oF/9oC warmer when I go home!

Exercise and dance: Some numbers

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I wore my pedometer all day today. It has several scales on it, including calories used. Figuring that Playford and similar dances are basicly walking, I recorded the numbers before and after colgaffneyis dance session this evening. The pedometer reports that my walking today expended 665 calories. 99 of those were during dance. Furthermore, though I walked over 2300 steps during dance (not just dancing, but also the general hanging around), I was not active enough for a continuous period for any of those 2300+ to count as aerobic exercise. The pedometer reports that I managed 5543 aerobic steps today over a total of 40 minutes, which must have come from walking the skyway over lunch hour.

Yes, I know: All of these figures about calories and aerobic exercise are rough approximations. However, they are all I have got, and far more than I had before.