Good News, Bad News

Ahhh... my life is pseduo-normal today. I spent the majority of the day sorting through estate crap, writing up and filling out legal documents, researching tax crap and reading, reading, reading. I even made homemade italian dinner from scratch (which was particularly impressive given the bare state of our kitchen cabinets!) But, at the end of the night, I had to admit that something had gone wrong.

After almost 2 years, today, I finally managed to kill my widget (aka the Garmin Forerunner 201). I recall the documentation saying that it was waterproof. Something about 30 and 1. Like 30 meters for 1 hour. Or 1 meter for 30 minutes. Or something. Whatever, I took it in the water whenever I went after a run and it was great -- it even told me how far I swam.

But, it has exposed copper at the junction to the charger. So, really, I should have known better than to take it in the ocean even once. Salt water and corrosion, yeah I recall something about that from my materials science class. Instead, I dunked it in the Pacific and the Atlantic from California to Australia, not to mention from Mexico (3 times) to Hawaii.

Unfortunately, the battery doesn't want to hold a charge that well after this last bit of vacation. D-E-A-D upon arrival. But I charged it like crazy upon return and went for my run this morning. It seemed to work, but then, well, it kind of made this *screaming* noise when I try to turn it off. Apparently, it now screams 'til it's no longer charged.

So, yeah, its time has come. But it was easily the best $120 I spent in the last 2 years -- the return on investment was ridiculous. So I just figured I'd just get a new one.

The good news:

Thanks to my new buddy John Sun, I will be buying an upgrade. Garmin Forerunner 205, here I come. John addressed so many of my concerns -- the form factor (it's more comfortable!); the accuracy (it's an improvement, which is much appreciated, E and I lost the sattelites in the trees on our hike up the sleeping giant and I couldn't say with certainty whether we were near the top or not. This did not go over well since I didn't bring the water and the cloud cover wasn't cooperating for what was later termed, "the death march.") Anyways, back to the 205, the web-interface software with mapping and training capabilities has advanced substantially since I last looked at it. Add USB synching and well, I'm excited. I feel like I may be returning to a life where I have hobbies.

Ahh, the sweetness of tech gadgetry to pursue a hobby (here's to hoping that I may be able to continue in this vein once I am a lawyer).