Friday, January 21, 2011

27% of Americans use Facebook in the bathroom

OK, here's some information that I really didn't need to know, but somehow it isn't totally unexpected. Actually, I'm surprised it's so low!

One of my pet peeves (well, it's just a peeve really, I don't play favorites) is people on the phone in a public bathroom. At least once a week I go into the mens room at work and hear someone talking on the phone. OK, given, we're not allowed to use a cell phone in the office because of the security aspects and all, but still, there's a lobby for goodness sake!

When I hear someone using their cell phone in the mens room, I try to be as loud as I possibly can so that the person on the other end of their phone call can know they're talking to someone who is in the mens room.

I was taught as a child that some things should never be done: don't talk while you're eating, don't pick your nose in public, don't spit into the wind (ok, that was from a song, but whatever), and what goes on in the bathroom is supposed to be private. But I guess Facebook has taken the place of the newspaper or the novel. And of course there's ebook readers. Are those waterproof? Keep your grip people.

27% of Americans use Facebook in the bathroom: "

ToiletAccording to a study done by an Atlanta-based media firm – 27% of Americans use Facebook in the bathroom. Shocking? No, not really. Ever since we’ve had cellphones and things to do on them, people have been finding other things to look at besides magazines while sitting on the porcelain throne. Some people read comics, some people write, some people talk on the phone, and some people go on Facebook. Taking into consideration how almost everyone has a data plan or a WiFi connection at home, surfing the internet while on the potty isn’t exactly a foreign activity, I don’t see how Facebooking in the same situation would be any different. And as long as you keep your devices clean and don’t drop them in the toilet, using Facebook while in the toilet shouldn’t be a problem. You can snicker to yourself each time a friend borrows your phone to make a call or play with. What do you think about using Facebook in the toilet? Unacceptable behavior, or do you do it too? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.


27% of Americans use Facebook in the bathroom, By Ubergizmo, 20 Jan 2011. Top Stories : BlackBerry Torch Review, MacBook Air Review,



"

Saturday, January 15, 2011

What’s new, Verizon Wireless?

Well, welcome to another Saturday morning, the weekend before the MLK day holiday.


All in all, last week was a slow week, and a reasonably slow week in technology news. There was the big Verizon Wireless announcement about the CDMA iPhone that should be available next month. There’s no significant difference between the AT&T and the Verizon iPhone except the network, and the fact that the Verizon iPhone can’t do both voice and data at the same time (a limitation of CDMA, not specifically Verizon). Well, that and using it as a mobile hotspot.



I did see a few good articles on-line about the Verizon iPhone, but the general recommendation is, if you’re a Verizon customer, wait until the iPhone 5 comes out in June or July, because that one could be using the LTE network. If you’re an AT&T customer and you don’t get good coverage where you are, you should do what a reported 26% of existing iPhone users will do, and switch to Verizon.



One thing I want to look at today is the Samsung Galaxy Tab from Verizon. I got a call last night from a coworker and friend who told me that it would save me money in the long run over my MiFi card, and do texting, GPS, WiFi B,G, and N, 3G, streaming video, all running Android 2.2, so it has Flash 10.1 capabilities, too. It looks like an awesome combination, and can take the place of my Augen GenTouch as well as the MiFi. It could be an exciting mix. I’m hoping to get some time with one today and chat with a Verizon Wireless person about it and see what happens.



I have a business trip coming up next week to San Antonio, Texas. I’ll be flying out on Tuesday, which happens to be the 23rd anniversary of my 25th birthday. The last time I flew to San Antonio on that date was 26 years ago, and that wasn’t my favorite trip (that’s when I enlisted in the Air Force), so hopefully this trip will be a little bit more upbeat!



So, with the trip this week, I’ll be doing a little bit of blogging throughout the week. Saturday will be left for recuperation. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it posted with no issues on Saturday next week. Short post this week, like I said, I didn’t see much happen in tech news. Have a great week.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Welcome to 2011, Part II

Well, here I am again, listening to ‘70s music from Slacker.com and charging my back stimulator, so it must be time for me to write something. Last week I talked about my medical issues and the resolutions (hopefully) for them. This week, let’s look at some of the new technology I played with last year.


I’ll start with some of the networking toys I picked up last year.


The first networking toy I picked up last year was because I moved my office from it’s own room into the master bedroom (yes, I know, all you psychology and family counseling folks out there are thinking this is a bad idea). The big problem with moving the office to the master bedroom is that there is no network jack in that room. Since I have so many desktop and server type computers in my office, hard-wire networking is important. After some research, I found the Belkin Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit at Best Buy. First off, the name is somewhat misleading. So, what does this do? Well, this kit contains two devices that you plug into power outlets. These devices have network jacks (RJ-45) on the bottom, which you connect with normal CAT-5 cable into your network and the remote device you need to connect to your network. They act as a bridge between the two connections, using your copper power lines in the walls of your house to transmit the data. Cool idea. However, the name of the device is somewhat misleading. While in theory you can transmit data at 1000Kbps across the power lines, that is only in PERFECT conditions, and probably won’t happen for you. On average, I think I’m getting about 300Kbps, which is very nice, and according to everything I’ve seen, it’s probably the best out there, at least when I got it. One issue is that it has problems transmitting across your circuit breakers in the breaker box, so it’s best to try to keep them on the same circuit, if possible. But I do recommend it.


Next is the Linksys E2000 Advanced Wireless-N Router. Linksys got bought out by Cisco last year, so the router now has a Cisco label on it, but it’s still the same Linksys box and web interface that you’re used to if you had one before. I got this because I decided I wanted to upgrade as much of my home network to Gigabit networking as I could, plus, I don’t have a Wireless-N router in the house, so that will speed up lots of connections. All 6 RJ-45 ports on this router are 10/100/1000 capable, including the WAN port on the back that connects to your cable modem or whatever, so if you have fiber or something like that, or a cable modem that will go 50MBps, this is the type of router you need to use that speed best. It also has built in quality of service capabilities that are user (administrator) adjustable, so if you are a gamer, you can make sure that the gaming information goes out to the world faster than other information. The problem is, I haven’t connected it to my home network yet. There will be a major redesign of the network configuration when I install it (there doesn’t have to be, I just want to), so it’s not up and running. But with my experience with it so far (I set it up and updated the firmware on it), I like it, and would recommend it.


Moving on to gadgets, one of the gadgets I picked up this year that I really like (contrary to what the press has said about it) is the Augen Gentouch 78. This is a 7” screen, Android operating system based tablet that was sold in K-Mart of all places, for about a week. After that time, Augen was sent a cease and desist order from Google, because they didn’t get their authority to use the entire Android OS correctly (note to self, make sure to have a lawyer look at EVERYTHING before releasing ANYTHING), so they instantly became a hot item on E-bay and other places. I got mine from a friend at work, who may be, admittedly, a bigger geek than I am. Anyway, after getting the Augen, I had to hack the operating system to have total control over it (called rooting). Then I could install some of the applications I wanted. The Augen specs aren’t that bad, really, considering it sold for $150. It has an all-around cheap feel to it, a resistive screen (you have to press on it), only 800x480 resolution, and no 3G capabilities, GPS, or motion sensing anything, or access to Google’s marketplace (legitimately). But it does have WiFi, a headphone jack, a micro-SD slot that will take up to 16GB, and Android 2.1. I use it mainly for an e-book reader / e-Bible. I’m sure I get some funny looks at church when I whip this thing out of my messenger bag (“It’s a European shoulder bag”) when they say to turn to a particular scripture, but who cares, right? I’m a geek and everyone knows it.


The last gadget I’ll write about today is my phone. I wrote about my Droid when I first got it back in March (thanks, Len!), but I’ve since passed that to my better half and upgraded to the Droid2. The Droid2 has a few major upgrades over the Droid. The most noticeable one for me was the change in the keyboard. The keyboard is much easier to use, and instead of the D-pad type directional device to move around on the screen, the Droid2 has four arrow keys, like a normal keyboard. I find that much more intuitive. The next thing I noticed was that it has Wireless-N capabilities, which is MUCH faster than VerizonWireless’ 3G service. It also has a much faster processor, and more internal memory, both for storage and processing, so you can do more, and faster. The phone is the same as the initial Droid in size and almost the same shape (just enough different so you need to buy a new car mount). I use my phone for music in the car when I drive, GPS when I need to find where I’m going, and I actually use it to talk to people on occasion! E-mail, web browsing, texting, instant messaging, FaceBook, pretty much you name it. My phone is my mini-mobile computer when I’m not at home.


So that’s all the gadgets I’m going to write about today. After my post last week, I got a call from my youngest daughter, who told me that I forgot to write about something that was very important last year (even though I told her last week was all about my back and this week was about gadgets), and that was the birth of my granddaughter. She was born on March 29th, 2010, 9 weeks premature. Her mom was having Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) problems, so the doctors delivered her by emergency caesarian section early in the morning of the 29th. Over the past several months, mother and baby have progressed nicely, with a few ups and downs along the way. She’s now eating baby food, she has some teeth, and loves to talk to grammy and grampy on Skype.


Enough for this week. I’m not sure what next week will be about, but hopefully I can keep this up. Since I need to sit and charge anyway, why not do something productive?

Welcome to 2011, Part II

Well, here I am again, listening to ‘70s music from Slacker.com and charging my back stimulator, so it must be time for me to write something. Last week I talked about my medical issues and the resolutions (hopefully) for them. This week, let’s look at some of the new technology I played with last year.



I’ll start with some of the networking toys I picked up last year.



The first networking toy I picked up last year was because I moved my office from it’s own room into the master bedroom (yes, I know, all you psychology and family counseling folks out there are thinking this is a bad idea). The big problem with moving the office to the master bedroom is that there is no network jack in that room. Since I have so many desktop and server type computers in my office, hard-wire networking is important. After some research, I found the Belkin Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit at Best Buy. First off, the name is somewhat misleading. So, what does this do? Well, this kit contains two devices that you plug into power outlets. These devices have network jacks (RJ-45) on the bottom, which you connect with normal CAT-5 cable into your network and the remote device you need to connect to your network. They act as a bridge between the two connections, using your copper power lines in the walls of your house to transmit the data. Cool idea. However, the name of the device is somewhat misleading. While in theory you can transmit data at 1000Kbps across the power lines, that is only in PERFECT conditions, and probably won’t happen for you. On average, I think I’m getting about 300Kbps, which is very nice, and according to everything I’ve seen, it’s probably the best out there, at least when I got it. One issue is that it has problems transmitting across your circuit breakers in the breaker box, so it’s best to try to keep them on the same circuit, if possible. But I do recommend it.



Next is the Linksys E2000 Advanced Wireless-N Router. Linksys got bought out by Cisco last year, so the router now has a Cisco label on it, but it’s still the same Linksys box and web interface that you’re used to if you had one before. I got this because I decided I wanted to upgrade as much of my home network to Gigabit networking as I could, plus, I don’t have a Wireless-N router in the house, so that will speed up lots of connections. All 6 RJ-45 ports on this router are 10/100/1000 capable, including the WAN port on the back that connects to your cable modem or whatever, so if you have fiber or something like that, or a cable modem that will go 50MBps, this is the type of router you need to use that speed best. It also has built in quality of service capabilities that are user (administrator) adjustable, so if you are a gamer, you can make sure that the gaming information goes out to the world faster than other information. The problem is, I haven’t connected it to my home network yet. There will be a major redesign of the network configuration when I install it (there doesn’t have to be, I just want to), so it’s not up and running. But with my experience with it so far (I set it up and updated the firmware on it), I like it, and would recommend it.



Moving on to gadgets, one of the gadgets I picked up this year that I really like (contrary to what the press has said about it) is the Augen Gentouch 78. This is a 7” screen, Android operating system based tablet that was sold in K-Mart of all places, for about a week. After that time, Augen was sent a cease and desist order from Google, because they didn’t get their authority to use the entire Android OS correctly (note to self, make sure to have a lawyer look at EVERYTHING before releasing ANYTHING), so they instantly became a hot item on E-bay and other places. I got mine from a friend at work, who may be, admittedly, a bigger geek than I am. Anyway, after getting the Augen, I had to hack the operating system to have total control over it (called rooting). Then I could install some of the applications I wanted. The Augen specs aren’t that bad, really, considering it sold for $150. It has an all-around cheap feel to it, a resistive screen (you have to press on it), only 800x480 resolution, and no 3G capabilities, GPS, or motion sensing anything, or access to Google’s marketplace (legitimately). But it does have WiFi, a headphone jack, a micro-SD slot that will take up to 16GB, and Android 2.1. I use it mainly for an e-book reader / e-Bible. I’m sure I get some funny looks at church when I whip this thing out of my messenger bag (“It’s a European shoulder bag”) when they say to turn to a particular scripture, but who cares, right? I’m a geek and everyone knows it.



The last gadget I’ll write about today is my phone. I wrote about my Droid when I first got it back in March (thanks, Len!), but I’ve since passed that to my better half and upgraded to the Droid2. The Droid2 has a few major upgrades over the Droid. The most noticeable one for me was the change in the keyboard. The keyboard is much easier to use, and instead of the D-pad type directional device to move around on the screen, the Droid2 has four arrow keys, like a normal keyboard. I find that much more intuitive. The next thing I noticed was that it has Wireless-N capabilities, which is MUCH faster than VerizonWireless’ 3G service. It also has a much faster processor, and more internal memory, both for storage and processing, so you can do more, and faster. The phone is the same as the initial Droid in size and almost the same shape (just enough different so you need to buy a new car mount). I use my phone for music in the car when I drive, GPS when I need to find where I’m going, and I actually use it to talk to people on occasion! E-mail, web browsing, texting, instant messaging, FaceBook, pretty much you name it. My phone is my mini-mobile computer when I’m not at home.



So that’s all the gadgets I’m going to write about today. After my post last week, I got a call from my youngest daughter, who told me that I forgot to write about something that was very important last year (even though I told her last week was all about my back and this week was about gadgets), and that was the birth of my granddaughter. She was born on March 29th, 2010, 9 weeks premature. Her mom was having Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) problems, so the doctors delivered her by emergency caesarian section early in the morning of the 29th. Over the past several months, mother and baby have progressed nicely, with a few ups and downs along the way. She’s now eating baby food, she has some teeth, and loves to talk to grammy and grampy on Skype.


Enough for this week. I’m not sure what next week will be about, but hopefully I can keep this up. Since I need to sit and charge anyway, why not do something productive?

Verizon iPhone: everything you need to know

Welcome back to rumor central again. Here's another article about the Verizon iPhone that actually takes all the pieces that have been out there, all the "evidence", so to speak, and ties it all together. The case is very strong for the release of information on the iPhone on Verizon this coming Thursday, with availability in February. But, read the article. You may want to wait until summer before you jump on this.

Verizon iPhone: everything you need to know: "

Ah, the Verizon iPhone. In our bizarre careers as tech journalists, if there's one question we've heard more than 'When is Verizon getting the iPhone?' we can't think of it. Also, outside the original rumors for the iPhone and iPad, we can't think of another product so heavily teased by those in the know and those not in the know -- though mostly by those not in the know.



But then we heard Verizon is having a little get together on Tuesday, which is particularly odd timing because Verizon has a huge presence and a large amount of announcements at this year's CES. Rumors of the event being a Verizon iPhone announce immediately flared up, but there were still reservations: Apple usually announces its own products at its own corporate campus -- why would Verizon be doing the honors in NY?



That's when the Wall Street Journal swooped in with a confirmation: the Verizon iPhone will be announced on Tuesday, and WSJ's All Things D even thinks Steve Jobs will be there. So, who is this fly-by-night 'Wall Street Journal' publication we speak of? They have one of the best track track records on Apple rumors in the business, and they've been leading the Verizon iPhone predictions from day one. Follow after the break as we talk it out.

Continue reading Verizon iPhone: everything you need to know

Verizon iPhone: everything you need to know originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments"

Friday, January 07, 2011

Wall Street Journal: Verizon to announce iPhone on Tuesday

Well, here we are at rumor central again. Looks like the Wall Street Journal has picked up on the rumor, and has "a source familiar with the matter". The announcement should come next thursday.

Wall Street Journal: Verizon to announce iPhone on Tuesday: "

Well, here we are: the Wall Street Journal says Verizon will indeed announce the iPhone at its mysterious Tuesday event, according to 'a source familiar with the matter.'

Wall Street Journal: Verizon to announce iPhone on Tuesday originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments"

Verizon iPhone launch on February 3rd?

Greetings, and welcome to rumor central! Here's a juicy tidbit of info, if you're an iPhone lover but an AT&T hater. Rumor has it the Verizon iPhone will be released between February 3rd and 6th. Again, that's a rumor with a capital R and a capital UMOR, too. But it does follow the known patterns of both Apple and Verizon release schedules.

Interesting. Will it happen? Or is this like predicting the end of the world?

Verizon iPhone launch on February 3rd?: "

Speculation is going around that the Verizon iPhone announcement is almost here. Whispers are that Apple has blocked employee vacation requests between February 3rd and February 6th, which is Thursday through Sunday. The vacation freeze has been confirmed to be in effect in several regions in the US. It’s worth noting that Apple picked the dates of the 24th to 27th for the launch of its iPhone 4, also Thursday through Sunday, not to mention that Verizon tends to launch new devices on Thursdays too. Of course, there isn’t any confirmation that the Verizon iPhone is the device that will be announced, but the rumors definitely do seem to point in that direction.


Verizon iPhone launch on February 3rd?, By Ubergizmo, 07 Jan 2011. Top Stories : NVIDIA Tegra 2 Overview, Toshiba Android Tablet, Hands-On, Olympus XZ1 With OLED Screen,



"

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Droid Bionic Hands-On [VIDEO]

I don't think I can say this enough, I wish I were in Vegas right now for CES.

Looks like the Bionic specs I looked at and posted yesterday were off in one area, it has 16GB built-in RAM, so that's an extra level of awesomeness. Estimated release on Verizon, early Q2 (April-ish).

Droid Bionic Hands-On [VIDEO]: "


This image has no alt text


The Droid Franchise has a new title: the Motorola Droid Bionic, of course, for Verizon Wireless. Announced last night at Motorola’s CES 2011 Press Event, we were able to get a hands-on demonstration walking us through the main hardware features of the phone as well as some great software inclusions.








One of my FAVORITE features of this phone is the HDMI mirroring. With many Android phones including HDMI Out, they won’t mirror whatever is on your screen, they’ll only allow you to connect for the purposes of playing locally stored video files or picture files or items in your media gallery. The Droid Bionic allows you to play games, browse the web, and do whatever you want to LOCALLY, showing the exact same thing through HDMI.


Of course the Droid Bionic’s 4G LTE connection on Verizon’s network is one of the main highlights of this phone and it will surely magentize a good share of big red customers. Some of its other key features include an 8MP camera, 1080p HDMI, 720p HD video recording, and a dual core processor each running at 1GHz.


While only the Motorola Atrix was showing off the nifty docking to laptop/desktop screen feature, we’re hopeful Motorola will empower this for all their phones, and really, there is no reason NOT to.

"

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Motorola Droid Bionic announced for Verizon

Oh, to be in Las Vegas right now. CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, it geek heaven right now.

Well, we knew it was coming, and here it is, Motorola's new Android based handset for LTE on Verizon Wireless. LTE is Verizon's 4th generation or 4G wireless technology. And this baby looks amazing. Compared to the Droid2 I have, it has 2x the processing power, less RAM, a front facing camera (now why would it have one of those? Can you say SKYPE?), and an 8Mp camera on the back. The one thing it's missing that I use every day? The QWERTY keyboard. Well, you can't have everything, now, can you? How about Internet and phone at the same time?

Motorola Droid Bionic announced for Verizon: "

Things are getting real with Motorola -- it's just announced the LTE-equipped Droid Bionic which, like the Xoom tablet introduced alongside it, will be headed to Verizon. The phone packs a dual-core processor with each core humming along at 1GHz, a 4.3-inch QHD screen, 512MB of RAM, a front-facing VGA camera, and an 8-megapixel on the rear.



Developing...

Continue reading Motorola Droid Bionic announced for Verizon

Motorola Droid Bionic announced for Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments"

Saturday, January 01, 2011

Welcome to 2011, Part I

Well, it’s Saturday morning for me, 1/1/11. 2010 was an exciting and eventful year, with many ups and downs. I’ll go over a few of the personal highlights and lowlights from last year.



First, the major player in my life for 2010, my chronic back pain. It’s hard for me to even explain what it’s like to know that you have a chronic condition, that is, something that you’ll never completely recover from. First, into the way-back machine. On Father’s Day 2008 I herniated the disc at L5-S1 in my back (thanks Erin! Just kidding). After a microdiscectomy to remove the bulge, I did physical therapy until November. I was progressing well. Christmas and New Years went well, and I was improving into 2009. Then in February I was walking to meet a friend for lunch and slipped on something (it may have been ice, it may have been too much salt on the little handicap ramp for the sidewalk) and landed sitting down. I knew something was wrong, but I was going to lunch anyway. Well, to top it off, I was stood up for lunch, too. The pain increased slowly, and after a week or so I had another MRI to discover I had reherniated L5-S1 and also herniated L4-L5 on top of it.



Begin more than a year of pain management treatments, ranging from trigger point injections to radio frequency nerve ablation, physical therapy, medications, and attempts at exercise.



Fast forward to around June of 2010 (yes, I’m finally into 2010. Be quiet and listen. You knew I’d get there). After the pain management doctor was disapproved by my insurance for Botox treatments on my back, he did get approval for a neurostimulator test. Make sure you follow the link.



After the successful test, I had surgery on September 23rd, with one night stay in the hospital (they didn’t want to send me home with heavy drugs while using a CPAP to sleep. Not a good combination). That and I wasn’t really ready to go home. After about a week or so of recovering and working from home, I started going back to work. Probably too soon. The recovery and healing process took much longer than I would have liked. The paddle of the neurostimulator between my shoulder blades was irritating the spinal column at that location, causing “Phantom pain” that felt like I’d broken a rib, and there was nothing I could do about it but take more meds. Not the result I wanted.



In early December I went in for a “Tune up” of my neurostimulator. The technician adjusted the power output levels of the electrodes. Since the scar tissue had started to develop, the level of pain control had decreased. I guess the decrease was significant, because she increased the levels by 4! The result was amazing. We took our oldest and grandmonster to Ohio for that weekend to visit his other grandparents while we stayed in a hotel. It was a cute little town, and we got the chance to walk around (!), relax, and just take in small town life again. We found an antique shop that had a cane with a brass horse head as the handle, so I got that, along with some Christmas presents. I’m sure we spent too much money in that little town, but we had fun. And even though there was a storm coming, I made it through the entire weekend with little pain!



One of the issues with having an implanted neurostimulator is that you need to remember to recharge your battery every week. I was told that if the battery ever drains completely, it will need to be replaced (I hope that’s not true). Anyway, I’ve set 9:00 AM on Saturdays as my time to charge up, so maybe I can remember to do some blogging during that time.



How does the neurostimulator work? Glad you asked. It’s basically a pacemaker for my back. The electrodes are placed over the nerve bundles around T7,T8 and T9 in my back (the neurosurgeon had to do a partial laminectomy to put it in place), with the power pack and controller implanted below the belt line in my butt. I can change the power levels and programming (I have three programs I can use) with a hand held controller that communicates through electromagnetic induction to the implanted controller. Charging works the same way; I have a battery pack that I charge from standard 110v current. When it’s fully charged (it can recharge the implant a few times on 1 charge) I can connect the “antenna” to it and use electromagnetic induction and inductive coupling to transfer the power from the external battery to the internal battery. I’m doing that right now. So far it’s been about an hour; my Christmas recharge took an hour and 45 minutes, so I’ve got some time left. It comes with a belt so I can walk around if I want to, but I don’t mind being forced to stay in a chair for 2 hours or so. It’s a good excuse.



My hope is that since I’m forced to stay in one place for so long, maybe I’ll remember to post something here every week (but don’t hold your breath, ok?).



So, now I’m officially one of the Borg. On Twitter, I’ve jokingly called myself 13 of 12, because the Borg don’t like me very much. I may have a few more “Tune-ups” in my future, depending on the build-up of scar tissue under the electrodes. We’ll see what happens. I’m also beginning the arduous process of weaning off the Neurontin, which is the primary nerve pain medication I’ve been on. Looking at the list of possible side-effects, sometimes I wonder which is worse, the pain or the medication. I’d have to say, it was the pain. Hopefully I can be off most of it by the end of February.



One of the biggest (pun intended) side-effects I’ve been dealing with is weight gain. From Father’s Day 2008 to October 2008 I put on 50 pounds. My weight hasn’t changed significantly since then. My goal for this year is to drop one pound a week for the year. That will get me down to around where I was when I retired from the Air Force six years ago, and hopefully a much more healthy weight.



Next week, I’ll take a look back at the technology I acquired in 2010.



Happy New Year!