Ergatta Rower

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Before the pandemic, I had a pretty good routine for sleep and exercise. That included a lot of walking I did by virtue of being on a campus where I had to move around between buildings and opportunities to walk and talk with others for meetings.

Like so many, the pandemic pushed me into a zone of languishing and I let go of these habits. It wasn’t hard - I’ve never been one to take to various exercise regimens. I find exercise boring, and I find other things that I can do that I enjoy more.

We have a Peloton in our house, and it’s a very cool product - my wife Lora likes to use it. But I’ve not enjoyed it that much. I don’t like stationary biking. There is no gamification that makes it feel anything but a grind to get through. Classes (live or otherwise) don’t motivate me.

That brings me to rowing. Earlier this year my friend Kelsi Leitz (also my Pilates instructor) got a Concept 2 Rower and was raving to me about it. I remember rowing in high school and not having any particularly happy thoughts about it. However, desperate to DO SOMETHING I became curious.

Then at one of my first monthly manager lunches, the group was sharing goals for the year. Many of the managers in my team shared how exercise was a key goal. A few of them started talking about their rowers - Egatta and Hydrow. Aha, I was on to something.

I did what most people do at this point. I headed to YouTube and watched a bunch of videos going over each rower. Those helped me decide to get an Ergatta.

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Stella Falone - culinary cutting boards

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A few weeks ago I received an email from a friend, Iain introducing me to the Stella Falone cutting boards. Since I’m doing so much more cooking and baking in our kitchen, I thought this would be a nice upgrade for our kitchen.

We already have a large cutting board right off our sink and above our garbage can. This is where we do most of our prep.

I ordered the Pro Slab, which is a 22 x 19 board. It’s stunning. Each board is unique. It’s also a beast at 16 pounds. A nice option is that the board is reversible (ebony and natural side) and comes with an anti-slip mat, which makes removing and cleaning the board easy.

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Flair smart vents for your Furnace and AC

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In my house, we have three stories and only one furnace and zone for all three floors.

For many years now I have loved having an ecobee thermostat because it allows me to have remote temperature sensors. That means that I can have a sensor in my bedroom, my daugther’s bedroom (the coldest room in the house), and my basement. The Ecobee can then be programmed to pay attention to certain sensors at certain times of the day. For example, when our basement is unoccupied it’s the coldest room in the home and what we want is our bedrooms to be warm. So the ecobeee can pay attention to just the bedrooms and ignore the rest of the house. Same in the summer, we need the upstairs to be cold which means cooling the whole house a bit more than normal.

This works rather well, except what if someone is in the basement. This is where my office and our guest room are and for the past 2 years, we have used this part of the house more. That requires a slightly different approach.

What I want to do is have the ability to open and close vents in my home, based on conditions that I can control.

Enter the Flair vents. These are smart vents that have a motor, a battery, and a thermostat. They work with Ecobee and when paired together your smart home gets even smarter.

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Naglev UNICO Hiking Shoes

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Greetings from Peru! Our family is close to wrapping up a 10-day visit to this amazing country. We have spent time in Lima, Sacred Valley (to acclimatize to the altitude - with the help of Acetazolamide pills), Machu Picchu, and Cusco. Part of this trip included hiking from the Machu Picchu citadel to the top of the Machu Picchu mountain - 2 miles going up at 35 degrees for a 2000 ft elevation gain to be rewarded with this view. I’m not a hiker and at this altitude (10,000 ft) this was one of the more difficult things I have done.

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Traveling Internationally - COVID Tests and Insurance

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With the advent of Omicron travel got a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

The United States now requires a negative COVID-19 test within one day of return to the US. Previously it was 3 days. The new 1-day requirement rules out most PCR testing since in many places the turnaround is 24 hours or more.

The irony of all this - is that it leaves us with antigen-based testing, which is NOT recommended for asymptomatic patients - this means it’s a poor choice for travel screening. But don’t let that get in the way of blunt force public policy decisions! Here we have the FDA/CDC, on the one hand, saying “testing is required to return to the US and we accept antigen tests” AND “antigen tests are not recommended for screening purposes”.

In some ways, this ensures closer detection to travel, but in other ways, it just complicates travel further. So what do you do?

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Shipping like a Pro

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Last year I researched how to stream line shipping. Between returns and items that I need to ship myself I wanted to see if I could get shipping items down to under one minute. I was able to do this and now I can easily ship packages from my phone or Mac with a few buttons and clicks.

This is something you can do too, and requires an investment in some hardware and software.

I always prefer Ethernet since it’s the most reliable but I have this set up using both. The benefit of this is that the printer sits in my office closet and doesn’t need to be connected to a computer. It also means my iPhone can spit out these labels.

App

I use an app called Easy Shipper on iOS and macOS. It’s really simple and basic and gets the job done.

EasyPost

EasyPost is a service that will make it easy to print labels and ship across UPS, USPS and FedEx. You simply get accounts with each service and anytime you ship, you can compare all the options and choose the best. Additionally, EasyPost supports all of the USPS priority and first class shipping options including all the flat rate packages and options.

Printer

The secret to fast shipping is getting a thermal printer. These are the printers that commercial shipping operations utilizes.

I got the Brother QL-1110NWB Wide Format printer. This is a wireless printer that support Ethernet, Wifi and Bluetooth.

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