I'm back from what was a world-wind trip to our nations capital. It was a great time, but before I get into everything that went down in DC-Town, I'd like to give a few shoutouts:
1) Thank you to the Georgetown Running Company Racing Team. While I was out in DC, these guys were nice enough to pick me up from my hotel and take me on a long trail run, with a quick excursion into the zoo, allowing me to get in a decent run and see a part of DC that I would not otherwise have seen. I ended up doing a tempo run with "Alabama/Texas/Couch" Paul, who actually finished two places behind my roommate Scott at the Twin Cities Marathon, which was kind of random. If you are ever in DC, I'd suggest checking these guys out.
2) I feel like I need to give a shout out to Belle's tires of Okemos. I went in yesterday to figure out why I had a slow leak in my front left tire, something that I should have done a long time ago (and, which I might add, had been ignored by a couple of other places who, when I was getting my oil changed, had ignored the problem even though I specifically brought it up to them). Turns out there was a medium size screw in the tire. While it wasn't surprising that they had found and removed it, I did appreciate that when I went to pay, they told me to just remember them the next time that I needed new tires. So thank you Belle's tires!
3) A few of you may recall that my phone went through the wash about a month or so ago. It was saved by the power of flour (hey, that rhymes). Since then, I have taken the opportunity to test the rice drying method (which works better than flour, due to the clean up) on a number of other gadgets. First, while in DC, my Garmin watch started to misbehave. While running, it had begun to randomly start/stop for what appeared to be no apparent reason. I initially assumed that it was a satellite issue, but in direct opposition of this hypothesis was the fact that the Garmin tells you when it loses satellite reception, and my watch was not doing this. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was condensation inside of the watch. This kind of pisses me off, because there is no reason I should be having this problem. A little side note: I have been very dissatisfied with my purchase of my Garmin 405. After purchasing, they came out with a dialed down version of the watch, that removed the cursed bezel function (what I really hate about the watch) and a hundred dollars or so from the total price. I am not against Garmin as a company or product maker, but, given the bezel function and the problem I am now having with the 405, I would strongly suggest that if you are GPS watch, you would consider a different product. Back to the story. Brief recap: Garmin. Start/Stop. Condensation. My solution: I put the watch in a bed of rice and, low and behold, a day later it is no longer having the problem. Condensation is still appearing on the inside of the watch, so I'm fearful that the problem will return, especially during longer runs. But for now it is working. After the success of the watch and phone trials, I decided to give the rice one more try. Some of you may be familiar with how finicky iPods can get with water. I have one that I would occasionally run with. After a while, the sweat permeated the mp3 player, and shorted the circuitry. So this is something that has been laying around for months, perhaps nearing even a year. I decided that, well, I could throw it away (which I probably should have done a long time ago, if I didn't think it had a chance of working again), or I could throw it in with rice and see what happens. Well, 24 hours after incubation, I plugged the iPod into a charger, and turned it on. And it worked! It doesn't appear to be having any issues, so, yeah, here's to you Uncle Ben, maker of the amazing broken-gadget-dewaterer-and-fixinator (a P&F reference).
When I started this post, I thought that I'd give a couple of shout outs, and then get into some updates. But I'm thinking the post is long enough as it is, so look for more DC details later in the week. Until next time: Blaze On!
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