I haven't meant to neglect you!

Okay, things have been absolutely crazy the last few weeks, both in my regular life, as well as in my tech life.

First of all, my FitBit got lost. I was wearing it at an event I was attending in the Dominican Republic, covering the grand opening of the new Hard Rock resort for my day job. I had it in the afternoon, but when I got back to my room that night, it was gone. Given how I gush over it here, it's no surprise that I was pretty upset. I went to lost & found on the off chance someone might have turned it in, but no dice. There was a happy ending, however. I wrote to FitBit, and, while it's not normally their policy to replace missing units, in exchange for some detailed feedback on everything from the device to the Web site to the mobile login, they agreed to send me a new one! Just another reason to seriously love not only the product, but the company as well. I won't say they're perfect, but they are seriously good people who seem to love their product and believe in it, and they want to make it better and make people happy.

Seriously, go buy one. Now.

Now, the second major tech malfunction was on this same trip. Getting on the plane to head home, I dutifully turned off my phone. Understand, I have a tendency to just put it in airplane mode and forget it, but my battery was low, so I decided to shut it off this time. I carry a portable power pack for just such an emergency, so I plugged it in to charge, stuck it in my bag, and forgot about it until about an hour out from landing. I had been reading my Kindle, and I finished my book, so I thought I'd turn my phone back on to check the charge and maybe play a little angry birds before it went back into airplane mode for landing. Instead of booting up as expected, though, it hung on the loading screen. And hung. And hung. About 10 minutes later, I pulled the battery, and thus started a frantic effort to get my phone back up and running. I even went so far as to try and put it into recovery, but got nothing. Nada. Zip. Just a black screen with a little red triangle and exclamation point. When I landed, I couldn't call anyone to let them know I was safe, I couldn't even get to my GPS to tell me how to get home from the airport. Fortunately, I remembered sort of how to get home, and the road signs got me the rest of the way, but it was a lot more nerve wracking than it needed to be.

So, I get home, no phone, FitBit gone, a frantic husband and mother both worried since I had promised to call them when I landed but they hadn't heard from me. I reassure everyone, get sympathy for my sad phone, and decide to pull out my laptop and do some research to see if I can figure out what might be causing my phone to be fubar, and better yet, how to fix it from the basic recovery menu which is all I could get to. I open my suitcase and... no laptop.

It had been stolen.

I just wanted to bang my head against a wall at that point. I pretty much never check my laptop when I fly because I'm a paranoid person when it comes to stuff like that. However, in this particular instance, I had been warned that getting through security in the Dominican Republic was a pain without electronic toys, and having them would just make it worse. So I decided, just this once, to let my laptop out of my sight.

Yeah, big mistake. Won't do that again.

So now I'm on the phone with Jetblue and JFK airport, who are bouncing me back and forth between them, for half the night trying to get someone to take responsibility and reimburse me for my laptop that wasn't even a year old yet. Whether it was stupidity on my part for checking it or not (it was) the fact remains that their security was so lax somewhere along the line, someone was able to just help him or herself to my bags. What's to say they couldn't slip something in while they were at it? Why am I forced to practically disrobe and submit to a full body search every time I get on a plane if the baggage people are getting free reign to do whatever they want? Yeah, no.

Finally, I get passed along the line in Jetblue to a case worker in their lost baggage department. I had to file a lot of paperwork and provide receipts and proof that I actually did own a laptop and proof of how much it cost me when I bought it. As of writing this, the last I heard it was in processing, and I'm still waiting to hear back as to when they're going to reimburse me for what they allowed to be stolen, and for how much. Once I have a resolution there, you can believe I will post about it here.

Now, I found myself with basically no technology whatsoever. I really didn't sleep well that night and woke up twitching.

At work, where there is a computer and blessed Internet access, I came in a little early and was able to run some Google searches to determine that, for some reason, I was missing a file in my boot sequence. Once I got that put back on the SD card, I was able to actually get the recovery to work, and booted back into the phone. As a stock Tmobile, unrooted Android. Somewhere in fixing it, the stupid thing had lost root.

Gah.

So, then I had to go find instructions on how to re-root my phone, this time from a Mac, since that's what I use at work (I'm a staunch PC girl. And don't tell me it's because I don't know any better. I use a Mac all day at work, and most days I want to throw it through a window before all is said and done.) It took a few tries, but I finally managed to get it re-rooted, and then get my Cyanogenmod 6.1 reinstalled as my ROM. Fortunately, I also run Titanium Backup on a regular automatic schedule, so other than some lost Angry Birds save game files that didn't get backed up for some reason, everything else was restored. At least I had a phone again.

That was all several weeks ago, and I'm still waiting to hear back from Jetblue. I really can't afford to buy a new computer without compensation for the one I had stolen, but this week, something came up that I had to be able to type out a document from home. Not to mention, I just picked up a new blogging freelance job this week that sort of also requires me to have a computer at home. So off to Best Buy and more money on my credit card that I really shouldn't spend. With luck, Jetblue will do the right thing and send me a check for the cost of the laptop I lost. If that happens, I'll pay off the credit card balance and praise them forever. If not, they're going to have one very angry journalist on their hands....

So that has been my journey over the last few weeks. It's been something of a surreal Murphy's Law of a time, and I really hope nothing like this happens again. I can't begin to describe how horrible it feels to realize you are completely cut off with no computer or cell phone. I'll update here once I get some final resolution from Jetblue!

Taking some time for myself

After the last post, I realized how little time I actually spend just on me. I give all my time an energy, mostly, to my husband and stepson, and then my friends and family. But I really never take any time or effort for myself other than what I spend on my phone.

That needs to change.

You know I've been wearing my fitbit since the first of the month, and now that I have a few weeks of data, it's really interesting to see my patterns. First of all, I work at a desk job in front of a computer writing most of the day, so my little pie chart of activity is mostly "sedentary". I'm trying to remind myself to get up more often during the day, even if it is just to take a lap around the office, or go job in place in the bathroom where no one can see me.

Second, I sleep really poorly. Well, I knew that already, but now I have hard data! Admittedly, the geek in me just loves to log on every morning first thing to see my pretty statistics, but it has brought to my attention that while I'm in bed for 9-10 hours a night, I actually sleep closer to 5. No wonder I'm always tired when I get up! I'm hoping being more active will have an impact on this, too.

Third, I can eat good all day long, doing the right things, and not too much. But as soon as I walk in the front door at night, all bets are off. I usually get home ravenous, and I don't tend to track my evening meals until the next morning, and that needs to change. If I have to go to my computer or phone and write it down every time I eat at night the same way I do during the day, I think I'll be a bit less inclined to munch my way through the evening.

As I gather more data and statistics on myself and my habits, I'll continue to update here. I'm debating paying for fitbit's premium package to get access to even MORE beautiful data, but for now, I'm still trying to establish my baselines. I find it incredibly appropriate and amusing that it is technology, in the end, that is really starting to allow me to change ingrained habits and attitudes I've had all my life. The siren song of data and technology - I can't resist.

Fitbit Update

Well, it's been a few days now, and so far, I'm really liking the fitbit, a lot. Having the little flower that grows and shrinks as I move around or sit is surprisingly motivating. Unfortunately, I have a desk job that requires me to be in front of a computer in the middle of an open floor all day, so getting more active is challenging, but I'm trying to get up and move around more, and even pace a bit while making my (healthy) lunch in the afternoon. It's still just a start, but we all have to start somewhere, right?

Getting Fit

This is the resolution for just about everyone, every year, isn't it? Get healthier, loose weight, etc. And it's mine again this year, but the difference is that I'm using geeky tools to try and help me get there.

I've been using sparkpeople.com to track, off and on, what I eat. There's a wealth of information there, and I love the site, but staying motivated to keep it up has been an issue for me. Last night, I bought a brand new Fitbit. This is basically like a pedometer on steroids, that tracks everything from your steps to estimating calories burned, to tracking your sleep patterns. In short, it is the geek's pedometer! I have been wanting one for a while, and I'm really excited that I finally got one. I have it on now, and over the next few weeks, I plan to cross-track on both sparkpeople and the fitbit site.

I'll post updates here as I go on how I like it, how it works, and how close I'm sticking to my goals of doing 5-10 minutes per day of some kind of exercise, along with trying to get up and walk around more in general. Here's hoping for a healthier 2011!