Out of Breath

There was a triathlon competition that has been on for the past week and a half at the gym at my work. I thought I would up the anti, by joining the triathlon, with a couple of other people. Bike, treadmill and cross trainer. 2 miles on the bike, .75 miles on the treadmill and .5 mile on the xtrainer.

 Since I was the best on the bike, I volunteered to take it on. I have been training for the past week knowing that I could possibly have it in the bag. I am very competitive, and I feel that it always gives me the edge on a lot of competitions. Well, at least in my own mind….

 Today was the day that my team was up. We needed to beat another team with times better than I had ever expected. To make a long story short, I had to beat a time of 3:39. I thought to myself, “piece of cake”. Well, when I got on the bike, I was movin and groovin for the first .75 miles…..and then the pain kicked in. I don’t think I ever felt the way I did riding that bike, that hard…ever! Picture lighting your lungs on fire while they are still in your chest, both legs are completely ceased while still trying to pedal the bike, and all the blood has rushed to your head and you feel like you are going to pass out.

 Needless to say, I made it through the 2 miles in 4:23. Not bad for a rookie. But after I was done, I was coughing like a madman, had a splitting headache, and needed copious amounts of water. I must say, tough, that if I ever do something like that again, I think I need to train just a little bit more…..actually, alot more.

Boxing Day Extravaganza

Well, as you all know, yesterday was Boxing day here in the great white north. Kinda like thanksgiving day in the US. It’s where people line up at ridiculous hours of the morning, to get the best prices on out of date crap, that stores no longer want to carry. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always that “amazing deal” somewhere, it’s just a matter of finding it.

Since I received a gift card from Best Buy for Christmas, (thanks Mom and Dad) I decided to search on the net, hoping I could find something good to purchase. You know, something that you’ve been needing for a while, but just could not afford to justify the purchase at the time. After mulling over all the deals they had at Best Buy, I found absolutely nothing I wanted to purchase. It could have been the fact that I have almost all the electronics that i could ever want, but all in all, there was nothing really good out there.

I have finally realized that Boxing Day is designed to just get rid of old product to bring in new product. Yeah, it took me a while to figure it out, but until you are an avid consumer, you don’t realize these things as they are not pertinent to you at the time. A way to inject society with a boost of mass consumer consumption. I must say, it definitely is ingenious of corporate Canada to design this day of big bucks flying out any outlet possible.

Neverending Storage

The other day I was on my usual morning read, Gizmodo, reading about all the cool new gadgets coming out for the Christmas season, till I stumbled upon some interesting news….

As we all know, storage space (hard drives) are getting extremely cheap. I mean you can now buy a 500Gb hard drive for $85. You will probably be able to get the same hard drive next year, this time for half the price. Sweet deal, you would think.

The reality is, according to Google VP, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, he is saying that if this trend continues, and the cost of storage continues to decrease, estimations that somewhere around 2020, all the world’s content will fit inside an iPod, and all the world’s music would sit in your palm as early as 2015…rendering the CD format unnecessary.

Now that you’ve put your eyeballs back in your head and given it a good shake, this is the reality of the world as we know it. Bigger is better, so they say. But what will happen when we reach that point? Will it be more about speed, then? Or will we start to move back to the simple life? I don’t know about you, but for me, a day without gadgets, is like a day without sunshine.

Change not to adapt

Well, it’s been almost a month since my last blog. I wasn’t sure really what I should and shouldn’t be writing about. I know that being the man of all gadgets is supposed to be my forte, although I really wanted my audience to be able to identify with who I really am.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a total geek at heart. But there is that other side of me….the artist, the businessman, the social bug, the philosopher. So I have renamed my blog to the Distinguished Geek, as I am not like all the other standard geeks that you meet, who only want to be left alone, and prefer to be spoken to only online.

Not only will I now bring you technology, but I will bring you art, business, philosophy, and gossip……actually, I kinda hate gossip. No, wait. I really hate gossip. Well the other 3 topics are definitely woth talking about, and whatever else comes out of my cranium at the time of inspiration. Stay tuned….

Southern Hospitality

After my disastrous flight to North Carolina, I’ve finally made it there…..18 hours later. Yeah, don’t ask. The great part is that I got to hang with my old friend Mike. I definitely had a pleasant, unexpected adventure. I got to catch up with him about all the stuff that’s been goin on with his life and with mine. At the same time, having some adventures while doing it. Polishing off half a bottle of vanilla vodka was a nice start, especially after my whirlwind expedition of several airports. Black friday was another interesting experience. Kinda like our Boxing day up in Canada, but much better sale prices. I ended up getting a nice 320 Gb hard drive for $50. I couldn’t turn it down.

But I must say, that I could not turn down the Southern style cooking. Pork, steak, and more pork. And if that still doesn’t got you stuffed, how bout some deep fried cornbread? Delicious…….so delicious that I added 5 pounds, that I am currently trying to work off in the gym. If I didn’t have my time at the rock climbing gym when I was there, I am sure that I would have come home with an extra 5 pounds of fat. Definitely a guaranteed good time and a good workout in the end.

All in all, I had an awesome vacation. It’s nice to have good friends in the south

Out And About

So tomorrow, I am flying out to Raleigh, North Carolina to see my dear friend, Mike. I have to say, this is going to be my first vacation by myself, since I got together with my lovely wife. It’s not that I dislike travelling with my better half, I just like the odd solo adventure. It kinda brings me back to my childhood, where you never know what’s gonna happen, but you know it’s gonna be something worth remembering.

 Now, Mike and I have been friends since high school. Back then, we did everything together. We went to school dances together. Went to unknown cities to meet women we thought were gonna be the one. Even finding stuff to do, that you know you shouldn’t be doing as a kid, but you did it anyway as long as your parents weren’t home to scold you for doing it in the first place.

Mike+Antoni=Adventure is what I’m tryin to say here. It’s always an adventure with him. It’s unfortunate that I am going to see him under his current circumstance. But every break-up needs at least one good friend. And being the good friend that I think I am, I must do the right thing, and give my best friend the moral support that he needs in these troubled times. But that won’t stop us from having, yet another, Tony and Mike adventure. Something always worth remembering. Off I go…..

Glazy Eyes

Wow…I never thought it would happen. My very first blog page. I never really had the need to wrote a blog, or even to write something abstract, for that matter. It was only when, I was at a public school reunion, and everyone’s eyes started glazing over, as I rambled on about quantum computing and how fascinating it is and the benefits it would have on our society. I knew I had lost their attention, but they were being polite, and wanted to let me finish.

When I had finished rambling, I quickly apologized, so I didn’t look like a complete idiot. After all, it was a reunion, and I didn’t want to be that guy that everyone went home to Facebook about, saying how weird and crazy that Antoni guy was. I had told them that I couldn’t help myself. I loved technology so much, that I wanted to share it with the world. Before I had lost all hope, my collegue Kevin turned to me and said, “Well, if you love technology so much, why don’t you write a blog about it?” It then hit me. Could this be the answer to my everlasting rants? Would I end the “glazy eyes” look from everyone I talk to, and try to become a more normal human being with some better conversation than, “Did you hear that Intel released their new 45nm processor”?

Well, time will tell. I feel like it may definitely be an answer to my “problem”. In the meantime, I will take my friend Kevin’s advice and keep on writing…