Will Amazon Kindle Your Interest ?

I’m very intrigued by Amazon’s new Kindle device.

Dave Davison, IT venture capitalist and visualization maven, is very high on the potential of Kindle:

Amazon “kindles” a new fire in electronic book reading. This 6 minute video shows how you will use this new portable, 10.3ounce, paperback size device. Download your reading library via a wireless connection just like calling on your cell phone. This device and the kindle service will revolutionize the book, magazine,newspaper and blog publishing media space.”

Count me as an avid reader and collector of books but if Amazon has truly solved the ” reading online” problem that causes me to print out anything longer than a handful of pages, with a vision-friendly, virtual-paper screen, then I’d be keen to own a Kindle. Just putting all of my magazines on it to reduce clutter or using it to read on the treadmill instead of lugging books in my gym bag, would be worth it. I would also speculate that, if you buy an absurdly large number of books annually, as I do, a kindl could allow you to purchase strategically; some in dead-tree version and some virtual form, and accumulate a considerable cost savings.

I would also expect that, as a platform, the uses for Kindle are only going to grow.

Cross-posted at Zenpundit

Addendum to the Physical Fitness Series

I’ve been training with weights for over twenty years and have passed through various phases of bodybuilding, powerlifting, “strongman”-type odd lifts, crosstraining and other forms of conditioning. I’ve seen a wide variety of training techniques, been employed as a personal trainer and met a number of professional athletes, coaches and world class amateurs in my time. I’d pretty much thought that I’d seen everything there was to see in a weight room.

My gym is quite large and it keeps a sizable number of personal trainers on a staff, including a couple of advanced specialists. Recently, I’d noticed that among them were a handful of trainers who had their clients regularly performing a rather odd combination of exercises in very short succession – they were hoisting kettlebells, then running over to a bench press followed by a set of power cleans to exhaustion. I’ve seen them pull out gymnastic rings, squat while holding an olympic bar in overhead press position and try to chin themselves into a back spasm. Today, one of the few female trainers who doesn’t look like she emigrated from the old German Democratic Republic, had a middle-aged dude trying to do some kind of deadlifting circuit, then bench then clean and jerk with a deep squat position. He was sort of fading on that exercise.

Generally, I mind my own business when I’m working out but I finally had to ask what in the sam hill they thought they were doing.

Evidently, there’s a kind of weightlifting cult out there revolving around a website called Crossfit.com that publishes a workout of the day that is religiously followed by devotees in gyms across America. Despite some of the kookiness I’ve witnessed firsthand, the training philosophy Crossfit offers has some merit, particularly if your real passion is another sport for which you need improved conditioning. They have trainees moving weights as athletically as possible using compound movements with very little rest, which replicates how your body might apply strength with speed while in motion. The program is not going to build overwhelming strength or size but from my observations the serious Crossfit trainees get the kind of rugged, muscular endurance and short bursts of power you see in good collegiate wrestlers. They also tend to lean out a bit, an added bonus, though this is negated by the glassy-eyed look trainees get when they discuss the work-out of the day. Too reminiscent of Amway salesmen and Hari Krishna guys at airports.

I’m not going to join the cult. I like specializing in lifting very heavy weights (ok – relatively heavy weights these days) but I might sneak in their more practical routines to round out my fitness profile.

As A Personal Aside, I Have To Say…

That I have broken bread with Lexington Green on but two occasions. Both were highly interesting experiences for me. If you get a similar opportunity, I strongly recommend that you accept.

Boomers Like It Hot

A&L links to Sacha Pfeiffer’s “Some Like It Hot”

“Whether they’re trekking to the newest Nicaraguan, Tunisian, or Vietnamese restaurant, picking up cooking tips from intrepid TV chefs, or prowling the aisles of international markets, boomers want strong, complex flavors and new preparations to jazz up their daily fare.”

We boomers keep going – and going – and going.     The Viagra of the culinary orgies has become, apparently, hot sauce and, as our taste buds decay, we buy chili peppers and cayenne garlic hot sauce.

Tonight we ate at one of the fancier local places and I ordered, baby boomer that I am, a chipotle penne pasta in cream sauce.   It may have looked like comfort food but after the fourth glass of water, I gave up.   Maybe my buds (unlike other parts of me) haven’t deteriorated all that much.   Or maybe I’m just too old to take the heat.