Why, you tempt them with technology and the promise to see their progress visualized, of course!  Having a little motivation (ie: roller derby) doesn’t hurt either.  You see, I haven’t even thought about running since a season-long track and field career in high school.  And even then I was more of a sprinter than long distance.

The Key Tools

iPhone 3GS

Every iPhone 3GS (and iPod touch!) ships with the Nike+ app already built in—it will record your workouts including distance, time, and pace.  When you plug your iPhone into your computer, it will automatically send your workout history to your nike.com account.

Nike+ Sensor

The Nike+ sensor is a small accelerometer that you’re supposed to put into a Nike+ shoe.  As you walk, jog, or run,  it broadcasts a signal to your Nike+ app on the iphone or ipod.  Apparently some girlfriends are nervous that their significant others might start using it as a surveillance device.  I dont know about you, but I never wear running shoes so I’m not going to start to worry about that.  So as I said before, you’re supposed to buy fancy $100 Nike shoes to put this little guy into well… I’m not keen on dropping $100 on shoes unless they’re cute, and that brings us to our next tool:

A Box Cutter

I used this to cut a slit in the tongue of one of my sneakers and planted the sensor deep down in there.  No $100 shoes for me, hell, I didn’t even have to buy a $3 sensor pouch.  Just some purely Macgyver type stuff.

The Couch to 5k App

When I used to actually have a gym membership (purely for the classes and treadmills) I gave the Couch to 5k running plan a shot.  However, it was super annoying to keep an eye on the time and remember how long to walk and jog.  I always thought about making a playlist in GarageBand where I could put in verbal cues of when to walk and jog.  This was before the days that I actually owned an iPhone, and after minimal research I found the Couch to 5K iphone app.  For $2.99 I could have all the verbal cues to tell me to run and walk and cooldown I ever wanted.

What’s great about the Nike+ app is that it will play your selected playlist and continuously run in the background until you stop or pause your workout.  This allows you to run the Couch to 5K app which will play the verbal cues loud enough to hear over your music, and you can always unlock the screen to see the countdown to the next cue (and to the end of the workout if you’re lazy!)

But what surprised me most about my first time running outdoors in about 4 years is that I ran 2.4 miles!  In about 30 minutes!  I know that’s not amazing by most peoples standards, but I don’t think I ever even came close to a 13-minute mile in high school.  I hated gym class.  I especially hated the presidential fitness test.  I attribute my pace to endurance practices at roller derby.  Not only did I crush my expectations in my first workout, but I got home and immediately posted the results to my nike.com account for everyone to see… and that’s what’s going to keep me running in the future.

So, if you don’t follow me on twitter, or you’re not my friend in real life, you might not know that I recently started getting into roller derby!  It all started when Chino’s old roommate (who is a referee) invited us to our first bout this past summer.  It was a double header so we saw the Yankee Brutals and The CT Death Quads jam it out against the opposing teams.  I was in love the whole time.  Then I saw Whip It! and I was reminded how much I wanted to give derby a shot.  About four weeks ago I was in the car with Chino and I finally admitted it out loud—”I think I really want to try out for roller derby.”  I found out that try outs were in a week so I borrowed skates from my friend Jay, practiced in the local high school parking lot after work a couple of times, and 3 weeks ago I tried out.  And guess what?!  I made the cut to stick around for rookie practices!  Today I got my first pair of skates and I can’t wait until practice tomorrow to start breaking them in.  Ahh!  So exciting.

PS: My favorite roller derby name is Em Dash, a jammer from Gotham Girls Roller Derby.  Hopefully I’ll make the team and get to pick a name of my own!

You didn’t think I’d let October go by without posting, did you?  I never imagined a semester full of liberal arts requirements would be so time-consuming.  Written assignments instead of designed assignments has been a weird change that is proving hard for me to adjust to.

I haven’t made much progress on my thesis yet, either.  We spent the first half of the semester doing semi-unrelated assignments like visualizing a book, designing a personal timeline, and bringing in our favorite piece of work we’ve created. To say the least, it wasn’t inspiring.  I kept producing info graphics for any assignment that called for a designed solution, and I got reprimanded for stealing typefaces from an old internship and using them on a personal project for school (that was also one of my favorite pieces that I planned on bringing into class.)  Word of advice: even though everyone else does it, that doesn’t mean it’s OK to steal typefaces from your internship… even if you’re a poor student and are using them for school projects only.

At first I thought I wanted to make a mash-up of fffound, flickr, and delicious where you could upload inspirational images and tag them.  If you found an image you liked on the site it would automatically download it to your ‘inspiration folder.’  Then I realized how boring and uncreative that idea was, and that even though I’d learn a lot by building it, it is just too big of a project to take on and build in 4-6 months.  Then, in an effort to scale down, I thought I could tag all the images I had saved on my computer and create a data visualization of what inspires me.  Then I realized that nobody cares as much about me as I do.  And so… I moved on.

I read Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin for fun—and it reminded me of my experiences in middle school/high school (I think honestly every girl could relate to it.) Then I found Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn at my local library and started reading it (I think everyone should read this book, I wish I had read it sooner.)  This was around the same time we started talking about media and body image in my Psychology of Eating Disorders class, the Situationists in my Urban Branding class, and cultivating identity in my Uniform Fashion class.  All of a sudden it was like I finally felt that fire again—like I had discovered something to care about enough to make/design/build something around it.  I’m not really sure how this will tie together in the end…  but stay tuned.

Smashing Magazine offers 45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires.

Computer Arts has 31 Tips for a Better Portfolio.

It has nothing to do with design, art, or anything of the sort—but sometimes you just need to smile and watch a little kid paralell park his toy car.

I’m addicted to Auto-Tune the News, if you’re not familiar CLICK HERE.

Kris Atomic has a new layout.  More importantly she has updated for the first time in forever with a handful of new drawings.

So far I’m in love with the following S/S 09 shows (keep in mind I’m writing this on Saturday): Charlotte Ronson,
Rag & Bone, and Costello Tagliapietra.