Category: Life
Departing from Viddler
After about 10 months at the internet start-up Viddler, I have decided to move on to something that better suits me. I am moving back into the media business with a company named Journal Register Company. I am very excited for this transition and to get back to something I never knew I enjoyed so much until I left it, the news.
Viddler is full of great people, smart people and they have developed a great product and I have no doubts they will be around for years. Personally, it just wasn’t fulfilling. I didn’t find myself growing like I would have liked to, really pushing the envelope of what I know I am capable of. Some of this is my fault, just lack of passion for this particular business; but all-in-all I am extremely happy that I took the chance to try something new and meet a lot of great people along the way. My last day at Viddler with be March 12th and I start JRC on the 15th.
This is actually quite comical because about 6 years ago I started at Tribune Company on March 15th as well. Must be something magical about this date. Maybe it’s destiny, uh, maybe not; just coincidence?
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Nike+ vs. Runkeeper
Okay, I have been a loyal Nike+ user for probably close to 3 years, that is until recently. The sensor for my shoe went dead, which is fine, it happens. I shelled out another 14 dollars and purchased a new one. No big deal. When it arrived I swapped out the old one and went out for a run.
The first thing you must do is calibrate your new sensor so that is can return the correct mileage as you run. My first sensor I calibrated for a quarter mile and it was pretty spot on for every run for almost 3 years. This one…not so much. I have calibrated it at least 10 times and even tried running with it uncalibrated; which the manual said will work for most runners. Lies all lies. I have calibrated from a quarter mile all the way up to a mile and every time I use it, it’s off by at least a half mile.
I can understand some margin of error but a half mile is a lot. I also noticed the longer I ran, the more it was off. A 5K was a half a mile off and a 5 miler was 3/4 of a mile off. This is unacceptable. I started to look for alternatives, where to look? My iPhone. I have an iPhone 3G no S so I can’t use the Nike+ that comes standard in the new 3GS. No biggie. I tried a few apps and settled on RunKeeper.
They have a free version and a paid version. The free version does not give feedback while you run which is important to me for motivation so I paid for the pro app, a measly $9.99 dollars. Also the free app is ad supported and the pro version is not.
The best 10 bucks I’ve spent. It has a good web site, great app and runs off GPS so it is pretty spot on. If you do not have good GPS reception in your area, I wouldn’t look at using this but for me, it was perfect. I took it out for a spin and the mileage was exact.
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A Growing Family
Recently we’ve expanded our family by one. We had another little girl named Ivy Elyse Johns on January 12th of this year. We have another beautiful daughter named Anya who is two and a half.
Ivy Elyse
This ends the first full week of us having Ivy home and it has been a great deal more challenging than we had anticipated. We really thought it would be easier this time around since we were such frantic first-time parents a little over two years ago.
What we didn’t think about was Anya not really digging her little sister and becoming a little tougher to handle. She is doing great with it and we expected some slack from her, but I guess we under-estimated her will to be the only child 
The other thing we forgot about is only getting two hours of sleep at a clip. This I don’t miss, being a walking zombie, chugging monster to stay awake and being ruder to folks than I would like to be. This will all pass, that I know. Just trying to get back into a routine of no sleep, doing good work, being a good father and husband all in a 24 hour span of the day.
I know I can do it all, I just have to find the balance, the new routine, my Zen. Maybe get back into meditation, maybe a drink or two (half kidding) or maybe just trying to get to bed earlier. Not sure at this point, but by trial and error I will figure it out.
To all those whom I have been short with this week, I apologize. To any drivers that I have cut-off, given the bird, honked at, please forgive me. And to all those folks whom I have been nice to no matter what, consider yourself lucky.
Anyone out there have similar experiences? Any advice for getting back on track?
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Welcome to Phraction
Wow, it’s been a heck of a long time but things have calmed down (a bit) and I decided to bring my blog back to life. When I last left off I was using this space for a side-company that I used to do web development and design for. It was my company named ‘Phraction’ and we would do simple local sites, job boards, etc.
Since that time I began working harder at The Morning Call in Allentown, PA and I am now currently working at Viddler. My wife and I now have two kids, we recently moved and a loving yellow lab named Farley.
I intend to use this space for a few things I am passionate about: Life or my family, Music and Code. Pretty much in that order. I have a wide variety of other things I like to do such as run, play Mario Brothers, have a random or not so random Rum and Coke, but in large those are the most important things in my life.
So I quickly made this template (Work-in-Progress) and I am writing this post. Well that about sums up where I am coming from, so watch this space for some meaningful and well quite frankly some not so meaningful insight.
Regards and thanks for reading.
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