Rusharound

Hanging out with our friends in Mystic, CT always inspires me. This weekend’s trip to see Lenny perform in a community production of Our Town, and watching Hank and Willie’s mom wield her blog around inspired me to do a bit of improvement right here on Rusharound.com. I’ve changed all the colors and added live-updating Netflix and AllConsuming lists. (See ’em over there to your right?). I hope you find this place a comfortable spot to land your browser, put your feet up, and maybe get inspired yourself

Remember a while ago when we asked for help naming the bamboo stalks we got for Christmas? Despite excellent suggestions from many of you (thanks Hoss and Ken, especially), none of the suggested names really felt right. That is, until the other night when the names found us — the characters from our favorite (cancelled) show, Arrested Development.

Without further ado, meet Lupe, Lucille, and Lucille (larger photo) (and their Arrested Development alteregos, Lupe and The Lucilles).

Bonus: Hear Lucille’s famous dramatic line

The good people over at Treehugger recently alerted the blogosphere of some British chaps advocating for sensible highway driving speeds. 70Max.com details the environmental, safety, and economical reasons to go easy on the gas pedal, and I’ve decided to give it a try myself.

Seeing the 70max sticker in my rearview mirror — instead flashing blue lights that have appeared there in my earlier days — should help remind me of my pledge.

Before you speed off to read your next blog, use the comment section to tell us your typical highway cruising speed — and whether you think there’s any sense in backing it off to a “mere” 70MPH.

When I came back from lunch on Wednesday, my coworkers were crowded around a magazine and giggling. I thought one of them had discovered Playboy – but it turned out to be just the opposite. They were laughing at the unattractive male pictured in a hat catalog — Me. (In 2003 I had a friend who created their catalog. He had 6 hours to come up with an “action shot.”  The picture here is all the action I could muster.)

The scooter made a real life re-appearance this week, too, returning from the mechanic’s with a new hub seal and glove box lock. Sarah and I can hardly wait to get out there and do some trips (like the one to Martha’s Vineyard).

See what that lady is doing over there? That’s how Sarah and I spent last weekend, except that we were kneeling on the finely carpeted floor that hosted our wedding at New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court in Newport, RI.

If you haven’t taken a first aid / CPR course in awhile, you’ll be surprised how much it has changed. Remember all the mental flow charts and if-then statements that detemined whether to treat for stroke, shock, heart attack or anything else? They’ve pretty much done away with all of that in favor of a simple Call a doc, Yell for an AED, and Start chest compressions. And while you’re down there, treat for shock, too. Taking the medicine out of emergency medicine is a relief to those of us with short memories, seems weird still. Can it really be this simple?

Warning to co-workers: I’ve been trained to “treat first / diagnose later” — falling asleep at your desks could result in broken ribs.

I discovered a neat service today. Simulscribe intercepts your voicemail, converts the messages to text, and delivers them to you as email or a text message. If you know me, you know how much I hate listening to voice mails, but how frequently I check email. So I’m trying the service.

Simulscribe is a direct competitor to Spinvox, which is the darling of Guy Kawasaki, (who may have met Kevin Bacon). I am trialing Simulscribe because it is cheaper than SpinVox and US-based. (Spinvox allegedly had a problem with Sprint PCS, but that may have been resolved by now.) Read the rest of this entry »

My colleague Evan is noted for, among other things, generating enough static electricity to inadvertently reset the clock in his microwave. Just walking by Evan is a risky proposition. So I decided to take action. On Monday I will deliver to Evan his own automatic anti-static sprayer. Its a simple machine that is triggered when he steps on the threshold. More pictures and a video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year at work* there’s a March Madness series where employees get to shoot hoops at our weekly meeting. I joined forces with a colleague (also named Sarah, but distinct from my wife of the same name) and formed The Athleasts. We got ourselves all dressed up for action… …and got knocked out of the series due to my poor performance.

The pictures prove we had a good time and might even make some money for the local Boys and Girls Club (Archive for use after page expires).

(* I think this might be the first time i’ve written about work here.)