STRAVA MULTIPLE RIDE MAPPER

I love technology, things like computers, smartphone, and programming.  I also enjoy long distance running as a form of exercise.  It's wonderful when the two areas of my life converge.  Through a blog comment, I learned about the tool called Strava Multiple Ride Mapper (SMRM), http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php .  It's a web form that lets you specify a range of dates to load your Strava activities and put them all on a map.  It works for most Strava activities, like running and walking, not just bicycle rides.  My first use for it was to make a word without having connecting lines between the letters.  It can be done but it's tedious.  You have to end a run after each letter.  Three-letter word would mean three separate runs.  I think the system that I have in place, whereby most of the time the letters are linked at the bottom, works fine for me.  It does save time, like if you make the letter U you can just end at the upper right corner instead of having to run back down to the bottom of the letter.  But as I said, it is too much work, from my point of view.  I also don't like to monopolize people's Strava feed.  For example, if I spell Strava with SMRM, that's six separate runs, or six entries in the Strava feed of people who follow me there.  I just don't like it.  I regularly unfollow people on Facebook who regularly post nothing but links to YouTube videos, one after another.

What SMRM is great for is to make phrases and I put it to use with my latest three runs.  The phrase is Live Laugh Love, that cheesy phrase seen all over Etsy.  I planned the words so that they are kinda strung together but not on the same baseline.  I like to work with rectangular grids but there is not enough room to spell all three words across.  It may be possible to stack them but I really like how the phrase turned out.  It's irregular, less boring, somewhat whimsical.

A few tips on using SMRM:

• You do have to grant SMRM access to your Strava account.  If you are hiding from The Man, or working for The Man on a secret mission, this is not for you.  You probably shouldn't be using Strava in the first place anyway.  Or something like that, you know what I mean.
• Have patient once you click that Load button.  It takes a while to parse through your Strava activities to find matching info.  Not only can you specify the date range, you can also select type of activity, whether to ignore Commuting entries, etc.  Give it some time.
• While the tool works on smartphones, it's best used on a desktop or laptop computer.  If you have to do it on a smartphone, put the phone in landscape mode first.

A wish-list:

• Strava recently switched to OpenStreetMap and while there are some downside to it, a welcomed change is the lack of all these local businesses clogging the map.  Google makes some money with all that info, not the open-sourced OpenStreetMap.  I wish SMRM would get away from GoogleMap too.
• There's a link called Download KVM but it doesn't work.  I love to explore all the features of a given app or tool, but clicking that link only produces the error message There was a problem generating the KML file, please try again.
• Similarly, if you try to give the author feedback, the link for that gives me the error Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress. I don't know what that means and don't want to go through the trouble of "fixing" my system just to leave a comment.

The author, Jonathan Okeeffe, actually has a few Strava tools offered.  I find SMRM useful and made a donation.  Check it out and donate if you agree it's a good tool to support.

WII FIT PLUS SEGWAY CIRCUIT

When I feel lazy in Wii Fit Plus, I merely play the Balance Games instead of doing yoga poses or strength exercises.  The nice thing with Wii Fit Plus is there are many more so-called Balance Games.  Wii Fit Plus may call them something else, but they are basically games, something more interesting than the regular exercises.  I got pretty good with all the games and was able to secure the top spot, or completed all the levels.  Until I hit Segway Circuit.  Pretty much the only control you have is lean forward to move forward and lean backward to, uh, move backward.  Well, you also turn left and right by turning the WiiMote, which you hold horizontally with two hands, the front of the WiiMote (the part where the infrared light shoots out) pointing to your left.  The goal of the game is to go around bumping into beach balloons that were inflated by moles or gophers.  There is a time limit and the last mole has rocket-propeller to travel faster.  With the Amateur Level, it took me a while to realize that the only to catch up to the Last Mole is to use a ramp to speed up.  One bump into The Boss Mole, I think, and it's game over for Mr. Mole.  Or at least that's what I vaguely recall.  I should go back to it just for fun.

For the longest time, or at least it seems so, I was stuck with the Advanced Level.  There are more beach balls to bust and that Last Mole was impossible to catch.  Through some YouTube video, I learned that once you have the puppy to follow you, pressing A sic the dog to the Balloons.  It saves you time from having to traverse the distance to bust the Balloons yourself.  Just travel a bit toward a Balloon, press A, then the dog will do its job.  Be careful not to press A too many times.  Press once to get the Balloons busted by the dog, but don't press too quickly or you will call the dog back to you.  Another button that is useful to know is the 1 key.  In the overview map on the right, pressing 1 will zoom out a little bit to show you where the Balloons are, so you don't end up wandering all over searching for them.  Lastly, don't bump into the Moles while they are above ground.  You lose points and I think it makes them run away to another hole, making it harder for you to bust the Balloons.

Even with more time at the end to chase the Last Mole, I still couldn't catch it.  Eventually, I realized that the dog can only do so much work.  It may slow the Mole so that I can bump into it, to bust its on-board balloon.  The on-board balloon is replaceable, so pop one and another one comes out.  Only after the third balloon popped that you would be done.

I am now on the Expert Level and it seems to be even more difficult.  There are buildings to go around, Balloons may be on the sidewalk or within some place that's higher than the road, thus your progress is slow.  I think the trick is to get the dog as soon as possible.  Luckily, the dog seems to be in the same spot all the time.  In the Advanced Level, it's under the tree on the left if you make the first right turn on the road.  In the Expert Level, it's between the building in town.  I will try to ignore all the Balloons and go hook up with it next time.  That may be the only way to quickly bust all the Balloons, with the dog's help, to have more time to defeat The Boss.