I honestly don't care to run for running's sake. I enjoy running around a field playing Ultimate, but running just to run isn't normally my idea of a good time.

That has somewhat changed thanks to a tiny gadget from Nike and Apple: The Nike+iPod sport kit. You put a sensor in your shoe, attach a receiver to your iPod and it keeps track of how far and how fast you've run.

Thanks to this small device, I still don't enjoy running, but I dislike it less. Here's why (in no particular order):

I'm a bit of a sucker for stats. I like charts and graphs. After uploading run data, I can look and see how fast (or slow, as the case may be) I was going and keep track of how far I've run in the past day, week, month, etc.

(those dips are where I had to wait for traffic before crossing the street)

A little friendly competition/sibling rivalry doesn't hurt. Though I won't be running the farthest in 30 days, or have the fastest mile by the the end of March, it's nice to see how I stack up against friends and family -- mostly family :).

Thirdly, running does give me a chance to listen to otherwise neglected podcasts. My train-ride to and from work is good for this, too, but that's not long enough to get through an episode of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me." Strapping on the shoes and pounding the pavement gives me some extra quality time with my new media.

And though I haven't tried them yet, there are even workout-themed playlists you can buy from the iTunes store. One is a treadmill workout set to OK Go and there are other playlists (iTunes link) for specific goals like speed or endurance training.

So it is thanks to technology that I am motivated to leave the comforts of my couch and TiVo and live a less sedentary life.

Update: March 5

The results for the first month are in. I only ran four times, so my results are expectedly low. I'm encouraged, though, because the winner ran a little over 30 miles in 30 days. If I run 2 miles every other day during the next challenge, I should end up near the top.

Time to lace up the shoes.

I was watching 30 Rock today (three cheers for time-shifting), and noticed something odd about this scene:

Look closely. Here I'll help:

Now look at this photo.

Anything look familiar?

A while back my digital camera stopped working properly. I had it in a plastic bag with a leaky water bottle and it ended up getting wet.

I let it dry for two days but when I turned it on, the buttons on the back didn't work right. One or two did what they were supposed to, but the others did what other buttons should have done. The net result was that I could take pictures with my camera as long as I was happy with the settings as they were (macro active, flash on) -- which I wasn't.

Since I couldn't really use it, I decided to take it apart.

I got the front cover off, but couldn't really get it apart beyond that. The circuit board and other pieces seemed to have been glued to the back piece, and I didn't want to break it completely. I noticed some sticky gunk on one of the ribbons, which I swabbed clean with a damp paper towel.

As I was turning the exposed innards around in my hand, a small piece fell out. It looked like the pin of a hinge, but I couldn't figure out where to put it back, so I just reattached the face plate without it.

Once the screws were back in, I turned it on to see if I'd messed it up any further.

Lo and behold, all the buttons worked normally. I was able to change all the settings and it took photos and video as it had before the accident. I suppose maybe it was the sticky gunk causing the problem, but I prefer to think I'm like Micah on "Heroes" and have a gift for electronics.