Today is the first IVP day but could not make it to Gombak due to a tight agenda on my side, but the weather was very good for a track and field event today. Was around the Suntec area instead to attend an exhibition there and also on top of looking for a 3 multiscreen monitor mount for my Final Year Project gaming platform, but could not find any at all, even Carrefour don’t have it. I think the next best place would be Funan for such specialty product, even Simlim does not have it. Come worse to worse, I might need to fabricate my own in the workshop.

On the JobCentral Jobfair going on at the Suntec Convention center, the scary thing were the queues and the need to register to enter the exhibition area itself. Inconvenient, but that very much kept the crowd levels in the area very manageable.

Met my student development officer Ning who was at the fair too, being there on her own accord (the school didn’t send her in) with a friend I was surprised to find her there as well. We chatted on few issues namely the lower attendance and the possibility of me being unable to go on this year’s upcoming Medan Community service trip just like what we did last year helping children and elderly homes.

Alot of Suntec had changed too – the family link walk is now a lifestyle store area, Harley Norman is now an IT hub area and the kopitiam at the convention center is now like a food court with a very cool colonial setting. Collected my New balance real run race pack at Novena before popping by Orchard for the last league for today and dinner with my mum who was around the area (beside the rather interesting road side performances). Sheena was away with her school friends in Vivo.

Last but not least, got to play with a demo model of the N95 8GB in the various Nokia Stores I passed by today, namely around Suntec and Orchard. Got the word officially from Nokia Singapore staff that the N95 8GB will be out next week! (1st week of November) Retailing at $1244 without any contract.

First off, sorry for not updating for about a week. It had been a very very busy week with projects and doing 8-5 in the school project center. That took quite alot of time away from blogging, or just say I’ve not actually got into the regular habit or doing it with this new timetable, despite being in front of the computer working most of the time.

Nevertheless, in response to the various “OMG is Polar really that bad?” queries, apparently, it seems that the problems in distance measures seem to go away when I wear the footpod on my left foot. Largely yet strangely, I think it had something to do with how to fasten the footpod onto the shoe – as you know shoelaces tend to concave on top of your foot, it makes some kind of a semi circular “slider rail” which can cause the footpod to slide slanted to either side from the top center position, and since the footpod is a G-accelerometer device when that happens, there goes your distance measurements.

You can’t deny that there will be a variation each time you clip the footpod on, not to mention over the shoes you rotate for running, as it won’t sit in the exalt same position every time. The trick is to get to footpod to be locked into as many laces as possible, as far up front, so it will stay snuggly where it should be – on the top and center of your shoe, with that, you can minimise the errors you get from position variations. Of course this error won’t be as much as choosing to cut more corners in your route, it can be actually neglected. I tried it on separate runs without removing the footpod from my shoe at all and the distances vary about 1%, adjust the positions and the variations increase by up to 2%.

Of course there may be some other factors causing your footpod not to swing in a straight line, such as gait over/under pronation but often yield a slight 2-3% of the actual distance (that is where the footpod calibration factor comes into play).

All my runs now are at 1.000 calibration factor and distances are about 0.97% off the satelite distances I run. Not bad, wold be keeping more in the loop on future runs.

Woot, crossed the 800km mark for this year! 200km more to go for 1000km!

Was at Vivocity last Saturday while my parents are round there to do some regular grocery shopping in the area. Interesting in the fresh produce section, they have these signboards in front of every dustbin saying you can throw away anything which you find bad, rotten or not to standard. Won’t be surprised if we see people throwing anything into those bins!

FYP update
The thing with FYP now is lots of devotion spent into it, in fact as with my last weekend, almost working 7 days a week on it. Even making use of my free time out while shopping to check prices of any hardware store I come by “on the way” to search for prices to quote. I think it’s starting to get to me. Otherwise timeline-wise, the 2nd project week was rather slow as we had to deal and sort out contacts we needed for out projects. But things are expected to pick up this week when we send in our finalized designs in requirements to the fabricators and companies involved in providing the parts we require.

The project is just starting to get rather interesting now.

Brought out my RS400sd for a calibration run last Wednesday and it came out rather interesting distances, infact rather different from the distances I measured from google earth. Before my footpod days, I used to use google earth and pacing to gauge distances. However the thing with satellite images is that they are all flattened images, so distance measurements are all linear, ignoring vertical relief and terrain. So technically actual distances for a contoured run can vary to 10% more the actual google earth measured distance. Having a footpod and running computer will not only eliminate the error base don contours but also reduces the hassle of post race distance measurements/route planning.

Interestingly, on the footpod’s maiden run at the Ulu-Pandan park connector last Friday, it read 1.67km on a marked 2km stretch and 1.64km on the return, so that’s a 84% error, far off the claimed distance polar gave at 95% error. Not satisfied, I brought it down to a stadium track and did 400s there. It yielded 340/400m for clockwise loop and a similar 340/400 for anti-clockwise loop, still a 85% error. Bringing the calibration factor to about 1.1925. All these tests are conducted with the S1 mounted on my right foot.

Brought my baby down for my usual Sunday run at the Alexandra park connector, doing a google earth measured 16.7km run with the new calibration factor. This time having the footpod mounted on my left foot, the watch gave a 21.2km distance. Now it seems that the 1.000 calibration factor is more accurate! what is going on?

Initially I wanted to bring it on a treadmill to calibrate, but it turned out that it’s not a good idea to do so as treadmill themselves have to be calibrated as well. (Thanks to the SGrunners for the advice!)

It will be a few more runs and trail and error before I get the final magic number which suits me. So till I get my footpod properly calibrated, distance measurements for my weekly runs are still based off the satellite measurements from google earth:

Popped by Peninsula Plaza this evening to purchase my new Polar RS400sd, which I managed to get a “damned-good” lobang from a friend. Ahha! my first polar watch and a suitable successor to my Oakley O-matter sports watch. The functions and menus need some time to get accustomised to, but once using it for about 30mins, navigating the menus are like second nature.

I chose the RS400sd over the 800 mainly because of colour, don’t ask why but I simply love the dark grey/black metallic design far better than the all shiny silver, so that’s an issue on Polar side I guess- one less RS800sd sale due to the lack of colours… Moveover, though the RS800 is more future-proof and smaller, both have about the same weight (after holding both of them in hand, only the S1 is more bulky). Moreover, the new S3 footpod button battery is not as economical and convenient to replace compared to the S1 pod’s single AAA battery. I also do not want to take the risk whether the new 2.4Ghz W.I.N.D transmission frequency for the heart rate monitor is compatible with the current Precor Treadmills I normally use.

So far my experience with the watch had large been positive, with the exception of the buttons being rather hard to press for long periods of time (esp after calibrating and changing all the settings like shoe choice, run display screen layout, height, weight, etc besides time and date, just to name a few). The thing which I currently still can’t get the watch to do is to use a simple stopwatch function to time other runners for intervals without triggering all the computer gadgetry screaming “ahhh wheres the footpod? aahhhh where’s the wearlink?”. It seems that the watch is only made to time yourself running.

This is after all not a just watch but a running computer made into a watch. Looking back like the experience from the movie “Spy kids” they also have a watch which have all the damned functions in the world, only it does not tell time. Not that the RS400sd do not tell time, but I wish it being a watch, it should have at least all the independent stopwatch and countdown timers built into like a “mode” system which Casio made us all so accustomised to. Moreover, I wish the front display idle screen can be customised rather than displaying the generic “RS400″ dot matrix logo in front, what a waste of screen real estate which could be used to display something more valuable like an analog clock or a battery indicator etc, come worst to worst at least animate the RS400 Logo!

So far so good, would be calibrating the footpod tomorrow on a 10km run at Ulu-pandan canal.

The day was quite busy today, it started off in school with lots of planning and tying down of the final design, in which we will send out for external fabrication. Being a Wednesday, the day ended early at 3pm following a planned Track and Field meeting to attend for oh-my-gosh 10mins only before having to rush down to SGH for my Medical Appointment followup (As mentioned in my previous blog entry).

Things raised in the track meeting were mainly on the required need to print the IVP jackets and polo tee-shirts, tailoring training programs for the juniors and lastly a track and field gathering at Sentosa this Saturday. Headed down to Funan to check out the computer hardware prices for my FYP in comparison to that I’ve on record from SimLim Square.

Apparently, it seems given the exception of a few singled out product, almost all the other items in Funan are easily 5%-10% more expensive than what you get in Simlim Square- reliterating the obvious place for cheaper computer parts. Well, unless you are a tourist, simply like shopping in posh boutiques or simply can’t DIY a PC for nuts.

Theres a Nokia booth at the ground floor and what the least I can do but enquire on the upcoming Nokia N95 8GB. However, as expected the sales people there know nuts about the upcoming phone and can only give non-concrete predictions of release dates and prices based from previous model launch rates – “definitely more than $1000″- the?

This scenario is typical to that of Singapore PC exhibition shows as well, where the sales people there know as much of the product as the product information flyer they hand over to you, anything else our Singa trademark: “I dunno”.

At least I can give them a consolation that they even know that a Nokia N95 8GB exist, contrary to the N95 US version (launched this week) which they all simply just went “huh?”.

Sales people do your homework!

It seems that whenever you see a GP for a problem, it’s very interesting of one problem to pop up another, in my case from diarrhea to kidney stones? to kidney problems? whoa read on:

Dropped by SGH for a medical appointment follow-up today, apparently on a long story this case which started on early this year when I had a bad case of diarrhea, which strangely seems to be recurring like another previous incident 3 months before (last year). The GP who tended to me last year for this issue simply gave diarrhea medication and I recovered in about 2 days time, only to recur again early this year, where I visited the docs again.

The thought of a recurring incident of diarrhea could have sparked a thought of some infection or so (I had a fever then, where I could not only skip the long A&E waiting time for the short fever section queue and walk round the hospital in a cool a mask) so as the blood tests at that fevery time which emphasized large amounts of white blood cells, indicating an obvious sign of an infection. A subsequent gastro-intestinal X-ray showed some interesting results- since it was an X-ray we could see more or less “everything”. And though everything else was fine, the docs said that I may have kidney stones as there are spots in my bladder.. jang jang jang jang!

My first CT scan- whoa stargate wrap portal!
Later do I know after being referred to the Urology department in another separate future appointment, the docs there said that it’s not a stone, but an X-ray artifact. After all they are specialists in the field and can confirm that, regular A&E GPs may not be accurate in their diagnosis. But the thought of possible “stones” and “infection?” prompted a cool (but expensive) stargate entry style Siemens Somatom Definition CT scan which further confirmed the absence of kidney stones in another following appointment. Only that this time the CT scan report shifted the focus of the problem to my left kidney which looks slightly more engorged than the other, oh great…

After, its their job to further investigate on the issue- which prompted another CT scan last month, this time with contrast- having the need to poke and fill your bloodstream with with warm calmy liquid during the scan so that your veins will turn up emphasized like all-glowly on the CT images. It’s just like photocopying you with extra toner contrast, all crispy.

Organ Adaptation
The appointment today is a follow-up on the latest CT scan and the results? It seems that internal organs will evolve an grow to accommodate the user’s needs. Taking the Tour de France cyclists heart’s being 30% bigger than the average man. In my case, my constant high water consumption I take daily to keep up with my high weekly running mileage prompted my kidneys to be slightly larger to cope with my all the excess water, in this case, my left being bigger. It will look funny on the scan at first, but it’s completely healthy and functional.

Normal and as healthy as a horse!
The end diagnosis is completely normal, no blockage, no stones, no cancer, nothing. It turns out that sometimes, the tender areas (pain sensitive to touch/pressure) of my body are actually attributed by sore muscles after gym training, duh! I also had the luxury of having a full check and CT report for all my other vital organs as well, like the liver, pancreas, etc, all A-ok!

Looking back I think my 1st case of diarrhea could be caused by unclean food or possibly something which I simply have a reaction too, (in which I would have to keep tabs on).

A showcase of bodily art?
Having to go so numerous X-rays and CT scans till I am all green and glowy with radioactivity now, it’s just simply cool to see how all your insides are, especially the cross-sections you can see of yourself in a CT scan- simply a work of art of your beautify inner body lol!. The doctor also left a 1 year open period so I can check back direct if any issues were to arise, take it like a “warranty period”.

So much for that, the docs even encouraged me to go back full into running, yea!