Blogging in the new year

At the end of a new year its time to look back and analyze the blog and set some new goals and expectations for the new year.

High lights of this years blog:

• Starting a new blog on innovation and my career adventures
• Seeing my readership steadily grow
• Great feedback and comments from colleagues

Low lights of this years blog:

• No time to blog at all….. work, work, work
• No support from employer to blog effectively in terms of time and teamwork
• Most of my innovation meetings with companies are NDA – I can’t talk about the breakthroughs until they are reviled to the public, sometimes a year or two out

Goals and direction for 2010

• Personal commitment to blog each week – this will have to be done outside of work hours ( which are most hours of the day & evenings)
• Expanding blogging topics to include personal interests of design, philosophy, history, and martial fitness.   I will look to see how each relates to the world of innovation
• Describe more of my activities as a Strategy Advisor
• Share more of my experiences at industry conferences, events, and presentations
• Create more video content about innovation and emerging technologies on my youTube channel

Thank you to all my readers for your support and I look forward to continued interactions over this next year.

http://bit.ly/TomorrowFromToday

JOYS OF CHRISTMAS PAST – TODAY

In a world of every changing technology, products, and services.  Christmas offers a window back to a lifestyle that existed everyday in our yesterdays.   This Christmas was a special day for me in many ways.  Blessed with gathering of family and friends I took note of one of life’s daily companions that was not present……  Digital Communication.

Christmas was spent in traditional fashion.   The kids awakening the parents at early light.  The race downstairs to see the tidings that Santa and left.  Opening of stockings, large breakfast, and then presents under the tree.   The morning filled with laughter, surprises, pictures, conversations,  stories of childhoods past, well wishes, and thank you.   Each of which contributing to the shared memories and histories that create family legacies.

Honda Pilot Ready for winter

I washed and waxed the Honda Pilot a few weekends ago.  Today I got an early jump on winter with the arrival of my winter tire package from www.tirerack.com

The wheels are a Granite Alloy, split 5 spoke design.  I had to install the internal spacer to match the honda hub and a retaining clip.  The rims also came with the 315mhz value pressure sensors pre-mounted.

Mounted on the wheels are the new Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V1 light truck snow tires.  Snow tires in the midwest are quite an advantage over the stock all seasons I run in the other half of the year.  The rubber compound for all season tires is geared for a wide range of temperatures.  As temperatures drop below 40F the grip level of all season tires rapidly declines.  The rubber compound in the Blizzak tires in unique in a number of ways.  It is geared for high grip in the winter temperatures up to and exceeding below zero conditions.   The rubber is also made with a micro-cellular compound that involves tiny molecules of silicon to be mixed in the rubber.  As the tire wears it exposes the mixture of rubber and silicon resulting in a gritty finish to enhance grip on ice and packed snow.   The tread design also features the aggressive tread block for deep snow, but they are also cut with additional sipping to increase the number of bitting surfaces in the contact area.   Check out the tirerack website above for performance tests and videos of all season vs. snow tires.  The results are shocking and the performance is very real.

Surprisingly the new alloys and snowtires weighed nearly the exact 40lbs of the stock tires and rims.  On past cars I usually had some variance.  Last time it was 2lb per wheel/tire less.  Each 2lb of reciprocal weight equals about 1hp gained.   On my last vehicle I also realized about 2 mpg improvement, which was impressive, given mpg usually decreases in the cold weather.

Feel on the first drive was very similar in terms of acceleration/braking given the weight similarities.

The aggressive tread created a bit more road noise at speed.   The sidewall seemed a bit stronger, but the softer rubber compound of the snow tire combined with the tall tread block made it a bit squishier in fast corners.

All set for the white stuff….  let’s hope the new tires scare it away.

http://www.tomorrowfromtoday.com

Convertibles – enjoying the fall days of 2009

With the days growing shorter and temperatures sliding down the scale the fall colors are just beginning to arrive.   Over the next few weeks I’ll be enjoying the fall colors that signal the departure of summer and the transition of autumn.

With the hustle and bustle of the contemporary lifestyles, a convertible is a daily pleasure and reminder to smell the roses.   It is like a mini vacation inside of everyday.  Convertibles also are adventurous and take you down paths you rarely travel.  Searching for that new long way home opens door to new sights, sounds, and experiences.

If you’ve never owned a convertible in your youth and found the pleasures of sharing the experience with friends and significant others, I recommend you take the opportunity to do so.

Winter is the best time to purchase a new convertible, especially on a snowy day when car salesman are hungry to move a ragtop.

Make next spring an adventure.  Make everyday and exploration.   Don’t commute – drive…..

www.tomorrowfromtoday.com