I’m participating in a contest sponsored by ClockSpot an online time clock company. To participate I will be answering these questions.

“If you were responsible for producing the next revolutionary technology, what would it be? How would you use Clockspot to help your endeavor?”

I work in an office, an office with lots of low rise cubicles. I sit for about 15 hours a day between commuting, working and later watching TV. Because of this sedentary lifestyle and my lack of major exercise I have gotten fat. About a year ago I learned about the Treadmill Desk and the concept of NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up my own Treadmill Desk but I have not found the type of desk I’d really like. So this is what I would like to create.

The TreadRider Workstation

TreadRider Workstation

I’ve been reading more and more about James A. Levine, M.D. of Minnesota. He has created an “Office of the Future” with Treadmill Desks and a two lane walking track for meetings. That is great and all but with the focus simply on walking I think that people will get bored quickly.

The TreadRider Workstation would be a combination Treadmill/Recumbent Bike/Desk. This would revolutionize the way that people work and workout.

Let’s talk about the Treadmill – Since the main purpose of this treadmill is to be a part of a productive workstation it does not need many bells and whistles like high speeds or high inclines. When you are working and walking you will walk at 1 – 1 1/2 miles an hour. This is about constant motion to burn calories and not necessarily to push you into a high impact workout. The speed of one mile an hour is a natural speed at which people walk around the office most of the time so while it seems slow you can burn over 100 calories and hour and put in an eight hour day and now you’ve burned 800 calories in the day. So the treadmill can be very, very basic and still accomplish the workout goals. The treadmill could be lifted up and out of the way to clear space as well as for easy cleaning around the station.

The treadmill would also be completely integrated into the workstation and it would record your miles walked, calories burned and heart rate (with a monitor). I would also want to have the treadmill connected to ClockSpot so that when the user connects their laptop to the workstation and the treadmill starts up the user is automatically logged in to work for the day, disconnecting the laptop logs the user out for the day.

We’ll talk about the recumbent bike. The recumbent bike will be at a right angle to the treadmill so that this unit could be placed in the corner of a room or you could connect two TreadRider Workstations together. You could put four of them together too so that people could work on projects together and discuss with each other. I would also have the recumbent bike able to be lifted up off of the floor to be out of the way.

The Workstation – This would be a height adjustable desk that would have a docking station, wireless mouse, keyboard and a large monitor 23 inches at minimum because eye strain is a concern especially when being so further away on the recumbent bike. This could easily be solved with the ability to swing the monitor on an arm closer to the user. The station should also have cupholders for water and an integrated ipod/ipad dock and speakers. The desk itself will be able to rotate ninety degrees and come down in height to be used with the recumbent bike. The keyboard can be pulled forward and set on an incline so that your legs do not bang into the desk.

Many people have created their own versions of the treadmill or recumbent bike desk but none of them have the integrated productivity focus of the TreadRider Workstation.

We need to do something to battle the epidemic of obesity in this country and soon others. By integrating ways to incorporate NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) into your employee’s daily life you will revolutionize your workforce.

I’d like to thank Clockspot and FuelMyBlog for this contest and giving me the motivation to put out this idea.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Revolutionize a Healthy Working Environment

Photo-A-Day #1438

I swear, between what we order online and what I win online UPS, USPS and FedEx is staying in business. Today I received the copy of the FuelMyBlog Global Cookbook that I won. Ten winners were randomly selected and we each won a hard cover copy of this very nice cookbook. I’m still kicking myself for not submitting something like a Fry Sauce Recipe or something. Also it would have been nice to have one of my photos and a recipe part of a hardcover book. This time around FuelMyBlog is raising money for Stop Hunger, appropriate, with sales from this book. You can purchase your copy by going to Blurb at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/485233.

This book arrives at a great time since Allison and I have started to really get better about planning out meals for the week by using recipes. I’m sure we’ll find something worth making from this book.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

FuelMyBlog Global Cookbook has Arrived

I’m a bit sad about this one. I really needed to get my butt in gear and submit a recipe to the Global Cookbook. This was a project that was put together by the fine folks at FuelMyBlog. The book is in and the are giving away 10 copies. The book was made through Blurb and if you wanted to purchase one you could do so by going to The Global Cookbook on Blurb.

The great thing about FuelMyBlog is the global feel of the site and the blog, Kevin and Sylvie are such wonderful people and as I was starting out as a blogger they helped me so much. With this book they are helping others. The Proceeds from this book will go to Stop Hunger so not only you will have a unique cookbook but you will also be helping this amazing charity.

Had I actually gotten my butt in gear and submitted a recipe I wonder if I would have given out my Fry Sauce one, My Grilled Peanut Butter and Pickle one or my Poor Man Truffle’s one.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Another Boat Missed

As I return home from Blog World Expo I wanted to thank the people responsible for sending me to the conference. First there is FuelMyBlog, they partnered with Picapp to do a contest to send someone to Blog World Expo. FuelMyBlog has been very good to me over the years and they are run by some excellent people. If you haven’t signed up you certainly should do so.

But the people who actually paid for me to attend were from Picapp. Picapp paid for my flight, my hotel and my conference admission. They were so great when things didn’t go exactly as planned when I checked in for the conference but they handled things so well. If you were at Blog World Expo you should have stopped by the booth to learn all about their service. It has just gotten so much better because the code for the images in now in HTML and that means better SEO for people who use the photos. But I’ll let the video explain things better.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Thank You Picapp

Photo-A-Day #1228

At lunch today one of my co-workers says that there is some trucker sunbathing in the parking lot. Apparently this guy pulled his truck into the parking lot to catch some Z’s and also to get a quick tan. I figure he parked the truck like that so that no one “on the ground” could see him, however we were the eye in the sky. Luckily this guy didn’t mind having tan lines.

Today was an absolute nuts day. So crazy indeed because two awesome things happened today and they both involve Blogging and trips.

First Off I found out this morning that I won the FuelMyBlog/Picapp Blog World Expo Contest. I posted the most picapp images over on my blog Google is Not God. Yes there was some strategy involved. I wanted to win and win badly so I didn’t want everyone to be checking up on how many photos I posted. I also posted on average 10 images a day, that would be 5 posts with 2 images each, from July 18 to August 15th. The work paid off because I ended up with the most and no I have won airfare to and from the event, hotel and admission to the expo. Can you say WICKED SWEET!!!

The other crazy thing that happened today was that I was contacted by WOM World / Nokia. They sent me a Nokia 3555 to test out and review a while back and I did so. Then I sent that phone back and got a Nokia 5310 to test. I was planning on writing up my review of that phone today but before I could I got the e-mail from Colin. You see, WOM World / Nokia is teamed up with NokiaProductions to create a user generated feature length movie that will be directed by Spike Lee. Well that is great and all but that is not the best news. Colin e-mailed me to ask if I wanted to go to LA to film some famous movie death scenes to enter into the competition to be in the movie. Here is what he said.

I’m writing to invite you to take part in a mobile film challenge in LA on August 20th as part of a new Nokia project. We’re only inviting 4 people, and it should be a pretty exciting day, so I hope you can join us.

I know you have already been involved in Nokia Productions, in our mobile film challenge, we hope to get you involved in creating some content for the movie, and generally being part of a unique social media experiment. We’d like to challenge you to come out with us into L.A. and re-create 2 famous movie death scenes, using whatever props and locations you can find. We’ll lend you Nokia devices to record the scenes and one of the project’s assistant directors will be with you to advise and help out. We will cover travel costs and fly you over to LA as well as supplying a hotel for the evening. The scenes will be submitted to the Nokia Productions site with the chance of being used in the final film, and you can rally your community to give you live online help and feedback throughout the day and submit death scenes of their own. We’ll then head to a Dave Matthews concert in the evening to relax!

The best death scene submitted to the site is also in with a chance of winning a ticket to the Hollywood premiere of the final film.

I asked Allison if she would mind me being gone for a night or two to LA. She was cool with it because of the awesome opportunity. I then asked my boss and she was wicked excited about it. You might recall that I’ve made a video or two in the past, this time however I have to recreate a famous death scene from a movie, actually two of them. I’m not sure if I will have actors or anything but I want to at least do the scene from the Princess Bride where The Dread Pirate Roberts squares off with the Sicilian. I think that brings plenty of comedy to death. Before you go balking at filming death scenes you have to realize what the whole project is about, the project theme is humanity and it is in three parts, Birth, Life and Death.

I get my flight info and hotel booked tomorrow. What a quick notice and turn around. So incredible. I got the itinerary later this evening and it looks like a jam packed day.

Wednesday 20/08/08

11:00 – Meet with Colin & Donna from WOM World / Nokia and other attendees for meet and greet at the Hotel Angeleno on the crossroads of Brentwood and Bel Air.

11:30 – Create Famous Movie Death Scene One

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – Create Famous Movie Death Scene Two

15:30 – Head back to Hotel for time online, to upload created content, and mash-up final Death Scenes

17:00 – Dinner at Hotel

18:30 – Leave Hotel (in taxi’s) heading to the Staples Center for Dave Matthews Band concert.

23:00approx – Leave Staples Center and head back to Hotel (in taxi’s)

Thursday 21/08/08

09:00 – Breakfast and Hotel checkout.

10:00 – Depart Hotel

So all in all this was a pretty amazing day to be a blogger, and specifically to be Me as a blogger. I knew that accepting the chance to review the phone with no pretense no compensation it would someday pay off. I also knew that if I worked really hard I’d get to go to Blog World Expo again. I just can’t believe that it all came together on one single day.

I also got my Moo cards for IZEAFest 2008, Blog World Expo and for this trip for Nokia Productions.

Does anyone have any ideas for things I should film as famous death scenes. I won;t do major blood and guts ones, something different, not gory, not terribly violent or bloody. Something that will stand out. My first choice is the scene from Princess Bride. I need a couple other ideas though. Please Help.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Maxin’ and Relaxin’