I’ve recently enhanced my stationary bike – a Yosuda Magnetic Exercise Bike – by adding cadence and speed sensors and by wearing a heart rate chest strap monitor.

I’ve connected the sensors and heart rate monitor to the SuperCycle Bike Computer app (available on Google Play) on my phone via Bluetooth and can now track the data on my phone and plan a training routine to help me achieve my fitness goals.

This week I’ve started a rudimentary biking program. Since I’m just getting started after the past 2 years of hardly moving much my current goals are quite conservative. But I will adjust my goals as my mobility and fitness is improved.

I subscribe to interesting blogs and websites. Unfortunately many websites promote subscriptions to its newsletter and doesn’t publish its RSS feed information.  I found the website, linked below, that helps me find the feed for any website making it easy for me to subscribe to the website using my favorite RSS feed reader:

RSS Lookup

 

Favorite Book: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Ann Dillard

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

I’ve started reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the nth time and am enjoying it so much!

Moving my focus from Microsoft, Windows and Office to Linux and Open Source Applications

In my quest to move away from Windows and Microsoft, I bought a used Windows 10 laptop that I will use to learn what I need to know about Linux. I plan to set up the laptop to run both Windows 10 and Linux and then use it to get some hands on experience with Linux.

I have several friends and family members who have Windows 10 computers that are not upgradeable to Windows 11. I hope to get all my Windows computers converted to Linux and also help them convert their computers over to Linux in the next several months. This laptop will be my test case.

I’m a little nervous and a bit intimidated by the learning curve, but I am looking forward to success with Linux

Georgia Magazine: Stitch in time

The April 2025 edition of Georgia Magazine has a great article in it about lacemaking and highlights the Atlanta Chapter of the International Organization of Lace. Two NeedleNerd members are mentioned in the article:

Sandra Eichelberger had been a regular participant at our meetings when she lived in Douglasville, but she moved to Decatur several years ago and so we don’t see her very often these days. I hope that she’ll find some time in her schedule to come out to one of our meetings this summer.

Yvonne Taylor has recently joined our group and I hope to see some of her lace-art pieces in our upcoming meetings.

I’ve uploaded a copy of the PDF formatted article to my Dropbox account and if you’d like to read it, you can download it by clicking this link: Georgia Magazine: “Stitch in time”

Knit in Public Day 2025 is June 14th

At our last NeedleNerds meeting we talked about the annual Knit in Public Day that occurs every June. I think it would be fun to coordinate a time and place for us to gather together to knit or crochet or tat or embroider in public on June 14th. I am aware of 3 or 4 different groups that meet around the county at various days and times during the month and think it would be fun to include these groups into this coordinated event.

Several NeedleNerds thought we could meet up at O’Neal Plaza in downtown Douglasville for this event, but we’ll need to check with the Convention Center first to learn if anything has already been planned at the Plaza on that day. Even so, we could probably still meet up there unless something private is going on there – if a festival is taking place there on that day, we could bring our yarn & needles and enjoy the show, but I don’t think we’d want to crash a potential wedding if that has been scheduled there on that day.

What do you think?