Take your Kindle on the road with you with a Mobile Wifi HotSpot

Last month, a group of bloggers got together at the Techlicious & TravelingMom Holiday Roadshow to share some technology and traveling tips.  We had a wonderful lunch and I walked away with a Kindle Fire HD and an AT&T Unite for GoPhone  by NetGear Wi-Fi mobile hotspot. While each of them is pretty cool in their own, they're like the Wonder Twins - combined they're pretty powerful.

The Kindle Fire HD 7" is a pretty nice starter tablet. It's got a beautiful screen and a fast responsive processor. Battery life is pretty nice, lasting a day off use, making it great for trips. Mashable rates the Kindle Fire (albeit a larger size) a good one to get this holiday season.  This is my first table and I'm excited to leverage the larger than a phone form factor.

I'm truly interested in using it like a tablet, leveraging the larger screen for taking notes, looking at pictures in beautiful HD, and reading recipes while cooking. It's great for those things that work on your phone, but work better on a larger screen. This post was even drafted on my Kindle.

There are plenty of apps available through Amazon's App Store. Many software makers even keep the Kindle version up to date with their Android versions!  Skype works nicely with the front facing camera to keep me connected, though I don't travel as much as I used to.  I miss Instagram and the Google apps, though older versions can be sideloaded.

But what the Kindle excels at is connecting you to Amazon library of movies, books, music and their store. With a Amazon Prime Account it's so easy to quickly find and start watching a movie. And they can even be downloaded to watch when you don't have Wi-Fi, like on an airplane (don't be that guy with the $1,171 Wi-Fi bill).

Coupled with a AT&T Unite for GoPhone  by NetGear Wi-Fi mobile hotspot, using AT&T's fast 4G LTE (where available) network, you can connect your Wi-Gi only Kindle (or up to 10 other devices) to the internet.

This is great when traveling on a road-trip or, in my case, when the public Wi-Fi at the pool
just doesn't cut it.  You can have your own trusted network anywhere you are and not have to worry about anybody snooping your connection or if there will be Wi-Fi where you're going.  You don't have to type long emails on your little phone keyboard, you can fire up your laptop and use the full size keyboard from anywhere!

And because its through GoPhone, you don't have to sign up for a new subscription. You buy the device from AT&T or other retailers and then add a pre-paid plan. I've been using the $25 for 1.5GB of data in a month and that's been getting me through the multi-day swim meets that end the short course swimming season.

The new Kindle also comes with a 2 year anything goes warranty, when coupled with a Nerf-like case make this the kind of device you can share with your kids. It's got multiple user accounts so you can share it with your family and everybody keeps their own place in their books. With the Free Time Unlimited, kids are provided kid appropriate books, games and videos and the parent has control of how long they can play games and how much reading must they do before hand.

Note: I was not compensated for this post, but I did receive some cool swag, including the Kindle and the Mobile Hotspot and a really awesome lunch. All the content is my own honest opinion.

Working out with AT&T, David Barton Gym and Jawbone UP24

Disclaimer: In trade for a pool of sweat, I received a Jawbone UP24 for review and one for a giveaway. Other than that, I was not compensated for this post and I'm sharing my opinions of the UP24 band.

At the beginning of June, AT&T invited a few bloggers to work out at the David Barton Gym in Bellevue and try out the Jawbone UP24 activity tracking band.  I was in... I like working out and I'm a big data nerd. Being able to easily collect information on my sleep and activity seems pretty cool.  And after almost a month of using it, I'm pretty impressed.

After a quick check-in at David Barton Gym in Bellevue, Noelle took us through a work out. A little warm up and BOOM, she hit us: squats, lunges, planks and more. It was an intense work out and I sweated for this band. She even had us do one legged burpees, which for the record, I never quite got. If you need your butt kicked, Noelle can do it for you.

The UP24 is a wearable, bluetooth enabled activity tracker. Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), it automatically syncs with your phone without noticable impact on battery life.  Between the UP24 and the Jawbone MINI Jambox, I've started to leave bluetooth turned on on my phone all the time. It tracks your activity, in steps as well as your sleep, measuring light and deep sleep.  With subtle vibrating reminders, it will let you know if you've been inactive or even wake you up at the optimal time in your sleep patterns.

The band is discreet and, as a guy, I don't mind they way it looks on my wrist.  The band itself is very simple, with only a single button for changing modes and a small indicator light to let you know what mode it is in. The band gets about a week of battery life and charging is handled by small plug, hidden under a cover, that plugs into a USB adapter. All the magic happens on the app on your phone.

And a lot of magic there is. First of all, you get a visualization of how you are tracking to your goals for sleep and steps for the day. But you also get motivational messages and activity updates from others on your "team," kind of like people you follow on Twitter. You can track your meals through the app, though I find the interface a little cumbersome.

But the magic doesn't end there.  There are a whole slew of connected apps that can provide information to your UP24 and with IFTTT.com you can connect even more.  When I weigh myself on our Fitbit Aria scale, my UP Feed is automatically updated with my weight. When I check in my CrossFit box, it posts to my UP Feed. I don't closely track my meals, but MyFitnessPal can connect with UP24 both ways, so you can see how your activity levels impact your net calories for the day.

Having all this information is great. The best features I've found so far are sleep tracking and the inactivity reminder. I do CrossFit every morning and eat clean, so I'm not concerned about the number of steps I take in a day. I really like being reminded to get up off my butt during the day, even if just to take a call standing up. Tracking my sleep patterns helps me commit to a consistent 10PM sleep time, something that Tim Howard does too.

Recall from earlier in this post that Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) was required. Its a fairly new technology and not all phones have the hardware or software to support it. BLE is available on the iPhone 4 and 5 and on some Android phones that are running KitKat. Luckily for me, AT&T and LG released the upgrade to KitKat for my phone around the time I got the band and I got it all up and running before the Seattle Rock N Roll marathon.  I ran the half-marathon and used the stopwatch function to track my run.

You see it calculated a distance of 17.17 miles, but a half marathon is only 13.1. I think that there is a little inaccuracy stemming from being on the wrist to track steps and it does have trouble tracking my CrossFit work outs. Just the other day, the inactivity alert vibrated as I was lifting my last set of power cleans, at my personal best weight.  But its still useful in comparing activity levels from day to day and as I sit at my computer coding and blogging, the inactivity alert is a nice reminder to get up and do something.

Just this week I started using the Smart Alarms, which wake you up close (but not later than) to the time you want, but do it when you have been in a lighter sleep state for some amount of time.  The idea behind this is that you wake up when you are ready to wake up, resulting in less grogginess and being more refreshed.  I'm still deciding if I want to maximize every minute of sleep or trade off some sleep minutes and get up at a better time. I'm having a little trouble coming to grip with getting up earlier might be better for me - I already get up at 5:22 AM on weekdays and I "sleep in" until 6AM on the weekends.

All in all, its a pretty neat device. It seamlessly tracks my activity and sleep with little fuss. As a data nerd, I like what I get from it and even though I'm still figuring it out, it is driving better fitness decisions from me. In fact, I learned yesterday that even a short walk, 13 minutes long, is worth just over 1,000 steps which is 10% of the daily recommended goal.

Would you like to win a Jawbone UP24, large size only? Register on the Rafflecopter form below and let me know in the comments what activity your fitness goals are and how the UP24 would help you achieve them.  I'll randomly select a winner on July 17th at 9AM Pacific time. If you don't win or are impatient, you can get one for $149 from AT&T, online or in your local store. AT&T has more than just mobile phones! If you've already got an UP and want to add me to your team, just look for Beau Raines.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Northwest Region Grilling Gurus Semi-Finals

Saturday, Macy's in Alderwood Mall hosted the Culinary Council's Grilling Guru's semi-finals. Three west coast home cooks brought their grilling best and were judged by local chef Tom Douglas.  I had front row seats to watch the grilling, taste the dishes and even get samples cooked by Tom Douglas himself!

The Culinary Council is comprised of some of the nations culinary masters. Tom Douglas represents Seattle and the Northwest, with the aim of teaching Macy's customers to cook and shop like master chefs. I like this way of thinking and I try to embody that in all of my cooking endeavors.

The Northwest Region was represented by three grilling gurus, Jack Scalfani from California, Margee Berry from Washington and Edwina Gadsby from Idaho. Jack hosts a popular YouTube channel, Cooking With Jack. His rib recipe and techniques were passed down from his Mom.  Margee has been competing in food cook offs for over thirty years and her shrimp taco recipe was her own invention. Edwina has gone head to head with Margee several times over the years and taste tests her recipes on her husband and the bad ones end up on the dog's plate. Good recipe or not, they're both lucky guys.  The winning recipe is posted at the end...

The competitors had 1 hour to grill their dishes for Tom Douglas and with a '3, 2, 1 Go!' they were off. The grills were hot, the sun was hot, but none of the cooks showed any nervousness. To keep the audience entertained while the grilling was going on, KOMO 4's Seth Wayne hosted giveaways of The Dahila Bakery Cookbook and Q&A's with Tom Douglas.

While watching the competitors cooking, Tom and his crew whetted our appetites with some of his grilling. A big gulf shrimp with a kalamata olive and some beautiful planked salmon kept the audience at bay when the wind shifted just a bit and we could smell the deliciousness from the grills.

Tom didn't fail to entertain either. In his usual funny fashion, he joked about how far north he was from his South Lake Union restaurant domain saying, "I'm so far North, I might as well be in Canada!"  In addition to his funny commentary, he shared some valuable and interesting cooking tips.

1. Too much oil when grilling can lead to soot. Grill marks are good, but soot is not.
2. Grilled avocado is a hot thing in restaurants these days.

I've made milk shakes from avocados, but I'd never thought of grilling them. The soft texture doesn't seem like it would take to grilling well. It even got a rise from my Twitter followers.

@beauraines @TomDouglasCo @CulinaryCouncil ack, short of a non-ripe avocado... pure sacrilege :)
— P.S. (@Patrixmyth) June 7, 2014

It's worth giving it a try, especially since many of the avocados we buy need some additional time to ripen.

The competitors all finished before the allotted time and plated their food for Tom.  It seemed like the Jack's ribs were going to win, but the perfectly cooked salmon for the noodle salad was the ultimate winner. I'll agree, grilling salmon is a little bit on the challenging side, getting it to that just cooked all the way through, still slightly translucent in the center, Edwina nailed it.

There were five other semi-final events like this taking place across the United States. As the Northwest's winner, Edwina is on her way to New York City, to compete in the Culinary Council's Sizzle Showdown on June 28th. She'll be judged by Chefs Johnny Iuzzuni and Todd English, competing for a $10,000 Grand Prize.  Wish her luck!

The Winning Recipe
Grilled Sweet Chili Salmon Noodle Salad
Recipe compliments of Edwina G of Hayden, Idaho

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Everywhere Society and Everywhere has provided me with compensation for this post about Macy’s Culinary Council. However, all thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own.