Bike-N-Hike Closter Nature Center

A less than 3 hour combination bike ride and hike in Bergen County, New Jersey starting at the Main Street in Fort Lee and leading to Closter Nature for a short 2 mile nature hike before riding back.

Activity:	Cycling, Hiking
Cycling Distance:	20.4 Miles
Hiking Distance:	2.0 Miles
Difficulty:	Moderate
Duration:	Less than 3 Hours

Kyocera Brigadier Review

I recently purchased the new rugged Kyocera Brigadier available from Verizon Wireless is a thoroughly kick-ass phone. It's a great phone for guys (and gals) who have to use their phone in extreme environments. It is built tough to military specs with a Sapphire front glass, is certified for use in hazardous (explosive) environments, can be used with gloves and can be submerged in up to 6 feet of water for 30 minutes. While it doesn't sport the fastest processor on the market, the 1.4Ghz Quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon is nothing to sneeze at. Enterprise features, good quality cameras (front and rear), bright and clear display round out the features. If you mostly use your phone to check TMZ and post selfies to Instagram while you walk around the mall sipping your kale and acacia smoothie, maybe this isn't the phone for you. If you work hard and play hard and want a phone you can depend on. This is it. You can order the Kyocera Brigadier from Verizon online at Amazon.

More details below.

Reading Trail Markers

The most common method of marking hiking trails in the NYC/NJ area, in North America for that matter, is to use trail blazes. Little rectangular (sometimes triangular) shapes that are either painted or attached to trees or rocks that mark the path. If you've done any hiking you've run across them. Some are single rectangles but sometimes they are in groups of two or three. Here's what the different trail blaze patterns mean.

Common Trail Blaze Meanings

Look for these markings every 2-300 yards to help keep you on track. They can be in different colors, with a different color marking a separate trail in the park system. Sometimes two colors are used, usually white and another color, if the park has a lot of distinct trails to mark.

Pretty simple. One blaze = straight, two blazes = turn left or right depending on which blaze is higher, 3 blazes all the same color means the start or end of a trail. An easy way to remember start and end is to think of the three blazes like an arrow pointing to the trail. If it's pointing towards you, you're at the end, away you're at the start. If you see 3 blazes but 2 are one color and another is a different color, that indicates you're at an intersection with another trail. The color with 2 blazes will be the trail you're on while the single color will be the new trail.

Here are some examples of common trail blazes. Can you find and identify them?

Bike-N-Hike GWB To Tenafly Nature Center

A 3 hour combination bike ride and hike in Bergen County, New Jersey starting at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee and leading to Tenafly Nature Center for a 3.5 mile hike before riding back to the bridge.

Activity:	Cycling, Hiking
Cycling Distance:	13.9 Miles
Hiking Distance:	3.5 Miles
Difficulty:	Moderate
Duration:	About 3 Hours

Kyocera Brigadier Coming 7/31/2014 To Verizon

The Kyocera Brigadier is a new ultra rugged smartphone and will be available for sale at Verizon's online store starting July 31st and in stores a few days after that. Upgrade price will be $50.

Photo via @evleaks

I was on the phone with Verizon's customer support trying to find a new phone to upgrade to when the friendly voice on the other end mentioned a new phone coming from Kyocera that might fit in great with my active lifestyle. The Kyocera Brigadier.

Update: I decided to purchase the Brigadier, please see my Kyocera Brigadier Review for more details.

Little is known about the upcoming phone, even Verizon couldn't offer up much info. A few things I've been able to gather from my call and other sources are as follows.

Bike-N-Hike Fort Lee, Leonia Flat Rock Nature Center

A short combination bike ride and hike in Bergen County, New Jersey through parts of Fort Lee and Leonia with a scenic hike through Flat Rock Brook Nature Center and back to Fort Lee.

Activity:	Cycling, Hiking
Cycling Distance:	6.6 Miles
Hiking Distance:	Varies but at least about 1 mile
Difficulty:	Moderate
Duration:	1 Hour

Under Armour Vs Nike Dri Fit vs Hanes Cool Dri Moisture Wicking Shirts

Not just for working out, these moisture wicking shirts are great to wear all through the summer because they keep you cool and comfortable by pulling sweat away from your body, letting air pass through and they dry very quickly. There are a number different options to choose from including Under Armour Tech Short Sleeve T-Shirt, Nike Legend Dri-Fit and Hanes NANO-T Cool Dri T-Shirt. In this post I'll compare some of the differences.

Saga Digital Postal Scale Review

Last month, not knowing how much packages weigh has cost me over $50 in shipping mistakes while I've been selling some things I no longer need. To fix that I purchased this Saga Mercury 66 lb. Digital Postal Scale and after about a dozen shipments it's practically paid for itself given it's low price.

This model from Saga comes in 3 different versions with differing maximum weights of 45 lb., 66lb. and 86 lb. If I knew then what I know now I would have purchased the Saga 86 lb. Digital Postal Scale because it's not much more and it's the only version that has a backlit display which makes it easier to read.

When Did eBay Start To Suck?

I'm trying to clean out a lot of stuff I don't need that's just taking up space and I've been listing some of these items on eBay and some on Craigslist. It's been a long time since I've used eBay and man have things changed for the worse!

When eBay was first becoming popular it was a great place to get good deals on used items that were no longer in production or if you didn't want to pay full retail price on something and didn't mind it being used. It facilitated consumer-to-consumer transactions and it did it very well.

Screw You Chris Christie!

Seriously Screw You!

Over the past few years Fort Lee, NJ has been dealing with a rash of pedestrian traffic accidents including a number of fatalities. It's gotten so bad Fort Lee Police have been putting themselves in harms way, acting as pedestrian decoys and ticketing motorists that fail to yield to them.

For people in your administration to willingly create traffic problems in the Borough with all this going on is reprehensible. Especially since one of them works for the Port Authority and should have been aware of these problems.

A Smokers Road to 5k - Week 8

Week 6.1 update for my plan to run more and smoke less using the Couch to 5k running program.

The insanely cold weather and the snow we've been getting in the NYC area had me busy dealing with shoveling and looking for any areas of heat loss I might have missed in the fall winterization checkup. It's been almost 2 weeks since I last had time to run.

Legs sure didn't feel like it was 2 weeks though. Woke up pretty sore from all the things I've been doing.

Tips For Sticking With Your Fitness Resolutions

This time of year a lot of people start working on dieting and getting fit because of their New Year's resolutions. A lot of people will give up. It can be a struggle to keep motivated to exercise and eat better. Over the years I've had some lapses but overall I'm doing much better than I was when I started. Here are a few things I learned over the years that might help you keep at it until you reach your goals.