Walker Stalker Con (Day 1)

This weekend has been a ton of fun! I got to get out to Chicago for the annual Walker Stalker Convention. It's mainly for Walking Dead fans, but it is also labeled as a zombie, horror, and sci-fi convention that included the likes of Breaking Bad, Lost, and a few other shows. Originally, I was planning to take my wife and my 9 month old, but she got a double ear infection with a mild case of bronchitis so I ended up being my buddy Trey!

Here we are geeking out while waiting in line to get in. 

After we got in, we immediately hit up the merch booth to get our con swag! I got a Walker Stalker Con beanie and also ended up purchasing a Skybound official zipper hoodie.

I was really happy with my purchase as it is a very comfortable hoodie and I love the comic logo. 

After getting our merch, we headed over to Dale's RV that they had setup and waited in line to get in and look around and take pictures. They did an excellent job on this replica. Plus, we got to see where James & Eric actually record their podcasts. 

and of course I had to jump behind the mic and take a goofy pic:

After coming back out, we were able to take a group photo in front of it:

We then headed out to start meeting some of the cast that everyone wanted to see. Our first stop ended up being Denise Crosby, who played Mary on The Walking Dead. My father-in-law, John wanted to meet her because of her role on Star Trek too. She was interesting to talk to. I commented about her standing in front of the grill at Terminus and building the suspense and she made a joke about creating a commercial to sell Weber Grills.

After meeting her, Andrew, our 7 year old buddy, wanted to meet Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl on the show. We headed over there only to find out that he had a very long line of teeny boppers with the same idea. We were able to get a ticket to hold our place so that we could go do other things. 

We ended up heading over to the panel area to see the "Abraham's Army" panel. I didn't know that Josh McDermitt was a comedian but he did have the crowd going pretty good. I have a newfound respect for that group after seeing the panel and understanding a little more about their roles. We were on the right side of the panel seating area so I wasn't able to get a very good shot of them though. 

After that panel, we decided to head to lunch. Since everyone and their mom decided to go to McDonald's, we decided to hit up Harry Carey's, which still had an hour long wait for a booth. Here's a picture with my father-in-law, John:

After lunch we decided to go back and see about getting to finally meet Carl. We were able to enter the line finally and got up to see him. He was very nice and seemed to handle the crowd well for only being 15. Andrew got his autograph and thought it was very cool. 

After meeting Carl, we walked through the vendor area to check out some of the exhibits. There were quite a few artists and haunted houses as well as t-shirt places. The main ones that stuck out to me was this place that used a green screen to take your picture and put it on scifi backgrounds and print for you as well as a movie venture where they were trying to get 5,000 people to fund the movie through kickstarter.  Here is one of the displays for a zombie haunted house:

After wading through the vendor area, we headed back over to the stage to see the cosplay contest. They had three categories: Adults, Zombies, and kids. Here is a picture of the big screen of the top 3 winners from the Adults:

Herschel won 1st place, Michonne and the pets got 2nd, and Glenn/Maggie got 3rd. All did a fantastic job. 

After the cosplay panel, we ended up heading back to the autograph area and got in line for Greg Nicotero. We ended up waiting about 45 minutes and got to meet him, get his autograph for $40 and take our own picture with him. We got to talk to him for probably about 5 minutes as well. 

I can't believe all the work that he's been a part of. He's got his name on several movies and you can tell that he loves what he does!

After meeting him, we wrapped things up and headed back to my mom's house to spend the night. We ended up watching episode 10 (Them) over again and started "28 Days Later" while we had pizza. We didn't finish the movie since we were so tired though from all the walking around that day.

Technology & Working Out

Everywhere you look these days there is more and more technology you can use to track your running, biking, swimming, sleeping, etc. I got to thinking today while I was running on my elliptical about it and how we can let it dominate our thoughts on working out. 

So, today, I didn't have to go into work until noon, so after getting my wife and kids out the door I decided that it would be a great time to get my elliptical workout in. So, I headed downstairs with my pedometer and my smartphone to start tracking my workout. Even though my elliptical also tracks the information.

It's kind of funny that I have to use so many different devices to get the same result as just getting on the machine and doing the workout. For me, I am very analytical. I want all the information, but my pedometer program from work doesn't work through my smartphone to track the steps, so I have to carry that extra device in order to get credit for my steps. And my elliptical doesn't track the number of steps that I take like my pedometer or my iPhone does. So this leaves me with having to track with 3 different devices in order to get my information. 

I don't mind using the different devices, but it would be nice to sync everything together and get the same reporting. Right now, after I finish my workout, I have to manually enter how far I've gone in my phone although it does track my steps in my app. Maybe it's just because I am using a lower end elliptical.

I think as we move forward with our phones tracking our every step, we are going to see a huge leap into how we interact with our data. Right now, we can collect it and play with it in limited ways, but we are seeing some real innovation in the app arena with iPhone's new healthkit and hopefully with Google's new GoogleFit over the next year or two. We are already getting better 24/7 activity about how we move around (as long as our phone/smart watch is on us) and I think it will allow us to integrate into much more going forward.

As we move towards a more connected world, our health data is going to become more and more valuable to different companies. Insurance companies will have a better understanding of our diet and exercise habits. Medical professionals will have new tools to help patients self diagnose and monitor many things that are very costly at this time. 

So, I, for one, am excited about the landscape of technology and how it tracks our health data over time. As long as I'm feeling motivated to do my exercising and eating correctly, that is. It's almost becoming a built-in accountability partner for me.

Which Email Is Better? Gmail or Inbox by Gmail?

So, I have been kind of torn lately between which email app to use for my main email client. I am torn between the standard Gmail or the new beta Inbox by Gmail. I am planning on going through both apps today and showing the difference between them that I like and dislike.

Gmail

Gmail has been around for quite a while and I've been a pretty big fan for quite some time. I believe that I got my original gmail address back around 2000. I still use this email address today and have all of my main stuff going there. I believe that I forward something like 3 or 4 other email addresses to this account. Even with using the same email address for so long, I still have plenty of space to store all of my emails. Currently, I'm only using about 26% of my storage. So, there's plenty to go around. 

With Gmail, I love how the filter system works and that I can setup my email to divert past my inbox rather easily and go straight into folders instead of having to bundle it and swipe it away. This means that some of my junk and stuff I don't need to see for a bit doesn't even come up for me unless I start looking for it. 

Labels work really well in Gmail and I've setup quite a few of them. If you haven't used them before, they are similar to your folders in Outlook. I can move them in there by drag and drop or automate them using my filters. 

One of the best features about Gmail is their spam detection. I have not had very many issues with my incoming email going to spam when I didn't want it too. There is the occasional email that gets past their filter, but it's very easy to mark something as spam and Gmail remembers it. 

Inbox

Inbox by Gmail has integrated many of Gmail's best traits and built onto it. They tried to redo the way that we interact with email and our calendar and our tasks that we do from day to day.

My absolute favorite feature is the ability to "snooze" emails or reminders to different times or places and then be notified when that event arrives. This makes moving my work emails back easier when it's a timed deal or I am looking to follow up with someone. I don't use this as much for my personal email though. 

The reminders are very nice as well because I can put things like remembering to change the water filter and doing follow up calls on here instead of cluttering my Google Calendar. 

Inbox by Gmail is still in it's beta stages but it still is not completely finished. Some things that I miss that it lacks is the ability to attach a signature file at the bottom of my messages automatically. I'm sure they will incorporate the use of this before public launch though. Another thing that irks me is that I had to re-set up all my filters because they didn't transition correctly from Gmail. Although bundling is easy, it does take a bit of time to retrain the system to learn my way of doing email. Also, some of my emails that are filtered through Gmail don't show up except in the all mail section of Inbox. So, if I want to go all in with Inbox, I'll have to remove some more filters. 

Overall

Overall, I am enjoying the freedom of swiping and snoozing with Inbox but am still holding on to my Gmail roots. I find myself gravitating towards Gmail when I am on a desktop, but using Inbox more when on a mobile device do to the loose flexibility of the types of email I send out from each device. I think that Inbox will definitely win my favor once they start integrating more features of Gmail into it like signature support and as I get more of my email bundled correctly. 

Ramblings from an inconsistent blogger.

So, I want to dive into the world of blogging again. I think in the past I've tried and failed because I've limited my topics to just one or two subjects. This time I am planning on writing on many different subjects including but not limited to:

- Tech products I am enjoying

- TV Shows/Movies I am watching

- Interesting things I read on the Internet

- Personal Finance

- Interesting tidbits and stories from my family life

I am going to try to get some categories created so that you will hopefully be able to subscribe to the topics that interest you or all of it! But, I am going to be trying to post as often as possible. 

So, who am I? I'm so glad you asked!

My name is Steven and I currently reside in a medium town called Sandwich, IL (yes, the Sandwich jokes will happen). I am currently 31 and am happily married to my wife of 7 1/2 years and have two little girls, Evelyn (2 years 9 months) and Natalie (9 months). 

I currently work two jobs. I work for a local cellular company where I do outside sales as well as technical repair. I really enjoy the tech aspect as I get to play with all kinds of new technology and have an excuse to learn about all kinds of new apps and how to introduce people to smartphones and newer technology. 

My other job is as a pizza delivery driver. I decided to take this on when a couple of my friends decided to start a pizza place about 10 minutes from my home. I could work flexible hours and still make some great money on the side to be able to sock away into our family savings. I enjoy watching their business continue to grow and seeing them succeed as I get to drive around giving people pizza! It seems like that makes everyone happy!

On top of my current jobs, I am also a coordinator that teaches Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, a 9 week small group class that teaches people how to create and win with a budget using conservative money principals and handle money God's way. I have led the class 3 times and have really enjoyed getting to see people work together to get a better handle on their finances. I have seen tremendous success with the program myself and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about how to handle their money better!

So, there you have it. A little about me and what I would like to talk about in the future. I look forward to interacting with you in the future!