Review – Lightphoria 10,000 Lux Energy Light Lamp

Lightphoria with AC adapter & storage bag

Lightphoria with AC adapter & storage bag

I recently purchased a Lightphoria 10,000 Lux Energy Light Lamp by Sphere Gadget Technologies to try doing light therapy in the mornings at my desk. I usually arrive at work between 7-7:30am when it is barely light outside, and frequently don’t get outside again until I leave after sunset in winter.

Because I’ve done research on light box use I was aware that distance from the light makes a big difference in whether or not you get the expected dose. I have a SunSprite Wearable Light Tracker which measures light intensity. I hung this on my glasses next to my eyes and experimented with placement of the Lightphoria. What did I find?

Sunsprite Light Tracker

Sunsprite Light Tracker

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Bicycle Roadside Assistance

Bikes riding

Now that the weather is improving more people will be out on bicycles. And many urban cities are working on ways to encourage more commuters to leave their cars home, including bike commuting.

Some bikers are very knowledgeable about fixing their machine if it develops problems while on a ride such as flat tires, chain or brake problems, etc. Some automobile drivers know how to put on a spare tire, add oil and other fluids, etc. But there are many among both types  of commuters who don’t have these skills (or cannot due to physical limitations).

Car commuters have long had the choice of purchasing roadside assistance from a number of service providers (AAA, Countrywide, etc). Until recently bicyclists were on their own, but that is now changing…

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Raw Vegetable and Fruit Juicing At Home – Part 1

“Juicing” (raw vegetables and fruit, not athletes on steroids!) has been a health tactic-verging-into-diet-fad for some years, and lately has gotten a lot of press. Many supermarkets now carry commercial brands of juices and smoothies, plus juice bars and shops sell everything from just-pressed juice to entire regimens of delivered juices and fasting support.

Personally I’m not big on “fasting” or “cleansing” to extremes – but I’m not great about eating enough vegetables. I also wasn’t interested in paying up to $10 for 16 ounces of juice!

About 7 years ago I bought a cheap juicer, but it was such a pain to use and clean that I put it on a shelf and eventually gave it away. Recently a Facebook friend posted about using her old but reliable Omega juicer, which got me interested in researching what machines were available and easier to use regularly. I was willing to spend more to get a better performing juicer after calculating the the cost savings if I were to have two 16-oz servings of juice per day:

2/day = 14/week – at a local juice business’ prices the cost is $133-140 per week.

vs

A $250 juicer plus $30/week in organic vegetables/fruit from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s brings me out ahead of store-bought in just 3 weeks!

Yes, I could buy much cheaper juice products at the local grocery, but when you read the labels of those you will find they lean heavily on fruit juices and can have total sugar content the same as or higher than a can of Coke!

In this post I’ll describe the various types of juicers – a future post will cover how I’m using mine.

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Review – Video House Concerts Beta Site

Last weekend I got to check out VideoHouseConcerts.com, which is a new business designed to allow performers to host a web-streamed concert from their home, studio, or any place with a good internet connection. Why is this any better than using one of the other available streaming services, such as Ustream or Google+ Hangouts? Video House Concerts provides some features not currently available to non-commercial users of those services:

• VHC sells tickets at several different access levels so that you can generate income

• The VHC concert experience allows for in-concert interaction with the performer, via text interaction or actual video & audio interaction for VIP ticket holders.

Sounds good  – so how was the actual experience? Read on…

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