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Hey-Hey Newsletter friends! We are back again with another fun-filled sports-tech newsletter! We recently took some time off to travel back to the USA for some family time. Balancing the “life – family – work triangle” over the past year has been really tough. I can’t tell you how much good it does for one’s soul to get a big helping of grandparents, sister time, and seeing all of the cousins playing together.
However, now we are home again in Amsterdam, and the jetlag has backed off. So on my list of a kabillion things to do, I have finally reached my favorite item on the to-do list. The Newsletter! Woot. If you’re new to this newsletter feed, welcome! If you have some extra reading time, you can always check out the Newsletter Archives and catch up on what stories have been told in the past! As well, there are two Quarantine Corner episodes that quietly got released for public consumption in case you were interested in becoming a DCR Supporter! And if you don’t know what a Quarantine Corner episode is??? Well… it’s a lighthearted video series of Ray and I shooting the BS on the latest sports tech, behind the scenes at the office, and a little look into what Maker family shenanigans are happening now. I even made a neat little QC Trailer to entice you to sign up! So, what’s to come with today’s newsletter? As always, I’ll give you the latest update of what’s been happening on the website and YouTube, then, below the fold are the In-Depth Thoughts from The Girl section. The Website So, tech-wise let’s do this.
First up for today, Ray has posted the WHOOP 4.0 In-Depth Review. Let me tell you, I have a long-standing issue with the WHOOP brand… or maybe just with Ray, who knows at this point? Basically, we have been paying a $30/month subscription to WHOOP for almost two years now for what was essentially a sub-par product (WHOOP 3.0). Unfortunately, in a business like ours, Ray can’t just turn off the subscription AND still keep his finger on the pulse of the product updates etc.. So no matter how many times I asked if I can cancel, we continued paying the subscription. Finally, we now have the new Whoop 4.0 and it seems from my conversations with Ray, that the product has a substantially improved optical HR sensor, which was a major thorn in the last version. As always though, there are some catches. But I won’t spoil the whole show for you, go read it for yourself!
Moving on. Have you ever raced in a non-draft legal triathlon and watched as another competitor passes by clearly tucked behind another racer? It’s seriously infuriating. Especially when you know for sure that that racer is in your AG. The problem is, there are usually too few race officials to cover the entire race with many hundreds or even several thousand racers. Soon we will see a new racing technology that race organizers can implement into their event to help squash this type of racing behavior! I’m really impressed, and hope everything goes smoothly for RaceRanger in rolling out this new Triathlon Anti-Drafting Tech System in the near future!
Next, we have Ray’s look into Fitbit's new Daily Readiness Score. Keeping in mind, the daily readiness score is a Premium-only feature, which I think leaves a little to be desired. Ray goes through a detailed analysis on how they calculate the readiness score, and then raises an eyebrow on how or why some exercise recommendations come with some given scores. It’s an interesting post to check out.
Rounding out the tech talk is Ray’s Oura Ring 3: First impressions. While I personally can’t get past the logistical nightmare that this company must endure for stocking all of those ring sizes, Ray seems to be pretty intrigued by this little guy. Battery life, wearability, the product platform, etc. all seem pretty good so far. Keep in mind this is a first impressions post, so we can only wait and see what comes out in the wash during the in-depth review, which should actually be pretty soon. Lastly, it’s that time of year again. I know you all just received an email the other day from Ray, highlighting some big sales happening now so I don’t want to bombard you with more of that. This is more of an FYI that that will be the continued sales page for this holiday season. So you can always poke back to https://www.dcrainmaker.com/deals and see what’s happening, or just go to the homepage and click on the big yellow banner. That’s if for this week, keep reading for the YouTubes and In-Depth Thoughts from The Girl. YouTube The YouTube channel is movin’ and groovin’. You know, sometimes a video is just worth 10,000 of Ray’s words! Also, a PSA here. If you hit the like button on a YouTube video, or subscribe to any YouTube creator’s channel, that’s a really great way to support people who are putting out content. More importantly, if you subscribe, and I disappear again for another 4 months, you’ll still be kept well informed of new videos being published! DJI Mavic 3 vs Skydio 2: Obstacle Avoidance Test |
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In-Depth Thoughts from The Girl Hey, thanks for making it to the bottom of the newsletter! So what’s new?
Well like I said up top, we were back stateside for a few weeks and that was really nice! We started out at Ray’s parents’ house in Florida. Let’s be honest, is there anything better than showing up to a grandparent's house, with a (heated) pool, and all of Dad’s thousands of legos (from nearly 40 years ago) to play with? The girls were spoiled for a week in the sunshine, pool time, and of course several trips to the beach!
Since we haven’t seen family for Thanksgiving or any other holidays for the last 5-6 years, we also thought it would be fun to have a faux Thanksgiving while with the grandparents. So while eating giant plates of turkey and stuffing doesn’t normally mix with strolling around in a bikini, we were happy to stuff ourselves with some home-cooked turkey dinner!
Then, once the girls were settled in Florida for a few days, Ray and I took the opportunity to sneak away for a few days. First up was the great state of Colorado! We have so many friends who have moved to Colorado, that showing up there, almost seemed like a reunion! So we spent 3 days cruising around, meeting up with friends, and hiking every day someplace new! And of course… we met up with Des for an afternoon hike too! After three glorious mornings of sleeping in, we headed back to Florida. To which we packed up the mini-van and headed south from Orlando towards my sister’s house near Miami. It’s a good thing Ray and I had those three days to ourselves for some extra sleep because once we got to my sisters we needed all the energy we could squeeze out! At my sister's we mixed up five kiddos, all being five years and younger, and whoooaaa there was so much excitement and so much energy bouncing around! You have to imagine this was super wild and exciting for our girls. This family is their only set of cousins, and they hadn’t even met their youngest cousin before now (because of all the travel restrictions over the past 1-2 years). On top of all of that, we were all gearing up for Halloween! Again, another wild concept for the Peanuts as Halloween is not really a thing over here outside of small expat activities that MIGHT get organized year to year. So really, for the adults, it was coffee, coffee, and more coffee please! Luckily in America, they really strive at building these convenient little coffee shops with drive-through windows!
We capped off the trip with the final night being Halloween. The 5 cousins trick-or-treated well after the sun went down, and my heart was super full after watching them walk hand and hand giggling all over the neighborhood squealing about the decorations or their latest candy conquest.
Luckily the ten-hour redeye flight home was pretty relaxed as the kiddos ate their airplane dinners and slowly faded into a sleepy haze. The only (not so) sad part of the flight home was the girls think the airplane lost our luggage that happened to have their 19 pounds of candy in it. Geeze, what a pity to lose all that candy!
Anyways, as I said, we are back now in the land of Gouda and windmills. Gearing up the website for the holiday-buying season, our own Expat Thanksgiving, and dare I even mention Christmas and New Year’s. It will all be here and gone before we know it! Until then, Ray will be dreaming of his next beach "work-vacation" where he can continue making turquoise water videos!
As always, thanks so much for following along with me and our family adventures. Until next time, Bobbie |
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