Last ‘Fight of the Century’?

April 28, 2015 • by Victor Mandalawi • In Sports • 0

This weekend we will finally see the undefeated Floyd Mayweather take on Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. While this fight should have taken place at least five years ago, and both of the boxers are past their prime, it should still be an amazing spectacle. I’ve been lucky enough to see Mike Tyson fight in person, and also Vladamir Klitschko fight in the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden. There is nothing like a big fight in terms of emotion and anticipation. The problem is that this may be the last big fight in the history of boxing.

I have always loved to watch boxing, and even though he is before my time Muhmmad Ali could be the most transcendent athlete in all of American history. Watching Iron Mike Tyson come up with his ferocity, as well as his downfall was something to see. Unfortunately now, the sport is dying. 75 years ago, the three biggest sports in this country were boxing, baseball and horse racing. Today, all three of those sports seem to be trending downward. While I completely respect our advances in medical technology and diagnosing concussions, it seems that people detest the violence of boxing, while professional football now dwarfs all of the other sports in our country.

Watching two brave men come into a ring and test their mental and physical strength is amazing to watch, there are no teammates to rely on, no instant replays, just man vs. man. Not to mention there aren’t too many sports that can end at any moment with just one punch.

The money that the fight is set to generate this weekend is nothing short of breathtaking. Floyd Mayweather, as of today, is projected to make over $180M for one night of work. Its difficult to wrap your brain around the sheer insanity of that. That said, what is even more insane is that there isn’t a single other fight out there that could make 10% of that amount. Maybe people say the best American heavyweight boxers are now playing linebacker in the NFL. You have to wonder if young athletes out there will be watching this week and seeing the mind blowing money and spectacle of this event, and potentially think about getting into the sport.

I know I will be glued to the television Saturday night. While paying $99.99 for a Pay-Per-View boxing match may seem a bit extreme, its difficult to say how many more of these mega fights will take place in my lifetime. While without question, this is the biggest fight of the 21st century, I don’t have much confidence that there will be any big boxing matches taking place not just in the 22nd century, but even just 15 years from now. That is why I want to bask in the glow of this last big fight.

Apple Watch…Does it Make Sense Yet?

April 22, 2015 • by Victor Mandalawi • In Business • 0

Yes, I use a MacBook pro, have an iPhone 6+, read my iPad mini before I go to bed, and have my house set up on Apple WiFi. All of that said, I don’t think I’m onboard with the Apple Watch in its present form. That is actually hard for me to say, and I’m sure this was a big deal for Tim Cook on his first brand new product since the death of Steve Jobs, but at least to me, it doesn’t seem like Apple has packed enough features in the initial product to justify the value or the price tag. I used the Nike Fuel Band for over a year, and enjoyed it, also used plenty of heart rate monitors, golf GPS systems, a fit bit, and thought the Apple Watch would be the consolidation answer. I could have one product on my wrist that could take care of all of those things and more. However, after spending a couple of hours reading the reviews and specs on the product, it seems to fall short on features.

First off, there is no GPS device in the watch. This seems hard to believe, as the market for running watches with Garmin and other brands is huge. People love to track their exercise, see how far they ran, what routes, what splits, etc. While this is possible on the Apple Watch, you will have to carry your phone with you to make this happen. I was under the impression you could do this on your own. The same premise is true for golf. There are plenty of $400 watches, whose sole purpose is to utilize the GPS in the watch to tell you your distance from the pin. Again, you can use a feature of this nature, but have to be within 30 feet of your phone in order to do so. Also, when I play golf, I like to put my phone in my bag so I don’t even think about checking emails while out on the course, so needing your phone for the watch to work is annoying in this application.

The battery life is set to be roughly 18 hours, which would mean that you have to charge the watch each and every night. Companies like FitBit market their devices to monitor your sleeping patterns to see how many times you toss and turn throughout the evening and the quality of sleep you are getting. Its going to be rather difficult to do that when the watch is on the charger.

The Apple Watch is set to monitor your heartbeat roughly every ten minutes. While that may make sense 95% of the day, if you are in the middle of a strenuous workout, you will want that information much more often.

At the end of the day, I really want to like the watch. I wear a watch all day anyway, so having a smart device would be fun. Apple has always come through, they are the most valuable company in the USA, and for good reason. They make products that people swear by, and I am one of them. I can just about guarantee that I will own an Apple Watch at some point, but I will not be a first adopter, I’m going to need some additional features to make that purchase.

Attempting a New Hobby

April 16, 2015 • by Victor Mandalawi • In Uncategorized • 0

I’ve always been a fan of technology. Whether it was my first walkman, an Apple 2GS, a tower full of CDs, or smart thermostats, its fun to watch technology brings us next. I’ve also loved photography, not that I’ve ever been exactly skilled with taking pictures, but I’ve had an appreciation for interesting vantage points that photographers take. Therefore, I’m trying to combine the two and see if I can get the skills and repetitions together to fly a drone to take arial photos. The way I look at it, I’m too old to drive a remote control car, and especially don’t want to end up like this guy. So a drone could be seen as an expensive flying camera and not a ‘toy’. At least that is what I’m trying to tell myself.

From everything I have read, the worst thing you can do is go out and buy an expensive drone off the bat, and crash it before you know what you are doing. Therefore, I did a little research and purchased little guy from Amazon last week for around $50.

The weight on the U818A is less than a pound, so if there is any wind at all, this thing can get blown off course in a hurry. Thus far, I’ve only crashed it roughly 37 times, so quite glad I didn’t go out and buy something nice right away. I’ve had to replace a prop after flying it into a tree, but other than that, this little bird is pretty darn tough. One downside is that the battery only lasts roughly 6-7 minutes of flight time, so I picked up an extra battery. I have to say, its been a lot of fun to fool around with. For some reason, when I plug it into my Macbook, I’m unable to view the photos and videos I have taken with it. What I found out is that I should get a mirco SD to SD card adapter so I can put the card directly into the computer. I ordered that, so hopefully by the end of week I can check out the videos I recorded, even though the camera is said to be shaky at best.

I’ve decided if I can truly get the hang of this thing over the next 60 days, I’m going to step up my game and buy a nice flying machine. I have my eye on the Parrot Bebop, which based on this video is incredible.

The controller for the Bebop, integrated with an iPad looks to be great. You can also program the copter using GPS, which would come in handy for flying to destinations and taking video. Another feature that is amazing is the “return home” option. If your drone gets in a rough situation, you can hit the return home button and it will immediately begin flying your way and hovering eight feet in the air from where it took off. If used properly, I’m sure this guy can take some amazing photos and video. That said, with a price tag of nearly $900, one better be darn sure they are comfortable flying a drone before stepping it up to something like this. I will be sure to check back in when the Bebop takes her first flight!

Choice Home Warranty Voted Top Home Warranty Company By Top 10

April 1, 2015April 2, 2015 • by Victor Mandalawi • In Business • 0

We were thrilled this week to find out that the users of Top10 voted us the top home warranty company in the industry with a 9.9 rating. It is not only a testament to the offerings we have, but more so it is the tremendous effort put in by our entire team to satisfy our customers. Let’s face it, when something goes wrong in terms of the appliances or your heating an air conditioning it is a stressful and frustrating time. Our customer service staff is constantly working to put people’s minds at ease by having the proper technicians out to their home, to diagnose and repair the problem.

Whether it is our brand new call center, great rating from the Better Business Bureau, or our 1,550 five star ratings from Consumer Affairs, 2015 is shaping up to be a to be a great year for Choice Home Warranty, so congratulations to our entire team for helping along the way.

-Vic