About

Sweatin’ to the Web started as a one-time presentation for a web development conference called NCDevCon. It was me noodling around with my Microsoft Kinect in a web browser and showing off what it can do. Since then, I’ve been accepted to give the presentation at two more conferences and I’m putting together a lot of motion-based demos on it.

As the reality of Natural User Interfaces (NUI) sink in, I’m getting more and more excited to share these fun and quirky experiments with people like you.  I’ve already posted my “Upright Spass” demo, and folks seemed to like that, so I wanted to do more here but keep it non-technical so anybody — not just the developer world — can see the potential. I’ll post code and tech details on my personal website for the more technically inclined.

Meanwhile, right before Christmas this year, I started playing Google’s Ingress. Ingress is an addictive, massive, multiplayer game that takes place all over the world. You have to walk to physical locations to engage in game play. Thus, the more you walk in reality, the better you’ll do in engaging in the virtual battles. I also put a stop to my beer habit in a big way. These two lifestyle changes combined have helped me lose 10 lbs and cut my cholesterol in half, something my cholesterol medication has not succeeded at on its own.

Those aren’t the first attempts I’ve made to lose weight. In the past, I saw a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and I’m still taking Thyroid medication. Those all worked for a short time, and I lost several pounds. As those interventions became routine and the months waned on, my habits worsened because I got bored doing the same old thing.

So I have a lot of experience with how to do things correctly, but I haven’t had much success sticking with it for the long-term. Thus, my plan is to use and review something new every week or two that is intended to help me exercise or practice healthy habits. That way, I won’t get bored and my job as your “mobile app fitness trainer” will keep me going. So, I’ll help myself by helping other people try out the new innovations in web-based fitness. Test out the newest wave of physical fitness apps, imagine what future innovations may bring, and share that all with you: those are the three facets of Sweatin’ to the Web.

My first inspiration for this project comes from my wife, Rebecca Gomez Farrell, who started a restaurant and cocktail review blog a couple years back. With no food-reviewing experience, she’s now a fairly well-known critic in our area. Her motto was “I have no idea what I’m doing — I’ll do it anyway.” That’s the attitude this 230 lb guy will take in the coming months pursing my goal of becoming your web fitness trainer, in the very loosest sense of the word, and getting fit for the first time in 15 years.

My second inspiration is my high school friend, Kathy Ferguson. She’s a legit aerobics instructor and party professional who conducts sessions with an 80s retro flare. She operates under the name Denise Awesome. I think it’s a brilliant idea, and you all know our generation is a sucker for 80s retro anything. I want to work some of that magic into Sweatin’ to the Web.