Hasta La Gadget!

The name Garmin still resonates with GPS navigation, and more recently with fitness bands and smart watches, but Garmin is working on changing this: With the Fenix (fēnix) luxury watch, the company enters the Luxury Watch market.

Starting at $899, the Fenix is a Titanium is a nice looking watch that could be mistaken as coming from a classic Luxury brand at a first glance. The Steel and Leather model represent the entry in this line of product. The Stainless Steel band will cost an extra $100, and the Titanium version (band and housing) will cost $1500.

Of course, the Fenix Chronos is also a high-tech watch, which comes with the best technology Garmin has. It has a GPS/GLONASS and an array of sensors that include altimeter, barometer, compass and pedometer. In turn, the data collected by the watch will serve to track a variety of sports activities such as Swim, Ski/Board, Row, Golf.

The watch has a 1.2×1.2 inch display and is built to be water-resistant (100M deep). As such, it can be exposed to the elements during an activity, and could even use as a remote control for VIRB Action Cams, also from Garmin.

Inside, there is an 180mAh battery that will last for about one week in standby mode. Garmin estimates that it can run for 13 hours during the “GPS training mode” which is probably more than what you can endure.

There’s a small 32MB of data storage inside, which is large enough to accommodate about 100 hours of activity data. The data can be synchronized with a smartphone over Bluetooth (4.0 LE).

Garmin Fenix Chronos Luxury Watch Costs $899+ , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Getting convicted of rape is hard. Out of 1000 reported rapes, only 7 will result in a felony conviction and less than one-third of those incidences will every get reported to police. You could steal a box of Twinkies from a corner store and face more jail time than you did if you raped a woman.

On the proverbial eve of the release of the highly anticipated Birth of a Nation, it seems as if Nate Parker’s once bright star is about to be extinguished, or at least dimmed by decades old rape allegations–and it should be.

As a former professor at two top historically Black colleges and Universities–Howard University and Spelman College–the Nate Parker rape allegations and the defense of him sound eerily familiar. They go as follows:

• He’s so smart and talented. Let’s not ruin his future by bringing up sexual assault allegations that happened nearly two decades ago.
• The media and “the man” are out to get him just like they did Bill Cosby. Our brightest stars are often extinguished just as they are about to shine their brightest (i.e. Buy NBC or release an Oscar winning movie about slavery).
• Boys will be boys. What did she expect to happen? She should have been more responsible and not drank so much.
• If you have sex once, you can never say no or refuse it a second time.
• And from the victim, I often hear “I don’t want to get him [the perpetrator] in trouble, expelled, or cause him to lose his job or status. I should not have been drinking so much. It’s partially my fault.”

In addition to the excuses above, when the Nate Parker rape allegations (re)surfaced, I braced myself for the defense of Parker by Black celebrities, Hoteps and others who don’t want to see a “good brother” taken down by a decision he made when he was just a “kid.” In my opinion, these are the same group of people who in the past have come to the defense of Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Mike Tyson, and OJ Simpson. It needs to stop.

Over the next few months and maybe longer, there will be many who will come to defense of Nate Parker and fuel conspiracies that he was indeed a victim of a corrupt system meant to rob the Black community of our brightest and most talented starts. This is simply not true.

It is my hope that the discussion around Nate Parker can open up more serious dialogue about rape, consent and accountability not only in the Black community, but in the larger society as well.

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Over time, no matter our situation, we all develop sleeping habits. These are what help us to get the best rest possible. There are many books and reports written on why people don’t sleep well, the effects of not sleeping well, what you can do to try and get better sleep, etc. From what I’ve seen this particular area is very dependent on the individual. There doesn’t seem to be a cookie cutter answer that says if you do the following you are guaranteed to get 8 hours of sleep. Which leads to another debate, what is the right number of hours? If 8 is the magic number and you aren’t getting that amount then that can potentially lead to other disruptive patterns such as not feeling rested, anxiety, stress, getting depressed, etc. because you are fixated on that number being the right one.

Of course all of what I described is for those in a “normal” day to day situation. All of this becomes exponentially greater if you are dealing with combat related stresses or PTS. So many other factors come in to play and sleep as we know is an important part of recovery. Being able to properly rest can help in moving forward in a productive manner.

If you have trouble falling asleep, according to www.realwarriors.net try the following:

• Relax before bed
• Read or write in a journal
• Perform breathing exercises or meditate
• Avoid stimulants for three to five hours before going to bed, such as:
• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Nicotine
• Create a sleep-ready environment and consider using:
• A fan to stay cool
• A sleep mask to reduce light
• Earplugs to reduce noise
• Reset yourself
• If more than 20 minutes have passed and you have not fallen asleep, get out of bed and leave the room
• Listen to soothing music or read in low light until you become tired. Then, go back to the bedroom and try again to fall asleep
• Limit napping
• Restrict naps to no more than 25-30 minutes to help feel rested but not groggy
• Avoid napping in the late afternoon or evening

There has been a study that talks about the use of a weighted blanket. This produces various positive results within your body leading to good sleep. The research is inconclusive on the exact changes or effects it has but based on the results they have made some general assumptions that there is a positive change in the use of a heavy blanket. The study claims that the blanket should be 10% of your body weight.

Proper sleep is something that has to become a habit, habits develop from consistency and being persistent in achieving a positive result. There are a couple great books that could be of help in both sleep and developing habits.

• The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time – Arianna Huffington
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Charles Duhigg

Overtime with proper habits being formed and new senses of feeling safe you will get to the point where getting proper sleep is part of your daily routine. This however is caveated with we all have some amount of daily stressors and situations that interfere with our sleep but it won’t be as challenging or counterproductive.

Landmark Life Coaching’s Mission is to honorably and respectfully serve courageous groundbreakers and transitioning veterans to persevere in defining and executing their future by providing an atmosphere of comradery and trust that honors their dedication and commitment. This will empower our clients to feel whole, honored, respected and fulfilled in defining and living their life purpose.

Veterans Coach/Speaker/Writer Dwayne.paro@landmarklifecoaching.com

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Abdelrahman ElGendy is a student, 20 years old. In October 2013, after the ouster of the elected-president Mohammed Morsi, there was a protest in Ramsis Square. Abdelrahman, being a 17-year-old then, wanted to watch and take some footage of the protest. But he was instead arrested from the car with his father, because the police suspected that the beard of his father meant that he belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.

That was only a few days before the academic year — and his first year of university — started. He was expected to go to the German University in Cairo (GUC) after receiving a full scholarship to the Engineering program there. He planned on getting a scholarship to Germany in his second year of Engineering from his basketball advancement. He had it all set. But the Egyptian regime decided to twist it into a nightmare.

Abdelrahman and his father were both taken to a station and treated like thugs and were faced, along with 62 others, with 16 charges, including murder, attempt to murder and disturbing the public peace on a national holiday. They all got sentenced to 15 years. That’s actually illegal because Abdelrahman was still an underage.

Here’s a translated-letter of what Abdelrahman recently wrote in prison:

I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough and I wish I can just turn off my mind.
I keep thinking of all the possible ways and methods, that all lead to the same negative path.

The more I try to understand life, the more it hurts me.
I think about going out of prison, becoming free. But I find that I’m not even excited. I’m scared to death. I got used to prison to the extent that the life outside seems like a strange option now.

How can I go out and leave my father inside, when it wasn’t even his fault that he’s here in prison? How can I ever live with this guilt? If we both stay, how can we accept all the humiliation and oppression? How can my mother, who’s going to die because of all this, bear it anymore? Or my siblings, who keep growing everyday while I’m not there as life moves on and ends?

How – if I do get out and even travel away from Egypt – can I leave my family to face the rest of the repression on their own, exactly as if I were still inside the prison? And if I stay in Egypt, how can I keep my mouth shut? How can I not talk about the conditions I’ve lived and the people I’ve seen? How can I not try to help?

And if talk, and get arrested, again, how can I live through all this nightmare, again? And if I don’t talk, how can I live with myself knowing that I became a coward, too scared to speak up the truth, although I of all people know exactly what happens in prison because I’ve lived it all? How can I become no more than an animal who sees everything and chooses to stay silent?

The condition is horrible. It’s a nightmare, inside prison and outside prison, inside the country and outside the country, whether I stay silent or choose to talk.

How can I live knowing that I won’t ever have any peace of mind again? Every bit of this real-life nightmare left a trace in my mind, in my soul, and in my heart. A permanent trace.

I realized that I keep believing in God and having faith in Him as much as possible, for one sole reason: That He would explain this to me when life ends; explain why and how all this happened to me, while having a reason behind it.

I want to understand everything in one day.
I believe that would be heaven.

So what do you want from your children, Egypt? What’s your message? What has Abdelrahman done wrong to go through this in a life that he’s barely gotten a chance to live? What has his father, who’s a businessman and has nothing at all to do with politics, done to face these charges?

Abdelrahman was expelled from the German University in Cairo because of his absence. His basketball championship stopped. He and the people in the same case as him are in a place that treats them like criminals.

Abdelrahman and his father and the other youth deserve freedom, not life sentence in prison. This has to end. There has to be a way out.

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Andy Parker won’t let you forget.

One year ago, on Aug. 25, his daughter Alison was murdered along with her cameraman, Adam Ward, during a live TV shoot. Their killer, disgruntled former WDBJ employee Vester Lee Flanagan, was filming when he gunned the pair down, and posted videos of the horrifying incident to social media before shooting himself dead during a police pursuit.

Andy Parker then dedicated himself to anti-gun activism and lashed out at the NRA, saying at the time, “They messed with the wrong family.” He feared for his life as he took podium after podium, railing against lawmakers who voted against stricter gun laws.

But over the past year, not enough has changed, so Andy Parker isn’t going to change.

On Friday, he penned an op-ed in the New York Daily News, twisting his sword in the gut of “treasonous Republican leadership” that hasn’t moved toward reform despite a shocking amount of gun violence in America since Alison’s death.

He writes:

In the lead-up to this day, I’ve been asked what’s changed in the last year. The NRA still controls too many politicians. There is no new meaningful common-sense gun legislation passed at a federal level, and terrorists on watch lists can still buy weapons even if they can’t board a flight.

The NRA, however, continues spouting the myth that Hillary Clinton and other political leaders advocating gun sense want to abolish the Second Amendment. How many times do reasonable people have to say, “No one is coming to take your guns away and if you can pass a background check, you can buy a firearm?”

READ MORE: Father of slain reporter remembers his daughter’s strength

He pointed a finger directly at House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), a “coward” politician known for undermining a 9/11 first responder health care bill and refusing to hold hearings on gun control in his district after Parker and Ward’s slaying.

Andy Parker continued:

My only question for him was, “Bob, how do you sleep at night?”

As usual, he looked like he swallowed a lemon. He never uttered a word of response. It was the face and the response of a coward and I’ve opined before — this coward should join the treasonous Republican leadership in acquiring a new wardrobe — orange jumpsuits.

Today, Parker says he won’t falter in his fight for gun control. He won’t let us forget about Alison, and he won’t stop fighting “to be free of gun violence.”

“Momentum is on our side and it’s only a matter of time until we prevail,” he said. “The needle has moved, and I’m not going to lose this fight. I’m Alison’s dad.”

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