Let’s get into this quickly. I love my Vibram Five Fingers, but they are not with out problems. I’ve had the shoes for almost six months now, and they have seen pretty heavy usage. This review will give some of my thoughts on the construction, care and usage of the Vibram Five Fingers. Hopefully you will find it helpful if you are thinking about picking up a pair.

Background

I can’t walk down the street and not catch someone giving me a weird look. People tend to look at shoes much more than you would think. It doesn’t stop at just the looks; I’ve had everything from giving impromptu product demonstrations in stores, to crowds of people surrounding me in a restaurant asking me about the shoes. For a traveler this is great, as anything that can help break the ice right away and make it easier for people to open up to you can be a benefit.

I’ve been traveling now since May 20th and have seen parts of Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands. I brought two pairs of shoes with me on my travels: a pair of leather dress shoes for going out and formal occasions and my Vibram Five Fingers Sprint for everything else. I would estimate that I wear the Five Fingers around 95% of the time that I’m out and about (around the apartment I go barefoot,) so they see their share of abuse.

Build Quality

After a month or so of really heavy usage the Five Fingers have taken a beating. The soles are holding up well, with almost no visible wear. The cloth used on the top of the sprint model is a different story. The rubber on left big toe got caught on a crack in the sidewalk, which lead to the toe dragging agaisnt the concrete forming a hole (see photo). I also have developed a hole between the big toe and fourth toe (or between the little piggy that went to market and the one that stayed home if you will), that most likely formed through friction (see photo). I was able to find some thread that matched the shoes and sewed a temporary patch, but hoped they would hold up to a bit more abuse.

I was extremely sad when this happened.

Even more so when I found this.

Care

You absolutely must keep up on the cleaning or the shoes become uncomfortable to wear. If the thought of cleaning your shoes weekly (or more) under heavy usage is too much for you, you best look elsewhere. Sweat from your feet mixes with dust that gets into the shoes and forms a black paste that adheres to the microfiber bottom. After a day or two of walking around (about 4-5 hours on your feet walking around a city each day), you have to clean them or the sweat/dust paste starts to get slippery and your foot slides around. It’s a terrible feeling, trust me.

Washing them with water and a bit of soap cleans them right up, and only takes about five minutes. I would recommend hand washing them, as I found the washing machine too harsh on the fabric. The fabric around the toes on my sprints is starting to get frayed after the first washing using a machine (see photo). The fraying is mostly a cosmetic issue, and shouldn’t have any noticeable physical effect on the shoes. While it may not be the best option, to keep them looking better I started shaving the frayed fabric off with a standard razor. The concept of shaving your shoes might seem kind of weird, but it seems to work pretty well and keeps the shoes looking better (see photo). Drying them works best in the sun, which can take only a few hours. If you dry them inside away from the sun, plan on letting them sit overnight.

Fuzziness from the washing machine.

Yep. Shaving my shoes.

Uses

Vibram Five Fingers are the Swiss Army Knives of shoes. Going rock climbing then sailing? no problem. Need to walk over broken glass all day? Done that. Here are a few of my experiences with them.

Walking: Walking is one area the my Sprints excel at. You can feel every texture beneath your feet. Walking around Europe has been a dream with cobblestone roads and other textures on the street everywhere. It may not be for everyone, but noticing the various textures has added to my travel experience. On some days I’ve put 5-6 hours of walking in while traveling and while wearing the Five Fingers my feet are in far less pain at the end of the day than they would be if I was wearing other shoes.

The day after I arrived in Germany in May, the football (soccer) team from the town I am staying in won the German championship. A huge city wide party took place and there was broken glass everywhere. There was no way to avoid walking on the glass but the Five Fingers (and my feet) came through unscathed. I wouldn’t recommend walking on broken glass all the time, but if your worried about the durability of the soles it’s a pretty good example of their strength.

The whole downtown of Wolfsburg, Germany was like this. Deutsche Meister!

Slacklining: Slacklining with the Five Fingers is almost as good as being barefoot, almost. You can feel the line pretty well and they don’t get in the way. When wearing them for slacklining I worry about getting my toes caught in thinner lines due to the rubber between the toes. It may not be that much of an issue, but it’s something that I will figure out when I get more experience with them. The only solution to this problem is not falling off the line.

Water/Beach: Sand gets into the Sprints which makes its way into the toes creating a sandpaper type effect. I took them off on the beach as I found the grinding of sand against my toes uncomfortable, and no matter how hard you try your going to get sand/rocks inside them. They don’t seem to dry too quickly once they get wet, so if you are planning on wearing them in the water and then out again, plan on having a slightly squishy feeling until they fully dry. I think some of the other models like the KSO’s would be much better for water activities.

Running: Running in the Sprints is also a pretty good experience, but is something you have to work yourself into. If you try running right away you will most likely be in pain. Gradually work your way into it over a few weeks and let your feet muscles get built up. Though even after the break in period, I find running on grass far more enjoyable than concrete as it puts far less stress on your feet.

Bouldering/Rock Climbing: I tried using them for bouldering on my home wall, but had some problems getting a grip on some of the smaller holds. I have not put them though a full climbing test, but in comparison to my bouldering shoes they appear to have less grip in the heal area, which could cause problems on some holds. If you are thinking of buying them as dedicated climbing shoes, you might want to see them in person before buying them, but for people who want a casual climbing shoe they should work great. This is another area that I will require more experience in before I can give a good recommendation for this usage.

Conclusion

I have flat feet and I’ve been known to drag my feet and wear out the back of my shoes. I also have problems with my posture and my back being sore. While they are not a miracle fix for the issues, since I have been wearing the shoes my posture and back have noticeably improved. I also don’t have the problem of dragging my feet anymore. The fact that your feet are getting stronger while wearing them is a huge perk for me. I’ve never felt like my feet have been in better condition.

The Five Fingers have some issues, but for me the positive aspects far outweigh the negative. There is a break in period, but once you get past it they are great. When my pair wears out, I will be most definitely purchasing a new pair. I just hope by then they have some better color choices.

I suck at sewing, but the patch works well.

Killings show up every day in the news. Politicians on both sides of the border cast blame. Despite all drug related violence, the citizens of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico have to go on living their lives and have problems of their own to face. The current economic crisis is making it difficult to find jobs and as the city expands outwards neighborhoods are popping up without basic utilities. In early January 2009 I traveled to Juarez, Mexico with some friends to build a house for a family in need. This photo essay is about my time spent there.

This photo tour can be viewed as a slideshow. Simply click on an image to begin play or Click Here.

The neighborhood that we built in was one of the newer areas that lacks many utilities. Many houses get electricity from pirate electrical lines run across the ground that the neighborhood kids play soccer on, and without waste management garbage either goes into the neighboring field or is burned.

The recently cut wood scraps quickly turned into toys for the kids.

This of course happened after the concrete was almost finished.

The young family that we built for has three kids ages 1, 3, and 4 and was living in a small cinder block house. The father had been out of work for a while and was unable to find stable employment. Many people in his condition end up looking for small day labor jobs to put food on the table.

Once the neighborhood kids found out that we had a bag of candy it didn’t last long.

Toothache. I’m sure the candy didn’t help either.

This dog appeared and started chasing the families chicken.

The dog from the previous photos chased this chicken into a fence constructed from bed springs, where it got stuck. It was unable to get out by itself, and was rescued only to find it’s self toted around by this boy.

Handing over the house.

Photographers Notes

I shot over 1,800 images over the trip on my Canon 30D. I switched between my Canon 17-40 4L and Canon 70-200 2.8L IS. Since I was building while shooting my 30D took a beating, mostly from scratching against my tool belt. Some of the paint was scratched off underneath the LCD, but other than that no real damage was done.

In an attempt to bring about order the Mexican troops had been dispatched to Juarez. The only time we saw them was at a checkpoint the first day. We stopped at the checkpoint, and only after leaving did we realize that there were soldiers in makeshift bunkers aiming rifles at our vehicles. I wanted to get a photo on the day we left, but the checkpoint was not operational.

Introducing the unofficial Where I’ve Been plugin for Wordpress.

I decided to create the Wordpress plugin after searching for an easy way to embed Where I’ve Been maps on Wordpress blogs and not finding one. I’m not a developer and don’t really know PHP, but was able to hack this together creating my first Wordpress Plugin. I’m open to code improvements, suggestions, and any help. I would love to see some examples of the plugin used, so if it’s running on your blog please leave me a comment and I’ll feature your site in the examples.

Current Version: 0.6.0
Requires at least: Wordpress 2.7
Tested up to: Wordpress 2.7.1
Download: Where I’ve Been. This gets the current version from the Wordpress Plugin Directory.

Live Demo

Other examples:
JennasWanderBlog.com
MorganInMotion.com

Installation

1. Download and extract the “where-ive-been” folder.
2. Upload the “where-ive-been” folder to your WordPress plugin directory, usually “wp-content/plugins”.
3. Activate the plugin in your WordPress admin panel.
4. *Optional* If you wish, you may hard code your user id’s into the where-ive-been.php file. I only recommend doing this if you know what you’re doing.
5. Place the shortcode with the required values filled in wherever you wish for your map to be displayed. See usage for more info on how to configure the plugin.

To update the plugin simply use Wordpress’s built in one-click updater. If you wish to upgrade manually simply repeat the installation steps.

Usage

Before you can embed the map on your blog, you will need to retrieve two user id’s found in the source code of your whereivebeen.com profile.

1. Go to http://www.whereivebeen.com and log in to your account.
2. Click on the “Profile” or “My Profile” buttons to pull up your map.
3. Right click in your browser and select “View Page Source”(Firefox), “View Source” (Internet Explorer & Safari).
4. Search the code (CTRL-f Windows, Command-f Mac) first for “uID” and then for “iID” and record each of the corresponding values that are single quotation marks.
Example: Person = { **uID: ‘0000000′**, sID: ‘Not Needed’, **iID: ‘00000000000000000000000000000000′** )
You are looking for the values that are represented as 0’s in the example. The uID will be around 8 digits long and the iID around 32 digits.

The plugin makes use of Wordpress Shortcodes and has two required options and two optional ones.
Embed maps into your post or page using shortcode: [whereivebeen uid="Required" iid="Required" roundcorners="Optional" width="Optional"]

1. uid = *Required* Your unique 8 digit uID found on your whereivebeen.com profile (see above).
2. iid = *Required* Your unique 8 digit iID found on your whereivebeen.com profile (see above).
3. roundcorners = Optional. This option can be set to either ‘true’ or ‘false’, the default is ‘true’. This option will change the corners on the map window to either round(true) or square(false).
4. width = *Optional* Set the width if the default (570×360) is too wide for your blog. The height is automatically calculated.

Screenshots

Click the screenshots to load them in the lightbox.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use multiple maps on my site?
You may use multiple maps by using multiple shortcodes with different user id’s.

Does this plugin work on pre-2.7 Wordpress installations?
I have personally only tested the plugin on Wordpress 2.7+ installations. The plugin makes use of the Shortcode API that was released in Wordpress 2.5, so it will possibly work on all versions after 2.5. If your feeling brave, test it out and let me know.

Milestones and Goals

Here is what I have planned for future versions.

• Implement Wordpress Admin Panel control.
• Automatic fetching of uID and iID from profile page, similar to http://idgettr.com/

History

0.5 [2009.03.20]
* Added: Option to change the width of the map
* Minor code fixes and readme readability updates

0.5.1 [2009.03.19]
* Fixed: Removed unintended use of “smart quotes”

0.5 [2009.03.18]
* Initial Public Release
* Added: Shortcode support for changing rounded corners

0.4 [2009.03.18]
* Added: Shortcode support for uID and iID

0.1-0.3 [2009bc.03.01]
* Initial development phase. AKA “Pre-history”

Support = Community Based

I’m not a programmer (but I can try to fake it). If anyone wants to help add new features, clean up code, or help support the plugin leave a comment below. I may not be able to answer your question or solve the problem, but collectively we can.

Geese. Lake Byron, South Dakota

I have had the chance recently to get outdoors a bit and try my hand a nature photography. Below are some shots from some recent trips into the area surrounding Lake Byron, South Dakota followed by some commentary.

Bald Eagles

Young Bald Eagle

Compilation of five photos of a young Bald Eagle taking off.

Three Bald Eagles.
I have had a difficult time getting close to the older ones.

Young Bald Eagle

Photo Notes

Nature photography, or more specifically bird photography, as featured here is something that is pretty new to me. It requires long lenses, tests the limits of your equipment and requires serious patience. For most of these photos, the temperature was near 15°F, nearing -1°F with wind. Whenever I was not shooting I had to take the battery out of the camera and put it near a source of heat to keep the battery from dying. Even with that, my 30D which can normally handle 11+ frame burst in RAW, was dropping to about three before having to pause to write for about 20 seconds.

Birds are small and tend not to fly near you, especially in SD during hunting season. My newly acquired Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS coupled with my 30D gives me an equivalent of 320mm, but even that fell short most of the time. I’m sure if I coupled the lens with a 2X Extender I would have adequate reach. One thing is for sure, bird photography requires some serious equipment to pull off correctly.

With all the trouble I had, there were some pretty amazing moments. The large flocks of Geese leaving the lake was straight out of Planet Earth. Also, at one point as I was driving, the young Bald Eagle that was in the last shot followed me beside the road for about 10 minutes. Thankfully I was the only one on the road and was able to stop multiple times for photo’s.

MMMmmm.. The taste of economic destruction in the morning….

Photo Notes

The photoshoot for the images used real shredded US currency that I happened to have laying around. To light it I used an Alien Bee B800 studio strobe with a medium size softbox as well a Canon 550EX Speedlight with an homemade cardboard snoot. The lens/camera setup consisted of a Canon 50mm f/1.8 on my 30D.

This image and others are available for sale via my stock photography site. Please check out the gallery below to view others in the series. Please do not link directly to the image itself, or modify it an any form. Please contact me directly for licensing of the “Credit Crunch” image. Thanks.

I have been shooting some nature shots lately to build up my stock portfolio. While out one day at Lake Byron, South Dakota, I found this large flock of geese and created a few panoramics which I combined into one. Click to view the large version. Once loaded you can drag it around to view the whole photo.

Aaron Marsh of Copeland. Omaha, NE @ Slowdown.

Lights

Lydia

Lovedrug

Copeland

Photo Notes

Thanks to Lydia I was able to get a photo pass for this show featuring four great bands.This show was the first test for my new Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS, which arrived a day before. The switches on the lens are a bit loose and I kept bumping the AF and IS off unintentionally, leaving me with a bunch of out of focus images. I got some gaffers tape from the mixing booth and taped over them, fixing the problem; I have yet to remove the tape, and will probably leave it on permanently. Lights and Lydia had pretty poor lighting which added to my problems, but by the time Copeland went on the light levels had been raised giving me a bit more to work with in regards to shutter speed. Even at F2.8 and IS I shot at ISO 1600, testing the limits of both the lens and my 30D.

Overall it was an amazing show, it’s always great having the chance to photograph the music you love. If you have not checked out these bands I highly recommend them: Lights – Lights Ep, Lydia – Illuminate, Lovedrug – The Sucker Punch Show, Copeland – You Are My Sunshine. Illuminate and You Are My Sunshine have been on almost constant repeat since the show.

Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated with old barns.
I can remember driving to my grandparents house in Iowa and staring out the window searching for the old broken down barns. This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel around some hilly back roads of Iowa searching for barns of my childhood. Here are some photo’s from the trip.

A man sleeping in Shanghai, China.
The urban poor population of China is estimated to be as high as 37 million.

Lhasa, Tibet. October 2007

When the image loads in the lightbox, click and drag to view the entire panoramic.