I happened to stumble upon this website today. I don't even remember how I found it, but I had to share it with you.
Someone has decided to take a few of our favorite 8 bit video games and recreate them into a human stop motion video. Have a look over at Project GAME OVER.
If you would like to have a look at the specific projects they've completed thus far, I have them listed individually for you.
Tetris
Pole Position
Space Invaders
Pong
Now that you may have reviewed their projects to date, I would like to share my take on the project. I think it is hilarious. To think about the effort that they put into getting these accomplished inspires quite an interesting mental image. Think about it, on a couple of these, they have quite a few complex constructions to make. People, left and right move from one chair to the next and sit there for a photo to be taken. And they do this for a few hours. I think the max time was 6 hours. That's craziness, but cool.
It sounds to me to be a labor of love for the guys producing it and the extras, known as "pixels" have just got to be good friends or really enthusiastic about the completion of this video.
Once they get the video/photographic process complete, they take it one step further to voice record the audio. That's amazing. It's fun & a perfect fit for the apparent goal of the project.
Well, enough of that for now, I hope you find this as fun and interesting as I have.
Peace.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
8 bit Video Game Revival
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
How NOT To Install A New Hard Drive
Late last year Angel presented to me a problem. She was out of hard drive space. She was working on school projects, transporting them to and fro and since her projects are audio related (some of them video too) they take up some serious space.
When I built her computer, I had taken this possibility into consideration. I got her a 75G SATA hard drive for nothing but project work. Well, it just so happened that when she moved to GA before me, I was having difficulty with my rigs at that time. I took the liberty of using some of her project drive as a backup location. Even after I moved down to join her, there wasn't much motivation to get that data off of her machine. Well, at this time it was needed. I took my files back to my computer and uninstalled some games from her computer. Between these two activities, I managed to free up somewhere in the neighborhood of 15G of space. Well, it wasn't but moments later that she consumed a good portion that space.
This all took place right before the wedding. We really didn't have the money to be spending on either of our machines and time was a premium too. Even while we were on our honeymoon, we had discussed buying her a new hard drive shortly after we got home. Ironically, this didn't happen. It became a low priority and all but forgotten.
It is pretty well known that as a couple, I'm the big spender of the two of us. That's saying something significant. I'm pretty conservative with what I'll spend money on and she's even more so. Amazing, how did I find a woman that doesn't like to shop? Anyway, since I am the spender and I know how to curb my spending (by not going to stores or temping myself), it took quite a while for me to be in a place to peruse the prices of hard drives.
Then, before we knew it, it was Christmas shopping season again. In our shopping, we visited Fry's a couple of times. I even managed to go alone. Well, on my solo trip to Fry's I took an opportunity to check out their hard drive selection. I was amazed. I was able to find a .5 Terabyte (Western Digital 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 16MB buffer) hard drive for a mere $100. That was a deal I was not willing to walk away from.
I initially had intentions of giving it to Angel as a Christmas gift. However, once she caught wind that I "might" have bought her a piece of computer hardware as a gift she wasn't happy. After some additional consideration, since we'd already discussed the purchase, it wouldn't have been much of a gift. We both knew she needed more space and the purchase was already consented, so, as a gift, it would not have been fair. Anyway, it wasn't like it was going to be her only gift. So I broke down and told her what I had found.
Well, part of the low cost of the drive was that it was an OEM model. It didn't come with the data or power cables included. I wasn't concerned about this because I knew that the motherboard for Angel's computer came with two sets. Well, after a few weeks of the drive sitting on the desk, Angel began to question when it was going to be completed. Well, once I found the motivation to search for the cables amongst my collection of parts, I came up dry. To get this guy installed, I would have to return to Fry's again.
Saturday, when we got out of bed, we went shopping. Of course, one of the places on the list was Fry's. The rest of the shopping was unexciting unless you want to hear about the snow and lack of eggs at the grocery store, but that's a completely different story.
Once we get home, Angel throws the bag with the cables in it and says to get to work. She didn't want me to help with the groceries, she wanted me to get it installed. I see her resolve to get it done was much bigger than mine. One of the additional tasks I had to do was swap our video cards because apparently Pro Tools does not like the g-force line or needed a driver update or something. Since I was tearing into the computer, swapping the video cards was easier since I knew that the ATI card that was in my PC worked like a charm.
Back to the hard drive.
Well, the SATA controller in the computer is configured to be a hardware RAID. With all of my experience with RAID on SCSI, I made an assumption regarding how this was supposed to proceed. When I booted the computer, I immediately jumped into the controller BIOS application. Since I didn't want the two SATA drives to be in a single RAID array, I thought I would have to create a new RAID 0 specification for the new hard drive. As I immediately found out, this was not the case. When I selected the RAID 0 option and said, "Yes, I am sure", the controller placed the two drives into a single RAID 0 array. This is so not what I wanted. I removed the RAID 0 definition from the two drives, but the damage was already done. Assigning them into a single container blew away the MBR on the existing drive.
I booted the computer and initially discovered that the drive letter definition for the old drive was gone. When I opened the Disk Manager, it immediately prompted me to initialize both drives. I knew I had trouble at this point. I don't know what the initialize command would do to the existing drive so I didn't do it. At this point I also wasn't about to play with the new drive so I canceled out of the process completely.
Now that I have definitive knowledge that I trashed the drive, my options have become quite limited. The phone was my only line of attack left. They typical sources (Exile & Darkace) were scouted first to no avail (no answer). Then I gave FloydMonk a call. He was available, but after I explained the situation, he didn't have any direct answers to provide. HOWEVER, he did make the recommendation to talk to his dad.
That idea was a sunbeam that shattered my black cloud. Ever since we were in high school, I have had tons of respect for his dad. Thankfully, I was able to reach his dad. Once I was able to accurately portray what had gone down, he was immediately able to point me in the right direction. He sent me to download GetDataBack. This is not a free product, but was the one that carried his highest recommendation. There was a free alternative, but in this situation, better was better than free.
Once I got the application downloaded, installed and fired up, it was the time of reckoning. Will the application find my data (well, Angel's data)? This was very important. Three plus years of data to include all of her AI school work was on this drive. If I lost the data, she would have strung me up in the backyard from a tree by my balls, naked and lord only knows what else.
Well, immediately the application was able to find the MFR (Master File Record) and started to spew out filenames and sector locations. We're in business. So, I let the application run for an hour or so. When it was complete, it said that it had found 64G of data on the drive. According to Angel, this was right on the money. Speaking of money, it was also time to spend some. Granted, this was ultimately my fault, but I was both relieved and frustrated that I had to spend $80 to restore the data.
Much of that data was literally irreplaceable, eighty dollars is nothing in comparison to the value that Angel placed on her work. And rightly so. I would be crushed if I were to loose a hard drive, but life would go on. Conversely, Angel still needs all of that data to complete her degree and to have a portfolio to assist her with getting a job. The damage would have been immense.
To shorten the remainder of the story, I setup the new hard drive wrong the first time. Avid software is very particular about the setup of the equipment it is to use. Pro Tools will NOT use a dynamic drive in windows. So, even after I finished the data restoration, I had to format the drive again and re-restore it to a basic drive configuration. As it turned out, I didn't want a dynamic drive anyway, but I didn't clearly understand what a dynamic drive was. Dynamic drives are a software RAID. Clearly not what I wanted. I was glad the software stopped me from moving forward.
So, in summary, boot your OS after installing a drive before thinking you know what to do. Wait to see if the OS acknowledges the new hardware before trying to take lower level configuration steps. I honestly don't think I would be here today if I had irreparably lost that data. The good news is, the new drive is configured correctly, Pro Tools is working beautify (even better now that it has its video card back) and the data that was on the damaged drive was restored without issue. All is good in the world again.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Disposable Computer
The days of the disposable PC are finally here. You can buy a machine that intentionally prevents you from storing data on it and costs little enough that the entire system becomes plug & chuck. I have just discovered a brand new laptop (technically a sub-notebook) from Asus will cost you between $250 and $500. Really, even a $500 machine and is fully functioning out of the box machine is almost unheard of today.
I was poking around in my book marks today and found a link that I hadn't looked at in a very long time. I was about to delete it because I remember why I marked it in the first place. I was impressed that some online company would custom paint your computer for you. Anyway, since I have no use for this, I was about to circular file it. Well instead, I checked out what was on the page. I happened to come across a sticker for a website that I wasn't familiar, Virtual-Hideout. So, I was intrigued. I hit up the website and found this mod that they referred to as " One Eee to Rule Them All".
After reading this post, I was curious what in the hell a Eee was and why did it have so much modding interest. I Googled Eee but I wasn't finding anything that would answer my question. I resorted to the next best research tool for technological acronyms, Wikipedia. A simple search for Eee delivered me promptly to ASUS Eee PC documentation page.
I was quite amazed that an Eee mod was a modification made to this specific model of machine. I won't bore you with the specs and details of this machine, you can read that for yourself on the Wiki site. But the most interesting aspect to this machine is its cost, intentional lack of storage space, and it runs Linux with KDE.
From what I can tell, this machine is a small form factor. There are people complaining out there that the keyboard is too small and it only has a 7" diagonal monitor that runs 600 X 480. The boot time is pretty impressive also. Anyway, if someone is looking for a dumb internet terminal, here it is. I don't think that you'll be doing too much gaming on this system and the small form factor might cause eye strain if used for long periods of time. However, if you are only using your full size desktop computer to browse the internet or are willing to store all of your personal information on thumb drives or carry a portable USB harddrive with your machine, this is an easy sell.
I was recently thinking about getting my hands on such a machine. My work has me scheduled to do some traveling in the near future and being machineless is less than desirable, yet manageable. For personal reasons, an internet machine for my drill weekends and trips to Pittsburgh, to have my own machine handy would prove useful. However, my search has ended, even before this came along, as my employer has decided to upgrade my work PC and I was subsequently able to talk them into a laptop. I won't be getting it any time in the near future, but the fact it is in the works is promising. I think I'll put a personal i-net machine on hold until I have the extra money to invest in it, right now debt management is key. Though, it is nice to know options such as this are available when I'm ready.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Friends & Conflict - A Reflection
Friendships are an amazing thing when they work. No one can tell you how or why you choose your friends, but they come into your life for a reason.
Working thru any design process is rough. It is even more compounded when the people you are designing with are a few of your closest friends. Differences in viewpoint, opinion and forethought can cause a multitude of issues. Within the past year and a half, I have come to know how much stress friendships can weather.
Since the beginning of a project that will remain nameless, Exile & I have been working in our free time trying to design a web application. We are now in our second design phase since we've managed to complete the first iteration of the project life cycle with blackjack. Anyway, we are now engulfed in our second round of design debates & decisions regarding the transition from blackjack to hearts.
Design work is tedious. There are many details (large and small) that need to be ironed out. I just with the ironing process was not so difficult. There are many reasons why ironing is difficult. There are those, like me, that will hold on to a notion until the issues and justifications that it will not work are beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don't know why I'm this way, but I am, and I am striving to make progress forward to attempt to investigate the alternatives further before denouncing them. I guess I feel that I want to contribute more during the project in more than just getting the implementation working for the design. I know that I'm as much of a contributer to this project as the rest of us involved, but the majority of the major components seem to originate from a single source. Although, the designs are sound and do work where my designs or suggestions are certainly lacking. Anyway, enough about me. That is not what I was intending on discussing here.
The other personality at play here is one that has consistently generated superior designs that have been exhaustively examined, manipulated, and reorganized until they are a polished & completed idea from start to finish. Therefore, when presenting these ideas, the ability to be confident without a doubt that the design plan is superior is easy to maintain. However, the lacking area is the conveyance of the message.
There have been many times where one of two things happen. Either we both have the same idea, we debate the topic for an hour just to realize we're both saying the same thing. These are frustrating when they happen, however, resolve themselves and permit progression to other topics. However, the alternative isn't so innocent at times. We've had a couple of issues that have caused some serious conflict. This usually occurs when we have to distinctly differing opinions as to how something should function and why. We debate back & forth rehashing many of the same points for both sides and yet, somehow, a couple key points for one side of the proposal are not conveyed well. These usually end when I have an epiphany regarding what was said and what it meant. Unfortunately, reaching the epiphany usually takes a couple of days from the time the conversation took place. During this time a great sense of frustration begins to emanate from each of us. Although, once this roadblock, whatever it might be, is hurdled, the frustration ceases, the project moves on, and is then later forgotten. The way it should be.
I can't remember before this project when either of us have had these major problems. I am starting to think that the lack of visual communication is making these conversations so painful. We've historically have had some medium of drawing available. Whether it is a notebook and pencil, whiteboard, or a Kings napkin & a crayon. Regardless, the visualization of the advanced concepts that we've been needing to discuss seem to require more than words and other text based communication.
Anyway, I've deviated once again. Now that I've got all of the background out of the way, the message I was trying to get to is that regardless of how many times we've hit this wall or bicker back & forth on our project related issues, our friendship has weathered it all. I have found it to be interesting that even during these times that we can drop any project talk, talk personally and it's like nothing has ever happened. It is almost like a well established separation of work & personal life with co-workers.
Exile and I have weathered our share of these situations and our friendship couldn't be better. With the number of years that we've been friends, I would certainly hope that a hobby project (regardless of our shared excitement and intimacy with it) would not be enough to destroy what we've got as friends. I can't promise that the aforementioned situations will not happen again, nor can I say that I will be able to prevent them all. However, what I am sure of is that the relationship that we share shall again weather those.
Exile, thank you.
A quick lesson in communications for the masses; the process of communication takes place in 5 distinct phases.
When trying to get the exact idea across, phase 2 & 3 have just as much bearing on how phases 4 & 5 are completed. Regardless of the intention of the message, if 4 & 5 are wrong due, or not, to phase 2 & 3, the communication attempt fails. Remember, the road to hell was paved with the best of intentions. It has become quite apparent to me that when I'm phase 4 & 5 in these scenarios, I'm not getting the idea clearly. Therefore, I will attempt in the future to accept the message I've been provided and search for the meaning within to ease this process. Although, it very well may add time into the equation, but I'd rather take more time than to risk damage or loss of this friendship.
Snow & Fire
Well, I've finally broken down. It has gotten pretty damn cold down here. It even snowed the other day. Not just a flurry either. The stuff actually stuck to the yards, not the roads, but it lied down for a little while. It only lasted overnight but it was more than enough for me.
Anyway, the snow isn't the point here, however, it is the cause of the conversation.
Since fall I've been meaning to get a chimney sweep into the house to take care of our flues. Well, that hasn't yet happened. Technically, we've got 3 of them to be concerned about. We've got the furnace flue, the dryer exhaust tube and the chimney flue. Since we've moved in, the dryer has been functioning (though I suspect that I need to get that cleaned by spring); the furnace is working without a hitch, and well, the fireplace had yet to be employed.
The fireplace is the one I've had the most concern about. I think it has more to do with a shady usage description from the previous owners of the house more than anything. The fireplace has an exposed flame that is truly a potential hazard if the flue isn't clean. All of the commercials about chimney fires and everything has had me greatly concerned. I was told by the previous owners that the fireplace will support either gas or real wood. If it has just been used with gas, the carbon deposits don't bother me as much, however, wood will leave creosote deposits. Creosote is the element present in the chimney that is most liable for fires.
For this reason and this reason alone, I've been very fearful about using said appliance. However, snow coming down and the largest room in my house is freezing. I didn't want to turn up the furnace, so I stared to do some research into my firebox. I was sifting around thru the "sand" and stuff below the logs. I was unable to locate any evidence of cellulose present in the box. This seemed to indicate to me that wood either has not been used or has been long since cleaned up. I don't want to speculate on this too much.
The next concern I've had about using the fireplace was the lack of knowledge with its use. I've never had a fireplace, real or otherwise, before. Therefore, since it is a potentially dangerous appliance both to my house and my health, I had some research to complete. I had questions regarding concepts like the following:
So, I hit the online research tool that I know best, Google. I was able to find out that my gas logs are of the vented variety. This really isn't relevant, but it did help me find an owners/user manual online and understand how they work. However, armed with a manual (not for mine, but one none the less), I was able to determine what was safe, what do to with that shit in the firebox.
So, now armed with the usage understanding, it was time to see if the thing worked or not. I got the "sand" setup, logs setup, lit a stick and hit the gas (mind you it didn't really go in that order or end this way exactly, but I thougth I'd spare my stupidity for another time). It was a beautiful site. It caught the light and has been working beautifully for the past two nights.
Angel was all surprised because I lit it. She was at work while I was doing all of this. She came home to a dark house, but when she came in, she quickly noticed why. Of course the 20 questions followed, but I had expected that. She knew how adamant I was about not using it until it was cleaned, but the weather saw to it to expedite the time line with the use of it.
So, in summary, I love the fire, it might be inefficient, but it is effective. It looks nice and warms the room. I would recommend having one to anyone. I will further quantify this message with leather gloves will NOT adequately protect you from the heat of a hot log. No matter how quick you are, the heat will travel quicker. That is all I'm going to say about that.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Ideas
For those married guys out there, read this, it might save you some headaches.
I'm not saying that my example has been a headache, but it did happen to change some of my priorities for me. if you have ever said to yourself, "Wow, it would be a good idea to do .... [Fill in the blank]" and if this was in reference to something for the wife/significant other/girlfriend, then you should know all about this.
There is a time & place to present ideas that the wife might be interested in. As I have recently learned, it should only be AFTER all of the things you want have been completed. I had two objectives to accomplish today.
Well, due to my big mouth, these priorities were altered. Granted, neither of my objectives for the day truly had a deadline, therefore this was not a big issue. However, for future reference, this is what did occur and why.
Yesterday, we did some shopping at Sears. We both had a few things that we wanted to get for the house and had some giftcards to use. Therefore, we picked up the following:
Well, when we returned home with our booty, it was time to find homes for what we purchased. Well, as you can imagine, we now had more pots & pans than we had homes for. I had already devised an idea as to where to put them, but had yet to have presented the idea to Angel. Well, it would seem that now would be as good of a time as any. I presented to her that we create a pots & pans rack to put on one of our walls in the kitchen. So, I explained my vision to her and apparently this was too good of an idea. Once I was motivated to start working around the house today, Angel asked if Home Depot/Lowes was on the agenda. Well, as of that point, it became an overriding activity for us today.
We took our giftcards for Lowes with us and headed out. We picked up the supplies for the construct and returned home. It turns out the rack supplies came to the exact amount that we had in giftcards, man, was that ever nice. :) The items we purchased for this rack included the following:
Notice that the cable is not mentioned, it wasn't forgotten, we just happened to have some at home in the shed.
So, when we get home, I test fit everything together and we're good so far. Once I take it a back apart, do a test fit of the closed S loops to see if then will fit on the pipes. No-go! Damn. There are 15 of these things and I have to unbend each one of them. So, once I get them unbent to fit the pipe and the other end open to hold the pots & pans, I tape the threads on the pipes and head to the shed to do some painting. the parts were all different colors and conditions, therefore, we wanted to make it uniform. I get to painting the parts, which didn't take to long.
At this point, it occurs to me that I should have dealt with the closed loop S hooks after applying the paint. The paint will take 2 hours to dry (due to the temperature, our high today was around 45). Unfortunately, by the time the paint application is finished, it is already 5 PM. This
does not give me too much time to work in the yard. Oh, well. I will get what I can completed. So, the fence is down now, and the front three vertical supports are out of the ground. There are only 4 posts left to deal with and I'll get to them eventually. Also, note, that Angel did do some cleaning while I was working, so I can't really complain too much that my objectives were not met, as they were hit to some degree or another.
Once I'm done with what I can get to today in the yard, it is now 6 PM and I still have an hour to kill. I putz around on my computer for a bit and realize that it is now 7:15 PM. Time to return to work on the rack. I check the parts by flashlight and to my surprise, they are dry. I take them down and into the house to finish. It is too cold to be subjecting myself to working outside for no reason. Once the tape is taken off of the threads, the assembly begins. The actual assembly of the rack is completed in much shorter time than earlier because I already figured out the tricks of the system.
Keep in mind, threaded pipe is not designed to be joined into circles with itself. Thankfully, water will not be traversing this thing, one of the pipes is not completely tight because the threads are opposing when trying to get it into one fitting and then into another. Therefore, a comprise was struck, tightened one side real well and then loosen it to thread it into the other. The important part is that it works.
Once the structure is constructed, I start working on the cabling. This took longer than I had expected, but then again, what does? My first and second trial with this process resulted in cables that were WAY too long to suite the need. Finally, the third attempt got it to the length required. If it hasn't been obvious yet as to what the cables are for, it is to prevent the pots & pans from ripping the bracket off the wall if it were to get too heavy. Pictures will be provided at the end to clarify how they play into the system.
Now that the cables are in place, I mount the "floor fittings" to the wall. Now, I was lazy and didn't bother looking for studs (thus the additional cable supports), so I used screws that were designed to act like drywall anchors and screws in one. Also, since I wasn't looking for studs, I put the screws in last so not to tempt the structure from pulling itself off of the wall.
So, I did get something accomplished today. I think it even turned out pretty well. Although, it wasn't on my list of things to do, although my to-do list for the day wasn't vital, so I didn't mind doing it. Although, next time I have any thoughts about a home improvement project, I will wait until my to-dos are done first before presenting it. :) Just a word to the wise that just because you offer an idea for the future, the future might be closer than you anticipate.
As promised, here are the pictures:
Christmas Vacation
For those of you that are not aware, I have been off of work since December 20th. Much as not transpired during my time off. Therefore, I'll just hit the highlights.
Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2): This has been my affliction for most of my vacation. I can't tell you how much time I have put into the game in the past 2 weeks. However, I will tell you that I have progressed from the middle of Act I to the middle of Act III in that time. I know for most of you that doesn't mean too much, but for those that know the game, there is your reference.
Blackjack: For some background, I'm working on a project with Beagle, Ray & a few others to implement a game that we would like to play online. As far as any more specifics, I can't say. It is of a classified nature and can't publicly share that information. However, I can tell you that Blackjack is our first adventure into the technology and it is looking promising. Prior to my vacation we had already established that we can get a lobby working. Those of you not intimate with the project, I'm sorry, the update won't mean much.
So, as for my update, I've put some time into creating documentation, however, not too much. The biggest thing to note with it is that I've implemented XSLT into the lobby and proved that the method would work and have been puttering around with the game table.
Christmas: Angel & I spent the holiday together. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve at Kathy & Ernie's. Chris and kids, Jay, the Skorzas and Nancy were present. What a spread they had put together, there was too much food there to mention everything, but I've got to say, the Prime Rib that Ernie made was incredible. As for Christmas Day, we were in no hurry to be awake, I think we rolled out of bed at around 11AM. We opened what gifts we had accumulated from our parents and each other. It was different. Just us, no kids, no hustle & bustle. It wasn't until around 2 that we departed for Aunt Linda's. It was nice. Uncle Larry made a mean meatloaf for dinner. But the best thing was, not having to run everywhere & anywhere for once. It was been a long time since I'd only had one place to go on Christmas. Usually it is a run from the start. It was nice to be more, um, casual with our time. Don't get me wrong, I would have done the running around if I would have been at home and not have complained about it. But to not run from the start was a welcome change. The adult conversation was a welcomed difference too. Typically, it is a constant barrage of kids. Anyway, It was good to be around family for the holidays, even it if wasn't the family we were used to being with.
New Years: This was also different from the past few years that I've spent at home. It has almost become tradition that we go to Dustin's for the ringing in of the new year. Well, we had a nice & quiet time alone for our first new years married. We spent the early part of new year's eve shopping at the mall on gift cards. What a wonderful way to shop. Once we returned home and realized that we were not going to be hanging with Chris for the night, we just decided to stay home. We played Monopoly and watched some movies followed by some channel flipping between the 3 stations having festivities televised. Quiet, quaint, and atypical, but once again, a good night.
So, there you have it, a synopsis of the past two weeks or so. To all of you that have taken the time to read my post, Happy New Year!!!
Peace!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
I Sprung a Leak (cont.)
Ok, so I went to the Dr. today for my follow-up visit. It wasn't really what I had expected it to be, but if the doctor is correct with the outcome, I will be quite happy (as will my moms).
The visit started as usual. I had a 10 AM appointment and has in the waiting room until 10:20ish, followed by the standard triage with the nurse, and then more waiting for the doctor while in the room.
It was well after 11 when the doctor finally came to see me. Of course, she removed the bandage first. With the bandage came the packing material. Then she instructed me to lie down on the bed. She began with a squeeze. Angel later told me that more white stuff was produced. She squeezed it and played with it enough to get it all out.
Once she was done with that, she decided to go digging. She pulled out a set of tweezers, and not the normal kind either. These things had tips that were in the shape of a V. They were certainly designed for grabbing. She stuck that thing in my back and started pulling and wiggling. To my surprise, the pain wasn't too bad. Mind you she was doing this without any anesthesia.
All the while she was digging around, she kept asking me if I was ok. Apparently she either thought she was hurting me or I was going to pass out from shock. Well, I have a high pain tolerance, so this wasn't a big deal, I can't knock her for it, but I did find it odd. Seemed like every 30 seconds she was asking me if I was ok.
Once she got so far, she started calling for a nurse. Well, either the Dr wasn't loud enough, or they didn't care to listen. Angel was sent to get a nurse. However, apparently she didn't move fast enough, so the doctor left me lying there alone. I didn't know it until later, but the doctor had grabbed this sack from in the wound and had it exposed, sticking out like. Angel told me about it afterward.
So, the reason she was calling for a nurse was that she needed a knife. So, this thing is sticking out of my back and out of my lump, and she starts cutting. By this time, her questions had increased to about every 10 seconds. Honestly, it didn't hurt that bad.
It sore now, more than it was on Friday, but not sore enough for me to want to take anything for it. I've still got the 15 Vicodin on the counter. Anyway, I hope this is the end of the episode with this lump. Supposedly, if she is correct, since she removed the sack, this lump should heal back down flush to my skin and be gone. I guess time will tell on that one. I go back to see her next Wednesday.
I find it funny, that I don't worry about the lump coming back. It has been her so long, it is just there. However, now that it has ruptured it is a whole different matter. But the point I'm trying to get to is that I'm more worried about the bill after all of this is done with than what the actual result is after it is healed.
I would like to think that this is over. Then I wouldn't be required to see a surgeon in a hospital for surgery (thus saving money), but part of me doesn't really expect that outcome. Maybe I will be surprised, maybe not. When I know something more, I'll certainly be providing the update here.
Peace.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
I Sprung a Leak
Well, it isn't very often that I have much to report that could be remotely classified as interesting. Tonight, that trend was bucked. I had to go to the hospital. As most of you know, I have a lump on my back. This lump has been there for over 5 years. Recently, this lump has increased in size. I have had 3 doctors previously review what it is and none of them indicated that there should be any reason for concern. I was instructed that if I wanted it to be removed, that it would be for aesthetic purposes only unless it should start to give me problems.
Well, tonight, at about midnight, my first problem has arrived. I had to work late tonight. There was some change going into our web environment and I was tasked to validate that the changes were successful. Also, following this validation, I was charged with backing up an application. Therefore, I knew that I would be spending some additional time regarding work tonight.
So, about the time that we completed the validation of the web changes and before I started the application backup, I had a sharp pain hit me in the back in the area of my lump. I didn't know what to think of it, but as a normal reaction, I reached back to see what was going on there. I didn't even get my hand 1/2 way up my back when I started to notice there was a liquid flowing down my side.
I head to the bathroom and take off my shirt. Once topless, I could see what was going on. My lump ruptured. I didn't think much of this at first. Then, since there was a hole in it anyway, I squeezed it like a zit, but softly at first. Well, it didn't take much pressure to get a response. A thick white substance began to emerge from the lump. This wasn't like the core of a zit though. This was soft and pliable. And it had a serious odor to it, like the offensive type.
Since the lump is in a difficult place to reach on my back, I decided to get Angel to help me with the extraction of the material from my back. Now, I was doing the squeezing and she was catching what she could in a hand towel. I thought this was a good idea for a couple of reasons. #1. it was better than flinging this stuff on the floor and #2. I didn't want to spray the walls with it either. At one point, when we were getting to the point that it was starting to reduce to nothing, I had her put the towel down and squeeze. Some of this white stuff flew right past her head. It was comical.
Anyway, not long thereafter, as I would squeeze, I was starting to get blood. At this time I was in need of help. My neck was getting sore from trying to bend and twist so I was comfortable and could see what I was doing and the lump was starting to move around where I would have needed 2 hands to get adequate pressure around it to extract more of this substance. I asked Angel to help but, she didn't feel comfortable with that idea. Therefore, we headed to the hospital to get professional assistance.
To expedite the conversation, just be sure to understand that I was not an urgent patient and therefore sat for some considerable period of time to be treated by the Dr. Anyway, once he had time for me, he numbed me up, cut the lump and extracted the remaining substance from the area. However, there is still a fatty lesion remaining that a general surgeon will be needed to remove completely/properly.
Therefore, I think it will be just a matter of time until I am free of this thing and for those of you (mother) that are worried about the fact that it is growing, relax, it just shrank and did so considerably.
I did find it funny that the Dr. prescribed me an antibiotic AND Vicodin. Really, I understand the antibiotic. He doesn't want it to become infected again, especially since it was left open to drain. However, the Vicodin came as a surprise. How much pain can this thing really put me in? I don't expect too much pain. Although, I might be surprised. I should know in a few hours once the local anestesia wears off.
I'll let you know how this turns out.
Monday, December 10, 2007
December to date - 12/10
Well, life has been busy. Between work, workouts, house cleaning and holiday decorating, time has been scarce. I am not complaining, however, 24 hours is a day is certainly too few. Therefore, something has got to give. In my case, in the interests of productivity, blogging has suffered the most. I would like to create a daily update, but this has not been possible. I have not abandoned the use of this, just frequency has been seriously cut.
Once I get them taken, there will be photos of the house all decorated, inside-and-out, there will be more updates regarding P90X milestones (like tonight is day 30 & it is photo progress update time already) and general life/work/holiday updates will also come around.
What I'm getting at is, check back when you can, I can't promise the frequency of updates. I would like to promise that I won't go weeks again without updates, but I can't hold myself to that at this time.
Peace.
Metallica Documentary: Some Kind of Monster
So, yesterday we were at the local mall, Discover Mills, doing our Christmas shopping. One of the stores we were poking around in was FYE. In our casual browsing of the titles, we came across the Metallica Documentary: Some Kind of Monster. This title was available used for only $10. I just couldn't pass it up. I had heard great things about it and I had to finally see it for myself and at that price, the timing was perfect. Being a Metallica fan, even after Load, Reload, and their negative publicity regarding Napster, once we got home I had to pop it in.
I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if this was some sort of Rockumentary (like MTV or VH1 used to produce) or a movie regarding something that the band had conjured in their minds, but a review of the entire recording process for St. Anger had not popped into my head.
This movie was deep. The side of Metallica that was portrayed was moving and new. Metallica for me has always appeared to be a band that somehow creates great music and work in harmony. I am not saying that they never had to face adversity, because some of it is well known. Such as the tragic accident that claimed Cliff Burton's life or the severe burns that James Hetfield received from on-stage pyrotechnics, but the interpersonal issues that they have was incredible to see.
I think the movie kind of shattered my vision of what being Metallica actually means, however, it certainly humanized the band. Everything is not easy and perfect for them. I have learned that they have control issues, communication issues, and all of the other aspects of working closely with people for a long period of time tends to bring about.
I do have to say though, seeing Lars and James with kids is odd. I can't imagine growing up with a parent that is in a rock band, but to be in Metallica is just amazing. What do you say to your classmates when you talk about your parents? Yeah, my dad is the singer/drummer/guitar player in Metallica. Then, with their age, the question would become, who in the hell is Metallica? It is a shame and maybe I'm thinking that I'm one of too few, but how many kids in k-5 that will have been exposed to them? I know my kids will be, but really, how many are?
Also, watching this film has really allowed me to see how they are aging. Being as iconic as they are, it is hard to accept that they are getting old. James is even showing grays. It is a tough pill to swallow. I know that James cutting his hair was a drastic move, but I like to think of him pre-Load with the long hair that is so iconic of the time that they originated.
It has been quite a while since I have listened to the disk. I forgot how much I enjoyed many of the songs on it. They might not be "traditional Metallica", but it is certainly Metallica none-the-less.
This period of insite into what is Metallica really got me to start thinking. How old is St. Anger? What is going on in Metallica land? Well, I had to check on this. I hit up their website and found that supposedly they are working on a new disk. There are no details regarding this work and I'm not even certain by the way the post was phrased if they are even working on one. However, I would like to think that they are working on one. I think it is about time to get some new Metallica in our hands. Think about it, they have recently accepted a new bassist, I know I'm anxious to see what he has to contribute to a new disk.
Overall, this 2 hour movie certainly helped to increase my appreciation for their latest disk, St. Anger.
Hail Metallica. \m/ Rock on!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
P90X - Catch up
Ok, for those of you following, this is going to be a quick post. Just because I haven't been posting additional daily updates regarding our progress along the P90X trail, that doesn't mean that we've broken. Our progress is still moving in the right direction. The holiday and trip to Pittsburgh really put a damper on our routine. We missed our workout on Thursday and Friday but picked it back up on Sunday. Monday we were back in the swing, however, I missed Tuesday. Yesterday, I was going to work out after work. However, in working on wedding photo selections for our albums put a stop to that. Today, we're both going strong again.
Today was Day 17.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
P90X Day 9
Well, today's routine was skipped. This AM I had to visit the doctor, which is a completely different rant, but anyway, I didn't get an opportunity to exercise during work and Angel was running errands all day. Also, since yesterday was Angel's birthday, when I was done with work, we went out. So, the end result is no workout.
To make the issue worse, we did not follow our diet very well last night either. We went to eat at a steak restaurant. We both ordered smart choices for our meals, however, Angel insisted on dessert. Well, I wasn't expecting to have any, as I was already stuffed, but the dessert she ordered was huge. Certainly enough for two people. So, things started out ok, but in real short order, we busted out of that diet. Well, it is only twice since we started. We'll see how well this thing sticks thru the holidays.
Monday, November 19, 2007
NWN 2 (continued)
Well, I put in some long playing time into NWN2 yesterday. I played from about 1 PM to 1 AM with some minor interruptions along the way (like work stuff). Anyway, I was finding the story enjoyable up until the point of my arrival to Neverwinter.
Once again, one of the districts of Neverwinter are closed down for some reason or other. You have a decision to make regarding how to obtain access to said area, in the same fashion as in NWN1. Last time it was a plague, this time it is because a noble had been killed. WTF? Of all of the puzzles that could have been created, why repeat one that is going to require so much time and effort that had already played out in NWN1?
I think the player/companion interaction is more interesting in this version. I don't know if it is because it was a new concept in NWN1 that I didn't enjoy it as much or because of how they implemented it this time. For example, the teifling in the group has a bounty on her head and you have to assist her with getting it removed or be subject to random attacks within the city along the way.
Thus far, there has only been one mission that I have accepted that I can't complete. I can't seem to manage how to get one of the crypts open in the graveyard. I am pretty sure that I have exhausted every obvious attempt at getting one of the three doors (Outside door and 2 doors that are guard jail cells in another). I've moved on from this mission, but there are 3 poor soldiers stuck in that graveyard somewhere. Maybe I'll look for a spoiler instruction set somewhere online. However, I have found those to be a slippery slope. Once you start using them, you keep going back to it. I don't want to do that yet. It is way too early in the game.
I was happy to see that acquiring companions has been done in a different setting. Instead of them just happening to be in a tavern looking for work, you can choose to assist them or not in their "time of need" and even then you can either accept or reject them from the party. Also, the story begins with a journey to the city. If I recall last time, you started in the city and had to figure out what the hell was going on. However, it has been so long since I played NWN1, I don't recall. All be told, so far, the game seems to be keeping my attention and I'm enjoying it (graphics issues or not).
One thing I was quite disappointed to see is that one of the gameplay rules have been omitted from the previous version of the game. There doesn't seem to be any reaction from anyone if you are walking thru a town or fort or where ever with weapons drawn. I thought that was an obvious role playing standard. If you look hostile then people will treat you as such. However, even in the city of Neverwinter, the guards do not have a reaction to you talking with them while brandishing your weapon. Seems sorta light to me. I know that if someone walked into my neighborhood carrying a sword, axe, hammer, etc. I would treat them differently than if it were concealed or stowed rather than in hand.
Just my .02.
P90X Day 8
Don't ask where P90X Day 7 went. It doesn't exist. Days on a multiple of 7 are rest days (aka. every Sunday). I know you don't want to hear about my 12 hours of NWN2 that was my Sunday, well, at least not here. So, here we are again, Phase 1 Day 1, Chest & Back followed by some Ab Ripper X. Today was a busy day at work, so today's workout was done after work at ~8 o'clock. This was a bad idea.
I felt dogged before I even started the workout. Trying to "Bring it!" was a hard task, but I brought it as I had it. I did work. It was tough. But I do know one thing, I am much less sore right now than I was last Monday at the same point in time. I don't know what tomorrow might bring, but right now I feel some minor discomfort, but I think I'll be able to sleep this off. I'll let you know tomorrow.
I think there were really two things that played into my fatigue during the routine. The first being the time of day as I had mentioned. However, as directly related to time of day, my eating habits could have had an impact. The only thing I had to eat (if you can call it that) today was my protein shake for breakfast around 11:30 AM. I had some tea thru the work day, but nothing substantial to prepare my body for the routine. Had I started my workout around 2 or 3, as we usually like to workout, I think I would have had the explosive energy that I'm used to having with which to workout.
Well, today I actually followed the instructions provided and logged the number of reps that I did for each exercise. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet (yes I know why they told me to do it, that wasn't my point, keep reading). I've thought about a Google Spreadsheet published so you can see my progress. However, the numbers look so bad right now, I might just keep it to myself. When I decide you will know.
Today's Ab Ripper X routine marks the third in the series. To my surprise, this is getting harder instead of easier. From what I can gather thus far, the first couple of rounds were for motion mastery. However, from motion mastery we get to the strength training. So, now that we know the movements, it is time to get serious. Each movement is done to a count of 25. I guess things appear to be getting harder because I'm pushing harder to make 25 through each exercise. Last week it was about doing it for the allotted time, and now I'm trying to survive each movement at pace at count. Therefore, things further into the routine are appearing to become harder, when in actuality, I'm just getting more tired. Interesting dynamic.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
NeverWinter Nights 2
Well, I finally did it. I have installed NWN2 on my system. It has only taken 11 months for me to take that plunge. Anyway, my initial opinion is good of the game, however, I've only finished the introductory missions.
For the most part, the game is running well on my system. I do have a complaint about the quality of the graphics. Granted, I only have the minimum specs, that doesn't excuse skins from looking "speculated" and semi transparent. I'm finding this graphical nature quite difficult to deal with. I would expect with shading and other features disabled that the people with which I have to interact would appear whole.
The eyes are the most interesting part. Their skin (bare exposed skin, clothing doesn't suffer this same effect) has this semi transparent and speculated appearance. However, the eyes are complete spheres hovering within this frame that suggests a face. Granted, this graphical anomaly doesn't detract from the quality of game play, I had just expected better.
I have to agree with other words of caution that I've previously received from other players. The speed of interaction with the game is much impaired in comparison with NWN1. Trying to rotate the screen with the mouse at the edge of the screen is hit-or-miss at best. Trying to get the "free form" camera angles to cooperate is difficult at best. There have already been times that the camera was facing directly down at the party or up from the ground. I found both situations to be frustrating to try to get a useful angle at the party.
I have found one aspect of the game that is not different from the original. The mini map. The map always stays oriented north regardless of your play camera angle. I personally find this frustrating to no end. I am continuously running in circles just to be my head wrapped around what the map is trying to tell me and how to get to what I want to see or do.
The next thing that I'm finding incredibly annoying is the fact that I have to now maintain my henchmen. WTF? I am playing the game as one character, not a party. Why do the henchmen not take care of their own level-ups? I do not play wizards or clerics and typically not a fighter. However, I now have to ensure that I make the right decisions regarding their character progression. If I wanted to play a spellcaster or a fighter I would have selected that at the beginning. Why do I have to put up with this now? For all I know the decisions I make now can have good or bad consequences in the future. That is some serious pressure when trying to manage character types that I don't play.
P90X Day 6
The last day of the first week. For the most part I rested this day, we started our workout after 9PM, which was after Angel got home from work. Today's workout is called Kenpo. I didn't have a clue what this all was going to include until I did some research online. Kenpo is a style of martial art. However, after doing the workout, the martial art aspect of the workout is missing. The workout just included multiple series of punches and kicks. There wasn't any discipline or any mumbo jumbo to go with it. This was a high cardio workout, low impact (assuming you do it properly). Apparently I can't punch properly with my left hand and I put some stress on my left elbow that appears to have disappeared with some sleep last night.
I have to say, I will be looking forward to this workout on a weekly basis. It is definitely a workout because the sweat you break is no joke. Also, the horse stance that is maintained for many movements is a bear on your quads. However, with the exception of making sure that I don't peak out my heart rate and getting the movements right (coordination is key to this exercise), it is not very difficult and is pretty fun.
There is one important key with this workout. You have to make sure that your exercise area is clear of foreign objects. Last night, one of the punching sequences included uppercuts and I found the ball that is on the corner of the foot board of the spare bed. Thankfully I didn't break anything, just got a cut and some bruising, but it could have been much worse.
Our meals yesterday included tuna salad for lunch and chicken salad for dinner. I guess I cheated a little bit because I ate each as sandwiches, but I need the extra carbs anyway. I've been feeling a bit lethargic lately and I think the additional carbs will resolve that problem. Man cannot live on protein and fat alone. :)
Today, Sunday, is our down day or rest day. We won't have another update for you until after tomorrow's workout. Therefore, we are 1 week down of 13 and things are going relatively well. I think that even with our minor meal setback on Friday, our discipline and motivation are still quite high. The workout that I've outlined this past week will continue for 2 more weeks before it is time to switch things up. Week 4 will be a "rest" week, though it will be no easier then the previous weeks, it doesn't include weight training, only cardio. Then our schedule will change up in Week 5.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
P90X Day 5
If there happens to be anyone that is actually reading daily, sorry about not getting the recap of yesterday up yesterday. After work, I wasn't too much motivated to look at a computer screen much more. Well, without any further adieu, lets recap the activities of yesterday.
To my amazement, I was fully mobile from the start today. There wasn't any issues moving to standing from sitting, walking steps were a comfortable go, and I was able to reach around my desk without having to coerce my arms thru the pain of moving above my keyboard tray. There were a couple of instances where Angel was able to see clearly that I was feeling better. I was even able to do small sprints up steps.
Anyway, the completion of another day of exercise has come to a close. Yesterday's focus was on Legs and Back with another round of Ab Ripper X. The special thing about today was that Angel & I did not do our workouts together. Work was swamping me and there was no way I was going to be able to get away before Angel had to go to work. Therefore, she took the initiative to workout when she needed to so that she could cool down and be ready for work on time.
So, about my experience, the opening stretching was adequate to take the minor tweaks out of my muscles and I was ready to rock. Well, today's exercise was pretty brutal. Working on legs does not sound difficult, but if you do enough lunges and duck walks and pull ups, you will certainly begin to feel it.
I had once thought that my legs were strong and this should be pretty easy to complete as instructed. It did start out that way. Doing lunges and toe raises was as easy as I had expected. Physically demanding but pretty do able. However, the cardio workout from doing lunges at a fast pace was the hardest part. Many of the exercises recommended using weights during the completion. I didn't think of this as a problem, I've got bands for resistance. Well, using bands for many of these exercises has proven to be a bad idea.
We were doing three variations of toe raises. We started wide, normal, and then pigeon toed. Wide and normal with bands under the balls of my toes worked out just fine. However, when trying to get the pigeon toed position to work, everything started out ok. However, as I was doing a few repetitions, I didn't notice the band slipping. Well, that was quite unfortunate. The band slipped out and smacked me in 3 places on it way up. Somehow it managed to cut my shin, but it brought me to the ground when it hit me in the balls and also left a red mark on my stomach, but that was serious pain getting hit by a fully extended resistance band. It could have been worse, thankfully it was just superficial. The boys were not involved, but pain was plenty enough without them. Recovery came quick and went back to work.
Peppered in between the leg workouts were pull ups and their different variations. My max pull up count during the fit test was 7. The guys and girls are going sets of 12 - 20 in 30 seconds. Without help, I was only able to do sets of 3 - 5 (depending on hand position and direction). This help to do more reps was in the form of a chair. I'm not certain if I am using the chair properly, but it does assist me in doing more reps. And more reps should yield improvement in time.
Following the legs and back routine was some more Ab Ripper X. This battery of moves is tough. It starts right in and doesn't let up for 15 minutes. Each exercise has variations that will allow for progression as strength and training improve. However, right now we're both doing the "easy" way for each set. For the first time while doing this program, we have both noticed the burn. I don't know if that is because we finally figured out the correct way to do the exercise or what, however, this is extreme. There are several different variations of sit ups and crunches that finishes up with a pivot move. This is going to yield some serious results after the program is complete.
Well, 5 days down and one more to go to finish week one of 3 for phase 1. For the first time in a couple of weeks, we cheated on our diet. We were really not in the mood for cooking and the things I was interested in cooking Angel was not in the mood for. So we compromised and got a pizza. I doubt that this will happen very often, but only time will tell.
The next battery of a workout is Kenpo. Kenpo is a martial arts variation that appears to be full body engaging. I don't know for sure, but I will certainly let you know about it later.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
P90X Day 4
Well, today, as with the last few days, started off being sore. Same muscle groups and same deal as before. However, there are signs that it is lightening up. I'll know more for sure in a couple of days. Anyway, today's scheduled event was Yoga. There are a few problems with this.
- I only get 1 hour for lunch and this program is 1 1/2 hours long. From the get go, I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the entire thing.
- I am still very sore. Being in the plank position (or in the Army, front leaning rest) and all of its variations was no easy task for over 20 minutes.
- I am not flexible. I can't do many things and keep my legs straight or wrap myself into a ball and hold my own hands in positions that men were not supposed to be in. Don't get me wrong, the person guiding this program is a guy and he can do it. However, I'm still too new and stiff to be able to do it.
Don't get me wrong, it was different. I think that this could be a beneficial thing to do. However, I think it is too early to be worrying about flexibility while the sore factor is still thru the roof. Let my muscles get used to this abuse and then we'll think about it.
For example, my muscles are so sore that I don't have much strength in them to do a single push up regardless of trying to stay in variations of the push up position for long periods of time.
However, I did find one aspect of the routine easy. Balance positions. These guys were pretty easy. It felt more like stretching for a workout then actually doing a workout. There were 4 on the program and I was able to do 2 with ease, 1 with some form issues and I didn't try the other. I'm sorry, I can't do a many push ups right now, I'm not trying to put all of my weight on my hands. Nope, sorry, not going to do it yet.
I'm not sure if it was because we are still learning it and trying to understand what the different positions are, but it really didn't feel like a workout. I hope once we get further into this the benefits will be obvious. Although, we might have to move our Yoga workout to a different room. Either we need more floor space, take out the ceiling fan, or the bed has to go if we're going to do any more Yoga in the bed room. We were either hitting each other or hitting walls and that's not a good thing. Well, I guess I'll let you know how things go next Thursday when we do it again.
Oh, what you say? Next Thursday is Thanksgiving? Uh huh, what about it. We're on a schedule and we're still going to exercise over the holiday and away from home. Are we nuts. Likely. The only major hurdle we need to figure out is how to do pull ups at my mothers house. Right now the rest of our equipment is very portable.
Read More......
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
P90X Day 3
Well, today marks our third day of this project and 4th day of daily exercising. I woke up today in the worst possible shape (I hope it only gets better from here). I was not moving very well at all. My hip flexers hurt, my triceps, my shoulders, my pecs. I was in a very bad way. Walking to the kitchen required me to take one step at a time, step down, match previous foot's step, take a step down, and etcetera, I'm sure you get the picture. Then once breakfast was over, to get to the bathroom, since I had been sitting for a couple of hours, it took me several steps to be able to fully stand up. I was walking hunched over for a while.
Then the 1 o'clock hour rolled around. Time to exercise again. Are you kidding me, it is hear already? Anyway, I sucked it up and hoped that the pre-event stretching would do the number to get me moving. Thankfully, this was the case. We spent somewhere between 4 and 7 minutes warming up and I was mobile again.
Today's torture workout was arms and shoulders. Thankfully, this did not include any push ups or pull ups. All of the moves were of a weight resistance variety. As the program book indicated, the muscles we were focusing on today are smaller then those of the chest and back. Therefore, the moves that focused on the shoulders and tries require less weight than we have available. I wasn't even able to do some of the moves with the red (smallest) band. We have this purple thing that we picked up from a moving sale the other day (the intention was to use the handles and use one of the packaged bands for the training. However, there isn't any way that I can see to easily remove the purple band and put another one in place. This purple thing I'm referencing is at least 1/2 or smaller then the smallest band from Beach Body. After today's exercise I can certainly seen the benefit in using free weight dumb bells as opposed to bands.
Unfortunately, the free weight dumb bell set is certainly out of our financial range at this point. I will have to do with what we have. This might mean slower progress, but right now, small is better than the backwards direction I was moving in previously.
Following the arm and shoulder routine, we completed another cycle of Ab Ripper X. Being only the second time we've done this I was quite surprised that I was able to improve on form and repetition count. I know that will will take much longer to be able to do each and every exercise as directed for the number of repetitions. However, noticing improvement in only 3 days was a surprise. The routine actually sucks, it hurts, it's rough, but I'm looking forward to the results.
Last nights dinner was a huge hit. We had some turkey breast and gravy with green beans and butternut squash soup. The soup was a huge hit. We did not have a clue as to how it was going to turn out or taste. Well, it did not disappoint. It was as good as any other different concoction that we've had to date.
Tonight's dinner is a bit of a different story. We had halibut with a pesto sauce, wild grain rice and zucchini. Well, I enjoyed all of it. Angel was a different story. The halibut turned out to be not as palatable for her as it did with me. Especially with the pesto sauce, I found it magnificent. Well, we now know we have a dinner to substitute because it doesn't agree with both of us. I do have to give Angel credit, she tried it. Which is more than she would have done not too long ago. Just because it is fish, some time ago she wouldn't have even entertained it. Thankfully this has changed, but the halibut goes on to the no list.
Tomorrow we will be doing Yoga. I don't have the first clue as to what to expect. I have some general ideas which I'm sure will be found to be completely wrong. I guess I'll have to tell you about that once we're done with it tomorrow.
Peace.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
P90X Day 2
Well, today was a heart pounding cardio jumping battery of moves. Since Angel starts work at 5, we worked out earlier today, 12:15 - 1:15. This torture workout was full bore for an hour. Well, I couldn't make it all the way today.
The moves were jumping & squatting and the cadence today was serious. They call this workout high impact because of the potential problems with ankles, knees, and hips due to joint compression and decompression. Thankfully, this was not either of our problems (and Angel is known for having an ankle problem). Our problem was wind and muscle cooperation. The stress on the quads, calves, and hip flexers was serious. The burn was more then I had expected. I truly thought I was in better shape then this.
Anyway, the reason for not completing today's battery was because of time and not capability. My lunch is only an hour long. Since we were getting winded and had to rest longer than the time provided on the DVD on a couple of occasions. Therefore, since the workout is 1 hour long, pressing the pause button will always cause us to run over on time. With about 13 minutes to go for the entire workout, we jumped to 5 to go for the cool down. Well, being constrained on time might put a damper on the progress of the workout, however, 1 hour of raised heart rate and cardio activity is more then what I've done before. I believe that in time it will get easier and time won't be as much of a problem.
Monday, November 12, 2007
P90X Day 1
Well, today was the day. We've begun our workout regimen. This program is exactly what it claims to be. EXTREME! Today's torture workout was composed of two parts. Chest and Back followed by Ab Ripper X.
The DVD's are setup to promote the completion of the program. The way the workouts roll out the setting is one to push yourself, but don't break or hurt yourself. The idea is that each exercise you "Bring it" (your "A" game) however, for those of use that are early in the process a friendly reminder is reiterated several times. "Do what you can and forget the rest."
This thought process is a reassuring way to go from beginner to advanced in as much of a supportive fashion as possible. I can see now that the program is setup as advertised. If you do what they say when they say it, there is no way to fail. The DVD included warm-up and cool down stretches to further promote a safe and effective workout.
Chest & Back is setup with push & pull movements. These include the push-up (5 variations of normal, military, wide, and dive bomber), pull-ups (4 variations of normal forward and reverse and wide forward and reverse), and some weight training moves. It was a complete set of 12 different moves done twice. Very interesting and should prove to retain motivation. This is not like basic in that you are forced to complete the same exercises in a required amount of time regardless of physical ability. This program allows you the freedom to adjust the repetitions to your current physical level. This is a promising aspect of the program. I certainly hope the praise for the layout continues.
As for Ab Ripper X, this was a completely different animal. They jumped straight into several core muscle movements that done at the rate directed is a seriously strenuous task. I am looking forward to the next 90 days where the ease of completion will be easier to find. Today I was pushed hard and then harder. We're to do this exercise 3 days a week for the next month. I hope by then I can complete it at their cadence. That is an impossibility right now.
After doing this 1:11 minute battery of bodily abuse, I am sore. My legs are fine (obviously, they were not the target today), my stomach is doing ok, however, my triceps are absolutely killing me. I'm glad my job only requires me to sit & type all day. I'm not sure how useful my arms will be tomorrow at this point. Furthermore, the P90X recovery formula is certainly the treat that they claim that it is. I am already looking forward to completing tomorrows exercise to I can have more.
There will certainly be more to come. Tomorrow will be Plyometrics (or Jump Training) and I don't have a clue what to expect, but I'm sure it will be EXTREME and fun wrapped in one.
Peace.
Fit Test
Pictures added
Edited: 11/14/2007 11:31 PM
Well, last night Angel & I took our "Fit Test" for the P90X program. My results were somewhat where I had expected them to be. Angel was more or less ok with her results. Her biggest complaint was the number of push-ups she was able to do. She had expected to have been able to do more.
The purpose of this post is to share with you the results of our test. This is also for us. Somewhere public that we can store our results for later reference.Event Description Standard Bob Angel Resting Heart Rate What is your heart rate at waking N/A 68 77 Pull-ups Chin-ups with palms facing forward, away from body, two fists wider than shoulders male: 3
female:1 7.5 0 Vertical Leap The difference between standing arm raised and a one step jump (think jump ball) male: 5"
female: 3"17.5" 10" Push-ups Standard hand width push-ups male: 15
female: 333 11 Toe Touch Remember in High School doing the flexibility tests? How far can you reach beyond your toes? > -6 4" 4" Wall Squat Place back flat against wall and lower your body into a seated chair position (quads paralel to the floor, feet directly below knees [think 90-degree angle here]). 1:00 2:20 1:27 Bicep Curls Extend arms straight down in front of body, palms forward. Pull weight to chest and return to a fully extended position male: 10 curls at 20 lbs
female: 10 curls @ 8 lbs.21 reps with the black band 19 reps with the red band In & Outs Think crunches but the activity is in the legs, fully extended and then knees to the chest without touching the ground with feet. 25 33 35 Heart Rate Maximizer Jumping Jacks for 1:30 at a brisk, steady pace. Followed by 30 seconds of "sprint" Jumping Jacks. Measure heart rate each minute following for 4 minutes Complete 2 minutes of Jumping Jacks At stop: 188
At 1 minute: 165
At 2 minutes: 147
At 3 minutes: 138
At 4 minutes: 129At stop: 172
At 1 minute: 136
At 2 minutes: 117
At 3 minutes: 100
At 4 minutes: 88
And the last part of the Fit Test is to take before pictures. Here are ours:
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Adventures in Cooking
Well, in my prior food post I mentioned that I ruined a meal. Well, I'll tell you how that happened in a moment. In addition to already have ruined one meal, I just recently escaped ruining another.
Tonight we are having Lemon-Garlic Chicken. The recipe called for 4 cloves of chopped garlic in addition to three other liquids that once mixed together amounted to just under a 1/2 cup. Well, I've never prepared garlic fresh. This was new to me. You should have seen my confusion when I was looking at this 1/2 cup of liquid and 3 items of garlic. You also should have seen my surprise when I attempted to cut into this baby. Mind you, I didn't know what to expect. Anyway, it split into many different pieces that were separated by what appears to be onion skin.
So, I'm looking at all of these pieces, each one needing to be pealed and the thought occurs to me, since this is for a marinade, do I really need to peal of these bad boys? Well, to my dismay, when I call my mom, she's not home. I called my dad and Steffy and him are already asleep. What am I do to now? Thankfully Colleen was visiting Dana. She was able to set me straight. Was I supposed to know that the full item of garlic is called a bulb and a single piece is called a clove? I thought the bulb was a clove.
Well, it is a good thing that I asked this simple question, I would have certainly ruined our dinner for the night. There is a huge difference between 4 cloves of garlic and 4 bulbs (I only had 3 anyway, but the point remains the same).
So, the other meal that I did ruin. Chilled Cucumber Soup. Ok, don't laugh, you're thinking to yourself, "How do you ruin soup?" Well, apparently it doesn't take much. Of the few of you out there that have ever watched me cook something, I have a tendency to play with spices. Even odd ones for the application. I'm about certain that my cinnamon accented steak is common knowledge by now or even the chocolate sauce flavored chicken. So those should give you an example of the weird things that I've been known to do. Well, one spice that I've kept distance from has been cayenne.
Most people also know that I'm not one for the spicy foods, so this also stands to reason. Anyway, this recipe for Chilled Cucumber Soup called for 1/16 teaspoon of cayenne. Well, the smallest teaspoon that we have is 1/4 teaspoon. Apparently my estimation skills are a bit lacking when it comes to contents of a teaspoon. The presentation of the soup was nice. It looked good, it smelled good, and it even taste good with one exception, it had bite. This wasn't just a simple, mild bite. It was offensive. The bite didn't hit immediately either. It was just before the swallow. Hell, the aftertaste wasn't bad either. Anyway, neither one of us could tolerate the kick in our soup. In hindsight, I've realized that instead of 1/16 tsp, I actually used something closer to 1/8 tsp. From what I can tell now, I think that even 1/16 might be too much. I think I'll just use a 1/4 pinch on the next attempt.
Well, as we progress through our new dietary plan, I'm sure we'll screw something up again along the way. Stay tuned.
Hard Disk Backup
Being an IT professional, there are somethings that still get my goat. Within my department there are quite a number of servers that we are charged with maintaining. However, some aspects of these machines are maintained by other departments. Such as database and hard disk (HDD) backups.
This past week we had a server raid controller die. At first glance this wasn't going to be a big deal. We have c (OS), d (application) & p (page file) drive backups that are written to tape on a daily basis. The database for this application does a backup every day to the D drive and then the HDD backup would backup everything present. This sounds logical. These backups are also taken hot. Therefore, unlike with Ghost backups, these backups are not bootable.
Well, the server is still under a maintenance plan and IBM was tasked with restoring the server to operation. However, what wasn't brought to our attention was that with the motherboard and raid controller replacement the entire system would have to be wiped and restarted from scratch. I understand working with SCSI equipment that much of this can get complicated. However, the one thing that I don't understand is that if the parts were swapped one-for-one in make, model, and version why we would have to start over with this machine.
Anyway, the server operations team installed a new OS to the machine. It was previously Windows 2000 and they upgraded it to Windows 2003. So far, so good. Well, since the OS was wiped, all of the applications would need to be reinstalled. Once again, we were not stressing this. However, we later were informed that the databases, that were supposed to be in the backup folder on the HDD, were not present. WTF? What good is it to backup all of this data and then not have the required information to then restore from?
Furthermore, why backup a drive like the C & P drive if they are throw away in the event of a catastrophic failure? Why only backup portions of a HDD? This backup of the drive in question (D drive for the application) was in the neighborhood of 40G. How do you have a 40G backup and not get the databases that the application requires? I don't understand.
Now for the kicker. There is a known DR flaw in this system. This system is charged with distributing software and collecting journals from ATMs. The permanent storage of any of this information does not reside on this server so we're not missing much. However, the ATMs in this system normally do not talk to the server unless spoken to. The only time to force an ATM to talk to the server is to restart the service. Well, the way ATMs are designed, you can't get to the desktop to bounce the service at need. The only other way to accomplish this task is to reboot the machine. Therefore, each and every ATM on the platform must be dispatched for a reboot before we will reacquire the ATMs back on to this server. What a waste of money. If we would have bridged our DR gap OR had the application database, this would not have been an issue.
In hindsight it would have been really simple to deploy a scheduled task to force the ATMs to talk to the server once a day no matter what. However, we didn't do that yet. It just got bumped up in priority. I predict that this will be bridged in no less then 2 weeks.
Heart Rate Monitoring
As part of the previously discussed exercise program that Angel & I are undertaking, we needed to determine our heart rate for various reasons. Athletes are known to have slower heart rates then the non exercising populous. Therefore, after completing this 90 day battery, our heart rates should show evidence of slowing down. Also, your resting heart rate is used in determining your training heart rate.
Well, since I am the one that takes things to extremes, of course I've been trying to determine the numbers we should be targeting. Well, this investigation has lead to some interesting results. The first heart rate readings that I took were from sitting at my desk working. This averaged out as I had expected to be in the neighborhood of 82 BPM. I was likewise not surprised that my heart rate while lying in bed to also be in that same neighborhood. My heart rate bounced between 75 and 83 while lying in bed. However, what did surprise me was that my true resting heart rate (taken at wakeup) was much lower. It averaged 68 BPM. I find this to be an interesting swing. However, it is likely to be statistically uninteresting.
Well, our Heart Rate Monitors that were previously mentioned have alarms built in to help the users from hurting themselves by over exertion or from slacking off by not exerting themselves enough. However, in order to take advantage of this feature, we need to determine our training heart rates. A quick search on Google lead me to Wiki. I don't know how accurate this document is as there isn't any reference to the differences between sexes. I don't know if one exists, but I would think that there would be a difference.
The reason that I am inclined to think that there should be a difference is that a difference exists between Angel & I for resting heart rate and in general physical condition. I don't think it would be fair to say that my 90% max heart rate of 173 - 179 (depending on the calculation you use) would be the same for Angel. I realize that it would take different levels of exertion between us to obtain this number and this very well might be an accurate representation of how things work. However, I'm skeptical. I guess we'll see how this pans out once we start working out and what it takes for her to max out.
I know that skating is a pretty lax physical activity. I once skated from Station Square to the Blood Bank to donate and my pulse was around 110 bpm. Also, since I'm a smoker, I am able to maintain a heart rate longer then that of a non-smoker. I don't know why this is, however, I once heard that it is. I was instructed to wait 10 - 15 minutes for my pulse to decrease and the change was not great enough to permit me to donate. When I had my pulse up to 110 I was only marginally winded and know that there is much more that I could have done to kick that rate up. I have no doubts that I will be capable of maintaining a heart rate of 165 for an hour a day to do this exercise. Once again, I can't speak for Angel and am interested to how this works out for her.
If anyone would like to reference my calculations for the desired heart rates I have published my Heart Rate Calculations spreadsheet.
Eating Healthy
This is a next installment of the post begun yesterday, "Workout Program Introduction"
As everyone knows, eating healthy is expensive. Much more so than picking up the prepackaged items that most supermarket shops are touting today. I find it interesting how much my diet has changed over the past few years, each time for the better. Both financially and in health regards.
It wasn't very long ago that I would eat fast food (in one incarnation or another) everyday for dinner. And to make more of a point of this, that was my only meal of the day also. Once I moved to Atlanta, my diet changed again. Since Angel & I were together again, eating at home became a more logical idea. We could cook for the 2 of us for less than a fast food meal for each of us. Not to say we cut it out completely, but we were eating at home more often. Then we bought our house. At this point, eating on the cheep became important. The house we bought is just about at the knife's edge of being too expensive for us to handle. So, at this point we were shopping on a minimum of a monthly basis for food items in the house. This was working out just fine. We had food to eat and it was more healthy than the fast food joints we were previously patronizing on a periodic basis.
Once eating more often at the house, we were primarily purchasing 2 or 3 step prepackaged meals. We'd get the Crock Pot meals, the Tuna, or Chicken, or Hamburger Helpers, or on rare occasion, we would pickup steaks to eat with canned vegetables and powdered potatoes. By far, I am not calling this healthy. Especially if you know how we were eating (particularly me). A meal packaged to serve 3 or 4 would possibly only serve the two of us. This typically broke down to Angel eating a correct portion and me eating 3. Now, I know that for most of you that know how I eat, this comes as no surprise. However, with eating approximately 2 meals a day now (since I can eat any hour of the day from home because I work from home), the increase in frequency of food consumption has had some adverse effects. My weight is fluctuating on a daily basis, but I was toeing the line at 175 at one point. For my age and height this is substantial. Especially since the Army keeps tabs on these things.
A quick recap of my weight fluctuation over the years:Graduate High School in '97: 155 lbs
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the primary objective with this workout program is to get into a better physical condition to improve my PT score. However, I know that in doing so that I will also bring some definition to this undefined shape that I currently call my body. As also mentioned earlier, I'm not becoming narcissistic, however, I would like to be able to see my 6 pack again (and maybe improve it to an 8 pack along the way).
Graduate Basic Training fall '97: 165 lbs (also lost 2" at the waist)
Graduate AIT spring '98: 155 lbs (gained back the 2" lost at basic)
Through the 8 years following: Averaging 163 lbs
Within the past 6 months: Peaking at 175 lbs
Today: 169 lbs.
Which brings us to today.
So, we've received our ordered equipment and the room for the workout has been established. The only things left to do are to start eating in accordance to the healthy eating guide and doing the workouts. Keep in mind, the workout plan is 6 days a week for an hour each day. Anyway, the eating aspect is what I want to target in this conversation.
Angel & I opened the books and completed the required reading. We're motivated to start this plan and thus created a shopping list. This list was the largest shopping list we've ever created in our time together. We typically just winged it. Well, with the number of items that we didn't already have in the house and the number of fruits, vegetables, chicken, turkey items, we needed reference for at the store. This list was printed in Arial 10 point from a Google Spreadsheet in a single column and was a full 3 pages of items. We knew this was going to be expensive. However, we didn't realize how expensive.
Our first trip to the grocery store was to Kroger. We believe that they are open 24/7, however after being there for ~2 hours and approaching 11:30 PM, they started to shut off lights. We are not certain if they were trying to close or just conserve electricity. The biggest point is that there were not any overhead announcements. However, we were not trying to spend all of this time getting our items to be kicked out without finishing our shopping and call it a night with more then a dozen or 2 items unchecked from our list.
So, we've got a cart full of items from various locations we didn't previously purchase from around the store. Anyway, at that hour of the night, we kinda felt bad while checking out. Everyone else that was trying to check out were using baskets and only had a couple of items. We let a few people ahead of us, however, we would have been there all night had we let every person that came around in front of us. Well, during the unpacking of the cart, I'm pretty sure we filled the belt twice over. As previously mentioned, we knew that this was going to be expensive, just not HOW expensive.
After everything was all said and done, we had spent $426 and that was after saving $28 with our Kroger card. Of that amount, we had spent approximately $100 in just cooking accessories. These include spices, oils, an ounce scale, grater, syrups, sauces (such as tabasco), vinaigrettes, and cooking wines. Thankfully, future purchases of these items will be more spread out. That is a lot of money to spend on items that are to be used as accents. In addition to these one-shot items, there were many other things that we'd never had to purchase before. Cabbage, 3 different varieties (for cole slaw), eggs [3 18 packs] (we're not big breakfast people, but this menu calls for a bunch of eggs), artichoke hearts, hearts of palm (what is that anyway?), onions [3 different varieties] (we typically just use onion salt or the similar), skim milk (we prefer 2%), squash, fresh beans (Snow Peas & Snap Peas), protein shake powder (with Whey protein), cheeses [3 different varieties, mozzarella, swiss, and feta] (we typically purchased Velveeta and shredded cheese for tacos), salmon, shrimp, swordfish, turkey bacon, and the list goes on. But as you can see, these items individually are not too bad, however, everything at the same time became quiet a shock to the wallet.
So, once we get home and unpack the car and bags, it is time to finally eat. Well, as we came to find out, many of the menu items were missing one or two different ingredients still. I don't remember what we did have that night, but we did have something out of the book. I was kinda skeptical. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat just about anything, but this was so new and different, I didn't know what to expect. Eating healthy. Sounds bland to me. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. It was very good. It had a wonderful flavor and was even filling. Needless to say, I was shocked.
So, I compiled a list of items we couldn't find in the time we spent at Kroger and decide to try Publix for the second round of shopping. We were still missing some items that we had never known existed before. This list includes items like Arrowroot, Arugula, Miso, Quinoa, shallots, Soba noodles, Jicama and lemongrass. Well, after doing some research as to what these things are, I came to know that there are some easier to find items to substitute with. But, we did find at Publix the Arugula (some leafy green lettuce like vegie). The rest of the items are MIA. Thankfully we know we can substitute flour for Quinoa, a lemon spice for lemongrass, onions and garlic for shallots, wheat pasta for Soba noodles. However, we are still at a loss as to where to acquire Miso (I doubt we can substitue this as it is a major ingredient of Miso soup), Jicama is some sort of starch and is also known as a Mexican Potato or Mexican Turnip or yam bean. I guess I will have to do some more research because I don't have the first clue where to look. If we were still in Pittsburgh, I'm sure I could find these things in the Strip. Well, our shopping jaunt to Publix came to another sum to exasperate the expense of this endeavor. Another $50 dropped there.
Well, I am happy to report that each and every item that we've prepared has been a smashing success (as long as you exclude the Chilled Cucumber Soup that I mixed wrong). These meals don't feel like a diet. The portions are large, they are filling, and they taste wonderful. Last night we had the Steak and Arugula Salad for dinner. Don't let the name salad fool you. There was more meat and tomatoes than there was leafy greens (same as the chef salad also). This plate also included a dressing of Balsamic Vinaigrette that needed to be prepared. This dressing was amazing. I couldn't have been happier. When I read that this was to be the dressing for the plate, I was worried. I've had a Balsamic Vinaigrette before, I wasn't too impressed by it. Well, I was wrong. The combination of this dressing and the arrangement of the plate was excellent.
So, in summary, we've spent damn near $1,000 in preparation for this adventure and we haven't done a single thing yet. I have high hopes for this process and hope to benefit from this expense. Only time will tell at this point.
