What Doesn't Kill You... Will Probably Maim You

Camping: The Reckoning

2011-07-31T09:13:00.001-06:00

It seemed like any other day when I woke up, but that illusion ended quickly. I can't say why I chose to turn on the news that morning, since I rarely care to hear which celebrity had a baby and named it "That-sound-a-cat-makes-right-before-it-coughs-up-a-hairball RainbowSparkles" or some nonsense. I'm glad I did, though. If I hadn't, it would've been too late for me. apparently, some lab in south Denver had been working on splicing the genes of wolverines with hamsters or they were irradiating marmots or something. The news anchor wasn't especially specific and as soon as I saw those murderous, beady eyes, I knew it didn't matter what they were, I just needed to get away.

(Artist's Rendering)

We have our BOBs about 95% ready to go and threw in the last few things we thought we'd need to make it in the woods while this whole situation blew over. We coordinated with a few other friends to meet up and ride it out together. Just because you're running for your life doesn't mean you can't have a little fun, right? Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to get everything ready to take pictures until we'd already gotten to our agreed-upon meetup spot. It's in a nice little valley outside of Nederland, CO where there's plenty of firewood and a great water source.

Spirits are still high as we hike into the woods. We haven't seen any frothing rodents all day, so we're hoping they're confined to the urban areas. I will admit I put about five 10mm hollowpoints into a justifiably indignant red squirrel when we first got out of the city. Dude took it like a man and went about his business. Note to self: do not underestimate the squirrels.

We found a good spot and set up camp. My wife helped get our tent in order. A double-thick tarp underneath probably wouldn't actually slow down any rabid voles trying to burrow up into our bodies while we slept, but it made us feel better.

After camp was set up, we decided to hike out a ways and explore the surrounding areas. It turns out they're very pretty. Mission accomplished.

We returned to camp and got a small fire going. Even though it was warm out, the crackling flames were comforting. Also, we were getting pretty hungry. Granola bars and jerky are great trail food, but our tummies required a little more.

Thankfully, I always keep a pack of hot dogs in my wallet for emergencies. My wife complains on laundry day, but I think this proves that it's worth the inconvenience.

Now that our immediate needs were met, we wanted to lay in some larger pieces of firewood to get us through the night.

The hand-powered chainsaw is a handy tool when used by one, but when a whole team gets going with it, it is truly a thing a of beauty. We broke this 4" diameter tree into manageable chunks in no time, and had more than enough wood to keep us comfortable for a good long while.

We were now feeling a little better about ourselves, with hot food in our bellies, a rushing creek nearby and plenty of wood to keep the fire roaring. We had depleted our drinking water pretty quickly, so we took the filter down to the water and refilled everything. Water tastes a little strange without the chlorine and fluoride and unobtanium our municipal services pump into it, but it was cool and wet.

We hadn't seen any more skittering vermin since our arrival, and our terror had started to wane. Maybe we'd overestimated the efficacy of an unholy army of gerbils? Unlikely. Maybe they were simply content to build their empire in the city before they decided to chase the clumsy, oversized primates into the wilderness? Possible. We had no way of knowing. All we could do was to hunker down and hope for the best. We spent the evening around the campfire, telling stories of loves lost and singing sea chanties. We also pulled out some of our Mountain House meals and enjoyed the second hot meal of the day. The fire was going well, but we'd also brought a homemade alcohol stove we'd been wanting to try out.

You can't tell, but it's going like gangbusters. It boiled enough water for a 2-serving entree of beef stroganoff in just a few minutes with less than an ounce of fuel.

If you put on your LSD-o-Vision, the flames are suddenly clear and the roaches are UNDER YOUR SKIN GETTHEMOUT GETTHEMOUT! Thankfully, that whole episode passed pretty quickly. Suffice it to say, the stove worked fantastically and I should be more judicious with my toad-licking.

The night passed without incident. We were pretty worried, because I think rodents are nocturnal, but nothing really happened. I got a little turned around in the middle of the night and ended up peeing on Werespaz' bivvy sack, but he was very understanding.

So sorry, dude.

We woke up and got everything packed up to move out to a new site deeper into the woods. Thankfully, we ran into another survivor who informed us that the rodent outbreak had been contained and that we were free to return to our homes. He also mentioned something about not mixing medications, but I was too full of joy to pay that much attention. Once again, humanity has triumphed over the hordes of the furry scourge.

Celebrating the continued position of humanity at the top of the food chain.

We got home and got re-settled into our lives as best we could. Turns out that the program I had thought was the local news was actually a SyFy original movie called "Wombat: The Reckoning". Honest mistake.

Total time bugged out: 24 hours
Participants: Septimus39, Victory, Werespaz, Jordan (Non-ZS), Liz (Non-ZS)
Lessons Learned: Better safe than sorry when it comes to bugging out.

Front Sight 4-Day Defensive Handgun After Action Report

2011-06-02T08:56:00.000-06:00

This is a repost here of something I wrote for another venue. It's just a big chunk of writing and I didn't want it to go to waste. So here you go. You may find it entirely dull, but maybe someone will get something out of it? I have no idea.

Front Sight 4-Day Defensive Handgun
5/23-26/2011 - Pahrump, NV

I took a lot of notes on this course. I have one of those tiny composition books I tend to keep in my back pocket for classes like this and I think I ended up getting about 60 pages worth of notes. Granted, I write big, but still. There was a heck of a lot of information. I’m going to try my best to condense it down as best I can.

On the first day (Monday) we had to arrive by 6:30 to get our guns inspected. It sucks to have to get there so early, but I think it’s a really smart move on their part. They have however many hundreds of people there, and if you don’t check, you may end up having some serious (and easily preventable) injuries. So we do that. We get assigned to a range, and then sort of mill about for a while before going into the classroom. The classroom is actually a big lecture hall. We listen to a presentation by a few of the head instructors that covers safety and the Front Sight training philosophy in a few parts. It’s interesting info, but not necessary for this AAR. if you’re curious, I’d be happy to tell you about it.

Next we went to our range, met our instructors, and started on some dry drills. The first thing we went over are the 4 safety rules, of course. We learned the Weaver stance and grip, which was a challenge for me. Weaver involves isometric tension between the weapon and support hands, and a bladed, upright stance. It’s different from the isosceles I had been using, which involves a square, slightly forward-leaning stance and an even grip with both hands getting as much skin contact with the gun as possible. They taught us how to do their preferred style of chamber check and magazine check, and we would do that thing hundreds and hundreds of times throughout the course. We also learned about malfunction clearances. Front Sight defines a malfunction as something you can clear in a gun fight and a jam as something you will need time and tools to fix. We learned how to fix Type 1, 2 and 3 malfunctions as well as tactical, speed, and emergency reloads. After that, we established that as citizens, we shoot to stop aggressive action, not to neutralize, kill, maim, injure, or anything else. We just want the dude to stop trying to hurt us and our family. To accomplished this, they recommend a controlled pair to the thoracic cavity (upper chest, covering heart, lungs, and a lot of blood vessels). They told us that all handgun calibers, be they 9mm, .45, .380 or 10mm are all underpowered to get a guaranteed, instantaneous stop on a dedicated opponent. If you put two shots to the center of the thoracic cavity and that doesn’t cause the opponent to cease aggressive action, they recommend following up with a shot to cranio-ocular cavity. That’s the space from the brow line to the bottom edge of the nose, and from the outside edge of each eye orbit. It’s roughly the size of a 3x5 card. Then we talked about proper sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control. We also learned Front sight’s after action drill. It involves moving yourself from where you started, checking your surroundings, checking your opponent, and then topping off the ammo in your gun. We did this a whole lot as well. As far as I can remember, we still hadn’t fired a shot all day. Then we broke for lunch.

Lunch is the time at Front sight where a lot of people claim the “indoctrination” occurs. It’s where they show videos or do lectures or whatever. Honestly, I think we attended two lectures the whole week (including the welcome lecture) and didn’t watch any videos. When you go the first time, you should listen to all the lectures (except for the one on memberships if you aren’t interested in buying one) because there really is a lot of great information in them on the legality of using lethal force and the likely outcome if you ever have to use it. They also talk about Col. Cooper’s color codes of awareness and all that it entails. I think they get into OODA loop as well, but I don’t remember exactly. Suffice it to say, once you’ve been to one of their lectures, you aren’t required to attend it again. They “recommend” that you do if you haven’t seen it in six months, but nobody gave us any crap about it. Really, the lectures themselves aren’t bad at all. There’s very little on the politics aspect of guns, and a whole lot of great info on the reality of owning and using guns for self defense. The videos are really where the politics come into it, and you never have to watch those if you don’t want to. We skipped them the first time we went and skipped them again this time. All of that stuff is just recommended, not mandatory. If you want to sit out on the range in the shade and eat your lunch, it’s unlikely you’ll be pestered. If an instructor does ask you why you’re not in the classroom, you can just tell them you’re not interested in the video and they’ll leave you alone. I have never experienced a “hard sell” at Front Sight that I couldn’t get out of by just walking away, at the very worst. If you’re someone who is very easily peer pressured or intimidated by a guy in a uniform, you may need to man up a little and tell them “No thanks” once or twice over the course of a week in order to avoid doing anything you don’t want to do. Hey, that sounds a lot like real life, doesn’t it? Honestly, I have no sympathy for anyone who claims they were “forced” to watch “propaganda” while at Front Sight. You’re paying them. Just get up and walk out. You’re an adult, and you can make your own decisions. If you sit through any lecture or video you don’t want to sit through, it’s your own fault. Again, I do highly recommend attending the lectures (not the videos) on your first trip and taking a lot of notes. But again, you’re an adult and you can do what you want.

Enough of that. Back to the range.

After lunch, we actually did some shooting. We worked on controlled pairs from the 3m, 5m, 7m and 10m lines, and then did some designated head shots from 3m and 5m. Then we learned about the “Failure to Stop” drill, which is a controlled pair to the thoracic cavity, after which you go into your after action drills. During your AAD, the instructor will yell out “HEAD!” and you have to come back up into a shooting stance and put a round into the head. We continued to work on our shooting for the rest of the day, refining our grip, stance, sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control. We worked on trapping the trigger to the rear after shooting and only allowing it to go back to reset once our sights were back on the target. We also really concentrated on putting our focus 100% on the front sight. These are things I had always known to do, but had never really worked on specifically before to this extent. It really makes a huge difference in accuracy.

This day was really a struggle for me, learning-wise. I had just spent 3 days at a Shivworks class two weeks prior learning a different style of shooting, and everything I had learned there had been confirmed as effective in a live-action drill environment, so I trusted the lessons pretty much completely. I was trying to reconcile Front Sight’s style with my own style while learning the new information. Let me just tell you, that doesn’t work very well. What I decided that night, after the training was done for the day, was that I would learn their method whole-heartedly. I would try to perfect the style they were teaching. If I absorbed all of the knowledge, took a lot of notes, practiced exactly what they were teaching, and got legitimately good at it, then I would have a good enough understanding of it to integrate it into my overall knowledge. That was a tough shift to make, but it was an invaluable one. It’s going to be my default with any new training I take. I will learn what the instructor is teaching to the best of my ability, and wait until afterward to figure out what doesn’t fit with my style. So that’s what I did for the rest of the class, and it really did work well for me.

The next morning, we attended a lecture on tactical movement. We learned a great deal about how to handle hallways, doorways, how to clear rooms, etc. The instructor made it very clear, however, that there are only two reasons you would ever do this. Either because you are being paid to do it or because you have to do it to protect a loved one. He specifically said multiple times that if you have your family with you and you are all out of immediate danger, you just want to call the police and let them clear the house. Your TV isn’t worth rounding a corner the wrong way and getting a baseball bat to the skull. So we learned how to do this movement with the clear understanding that we really don’t ever want to have to use that knowledge. After the lecture, we went to the range again where there are a couple dozen doorways set up. Nothing more, just doorways. Each group of 4-6 had an instructor there to help you with it individually. We practiced the things we’d learned in the lecture, and then went on to the shoot house. The shoot house was awesome. They really set it up so you feel the adrenaline flowing. I won’t give too much away, but suffice it to say, that was one of the cooler shooting experiences I’ve ever had. One thing to remember if you’re ever doing a shoothouse drill is to do your after action drills whenever you finish clearing a room. We were all reminded of that by one of the instructors when we got back to our home range afterward.

Back on the range, we started to work on speed at closer ranges. The three ways to speed up without sacrificing combat accuracy are rapid presentation, flash sight pictures and a compressed trigger press. The rapid presentation is simply a matter of repetition until the draw gets smooth and fast. The flash sight picture is Front Sight’s way of saying that within 7m, your front sight doesn’t need to be centered in the rear notch to get good hits, it just needs to be in there somewhere. I’ve seen this demonstrated before at 3m, but it still works at 7m. I definitely took advantage of this for the timed drills we did later. The compressed break is basically a faster press. Instead of a very slow, steady press with a surprise break, it’s a much faster press but it still needs to be smooth with a surprise break. Jerking the trigger (which is the tendency when pressing quickly) will send your hits low. Combined with a flash sight picture, that could put them out of the target zone, so you need to practice the compressed press a lot to make sure it’s smooth.

We also started working on drawing from concealment, and we would end up doing that for almost every drill we did for the rest of the class. We practiced that a lot, but it’s hard to describe it, so I won’t go into specifics. We also started talking about the Skills Test we’d be taking at the end of the class. Really, for the remainder of the third day and much of the beginning of the 4th day, we went over the same drills we’d been doing, but started putting time constraints on them like there are on the test. Adding the stress of a whistle really helped us to get ready for the test, I think. There’s a natural response to being on a timer, even if you know you have plenty of time. When you’re not at all confident you can finish in time (like with the times on the skills test) it really adds a lot more stress. We did work on a few cool drills that I thought I would mention. Both of them are great drills to help train you on trigger control. The first is the “Ragged Hole” drill. You are shooting at a 1”x1” square from 5m away and you’re trying to get all 5 shots into the square. You shoot the first 5 shots with no time constraints, then do 5 dry practice shots on another square, then do your next 5 live shots on the second target. I really enjoyed this drill, as it’s something I haven’t done much of in the past. The other is the “Trigger Reset” drill. The shooter takes a shot on command from the rangemaster, and the coach puts his finger into the trigger guard and presses on the finger. The goal here is to make sure you’re trapping the trigger and only releasing to reset when the rangemaster calls it out. This really helps to train the muscle memory of holding the trigger back after each shot.

On the 4th day, we got to do some different and very fun stuff. We worked on multiple target drills, and also had a head to head steel target competition. That was fun, not least because I ended up winning. There were 3 steel targets for each shooter, one was a hostage target and the other two were regular droppers. The hostage target was probably 5-7m away (we weren’t on a firing line so I don’t know for sure) and the other two were probably 15-20m away. The hostage taker’s head was about 4”x6” (maybe smaller) and you would immediately be out of the competition if you hit the hostage. If both shooters shot the hostage, they were both out. That happened quite a bit. The stress of the competition really made it tough to slow down and make good shots. My heart was absolutely pounding every time I was on the line. It was a really fun exercise, for sure. After that we went back to our regular range and worked on another ragged hole drill until it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we went through a practice test, which was all the things we were going to be tested on, with the real test times, but it wasn’t counted for accuracy. After that, we did the whole test again, but try this time. Then we did the real test. Here’s what it consisted of:

3 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from a concealed holster
5 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from the low ready
5 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from a concealed holster
7 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from a concealed holster
10 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from a concealed holster
15 meters - Controlled pair to the thoracic cavity from a concealed holster

7 meters - Failure to Stop Drill (Timed controlled pair to thoracic cavity, then untimed headshot when called by rangemaster) x 2

5 meters - Designated head shot from a concealed holster x 5
7 meters - Designated head shot from a concealed holster x 2

There were times for each section but I don’t know what they are, so I haven’t included them. I’m hoping to get that information soon and will update this report.

That was the end of the shooting. Just 25 shots, with a total possible score of 125 points. If you missed the cranio-ocular cavity with the headshots or the thoracic cavity with the controlled pairs, you would get -3 points if you still hit the main target area just outside the box, or -5 points if you missed the body entirely (or hit the torso on a headshot). If you shot after the second whistle, you would get -3 points for each late shot.

After that, we did our malfunction/reload drills for time. If you did it wrong, you would get -3 points and if you were over time, you would get -3 points. You could only lose 3 points on each drill, but this is still coming off the 125 points.

Here’s what we did for this section:

Tactical reload x 2
Type 1 Malfunction Clearance x 2
Type 2 Malfunction Clearance x 2
Type 3 Malfunction Clearance x 2
Emergency Reload x 2

Scores of 90% (Down 13 or fewer) or better would get a “Distinguished Graduate” certificate. Scores of 70%-90% (Down 38-14) would get a “Graduate” certificate. Scores under 70% (39 or more down) would get a “Certificate of Achievement). for completing the course. People who chose to take the test without time constraints or without concealment would also get a Certificate of Achievement. I ended up scoring 6 down on the shooting section and didn’t lose any points for being over time on anything, so my final score was 119. We did have one student who got a perfect score. He had been really fast, smooth and accurate the whole week and was a really nice guy to boot. He had taken the course twice before, and it sounds like he really thought it was worthwhile to come back for the same course multiple times. It certainly seemed to be useful, judging by his shooting!

So there you have it. It was a very full four days, with about 8 hours of classroom/range time each day. We fired probably 600-700 rounds, and the level of shooting at the end was simply astonishing in comparison to what it had been on the first day. People who had come in struggling to hold the gun the right way up were shooting very respectably by the end. people who came in with a little experience (and an open mind) were shooting extremely well by the end. Everyone was faster and more accurate, and people had learned a great deal about working under stress. I have to say, this course was extremely valuable for me as a relatively experienced handgun shooter, and it would probably be even more useful for someone with fewer bad habits than I had. I really can’t say enough good things about Front Sight. They have very solid instructors and a very nice facility. It’s a little out of the way, but that’s kind of a given for a 550-acre shooting facility. I don’t agree with everything they teach, but I can’t deny that what they teach works. I was indeed much faster getting out of the holster and getting rounds on target. This is also a very basic handgun course, and I know their more advanced courses may well help to alleviate some of my concerns about the basic curriculum in different circumstances. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I know I’ve left things out in this (even given the absurd length) and I’m happy to answer to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading!

Bolder Boulder 2011

2011-06-01T13:30:00.000-06:00

Okay, I've been slacking on the posts on my various workouts, partially because I feel like they're getting a bit repetitive. So instead of doing those, I'll do short ones, listing new exercises or progressions that we learn. I'll also post about any major milestones or events or anything like that.

I was out of town last week (doing some shooting at Front Sight) and so I ate like crap and didn't work out at all. That was not ideal. I definitely put on a couple of pounds while I was out there, so I'm going to try to peel that back off this week. I have to say, I'm pretty amazed both at how much and how little I can gain and lose depending on my actions. Given what I ate, I'm kind of surprised I didn't put on even more weight, but I'm also displeased that just a week of eating the way I used to would cause me to put weight back on so quickly. Weird, eh?

After I got back, I sort of relaxed for a couple days, tried to get settled in and catch up with some friends we'd neglected while I was away. I also ran the Bolder Boulder. I had not been training for a race, as you know if you've been reading this. I've run a little bit, but not very far, very fast, or very often. This was more of a test of my cardio training, and I think I did well. Here are my results:

Race Results 2011

I finished in 59:34, which gives me an average pace of 9:35/mi. I'm pretty pleased. That time qualifies me for a running wave next year, for one. It's also about 2 min/mi faster than I ran last year. it was tough, but fun and very rewarding. My legs are freaking killing me now, though. I didn't stretch properly after the race and I didn't eat my 30g of protein and 30g of carbs quickly enough afterward, for sure. Since it's my first week back from vacation and yesterday was a Tuesday, however, I still decided to go to the gym. That was probably silly, but my legs definitely felt better when they were warm. It was this morning that it really hit me just how silly it had been.

We did learn a few new things last night that I wanted to record here. One is a core exercise using a yoga ball and the other is a back exercise using a yoga ball. To do the core exercise, you're essentially doing a plank with your elbows on the ball instead of the ground. You slowly push your elbows out from your body as far as you can, and then roll them back in. It can be tough to get more than a few inches of movement at first, but it's a heck of a good workout for the abs. The back exercise is done back putting your hips/lower abdomen on the ball and you toes on the floor with your heels on the wall. I was trying to do this with my feet lifted up off the ground and against the wall and it was nearly impossible to stay balanced. So put your feet against the wall with your toes on the floor and you'll be fine. Next, you cross your arms in front of your chest, and left you back up and back, squeezing your shoulder blades together. This will work your lower and mid-back muscles. If it's too easy, move the ball lower on your hips or extend your arms to the side with your palms facing upward as you rise.

I think that's it for me for now. Just trying to get myself back to the weight I was before I left. A week of sitting in a car and eating a bunch of junk really takes a toll on the body! I'm hoping that all this punishment will get me back there as quickly as possible. it sucks right now, but I really want to get myself back on track. I will keep you posted on my progress. Thanks for reading!

Group Training - 5/19/11

2011-05-20T16:52:00.000-06:00

More group training last night. Gilles set up a couple cool circuits for us last night and i want to get them down before I forget them.

We started on the chest press machine. 10 reps at whatever weight he set for you. Then 20 resistance band bicep curls. Then 12 resistance band shoulder presses. Then 12 resistance band front raises and side raises. Then a 30-second v-sit as a bit of a rest. We went through that circuit 3 times.

Next circuit. Now we have a little rolling cart thing, and we're doing "tucks" or something. Basically, your toes go on the rolling cart platform, your hands or elbows go on the ground, and you pull your feet up under your body and then push them back out. Pretty tough, for sure. Then we did half-squat rows on the cable machine. Those weren't too bad. We also did quick, shallow dips on a ledge. My hands kept getting tingly, so I think I was pinching a nerve or something. Each station is 30 seconds, with a 10 second rest. We did 3 rounds of that as well.

To finish, we hit those range of motion stepper machines I've mentioned and worked on those for about 10 minutes. We alternated between just normal stepping and the "get low and pump your legs without moving your upper body" style stuff. That is really crazy hard. We did a number of 15 second bursts of that followed by 25 seconds of just regular stepping. We finished up with two 30-second bursts of the heavy duty work and then were done. It was a pretty serious workout. My legs were worn all the way out just from the 10 minutes we did, and my upper body was toast from all the rest. We got a lot of good core work in, too.

Overall, I'm really liking the group classes. Everyone is still super nice and having other people around is making me push myself harder for sure. I'm still learning tons of new exercises and all, so it's all really valuable. I'm thinking after a month of this, I may well be ready to start hitting the gym on my own 3x per week and be able to work up a solid hour worth of work for myself without anything getting stale. Woot!

Calculating Calories Burned Based on Average Heart Rate

2011-05-18T17:06:00.000-06:00

I got at least a little intrigued by this idea, and have started doing my traditional poke around the internet. here's what I've come up with so far:

http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/calculators/calories-burned-calculator-based-on-average-heart-rate/
http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx
http://www.braydenwm.com/calburn.htm

All look pretty similar. What I'm going to do is to enter the information from my workout last night into each and see what they come up with. Here's the info from last night:

Avg Heart Rate: 141 BPM
Duration: 57:00 min

And my info...

Male
29 years old
235 pounds
45 VO2 Max

Here goes:

Triathlottrainingblog says: 840 calories burned
Shapesense says: 895 calories burned
Braydenwm says: 841 calories burned

There are some other factors, of course. These calculations are based on a heart rate between 90 and 150 BPM. If you go above or below those, the calculations are no longer accurate. I'm also thinking there has to be an element of heart rate zones in here somewhere. I know you keep burning calories all the way into your Zone 5, but the calories are now predominantly glycogen instead of stored fat.

Since this is as good a time as any to get into a discussion of heart rate zones, let's get to it. You can do all of this with calculations which are really just estimates based on age and gender, without any real bearing on what your own numbers might be. That is why science invented the stress test, to see what your very own heart and lungs can do. I'm thinking more and more that I should get one of those. Until I do, though, here's the info I've been able to scrounge up.

I just found this article and I like what it has to say. http://www.howtobefit.com/five-heart-rate-zones.htm

Your maximum heart rate is 220 - your age according to most sources. So for me, since I'm 29, my maximum heart rate is 191. Seem arbitrary? It is! By this logic, a 29 year old marathon runner has the same heart rate as a 29 year old quadriplegic who runs zero marathons. Silly, obviously.The one in the article is at least slightly better, hopefully. It's 210-(50%*Age) - (5%*Weight) + 4 for men and 210 - (50% * Age) - (1% * body weight) for women. Using that calculation, mine is 188. It still doesn't have anything to do with my fitness, but at least now it's tied to my body in some way.

Your resting heart rate is your heart rate when you're totally at rest. The best way to calculate this is to take your pulse a few days in a row before you get out of bed. I'm sort of miserable at doing this. I suck at counting my own pulse, and I really suck at remembering to do anything before I get out of bed. I'm going to guess my resting heart rate is 60 and try very hard to remember to measure it over the next few days.

Your "Heart Rate Reserve" is the difference between your resting heart rate and your max. Think of it as the heart rate you have left over between complete rest and maximum work. So you take your max HR (191) and subtract your resting HR (60) to get your HRR (131).

Let's talk about zones. Zones are broken down by percentages of max HR, generally. One of the sources I found breaks them down by percentage of HRR + Resting HR, but that's the only one I can find that does that, so it may be a bunch of hooey. I think the % of Max HR is the way to go, just based on the numbers you get. Using the more complicated method indicates that you're not even starting to get into a training zone until you get up to 124 BPM, which seems really silly.

Zone 1 is your heart fitness zone. It's a brisk walk. You're not really burning fat or increasing cardio capacity, but your heart is moving and you're getting the benefits of low-intensity exercise. This is 50%-60% of your Max HR, or 94-112 for me.

Zone 2 is your fat burning zone. It's a low enough intensity that you can stick with it for a good long while, and you're burning up to 85% of your calories from stored fat. This is a good place to be. Most people (myself included) tend to train too hard and miss this sweet spot. This is 60%-70% of your Max HR, or 113-130 for me.

Zone 3 is the aerobic zone. This is your cardio training zone. You're burning about 50/50 for carbs and fats, so it isn't the most efficient zone for fat burning, but it the best place to be to increase your overall cardiovascular health. Your heart and lungs are working hard in this zone, meaning you'll be increasing their capacity to do work. This is 70%-80% of your Max HR, or 131-149 for me.

Zone 4 is the anaerobic threshold zone. This is where your body can no longer supply your muscles with enough blood and oxygen to keep them operating in an aerobic mode, and has to switch to anaerobic to keep going. You're not using very much fat at all for energy at this point. You're switching over to using primarily glycogen. Training in this zone will help you to increase your threshold, meaning you'll be able to work harder without getting into this zone. You can only work in this zone for so long before you deplete your glycogen stores and you fatigue. Depleting your glycogen stores means your body builds them back even larger, so this is also where you train to increase your glycogen capacity. This is 80%-90% of your Max HR, or 150-168 for me.

Zone 5 is your maximum heart rate, or your "Red Line" zone. You can't work in this zone for more than a couple of minutes at a time. This is where you throw up, pass out, injure yourself, etc. It's not a place to spend long periods of time. It's useful to train here, because this is where you can increase your speed. People normally train in this zone using intervals. This is 90%-100% of your Max HR, or 169-188 for me.

Now that we've gone through all those, here's the kicker: Each zone will not be a simple 10% swath of your heart rate. Depending on how you've trained, certain zones will be wider or narrower than others. If you've trained in sprinting a great deal, your AT (anaerobic threshold) may be very high. That would mean your Zones 4 and 5 would be compressed, and your Zone 3 might be extended. If you never work your AT, your Zones 1-3 might be compressed due to a significantly lower AT. Individual zones could be larger or smaller and none of these calculations have any way to account for that. They're estimates at best, and they're really estimates based on estimates based on averages. So...nearly worthless. But maybe, just maybe, you will have your actual zone limits close enough to where your estimated zone limits are that when you train intentionally in the middle of Zone 3, you will actually be working your own personal body in Zone 3. So...there's that. The bright side is that anything under Zone 4 will burn fat, just not as efficiently as being in Zone 2. Anything above Zone 2 will help increase cardio capacity, just not as efficiently as Zone 3. So there's a range available, it's just not something where you can say "Hey, it's fat-burning day. Let me take these numbers I calculated from the internet and do my workout in Zone 2," and be anything more than kinda sure that you're actually doing that. You'll still get benefits of course, they just may not be the benefits you're looking for. Since I'm currently at a point where literally any improvement in any area of health or fitness is a worthy goal, I don't have to worry too much about it. But I probably will anyway.

Thanks for reading!

Group Training - 5/17/11

2011-05-18T12:34:00.001-06:00

Whew! Sorry about the big gap in posting here. We got super sick last week and did absolutely nothing fitness-related. On Monday, I was so sick I was literally in bed, on the couch, or in the bathroom the entire day. I had a fever, I was dehydrating myself by every possible avenue and I ate maybe half a cup of applesauce the whole day. Not ideal. I couldn't even keep down water earlier in the day. Jenna stayed home and looked after me all day like a champion. I really couldn't have done it without her. I don't remember the last time I was so sick, but I hope it doesn't happen again for a very long time. Tuesday I stayed home again but felt much better. No more puking, and the fever was gone. Tuesday night, though, Jenna started feeling it. Wednesday she stayed home and I wasn't able to stay with her, unfortunately. Thursday she stayed home again and was feeling much better by the end. By Friday, we were both back at work and feeling much closer to 100%, but still not quite there. Over the weekend we took it pretty easy and rested up a lot more. So we completely stopped tracking calories and didn't do any workouts for a whole week. I lost about 4-5 pounds just in water weight because I was so dehydrated. I ended up pounding a fair amount of low-cal Gatorade just to get myself back up to snuff. By the end of the week, I was feeling pretty good on hydration. It was weird to have non-water again after so long, but it really felt like it helped me out.

So, last night, we got back into action. We had our first group training session with Gilles. There are seven people in the group, including us. One other married couple, a lady who is recovering from having a baby, Gilles' wife (Danielle, I think?) and another petite woman who is all kinds of lean and muscley. She's pretty hardcore and I'm almost certain she could outlift me. Everyone is really nice, and we all got along well. I think the other guy in the group is thankful that there's another man now, but he might be a little happier if I weren't so young. I didn't feel young or fit at all while we were working, but I managed to keep up with everything pretty well. Here's what we did:

We started out doing a dynamic warmup. High knees and buttkicks followed by mummies and jogging, with some backwards jogging thrown in for good measure. After that, We did a circuit of pushups for 45 seconds (Hah! I had to go to my knees after maybe 30 seconds) followed by a jog to the other side of the gym and back two times, then figure 8s with a medicine ball. Those are cool. They're like v-sit chops, but instead of just touching the ball on the ground side to side, you weave it under and over your legs while maintaining the v-sit. Very tough, but a very good progression. The last stage of the circuit was chest passes against the wall with the medicine ball. We did that circuit three times. Then we had a nice long rest and Gilles had us start on the second circuit. It was a 7-stage circuit and we all cycled through it at 45 seconds on, 15 seconds of rest. I started on pushup position planks, then went to figure 8s, then lateral jumps over a big rope, then running back and forth across the gym. After that, it was dragging a weight sled with two 45-pound plates on it. No idea how much the sled weighed, but it was pretty heavy. At least 100 pounds, maybe more like 110 or 115, I'm thinking. Then I did a wall sit, then did high knees on an agility ladder and that was the end of the circuit. A bit of rest, then back through. This time we did 30 seconds on, 10 seconds rest. The final run through the circuit was 30 on and 10 off, but he really wanted us to push ourselves 100% on every exercise. We also reversed the order we went through the circuit. The final bit of fun was forward/backward suicides across the width of the gym. Gilles set cones out at 5-yard intervals, and we had to sprint to the far cone and run backwards back to the start. Then sprint out to the second-farthest cone and run backwards to the start. I think there were 7 cones in all, and we did the whole exercise twice. I felt pretty good about it. I can backpedal pretty quickly and my transitions are fast.

My heart rate was up in the 160 BPM plus for a large portion of this session. I think I maxed out at 178 BPM. I have no idea where my zones actually are, but I'm pretty sure that's a high 4 or 5. I was definitely sucking wind more than a few times over the course of the session. I didn't really get close to throwing up, but it was at least on my mind that I might. One thing I really wish my watch would do is to estimate calorie burn based on heart rate. It does it based on distance which is fine for running or swimming, but doesn't work so well for jumping in place or dragging a weight sled. I may have to do some research online and see if I can find a conversion table or something. Alternatively, I may need to look into a "Gym HRM" and an "Outdoor Running HRM" as separate entities. I really like my Garmin, but it is only well-suited to one of my regular exercise activities, and it's the least-regular one I do these days.

We also (before the session) had Gilles get our weight and do a pinch test for body fat. Here are my results:

Weight: 235 pounds (this is late in the day, after having eaten and everything all day long)
BMI: 29.4
Body Fat: 16.4%
Lean Mass: 196.46
Fat Mass: 38.54

If you compare this to my original numbers from about 6 weeks ago, You'll see the following changes:

Weight: -10 pounds
BMI: -1.2 (Moved from Obese to Overweight)
Body Fat: -6%
Lean Mass: +6.3 pounds
Fat Mass: -16.3 pounds

Given that my goal originally was to lose 20 pounds of fat and not lose any lean mass in 12 weeks, I'd say I am absolutely dominating. In half that time, I have already almost lost all of the body fat I wanted to lose and have gained a lot more muscle than I would have expected. I have come to the conclusion that my body really does want to be lean and muscular. There's just a limit on what it can do with a steady diet of candy, pizza and couch-surfing. I'm seeing and feeling significant changes already. My stomach is flatter and harder, especially in the obliques. I'm seeing more muscle tone in my chest, arms and shoulders as well. I still have a long way to go, for sure. I'm happy to be reaching my initial goal so soon, but I'm going to push myself and try to get down to 12% body fat by the end of 12 weeks now. Here's what that would look like if i didn't gain any more lean mass (which seems unlikely, but there you go):

Weight: 223.3 pounds
BMI: 27.9
Body Fat: 12.0%
Lean Mass: 196.46 pounds
Fat Mass: 26.79 pounds

That looks like a loss of another 11.75 pounds of fat. Obviously that's feasible in 6 weeks, since I've already done that and more. Any additional lean mass will just be gravy. So there it is. Setting another finish line out even farther for myself so I have more to shoot for. I really think these group sessions will help a great deal, because the intensity level is so much higher.

Thanks for reading!

Personal Training - 5/3/11 and 5/5/11

2011-05-06T16:47:00.000-06:00

This was our final week of our 2-on-1 personal training sessions with Gilles. We had 4 weeks of training, which means 8 sessions. We covered a huge number of topics and I know Jenna and I both learned a ton. We're both extremely happy that we did the full month with him and now we're ready to move onto the second month, which is still a personal training session twice a week, but it'll be in a group of 6 instead of 2. That also brings the cost down significantly.
So this has now been about 4 weeks of 2 workouts per week (and precious little else) and about 2 weeks of actually tracking my food. That doesn't mean 2 weeks of eating well, it just means 2 weeks where i was trying to enter everything I ate into a spreadsheet. Sometimes I failed miserably at eating in the right proportion. Sometimes I failed at eating the proper amount (2800 calories per day is my goal). Sometimes, but not often, I did both. So this is not a super-strict diet. I'm still eating burgers and pizza and all the rest. But I am trying at least to eat a balance of macronutrients and to limit myself (or push myself) to 2800 per day. This isn't always easy, but the longer I do it, the easier it becomes.

Now for my results. You know I started at 245 pounds with 22.4% body fat, right? Well as of the end of this week, I am down to 235 (+/- depending on when I weigh myself) and according to my home calipers, I'm at 18% bodyfat. Gilles will do a check for us next week to see where we are for real (I did get some tips from him on where to pinch to get the best results) and I have pretty high hopes. I'm definitely seeing results. I'm looking thinner in the face for sure, and I can really see changes in my abdomen. I've got less fat and harder muscle underneath it. I'm also starting to see some of the fat that's right under my pecs starting to recede, which is cool. I would like to see more movement on my love handles but that will probably take more time. I'm not really noticing any big changes in the size of my arms or legs, though. I am, however, feeling stronger. I'm able to hold my static positions for longer, lift heavier weights, etc.

Here's the math: If I take my home fat test as accurate, that indicates that I have lost 12.5 pounds of fat and gained 2.5 pounds of muscle. Not bad for being in an almost-constant caloric deficit and not really doing much in the way of aerobic workouts. I did cardio, for sure, but my heart rate was well out of the fat burning zone. So I think I'm burning fat after workouts, primarily. Really, I think if I stick with my twice per week heavy strength workouts and add in another moderate strength workout on Saturday and a couple of low-intensity aerobic days during the week, I can really start peeling off the fat. nothing motivates like results, so I'm definitely feeling the drive to get to work on this even harder.

As for the workouts this week, I don't remember a ton of specifics. Jenna's shoulder was bugging her on Tuesday so we did legs instead of upper body. We started with weighted squats and step-ups and then went and did a bunch of lunges. I'm really liking the concept of progressions and regressions in the bodyweight exercises. As soon as I think I'm getting a handle on something, he pushes me just a little bit harder. The one for lunges is just a double bounce at the bottom. Forces you to pause down there a little longer, maybe? I don't know, but it worked. If you feel like you could do lunges all day, try doing a normal lunge and right when you would bring your back leg up, do a little bounce and then come back up. It's more like a double dip, really. Whatever you want to call it, it brutalized me. On Thursday, Jenna's shoulder was still bugging her and Gilles showed her the biceps stretch. He was able to precisely pinpoint where her pain is, and it's right in the spot where her biceps tendon attaches into the shoulder. He showed her the stretch and she said it really helped a lot. It was really cool that he was able to diagnose it like that, I think. We kept our cardio to a minimum on Thursday, which is not the normal thing. No steep treadmill climb to start out the day. We worked a lot on core, though. We did four ab exercises in a circuit, which was something we certainly couldn't have done a few weeks ago. I was even able to do single-arm and single-leg planks this time, which I haven't ever done before. We also did v-sits with medicine ball chops (8 pounds for me this time) and some exercises where you lie on your back with your legs straight up and touch your toes. I was miserable at them. We also did leg raises with our legs bent at 90º. I've done them before with straight legs and my hands under my butt, but this was easier and harder. Easier because my legs were bent. bending or straightening your legs are your progressions and regressions on that one. The straighter your legs are, the harder it is. Your lower back wants to come off the floor and you have to clamp down on your core to keep it from happening. My hip flexors were just about toast on those so I ended up not finishing them. We then did chest presses and shoulder presses and I was definitely doing better on those than previously. i think I ended up pressing 120 or 140 pounds in sets of 12 at least once or twice, so that's pretty decent. I need to try it for max sometime and see what I can do. We also did assisted wide pullups to work our lats. That was fun, but tough.

So after all that, Gilles showed us a new lat stretch and we stretched out everything else to boot. It was a relatively calm day, cardio-wise, but we learned a bunch and felt like we had come a very long way from the beginning.

I'll report back after this weekend to let you know how everything goes. Thanks for reading!

Personal Training - 4/26/11

2011-04-28T16:58:00.000-06:00

Okay. This is not easy for me to say, but my wife kicked my butt on Tuesday. She outlasted me at most of the exercises we were doing. I can make excuses about me using heavier weights or whatever, but the truth is that she's freaking hardcore and I'm a tiny squalling infant. Now that we've established that, let's get down to the real business at hand.

This weekend, we ate like crap. Really crap. We had a potluck dinner on Friday and I consumed a ton of meatballs soaked in BBQ sauce, chocolates, cookies, chips, etc. the only vaguely healthy thing I ate the whole time was hummus with pita chips. I honestly don't even know if that's healthy, it's just not drenched in chocolate or sugar, so it has to be better than everything else. So that was Friday. Saturday morning we ate okay, but dinner time was an exercise in dietary seppuku. We had double cheeseburgers from Freddy's, and I also had an order of chili cheese fries to go along with it. here's where the whole thing gets downright funny. We had looked up the nutritional value of Freddy's frozen custards after our last trip and learned they averaged about 900 apiece for the smallest size. So we decided to go to Dairy Queen for dessert instead. At least they're only 350 calories, right? Jeez. Then Sunday we ate pretty well for breakfast, before going over to my parents' house to spend some time with my dad on Easter. I finished off three bags of chips (mostly empty, I was just helping them get the bags out of the pantry. Honest.) and then ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn and a box of Reese's Pieces all by myself. Then it was time for dinner. See what I'm talking about? Awful. We went to Saltgrass Steakhouse and it was actually very good. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the steaks there. So I got a 10-oz ribeye, ate a caesar salad and then my dad and I shared a giant chunk of cheesecake for dessert. Is this sounding at all like the diet of a man who's trying to lose weight? No. No it isn't.

So on Saturday morning, I weighed 237.8 even after the whole potluck thing the night before. By Monday morning, I was back up over 240 again. As of this morning (Thursday) I'm back down to 238.4 again. If I had eaten more reasonably over the weekend, I would easily be below 235 now, which is my first big milestone (10 pounds lost, also the least I've weighed in years). If those 10 pounds lost are all fat, that means I'm halfway to my goal of losing 20 pounds of fat in less than 4 weeks. See how exciting that would be? My plan to lose 20 pounds was on a 12-week schedule. It seems that by watching what I eat and working out just a few times a week, I can shed easily 2 pounds per week. It's almost like my body wants to be healthy. Weird.

My food log is working beautifully. We've gotten to the point now where most of what we eat is in there, so I have to add foods less often. In another few weeks, I'm anticipating that will happen even less often. I have a few dream features I'd love to put into it, but I sort of doubt I'll get there. It's complicated enough as is, and as long as I'm intending it to be used primarily by me (which I am) there's no reason to worry about making it super user-friendly. I'm still pushing for 2800 calories per day, and getting there much more easily some days than others.

Now, for the workout on Tuesday. We started out on the treadmill again. After all the incline work we've been doing, my lower back no longer gets sore while I'm walking up a steep incline. I hadn't noticed it before this session, but I think that's huge. Even when Gilles had us jog up a 15% incline, my lower back still didn't hurt at all. You read that right. Jogging. We jogged for 30 seconds up the incline, and then rested for 30 seconds. Repeated that about 5 times. After that, he taught us a new stretch for our hip flexors, since we were working them pretty hard on the treadmill. Then, we did a circuit of upper body and core work. Gilles wasn't fooling around this week. he said he's going to really start pushing us now, and he wasn't kidding. We did 30 second sets of pushups, shoulder presses, planks, bicep curls and v-sits (w/ chops and overhead throws). I think that was the order, but I don't remember for sure. We did 3-4 rounds of that, and I was absolutely shot. The pushups killed my shoulders right off the bat and everything else started failing from there. I can't blame it all on my shoulders though, because I was also sucking at the v-sits, and those don't have anything to do with shoulders. My wife, however, was a rockstar. She was rock solid on her planks and v-sits, and did very well on her bicep curls, presses and pushups. I'm so proud of her!

After that, we went to the free range elliptical and got to work again. Doing leg work on an upper body day? Gilles was punishing us for something I don't remember doing. We hadn't been to the gym (except for a trip on Sunday involving some goofy racquetball and basketball games) since the previous Wednesday, and i foolishly told him how poorly we'd eaten that weekend. Maybe that's why he punished us. It seems to have worked, though. My weight today indicates that a good hard workout is exactly what I needed. So far, Gilles has only ever had us doing the stair stepping style of workout on those machines, and this time he had us crank the resistance way up. We did that for about 10-12 minutes (don't remember exactly) and then stretched out. It was really hard, but it felt good to get my blood pumping again.

We have another session tonight, which should focus on lower body. After this, we only have two more personal sessions with Gilles, and then we're probably going to switch to the group classes that he teaches. Should be fun, and it will still help to keep us on track. Plus, it'll get us two training sessions per week for less than it would cost to do our semi-private training only once per week, which was the other option.

Thanks for reading!

Updates!

2011-04-23T07:07:00.000-06:00

I've been slacking on my updates, unfortunately. We've got more fun stuff going on.

Jenna wasn't feeling well on Tuesday, so I was on my own for the upper body session. Lifetime closed Thursday and Friday this week, so our Thursday class got bumped to Wednesday night. Sounds like a fun time, right? Here's how it all went down.

On Tuesday, with Jenna absent, Gilles really got to focus on making me miserable with heavy weights. Not even all that heavy, but pretty heavy. We did our normal treadmill warmup, then hit some machines. Normally I'm not a huge fan of machines because I prefer to get the full free weight range of motion and stabilizing muscles and all, but these weren't too bad. They really helped me focus on a couple of muscle groups that I normally end up ignoring and compensating for with other muscles. We also do supersets to keep up my heart rate. So we did chest presses on the machine, with v-sit chops (and the catching and throwing of the medicine ball) while I was resting. he had me throw the ball from behind my head instead of my chest to force me to work my core and balance more. I did several sets of that, 3 each I think. Then we switched to lat pulldowns on a different machine. I've done those before, but I'd never actually felt it in my lats. It turns out I was letting my shoulders rise when the weight was high, and then kept them there through the whole rep. It takes the focus off your lats that way and that's why I'd never felt the exercise in the right spot before. Good to know. So we alternated those with medicine ball chest passes. Did 4 sets of those. Then we went and did some pushups and incline pullups on the squat rack. I still think that is a downright awesome idea. The pullups were tough, as it seemed like I could never get the right angle on them. I took an underhanded grip on the bar, and angled my body (feet pushed out in front of me, chest under the bar) and started pulling. I didn't do so hot. We raised the bar more and decreased the angle and it got much easier. We pounded out 3 sets of those as well. Then to the bosu ball again. This time, I was standing on the flat side with the bulgy side down, which is much harder to balance on. Gilles gave me two 20-pounds dumbbells and had me curl them while standing on the ball. That was tough. I had to really crank down on my core to stabilize myself. Then I had to do shoulder presses (after my pushups, which always ruins me) on the ball with 5-pound dumbbells. Did I mention that my shoulders are my weakest link? I think I have. I should say it again. My shoulders are not just weak, they're "tiny blond girl with pigtails" weak. It's sad. I'm working on it, though. So after that, we stretched out and called it a day.

The following day, we came back and got ready to do lower body. Again, warmed up on the treadmill, then got to work. We didn't go to any of our normal haunts, though. Gilles took us down to the indoor turf field for some lunges. He also had us do some dynamic warmup exercises, which were fun. Let's of side shuffling, high knees, butt-kickers, and high kicks down and back. Then lunges. Then wall sits. More lunges. More wall sits. It was seriously tough. Both Jenna and I were pretty wobbly after all of that. As far as I can remember, we spent pretty much the whole session down there, so I think that's about all the detail I can give on our activity. it was cool to get out of the "gym" part of the gym and go do something different, for sure. Then stretching and we were done.

Also, I've been tracking my food on a food log I built in Excel. I love Excel. Like a man loves a woman. Anyway, this food log is sweet. It's like those online ones that are already built and loaded with tons of nutrition info, but this one took me many hours to put together myself. So...I guess it's awesome if you think spending hours futzing with Excel formulas is awesome. I do. You probably don't. According to my Fitpoint, based on my activity level and my lean body mass, my daily maintenance level of calories is about 3300-3500. The fitpoint recommended I go with a 20% calorie reduction per day, to get to about 2700-2800 calories. Gilles suggested a macronutrient ratio of 50% carbs, 25% fat and 25% protein. It's pretty close to what I've read in other sources, and it seems like a pretty reasonable split, overall. I don't like anything that's really super drastic, because it seems like that stuff always ends up biting you in the end.

So anyway, I have this food log, we have a little digital kitchen scale, and I've been tracking my calories. Turns out I've had a hell of a time eating enough. Odd, right? It turns out that when you're trying to keep your total calories to a specific ratio, it's tough to pack in all those extra calories. I can eat a 2,000 calories meal without even stopping to take a breath, but it's mostly fat and sugar. Obviously, that's not cutting it. So I'm having to find ways to pack in more healthy calories. It's a good problem to have, certainly. I'm finding ways to pack in more calories without upsetting my ratios, by adding lean proteins and whole grains and beans and such

We're also finding that cooking the same portions for me and Jenna isn't really going to work, since she's supposed to be eating about half as much as I am. That's going to be easier to manage with the scale, at least.

So there you have it. All the updates that you could want, right? But wait, there's more! I weighed myself this morning (after breakfast, like a dolt) and found that I am significantly below the 240 mark. I was at 239.2 if I remember correctly. This morning (Saturday), weighing before breakfast, I'm at 237.8, which means I've lost about 7 pounds in three weeks. Not too shabby at all. I'm already almost down to my lowest weight in recent years, and much more quickly than it happened last time.

Thanks for reading!

Personal Training - 4/12/11

2011-04-13T11:20:00.000-06:00

Last night, we did our first joint personal training session. I think it went extremely well. here's what we did.

First, we did a quick 6-minute warmup on the treadmill together, just to get the blood flowing a bit. Then we did our three big stretches (both of us are super tight all along the backs of our legs, so we stretch glutes, hamstrings and calves) on the stretching tables. Then Gilles took us over to another couple of treadmills and had us do the climbing thing. Start out at 0% incline and a comfortable fast walking pace, then every minute, increase the incline by 2% until you get to 12, then increase to 15% for the last minute. I was wearing my HRM and after we got home I watched my heart rate graph just climb and climb while we were doing that. It's a very good way to slowly and steadily increase your heart rate, for sure. I think I got up to about 165 bpm or so.

That's the prep phase. I like it because it gets your really warm and gets your heart pumping, so the circuit training stuff just sorta keeps your heart rate high. Speaking of circuit training, that's what we did next. He took us over to a squat cage and brought a half-ball thingy called a Bosu, a floor mat and a medicine ball. He said he likes the squat cage for pushups because you can adjust the bar up and down to make them harder or easier. I hadn't thought of that, but it's really pretty ingenious. So we did 30-second stations. 30 seconds of pushups, then 30 seconds of squatting on the Bosu, 30 seconds of one-leg plank (half with each leg) and 30 seconds of "Chops," which is what he calls a v-sit with a medicine ball touching it side to side. Then a minute rest, then all the same, but for 40 seconds. Gilles is big on doing exercises that have progressions, which I like. Pushups too hard? Don't stop, just raise the bar and do easier pushups. Too easy? Put your feet on the bar and do the pushups on the floor (we're not there, so I'm guessing that's what you could do). Squatting on the ball too hard? Just stand on it, or squat a little higher. Too easy? Maybe do one leg standing and eventually one leg squatting. Again, we haven't gotten to that point, but I'm seeing how the exercises he's picking allow you to increase and decrease the difficulty across a whole range. Planks, you can do one leg, both legs or drop to your knees if you have to. The v-sits you can use the medicine ball, just sit, or sit and support with your hands behind your butt if you have to. That way you're not just wearing yourself out and twiddling your thumbs for the rest of the station, you get to keep working for the whole time.

Next, we took a decent break and then went and got some resistance bands with handles on them. We did shoulder presses and bicep curls. i tried to do the presses with the band, but the angles were weird and the bands just ended up rubbing on my arms the whole time. not the end of the world, but very distracting and uncomfortable. One thing I will mention is that Gilles had us take a different stance for shoulder presses than I usually do. He said that standing with your feet together (front and back-wise) has a tendency to make you lean back at the waist, which is bad for your back. So he had us put one foot forward and lean our chest out over the front leg and push up from there. It was different, but I could definitely tell that it took a lot of strain off my back. I was only using 10-pound dumbbells (when the band wasn't working so hot) and still struggling like mad after the pushups. For whatever reason, pushups make my shoulders tired before just about anything else. I think it's because they're one of my weakest links. I know my form is good, so I don't think that's the issue. Anyway, these shoulder presses with 10-pound dumbbells are really kicking my butt. I finish them out and we do resistance band bicep curls. Those aren't as bad. I can hang with those. Then we go back and do more shoulder presses. I'm really struggling. I finish them, but just barely. More curls. Gilles gets me 5-pound dumbbells for the next set of presses. I mention that I'm really glad that I'm married because I am picking up exactly zero chicks with my current lifting regimen. The 5-pounders are still tough. My shoulders are just freaking shot after the pushups. Gilles says he has some pink vinyl-covered 2.5 pounders he could grab, but he won't do that to me. I appreciate it. I manage to finish that set, then do my curls. He gives us a longer break for water and I'm able to pound out all the presses with the 5-pounders after that. Then he has us do the curls, but he has me keep doing them as fast as I can until Jenna finished hers.

We finish up with more stretches, and we're all done. Neither of us could really use our arms effectively. We drove through chick-fil-a to get non-fried chicken sandwiches because we weren't confident we'd be able to use our arms well enough to make food at home. I was so worn out I couldn't even pick the tomato off my sandwich. I just ate it. Like a chump. And it wasn't very good, but I did it anyway because I was starving and exhausted.

Here's what I learned: Every workout has four components, which I had learned previously: Cardio, Strength, Core and Stability. This time, Gilles actually went through them with us one by one and had us identify which component each of our workouts was working on. So for Cardio, the treadmill obviously, and also the quick pace of the circuit workouts. For Strength, basically everything. for Core, the planks and the chops, but also the bosu ball squats and the pushups to a lesser extent. For Stability, certainly the bosu ball and the chops, with the planks a little bit as well. He also asked us what we felt the focus of the workout was. We worked our legs a little and our cores a lot, but it was definitely mostly an upper body day. It was cool that he had us identify what we were doing and what it was working on for us. It's helping us figure out how to build routines for ourselves, how to put together circuits for different days, what exercises are good for what, and how they complement each other. That's all exactly the sort of stuff I wanted out of my training time.

So there you have it. Day one of our joint sessions. Thursday will be lower body, and we're both looking forward to that in a dread sort of way. Can't wait to see what Gilles has in store for us!

Training Update

2011-04-11T11:50:00.000-06:00

Okay, I haven't posted much, but quite a bit has happened.

Last time I posted, I had just finished my boot camp class. Since then, Jenna went in and did her Fitpoint with Gilles and then I had my first session with my new trainer, Rosa.

I was wary of having a woman trainer, probably because I'm a big sexist jerk and a bad person and someone should kill me with rocks, etc. Still, I went in and gave her a fair shake. She was nice and gave me a good workout, but we just didn't really click. Part of it is because I have a few very specific things I want from a trainer.

I want a trainer to teach me how not to need him/her anymore. I don't want someone to take me from place to place and tell me to do this many reps of this exercise and then go to this machine and do this many reps at this weight and then I get sweaty and go home. I want someone who will take me to a machine and tell me what it's doing, how it differs from the other machines that purport to work the same muscles, why I should use it as opposed to something else, etc. I want to learn. I want to spend a couple months with a trainer and come out of it knowing how to diagnose my own needs, how to design a workout to fill those needs, and how to track my progress towards my goals.

Also, I want a good, functional workout. I can go in and pound on machines all day without any help. I want a trainer who understands my goals and shapes my workout to help me reach them. I'm looking for a very generalized fitness, but with certain specific major parts to it. I want excellent cardio endurance. I want excellent strength to bodyweight ratio. I want excellent muscular endurance. I want to be able to do just about anything with my own body. I'm not super concerned about being able to bench press a certain weight, but I would love to be strong enough to do 10 pullups in a row. I'm not as worried about having 6-pack abs as I am about being able to carry 100 pounds up a flight of stairs. See the theme? I don't want to be a gym rat, and the workouts I want to do may well end up being non-standard stuff like ring dips and kettlebells and all.

So anyway, that all leads me back to this. Rosa was very nice and I was certainly worn out by the end of our session, but I didn't feel like I learned much. She tried to tell me a few things, but it felt very much like she was repeating words she'd heard rather than telling me stuff she really understood. I could be absolutely 100% wrong about that, but that was how it felt. Also, it turns out that the 6:00-7:00 in the morning workout is just not feasible. I thought I could make it work, but by the time I get that done, drive home, get some breakfast get showered and get out the door, it's after 8:00. For waking up at 5:15 or so, that's not ideal. So even though I really like working out in the morning, it seems more practical to work out in the evening. Add to that the fact that Jenna would also need to find a trainer for herself who she liked and you could work with her schedule, and the whole thing just really didn't work very well.

So, while talking with Gilles, he proposed what i think is the perfect solution. Instead of two private trainers, Jenna and I both work with him in one joint session twice a week. It'll cost the same as two trainers, but we get to work with a guy we know we like and we get to be together, which you know is a major plus for us. So there you go, then. Problem solved, with a solution I didn't even know was an option. I couldn't be more pleased. Our first joint session with him is tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Sample Boot Camp - 4/4/11

2011-04-05T16:15:00.000-06:00

Lifetime is offering Boot Camp classes for free this week for people to try them out. Kristie and Chris invited me to come out and try it and I thought it sounded like fun, so I did. Here's some background. My trainer, Gilles (who is not going to be my trainer in the future, unfortunately) recommended against doing boot camp classes until I get my form and my stability muscles all worked out. I believe him and I don't think I'll be doing this regularly, but it was really fun to try. He was totally there last night though, so I had to be all "Boot camp? After you told me not to? No way, man. That's crazy talk. I'm here for...Schmoot Camp." It was awkward. But I'm glad i tried it, because it confirmed for me that I have a lot of strengths (namely power) and a lot of weaknesses (cardio and muscular endurance, specifically on pushups) and it helped me realize that I will be better served by doing the work to get my foundation stronger and then going and doing the boot camp thing.

So, that said, here's what we did last night.

Those two big circles on the right are big tractor tires. The red dots are cones and the smaller circles are weight plates (45 for boys, 25 for girls). The course is maybe 30 yards long, I think. I'm really bad at estimating distance. We were split into two teams of four (the other team had 5 because they can't follow instructions), and then sub-split into guys and girls. The two guys took one tire and did two flips each and then switched off all the way down and back. I think the women did the same thing. The other team took plates and held them straight overhead and jogged to the cone, set the plate down, then did lunges back. The other guy on the team then picked up a plate and ran it out to the next cone and lunged back, and so forth. While the one guys is running and lunging, the other is back at the start, doing bicycles or doing raised-leg crunches with the weight plate.

After we finished flipping the tires, we switched places and did the other side. We just lunged out and then ran them back until the tire flippers were done. We took a bit of a break and switched back. This time, we had to flip the tire until the guys on the other side got all the weights moved out and then back. That took much longer. Honestly, flipping the tire was the easiest thing we did. I think it was harder for other people because they're smaller in relation to the tires. Being a big dude helps in some situations, for sure. After the other side finished, we switched over and had to take the plates out and back. The lunges really started getting to me after a while. I can do them just fine for a while, but that was a heck of a lot of them. Bit of a break for some water.

This one is sort of self-explanatory, except that it also involved the weight plates again. You start at the bottom and lift it over your head. Jog out to the first cone, set it down, do 10 burpees (without pushups) then pick it back up and run to the start. Turn back around and go to the next station and do 20 twisters with your plate. Twisters are like v-ups because your back and feet are both off the ground, but you add a weight and you're twisting your torso from side to side. We did 20 of those on each side. Then up with the plate and back to the line, then back to the next cone. Put the plate down, and do "No Hands" pushups. I haven't even seen these before, but i can see what they're doing. You go all the way down to the ground and rest your chest on the plate, then lift your hands up slightly. This absolutely forces you to go 100% of the way to the floor, obviously. So we did 30 of those. I got a little ways through it and had to drop to my knees to finish the rest. I can pound out a decent number of pushups with good form (a good number being like 30, maybe) but after all the other stuff we'd already done, I was simply not getting anywhere with them. Even from my knees I had to keep stopping and resting. It took forever and completely wore me out. Then up with the plate and back. Repeat the same three exercises, only with 40 burpees, 50 twisters and 60 pushups this time. Even the burpees weren't that bad. I had to do five and then breathe for a while and then do 5 more, but I was hanging in there, pounding them out pretty well. It was just the darn pushups that got me. this is where being a big dude really bites you.

So anyway, that's it. No idea how many calories I burned, unfortunately, as I forgot my HRM in the car, but Kristie said hers said she burned over 600, so I'm guessing I was around 1000 due to my greater weight. That may be all the way wrong, but it doesn't much matter in the end since I don't count calories in anyway. I just know I was all the way worn out and it felt pretty darned good.

First Personal Training Session - 3/31/11

2011-04-05T11:54:00.000-06:00

Had my first personal training session at the new gym. It was awesome! Did mostly bodyweight exercises, worked myself really hard, and learned a lot. I feel like I have a much clearer picture now of where I am, where I want to be and how to get there. I'm really glad that I'm doing this to develop a strong foundation before I start going nuts with the training. I need a lot of work on technique and my core before I'm ready to work as hard as I'd like without injuring myself.

Here's some of what I did:

6 minutes on a treadmill at about 10 min/mi to warmup
Stretching my glutes, hamstrings and calves. They are crazy tight and that's one thing I really need to work on.
Back on a treadmill to get my heart rate back up. Started at 3.5 mph, incline of 2.0 and increase incline by 1 every minute. By the time I reached 15, I was really huffing and puffing.
Did some circuit work. Pushups for 30 seconds, then plank for 30 seconds, then bicep curls for 30 seconds, then jumping back and forth over a rope for 30 seconds, then hold a v-up for 30 seconds while catching a medicine ball, touching it to the right and left twice, then throwing it back, all without letting my feet touch the ground. Then rest. Then all that again, plus a sort of half squat low row thing for 30 seconds.
Weighted squats on a machine. This was partially for strength and partially a diagnostic so the trainer could see how my technique looked and see if I was forcing my body to do weird things to compensate for muscle weaknesses. I did pretty well with it. 12 reps at 50 pounds, then 12 at 100, then 12 at 160. After the last set, the headrush and leg wobbliness almost put me on the floor.
After that, we did a balance exercise. He had some foam rods cut in half and had me stand on one (flat side up) with one foot for 30 seconds, then switch. Then do it again, but then he bounced a medicine ball to me and I had to catch it and bounce it back to him without touching. After the squats, this was really tough,
Finally, stretching again. The same stretches to cool myself down a bit.

I think I remembered it all. It was a heck of a workout. Even the strength training stuff kept my heartrate high. He said that every workout should incorporate four elements: Core, Strength, Cardio and Stability. We hit all of them to varying degrees, and it's cool to have a guide to be able to start thinking about what to do for my own workouts. I also got to use my Garmin HRM for the first time during a real workout. I'm going to have to see how that worked out for me. I still don't really understand the workings of that thing very well.

More soon!

Fitpoint - 3/29/2011

2011-03-30T15:37:00.000-06:00

My wife and I joined Lifetime Fitness last month and have been going pretty regularly about 2-3 times per week. It's a beautiful gym, incredibly well-stocked and staffed. It's still shiny and new and they keep it very clean. They have free weights, weight machines, yoga, pilates, treadmills, stationary bikes, elliptical machines, stair steppers, a rock wall, basketball courts, racquetball courts, squash courts, an indoor turf field, three separate swimming pools, saunas, locker rooms, a cafe, a spa, and a freaking water slide. Seriously. Everything. There are classes in just about everything, and the vast majority of them are free with your monthly membership.

One of the benefits of membership that immediately caught my eye is something called a FitPoint Assessment. here's what it is and what it means. They test your body to see where you are on a variety of fitness issues. You see your test scores and you get to talk with a trainer to figure out how your goals can best be reached given your current status. It's not another one size fits all kind of plan, and it's not based on arbitrary numbers like the BMI. It's based on your actual fitness and your actual goals. It really appeals to me, as you can probably guess. I love data. I love objective tests and being able to measure myself against certain standards. What I love even more is having a way to test myself, establish a plan for improvement, and then continue testing to track my progress. Did I mention that you can take this test as often as you want? That's right, totally free. It seems silly to take it more than once a month, so that's my plan. Every four weeks, I'll go in and check my progress.

I just took my first one last night, and I'm going to post my results here as a bit of an accountability measure for myself. I'm going to be updating this blog more often with my meals, my workouts, lessons learned, etc.

Here are my results from last night, followed by an explanation of the tests involved.

Height: 6'3"
Weight: 245 lbs
BMI (which is crap): 30.6
VO2 Max: 45.00 (estimate)
Bicep Strength: 118 lbs curl
Sit and Reach: 5.0"
Body Composition: 22.4%
Overall Fitness: 56/100

Height is self explanatory, as is weight. BMI is a bogus number cooked up by some Belgian jerk a hundred years ago for some completely unrelated purpose which has since been co-opted into the mainstream fitness psyche for some unfathomable reason. Have you heard about the obesity epidemic in America? The reason we have one is that we use BMI to decide who is obese.

This guy is obese, according to BMI. That's dumb. I also happen to think he looks a bit like a freak, but he's not obese by any definition ever devised for the word. The same holds true for a lot of fit men and women. Really, it only describes the most average, unfit person very well, and wildly over-represents the number of obese people in the country. Do we have a lot of legitimately overweight people? Heck yes we do. Is it 50% of the population or even 30%? Not even close. So we don't pay attention to BMI except to talk about how stupid it is at every possible turn.

VO2 Max is interesting. Here's a rundown of what it is: VO2 Max Essentially, it's a measurement of cardiovascular efficiency, or cardiovascular fitness. It's how quickly your body can get oxygen where it needs to go. It's as good a measure of cardio fitness as any, and it's very important to know where you stand on it. You can be lean and ripply and still suck at cardio. You can have a big belly and be awesome at it. The way Lifetime tests it during the FitPoint Assessment is by estimating it on a treadmill. You enter you age, weight and sex into the treadmill and walk 5 minutes at an incline of 5% at whatever pace you're comfortable walking at. When you're about 4 minutes in, you take your heart rate. The treadmill uses the info you put in to calculate your VO2 max. Mine came out as 45.00 which is maybe on the high end of average. Not ideal, though. I'd love to see something in the 60-70 range for myself, and i think I can get there with a lot of work.

Bicep strength is pretty obvious, but the testing method is interesting. They have a bar hooked up to a load cell and you just crank on it for all you're worth. You're not actually lifting a weight, you're just exerting force on this thing and it tells you how much force you exerted. Mine said I put 118 pounds of force on it, which put me into the excellent category. It was easily my best category. There are a lot of other muscles and lifts that could be tested, but that's what they use and I figure it will be as good a gauge as any to see whether I'm increasing my overall strength.

Sit and reach is something you may recognize from your middle school days. It's a box with a slider on top. You sit with your feet against the box and your legs straight and you lean forward with your arms out and push the slider as far as you can. This tests your flexibility. Again, there are many different kinds of flexibility, but this is as good a gauge as any. I got 5.0" on it, which ranked me as poor. It was better than I expected, though. I thought I'd be lucky to reach the box at all. I'm really hoping to improve my flexibility over the next few months, as that has always been a very weak point for me.

Body composition is the real number we should be using to decide whether someone is obese. It's the measure of the amount of fat in your body versus lean tissue. Lean tissue includes organs, muscle, bone, and basically anything that isn't fat. There are a lot of ways to test it, but the most accurate ones are hydrostatic weighing, x-ray scanning and the three-site caliper test. The first two are prohibitively complicated and expensive and the caliper test is very very close to their accuracy level. It's best performed by someone trained and experienced to make sure they're getting consistent pinches and such. My pinches were something like 19 on my chest, 18 on my thigh and 40 on my stomach. Obviously, I know where I store my fat. The trainer said it's a common thing to see in ex-athletes. I don't think of myself as one, but I suppose that's as good a description of me as any. Once all the numbers are added up, they're calculated against your age and sex to give you a percentage of body fat. Mine was 22.4%. That's definitely higher than ideal. Fit men should be in the 12-18% range, and the lower the better. You do have a certain amount of bodyfat that you need to run your organs and that's why people can never really get below 2-3% even for serious bodybuilding competitors. Some things to avoid with regards to body fat testing are the electrical impedance machines and scales that claim to calculate body fat. You grip them in your hands or stand on them with your bare feet and they are supposed to be able to tell you your body fat percentage. From everything I've heard and read, they don't work very well. It depends heavily on hydration and a number of other factors that you can't really calculate out.

Overall fitness is a derived number specific to Lifetime and I can't say for sure how they get to it. Basically, 0 is the worst, 100 is the best, and you fall somewhere in the middle. I fell at 56, which is the high end of average or the low end of good. That's something I really want to increase.

So there you have it. a complete rundown of my FitPoint assessment. Now, because this blog post hasn't gone on long enough, I'm going to give you my goals.

In 12 weeks:

I will have lost 20 pounds of fat without losing any lean body mass.
I will have improved my flexibility by at least 3 inches.
I will have improved my VO2 max by at least 15.

I'm guessing that I will also improve my strength, but I'm not as concerned about that right now. I also don't have any idea how much stronger I can conceivably get over a period of 12 weeks. Maybe add 5 pounds to my curl? Maybe 20? Heck if I know. Anyway, by reaching these goals, I will get my body composition down to about 15% which is a huge step in the right direction. I will have increased my cardiovascular fitness and my flexibility which should help me avoid injury and keep running for longer. It also won't hurt to look in the mirror and see 20 pounds less fat than I do right now. I've got a big frame, but I think taking off 20 pounds will be a pretty dramatic change even spread out.

One of the great things about starting a 12-week plan right now is that it ends very nearly on June 26th which is the date of the Tough Mudder. I'm doing it, so are a bunch of my friends, and I kinda want to be awesome at it. It's an 8-mile course, with an elevation change of 4,250 feet. It's also held at altitude, starting at 8,100 feet and peaking at 11,440 feet. There are tons of obstacles involved, too, including climbing over walls, swimming through freezing water, carrying logs up and down hills, crawling through snow, and running through a bunch of electrified wires. Sounds kind of amazing, doesn't it? It's probably going to be one of the hardest things I will ever do in my life, and I want to be ready for it.

That's it for now, please stay tuned for more posts. I'll be going into nutrition as I learn more, talking about different lifts, different stretches and exercises and giving updates on my progress. Thanks for reading!

Cheddar Bay Biscuits (or muffins)

2011-01-05T14:09:00.001-07:00

So, if you've been to Red Lobster, you know about their biscuits.

They may well be the best thing about the restaurant. If you go onto redlobster.com you'll be able to find recipes for a lot of their food, but the biscuits are specially mentioned as being a secret recipe. Well, after some research and some experimentation, I have some that are extremely close if not perfect. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups Bisquick
1 pinch kosher salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (more to taste)
2 tbsp butter (or margarine if you like DYING FROM CANCER)
1/4 tsp garlic powder (or fresh garlic if you're a legit cook or something)
1/4 tsp parsley flakes (I don't really use these much, but you can if you like them)
1/4 tsp Old Bay seasoning

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400º

2. Combine Bisquick, buttermilk, cheese, garlic and salt in medium bowl (I used my new mixer)

3. Divide dough into 12 portions and spoon onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. You can also spoon it up into a little mini-muffin tin which is what I did the second time I made these. Your cooking time will change, but these little guys pack a big flavor punch. having a smaller serving size is kind of nice.

4. Bake for 18-20 minutes for the big biscuits, 10-11 minutes for the mini muffins. You don't want to cook these for too long, as the texture will get too bready and not biscuity enough. Pull them out right as they start to brown very slightly.

5. Combine butter and Old Bay in a bowl, melt butter

6. Brush this mixture onto the biscuits when you take them out of the oven

7. Sprinkle with parsley if you want

Okay, here's the way this whole thing really goes down. The original recipe I found didn't have the salt in there and they tasted a little too bland. The salt livens them up. I may even recommend a little more after I experiment a bit. Also, the original recipe suggests putting the garlic on top of the biscuits instead of inside. I don't like that as much either. The recipe also doesn't include old bay which I think is criminal. So there we go. This is how this got modified to my liking.

I didn't take any pictures last night when I made these, but I definitely will next time I make them and I'll update this post. So far, these have been a huge hit with everyone. Let me know if you have questions!

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

2010-10-21T13:20:00.000-06:00

I make eggs a lot, as I'm sure I've mentioned. I've tried every variation of cooking eggs that you can think of. Some leave them undercooked, some end up overcooking them, but only one makes them perfect every time. Keep in mind this recipe was born and raised in CO, so it may not work for you low-landers.

Take some eggs. Put them in a pot. Cover with water. Cold or hot doesn't seem to matter but I tend to go with cold. If you want super amazing perfect eggs, you can prick the bottom of the shell with a sewing pin. That opens up the air pocket inside the shell, so the liquid can expand fully when the eggs cook. This gives them the full egg shape instead of the truncated shape your normally get with boiled eggs. it also releases the air so it doesn't have to expand inside the shell while it cooks, so you should theoretically get fewer broken eggs. I haven't done much experimenting with this, so I can't speak to it from personal experience.

Now, put your pot of eggs and water on the stove. turn to high until the water reaches a rolling boil. Turn down to medium high and set a timer for 15 minutes.

During this time, you can hang out, relax, read a book, etc. Often, I'll spend it getting my other ingredients ready (beets and pickling juice for pickled eggs, food processor and whatnot for deviled eggs, etc). You can also use this time to fill a bowl with ice water if you like. I used to do this until I stopped having ice, and now I don't. The eggs don't seem bothered.

When the timer goes off, pour off as much of the boiling water as you can. If you have a bowl of ice water, you can move the eggs over with a spoon or tongs or whatever. Otherwise, just start filling your pot up with cold water, letting it sit for a few seconds, and then pouring it off again. The water will pull the excess heat out of the eggs, which will stop them from cooking and will also shrink the albumen (so I'm told) which will make them easier to peel.

Once the water stays pretty cool after a few minutes of eggs sitting in it, you can just let them rest in there for a while. I'll often let them sit for another 10 minutes or more just to make sure they're cooled all the way through.

Now you peel. This should be significantly easier than you may be used to. Often the shells will come off in one or two large pieces. You'll still get a few stubborn ones now and again, but the majority should be nice and easy. To peel, if you haven't used the pin trick, the easiest way to to whack the egg lightly on the fat end. Since there's an air pocket there, it'll give you a good place to starting peeling. Whack on a flat surface, not the corner of anything. You don't want to drive shells into your eggs or anything. At this point, it's pretty basic. Just peel the eggs, rinse them off and put them in a bowl or whatever until you're ready to use them.

I used to cut open one or two at the beginning to make sure they were cooked because I was doing one of the other methods (the worst of which is to bring the water to a boil and then turn off the stove, letting the eggs cook for 10-20 minutes or whatever) and I often got undercooked eggs. I haven't had an issue with undercooked eggs since I started doing it this way, so I'm not in the habit of checking my yolks anymore.

So there you go. Finally, my full egg cooking method for all to see. Let me know if you have any questions or anything and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading!

Warrior Dash 2010

2010-08-26T22:36:00.001-06:00

Hey guys! I know this blog is a little sparse, but I do have some worthwhile things to post on here. I recently (8/22) completed a race called the Warrior Dash that took place up at Copper Mountain. It was really fun and challenging and very much the sort of thing I would like to do more of. Road races are all well and good, and I'll certainly keep doing them, but interspersing the running with challenges or other tasks really appeals to the generalist in me. For reference, the generalist in me is about 95% of my mass. I really don't like to specialize. I would rather be able to run, bike, swim, climb, scramble, crawl, lift, pull, push, and jump pretty well than to do one of those things very well at the cost of doing the others poorly.

So, the race. It was a beautiful day. Right around 72º or so, and sunny for the most part. The resort is at 10,000 feet (roughly) and the race was 3.27 miles long. There were a number of challenges, but I'll go through those as we get to them. I was running with some friends, and we were planning on taking it pretty easy. The goal was to finish, not to go super fast or anything. Here we are at the beginning of the race:

Look how puffed up and manly we are.

So anyway, we moved up to the starting line and started seeing some really strange folks.

There was a costume contest and people were dressed up in all sorts of weird things. Maybe next year, right?

My wife was taking the pictures for us and only some of the course was visible from the main area, so she didn't get images of a lot of the challenges. I'm hoping to find some pictures that other racers took but so far no dice.

Now, for the race.

We started out on asphalt and continued a little ways down the road until we got to two pairs of cars pulled onto the track. This was the "Junker Jump" and you had to scramble over these cars to continue. I wish this had been a bit farther along in the race, to be honest. We had all just started so everyone was pretty bunched up. it made it so you couldn't really run and scramble over them, you just stopped, waited your turn, and then gingerly picked your way across. It was a little lame. Still cool because you don't get to climb all over junky cars very often, but not really what I was hoping for. i ended up jumping over the hood of the pickup truck which apparently caused the whole thing to shift and threw my friend Rob off balance when he was in the bed. Oops!

More running, then we had to climb an embankment on a wooden ramp with ropes hanging down. Still early enough in the race for the field to feel a bit crowded, but starting to thin out a little. This wasn't difficult enough to be considered an official challenge, I guess, but it's certainly not the sort of think you see at the Bolder Boulder.

A little bit more and we got to the "Hay Fever" challenge. It was a big pile of hay bales that we had to climb up and over. They'd been damaged by the people on Saturday (and probably plenty of people on Sunday, as we didn't start until 1:00 PM) so they weren't so much like blocks as they were like big piles of hay stacked on top of each other. It was pretty easy, though. A quick scramble up and down and I was back on the trail.

The next challenge was a series of tires known as "Knee High Hell." They were all laid out on the ground and you had to high step through them. I was really tempted to jump on top of the tires and just bounce my way across but I did it legit. It wasn't too tough and I didn't see anyone tripping or falling or anything.

The next part was the real killer. The official title is "Mountain Climb" and that's pretty much what it was. Just back and forth across the mountain. Here's the picture my wife got of the trail:

Yep, just back and forth at a slight incline pretty much forever. It wasn't so steep that your legs started burning or anything, it was just steep enough that it was much nicer to walk than to jog. I did jog, though. I would run as far as I could, passing people on the wider stretches when possible, and walking when I got tired. I think the vast majority of people walked the whole way, and I passed most of our wave right here. It was hard, but I'm glad I pushed myself. Remember when I said that our goal was just to finish, regardless of our time? Well this is where I just kinda ran without paying attention to where my group was. I felt a bit like a jerk for leaving them, but the spirit of the race just grabbed me. I wanted to push myself, at least a bit. I wasn't going to run until I puked or anything, but I was certainly going to run until I was gasping for air. At altitude, that isn't very hard to do, but there's just that feeling you get when you muscles are working and your heart's pumping and your blood is rushing in your ears. You know? It feels damn good.

The map of the course is a bit off, so I'm trying to remember how all of this happened. I believe the mud pit was next because I distinctly remember all of the other obstacles being covered in mud. So there's this big mud pit with barbed wire strung over it. It wasn't strung too low or anything, so some people managed to get through without getting too dirty. Here's a pic of it I found:

From here, it looks like this is down near the bottom of the mountain, which is totally not what I remember. I distinctly remember being covered in mud almost the entire time, but that may be my mind playing tricks on me. in any case, this was fun. I just dove in and crawled on my hands and knees for the first part, then really got down in the mud to get under the last few strands of barbed wire. Warrior Dash calls this "Muddy Mayhem" and it seems an apt name. The mud was pretty thick and sticky, and it made my clothes heavy so I had to start maintaining my waist band after this point.

I remember the tunnels next, so this is where I'm putting them. "Tunnels of Terror" they're called, though "Tunnels of Mud" would be pretty accurate, too. The tunnels were thick cardboard tubes and the mud from all the racers going through them made the bottoms really slick. I think this was the toughest challenge as far as actual difficulty goes. It wasn't the most cardiovascularly challenging, but it's the only one I was worried about not being able to finish. The tunnels were tilted slightly upward and you had to kind of press your hands to the sides to get any sort of grip. I must've held up a bunch of people because I was very slow getting through that one.

Next (or maybe just before, I'm bad at this) were the "Warrior Walls" which were three small walls that you had to vault over. They were almost low enough to hurdle over, but I was tired and heavy with mud, so I vaulted. The top of each wall was covered with a thick layer of drying mud, so that was a little weird to grab onto. There was a photographer there taking pictures of people leaping over the walls, but we were all so covered in mud that they couldn't identify us by our bib number. Oh well.

After that was the "Cargo Climb." It was a pretty straightforward cargo net climb up and down. Fatigue had certainly set in by this point, so everything was a little harder than it would otherwise have been. I've never understood why people have such a hard time with cargo nets, and this was pretty much the same thing. Granted, I wasn't trying to a land speed record or anything, but still. The cargo nets are so much harder when they're at a flatter angle then when they're mostly vertical.

"Walk the Plank" came next, and it was just some planks strung across a ravine. If I'd been going full speed it may have been a challenge, but "full speed" at this point was basically a plodding jog. At plodding pace, this wasn't very tough. Just more of putting one foot in front of the other, which was hard enough.

The second-to-last challenge was "Rocky Mountain Splash" was supposed to involve a "Dash down stream" according to the Warrior Dash website. It was more of a "dash across a stream" to be honest. I was a little disappointed. I was thinking that running down the stream would be sort of neat and not something you get to do too often. Running across the stream was just sort of meh. Oh well, they can't all be winners.

Last challenge! This isn't me, but the is the best picture of the "Warrior Roast" I've found.

A couple piles of duraflame logs maybe 2 feet high and 3 feet wide. Apparently some dude di a forward flip over one of them, so that's pretty badass. I just did a normal jump, which was about all I could manage at this point. It was pretty cool, though. Definitely a neat way to end the race!

So there's the whole story. Now here are some pictures of us during and after the race:

Oh, wait! I almost forgot the best (worst) part! The showers after the race were seriously some of the coldest water I've ever been in. I say this, having been baptized in Lake Loveland in February with snowflakes falling and ice on the edges of the lake. These showers were cold like that. The water hit my chest and I couldn't breathe. It was honestly the hardest part of the day. i wasn't out of breath, I was simply unable to breathe anymore. It sucked.

Can you see how cold I am? I stayed in there for way too long trying to clean myself off with minimal success, and then we went and got some food. We came back later to clean off our legs, since most of us hadn't done a great job of it the first time around.

Whee...

Okay, so that's really it now. Traffic was a pain on the way back down, but we managed to talk and have a great time. It was cool! I'm really glad I did the Dash and I'll be looking forward to it next year!

Ren Faire!

2010-06-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

Well, I have some pictures I thought I'd share and this is sort of my place to do it. We went to the Colorado Renaissance Festival on Saturday to celebrate my cousin's birthday, and had a really good time. I wasn't expecting to have much fun since I've sort of gotten over my Ren Fair stage in life, but it was very cool. I got to meet a friend I'd only known through Facebook and had a great time chatting with him. Also got to wear my kilt again, which is always a plus.

In any case, here are the only three pictures I took all day. Why only three? Because it started raining and three of us took shelter in the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program's store and didn't have much else to do.

First, my cousin looking rather dashing. This is the only day all year you will see him wearing not-black.

My lovely wife in her gypsy costume. The rose was a gift from Dave who insisted I recite some poetry to her when I gave it to her. The best I could come up with?

Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

I'm such a romantic.

Ugh, I'm a mess. The boots are my WWII boots which is completely wrong. Unfortunately, the only footwear I have from a time period earlier than that are my Roman sandals. Given that this is less than 1000 years off, it's the better choice. The rapier isn't really a great option either, and I should have a sporran (pouch in the front) not to mention some kind of hat. Still, it was fun and I inadvertently showed up in a kilt on Celtic weekend at the faire. Who knew? There were a ton of folks in kilts around but I have to say that mine (of the non-great kilts) was one of the nicer ones. I'm very pleased with the purchase still, and will have to keep working on finding new and interesting ways to wear it throughout the year.

That's about it on that front.

We also played some Shadowrun with our friends and that was a very good time. It's the first real chance I've had to play the system and we really enjoyed it. My character is a "Face" which means he's the talker of the group. Normally I play characters with very limited social skills, so this is a big departure for me. I have to tweak him a bit to make him a more focused and effective part of the group, but I really think we're going to enjoy the game.

Okay, that's all the exciting stuff that's been happening of late. Thanks for reading!

Vacation

2010-06-14T16:03:00.000-06:00

Well, I just got back from a week off of work. My wife and I went up to Breckenridge for a few days to relax a bit and then went to a 1940s-themed dance with some friends. Overall, it was a really great week. I got to spend pretty much 24 hours a day with my wife for a full week, and that was awesome. I think that's really the thing that recharges my batteries, even more than getting away from work or the house.

So, I have some pictures for you all. Here's the place where we stayed in Breck:

It was really nice. We had a great room and the staff was really helpful. We were taking this week to be as relaxed as possible so we didn't actually do much. Mostly we slept and watched Battlestar Galactica in the room. It was the most vacationy vacation ever. We got up there when we felt like it, went home when we felt like it. We stayed up or slept in as we wanted, ate food when we got hungry and avoided any kind of schedule at all for the whole time we were up there. After about 3 days, we'd had as much as we could handle of such shenanigans and wanted to go home. Still, it was a great place to just hang out. Here's the room:

That couch is where we spent most of the week. We watched a lot of movies we'd been wanting to see, put together a puzzle, and finished BSG, which was a great show that we'd been wanting to finish up for a long time. The room also had a bit of a kitchen in it:

Not a big kitchen, but enough for us to make some toast, some coffee, and keep our leftovers in a mini-fridge. That's typically one of the worst things about going on vacation in a hotel. You go out to eat all the time, but you have nowhere to bring your leftovers and then to heat and eat them. This was perfect, and we made full use of it.

Look how cute we are. Mostly her.

This is a view of the mountain from main street. It was really beautiful all week, with clear skies and warm weather. If we'd been in any mood to go hiking or something, it would've been a great time for it.

We also lucked out in that we were in Breck at the very end of their slow season. Apparently they're busy in winter for skiing and then get busy again in summer for rafting and mountain biking and whatnot. being there when we were, we got to take advantage of the 2 for 1 deals most of the restaurants were putting on. This was a really nice place called the Briar Rose. It was seriously fancy, way moreso than we thought it would be. The food was amazing, and they had the 2 for 1 entree deal going. It was still an expensive meal, but that's what vacation is about, right? It's one of the only places I've gone where their steak was better than what I make at home. Not to brag or anything, but I make a good steak and most restaurants can't really compete (especially if you take cost into account). This one was excellent, though. They also made really tasty whipped Yukon Gold potatoes that I tried to recreate upon our return, only to fail miserably. They had some of the best crème brulée that I've ever had. This was our only real fancy dinner out, and we were really pleased with it.

We got Jenna a 6-pack of Vanilla Porter from the Breckenridge brewery and then went home. All in all, it was a good vacation. When we got home, we had some friends over and I made steak (it was very tasty) and potatoes (they were miserable) for them and we watched Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. The next day, we were headed to a Wings Over the Rockies museum dance thingy with Neil and Melissa. I had ordered my costume before we left and it arrived and was waiting for me. Here it is:

I really dig on this uniform. The kilt is extremely nice. I know because I looked at a lot of kilts when we were in Scotland, and many of them cost twice as much as this to get this weight and all. This one still wasn't cheap, but it was a much better deal than getting it over there. The boots are also a really great deal. They're hobnail WWII combat boots. I'm wearing them right now, actually. I'm trying to break them in a bit more, just in case I actually do need to wear them to go do some WWII reenacting. That's really why I got this. First off, I've wanted a kilt for a long time, second, I think reenacting may be a lot of fun, and third, it's just another really great costume to wear for stuff. People really notice a man in a kilt, I've found. I had a lot of people coming up to me and wanting to take pictures or just talk to me. It was pretty neat. One of them was a 90-year old lady from Scotland who wanted to know if I was actually Scottish. She was really sweet and we told her about our honeymoon over there and she told us how much she loves Colorado. Pretty cool, really. Here's where I got the uniform: What Price Glory? This is called the Briotish Highlander Walking Out Package and it came with just about everything you could need for the uniform. It came with a different jacket, actually, one that's made of wool and doesn't work well with the kilt. I got the Scottish cutaway jacket in KD (khaki drill) to match the kilt better and also for comfort. It's much lighter than the wool and also isn't scratchy.

Here's what my lovely wife wore for the dance:

She's adorable, and only slightly larger than a tire. She spent a lot of time on her hair, trying to do victory curls and such. I think it turned out really well, but she wasn't too pleased with it. She'll get better with practice, I'm sure. She has some pretty 40s-looking dresses already so she didn't get anything new. I know she wants something that's much more decisively 1940s style, so I think she'll be getting something before too long.

Here are Neil and Melissa in front of the B-17. They were the ones who told us about the dance and we had a great time hanging out with them. Neil has done WWII reenacting in the past so he's been sort of inspiring me to look into it. As those of you who know me will be aware, it isn't very hard to get me interested in a new hobby.

Here we are doing a little bit of Charleston. The hobnails on my boots make a cement floor a tricky proposition so we didn't attempt it for long. We relly need to get back to our dancing, for sure. I can't even believe how much of it we've forgotten. Thankfully, we have a pretty decent-sized space in the kitchen right now where we can practice to our hearts' content. I want to get back to feeling really comfy with the basic Lindy and then start adding back our various styles and moves that we learned in our classes. We knew enough to have a great time at a dance, we just didn't practice enough to really lock it in.

This is the B-17 that sort of inspired the whole night. It's a pretty amazing piece of equipment.

Here's the turret ball in the belly. It's incredibly tiny in there.

This is the tail gun. There are so many freaking guns sticking out of this thing, it sort of boggles the mind.

We also saw a few other cool planes:

This, I believe, is a P-51 Mustang. It's supposed to be one of the best warplanes ever designed. Here's another shot:

Very cool plane. Apparently they had these out and flying at some point during the week, but I'm not sure when it was.

There were also some cool land-based vehicles:

Woot! I guess a lot of the guys who have these vehicles also do reenactment, so they'll actually take these original planes and jeeps and trucks and whatnot out into the field to add to the realism for the reenactors. Very cool stuff, I think.

So that's about it, really. Not too much else worth noting. Really, just a nice week off with my wife. It feels good to be home, but significantly less good to have to be away from her again. Seems like we got married for a reason or something.

Hiatus

2010-06-03T11:02:00.000-06:00

It has certainly been a while since I posted here.I've been doing mostly house stuff, so it made sense to update the house blog and not this one. However, I have also been doing some cool stuff aside from the house recently, so I wanted to mention that as well.

The biggest thing is that I ran my first Bolder Boulder on Monday. The race is 10K (6.2 mi) and I finished in about an hour and twelve minutes. Not as fast as I'd like, but I finished and that was my main goal. The strange thing, something I really didn't anticipate, was that I would end up running so much more than the race distance. Doyle (my running buddy for the race) and I both had our iPod Nike+ things set up to see how far we actually ran. Mine isn't calibrated properly, I think, but his was pretty good. His said that we had run 7.38 miles by the time we crossed the finish line, mine said more like 7.9 miles. Trusting his, that means we managed to add another 1.18 miles to our total distance over the course of the race. It seems like a lot, but if you add in all the diagonal and horizontal running we had to do to get around slower people and to get to the water stations and all, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Counting just the race itself, we had a pace of about 11:30 minutes per mile. That's pretty slow and we were actually keeping up a good pace. If you count the 7.38 mile distance, we were running at about 9:40 minutes per mile, which feels a lot closer. That's easily the longest I've ever run at a stretch, and certainly the best pace I've maintained over time. Running outside just feels easier to me for some reason. I ran a mile about a week or two ago in a little over seven minutes. Doing that on the treadmill pretty much wore me out immediately. I'm not sure what it is, but it just seems easier to run faster and for longer times without getting tired. It may be that I was using a very slight incline on the treadmill so I was pretty much always running uphill and in the real world I'm running up, down, and on flat surfaces. Whatever it is, I just feel like I can run forever out on a trail. It's pretty exciting, especially since we have so many trails near our new house. I'm working up some trails at different distances based on various loops I can map out on Running Ahead with their course-building tool.

That's about it, really. Just trying to get myself back in the habit of running regularly. I'm also going to try to start mixing up my workouts. I'd like to be doing some cardio every day, so I may jump rope on my off days, and then maybe row once we get a rowing machine. Lifting needs to get in there too, so I'll figure out how best to fit that. Gotta keep making progress, right?

House!

2010-04-09T12:50:00.000-06:00

We have our house! It's take two and a half years, 14 offers and I don't even want to think about how many visits to homes for sale, but we made it. I've started a new blog solely for the purpose of tracking our progress in cleaning up the new place. It's a fixer-upper in a nice neighborhood, which is exactly what we wanted. We need to do a bunch, but it's almost all just cosmetic work. A little spackle, some elbow grease and some paint will make it look like a whole new house.

Check it out at Mr. Homeowner, Tear Down This Wall!

Happenings

2010-03-18T13:37:00.001-06:00

This has been a wild week. For one, Jenna and I are getting close to buying a house. We've got an offer accepted and are working on getting the close completed. Everything is a disaster in the house right now and we are attempting to improve it some simply by cleaning up and ensuring that all the major systems are working. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and I'm hoping we can get it all done. I will let everyone know how everything goes.

Also, my grandma passed on Sunday. It wasn't unexpected at all, but still hard, especially since we weren't able to make it out to her funeral. I'm just glad she's not hurting or feeling trapped in her body anymore. On our last visit I could tell how frustrated she was with being unable to speak to us all. I'm really glad she got to meet Jenna and Scott and I'm glad I got to see her and say goodbye.

That was obviously the down part of the week, but the up part is that Meghan (my older sister) had her baby! He's a tiny little guy and super cute. he's very relaxed and calm so far, it seems. We were there to support her while she was in labor, and got to see him shortly after the birth. He's the first baby born to our generation in the family, so it's a big deal. I'm an uncle!

As far as my own progress with projects goes, I'm still working out and seeing gains. I decided to start a paper fitness journal, but I'll be keeping the blog updated with my progress as well. A large part of what I'm doing will be weekly weight, body measurements, and body fat % checks.

Here is the calculator I found that shows the Grecian Ideal body proportions. They are based on wrist measurement, mine being 8" in circumference. Grecian Ideal Calculator

Here are the measurements suggested for me:
Chest: 52"
Waist: 36"
Hip: 44"
Bicep: 19"
Forearm: 15"
Thigh: 28"
Calf: 18"
Neck: 19"

And here's where I am currently:
Chest: 45" (+7)
Waist: 41" (-5)
Hip: 45" (-1)
Bicep: 15" (+4)
Forearm: 13" (+2)
Thigh: 26" (+2)
Calf: 17" (+1)
Neck: 17.5" (+1.5)

So I'm close on a lot of it. I really need to increase my chest size and decrease my waist size more than anything. After that, a general increase in everything will get me where I'm going. Getting an extra 4" in my arms will be tough for sure, but I can do it if I focus on it. I just have to maintain my lower body fat percentage while I'm doing it, which will be a challenge. I'll let you all know How I progress as I continue doing my runs and making my measurements.

Gadgets and Gizmos

2010-03-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a few new toys recently, all based around my new running regimen. Let me give you some background first.

I have a "slow" phone. It isn't quite a smart phone but it isn't quite stupid, either. It has room for music, a player, etc. The interface is fine if you want to have a few small playlists or just have music shuffling. For audiobooks, it's a hideous pain. The screen is too small to see the full title of the track more often than not, so you have to scroll down and touch a track, then wait for it to scroll to see where you are. Then, to reorganize, you have to move the track up or down by selecting it, then going to options and selecting "Move Up" or "Move Down." That moves it one spot. In order to move a track from the middle of the list to the top, you have to do that for each and every spot you want to move it. And it's nearly impossible to tell when you're done because you can't read the titles of the surrounding songs without selecting them and letting them scroll. Ugh.

So I decided to get myself an MP3 player. I'd been thinking about it for a while, especially since I started running. So I put out a call for different MP3 players. Had a number of them recommended, but I eventually came back to the iPod. It has a lot of features I wanted, and a few things the others didn't, and the price wasn't significantly different (+/- $25). So I got an iPod Nano 5th Generation with 16 GB of space. It's really nice. has a ton of features, some of which I probably won't use, but plenty that I will. It has a small screen, but very clear so it's good for watching movies in a pinch. I got an iClear Sketch cover for it so the screen won't get messed up. I also got some nice earbuds to use with it. I'm spending plenty on accessories, but it's really nice when I'm running so I think it's worth it.

The main accessory I got is the Nike+iPod sensor thingy. It goes in your shoe (or in a tiny pouch on your shoe) and sends data on your running to the receiver attached to the iPod. That in turn will transmit to the Nike website when you get home and plug it in. It tracks distance, time, calories, and pace. Pretty much everything a treadmill does, but you can use it outside or on the treadmill equally easily. It also has some neat features like telling you how long you've been running, how far you've got and your current pace when you press a button. You can also set up specific goals for running, or run for time or whatever, and it will tell you when you're halfway done or within 5 minutes of finishing. It's very neat. The other thing that works nicely is that the receiver for the Nike+iPod thing fits onto the iPod with the iClear Sketch is in place so I never have to take the cover off. I still need to get an armband for it, but it works just fine in a pocket or cup holder on the treadmill right now.

So that's that. I'm still running consistently, and even ran outside with a buddy yesterday. We went about 4 miles (ran 3, walked the last one - but not because I got tired, which is a victory) over rough terrain and up and down hills. It was a good time for sure. I also ran 30 minutes at 6.6 mph this morning, which is good. I'm getting closer to hitting my "3.5 miles in 30 minutes" goal. I'm really enjoying myself while run and I'm still losing weight, inches off my waist, body fat, etc. My wife even came to the gym with me this morning, which was great.

So there you have it, folks. That's what I've been doing recently.

Results.

2010-02-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Really, there's nothing quite like results. I have been working out since January 11th and have been avoiding soda since January 1st. Here's what has happened:

I weighed about 250 pounds (as high as 253 some days) and am now down to around 243 pretty consistently.

I was wearing size 38 pants that were getting ab it tight and was getting closer to needing to wear 40-inch waist pants. I'm now very comfortable in my 38-inch waist pants and can nearly fit into my older 36-inch waist pants.

My body fat has gone from (measured by myself with a $7 set of calipers, so take it for what it's worth) about 20% body fat to 18 or 19% body fat.

I am really noticing that my stomach is getting smaller, I'm feeling leaner, healthier and more energetic. My wife is also really noticing improvements in my appearance and even some friends at work have mentioned that I'm looking better.

I started out running 15 minutes at 10:00 minutes per mile and increased my running time up to 30 minutes of running. I've also increased my pace to about 9:30 minutes per mile now. I'm increasing my pace steadily within the 30-minute time frame. I started out running 30 minutes at 6.0 mph, then increased to 20 minutes at 6.0 and 10 minutes at 6.2 mph. The next time, I did 10 minutes at 6.0 and 20 minutes at 6.2 mph. Then 30 minutes at 6.2 the next time. I'm increasing like that consistently until I get to the point where I'm running 3.5 miles in 30 minutes. That's a pace of 7.0 mph for the whole run, which is quite a bit faster than I have ever run before on any kind of long-term basis. Eventually, I'll want to get to 4.0 miles in 30 minutes, but that may take longer.

I've also started lifting my kettlebells again. I started out lifting on the machines at the gymn, then switched to pretty standard lifts with dumbbells, then to Olympic lifts with dumbbells and am now doing Olympic lifts with kettlebells. The main lift I'm using right now is called the clean and push press. You start with the kettlebell between and slightly ahead of your feet, bend your knees, and grab the handle. To clean, you bring the bell up to your shoulder and tuck your hand underneath the handle. Here's a link to a video: Kettlebell Clean and Push Press

This morning I did 25 reps each side with my 24kg (53lbs) kettlebell. It's definitely tough. My shoulders aren't nearly as strong as they need to be, so they are currently the weak link in the chain. I'll continue to train on this exercise, though, as it does a great job working pretty much every part of the body. When I get access to a pullup bar (or decide to drop some dough on one that I can put up in the apartment without doing much damage) I'm going to start training on those as well.

So there we have it. Increased strength, endurance, and energy and decreased waist size, sugar intake and body fat. I'm really enjoying this journey and I'll keep you all informed as I continue to make progress.

Gotta keep running

2010-02-09T12:59:00.002-07:00

I've been staying consistent with my running. Monday, Wednesday and Friday of last week, and Monday of this week (so far) I have run 3 miles in 30 minutes. I'm still indoors on a treadmill which means it may not translate well to the outdoors. We'll have to see when it gets a bit warmer. I need to figure out my routes again so I know where to run.

I also lifted today. I went with dumbbells instead of the machines and it was definitely tougher. I think I'll stick with that for a bit. If I do, I may need to get some gloves or something. My hands are getting pretty torn up and that's not cool. Eventually, I need to get back to my kettlebells. I'm going to have to see if I can find a good beginning kettlebell routine online somewhere. It's a little cold and wet to be lifting outdoors right now and it's really hard to find a patch of grass near my apartment that doesn't have dog poop on it. Gross. Still, I'd like to get on with the workout and the excuses will only hold for so long.

We're trying to train the cats now, too. It's been slow going but I think we're making progress. Essentially, I'm trying to train them not to cry the whole time I'm preparing their food. It's super annoying and it seems like a pretty easy thing to work on. All I'm doing is getting started preparing their food. If either of them cries, I stop moving. They have to both be quiet again for a few seconds before I start moving again. The first few times took me like 10 minutes to feed them, but it's getting faster. It's also cute to watch them try to figure out what's going on. Smitty seems to think it has more to do with his location than his vocalization, but he'll figure it out. I'm enjoying the process and when we've done actual clicking with Smitty he seems to enjoy the game aspect of it more than the treats. We'll have to keep working on it, but it will be good practice for when we have puppies and babies who need to be trained not to pee on the floor.

Are you down with the sickness?

2010-02-01T10:26:00.003-07:00

I was. Thursday I got some nasty bug that gave me a fever and a tummy that decided water wasn't bland enough to hold onto for long. Ugh. I got better, of course, and it was surprisingly quick on both ends. The illness hit very hard and fast and then went away after about 24 hours. Strange.

I did go running again today. Another 3 miles in 30 minutes. It's still definitely a challenge, but it isn't as hard as it was last time. I'm going to stick to this time and pace for a while, I think. Maybe the rest of this week and into next week, even. I'm going to start lifting on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so I don't want to push my running too hard and burn out. Getting consistent with a morning workout is one of the things I've had trouble doing for a long time. After missing Wednesday's run due to occupied treadmills and Friday's due to illness, I made this morning's run again. I'm really thinking I've gotten the habit pretty well established. I'm hoping that adding the weights and then keeping up with that program will work for me long-term.

The Wii told me today that I lost 4.4 pounds since last Wednesday. Weight is a fluctuating thing, but I don't think it can ever be lower than the real thing. I know I'm not super dehydrated or anything, as I keep drinking tons of water. So either I was slightly above my real weight last week and closer to accurate this time, or I really lost a bunch of weight this weekend. I'm still above the "Obese" rating on BMI, but by very little. I'm within a pound or two of only being overweight. Whee. Really, I know I have a fair bit of weight to lose. I could probably lose another 15-20 pounds of pure fat without getting ripped or anything. On an extremely positive note, both me and my wife have noticed that my stomach is getting a bit flatter. Not a violent change or anything, but a bit. I think with continued workouts and continuing to eschew soda, that trend will continue. I'm also going to try to do my bodyfat percentage checks at least once a week or so. I'd like to get to the 10-12% range eventually. That's pretty lean, but honestly I know I can do it. I've never been in that kind of shape in my life, and it's exciting to be working toward a goal like that. The toughest part is starting and building the habit. Once you just know that you wake up at 6:00 and hit the gym, it isn't even really hard anymore.

Another Week, Another Post

2010-01-20T09:31:00.002-07:00

So it's been a week since my last post and I have successfully continued my running plan. I don't know what it is this time that's making it work. Before, it always seemed so hard to wake up in the morning and get on the treadmill. Now, I'm naturally waking up at about 5:00 and staying in bed until my alarm goes off at 6:00. It's like my body wants to run. I have more energy now, I'm feeling better about myself and I need much less sleep than I did before. Also, I'm feeling more inclined to make other healthy choices now that I'm putting forth the effort to keep running. Not all of my choices are healthy, but I'm slowly getting there. I've been taking vitamins and eating healthy snacks. I'm still not drinking soda at all, and I know that's making a difference. I am noticing a little bit of a loss of tone in my chest and arms since I stopped doing my pushups, but I'm not going to worry as much about that. I'm going to finish this week and next week with running Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then the following week I'll add in lifting as well.

That's about all, really. We're still playing games, seeing friends, doing trivia, etc. Keeping ourselves busy, for sure. I'm still working on my projects, so that's a fun thing. Still working on getting into a house, too. That's been a long and frustrating journey, but I have a feeling we're near the end. You will all be kept informed, of course.

100th post!

2010-01-13T08:41:00.002-07:00

Hey, look at that! 100 posts and we're all still feelin' sassy. At least I feel sassy. Could just be me.

Anyway, the newest news is that I've been running again. I ran 1.5 miles at 6.0 MPH (1.5 miles)) on Monday and did 20 minutes at 5.0 MPH today (with cooldown, about 1.75 miles). This is more running than I've done in a week for probably a year or more. The new mid-foot running is making an enormous difference. I still haven't had any shin pain at all. I'm absolutely certain now that the pain was caused by striking with my heel with my leg fully extended. The joints are locked and the stress has nowhere to go but into the bones. With the mid-foot running, the joints are bent and the impact is cushioned. My heels don't hurt and I haven't had even a twinge of shin pain. Woo-hoo!

I think I burned 300 calories today on the treadmill. I also looked at a can of Sprite yesterday and found out that it contains 140 calories per 12 oz. That's 11.6 calories per ounce. A large soda from a fast food chain (without ice, of course) is 32 oz. That's 373 calories. Which means that one drink, something I'd easily finish with lunch, requires more than 20 minutes of running to burn off. What the crap? That doesn't include the soda I'd drink for dinner or while we were just hanging out watching TV or playing games or whatever. At our Saturday games, I'd often drink 5-6 cans of Dr. Pepper. So I don't think it's unreasonable for me to suggest that I may have been consuming an average of 500-1,000 calories per day just in soda. Some days it was probably closer to 1,500. I'm a big guy and I probably need closer to 3,000 calories per day than the standard 2,000 but still. I eat a lot of food as well. Drinking 1,500 calories on top of whatever I ate is just no recipe for maintaining or losing body fat. I also watched a really interesting video where I learned that fructose is the devil. The guy doesn't say that, but he gets about as close as he can. Here's the link: Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Between learning all that about fructose and also realizing that I should probably reduce my daily caloric intake, dropping soda became obvious. Just doing that should lead to weight loss over time, I'm thinking. Running as well will accelerate it and also help get my cardiovascular system into better shape. I have been mostly sedentary for far too long. I'm having a hard time making it to jiu-jitsu in the evenings with all the other stuff we have going on. I'm trying to make it at least once a week now, down from making it three times a week a few months ago. The holidays made it tough, and getting out of the habit means I'm not trying to keep going, I'm trying to start going and that's always way harder.

So anyway, I'm making a few small changes for better health. I'm not doing everything I should be doing, but I'm taking steps. As I get used to these steps, I'll continue making more changes. The next step, I think, is to cut out candy. That doesn't mean all sweets, just actual candy. I've done it before and it's hard, but I can do it. Once I have that done, then I can move to no sweets at all if I want to. Really, the ideal would be eating lots of whole grains, lean protein and plenty of fresh produce. We'll see how long it takes to get there, but I know I'd be happier that way. I feel better when I exercise. I feel more energetic and more productive. After a run, I'm generally more energized than when I started. When I eat fatty, sugary, gross foods, it tastes good while it's in my mouth, but that's as long as the enjoyment lasts. Then I have to look at myself in the mirror, feel gross the rest of the day, and whatever else goes with it. Not cool. So here's the experiment. I'll be doing this for a good long while and keep you all informed about how I'm doing.

News

2010-01-12T10:56:00.002-07:00

Not much new going on right now, just a few minor updates.

My projects are proceeding according to plan. I'm just doing test runs for both of them to make sure my techniques are solid, and then I'll be doing real, finished versions afterward. I'm just about done with both, so I'm pretty excited.

Also, my wife and I have decided not to drink soda anymore. We've been going for a few weeks without any issues. This doesn't mean no more of anything but water, but I'm trying to stay pretty close to that. I've been having cocoa once a week or something in the morning, but other than that have been drinking only water. The thing that I've noticed is that we are saving a lot of money. Two value meals at a fast food place used to cost $12 or more. Now we're spending like $8. Why? Because we aren't compelled to get value meals, we're also not both getting fries. That works because we'd rarely finish all of them, so it was just a big waste of money. We were also spending probably $10-$15 per month on soda in the house, too.So that's money saved as well. The big thing is the calories. I was drinking a lot of soda. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 1000+ calories per day. Jenna was drinking a lot less, obviously. Still, that's a bunch of calories every day that we didn't need are now not consuming anymore. We're both just drinking water with meals now, and not suffering at all for it. We even still have soda in the house and just aren't drinking it. I'm very proud of us.

That's about it, really. Just keeping everyone up to date.

New Year

2010-01-04T12:12:00.002-07:00

Hey, look at this. A whole new year and I'm writing a blog entry. The first one of the year and certainly not the last. Many things are happening, and most of them are good.

First off, two of my friends have gotten engaged. Becky and Doyle, two people who are as perfect for each other as any other couple I know, are engaged to be married and I'm totally jazzed for them. Very exciting stuff.

Second, I've started reading a series of nautical adventure novels by Dewey Lambdin. They are awesome. My friend Neil suggested them and lent me the first one and I absolutely loved it. I can't wait to get to the rest of them. I wouldn't have thought I'd be into that sort of thing, but I'm finding it all very entertaining and fascinating. I'll be reading many more of these books, I can tell. I've got 17 more books in this series and then another dozen or more each in the Master and Commander series and the Horatio Hornblower series, but I'm actually excited to read all of them. It is also making me want to make myself an appropriate costume, and maybe learn how to navigate with a sextant. Yes, I'm a geek.

I've been playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 a lot. By a lot I mean a LOT. Very much. More then just an average amount. Potentially more than the daily recommended dosage. It's incredibly fun, I am doing fairly well at it and all my friends play too. It's a recipe for a lot of wasted hours in from of the XBOX, for sure.

I'm working on a few smaller projects, mostly based around mold-making. Check the craft blog for details.

Run Right

2009-12-16T08:02:00.001-07:00

Newton Running - Run Right

So a friend of mine showed me this video a few weeks back and it sounded pretty cool. It makes a lot of sense to me to run with shoes like you would run without shoes, since that's how your body is best able to handle the stress. A week and a half ago, Jenna and I went to the gym and ran for just a couple of minutes to warm up for lifting. I did the mid-foot/forefoot thing and didn't have any issues at all with shin splints. This is pretty incredible. Still, I'd been resting pretty much forever and we didn't run long so I didn't want to get too crazy with it. I went again this morning and did a mile in about 12 minutes with a little bit of elevation at the beginning to help me get into the right stride. Even after the whole mile, still no shin splints! So now I'm thinking I may be able to run on a semi-regular basis. I'm planning on going again in a few days and running another mile to see if this will really work for me long term.

What? Another month already?

2009-12-02T08:53:00.002-07:00

Criminy. It's tough to keep up with this thing these days. Okay, here's what's been going on. We started another RPG with some friends. It's only once a month, but I'm GMing. I've never really run a game before so I'm a little worried about being terrible. I'll keep you posted on that as it develops. We're still doing our trivia thing every week, and that's a blast. I've been slacking off and barely making it to jiu-jitsu at all, unfortunately. So many things keep coming up, it seems. We've got our book club night tonight and our Zombie PAYDAY game tomorrow. Ugh. Everything we're doing is great and fun and all, there's just so much of it. If it weren't all so fun it would be easy to start saying no to things, but it's not. We'll figure it out, I guess.

Let's see...we've made some new friends from Zombie Squad and we're seeing them at least a few times a month now. That has been really great. We have so many similar interests and we all get along so well. It's all very cool.

Did my shotgun class a few weeks back. Learned a freakin' ton. A lot of it is sort of common sense, but a lot of it is stuff I hadn't really considered before. Definitely worth the money and the time I got to spend with my dad was awesome. We road-tripped out to Vegas and back, so we had a ton of time to just hang out and talk on the drive and all. If you're going to go to Vegas, October/November is a great time for it. The weather was so much nicer than we thought it would be. It was a little chilly during the evening, but mostly everything was great.

I've been playing a ton of Call of Duty 4, as well. I'm actually trying to make time for video games. It's nice because I can just squeeze half an hour or so of game time in various places. I'm actually getting pretty decent, though. Not amazing, mind you, but tolerable. I'm pretty consistently one of the top few people in the game. This depends greatly on the weapons I'm using and whether or not I'm working on a particular challenge. I had a few games where I ran around with RPGs trying to shoot two people at once and ended up dying a billion times. Still, I manage sort of okay. I'll have most of the challenges done pretty soon. Hopefully in time to get the sequel for Christmas or Birthday or something.

Okay, that'll do for now. Catch you all later!

Halloween: Complete

2009-11-02T10:52:00.002-07:00

Whew! That was a ton of fun, a ton of work and I'm really glad to be done with it. The costumes got done enough for Halloween, at least. There are a few adjustments to be made but nothing for a while.

So now we get to do some other exciting things. We get to keep looking for houses, keep looking for a job for Jenna, keep playing our established games, and keep doing our trivia. We also get to start some new games, hang out with new friends and start doing a lot more prep/self-sufficiency work. I'm really excited about it. We got to hang out with some new friends on Halloween and had a great time. We're definitely going to try to see them on a regular basis. It seems like we have so much to learn from them and we have so much fun just hanging out and talking.

So next on my plate I'm going to refinish the mask I made for my friend (see other blog), I'm going to get back to work with my bow-making stuff and I think I'm going to be running a tabletop game once a month. Pretty exciting stuff! We're also eating at home a lot more to save money, so I'm getting to cook quite a bit again. Sweet!

The little lost blog

2009-10-26T09:49:00.003-06:00

I've been neglecting you, blog. I've moved on, in some ways. I have been spending all of my time with a new blog,. A different blog. Dare I say...a better blog? No, that isn't fair. Blogs are built for different purposes and it just so happens that I haven't had as much to say here as I have there. It's not you, it's me.

Suffice it to say, I haven't completely stopped doing anything interesting, I've just been focusing my blogging time almost exclusively on crafty things. We've spent a lot of time with friends, met new people, tried new things, cooked new foods at home and visited new restaurants. Really, we've been staying very busy indeed.

I can't say I'll be better about keeping this updated, but I'll certainly try. Here's something we've recently gotten into: Zombie Squad

The folks there are great and into a lot of the same stuff we are. Iron sharpens iron, as they say. I'm hoping being around folks who take survival and self-sufficiency seriously will help us to close the holes in our own plans and preparation.

Other than that, we're really just gearing up for Halloween. It's big holiday for us, obviously, and we're doing a fair bit of work. If you want to see what all is going on, check the other blog. I've been working to put up pictures and diagrams and all the rest.

That's it! I'll check back in sometime soon, hopefully.

Trippingly on the tongue

2009-09-15T10:06:00.004-06:00

Well not really on the tongue. Or even involving the tongue. Mostly, I'm taking a trip and wanted a clever blog title. And now this blog title has given me a good start on a blog entry. Look at that!

So we're going to CA to visit our family out there (I say our family because even though they're really Jenna's family, they're totally mine too now) for a few days. Should be super awesome times, I'm thinking. We'll get to hang out, pick some apples, play games, eat food, maybe see some friends and stuff. Wicked.

Also, I got and started playing Call of Duty 4. It's a really great game and I'm especially terrible at it. I enjoy it a lot though, so I may be inspired to play it enough to get only regularly terrible, which would be fun. I'm also playing Psychonauts (on loan from my bro-in-law) and really enjoying that as well. When do I find the time to play video games, you ask? When I should be sleeping!

I keep working on my Halloween projects and I'm trying to keep my crafting blog updated. Right now I just have an abundance of sanding to do. It's dull and dusty and generally not as much fun as the rest of the work, but it needs to be done. I did get a cool little helping hand tool that makes soldering a billion easier so now I don't fear it quite so much.

We keep doing our trivia thing and are consistently in the top 3 and get first more often than not. So that's cool.

We actually got to do our roleplaying game again. One of them, anyway. It's the first time we've played in like 2 months and we don't get to play for another month, most likely. I'd love to be more consistent with it, but we just have so much going on, it seems.

Jenna ordered a really awesome new bike so I think we're probably going to be riding bikes sometime soon. Just in time for autumn, which is my favorite time to ride bikes. Sweet!

Our new kitten is getting along very nicely in the house now. He and Levi are buddies and now nobody is lonely, so that's very nice. Smitty is getting bigger but he still only has a tiny squeak for a meow. It's super cute.

We've got an offer in on a house but haven't heard anything on it yet. We're just the backup so it isn't too likely we'll get it, but we're still definitely hoping. We just have to keep looking and offering. Sometimes it seems like that part is now the whole experience and that actually getting a house is no longer even associated with looking and offering. It's weird. I won't even know what to do once we have a house. Probably still go out and try to find one just out of habit, I guess.

I'm still loving my jiu-jitsu classes but I've been slacking on them. I've been making it like once or twice a week at best, and that's not nearly enough. I'm really hoping that all the visits and travel will be done soon (as much as I enjoy them) so I can settle into a regular schedule.

I did quite well at IDPA again this month. I'm really feeling good about it. I have improved so much since I started just a few months ago. The shooting is so different from what you normally do and being able to practice that type of shooting experience is amazing. There's really no parallel at a normal range. You simply can't do that type of training and so your training is lacking. Moving while shooting, shooting while on the clock, shooting at moving targets or targets obscured by no-shoots (civilians) or having specific areas of a bad guy you can't shoot (behind hard cover or he has a bomb strapped to him that will explode if you hit it, etc.) are all things that are impractical for a regular range. They're also the most fun and the most useful sorts of things for real-life situations.

I'm also super excited for Tim and J-Long to be here. Tim's just visiting but J-Long will be back for good and that'll be awesome. My bro-in-law is visiting too, so that's going to be a ton of fun. We've got so much happening, but it's all good stuff.

Is that it? Maybe that's it.

Mostly Crafty

2009-08-28T11:00:00.005-06:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted here. I've been posting primarily at my other blog (Geek Kraft) because that's really the most interesting thing I've been up to. We've been busy this month with people coming into town, but mostly we're just hanging out and catching up, playing games, eating food, etc. The trips are great, but much more fun to experience than to read about, I'm sure.

So, here's what has been taking up my time: Feline medical care. Caring for Antonia was a lot of work and a lot of emotional stress. Then we had to put her down and there was a sort of respite from the stress of trying to get her healthy again. We decided to get a kitten to keep Levi company. The day we brought home the kitten (his name is Admiral Smithington, Smitty for short) Levi was really sick. We took him to the vet the next morning and found out that he had a really bad urinary tract infection. They gave us some meds to give to him and an IV bag to get fluids into his system via subcutaneous needle-poking. We did that for a few days and took him back to the regular vet. He told us to stop with the meds and just gave him a long-acting penicillin shot which worked much much better. We finished off the fluids and a week later, Levi is doing much better. he's out and about, playing with the new kitten, jumping up onto the bed and couch (so it's safe to assume there's little pain) and starting to get back to his old self. He still isn't eating or drinking as much as he should be, but he's eating a little bit and seems to be drinking a bit. If he isn't drinking more by this evening, we're going to get more fluids into him. So anyway, that has been our situation. When it rains it pours, I guess. At least Levi is recovering.

So now we have a new kitten and he is incredibly adorable. See for yourself:

He's really fitting into the family very well. He's super tiny and feisty and cuddly. He likes to alternate between playing very hard and snuggling very hard. It's super cute. We're really enjoying having him around the house, to the point where we're actually thinking about getting another kitten in a few weeks, after we're sure Levi is fully recovered. The thinking is that then these two cats will be roughly the same age, so when it finally is Levi's time to go, they'll still have each other. We'll see how that idea progresses, but we're at least considering it.

*Update* I didn't mention this before, but we're pretty sure he's a Russian blue. If not completely, at least a very large part. he has the double coat, the silvery sheen (right now, particularly around his paws) and the green eyes. His eyes aren't the perfect color they like, and he has a few white spots on his chest so he certainly wouldn't be show quality. Still, he meets almost all of the other criteria (even having maroon footpads) and looks quite a bit like most of the photos we saw of other Russian Blues. So that's cool.

I'm still going to jiu-jitsu classes, albeit far less regularly than I was. I would like to go to more, but it seems things always come up that require my attention. bah. I'm going to try to work much harder at making it to class at least 3 times a week, if not 4. I've also completely stopped doing my morning workouts. I really do need to get back to them, though. I stopped originally because we had to force-feed Antonia every morning and that always took quite a while. Recently I haven't been doing it because we've been staying up super late and it's tough to get up any earlier than I absolutely have to. Really, any reasons or excuses aren't going to do anything for my health or my stamina or anything, so they aren't worth much. I just need to buckle down and make it happen. I'll keep you guys informed.

I'm doing a lot of work in the garage recently, too. If you read my other blog you'll get the specifics, but basically I got a wild hair to try to make bows, and then got another wild hair to do some cool projects for halloween. Mostly these involve very simple little things that I could do pretty much in no time, but I'm trying to make them a bit cooler. I'm working on joinery, specifically finger joints, because i think they're awesome and they're easy to do with a jig. If I can perfect my jig and my technique, I should be able to get tons of these things done in pretty much no time, leaving me with a great-looking traditional joint and not a ton of effort. To me, that opens up a lot of cool small projects.

I've also started playing some video games again. Nothing too crazy, just grabbing a few hours here and there. I'm still working on Fallout 3 because that game is absurdly enormous, and I recently backtracked to Assassin's Creed. I want to get all the achievements for it, and that's no easy task. It's a great game and I'm wondering now about making a costume based on it. The aesthetic is very original and cool, and I'm thinking I could make an excellent representation of it with a little work. We'll see how that goes.

Aside from that, we're doing our normal gaming, trivia, hanging out, eating, visiting friends and family, playing with tiny furry babies and so on. I'm also reading a lot of non-fiction, primarily about making bows and violins (another project I'm sort of curious about).

That's it for now!

New Kitten

2009-08-14T10:33:00.002-06:00

So, since we are now down to one cat and he is acting like the loneliest cat ever, we've decided to get a new baby kitten for him to play with. Levi is one of the most affectionate animals I've ever encountered, and he really needs a cuddle buddy. he hasn't been happy since Antonia got sick and stopped wanting to hang out with him. he's been crying a lot and following us around even more than usual. So, to help with that (and at least partially because I love cats and feel that I can never have enough of them) we're going to get a kitten.

Here's where you're all going to be shocked: We're going to the dumb friends league. I know that I have said that shelter dogs are lame and that I would never have one. That remains true. First off, I think that since darn near every cat you will ever find is classified as "Domestic Shorthair" (unless you go out of your way to find a specific breed) their breed really doesn't matter much. Whether you get them from a pet store or a Craigslist ad or anything else, they're going to be a pretty standard cat. Also, I am a firm believer in spaying and neutering pets, which the Dumb Friends League does as part of your adoption fee. They charge $115 for kittens and that fee includes spaying or neutering, vaccinations, microchipping and a first vet visit to any vet who participates in the program (and almost all of them do). You also get "new owner counseling" or some such, which is helpful if you get the pet home and find that he's got some issues. So, I think that's an incredibly good deal, financially speaking. Most Craigslist or newspaper ads want a $25-$50 rehoming fee (partly because they can make money and party because they want to be sure people aren't taking the cats and feeding them to snakes or something). Add the vet's fee for microchipping ($50, I believe) and spaying/neutering (something over $50) and the Dumb Friends League really is the only way to go. You also know that the cats are socialized and treated well. The DFL has folks who just go and play in the kitten cages. The cages are clean, bright, and full of toys and friends for the babies to play with.

Really, the whole DFL building was very impressive. You could tell it had been designed from the ground up just to make it easy for people and animals to interact. There were also a ton of people working there. I was pretty amazed. The dog enclosures were all very clean and well-maintained, and most dogs had a buddy with them (the space is easily big enough for two) so they wouldn't just be alone all the time. Everything was freshly painted, well-organized, clean, and bright. It wasn't at all like I expected an animal shelter to be. I was expecting chain link, small cages, just a few people walking around in poopy clothes, etc. Not at all. So anyway, getting a kitten from them just seems like the natural thing to do.

We're looking to get a male, probably a brown or orange tabby. His name is going to be Captain Doctor Smithington-Reece, Esquire and we will call him "Smitty" for short. We'll be taking and posting tons of pictures of him in his baby stages so we always have them even when he's a grown-up.

Antonia

2009-08-11T15:39:00.002-06:00

We had to have Antonia put down today. She's been having some pretty serious health problems and the things we'd been hoping would help her get better just weren't working. The doc said today that her lungs were full of fluid and she was having a really hard time breathing. There's no way she was going to improve from that, so we made the tough (but hopefully right) decision to just let her go. We tried everything we could to get her better, and didn't let her suffer any longer than we needed to, so I'm really hoping we did right by her. She was my first real pet (aside from various small, caged pets and family-owned animals) and I loved her very much. She always had such a unique personality, and she always loved her daddy. I'm sorry it had to end this way, but it wouldn't be fair to her to keep her alive, struggling for air while we try to force food down her throat every few hours. I have to believe she's better off now.

Anyhow, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has already expressed condolences. I really appreciate having so many great friends and such a great family. Thanks, everyone.

Something everyone needs to know about

2009-08-04T10:42:00.003-06:00

Academic Earth

This site is the coolest thing I've seen in a very long time. It's a collection of lectures and even full courses from some of the best schools in the country. Everything from Psychology to Computer Science and Astronomy to Religion is available. It's amazing. I really can't adequately express my joy with this site. I'm going to do it up right, I think, and watch an entire course in order, and even attempt to do the projects along with the class. I'm starting with this one: CS 50 from Harvard

I think I'll continue on to math, physics, astronomy, and anything else I can think of. This is precisely how I learn best, and it's offering me a chance to see what a course is like and to gain the knowledge without needing to spend a lot of money on tuition and everything. Frankly, I have a degree already and the knowledge is what I need more than a piece of paper saying I know what I know.

Anyhow, this was worthy of me dusting off my blog and making a post. Everything else proceeds apace, really. Jiu-jitsu continues to go well, Antonia seems to be getting better, projects are progressing, I'm desperately in love with my wife, we continue to have ag reat time at trivia, visiting family and friends are keeping us thoroughly buys this whole month, etc. I may get a bit more specific if I have time, but we'll see. Thanks for reading!

Ah! Where am I? How did I get here? Where have I been this whole time?

2009-07-24T08:18:00.002-06:00

Good questions, all. Another quick rundown, methinks.

Last weekend was some wedding madness. My friend Brad got married down in Deckers, so we had that going on. The week before was his bachelor party, where I got to play some paintball and some poker. Thankfully I am better at shooting than at cards.

Antonia was doing much better and then seemed to have a relapse. She's looking stronger now, and trying to eat on her own again. We're not letting that fool us, though. Last time she did that we just et her eat and I think she just wasn't eating enough to stay healthy. So now we're letting her eat, but we're still force-feeding her three to four times a day. it's gross and unpleasant for all involved, but it's what she needs.

We went back to trivia and were joined by some new friends. A lot of new friends, actually. We ended up splitting into two teams, with Fogey Force (Adj and Charlie) showing us whippersnappers what for. They ended up taking 3rd, while we tied for 5th. This is yet another example of why we are better as a complete team than we are separately. Winning is fun, but so is seeing all our friends, especially some we haven't seen in a year or more. So overall, I'd say it was well worth it.

Let's see...what else have we done? Well, we went to our book club, which is always a good time. I've been slacking off on jiu-jitsu for the past few weeks, unfortunately. I was going to go last night but we're camping this weekend and had quite a bit left to do. I'm definitely going to head back next week and make it to all my classes. I've got my 20, so I just need my stripe and all that jazz. My last class was really fun. I got to wrestle a brown belt (the instructor) and a blue belt, and did well against both of them. I didn't win by any means, but I also didn't make a fool of myself.

Speaking of camping...we're camping! Should be fun. We've got a good group together, we've got a good site (from what I hear) and should have a very good time. We're bringing about a billion things, and I don't even really know if everything will fit in the car. We'll see, I guess. We're doing some fun stuff this trip, for sure. We're bringing archery gear to shoot arrows at things, and we're going to try some homemade lanterns and stuff that Dave and Jax put together. We're also going to try to do some of the stuff we've read about in various survival manuals, just to see how well we can make it work for real. I'll let you guys know how well it all works.

Also, I've been really keen on making bows ever since reading this: Dies the Fire So I found some cool tutorials online and am now putting my shop in some semblance of order. It's not easy, but it's much nicer to have space to work, so it'll be worth the effort. Here's the link to the site I'm using primarily. I've talked with the guy and he's a really nice dude. Anyhow, here's the link: Sam's Bowmaking Site

That's about it, I guess. I'm going to try to keep up with my blog better than I have been recently. I'm slacking off, and that ain't cool. As I get closer to making actual pieces and parts for the bow-making process, I'll be updating my other blog with pictures and stuff. I'll make note of it here when I do that, so you know.

Quick Update

2009-07-09T08:14:00.002-06:00

Hey guys, sorry I've been away for so long. A lot has been happening, and I've been really busy at work so I haven't been able to talk much about it.

First off, our cat Antonia is sick. She's got hepatic lipidosis, which means we have to force-feed her to try to get her body back to processing food. it sucks, but she's our baby and we need to do it. We're really hoping she gets better soon. Thanks to everyone for all of your support, it means a lot to us.

Secondly, we went on a trip to Glenwood Springs, CO to celebrate our first anniversary (earlier this month). We had a really great time. It was honestly one of the better trips I've been on, and I think Jenna agrees. We got to eat lots of good food, stay in a cool old hotel, walk around a lot, look in neat shops, soak in a giant hot spring pool, and ride a train. Really, it couldn't have been better. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post some pictures.

Also, we both read Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling. It's a pretty good book (the writing isn't great and the premise is a bit weak, but the story and the situation is enough to keep me interested) and it has inspired us to try to practice some archery. It has also inspire me to start making more bows and arrows. I have three bows already, one of which I made myself, and I'd like to increase significantly that number and my skill at making them. I've since made a Flemish string jig to help me make bowstrings, and made one for a fiberglass bow I already had. The whole process is very interesting and there are a lot of great sites on the internet that are very helpful.

Anything else? I'm sure there is, but I'm a bit rushed at the moment. I'll try to be a bit better about posting over the next week to keep everyone informed of how everything is going. Thanks for reading!

Jeez, Thursday and no posts?

2009-06-25T11:04:00.002-06:00

I'm such a slacker. Okay, here's what's been going on. We've been looking at houses, I've been going to jiu-jitsu, we've been doing our normal hanging out with friends and gaming stuff, etc. Pretty standard, really. We got second place at trivia this week, so that's cool. I busted out a new hat and the lucky pipe, so I'm jazzed about that. I think they'll really help us more next week.

Really, things are proceeding more or less as they always do. We're having a great time with friends and family (got to work in my sister's yard for father's day), enjoying our time together as always, making and eating tasty food, watching movies, playing games, and trying to make progress at our various new activities.

We keep trying to find houses but that's going a bit sideways. Every time we find a place we like it already has about 14 offers on it, so we can't really make any progress. We're still trying, though. We're finding plenty out there that we like, we just need to find something that we have a chance of getting. I'll keep you all posted on that.

I'm still doing my EA Active and I'm really liking it. I've been very good about doing it 4 days a week, and I think it's starting to make a difference. I can see some growth in my arms (from just a little bit of work with a resistance band, of all things) and Jenna has said she's noticing a difference, too. I think jiu-jitsu is probably helping a lot, too. I'm really loving my training. I can't adequately express it, I don't think. I've got 15 classes done now, so I'm within about 2 weeks of having my first stripe. Once I get that, I can start going to more classes more often, which will hopefully bump my physical progress to the next level. The frustrating thing is that I'm not really losing weight. After a month of working out at jiu-jitsu and doing my EA Active thing, I'd think I'd have lost something, but I seem to be holding steady or gaining. I'm really hoping that I'm just putting on muscle and the gains in that are outweighing any fat loss I've got going. I don't know, but I'm not going to worry about it too terribly much. After another month or two of being consistent, if I still don't see any serious changes, I may have to really lock down my diet or something. I don't know. We'll see, I guess.

Tuesday trivia was fun. Bonnie came out and helped us, so that was cool. We also ran by the army surplus store beforehand, so we got to get some cool new toys. My toys were all hats. I got a cool sea-captain-hat-looking thing to wear for trivia (with my beautiful pipe clenched firmly between my very manly teeth, of course), and picked up a giant bandana to boot. Both Jenna and I got boonie hats, since we don't really have anything suitable for keeping the sun off of our faces and ears and necks and all when we're working outside or something. We worked in my sister's yard on Sunday for father's day and both got a bit burned even with the sunblock. I think a hat is really just a good way to go anyhow. it'll be nice for paintball, camping, gardening, really anything outdoors where you aren't too worried about looking silly (Jenna's adorable in hers of course, but I think I might look a tad dumb.).

I think that's about it, anyway. We had our supers game on Saturday and it was extremely fun as always. Jenna and I are talking about maybe going back to the SCA for something at some point, but nothing definitive yet. A lot of it depends on what else we're willing to give up. We're so busy these days we can't add anything without taking away something else. I'm really liking the feeling of progress and accomplishment from jiu-jitsu, but I'd like to be working on actual crafty projects again, too. I really want to continue improving my woodworking skills, and get better with leather, too. I think I might see about trying to make myself another longbow, too. We'll see. So many things to do!

Work gets in the way of blogging

2009-06-17T09:21:00.002-06:00

Alas, I've been working at work instead of blogging. What a pain.

Well, let's do a quick rundown, shall we? Saturday was my latest IDPA match. I did pretty well with my accuracy and my following of the rules, but not so well on time. Really, I'd rather be safe and accurate than fast, but ideally I'd like to be all three. I'll keep working on it. Saturday evening we went to the Olive Garden for dinner, so that was fun. I really like going on dates with my wife. Sunday, we went looking at houses (morwe on that later) and played our Rifts game. Unfortunately, Jenna wasn't feeling well and didn't stay with us the whole time, but it was still one of the best sessions we've had. My character got giant blue flame wings and flew around like a sparrow on crack. Glorious. I made chili cheese dogs and brats for dinner. Not much to say there, I guess. Everyone liked them, so I can't feel too badly. I just like to make something slightly more involved than that if I can.

Monday I went to jiu-jitsu in Denver which is always fun. Tuesday is trivia night and we came in third. We got a $10 gift certificate, which is cool, but I really like winning. We just had a rough night. All the scores were very close, but we could've done a bit better, I think. Anyhow, it was a blast, as always. Even when we don't win, it's a great time. We got to watch Chogan absolutely dominate at Ms. Pac-Man, too.

Last night, I was going to go to jiu-jitsu, but I had to fix Jenna's car. Really, we just had to drop a new battery in it, but that counts as car maintenance to my mind. We also got to go take another look at the house we liked on Sunday. It's a townhouse in Greenwood Village, right off Belleview and Dayton. If you haven't been in that area before, it's super nice. It's also very close to work, which is awesome. We really like a lot about this place, especially the location, the yard, the basement, and the fact that it's sort of a run-down unit in an otherwise extremely nice neighborhood. That's exactly what we wanted. It's ripe for updating, and the updates will most likely get us a good return on our investments. There's some work to be done, primarily upstairs. Apparently there was some water damage, so the prior owner tore everything out to re-do the master bath and then never finished the job. The plumbing is all hooked up, so we'd just need to hang some sheet rock and patch a few holes to get it up to snuff. Even so, we'd most likely move into one of the basement bedrooms at first until we got the master completely perfect, then move into there and start updating and working on things as we got the money and time to improve them. We'll see how it goes. The price is right, the location is right, and the place has good bones. With some work, we could make it a really awesome home and probably get a ton of sweat equity out of it. I'll keep you guys posted on our progress.

So that's it! Woot! All caught up on my blogging now.

Some kind of robot

2009-06-12T08:36:00.003-06:00

We're having a computer issue in our house. Jenna has been playing Rome: Total War (a great game, by the way) and had an issue with my system. I tore everything apart, swapped drives and power supplies and generally wreaked mayhem on our household tech, only to discover that maybe the game itself is causing the issue. How freakin' frustrating is that? In any case, we've ordered some new components for my machine to see if we can get it working again. There are a few other combinations and transfers we want to do between the three functional machines we have to end up with at least two fully functional and hopefully improved systems. Bah.

I got my new Katana a few days ago and I've been swinging it around. It feels extremely natural in my hand, and it absolutely begs to be taken out and swung at various things. I'll have to see if I can set up a trip to go somewhere wide open and just go to town with it. I might just wait until we go camping or to play paintball and bring the sword with some targets. We'll see.

We're still enjoying EA Active. I've gotten a few trophies for stuff and I'm continuing to work on my consistency with it. I do end each workout (even on Medium) pretty sweaty and at least a bit tired. All the lunges are certainly keeping my legs sore, too. I'm even noticing that my shoulders are feeling all the presses and raises I've been doing. Sweet! I'm hoping that the relative lack of focus on chest stuff isn't going to let my pushup results dwindle, but we'll just have to see what happens.

Success and Progress, in that order

2009-06-09T09:31:00.002-06:00

Since I made some shrimp cocktail on Sunday, I felt confident in making a significantly larger batch for my friends yesterday. The main reason for this was because it was Dave's birthday and he's into seafood. Since I generally don't make seafood (Jenna isn't a fan, and I rarely cook just for myself) I wasn't sure what to do. I've made fish and chips before (actually I made fish, I still haven't ever attempted french fries) but that didn't sound like something he'd really enjoy. Shrimp though, that's sort of safe. If people are into seafood, they generally enjoy shrimp. Or so it seems to me, anyway. So anyway, I'll tell you how I made them in just a second. Suffice it to say, everyone was very pleased with the shrimp. Seems like a pretty instant classic, which is very cool for me. I always like trying new things and having them turn out well. I also had a good time getting to see everyone again and getting to play our Rifts game, since we're having a hard time getting it to fit in this month.

Okay, here's the shrimp recipe, blatantly stolen from Alton Brown:

Take some shrimp. Ideally, you want frozen (How many oceans are within a few miles of Denver, CO? None!) with the heads off and the shells still on. Uncooked, of course. You also need to consider size. I used 26-30 as they call it, and it made for tasty two-bite shrimp. One bite, if you wanted. This number means there are 26-30 shrimp of this size in a pound. Good shrimp are always sold by count, never by "Giganto-large" or "Jumbo-maximus" or any other weird adjective. If it doesn't have a count weight on it, try a different brand. This recipe works well for any number of shrimp apparently, from six to like three dozen, so feel free to expand or contract as needed. Now that you have your frozen shrimp, you need to thaw them. I put mine in a colander under cold water and swish them around for like 5-7 minutes. This gets them thawed but not warm, which is how you want them. Check to see if your shrimp have been de-veined. If they haven't been, you will want to take care of this. The brand I found had been de-veined already, which was awesome. Oddly enough, it didn't mention that fact anywhere on the package. You would think they'd advertise the work they did, but whatever. If you need to de-vein, get some small scissors, snip up the back with as few snips as possible, then pull out the icky. Wipe it on a paper towel or something.

You now have shrimp ready for cooking, right? No! Because to get a good shrimpy flavor out of these bad boys you need to brine them first. This gets some extra salt into the meat and also helps them retain moisture so they don't get gummy and gross. You need to make a brine, so get some hot water (I take hot water from the faucet and then pop it in the microwave for a few minutes) and dissolve some salt and sugar into it. This is the part that will change depending on how many shrimp you're making. I did about 3 tablespoons of each in a cup of hot water for the 6 shrimp and like 5-7 tablespoons of each into like 3 cups for the larger batch. Once the salt and sugar are dissolved, dump in a couple cups of ice. This way the water won't be so warm as to start cooking your shrimp before you're ready, but it will keep the salt and sugar in solution. Sweet, eh? Now get your shrimp into the brine and put it in the fridge for like 20 minutes. While this is going on, you can cover a cookie sheet in heavy duty foil and put it in the oven under the broiler. Turn on the broiler to get the cookie sheet warmed up. You can also take this time to make your own cocktail sauce if you're so inclined (ketchup, chili sauce, prepared horseradish all in a blender or food processor. I haven't made it, but it should be good.).

Now that your shrimp has had a chance to brine, take it out and pour it off into the colander. Dump it onto some paper towels and wrap it up for a few minutes to let the shrimp dry off a bit. While you're doing this, toss a stainless steel or glass bowl into your freezer to cool down. You'll use this later. Now put the shrimp into a different bowl with some olive oil (not extra virgin, as that would burn under the broiler) and some Old Bay seasoning and toss to coat. You just want a little oil on the shrimp to keep them from sticking and also to help brown the shells a bit. Now you can dump your shrimp onto your half sheet pan (covered in foil so you don't have to scrub shrimpy bits off of it later) and get them spread out into one layer. Shove 'em back under the broiler for two minutes. Pull them out, turn them all, and put them back under the broiler for one minute. Pull them out, put them in your now-frosty bowl, and toss a few times to work off some of the excess heat. This will also help keep them from overcooking. Put the bowl back in the freezer for like 5-6 minutes to let the shrimp cool off to about room temperature (or however you like to eat your shrimp cocktail shrimp) and then pull them out and serve. They should be perfectly cooked, plump, juicy and flavorful. By not boiling them you help keep all of the shrimpalicious flavor inside them, instead of in your cooking water. By cooking with the shells on, you also help protect the meat from the high heat, so your shrimp aren't overdone on the outside, and stay moist and tasty. Brilliant!

The progress portion of the blog comes in the form of EA Sports Active. I've been trying to do my workouts consistently since I got the game, but I slacked a bit this weekend. I'm thinking I'll so Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on the game, leaving Saturday for just jiu-jitsu and Sunday as a total rest day. The game is still very fun, and is working me really hard. I'm ending each session very tired, sore, and sweaty. I really didn't think I could get this good of a workout standing in my family room in front of my TV, but it's very cool. I have to say that using the balance board actually makes some of the exercises easier. There are some games you can play where you have to use it, but others are tougher without. Today I had to do a lot of squat jumps and lunge jumps and I was very nearly unable to finish the last exercise. I also switched my resistance band down one level so I could focus on better technique, and I think that helped a lot, too. The shoulder presses and raises I've been doing are definitely cool. Not the kind of weight I'm used to using, but still working hard enough to feel it. So overall, I still think this game is a viable way to get into shape. Couple the workout with the accountability for doing other activities on a daily basis and tracking your food, water, junk food, sleep, stress, etc. and you really do have a system that helps keep you on track even when you're not actively playing it. If you haven't decided to get it yet, and you're in the market for something along these lines, I am still suggesting it very highly. I'm hoping that I'll have some real results to share in a month or so, but until then we'll just have to go with what I have.

An object lesson...in chaos

2009-06-08T13:17:00.003-06:00

Friday, we went to see "The Hangover." By we, I of course mean my wife and I. I also mean a dozen or so of our friends. And by went, I mean some of us went and some of us didn't, due to various issues. And by Friday, I of course mean Friday. So, because I am inexplicably driven to overcomplicate my life, I decided that a simple trip to see a movie with a couple of friends needed to become a DINNER/MOVIE EXTRAVAGANZA!!!1!!ONE!

You can probably guess why this didn't go precisely as planned. Herding 14+ people to dinner and then a movie when the movie starts at 7:30 and dinner starts at 6:30 is pretty rough. Especially when it's opening night of a popular movie. We ended up with 4 folks who didn't get tickets ahead of time and thus couldn't attend, which was lame. Still, 10 people getting into a movie that's sold out is pretty good. Getting them to sit with each other is amazing. Devon and Rose saved seats for all of us, and they saved them like champions. What was awesome was that the movie was brilliant and terribly funny and just extremely well done all around. What was lame was that we were so rushed to get through everything to get to the movie and all that we ended up not being able to talk to a lot of the folks we had wanted to spend time with. We'll have to set aside time to do some normal, non-extravaganza hanging with the people we didn't get to see, which is also cool.

Saturday, I went to jiu-jitsu which was very cool. I met a guy who does personal training with kettlebells and who offered me a few free sessions. I think that's awesome. I'd love to learn more about kettlebells and make sure I'm using proper technique and all. It also didn't hurt that at least two people in the class again commented on how strong I am, one of them the personal trainer guy. I will say this: I am a sucker for a good compliment. I'm hoping that sooner or later I'll get good enough that people will be complimenting my technique, but I'll take what I can get. After jiu-jitsu, we did our supers game which was a blast as always. Had a long game session with some really neat reveals and good tie-ins of previously foreshadowed stuff. Adj is definitely a masterful game master.

Sunday was our first anniversary! We mostly lounged around all day, just sort of relaxing and all, with plans to go to dinner later in the evening. I finally put together my poleaxe and it's really cool. I'm very pleased with it. Look at how pleased I am.

After making myself some shrimp cocktail (just to make sure I knew how) we got a phone call. We were hoping to go to the Manor House restaurant in Ken Caryl Valley, only to find out that there is no such thing any more. Apparently it is now strictly an event center, the kitchen having been flooded out at some point and never repaired. So that was lame. It's where we went for our first dating anniversary and we were hoping for a kind of romantic symmetry. Alas. We found another place that we've been wanting to try for a while instead. It's called Brook's Steakhouse and it was very good. It's right around the corner from our house and we've seen it a bunch but had never actually gone in to try it. This seemed like a great opportunity, so we gave it a go. It's a very nice place. Wood paneling, brass railings, Sinatra on the radio and a sort of 1950s gentleman's club feel really worked for it. The food was very tasty, and the service was excellent. I'd recommend it heartily, especially right now, as they're having a very good deal on a complete meal for $35/person. The best part is that we got to dress up and be all romantic. Aren't we adorable?

And that was essentially the weekend. Loads of fun, lots of time with friends and with each other, and some darned good food mixed in there as well. Life really doesn't get much better than this, I must say.

EA Sports Active for the Wii

2009-06-05T10:09:00.003-06:00

The other day (no, not that one, the other one) Jenna and I became interested in EA Sports Active for the Wii, after she found a review of it online and thought it looked interesting. After watching some reviews and clips and whatnot, we decided it was totally worth getting and ran to Wal-Mart to pick it up. Here's what we've found so far:

EA Sports Active is what WiiFit should've been. Let me compare and contrast these bad boys for you.

First, WiiFit involves the balance board, the Wiimote, the Nunchuk and your very own personal body. EA Active involves these things plus a resistance band and a leg holster thingy. Adding a resistance band means you add...wait for it...resistance! Anyone who's done even a minimal amount of research into health and human physiology knows that resistance-based exercises are really good for you and are totally necessary for good health. Can you get resistance by doing pushups, situps, stretches or leg lifts? Yup. Can you get better results by doing these same motions with increased resistance? Yup. Even though I'm not a fan of the band EA included with the game (I feel like I'm going to break it) you can easily exchange a heavier band or whatever if you like (which I did). Doing shoulder press with the weight of the Wiimote? Lame. Doing them with a decent resistance band makes a world of difference as far as your workout goes. The leg band thingy is pretty neat. It helps the game determine how hard you're running based on your leg movement, or how deeply you're squatting, or whether you're doing your lunges properly. It just barely fits around my Herculean man-thighs but it still works. You just have to get it strapped pretty tight and pretty high so it doesn't slide down while you're doing stuff. I like this feature because about half of my workout shorts don't have pockets, so I ended up just holding the Wiimote in my hand for WiiFit jogging. That gives a fair indication of how much my right arm is moving, but pretty much none on whether my legs are moving. With EA Active, you have the Wiimote in your hand and the Nunchuk attached to your leg, so the game requires you to be moving your upper and lower body together to get your character running on screen. It's a much better method, I think.

That's the first thing. Here's the second thing: setting up a workout in advance and just rolling through the exercises keeps your heart rate up and provides a much stronger workout. With WiiFit, you pick an exercise and then do the exercise. When it's over, you head back to the menu and find another exercise you'd like to try, then pick it and do it. With each exercise lasting no more than a minute or two, that's a lot of heading back to the menu. It kills your momentum in a big way, and it lets your heart rate drop way too much. EA Active has set workout routines based on time and intensity (20 minutes easy/med/hard, 60 min easy/med/hard, etc.) and allows you to customize your own workouts. If you have bad knees, you can kick out any exercise that involves jumping. If you want to work on upper body, you can build your own all upper body workout program, and even include short jogs at the beginning and end for warmup and cooldown. Having a workout set up in advance means less time spent fiddling around with the game before you can get going. To me, that means a few more minutes of sleep in the morning, but it also means am ore efficient workout.

Here's the third thing: WiiFit is freakin' mean to you. I'm a dude with a pretty thick skin, but if I have to hear "You're obese!" in a little electronic game voice every day, that's going to kill my desire to play that game very quickly. I'm not obese. I'm 6'3" and 250 pounds. I'm not the skinniest person in most any room, but I'm also not the person in the worst shape in most any room. I'm a guy with a large frame with a reasonable amount of muscle and some extra fat mostly in my middle region. WiiFit is based on BMI, which is the single stupidest system of health rating I've ever heard of. Anyone with even a decent amount of muscle on their frame will come up as overweight. Anyone with a large frame with muscle and maybe a bit more fat than they'd like will come up as obese. That's lame. If they could incorporate any other system of measuring your body type into the mix, it would be infinitely superior to the way it is now. Add in a wrist circumference to get a concept of frame size, or add in a body shape matching system or something, but straight BMI is terrible. EA Active is very encouraging, which is nice. I'm not going to be riding high all day because my electronic trainer said "You really nailed that lunge! Way to go!" but I'm also not going to be pissed at the game for calling me names. It's not a huge deal, but it makes a difference to me. Even if I got down to the ideal weight for my body type, with a body fat percentage somewhere around 9% and a goodly amount of muscle, WiiFit would keep telling me that I'm overweight or obese every day. That's not cool.

The last thing, and something I think is extremely important, is that WiiFit thinks that your posture and balance are the keys to your health. They don't seem to worry much about strength, endurance, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, or any of the other aspects of health, they just focus on balance. Since the game is designed to be used with the Wii balance Board and balance is just about the only thing it can measure, I'm sort of okay with it as a known weakness going in. But with a system designed to help increase fitness, there's only so much you can tell with balance. EA Active actually rates your caloric burn rate based on your stats and the exercise you're doing. EA Active takes a much more American view of fitness, I think is the main difference. You're not just standing in one place leaning, or working as hard as you can to stand perfectly still (there's an intense workout for you) you're actually moving, doing fun things, and working hard. When I've done the EA Active 30 minute hard course, I end up sweaty and tired, almost as sweaty and tired as I feel after an intense jiu-jitsu class. That's an extremely difficult thing to do with a game and EA Active manages well. I don't like to do a workout that feels like a waste of time. I like to work out very hard for as short a period of time as possible, to get my workout done efficiently and effectively. If I can get a solid workout with a resistance band and a video game without even having to leave my house, I'm all for it.

So anyway, those are my thoughts. EA Active may be what WiiFit should've been, but I do think WiiFit was a necessary precursor to EA Active. WiiFit is still fun, and it does have some worthwhile games and stuff. It actually has a pretty decent yoga trainer, if you're interested in that sort of thing. I just wouldn't get WiiFit expecting it to get you in shape unless you're willing to spend a lot of time and energy just trying to spend a lot of energy. EA Active is the shortest path to the same goal, and I think you'd see a much greater change after a month with EA Active than you would with WiiFit. You also wouldn't have any deep seated self esteem issues stemming from your video game calling you a fatty.

A really great idea I wish I had

2009-06-04T08:07:00.002-06:00

My friend Jacob's Blog

In this blog, Jacob suggests something brilliant: a teaching exchange. I teach you an hour's worth of something I know and you teach me an hour's worth of something you know. Sounds really easy, right? That's because it freakin' is! it's a great way to share your knowledge and get something cool in return. The main key is knowing something worth trading, and having something you'd like to know. The other thing is to have somewhere to post up what you know and what you'd like to learn so other people can come see it. That's something I'd like to work on. I'm going to see if I can find a website or Facebook app or something that will do this, and then I'll post a link on this blog.

For now, here are the things I can teach:

Proper gun handling and cleaning
Handgun shooting
Rifle shooting (less so)
Shotgun shooting
Glass Etching
Sewing from a pattern
Creating a custom pattern and sewing it
Basic Leatherworking
Loose Wool Felting
Filemaker Pro
Deltek Costpoint
Basic Computer Construction
Basic Snowboarding
Basic Skiing
Basic Metal Working
Basic Wood Working
Basic Lindy Hop Swing Dancing
Racquetball
English Grammar
Cooking (very generalized, only a few recipes, no actual culinary knowledge)
Basic Self-Defense (I'll feel better about teaching this after I have some more jiu-jitsu classes under my belt, but I know enough to get someone started at least.)

Whew! I think that's everything. I may come up with more, but that's a good start at least. Here are the things I'd be interested in learning:

Any craft
Any form of fine art
Any language
Any martial art
Any sport
Any computer programming language
Any other thing you can think of

I'm sort of weird when it comes to learning. I like all of it. I should be pretty easy to please with this stuff, so if you have any ideas for things you can teach and you'd like to exchange some knowledge, please let me know!

Back on Top

2009-06-03T10:08:00.005-06:00

Trivia last night was really fun. Charlie came out again, which was very cool. We also won first place, which makes everything awesome. The food at Moe's is really good, too. I've also noticed that there is a lot more food for the money than we had at the Celtic. The food is also super tasty, if you're into barbecue (which I am). Their ribs were excellent, with just a bit of tang and not too much spice. I think I may try the half chicken next time, since AJ and Jenna seemed to enjoy it. Their cornbread is also really good. There's some kind of pepper mixed into the batter and then I think they fry the outside or something, but it's freakin' delicious. I'm slowly getting used to the idea of not being at the Celtic anymore, but it's taking a bit. When I switch over to advanced jiu-jitsu classes (probably after July 4th, if all goes according to plan) I'm going to see if everyone's cool with switching trivia to Wednesday nights at the Rio near Park Meadows. It's closer, the food should be pretty tasty and it'll mean Jenna can come with us to the pre-quiz dinner time instead of eating after we've all finished. We'll see.

Here's the link to the official blog, if you're interested: I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!

The blog title refers to Gone With the Wind, the theme for one of the rounds. We freakin' aced it. More accurately, Jenna freakin' aced it. She was like a tiny beautiful trivia machine. I knew a few things this time, which was cool. We really had some trouble with the last round, but managed to hold on enough to win by 8 points. Sweet!

*Edit* Based on currently available results, we would have gotten first in any venue that had this quiz last night. Rock.

Why can't I just pound chicken properly?!

2009-06-01T09:53:00.003-06:00

Okay, I'm a little frustrated. I tried to make my fancy, experimental stuffed chicken parmesan last night. It was a brilliant idea, I thought, and wouldn't be too tough to carry out. How wrong I was! I got a new pounder specifically to be able to pound chicken for this particular dish. I have been thinking about it and planning it for a good long while. More or less, it's exactly the same as regular chicken parmesan, except that you pound the chicken flat, and wrap it around a stick of string cheese before rolling it in breading. Easy, right? It should've been! Instead, I was almost completely unable to flatten my chicken. I hit it a lot and with a fair amount of force, and it just wouldn't flatten past a certain point. I was hesitant to really let fly both because I live in an apartment and a horrific banging might be unpleasant for the neighbors but also because I wanted the chicken to be flat, not exploded.

Anyone have any tips on flattening chicken without making it unrecognizable?

My martial arts journey

2009-05-29T09:14:00.003-06:00

This is a tough blog post to write, primarily because of an aberration of memory that renders me nearly incapable of holding onto anything other than the most vague impressions of my own life experiences. I don't know why this started or what I can hope to do about it, but I'll attempt to press through it and come up with some kind of vaguely cohesive storyline.

I was something of a bully in my younger years. I'm not proud of it, but that's how it was. I was a fairly large kid and not given to asking nicely or waiting patiently. Why should I wait for the toy when I can knock that kid over and take it right now? Thankfully, this didn't last terribly long. By the time I got to 1st or 2nd grade I was mostly done with it, and got into my "unpopular kid" phase. I wasn't actively picked on too much until middle school, and it got pretty bad at that point. Still, I never defended myself in any meaningful way (aside from one rather bizarre and totally ineffectual "fight" in 7th grade).

I had always been interested in fighting, as most American boys are, and used to play with guns and knives and grenades (all fake, of course) when I was younger. As I got older, I was still interested in weapons and fighting, but my mom never thought I would stick with martial arts, so I never tried it. I played a lot of other sports (poorly) but never really felt like I fit in with the people there. I was always a bit too slow, or clumsy, or nerdy, or whatever. I had a few friends, but they were all better at sports than I was, and even though we shared other interests, I wasn't ever quite cool enough to be a jock. I also wasn't satisfied being a total nerd without any prospects of popularity or dating or whatever else.

Finally, I convinced my mom that I would enjoy martial arts and that I would stick with them. We found a school that taught Hawaiian Kenpo. I really did well. It was the first physical activity where I actually showed significant promise. I really liked the style, too. We learned standard Japanese and Chinese martial arts techniques (kicks, punches, blocks, etc.) but there was also some grappling and some kickboxing involved. It wasn't nearly as in depth as you'd get from studying jiu-jitsu or muay thai specifically, but it was enough to give you at least a decent impression of the different arts. I really enjoyed the stand up fighting, but I seemed to do better at ground fighting. No idea why, I just caught on more quickly.

Fast forward several years. I have continued training pretty consistently through high school, and have even started teaching a number of classes. As I get into my senior year, I get more and more involved in theatre and debate and spend less time at the dojo. I didn't really think about it at the time, but if I had been better about going to classes, I probably could have made even quicker progress. In any case, that was when my sensei, the man who had taught me very nearly everything I knew about martial arts, moved very suddenly to the east coast. Since I hadn't been around very much, I really didn't have any warning. I show up one day and a new teacher is there. The new guy was also pretty great, but he wasn't the same and that really just killed most of my desire to keep training. Couple that with the fact that I was getting ready to go to college and I essentially just stopped going entirely. I was a third degree brown belt at the time, probably 6 months from my first degree black.

In college, I sort of tried to find another school, but I had a lot of other things on my mind. Within the first few months I had found the SCA and shortly after that I started fighting heavy and light, shooting archery, sewing, making armor, etc. I got very busy and the SCA fighting helped me with my desire to keep fighting. I did that for another few years, then sort of faded away from it as I got toward the end of my college career. After graduating, I moved back down to south Denver. I got into an apartment with a friend of mine and we just did normal geeky stuff for a while. After a bit, he and I, both experienced martial artists, and a few other friends of ours who had also studied various arts, decided to get together and start teaching each other what we knew. I had forgotten a lot, but it came back quickly. I concentrated mostly on teaching ground fighting, since I was the only one with much experience at it. it's also easier to practice grappling without punching your friend in the face than it is to practice punching your friend in the face without actually punching him in the face. Does that make sense? Anyway, we did that for a while and were all very pleased. One of the things that became immediately clear was that people who are very good at fighting on their feet can be absolutely terrible at fighting on the ground. It's uncomfortable for them, and they tend to panic and do exactly the wrong thing. They also tend to expend a lot of energy scrambling around and tire themselves out quickly. For this reason alone, I would take any unarmed, one-on-one fight to the ground as quickly as possible. A guy can completely exhaust himself fighting on the ground in a matter of moments, and if you know how to weather that storm and conserve energy, you can really take advantage of his inexperience. So, that was a lot of what we trained. How to maintain good position, a few simple submissions, a few very simple takedowns, etc. It was fun, but it didn't last for very long. We all got busy, several of us got injured, and we eventually stopped.

It was another few years before I decided to start looking for a place to train again. I wasn't really sure what I'd like to learn, but I knew I wanted something practical, where I'd have guys my own size to fight. As a big guy, you really can't learn much if you have to practice on a 14-year old kid or even an average-sized woman. You can practice your techniques and everything, but they will generally always work because your partner simply doesn't have the strength to resist. practicing with another big guy means you have to work for your progress and if you make a technique work it's because you did it properly. So, when I started looking at schools I knew I didn't want one that catered to housewives and their kids (no offense to any housewives) and I didn't want one where the intensity level was something like "Oh hey we're learning some punches today if you feel like punching maybe." I wanted a place where I could train hard and really push myself without being seen as a jerk who was just picking on people. Thankfully, the first place I went, Colorado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was perfect. As soon as I went in there, I felt the exact vibe I wanted. There's a fine line in a martial arts school between being intense about training and being a cesspool of jerks and morons. Everyone in the school was cool, though. They loved the art, they love training, but I haven't met a single person I wouldn't want to see regularly or even hang out with outside of class. They are all very cool, laid-back and fun while still being interested in serious training. I honestly couldn't have picked a better place to go.

So, in any case, this is where I've ended up. I'm truly loving my new classes and looking forward to each and every one. I'm learning a huge amount already, making friends, and hopefully not making too big of a fool of myself. I'm still a total noob, but I'm feeling like I'm picking things up quickly. The depth and breadth of the knowledge in this art is literally mind-boggling, but I've got great teachers and great guys to train with, so I think I'll make progress.

There you have it. Thanks for slogging through that whole thing.

The Beekeepers...take second?

2009-05-27T09:41:00.002-06:00

That's right folks, you heard it here first. We weren't the dominant force at the new site that we'd hoped to be. Let me back up a bit. We got an e-mail yesterday stating that the quiz would no longer be held at the Celtic until further notice. Lame. The new manager there just never seemed to like the idea of the trivia and managed to get us ousted after all. So we had to scramble a bit to find another viable Tuesday night trivia place.

Thankfully, Geeks Who Drink didn't let us down. There's another place just up the road that we can go for Tuesday night trivia called Moe's Original BBQ. It's a barbecue restaurant! No, it's a bar! No, it's a concert venue! No, it's a bowling alley! No, it's ALL OF THOSE THINGS AT ONCE! It's a barbecue restaurant set up like a lunch counter, with a bar situated similarly. There's a concert venue in the back and a bowling alley on the other side of the building. How crazy is that? The cool thing is that the prize they gave (second place scored us the same amount we'd been getting for first at the Celtic) can be used to bowl or for food or whatever. Sweet! Here's the website: Moe's Original BBQ

The quizmaster is pretty cool, but he's got nothing on Travis. Thankfully, I was able to get in touch with Travis and hopefully we can get him to come to the new place with us as a shiny new member of the Beekeepers. We'll see. We've got a lot of folks who want to come out and play, and only 6 spots on the team, so we might have to split into Beekeepers Prime and Beekeepers Secundus or something. In any case, rest assured that you will be kept informed through this blog, this window unto the glorious world that is my life. Enjoy.

Holiday weekend? More like shmoliday shmee...ok, I'll stop.

2009-05-26T12:31:00.002-06:00

A three day weekend just means more time for glory. If by glory you mean geeking out with your homies, that is. Friday, just to break up the pattern slightly, we had a quiet evening at home. Those are very fun, and we have all too few of them anymore.

Saturday I went to jiu-jitsu again and had a great time. I'm really enjoying it so much. I got my new gi from my instructor and since I am extra-large sized, he only had one that would fit. It happened to be a really nice one, nicer than what they generally give folks. I'm really trying not to ruin it by laundering it incorrectly or anything. I'm desperately afraid that he'll have given me this awesome gi and I'll show up with it shrunken on the left side and all pink or something. After jiu-jitsu, we had our super team game which was a blast as always. It had been three weeks since our last session and I was definitely jonesing for it.

Sunday was a friend's wedding reception, which went very well. I made Deviled Eggs using my food processor and they came out crazy creamy. I think I might have put too much mustard and Miracle Whip in there, but I'll have to see what I think about it for next time. They went like crazy when we actually got to the party, so apparently they weren't too bad. We got to hang out with Becky and Doyle too, which was fantastic. After the reception, we went and saw Star Trek again. That movie just never stops being awesome. I'm imagining this is the last time we'll see it in the theatre, but that's one we'll be buying on blu-ray as soon as possible.

Monday we went to Dave and Jax's place for games and a BBQ, which was slightly messed up because of the torrential downpour nature decided we needed. Thankfully they have a cool balcony with an overhang so it wasn't too bad to grill up some hot dogs and brats. We hung out there for like 5-6 hours and then headed out to dinner at TGI Friday's which was also very fun. I crashed out early, I'm thinking because driving in the rain was really exhausting. There was so much water on the road it took a lot of control to keep the car going where I wanted it.

In any case, it was a very full, very fun weekend. Jenna and I managed to play racquetball a few times which is always a lot of fun. I'm hoping that we can keep doing that when we don't have ballet or jiu-jitsu, or even afterward if we're feeling energetic. We got Antonia groomed today, too, which is a major victory. She looks absolutely ridiculous now, with her entire body shaved very short but her head, tail and legs all still fluffy. She seems happy though, and she's much cleaner and will be easier to take care of. She even smells actively nice for the first time in a long time.

A festival of awesome

2009-05-21T07:48:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, as always, was a festival of awesome for the Gentlemen Beekeepers. We got to stay together this time, as there were three teams total. We still won, of course, but the really interesting part was getting to play in the back room. It's like a smoking lounge or something, and it was just much cooler and cozier than playing out in the main area of the bar. We also finished the night with a James Lipton-esque sort of interview thing. For the transcript, head to the Geeks Who Drink Blog. In case you're keeping track, this is indeed our seventh week in a row of getting first place. One week we got first and second place. That's just silly.

Last night, I went to my second jiu-jitsu class. It wasn't as physically tiring as the last class, but there was a lot of focus on technique. I can say that I'm hooked. I really want to keep going, so I plan to go tonight and sign up for something more permanent. I'm still incredibly impressed with the quality of the teachers there. They're very calm, kind and knowledgeable. I'm constantly amazed at how much there is to know about rolling around on the ground. Everything they're teaching is something that could realistically come up in a fight, and knowing multiple options from a given position lets you respond at the appropriate level based on your situation.

That's about it, really. I'll keep you guys informed if anything new comes up.

Clicking for fun and profit

2009-05-19T16:33:00.001-06:00

I realize that I've used the term clicker training, given some theory about it and some background about it and will likely be talking your collective ear off about it for a while to come, so I should probably lay out what exactly it is, and what it isn't. Keep in mind that I am no expert. I'm just going to be explaining my understanding of clicker training based on what I've seen and read. My knowledge will hopefully keep growing as I read more and especially once I get my own puppy to work with.

Clicker training is a method of teaching your dog what you want it to do. You associate the click sound with a reinforcer (anything that the dog likes enough to work for) at the beginning, so your dog knows that the click means a treat or a pet or some play is coming. The click also marks the exact moment of your approval. If he's sitting and you click, he knows you like it when he's sitting. This is extremely helpful because reinforcement only works when you reinforce at the exact moment the animal is doing what you want. If a dog sits and you treat a few seconds later after he's already standing, he thinks you like him standing. The click tells the dog that he did something good and a treat is coming. It frees you from having to get a treat into his mouth at the exact right moment. It also lets you teach him the behavior you want before you assign a verbal cue to it. You're clicking and treating for him sitting down without ever having said "sit" to him until he already knows how to do it. This really helps keep the dog from getting confused by your verbal cues, and it prevents you from having to say them over and over again. Once is enough because he's not learning how to sit and learning what "sit" means at the same time. He's learning how to sit, and then associating the sound you make with that action. You can also use physical cues, or even train your dog to do something without a cue from you at all. I was reading one book where the author had taught her dog to close cabinet doors whenever he found them open, and to lower the toilet lid when he saw it up.

Clicker training is also a set of principles, namely that positive punishment (introducing things the dog doesn't like when he does something wrong) and negative reinforcement (taking away things the dog doesn't like when he does something right) hinder learning and slow down progress. It can be used with any animal to teach any behavior that the animal is physically and mentally capable of doing. I've seen videos of people using clicker training to do some amazing things, and all without having to hit the dog, or spray him with water or anything else. You reward him for good behavior and ignore bad behavior. Since a lot of bad behavior is merely an attempt to get attention (parents know this well), they learn that bad behavior doesn't get them what they want, but good behavior does. They stop offering bad behaviors because they learn that they don't gain anything from them.

This differs from classical or Pavlovian conditioning in that the dog is making choices. He chooses to sit when you tell him to, because he knows that he gets what he wants by giving you what you want. It's not like ringing a bell and having him drool involuntarily, it's more like ringing a bell and having him know that means you want him to turn in circles, and then doing so. The dog in clicker training is an agent. He has free will and is choosing to do something, not being turned into a robot or anything creepy.

Some of this is still something I'm working on and curious about. I think that you have to interrupt bad behavior with something good in order to stop something dangerous or destructive (some behaviors are their own reward, like barking and chewing). I'm still doing research, but it seems that you can generally teach a dog not to exhibit a certain behavior by teaching them what you would like them to be doing (being calm and quiet, peeing outside, chewing on appropriate toys)instead of only showing them what you don't want them to be doing (chewing on inappropriate things, barking, peeing in the house) and leaving what you do want a mystery.

Doggie go walkies?

2009-05-19T07:44:00.006-06:00

As I'm certain I've mentioned here before, Jenna and I are looking to get a puppy. We've decided on an Autralian Terrier. This is what they look like:

They're pretty small, only about 15-20 pounds (the breed standard says 12-14, but they've grown much bigger than that over the years) and less than a foot to the shoulder. Every description I've found of them says they're one of the calmer, less bark-prone, easier to train terriers out there. That suits me just fine. The fact that they do obedience and agility trials also makes me think they're probably smart enough for me to train one pretty well.

Speaking of training, I've really dug into the world of dog behavior recently. I'm still only on the surface, but I'm trying to learn about several different methods of training, to see what makes sense and how the different philosophies treat similar behavior. I'm extremely interested in clicker training, first off. As soon as I saw the simply amazing things people could get their pets to do without hitting them, yelling at them or intimidating them, I was hooked. I don't like the idea of a 240 pound dude (me, and yes I need to jog or something) standing over a 20-pound dog ready to hit him for something. If he bit my wife or one of our theoretical children, I'd take him down, but short of that, he's a freakin' puppy. What does he know? He knows what I teach him, and his failures are my failures as an owner and as alpha male of my family pack. So that's a lot of why I like the clicker method. it's a subset of operant conditioning, which is differentiated from classical or Pavlovian conditioning in that the animal is making choices to perform behaviors based on reinforcement. Pavlovian conditioning creates a reflexive, involuntary response (salivating the the sound of a bell, for example) which is okay if you want your dog to drool on command, but not if you want him to close the toilet lid if he sees it open (something you can teach with clicker training, since it allows him to make decisions).

I also started looking into Cesar Millan (the Dog Whisperer) and his training philosophy. I've watched some of his show, and the speed with which he fixes problem dogs is astounding. People have worked with these animals for months or years, thinking they'll have to be put down, hearing vets and other trainers say the dog is beyond help, and Cesar swoops in and solves the problem in 10 minutes or so. It is incredibly impressive and makes for very good television. He also deals a lot with very aggressive dogs, which adds excitement and all that to the show. His primary philosophy is that you should be the pack leader of your house. Many people have dogs who think they are the leader and it results in lots of really bad behavior. Part of being the pack leader is having "calm/assertive" energy, and forcing your dog into "calm/submissive" energy. I don't know how the scale actually goes, but I've heard other splits like "excited/dominant" or "excited/aggressive" so there may be more to the scale than I'm aware of. Essentially, you show the dog you're the boss, he does what you say. This is different than training, which is an important distinction. Training is about giving commands or cues and having them followed. This is about the hierarchy within the home. No amount of training will succeed when the dog is the pack leader. Some dogs only misbehave in certain situations, meaning that they listen well when in the home but are extremely aggressive outside the home. This is a similar issue.

Now, for my thoughts: Every dog Cesar works with gets a choke chain, pinch collar or even improvised slip knot collar. Every single one (that I've seen so far anyway, which is like 20), whether their problem is something as simple as spinning around in circles for no reason or whether they are large, aggressive dogs. Personally, I don't like that. I know the pressure from the chain is supposed to represent the teeth of a dominant dog establishing control, and it certainly appears to work, but I just can't get into it. You can tell that he isn't torturing these dogs or choking them out or anything, but I'm still not a fan. While that isn't my favorite thing, there are some great things he does. He is very big on watching what you're rewarding, which is a big thing in clicker training as well. Your dog freaks out, gets excited or angry and you smother him with affection and praise? Guess what you just trained him to do! You're rewarding behavior you don't want, thinking you can reassure your dog with cooing and stroking like you could a person. You can't. Dogs are reassured when their pack leader is calm and strong and in control of the situation. They take emotional cues from you. This is something else Cesar does very well. he projects calm, assertive energy. Projecting energy sounds a bit too much like a hadoken for my tastes, but the principle is solid. Dogs communicate through body language, scent, etc. If you're frightened, your dog knows it. If you're calm and in control, your dog knows that, too. When your dog gets scared or excited or freaked out, the best thing you can do is to be calm and relaxed, not all excited and worried like they are.

So, if there are things I can learn from Cesar, it's that your dog senses and responds to your energy, so you need to be aware of what you're displaying to your dog. Also, like with clicker training, your dog will exhibit the behaviors that you reinforce, whether they're good or bad. I also think that being the clear pack leader is important, and I'm hoping to read some info on how to do that using only positive behavior.

Here's some more info on clicker training, as developed by Karen Pryor. In operant conditioning, there are four categories of response to behavior. You can use positive reinforcement(PR) (introduction of something reinforcing to the environment), negative reinforcement(NR) (taking away something aversive from the environment), positive punishment(PP) (introduction of something aversive to the environment) or negative punishment(NP) (removing something reinforcing from the environment). A reinforcer is something the subject likes, so it could be food, praise, attention, or even something like playing with a favorite toy, or being able to continue forward on a walk. An aversive is something the animal doesn't like, so it could be a slap, a loud noise, or a bad taste. Examples of the four responses are giving a treat or petting (PR), turning off a loud buzzing sound or releasing the pressure on a choke chain (NR), smacking or introducing a bad taste (PP) and taking away a favorite toy, or ceasing play and petting (NP). Clicker training, as defined by Pryor, uses only Positive Reinforcement and Negative Punishment. You're introducing positive things or taking away positive things. This method is used in zoos and aquariums a lot, because you can't very well smack a killer whale when he does something wrong. He'll either swim away or murder you where you stand. For a good explanation of the difference between clicker training and training using a clicker (with positive punishment and negative reinforcement still in the mix), check out this video: Clicker Training vs. Training with a Clicker

Here are some books I'm reading and videos I'm watching, so you know where I'm getting my information. Again, please note that I haven't actually put anything into practice yet, this is based purely on my research.

Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor

The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell

Kikopup on Youtube

Many things

2009-05-18T08:31:00.003-06:00

Hello again, everyone. We had another exceptionally busy weekend, as is becoming our habit, but it was still very fun. We had a sushi/movie night on Friday that was really fun, then some jiu-jitsu and house hunting on Saturday. Sunday was our Rifts game, which involved some cleaning and some cooking. More on each of these as we progress.

Friday was awesome. We had 10 people at Samurai Sushi, which was really cool. I didn't think we'd end up with that many making it, but everything worked out. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the food, too. We ended up ordering way too much and all of us had to stuff ourselves to capacity to get it all finished. The food was still super tasty, though. Their teriyaki sauce is really good. It's very thick and sweet. It worked well on beef, chicken and salmon. This trip, I already knew which sushi I liked, though i did find a new tasty roll called the chicago roll. That was super good. other than that, I spent most of my evening trying different entrees to see what I liked best. Really, what I like is a little bit of a lot of different entrees. Tonkatsu and chicken katsu are still very good, the teriyaki meats were all delicious, but I wasn't a big fan of the yakisoba or the yakiniku. There's still plenty that I really enjoy to justify the AYCE meal. I just wish they offered the keystone roll on the AYCE, but I can survive without it. I just need like a dozen pieces of unagi and I'm good to go.

We also saw Star Trek again. Unfortunately, it was late and I was in a sort of sushi coma, so I was fading in and out of consciousness a bit toward the beginning. I went out and got some popcorn and soda (yes, even as full as I was, I managed to pack a bit more in) under the theory that I can't fall asleep while actively eating food. This kept me solid for the rest of the movie, at least. I spent this viewing paying a lot more attention to the actors themselves, watching for subtleties of performance that got lost in the action and story the first time. Everyone really did do an incredible job. This is one of the best sci-fi movies in recent memory, I think. I'd put it up there with Iron Man, even.

Saturday, I woke up early-ish and went to jiu-jitsu class to try it out and see how I liked it. It was really awesome. The guy teaching is freakin' fantastic, very skilled at both the art and at teaching. He's really nice and everything, too. I was a bit worried about getting into a room with that many guys practicing fighting and having some or all of them be jerks who just wanted to flex nuts. There was none of that at all, which is pretty incredible. The workout I got from the class was also pretty amazing. there were several times when I thought I might throw up from exhaustion and we weren't even doing anything that tough. I'm just really not used to moving my body that much, that quickly. It really does take you to a whole different level of working out, beyond what you can do running or biking or anything. it's morel ike swimming, I guess. Your whole body is working all at once. Unfortunately, the goal is that you're supposed to be using as little energy as possible, which means I'm not doing it very well. Still, it's a lot of fun and I think I'll really enjoy it a lot. I'm planning to head back as soon as I can to get some more info and try another class.

After that, we went out house hunting. We found a place we really like. It's as old as I am, but it's a good-sized house on a nice big lot and the layout has so many options for improvements and stuff. There's some work to be done to it, but nothing we can't handle. The back yard is also amazingly well set up for what we'd like to do back there anyway. The whole thing is pretty incredible. I'll post more when we get more info on how it's likely to turn out as far as getting the loan for it.

Sunday, we cleaned the house and then folks came over for our Rifts game. I think the game itself went really well this week. We're working on some issues with the players figuring out the system and all, and getting ourselves working together well. I think we're making very good progress, though.

I made a meatloaf this week. It turned out pretty well, but the texture wasn't as consistent as I'd like. I think it would also work better as two smaller loaves than one giant loaf. It would cook faster, too.

Here's how it went: 2.25 pounds of ground sirloin, with 1 pound of ground chuck. I may go half and half next time, but that may end up being too greasy. I also put in one egg, 1 cup of bread crumbs, some worcestershire sauce, about a cup of diced onions, three cloves of garlic, half a can of tomato sauce (the little 8-oz one) and a few pinches of kosher salt. I tossed in some more generalized italian seasonings, too. I mixed that all up and formed a loaf of it on some wax paper on a cookie sheet. I glazed it with some glaze I made from some ketchup, some chili sauce, the rest of the can of tomato sauce, some worcestershire sauce and some honey. The glaze was very tasty. I finally got to use my probe thermometer! Set it to 155º and let it roll in a 325º oven. It took a while, but came out cooked well.

Here are my thoughts for next time: Maybe more bread crumbs, or ground up croutons (an Alton Brown suggestion) and less onion. I think I'll also cook the onion first before putting it into the meatloaf. It didn't cook well in the mix, and it threw off the texture a bit. As much as I'd like to improve on it, one of my guests did say it was the best meatloaf she'd ever had, and that she had never liked meatloaf before. I think I've gotten that response several times now, actually. It always makes me feel like I'm doing at least pretty well.

Dog-picking

2009-05-15T07:45:00.003-06:00

Ah, I remember the lazy autumn days of my childhood, when the family would pile into the old station wagon and drive out to the dog fields. If you searched long and hard, you could find some truly phenomenal puppies out there, right off the puppy bush. Those days are long gone now, I fear. If you want to find a dog, you'd better be prepared to spend some time and money in your search.

The first step to picking a dog is deciding on the breed. This covers a large number of the most basic questions, such as size, shedding, energy level, trainability, etc. Once you've narrowed down a few breeds, then you have to start looking at the particulars, such as coat texture (long? short? harsh? soft?), the sound of their bark, life expectancy, how good they are with kids (many behavioral qualities can be significantly altered with training and socialization, but you're never going to trust an unsupervised Bull Mastiff with a toddler), how good they are with other pets, how tolerant they are of temperature extremes, and more. Now you should be getting down to just a few breeds. The next step is to meet some of the dogs. Visit several breeders if you can, and see their full-grown dogs of different ages. See some puppies if possible. Talk to owners. Read stuff on the internet, and check out youtube for videos of the dog in action. You can even borrow breed-specific books from the library more often than not. If you're noticing a pattern here, the pattern is preparation and forethought. Any moron loser freak can go to the puppy store and pick the cute one. In fact, that is precisely how puppy stores stay in business. But it's not the way to pick your new family member. This dog is going to be with you most likely from 10-15 years, maybe longer. They will need regular care and maintenance, they may have medical problems or behavioral problems and you need to know what you're getting into beforehand.

Incidentally, this is also my issue with getting dogs from shelters. I know everyone says it's the only humane thing to do, and if you don't do it, you're a horrible person with evil in your face and they hate you forever and ever and HOW CAN YOU KILL ALL THOSE DOGS YOU BASTARD?! I know. Here's my point: I'm bringing this dog into my home. He's going to be around me and my friends and my children for a very long time. I want to know absolutely as much as I can about him before I make that choice. I want to meet his mom and dad. I want to meet his brothers and sisters. I want to see the full range of possibilities for health and behavior issues within the breed. I want to be as sure as possible that this dog will be a joy to us and we to it from the moment it steps into the house until the moment we bury it in a shoebox in the front yard. At night. With torches. Also some chanting. For me, the worst thing in the world would be for me to take that dog out of the shelter, bring him home, and find out that he's got some major issue and we can't keep him. I don't have it in me to take the dog to the shelter, I don't think. I'm not some moron loser freak who is going to go buy a dog from a puppy store and take it to the shelter when I find out "the dern thing poops!" I'm also not a jerk who is going to mistreat a dog, really screw it up psychologically, and then dump it at the shelter for the next person to take home and realize it's now almost useless in every capacity. I also don't want to get a dog that someone else bought from a puppy mill and then took to the shelter, now having no idea whether the thing has been screened for genetic defects or even properly cared for by a vet. It's a gamble I don't care to take. If you want to get a used dog, that's your choice. For me and my family, I'm going to take every precaution I can think of to make sure we get a dog that we will love and that will love us for as long as we have it in our home. End of that discussion.

Now that you've narrowed it down to one breed, you have a choice to make. Or rather you have a choice to make a choice but you don't have to make a choice if you don't want to choose. All clear, then? Essentially, dogs are a natural product. You can't put in an order for four males, four females, half black half white and all healthy and expect consistent results. If you're dealing with a good breeder, chances are good they've got a line for this litter, and you're at the back. If they get seven males and one female, and they've got three people in line ahead of you who asked for a female, you don't get one from this litter. If you specify sex and color, you could be in for a very long wait. It isn't bad, it's just something to consider. Personally, I like the idea of a neutered male dog. They're very well-behaved, are generally easy to train, and get along well with other dogs and pets. This obviously isn't always the case, but it seems to be common. Really though, the differences between the spayed/neutered sexes isn't all that great. The guys are easier to neuter, and you can do it earlier, I'm told. Really, this is something to ask your breeder. Find out what they suggest. If they suggest anything other than spaying and neutering, find a new breeder. Most good breeders actually have a spay/neuter contract you have to sign when you get the dog. If you don't spay or neuter, they get the dog back and you get a very stern talking to. How they find out if you've done it is entirely a mystery to me, but the fact that they make a point of it is good. If everyone spayed and neutered and bought from a respectable breeder, we wouldn't have dogs in the shelters. See how that works?

Anyhow, now you've picked a breed, a breeder, a sex (maybe) and you're waiting for your puppy to be born and weaned (hee-hee!). What do you do now?

You read. Watch videos. Talk to people. What about? Training. Because there is very little in this world more annoying than an untrained dog. You come home and your dog jumps around and barks and you think it's very cute (and if your dog weighs 5 pounds, it really is very cute) but everyone else who comes to your house thinks your dog is an asshole and you're an even bigger asshole for not teaching him how to behave. If you're going to buy a dog, the dog comes with several fabulous accessories. First, a poop factory. Second, responsibility. You bought a dog, you have a responsibility to the dog to teach it how to behave. A well-trained dog is a happy dog. They want to make you happy, they want your approval and they want the mental and physical exercise that training gives them. You can use any method you like, but what I'm most intrigued by right now is called clicker training. Very interesting, very scientific. Jenna found a lady on youtube who does really well-made instructional videos about it. You can see some of the amazing things that can be taught using the method, and you can also see how much these dogs and their owner love each other. I think potentially the coolest part of it is that you see someone treating a dog like a dog, not like a tiny furry person. Understanding dog psychology is so important for proper training, and so few people do it well.

In any case, here's the main page for kikopup, the dog trainer: kikopup

I'll be doing more research on positive reinforcement/negative punishment techniques for dog training and keeping you all informed about them. Have a good one!

Awesome vs. Awesome

2009-05-13T13:11:00.002-06:00

When your trivia team of four splits into two teams of two and still manages to take first and second place, there's something going on. That something is awesomeness.

Last night, there was nobody there for trivia. Almost literally. It was our group and that was it. Eventually, our quizmaster talked several other folks into playing, but none of them finished. It turned out later on that one of the regulars was there too, and he did end up finishing. In any case, we decided to split up just to make some kind of game out of it. AJ and Nate were on one team and Jenna and I were the other. The game was pretty fun, with some interesting rounds and all, but we got totally hosed on the two Audi rounds. Nate and AJ know way more of that stuff than us, and that's where they pulled ahead. They ended up beating us by 15 points, which, with their joker, equates to about 7 answers of either song title or artist on round two. I think they easily got us by that many, if not quite a few more. I did get a few answers, but not very many.

Even though we had to turn on ourselves this week, there was a silver lining. By taking first and second, we ended up $10 ahead of where we would normally be, so that's good. We also proved that even separately, we're still awesome. Third place came in 21 points behind me and Jenna. If we had remained a combined team, we would've scored in the mid-eighties, most likely. That would've put us well above any other team that played last night, as near as I can tell. So, if we hadn't had to split just to have someone to play against, we'd have had a truly impressive score. There's something to be said for that, I suppose.

Anyhow, last night was okay, but certainly not as fun as when we all get to hang out and talk and work together. That's mostly what the evening is about for me anyway, to be honest. Hopefully next week will be better.

A couple days of awesome nestled in the middle of the still pretty awesome

2009-05-11T10:53:00.003-06:00

Friday, we went to see Star Trek. If you haven't seen it, your life is dark and hollow. Just so you know.

We've been setting up sort of a pattern the past few weeks, and I'm for it. Tuesday, Jenna and I hang with AJ at trivia as a rule. The past few weeks, we've hung with AJ and Nate. This past week, we hung with AJ, Nate (we call him Super Nate because we have too many Nates) and Charlie. This is a good pattern. Tomorrow, I'm told we'll get to hang with Becky and Nate (different Nate, we call him Doyle) and hopefully AJ, (Super) Nate and Charlie as well. That would put our team at 7, but I don't know that anyone will give us trouble about it. It's not like we haven't been winning without all these extra folks. We'll see, I guess.

Saturday was really fun, too. My dad and I went to our first official IDPA match. We'd been before, but only to look around, not to shoot. It was pretty incredible. They set up 4 scenarios, often very realistic, and you have to complete them quickly, accurately and above all, safely. If you make any kind of mistake in gun handling or anything that could potentially be dangerous to yourself or others, you get sent home. It's very comforting to have guys there who are dedicated 100% to ensuring that the environment is as safe as humanly possible. The scenarios are also really well thought-out and very well-designed. You've got 4 unique and interesting stages every month of every year, all within the rules set up to make sure it's something you can complete safely and effectively. I'm just incredibly impressed with the level of planning, work and dedication these folks have to this sport. I was also amazed at how many people were there this weekend. Close to 70, not counting people just watching. I didn't do terribly well, but my primary goal this weekend was not to be sent home covered in shame. I was successful in that, so I'm not going to let my dismal times get me down too badly.

Later that evening, Jenna and I went out to a nice dinner at a new restaurant. The food was very good, but the environment was a bit too rowdy for our liking. You know when you go into a restaurant and everyone's like talking and laughing and having a good time? That's what was going on here. *Shudders* We had a good meal, but we had to leave fairly quickly. Neither of us is emotionally or physically equipped to deal with that many humans while we're trying to eat.

Sunday was Mother's day, as you ought to know. We went to Johnstown with the intention of helping my sister with her garden, but ended up just sort of hanging out and grilling instead. Not at all bad.

My wife is wonderful and burned a bunch of Good Eats DVDs for me, so I've been watching them all. I love that show so hard. I'm going to attempt something tonight most likely, and I'll let you all know how it goes.

I'm also going to check out the Jiu-Jitsu school tonight. I'm planning on heading over just to take a look, and maybe try to see about taking a class. They offer a week of free classes to new students and next week would be a much better week for me to take more than one class. I was also thinking about krav maga but the only schools in my area seem a bit too oriented on kids and middle-aged women. As much as I like winning, I don't get much satisfaction from beating women and children. Some, just not much. We'll see. If the jiu-jitsu school is lame, I may have to expand my options a bit more. We'll see.

Activity Exploration

2009-05-07T15:39:00.000-06:00

Tonight, Jenna and I are going to look into some activities we think we might like to try. She's looking at dance and I'm looking at martial arts. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, specifically. There's a school for BJJ pretty close to where we live and they have classes at times that would work for us pretty well, too. Jenna found a dance school she likes and we're going to go check out that one, too.

I'll keep you all informed.

What's more dominant than dominant? The Gentlemen Beekeepers, that's what.

2009-05-06T11:14:00.002-06:00

We won trivia again last night. Not just a win, but a complete and total victory on all levels. We once again won all bonus questions, the internet question and the quiz as a whole, but we also beat our personal best score by a fair margin. The fact that we beat the second place teams (tied again, same team won the dance-off) by something like 30 points is really like gravy. More like chocolate syrup really, because it's so sweet.

Am I gloating? I think I am.

I don't mean to, honestly. I even feel slightly guilty for being on a team that (almost entirely without my input, mind you) continues to win week after week by embarrassing margins. This week we brought in two new players, Charlie and Nate and their addition made the game even more fun, if such a thing is possible. We also helped to expand our knowledge base rather significantly by adding them to the mix.

In any case, thanks to all who participated, and please forgive me my gloating. If we are defeated, I promise to be as humble as my psychology allows.

Awesome weekend!

2009-05-04T09:43:00.002-06:00

I have determined that doing thins on Friday night makes me feel like I have an extra day of weekend. Having come to this conclusion, I'm going to try to do something on Fridays as much as possible. I really relish that Sunday morning feeling where it seems like it's Monday but it really isn't.

Speaking of doing things on Friday, we saw Wolverine. I really liked it a lot. Very few complaints from me overall, and a lot of stuff I really enjoyed. Hugh Jackman was great, Ryan Reynolds was great and Liev Schreiber brought a lot of humanity to the Sabertooth character. The only guy I think was cast poorly was Gambit. After everyone begging for him to be in the movies since the first once was announced, I was expecting them to make a really awesome Gambit and they just didn't. He's passable, sure. He just isn't as cool as he could've been. The guy didn't even have a Louisiana accent, for one. I personally find that accent annoying, but it's sort of necessary for Gambit. It's a large part of who he is to me, anyway. In any case, the company was excellent, with Nate, AJ, Derek and Jenny joining Jenna and I for the excursion. We had dinner at the Village Inn before going in as the showtimes we planned on seeing were all sold out.

Saturday was also good. I'm still cranking along on Fallout 3, getting extremely close to having all of the achievements. They're releasing a new expansion that should be really awesome. I finished the Alaskan expansion and am ready to try the Pittsburgh version soon. The newest one actually continues beyond the end of the current game instead of presenting a new adventure before you finish like the other two. It also allows you to progress to level 30 instead of stopping at 20 like you do in the original game. Pretty cool, if you're a great big geek like me.

Saturday afternoon/evening was our supers game, which is always a blast. We're also starting a new campaign with the same group but a different system, so we're all working on characters for that right now. Still very cool. The main story does still seem to be focusing on my character's plot right now, though we're getting much more info on it than I was expecting so soon. Seems like I still have a heck of a lot to know.

Sunday was a lazy day. We slept in, played racquetball, watched some shows, ran some errands and generally just had a grand ol' time. A very nice way to end an otherwise busy weekend.

We did decide that we're going to begin looking for houses in earnest again, for the good it seems to be doing. We're also going to be looking into getting a puppy, which should be very fun. We had a breed in mind for when we have a house, but I think Jenna's sick of waiting for the house to get the puppy. I don't blame her. We've put off a lot of stuff until we get the house and it just isn't happening for us. I'm sort of sick of waiting to really do stuff until we have a house, but I would also feel silly if I started putting a bunch of holes in the wall of the apartment only to turn around and have to take everything down again when we do get a place. Anyhow. I'm also thinking about looking around for a martial arts school near here that I could try out. It really hit me this weekend how much I miss the fighting sports I used to do, and I think getting back into martial arts would be a great way to get myself into shape and back into a more physically active mindset. I don't know. Maybe it won't work at all, but I'm at least going to try it out.

Sushi Tuesday!

2009-04-30T10:17:00.002-06:00

A few days late, but here it goes. Trivia was canceled on Tuesday, which was lame. Some private party or something at the bar. Anyhow, since our Tuesday nights are reserved for such activities, we decided it would be fun to go out and get some dinner anyway. Nate and Adj came over and we all went to Samurai Sushi on Arapahoe and Dayton. We'd gone there once before with Derek and Jenny and it was really good. Even though I'm not huge on sushi myself, I found something there that I really enjoy, and I can at least recognize that the food is something people who do like sushi could really get into. I've been wanting to take some friends there for a while and Tuesday offered the perfect opportunity.

Next time I go, I'll be getting the "all you can eat" for $20 meal, for sure. Most of the entrees are available in smaller format so you can try them all out, and if you get a regular entree and any sushi at all, you'll already be spending that much. The AYCE really is fantastic, I have to say. $20 is pretty standard for most meals at a decent restaurant and for sushi, it's incredibly reasonable. I actually ordered a dish called "chicken katsu" which was two panko-breaded and fried chicken breasts. Very tasty. Jenna got her peppered beef again, and Nate got beef yakisoba, I believe. AJ took the route I did on my first trip and got the AYCE as a means of trying a lot of different sushi to see what he liked. He ended up really enjoying the teriyaki salmon. Makes me want to try it next time we go. And there will be a next time, for sure. Anyone who enjoys sushi and would like to go sometime should let me know and we can set up a time to head over there. It's very close to my house and I'm always up for a good meal.

After dinner, we went back to our house and played "Wise and Otherwise" for a few hours. Very cool game. I'm pretty sure I've described it on here before, so I won't go into it again. In any case, it was a very fun evening, and it was good to hang with Nate and Adj, as always.

I also tested my sling last night, the results of which are posted at my new blog, Geek Kraft.

Geek-Kraft

2009-04-28T09:52:00.002-06:00

Last night, I made a sling from stuff i just had lying around the house. I was talking with my friend Adj and he suggested I write a blog called "making geeky stuff with Jared" and I thought it wasn't a half bad idea. I found an available blog title that fits my theme and posted a simple intro. I haven't gotten much on there yet as far as style changes or anything, but I figured I'd let folks know it's there. With 1,000 hits on this blog, I thought I might try my hand at a themed blog. Since I'm something of a crafty dude, that was the obvious choice.

So anyhow, if you're interested in my random ramblings about what's going on in my life, my cooking, my shooting, my video games, my family, etc. this is still the right place to be. If you're more interested in how to make a sling, or to etch glass, or to vacuum-form thermoplastics, then you're better off over here.

Enjoy!

Slacking!

2009-04-27T09:18:00.002-06:00

Seriously, one post last week? What the heck? Well, we'll do better this week, for sure. Especially since I am rapidly approaching 1000 hits on this blog. Sweet!

Well, this past week was very fun. We won at trivia again, and have enough of a reputation now that people mutter under their breath when we show up to play. That's sort of cool in a way. We give away most of our free drinks though, so that helps keep us from seeming like total jerks. I hope. Our quizmaster informed us that there's no quiz this week, which is a bit lame. We enjoy our weekly trivia night very much, so missing out even for just a week, will feel odd. On a positive note, the bar did get back on track with the "extra goodies" theme last week, giving each of us a t-shirt.

Thursday I went shooting with my dad, which is always a good time. I did well on both handguns and shotguns. We're consistently getting 19/25 or higher on the auto-trap which isn't too bad at all. I haven't gotten more than 21/25 yet, unfortunately. I think we'll keep getting better though, especially if we can start going more consistently.

Unfortunately, I also started feeling a bit wonky starting Tuesday night, extending through Wednesday and Thursday. Not terrible, just a bit of a head cold. I stayed home from work on Friday to recuperate. it did help, I think, though I still felt like crap all of Friday and all of Saturday. Jenna was also sick pretty much the same time I was, but it didn't seem to hit her as hard as it did me. She's a tough little wife. Thankfully, we both felt much better on Sunday morning, so we still go to play our Rifts game. I made Chicken Parmesan, which seemed to go over quite well. Below, find my recipe, as it stands.

Chicken Parmesan: Chicken, with some stuff on it.

Take some chicken breasts and clean them up. Get any weird dangly bits and obvious fat deposits removed, then dredge with flour. I'm told this step helps the actual breading from flaking off. Next, dip into thoroughly-beaten egg. Then, dip into a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Put into a covered skillet, cook until...cooked. Place in a dish, top with a slice of provolone cheese, then cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes or so.

Pretty basic, eh? Here are some notes I have and questions that came up with this most recent attempt: First off, how do I keep the breading from sloughing off of my chicken? Even with the flour, it still happened. I cooked these on the stovetop instead of in the oven like I normally do, which may be part of the problem. Maybe cooking in the oven is a better bet? Maybe I need to cook them in a non-stick pan? I sprayed some olive oil in there, but that didn't seem to help much, especially after the first flip. Also, I noticed that the chicken breasts I used were very thick and bulky. This isn't bad if you're into a heck of a lot of chicken, but it means you're getting a lot less surface area for your good crusty stuff to hang onto. I'm thinking maybe I should pound these flat a bit so they're thinner, will cook faster, and will have more crust per unit of chicken.

I'm really hoping Kristie will read this and have some suggestions, since I like making this and even with the specified issues it turns out pretty well. I'd like to fix what problems I have with it so that it will be a consistent product worthy of serving to my friends and family without me having to worry about the chicken being cooked through or all the good crustiness flaking off and ending in a soggy pile on the plate somewhere, or worse yet in the cooking pan.

Bit of a break

2009-04-20T08:07:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while since I last posted. Stuff has been going on, but I've been too busy at work to spend much time writing. I caught up a week's worth of work on Friday, though, so I've got all the time in the world now!

Let's start at the beginning. Or rather, the middle. Of last week. Well, Thursday, anyway. it was the first meeting of our new book club where we had actually read the book, so that was cool. I never quite understood the point of a book club before, as I didn't think there would be much to discuss with the books I tend to read. That still mostly holds true for Red Planet by Robert Heinlein, since it's very short and there isn't much worthy of debate. There are definitely strong libertarian themes in the book, but the opposition is presented as being completely lame and not even the most authoritarian reader can't really sympathize with them. It was a good book, but it wasn't something that will really raise a lot of questions about the nature of governance and whatnot. Now, we're reading Weaveworld by Clive Barker. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm having mixed feelings. Some of it is really good and interesting and some is odd and strangely written. We'll see how it pans out.

Friday we got to leave early from work, which was awesome. I went home and Jenna and I played video games all night. Saturday, there were more video games, though this time I got to play a bit of Left 4 Dead with Steve, so that was really fun. Poor kid's stuck up in the frozen wasteland of the north (Big Piney, WY), so any time I get to talk with him or whatever, I do try to take advantage of it. We were a bit worried about getting to our game on Saturday afternoon, but the roads really weren't that bad. Our game was really fun. The whole thing actually focused on my character, which is sort of a first. I'm extremely curious about what Adj has come up with for me, now. There's some really interesting stuff happening that I'll need to think on rather al ot to figure out how best to proceed.

Something interesting that Adj came up with that I really like, is the association of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Details) with role-playing games. It really fits well. When your character is dealing solely with staying alive on a day-to-day basis, there's no time to develop him or her as a person with a history and a future. Unfortunately, when you're stuck at the second level (Safety) you also can't really form bonds of friendship with those around you. That means your character may not really know much of anything about the other characters around him. It makes for a very simplistic game. It can still be fun, but you don't form the same connection to characters, and I think it actually makes the players feel less involved. Adj, having realized this, does an exceptional job of getting us opportunities to have our characters realize their place in a larger world, recognize and achieve goals, solve problems in a creative way and to grow and change in meaningful ways. This is only one of the many reasons I have told him on multiple occasions that he is the greatest GM of ever.

Sunday was another day of video games. This may sound very boring, but we're both playing games we absolutely love. I'm off Fable 2 for the moment and back onto Fallout 3. I'm working on achieving all there is to achieve, finishing all sidequests, discovering all possible areas, etc. It's a ridiculously huge game, which is awesome. I'm making full use of my strategy guide, too. I'm really enjoying it, and when I'm done, there are already two expansions! So you don't think that we're total lazy freaks, we did go and play racquetball for about an hour and a half on Sunday and I did spend a few hours in the garage, working on my joinery. I'm not having any luck at all with my finger joints with any method I've tried so far. I think I need to make myself a jog of some kind. The way I tried yesterday was closer than I've gotten before, but there's still way too much chance for slight variation, and the whole process takes for freaking ever. I'll keep thinking about it and trying things until something works.

Thanks for reading!

Sunglasses

2009-04-15T15:29:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, I got my sunglasses. You guys really don't know how happy I am about it. I never wore sunglasses until my mom-in-law bought the original pair for me and then I never went without them. After I lost them, I was still used to wearing sunglasses, so I kept wearing my various crappy backup pairs until my new set came in. I hadn't realized the difference a good quality pair of sunglasses makes until I had them and had to go back to crappy ones and then got awesome ones again. Everything is so clear! Colors aren't distorted nearly as much, there's much less glare and everything is distinct. They are, in fact, the greatest sunglasses ever devised by man.

In case you're wondering about the specifics, here's the lowdown: Rayban 3025 001/58. They are the classic aviator style, in a polarized green-gray lens that is 58 mm wide. If I have a chance, I may see if I can find the slightly larger size at a sunglass store sometime just to see if that would work better for my excessively large head. For now, though, I'm happy as a clam.

Domination is our Game

2009-04-15T07:53:00.003-06:00

Last night, the Gentlemen Beekeepers perpetrated a full-on victory sweep of the Geeks Who Drink trivia extravaganza. Did we win the game itself? Of course. Did we win the internet bonus prize? Certainly. Did we also win every other bonus question asked? Heck yes we did. This is the maximum amount of victory possible in one evening of trivia, something we haven't ever managed before.

Now, to be fair, it was a very light night. Extremely light. Like only us and three other teams, two of which left before the end of the quiz I think. Even so, we managed a very respectable score (above 70) so I don't feel too bad about all of it.

For the full run-down, head over to Student Doctor Awesome's official GWD blog: Geeks Who Drink

Still keeping up with my morning calisthenics. Doing week three of my pushup program for the third time and noticing that it is getting easier, which is good. Also bumped my ab work to 35 reps per set. I'm now doing normal crunches, then a double set of bicycles (like the "right-elbow-to-left-knee thing, but with more motion), then my leg-lowering thing (I'm told it's called a soldier's press?). I'm definitely feeling the workouts, but I'll have to start measuring my arms and chest and whatnot to see if I'm making any noticeable advancements.

Swords!

2009-04-14T13:23:00.002-06:00

I'm sure most of your know this already, but in case you don't pay attention I'll tell you anyway. I'm into swords. Bladed objects of all kinds, really. Actually, even non-bladed weaponry. Okay, really just weapons in general. Where was I? Oh yes. Swords.

I started collecting swords essentially as soon as I had money of my own and the means to get somewhere that sold weapons. Oddly enough, my first true swords were purchased in France and Spain. You would think I'd have started a bit closer to home, but there you have it. I got a really cheap stainless steel katana, some kind of miniature Spanish sword and a U.S. cavalry saber. The saber was made in India and is actually made of a pretty decent material and fairly well constructed. Not amazing quality, but it took frighteningly large gouges out of the katana when a friend and I played with them in the backyard once. After that, I continued buying swords. I wasn't at all concerned with quality, really. I just kept buying them and leaning them in corners or putting them on shelves. I currently own now fewer than two dozen swords, I'd wager, and only two of them are of anything approaching functional quality. These are the cavalry saber (which got badly rusted over the years due to poor care on my part) and a hand-and-a-half sword (also called a 'bastard sword') I got from my parents for Christmas one year. I have very nearly a full set of cheap knock-off Lord of the Rings swords, including a really tolerable Witch King sword. To sum up, I was after quantity, not quality. My primary concern was cost. If it was cheap, I'd buy it. I didn't have any money and I didn't realize at that young age that having a ton of really cheap swords wasn't actually all that great. Now I have more swords than I know what to do with, so most of them continue leaning in corners or sitting in boxes.

As my age advanced and my wisdom grew (and as I started making enough money to buy cool stuff) I got a little less interested in buying just any sword. Now, I do research. I do a lot of research. If any of my friends are unlucky enough to be around when I get on a research kick, they will learn more about that topic than they would ever care to know. Those who were talking to me a few months ago when I first got back into the idea of buying a nice sword were treated to a link to this site: Sword Buyer's Guide

If you are even a little interested in buying a sword that you can use to cut up stuff in your back yard without it flying apart in your hand, this is the place to go. They have really in-depth reviews of a lot of swords, including videos of people cutting with them. They also have some really neat articles about the history of sword-making, various styles of sword, how they're made now versus historically, etc. If you like swords, you'll love this site.

I like this sword, the Tenchi. It's a fully functional katana. It comes sharp and based on what I've read, it is extremely durable. I like it. It's simple, tough, functional and has a good look to it, I think. I'm definitely excited about it.

I'm also excited for trivia tonight. Woo-hoo!

Geekery

2009-04-09T08:51:00.004-06:00

Tuesday night has become a consistent evening of trivial fun for us, and I like it that way. We're attending (and winning) the Littleton Geeks Who Drink event on a much more regular basis than we were able to attend (or win) the one we were going to in the DTC. It's very fun. The quizmaster is really cool, much easier to understand and all that jazz, and he really seems to like our team. The blog he writes for the event is always an entertaining read, not least because it tends to mention me and my friends in a positive light. You do know that I'm susceptible to flattery, right?

In any case, we won again this week. Hard. We beat the second-place team by 20 points. In a quiz where 6 of the 8 rounds are worth 8 points each, 20 is a lot of points to have. We're still getting pint glasses (one each for Jenna and I) and are now having to find space in our cabinet for them. They're nice than some of our other glasses, so we may be replacing sometime soon. We're also getting gift certificates worth $25, which just happens to be precisely the amount of money we tend to spend between the three of us for an evening at the Celtic Tavern. We're also getting a few folks who are simply aghast at our knowledge. One of the rounds this week was "stalking fictional characters." It essentially gave you a description of a character from TV, books, etc. and you had to identify the character by name. One of the descriptions was something along the lines of "This dispossessed dwarf and his family won't stop whining about how a dragon stole their inheritance and their mountain." I knew immediately that it was from the Hobbit, but couldn't remember the main dwarf's name. Thankfully Adj was there and told me the correct answer. When the round was over and Student Doctor Awesome (our quizmaster) was reading out the questions and answers (at which point you are supposed to yell out the answer if you know it) I yelled "Thorin Oakenshield!" at the appropriate time. The guys who took third looked over at me, flabbergasted and said "How the heck do you know that?" To which I could reply only "We're actual geeks." That concept seems lost on most of the participants in the pub quiz, unfortunately. Though it is called 'Geeks Who Drink' I think there's more drink than geek on the average team. In any case, we had a fantastic time as always and you can read all about it here: Geeks Who Drink Blog

Last night, Jenna and I went to the monthly game night my cousin and his wife are hosting and had a blast. First off, it's just great to see them. John, as he so eloquently said in his toast as my best man at our wedding, is more like a brother than a cousin. We've been close our whole lives, even when we've only been able to see each other a few times a year. Having a regularly scheduled hang-out time with him is awesome. Last night some of his friends (who I have also known for quite a while) were there as well and that just made it even better. We played some "Wise and Otherwise," a game we first played with Jenna's family at their house on our last trip to CA. We really enjoyed it a lot and, because that's just the kind of people they are, they sent it to us recently so we could keep enjoying it. Have I mentioned before that my in-laws are the nicest people ever? If not, please make note of it. After we finished that game, John busted out a game called "Shadows Over Camelot." It was freaking cool. This game deserves a new paragraph. Maybe several.

First off, all the pieces of the game are extremely well-made. It's just a high-quality construction, like a Fantasy Flight game (another game company that consistently impresses me). The cardboard is thick and heavy, the plastic pieces are detailed and strong (or flexible, as needed) and the cards are sturdy. Everything is colorful, well-designed and just plain pretty. For anyone unfamiliar with the King Arthur stories (as I am, even after taking a class specifically about it in college), there are several quests that the knights go on. Finding the Holy Grail is probably the biggest one. Excalibur is another. Something about a dragon is in there, too. I think there's also a black knight. In any case, they're all in the game. You're playing one of the knights of the round table (including king Arthur) and you have to travel to these different areas and attempt these quests. It wouldn't be that bad if the game weren't specifically designed to make you cry like a little girl. Let's take the grail quest as an example, but first, some background. Rather uniquely, this is a cooperative board game. You, the players, are fighting together to defeat the game itself. Every turn, each knight has a choice of what to do for the "evil progression." You can place a catapult outside Camelot (when there are 12, you lose), lose a life (you start at four and when you get to zero you die), or draw and play a black card. The black cards are horrifying. Every time someone reached for the pile last night, it was as if they had just punched a baby seal. The whole table erupted in gasps and whimpers. The black cards symbolize Camelot's enemies making progress against the knights and their goals. There are black cards specific to each quest, and some "special" black cards. The special cards lay down more catapults, take your life, remove your progress on current quests, etc. They hose you.

The regular black cards (getting back to the grail quest) hinder your progress. So, when a "Despair" card is played, it is placed on the grail track (7 slots, if I remember correctly) in an open space. If all the slots aren't open, the despair card removes a good grail card and opens that space. On your turn, if you are at the grail quest and have grail cards in hand (you start with 5 cards and only get new ones by completing quests or hanging out in Camelot, not doing other quests) you can play them the same way. Lay down a grail card on the track or remove a despair card. It doesn't seem that tough until you realize that there are seven folks sitting around the table drawing these cards. If you get a run of bad luck on grail cards, you can lose very very quickly. If you lose the grail quest (all slots are filled with despair cards) you place three black swords on the round table (all failed quests place black swords, when you reach a total of 7 you lose the game), and anyone who is still at the quest loses life. Fun, huh? I don't know that I'm adequately expressing the terror with which this game fills you. it is a real nail-biter. We actually won last night, entirely through good luck and some good play by our players. Any one of dozens of cards in the black deck could have beaten us severely if played at the wrong time. Still, we survived. Awesome. It was one of the most thrilling victories I've had in a board game ever. It's enhanced by the fact that nobody at the table is a loser when you win. You all win together, which is great.

Oh wait, I think I'm forgetting something...oh yeah. We cheated. See, we all played as a team, trying to help each other out, finishing quests, sacrificing some benefit to ourselves for benefit to the group as a whole, and so on. The game actually calls for a traitor in the game, randomly selected. He's someone who is trying to stop you from winning, but you don't know who he is. You can accuse people of being the traitor, but you get a black sword every time you guess wrong. The traitor can guess, too. This is what I think would elevate the game to a different plane from most games. It's still a co-op game, but you've added a layer of mystery, intrigue and betrayal. If I didn't make it clear in the beginning, this game is freaking hard without the traitor. With everyone doing their very best to win last night, we still nearly lost. If one of our players had been working against us, I don't know that we would've had a chance. A smart traitor can do things that seem helpful but are really designed to slow you down, kill your players, earn black swords, place catapults, etc. it's an element the game can run without, and which I don't think it needs to be very fun. The game wants to hurt you without any help from a traitor. As John mentioned reading in a review last night, "Shadows Over Camelot is a pretty game. It thinks you look pretty, too." That's in the 'Deliverance' sense of pretty, mind you, not the ballerina sense. It's a challenge just to beat the game, and playing a game on a team with your friends is a fun and different sort of experience. Since it's best played with 7 people or so, I don't know that we'll get it for ourselves. It is extremely fun, but we rarely have that many people available.

Wikipedia:Shadows Over Camelot

Still keeping up with my situps and pushups this week. I'm doing 30 reps in each set for my situps now and will move to 35 next week, slowly and steadily increasing as I go. I think it's a good way to do it, but we'll have to see what the results show after I've been doing it for a while. WiiFit still says I'm obese. Bastard.

Things to do, places to be

2009-04-06T11:20:00.002-06:00

I feel very accomplished this weekend. I finally finished my pegboard project (pictures soon) which was very nice. It took me a lot longer than it had any reason to, but I learned a lot and that certainly counts for something. I'm having a hard time getting my finger joints to work. I was hoping to be able to use my router, but I may have to invest in a dado blade set or do them by hand first. Doing them by hand seems like it would sort of suck, unfortunately. I'm not as precise as i need to be to get these things to match up properly. I'm sure practice will help, but I prefer templates when possible. That's the nice thing with the router or table saw, and why I'd like to go that direction. You set up a template or a jig and you can just run through it all really quickly. We'll see if I can do what I want with what I have, I guess.

We went to Erick's house for his b-day on Saturday and that was really fun. Got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in too long. Three of us couple all got married last summer, so we were all going through a lot of the same things at the same time, and we're all recovering on about the same pace, it seems. I'd like to set something up to hang with them more often. Maybe a game night every other week or something would work. I don't know, but we'll figure something out.

Sunday was Rifts and that was very fun as per usual. We're progressing quickly through the levels, so we're getting some much-needed skills and abilities to help us survive the world. I made chicken pot pie again this week and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I also made deviled eggs, which were a moderate hit. It's always a great time to have people over for dinner and games. All of our friends are awesome, and I'm really glad we're seeing them regularly now. All these roleplaying games keep us pretty busy, but it's a good busy. We're going to have to figure out how to get away for a weekend now and again this summer, I think. I'm very excited about camping and hiking and Jenna really wants to go kayaking on a reservoir. I think that sounds really fun, too.

kept up with my situps and pushups today and Saturday again. I'm feeling pretty good about my habits, so I may try to increase my efforts. My Wii Fit said I was obese this morning, and that's hardly cool. Intellectually, I know BMI is a miserable indicator of health, body composition, ideal weight, muscle-to-fat ratio or any other useful information. Psychologically, it's tough to handle being called obese by a video game. I need to run or something.

Minor Updates

2009-04-03T09:19:00.002-06:00

Not a ton going on right now, I suppose. Did all my pushups this morning for a total of 92 (26, 24, 22, 20). I'm still having trouble getting all of them in one go for each set, so I may repeat this week again and see if I do any better by the end of it. I'm definitely feeling them, which is always a good sign. My knee seems to have healed up nicely, so I may go try to ride the stationary bike tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Here's my next project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_joint

I want to make small wooden boxes with these joints on the corners. I'd also like to set etched glass into the top, and line them with something. I don't know. I just thought it would be a neat project. I may also make a larger box like this for rolling dice when camping. I think that would be pretty cool and sufficiently geeky.

We made enchiladas last night with some mild red sauce and they were pretty good. I think we both prefer the green, so we'll probably do that from now on. We just need to find a brand that's nice and mild. My mother-in-law (or as I like to call her, my secondary maternal unit) said that she tried my recipe and it turned out well. She normally does a bunch of other fancy stuff to hers that makes it taste better (fries each tortilla to soften it before wrapping it around the chicken, adds veggies, etc) but she told me mine was still good and quite a bit faster to make. I'll have to try softening up the tortillas in a skillet sometime, because that does sound really good. Still, I always love to hear when people try stuff I post on here. Makes me feel like I'm doing a public service or something.

Shooting for the moon

2009-04-02T08:08:00.012-06:00

Last night, my dad and I went to the range. It was super cold out, so we went to the indoor place and shot handguns instead of shotguns. It has been a month or more since I've shot a handgun, so I'm pretty pleased with my performance last night. I keep worrying that if I don't keep practicing on a very regular basis, all my skill will disappear, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However many thousands of rounds I've put through this gun seems to have more or less ingrained it into me.

Without further, ado, here are my targets from last night:

This one is 10 shots at 25 feet.

Same target as above, but with 10 shots to center mass.

Closer view of the grouping. That's no more than three or four inches across, which isn't too bad at 25 feet.

Here's where I was trying some double taps. They've definitely spread out a lot (especially since this is only 15 feet) but almost all still within the 9 and 10 areas.

I like these targets because it's easy to pick out different places to shoot on the same target. With a bullseye, you can shoot the center, but anything else is a little tough to define. This is 10 shots at 25 feet again.

Ten shots at 35 feet here. I had one weird wandering shot where I felt myself jerk the trigger. I think that's sort of a constant battle, though. I'll keep fighting the urge.

20 rounds at 35 feet. The grouping is bigger, but still respectable. I jerked a shot here, too. Right as I was pulling my trigger, the guy next to me fired and the sound startled me. I really need to work on not letting that happen.

Another 10 shots at 35 feet. Keeping them all inside the 10-ring (or at least darned close) isn't bad, I guess.

My first target of the night shot at 25 feet. If you look closely, you'll see all the score numbers on the various body parts and where I attempted to shoot them all. I don't think I was more than an inch off of any of them. Sweet!

Anyway, that's what I did last night. Always good fun, and a great way to spend some time with my dad.

The Gentlemen Beekeepers

2009-04-01T08:44:00.003-06:00

Rock! We got first place at trivia last night. Hooray! Another $25 gift certificate and a shiny new pint glass for each of us. We rocked the house, to be honest. We got perfect scores on at least two rounds, including a 16-point audio round. I think that's the first time we've ever done that, and it was almost entirely due to Adj's overwhelming knowledge of 80s music. We did well on the other audio round too, also thanks almost entirely to Adj's knowledge of female comedians. The man has some knowledge, it cannot be denied.

It's good to know that The Gentlemen Beekeepers (our team) are well-known enough now that the quizmaster has taken note of us. After just one week (where we finished second) we seem to be favorites when we walk in the door now. That's a bit of a boost to the old self-esteem. I think it must've been my furious, no doubt frightening performance during the dance-off. We may not have taken first, but we took second with a style and grace normally reserved for drunken amputees.

Jenna and I went to the store last night and got some ingredients for foods. She's really excited about me making more of that chicken pot pie, and I think I came up with something that may make it even better. I'm thinking about brushing the croissant with an egg wash before cooking to make it extra golden brown and crispy. We'll see. I'm also thinking maybe just some melted butter brushed on there would be super tasty. So anyway, that's one meal we have planned. I think we're going to do some more enchiladas, too. This time we got a mild red enchilada sauce and we're hoping it won't be quite as spicy as what we had last time. I'm also going to try very hard to make some burgers in the oven sometime this week. If they are successful, expect a recipe. If not, expect a lot of whining on my part.

Also, I ordered some replacement sunglasses yesterday. They were still expensive, but totally worth it. I expect them within a week, hopefully.

This morning, I did 84 pushups in total. I feel pretty awesome about it. I probably shouldn't, but I do anyway.

Continuing workouts

2009-03-31T14:42:00.004-06:00

Oh, I forgot to mention that I've started week three of the pushup program, and am working in the right column. it's tough, but that's the idea, right?

I've also started doing some different crunches. I do 25 normal, then 25 right-elbow-to-left-knee, then 25 left-elbow-to-right-knee, then 25 leg lowering things. Those are great for lower abs, which normal crunches don't seem to work well for me. I'm going to keep doing those for a bit until that set of 100 gets too easy and then move them all up to 35 reps or something. I don't entirely know, but I'll keep everyone posted.

Also, my wife says she has already noticed my arms getting bigger. I don't notice that sort of thing, but if she can tell, that's a victory. Apparently I respond well to exercise, even something as simple as several pushups every other day for a few weeks. I'll take it.

Busy busy!

2009-03-31T13:42:00.003-06:00

Wow, this weekend was crazy busy, and this week isn't looking much better. Friday was vaguely calm, at least. We ran out to get some glass-etching materials from Hobby Lobby after work, then came home and worked on that a bit. it's really cool and surprisingly easy to use. The toughest part is cutting the glass into the proper shape and size and all that. Once you have that done, you just put down some kind of adhesive layer (I used masking tape, but contact paper would be better) then cut out your design with an exacto knife. Peel the pattern pieces off and slather the etching cream on there. Wait five minutes, rinse it off, remove the rest of the tape/paper, then rinse again. Your design should be etched into the glass on a very permanent basis. Sweet! I made a few minor little pieces with simple patterns on them. The masking tape doesn't cut as cleanly as the contact paper, so the edges aren't as sharp as I'd like, but the principle is there. I think this will be a very cool way to make some unique little projects.

Saturday we had our supers game, but we had to help our friends Dave and Jax move a bit before that. We weren't abel to do much, but I did help them get their giant couch and fridge up the narrow staircase to their third floor apartment. Whee. Still, when you know a lot of folks and you have a fair bit of burl, you get used to helping people move. I'm glad I could help, as those two giant items were their main concerns, I think. After doing that, we went back to the house, I grabbed a quick shower just in time to go play our supers game. It's such a good time. I know some of you aren't into roleplaying, but it's honestly just a great way to spend time with friends doing something unique and interesting. My character has been sort of a background dude, story-wise, up to this point. I was cool with it, and was certainly having a good time, but something just happened to him that makes me think there is more going on than I had planned on. In any case, it's all interesting stuff, and I'm excited to learn about what's going on.

Sunday was also very fun. My parents picked us up and drove us north to meet my sisters so all the women folk could do a shopping day for Jenna's long-past birthday. It was just a scheduling thing that made it take so long, but it was super cute that they wanted to take her out, regardless. My dad and I ran around to every sporting goods store in a 10-mile radius and were absolutely amazed to find empty shelves in every firearms department. Most places said they hadn't had new ammo in weeks and as soon as it came in, people bought all of it. People are scared, and it seems like they're hoarding what they can while they can. There haven't been too many overt moves yet to outlaw particular guns, but there have been some subtle nudges in the direction at least. It's enough to worry a lot of folks. We'll have to see how it all pans out, but it's worth thinking about to anyone with a preparatory bent.

Last night I had to work super late so I got hom with just enough time ot eat dinner, watch Heroes and go to bed. Working 11 hours in a day is un-fun, I will say. Hopefully I don't have too many of those. Tonight is supposed to be trivia, and I'm definitely excited about that. We always have a great time when we go, and it's a good chance to see Steve and Ami when they can make it. it's also a good way to get to hang with Adj even more than we do with our gaming on the weekends. He and I make a darned good trivia team, if I do say so myself.

I also got tasked with something interesting this weekend: to find a set of speakers for my sister and bro-in-law that are better and less expensive than Bose. I don't think it'll be that tough. If you have any knowledge in the home audio arena, or have any friends who do, I'd appreciate suggestions, recommendations, etc. Right now, I'm leaning toward this setup: KEF KHT3005SE. They have been reviewed as unadulterated awesome on every site I've found mention of them. They cost about half what the system we saw from Bose did, and the people who own them and Bose say that they are vastly superior in sound quality. not too bad for just a few days of looking, eh? I also like these, but haven't found as much about them: Orb Audio. The only thing I don't like about them is that they seem to be one speaker attempting to do all things, similar to the Bose setup. They're better designed for sure, but I think you need something different from your center speaker than you do from your rear speakers, based solely on what you want that speaker to accomplish. KEF has designed a center speaker specifically to help keep the dialogue clear and even, while the rest are built for music, sound effects, etc. I think that shows forethought, and I'd love to hear the difference between these various systems before I make a full recommendation.

For anyone who wants the skinny on Bose, here's some incredibly technical info: Intellexual on Bose.

Also, here's a picture of our cat in our Kitchen sink, just because it's super cute.

Snow day!

2009-03-27T08:04:00.002-06:00

Well, half of one anyway. I write to you now, the only person in my office after we got to head out early yesterday due to inclement weather. We were expecting over a foot and got maybe 6-8 inches, but it was enough to get us all home early. Yesterday was awesome. Jenna and I cuddled under a blanket on the couch and watched Burn Notice and played video games and drank hot chocolate all day. I made steak again, and the 3:30 for each side seems to be pretty darned perfect. Really, few days are that awesome.

Also, I wanted everyone to know that I'm keeping up with my good habits. Both Jenna and I are flossing every night before bed and have been doing so for a few weeks now. I know for some people this isn't a big deal, but I've never been good about doing it consistently. Jenna has actually been better about it in the past than I have, and her tiny adorable teeth are better for it, we're told. I'm also trying to do my whitening trays with some regularity, as I did pay an absurd amount of money for all that jazz and it seems a waste not to use it.

My morning regimen (my other good habit) has been going well, too. I switched from squats to crunches this week, as I did something unfortunate to my knee this weekend. I've still been doing my pushups, though, and the crunches are no doubt a good thing to be doing as well. I did a total of 45 pushups this morning to finish off week two. I'm thinking I'll take my test on Sunday morning to see how many I can do now. Since it was 20+ last time, I'm sure I'll end up in the second column for weeks three and four as well. It looks a little daunting, but I'll just make it happen and be far better off for it. At the end fo the next two week period, I will have more than doubled my total morning pushups. Not too shabby, eh?

The Unexpected

2009-03-25T08:22:00.004-06:00

So...I won my first dance-off last night. I really wasn't planning on that when we went out. Let me start earlier.

We made enchiladas last night for dinner. Very easy, very tasty. You remember my slow-cooked vaguely Mexican pork/chicken recipe? If not, this one's even easier. I put two thawed chicken breasts into my one-quart slow cooker. I poured a can of green enchilada sauce in there. I turned it on. Several hours later (8 if you had it on low, 4 if you had it on high) I took two forks and shredded the chicken, getting it nice and mixed up with the sauce. I grabbed a pyrex dish (smaller than the 3-quart I used for the chicken pot pie, maybe 2 quarts?) and some corn tortillas. I put the corn tortillas in the microwave in their plastic bag for about a minute. This helps steam then and soften them up. Honestly, it doesn't matter. They're going to get mangled in the dish anyway, so who gives a crap? Just put some chicken into each tortilla, roll them up a little and place the in the dish. Get them pretty snug in there, then pour another can of enchilada sauce (we used green, but red would work too) over the whole thing. Now sprinkle on about a buttload of shredded cheese. I used some cheddar and monterey jack and it was very good. If you don't shred your cheese yourself, you're really missing out. I was always a guy who bought shredded cheese from the store and said it was just as good, but this is not the case. Freshly shredded cheese melts better, tastes better, looks better, does everything better. The only exception is mozzarella, in my mind. I like the shredded stuff because fresh mozzarella has a gross taste to me. Anyway, now you have your whole enchilada tray made up, toss it in the oven on 350 for like 15 minutes. Your chicken is cooked and still hot, so you're really just melting the cheese. After the cheese melts, pull the pyrex out and let it rest for another 10-15 minutes. It'll be freakin' hot. Sever and serve. Sour cream would be great on this, as would some black olives or any other vaguely mexican vegetable thingy you like. Really, this is a baseline. You can add to it as you see fit.

After dinner, Adj came to the house to catch a ride to trivia. Ami and Steve just introduced us to the new trivia place for Tuesday nights run by Geeks Who Drink (http://www.geekswhodrink.com/blog/index.php?blog=70). They couldn't make it last night, but the three of us went out anyway to see what we could see. We actually did extremely well. We called ourselves The Gentlemen Beekeepers, after having read this blog yesterday: http://jameskennedy.com/2009/03/06/america-emulate-this-man/ . This week was easier than most, and was actually pretty well suited to our relatively limited knowledge. We got all of the "ER, Grey's Anatomy or MASH?" questions, all of the visual round questions, almost all of the "Piano Man" stuff, almost all of the "Legal Speak" round and a good chunk of all other rounds, too. The music round was actually pretty good, too. We got 11 of 16 possible points, which isn't too shabby. Normally I know absolutely none of the songs they're playing. This time it was butt rock and I knew about half outright and knew parts of at least one or two more. Adj also knew a goodly amount so between the two of us we managed more than half the answers. The last round was rough, especially since none of knew any of the levels of Girl Scout other than Brownie. Shows how well I paid attention when my sister was in it, I suppose. Anyway, when it all ended, we were in a tie for second place, just four points behind first.

This is when we learned that there is a dance-off to decide ties. I was unaware. Jenna, despite having said she wanted to dance just moments before, declined. Adj also didn't seem too keen on it. I figured it would be a pretty short dance, so i figured I could Charleston for a couple seconds and call it good. I did this for the first 15 seconds. The girl I was dancing against wasn't terrible, but she wasn't awesome, either. She also didn't really do much different the second round than the first, so when I did some more Charleston and finished off with a pretty lame cartwheel, apparently that was enough to win the crowd. Really, I was just hoping it would end quickly. I've lost far too many bar-based costume contests to girls in Wal-Mart costumes to count on beating any female at anything in a bar ever again. To my surprise, I got the overwhelming support of everyone in the bar except for the team my opponent represented. Sweet! not too shabby for my first dance-off. I'm now at one for one, and I'm happy to let my record stand thusly for a good long while.
Here's some eye candy for all you ladies out there.

Making!

2009-03-24T13:24:00.003-06:00

For your watching enjoyment, here are a bunch of really awesome videos that show you how to make cool stuff. I'm totally going to get in on this.

Foam Factory

Vacuum Former

Stilts

Spud Gun

Variables

2009-03-24T08:38:00.002-06:00

As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, my wife and I eat a lot of steak. We were on hiatus for a good long while, but have recently rejoined the steaky world of steak-eaters. I keep changing my cooking method, the dimensions of the steak, the quantity of steak, etc. I think I found something that works well for us, though. The new grill pan thingy (http://www.amazon.com/Emerilware-Cast-Iron-Reversible-Grill-Griddle/dp/B000JZYOHQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1237907090&sr=8-3 - Which we got for $15 from Ross. Woot!) works very well and gives the grill marks on the meat (which is always nice) but there's a lot less actual contact with the cast iron that way than in just a flat skillet. I had to increase the cook time on a good-sized steak to 3:30 each side, and let it rest for 12 minutes instead of 10. It came out cooked all the way through, but still nice and pink instead of nasty purple raw-meat. So that's a good thing, I think. Hopefully we can stick with this method now that we know about it.

Tonight, barring any unforeseen activities (trivia?) I think I'll work on my new begboard. I figuredo ut how to make my router bit move within the housing, so I should be able to rout a 1/4" groove into the flat side of a 1x2 to make a frame for the pegboard. The board itself is only 2'x4' but it should be enough for me to get some basic tools up there and keep my work space significantly more organized. It's also a good way for me to get more comfortable with my router. I did a couple of test runs and it was a little shaky. I think I may need to bring the router table down to the floor so I can put decent pressure on the board to hold it steady. I may even post pictures when I'm done. The whole thing cost less than $10 for the materials plus a few bucks for a variety pack of hooks, so it's a good investment i think. Anything to help me keep myself organized, really.

Also, I heard about this a while ago, but found an instructional video this time. I'm doing this. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/756433/laser_flashlight_hack/

Dinner and a Roleplaying Game

2009-03-23T09:12:00.003-06:00

We had another good, full weekend, which seems to be forming a pattern of busy but fun weekends I'm entirely okay with. We had a pretty quiet Friday evening mostly composed of shopping, I think. Honestly, I can't really remember. Saturday I finished Fable II in the morning, which was fun. I have to say the ending is pretty anti-climactic. Definitely not the best. I worked a little on a few projects in the middle of the day, then Devon and Rose called to see if we wanted to come over for dinner. We went over there about 6 and stayed until like 10:30 or so, eating steak, playing games, and generally having a great time. They're a really good family. Devon and I are absolutely brutal with each other verbally, but it's all in fun. Their son is a really cool kid, too. He's showing signs of true geekiness, and that's something I like to foster in young folks. Devon and Rose aren't geeky at all, so I think they like having me and Jenna around to show him that you can be a geeky grownup and still dress yourself and talk to people and all.

Sunday was really fun. We cleaned up the house in the morning, then everyone got to our place around 1:30 or so for the Rifts game. The group is really fun. Everyone's cool and nice and everything. No more super creepy freaks. The game is getting cooler, too. We're learning more about how we need to be working as a team, how to use our skills and abilities in innovative ways to fight the sorts of enemies we find, etc. We're also meshing together better as a team, learning to rely on one another and all that. We're playing in an environment of scarcity, which is different for me as a player. I'm not used to keeping track of my food and water, but it adds another interesting element to the game. It really drives home the desolation of the area our characters are exploring.

Dinner on Sunday was a great big success, it seems. I made a big-size chicken pot pie thingy we've tried before, but not with the same topper. Everyone really enjoyed the food, which always makes me happy. I simplified the recipe a bit, and tried some advice from Kristie, and it turned out better than it has in the past. Here's what I did:

Take half a stick of butter and a quarter of an onion, diced. Melt the butter in a 4-quart pot and put the onion in there. You're looking for a sweat, not a sautee, here. You want the onion to soften up a little and get translucent, not brown. It'll take a few minutes. Keep moving everything around so it doesn't burn or anything. When you've got the onion done, sprinkle in 5 tbsp of regular all purpose flour. Whisk this into the butter. This is called a roux, and it's going to thicken up really quickly, so you want to have some chicken broth to stir in there as well. About one and a half cans works. Something like three cups. Add it very slowly. As you add it, whisk it in until it's thoroughly combined with the roux. Keep adding it slowly and mixing it in until all the broth is in there. Now you'll want to let it simmer for a while. I had to let mine go for about 30 minutes ot get it to the consistency I liked. While this is happening, you can prep a few other things. Cook a couple of chicken breasts in your preferred method. Essentially they just need to be cooked through, so whatever you like is fine. I like cutting up my chicken before cooking and this meant that my chicken was done in almost no time. Once you have it cooked, you can add it to your gravy. Also add a bag of frozen mixed veggies. I thawed mine first, but you don't need to. It's a good idea to get the whole filling miz warmed up at least a little, though. Now, you need to preheat your oven to 375, open up a tube of crescent rolls, pull out a 3-quart Pyrex dish and get ready to finish this beast off. Pour the gravy/chicken/veggie mix into the pyrex. When you've got the crescent rolls unrolled, break them apart on the perforations and lay them on top of the filling. You want some gaps between, but not too much. Just enough to let some steam out. I ended up with two extra cresent roll pieces when I was done and you can toss these or throw them onto a baking sheet in the oven when you cook the whole thing. Pop the dish into the oven and let it be for about 12-15 minutes. Your indicator is the rolls on top. the filling is cooked already, so the oven just finishes the rolls, brings everything to the same temperature and helps tighten it all up a bit. When the rolls are golden brown on top, pull the dish out and let it sit for a few minutes. Serve and enjoy.

Book Club and Whatnot

2009-03-20T16:35:00.003-06:00

Last night, Jenna and I went to our first meeting of a sci-fi/fantasy book club my cousin is in. It was really cool, and I think we're going to join up and read the books and all. Should be awesome, not least because it gives us another excuse to hang with my cousin and his wife. We're reading Red Planet by Robert Heinlein next. I haven't read it before, but I've really enjoyed all the other Heinlein I've read, so I think it'll be good. If anyone is interested in the book club, drop me a comment here and I'll get you the info.

I haven't been cooking too much, unfortunately, due to late nights at work. I'm going to make some enchiladas tonight, so I'll write about that sometime soon (assuming they turn out well, of course). I'm also going to make a big mashed potato-topped chicken pot pie thing on Sunday, which should be tasty. I may end up doing a puff pastry top on it if I can get it all to work out. The only issue we've had in the past is that the gravy takes forever to thicken up and if we don't give it long enough, the pastry gets too soggy to get puffy and crispy. I think if we let it simmer for a darned long time so it thickens up a bunch, it'll be fine. We'll have to see. I may also put some arrowroot in there, as I'm told that thickens very well.

This week my dad and I started another NRA Marksmanship Qualification course. We already completed the handgun course (http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/marksmanship/Handgun.asp) through the Distinguished Expert rating, and are now working on shotgun (http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/marksmanship/shotgun.asp). It's really fun already and I think it's only going to get better. We shot two rounds (25 birds from the auto-trap machine) and both scored 19 and 21. Auto-trap is really cool. When shooting clay pigeons, there are a bunch of different ways to get them in the air. Hand throwers are basically flexible plastic handles with hooks on the end that allow you to fling the bird a good way, but they're not very consistent. Personally, I am terrible with them. Manual throwing is using a thrower on a pedestal. There's a spring and a swinging arm involved, and it's very consistent. You're limited as to the variation you can get out of it, though. With few exceptions, the birds all go the same distance, direction and elevation. Auto-trap is essentially a hand trap machine operated by an electrical impulse through a wired remote. It's also oscillating, so the birds come out at different angles every time. You say "Pull" and you don't know which direction it's going to go. That adds a huge level of skill and fun to the sport. Tracking the pigeon as it moves is the toughest part of shooting, and having it go at extreme angles or straight out from you means you have to swing horizontally sometimes, and other times you have to hold steady. It sounds easier than it is. In any case, we had a really great time and are very much looking forward to continuing to progress through the ranks.

I got Friday of week one of pushups done this morning, even though I woke up extremely late. Writing about it on here and having people working on the same stuff will help keep me motivated, I think. I'm going to do my free squats tomorrow, and then move onto week two of pushups on Monday. Sweet!

Body Weight Exercise

2009-03-19T09:13:00.002-06:00

One of the nice things about being a large guy is that body weight exercises involve a comparatively large amount of weight. Pushups, pullups, free squats, tricep dips, etc are all pretty good exercises for anybody, but for someone like me, they're even better. This is how I make myself feel better about being out of shape. See how I did that? In any case, I got back on the pushup program I've mentioned here and elsewhere before (http://www.100pushups.info/) and started on the right column of week one. My test actually suggested I should start on week two, but I want to get myself used to doing the exercise regularly again. My issue with working out (the same issue it seems I've always had) is consistency. I can go work really hard 3 days in a row, but then I'll drop off and slack for a week. Or I can go for one week but then slack for two. I don't get myself into the habit and maintain the commitment like I need to be doing in order to get the results I want. That's one of the things I'm liking about the bodyweight exercises. Anything I can do in my kitchen while I'm unloading dishes or in my bathroom right before I jump in the shower is pretty easy to get done even when I don't feel like it.

So here's my plan: Monday, Wednesday and Friday are pushup days. I'll be doing my pushups according to the plan on that website, and continuing to progress accordingly. I don't have any doubt I can get to 50 pushups in a row in a few weeks. I got nearly that many when I did the program before, and it didn't take me as long as I thought it would. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are free squat days.

If you don't know free squats, you should try them. You only use your body weight, but you do a whole lot of them all in a row without stopping. It's a lot harder than it sounds. A major thing to remember with these is that perfect form is your friend. Give this a try. Find a wall in your house. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your toes an inch or two from the wall. Now squat. Bumping your head, feeling unbalanced, putting holes in your home? The reason for this is that most folks squat forward, with their knees moving forward out over their toes. I'm told this is bad for the knees, and should be avoided. using the wall keeps you from doing this. You bend at the knees, but it's a 90 degree bend and the knees stay firmly over top of the feet instead of extending forward past the toes. Once you get the feel for this, you can stop using the wall and you'll keep good form without it. A good first goal for free squats is 50 in a row without stopping. If you can do that, shoot for 75, then 100. Once you can get 100 consistently without too much difficulty, you can advance to pistols, something I can't do and won't even try to pretend I can. It's essentially a one-legged squat. It's hard.

In any case, I can do 50 free squats now, and will continue doing 50 for the rest of this week, then move to 55 or 60 per day for the three days I'll be doing them next week. In a little while, I'll be doing 100 in a row and I should be noticing some differences in my body, I'm thinking. When I've worked out regularly in the past, I have had a tendency to put on muscle pretty easily, so I'm hoping that still holds true. I know I'm not going to get uber-bulky by doing just bodyweight exercises, but I'd be happy with most any gains I can get.

I do want to continue to work on my aerobics as well, and to that end I think the wife and I are going to play racquetball a few times a week. That's something I can do for an hour or more and have a good time doing, as opposed to anything in a stationary bike or treadmill where I get very bored after just a short time. It's still indoors, too, which is very nice. Also, I love that it's something Jenna and I can do together. I'm rather fond of her, as you're no doubt aware.

So that's the update there. I'll be posting my progress and whatnot as I make it.

Shows

2009-03-17T11:44:00.002-06:00

Okay, here's the lowdown: We watched Dollhouse up to the current episode last night, and watched the premiere of Kings. Both are freakin' sweet. I wasn't a huge fan of Dollhouse after the second episode, but there's a twist in the third that got me right back into it. Kings is amazing. Visually stunning, with some really great characters and actors. The world is neat, too, and makes me want to learn more about it.

Not much aside from that. Planning on staying in tonight as well, to avoid anyone driving around like a freakish loser.

We've got steaks and a new cast iron grill thingy, so that may be what we do for dinner. I hope so. It sounds really good after a long day at work. Yesterday I went home after only 8 hours and it felt like a mini-vacation. That's not really cool in my book, so I'm going to have to work on getting out of here on time as a rule rather than as the exception. I get to head out a bit early tomorrow to see my dad, so I'm excited about that. Thursday, we're heading to a sci-fi book club my cousin told us about, to see if we'll be interested in joining. I think it would be very cool to see John and Michelle more often if nothing else, and having someone else give me books to read would be nice, since I tend to get bogged down when left to my own devices. I'm actually down to only four concurrent reads at this point, only one of which is fiction, so I think I may be willing to start a new one or two soon. Any suggestions?

Big geeky weekend

2009-03-16T10:06:00.002-06:00

Hey there everyone. I'm sure you're all very excited to get another recap of my weekend activities. No? Well too bad!

Friday Jenna and I met our friends Derek and jenny for sushi and a movie. It was a really good time, and very cool to get to hang out with them again. The sushi place we went was crazy busy, which I took as a good sign. Now, to be clear, I'm not big on sushi. I don't get grossed out by it at all, it just isn't really my thing. We wanted to go with them because it sounded like they really love sushi and I also wanted to give it another chance with some people who know enough about it to be able to give me some pointers and whatnot. It was really fun and we tried a ton of different things. The place we went (Samurai Sushi on Arapahoe Rd.) has an All-You-Can-Eat thing for $20 which was also very nice. You can get as much food as you want, but anything you don't finish is charged at full price. Kinda lame, but I totally understand why they have to do that. The AYCE format is great for trying a ton of different types of sushi, since you can just order one piece of a given type and try it, then order more of it if you like it. I tried just about everything Derek and Jenny ordered, with very few exceptions. I tried squid and didn't like the texture, so I didn't eat the octopus since I figured it was very similar. However, I did have a few big winners. I still like the California roll, but now i think I know why. The seaweed wrap around most rolls is too much for me. I understand they need something to hold everything otgether, but the stuff is all tough and chewy and it really throws off the texture of the rest of the sushi for me. California rolls have the seaweed on the inside of the rice, so there's a lot less of it. They also have cream cheese, which I really like. I also very much enjoyed the freshwater eel they had. it came with some sauce already on it, and it was just extremely good. It was a roll, but it had a little bit of seaweed wrapped around it like a present (rice on bottom, eel on top, seaweed vertically around both) to keep the rice and eel together, but the seaweed wasn't enough to throw off the texture. It was really really good.

The rest of the sushi wasn't bad, and I liked most of it, but I think I determined why I'm not as into sushi as a lot of people are. I like sushi, but I don't love it. I don't appreciate the subtle differencies in taste between the tuna sashimi and the albacore sashimi. I also really can't tell the difference between the half dozen or more different types of fish we had once I dipped the piece into the soy sauce (which it seems like most people do on every bite, so I'm not just a freak for doing it). I tasted soy sauce and it was good, but not great. I think another issue is that sushi costs a lot. We paid $20 for our dinner and I got way more food for that amount of money than I ever have at any other sushi place ever. Without the AYCE factor, our meal could've easily cost twice as much, maybe more. So if I do eat sushi again, which I'd imagine I will, knowing that I do enjoy some of it and having friends who also really enjoy it, it will only be AYCE at this place, most likely. I just can't help but think about the fact that I can get a pretty nice steak, drink and dessert for $20 at many other restaurants. I'm something of a cheapskate, though I can set that aside and enjoy a good meal now and again. I'm just also a man with a simple, ignorant, miserably American palate, and a vaguely charred slab of meat is about the pinnacle of my eating enjoyment.

After sushi, we went to see Watchmen again at the Landmark. That was awesome. I love that theatre so hard. The popcorn and drinks flow freely, they're very tasty and the seats are very comfy indeed. We also found out that the first show of the day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is only $9 instead of $12, which is freakin' sweet. We also enjoy the $5 AMC morning movies (anything before noon, Fri-Sun) but if you want popcorn and a drink, you're easily getting up to $12 or $13. And the AMC theatre is a lot farther away from us, to boot.

The movie was still good the second time, though I was bored for some of it. It's very visually interesting, but that isn't nearly as meaningful the second time. I did notice some things that I hadn't noticed the first run through, and still very much enjoyed the movie overall. I still don't think Ozymandias was cast well, but I am becoming more and more a fan of the Comedian and Rorschach. I didn't like the Comedian as much in the book as I do in the movie. The actor really brought the character to life and gave him incredible depth, even though he's far from being someone you admire.

Saturday was our Supers game, and that was extremely fun. I always enjoy that game, and I look forward to it for the full two weeks between sessions. Adj can attest that every Monday after we play I spend a fair amount of time pestering him about things I want to do with my character and seeing what he thinks will work and all that. I'm sure it's annoying, but it's all based in the fact that I really enjoy the game, so he can't complain too much.

Sunday I woke up early, played some Fable (I've actually been playing that instead of Fallout for the past few days) until Jenna woke up, then she started playing and I went down to do some work in the garage. I got a fair amount done, with organizing things better, putting stuff into bins, throwing away old stuff we don't need, making a big pile for Goodwill, etc. I also figured out how to change the height of the cutting bit on my router, which is freaking awesome. That was a huge problem I was having with it before, and now I can do a lot more with it. I'm still not sure exactly how to do quite everything that I need to, but I think I can get it working well enough for the project I want to work on next. I've got so many tools and no real way to organize them. I'm thinking pegboard. In order to make a cool pegboard with enough air space behind the board so hooks can hooks through without hitting the wall I have to build a frame around the pegboard. Rather than doubling up 1x2 boards all around the edge and sandwiching the peg board between them (which is a big waste of wood, to my mind) I'm going to rout a groove into the wide side of a 1x2 and just slide that onto the pegboard. The should give me exactly what I need without wasting any wood, without wasting space on the pegboard, and with giving me a chance to use my router. Sweet!

I also got a book on cabinetry from the used book store in CA, so I've been itching to try a few of those projects. The main thing I really want to learn is dovetails. I think those are awesome, and they just really make a piece look so cool. Apparently they actually aren't all that tough, either. We'll see.

Sunday we also went to several stores and got some great stuff. We got another box of the world's greatest food storage (http://www.rubbermaid.com/rubbermaid/premier/index.jhtml) from Costco for an excellent price. We also found a cast iron griddle/grill thing at Ross for a great price, so I'm going to start using that in the oven. I'm thinking of trying burgers on the cast iron instead of just the steak. If the principles all hold true, it should work just fine. I also found a really nice glass dish with big deep sides that will work perfectly for lasagna for just Jenna and me. That was always a major issue, so it's really cool that we don't have to do a giant freaking batch every time. I'll have to rework some of my amounts, I'm sure, but I'll figure it out.

overall, a fun, productive and entirely satisfying weekend. Huzzah!

Geek Personality Archetypes

2009-03-12T11:53:00.001-06:00

*Disclaimer* This is a piece I've been working on for a while, and I don't think it's exactly right just yet. Suggestions for changes or expansions are appreciated.

I am a geek. I have been a geek all my life. I have gone to comic book conventions, played tabletop roleplaying games, worked at the Renaissance Festival, been involved with historical recreation groups, played in LARP games, and more. Nearly every person I know, and certainly all of the people I see regularly, are also geeks. Having spent the majority of my life associating with these fascinating creatures, I have realized several things. First off, a good geek is hard to find. Many people who share your interests don't share other things, like your ability to match your clothing, or your personal hygiene habits. Secondly, many geeks aren't very good at socializing with other humans. Having met hundreds, potentially thousands of geeks in my life, certain patterns have become apparent. I call these the Geek Personality Archetypes. Knowing what to look for will help you to avoid being stuck in a 4-hour conversation with someone you'd rather not talk to at all. It can also help you to find people who don't exhibit any of these traits and would probably make a good long-term friend.

Now before all my geek friends get up in arms about this, keep in mind that I tend not to associate with the geeks who exhibit these personalities, and that if you are my friend you are a happy exception to the following descriptions. I will freely admit that I have been almost every one of these types at some point in my life, and have managed to work past these problems over the years. If you know someone who fits one or more of these categories, there is certainly hope for them, but they have to recognize the problem and be willing to change. Also, please realize that I am not saying that the people who exhibit these traits are bad people. They are probably very good people. Geeks are, with rare exceptions, kind, sensitive, and loving. All of the best people I've known in my life are geeks. I am only saying that you may not wish to spend the next party sitting next to one of the geeks who fits into one of the following categories.

You will notice that I mention that these behaviors are almost always motivated by a desire for attention. Insecurity is the single most common motivating factor when it comes to archetypal behavior. Most geeks grow up awkward and unpopular (as I did), and so they aren't used to dealing with "normies" on a regular basis. They may also have some kind of speech impediment, physical deformity, or ailment that keeps them from talking or playing with other kids from a very young age. These are formative years and many of the behaviors you'll see later in this piece are tied directly to a lesson not learned as a child. Many geeks have non-geeky parents who can't relate terribly well to their child, so they even feel isolated from their family. Really, geeks tend to get along almost exclusively with other geeks, and that's a major issue. Because it's a circle of introverted, insecure, socially-awkward people all seeing only other people like them as examples, they really don't have the opportunity to learn normal social behavior. In some ways, this is a tremendous blessing, and I think it's one of the reasons I spend so much time with other geeks. Normal people can be cruel, petty, hurtful, stupid, ignorant, insensitive, and generally just nasty, especially to those who are different. Some geeks pick up these habits (I wasn't as nice a person in high school as I would like to have been, looking back) but they are relatively few and far between. Most geeks are honest, forthright and kind. They don't have to spend their time vying for the cheerleaders' attention, so they can spend their time building solid, lifelong friendships instead. Another factor is that geeks tend to be intelligent, and intelligent people spend a lot of time in their own heads. They are happier curled up with a book, painting miniatures or playing computer games than they are mingling with drunken louts at a frat party. Spending time in your own head is a great way to develop your creativity and your imagination, but it's not a great way to learn the art of small talk, or how to flirt with a pretty girl (or boy).

One of the saddest facts of human behavior is that people who behave a particular way in order to get a certain response almost always get the exact opposite response, which simply drives them even more toward the problem behavior. For example, someone who is trying to impress you by telling you everything there is to know about clams wants you to think he's intelligent and interesting, but he will almost always come off as boring and lame. Most people will ignore or mock him, which just makes him try harder next time. Unfortunately, even giving him the response he really needs won't do much good for either of you, as it will likely just cause the guy to latch onto you as the only person who has ever appreciated him. Short of him recognizing the problem behavior and changing it, he has little hope of making serious progress with average people. Quite frankly, it also isn't your job to save these people from themselves. As much as I can understand why they act like this, it doesn't make me want to spend my time around them. If you're a geek and you've moved past these behaviors or avoided them entirely, good for you. That's the end of your responsibility. This guide is to help you deal with these people should you meet them in passing, and is not any kind of attempt to teach you how to "fix" them. I'll leave that to someone with proper licenses and certification.

Now, onto the archetypes.

The first archetype is the sarcasm-proof geek. They are extremely serious, and have an encyclopedic knowledge about something or other. If you make a joke, they are a) unlikely to realize that it is a joke and b) probably going to correct any number of mistaken assumptions your joke exhibits. They think that explaining how much more they know about the topic than you do will make you like them. They are wrong. I have met a great number of these geeks, and they are often combined with one of the other archetypes to form an entirely intolerable person. These geeks are, like most of the geek archetypes, trying to get attention and approval from their peers. They want you to say "Wow, I had no idea. Thank you for showing me the light. I will never make a joke about that topic again, because it is deadly serious and more important than life itself." Actually, you should try saying that to one of them. I'm curious about how they'll respond.

Suggested Interaction: Limited. They are missing the humor portion of their brain, and are uninteresting to talk to on any but the most technical levels. You can have fun with them by pushing their buttons. If you make an inappropriate joke and they get offended and tell you that they in fact have to deal with the object of the joke (a dead baby, for example) on a regular basis and that there's nothing funny about it, you can always just push forward. Ask for details and specific examples. Force them to talk about it and then make ever more inappropriate jokes until they leave or finally figure out that they need to lighten up. This could take days.

The second archetype is the chronic-illness geek. This geek will spend hours telling you about the various diseases, injuries and psychological problems they are suffering from. They will explain to you all of their symptoms, and the different doctors they had to go to in order to find out that nobody can figure out what's wrong with them. They are experts on all medications used to treat their diseases and are all too happy to suggest ointments, pills and holistic remedies that obviously haven't cured them. These geeks are desperate for attention (as are most of us geeks) and have decided that the pity you get for being unhealthy will serve. A scary thing indeed is when these geeks are also type six geeks and two of them try to "one-up" each other about how horrible their ailments are.

Suggested Interaction: Limited. You have to be a pretty slick talker to get them off the topic, and they will try to pull you back to it again and again. Another option (if you aren't averse to making a bit of a scene) is to say "Wow, your life must really suck. If I were that miserable all the time I would kill myself." Then sit back and watch them try to backpedal and assure you that really their life isn't that bad and they are happy and content, in direct contradiction of the previous 4 hours of complaining they've just done.

The third archetype is the used-to-be-cool geek. These are the 400-pounders who were prom queens and football stars. They're geeks, and they know they're not currently attractive, but they are very likely to tell you all about how much they used to be able to run and lift and jump and whatnot, until they developed this chronic injury/illness (see archetype 2). They are relatively harmless. If they are a combination of Types 2 and 3 or Types 3 and 4, they can be exceptionally annoying, but pure Type 3s are generally not too bad. Again, they are seeking attention and approval. Geeks often need affirmation from their friends or acquaintances, and many of their behaviors are geared toward this end.

Suggested Interaction: As long as you don't mind sitting through a short period of reminiscing on their part, and can avoid giving them opportunities to expand upon their stories, they can be perfectly cool people otherwise. If you don't mind a long walk down memory lane, they can actually be great conversationalists. They've probably told these stories a lot and are likely very good at it.

The fourth archetype is the badass geek. They probably have a black belt in some martial art or another, carry 16 knives strapped to their bodies, wear tactical clothing at least some of the time, and will most likely threaten people around them regularly. Many geeks will carry weapons but do not throw their weight around, and therefore they do not fall into this category. Type 4s are also very unlikely to be capable of hurting anything other than your hope for humanity. Many of them are very heavy, and/or have chronic illnesses and injuries that would make them a pitiful fighter in any real situation. This type is often combined with Type 2 and/or Type 3. They are trying to impress you, and to get your approval.

Suggested Interaction: Be nice, and ignore their threats as best you can. If they are excessive or overly annoying, you can always call their bluff. This assumes that you are at least willing and/or capable of defending yourself. I don't advise it in most situations, as it will probably make you look like a jerk, and could potentially get you in trouble with the law. A better solution is to call them on their bluff, but in a subtle way. If the person claims that they are going to "kick someone's ass" for some really lame reason, you can ask "Do you really think that's worth fighting over?" or "Wow, that's a little excessive, isn't it?" Sometimes, this can help them to see that they aren't impressing anyone, or at the very least it can shut them up. They aren't necessarily bad people, they just don't realize that they are making themselves look and sound like jerks.

The fifth archetype is the ugly slut type. These can be men or women, but they are more often female. They can be Type 3s who haven't realized that they're no longer young and attractive, or maybe they've never been attractive and they just found that many geeks don't care that much. In any case, they are the geeks who wear clothes they have no right to wear, will flirt with anything that gets too close, and talk about sexual things in inappropriate situations. Female Type 5s will often claim (or demonstrate) they are bisexual in an attempt to get attention from male geeks. Some will even go into sexual professions (dominatrices, specifically) and then talk about their experiences incessantly. These geeks, like most others, are trying to get attention and affection from their peers. Far too many geeks give it to them and perpetuate the cycle. These geeks are difficult to deal with because they can be very popular and have a lot of friends who are otherwise very cool people. Simply telling them they are disgusting can cause tension between you and their friends.

Suggested Interaction: Difficult. Even gently telling a Type 5 that you aren't interested is no guarantee that they will leave you alone. Being more forceful can easily hurt their feelings and they will undoubtedly tell their friends how much of a jerk you are. Saying something like "I'm married" or "I'm in a relationship" generally won't work either, as they often have it in their heads that this is simply an excuse. Your best bet is to avoid them as much as possible. Talk with them only when you must, and leave their company as quickly as you can. If you come up with a better strategy, please let me know.

The sixth archetype is the One-Up geek. They are always just a little bit smarter, better and faster than everyone around them, sometimes in obvious contradiction of reality. If you say you graduated high school with a 4.0, they graduated with a 4.25. If you had five girlfriends in high school, they had seven or eight. If you studied martial arts for three years, they studied for ten. You get the picture. As per usual, this is how they hope to gain attention. They think that by being better or more experienced at something, people will like them more. This is rarely the case. It's normally so obvious what they're doing that everyone just ignores them completely, which forces them to try even harder.

Suggested Interaction: Generally their claims will be things you can't disprove easily. There's not much you can do aside from ignoring them without digging yourself in deeper. Potentially, you can force them to dig so deep into a story that you can catch them in a contradiction or something, but you may just end up spending an hour listening to them blather on about how awesome they are. The main thing to remember is that they're lying to your face, and that isn't cool. They may be nice people in many other ways, but they're also willing to pull stories out of their butt to impress you, which doesn't generally belie much character. I have yet to meet one of these people who will ever admit to exaggerating except under the most ridiculous situations (claiming something when proof that it is false is easily at hand) and even then, they tend to crawfish a little and claim it's just a difference in degree or scope, not a full-on fabrication. In all, these people are best avoided or ignored.

The seventh archetype is the "All About Me" geek. There is no conversation that cannot spontaneously become about them. You're talking about Chinese tree squirrels? Well one time this geek went to a baseball game and caught a foul ball. No bearing on the current conversation? He doesn't give a damn. It has been nearly 30 seconds since someone paid attention to him and that is frankly unacceptable. Sometimes these geeks will try to steer the conversation toward a topic that relates to them, or they may make an attempt at a bridge between the two. Sometimes they really do have something meaningful to add, but it is almost always about how cool they are. These geeks are very common, and relatively harmless. They may attempt to hijack a conversation now and again but only the truly lost ones will really ruin your chance for a good time with a group of friends.

Suggested Interaction: As long as this type isn't combined with any other archetypes, their interjections may actually be kind of interesting, or may take the conversation in a new and acceptable direction. Because geeks are insecure, they want attention. What better way to get attention than to force everyone in the room to listen to you talk about yourself, right? This type has the potential to be innocuous or devastating depending on combinations of archetypes and the severity of their devotion to the cause. If they really do take this type to the maximum possible extent, it will be nearly impossible to accomplish anything around them. Believe me, there are people out there who will do this with a smile on their face. For these, there is very little to be done. Really letting them go by asking questions and acting interested can simply lead to them rambling for a very long time. Ignoring them completely will probably just make them louder. Acknowledging their contributions without egging them on is your best bet, and you may have to take it upon yourself to force the conversation back onto its original topic every so often.

Geeks who Drink...Shirley Temples

2009-03-11T09:21:00.003-06:00

We went to trivia last night with our friends Ami and Steve and a friend of theirs, Clarence. It was a new bar and a new quizmaster, so we didn't really know what to expect. Honestly, it was pretty awesome. The bar is nice and new, with good food and a nice atmosphere. Travis, the quizmaster, is a cool guy, too. He speaks clearly, and doesn't seem to be high or dunk all the time like the other quizmaster we know. We also talked to him after the game and he's just an interesting guy. He was a marine infantryman and now he's studying to become a DO (like an MD but with some chiropractic-like stuff as well). So yeah, just a neat dude. Clarence was also cool. I wasn't sure of him at first because I couldn't tell when he was kidding or not, but I think I got a decent handle on his sense of humor by the end of the night and I would be totally cool with hanging out with him again. He's a karaoke jockey, which also sounds like it could be a neat thing to do sometime. Not for me to sing, because nobody benefits when Jared sings, but maybe to go with some friends and watch them singing.

In any case, there were several pretty great points from the night which I wanted to share with you all, since you obviously weren't there. Clarence is into musical theatre. He knows all the shows, all the songs, all the characters, etc. The guy is into it. Now, I'm not one to judge (okay, I totally am), and he wasn't setting off my gay-dar, so I just figured the dude liked musicals. Whatever, right? But he kept mentioning multiple times that he isn't gay and that he really likes girls. Since this is the first night I met him, I didn't want to commence ripping on him immediately until I was sure how he'd take it and all. After a while of him singing showtunes and continually insisting that he isn't gay, I figured it was cool to rib him a little about it. So the next time he said "No, I really like girls," I said "But just as friends, right?" He seemed really surprised, but he totally rolled with it. That's when I knew I could get along with the guy. Later, after the game, when we were just hanging out talking (Ami and Steve had already left) and getting to know each other better, he talked about being a KJ and started asking us whether we knew any of these clubs that he worked at. I told him no, we didn't know them because we are real geeks and we don't go out in public unless there's trivia to be had. He again seemed really surprised. Apparently we don't seem like real geeks, I guess. Anyway, he said something to the effect of "Wow, I'm really surprised. You're both very attractive, so I wouldn't think you'd be geeks." That pretty much made my night. Geek-o-flage successful.

if anyone wants to come to this weeknight trivia thing with us again, i think we might make it a regular thing. let me know and I'll give you the details.

On Chess

2009-03-10T14:59:00.002-06:00

I am a great big geek, as most of you know, and as such I have a certain fascination with chess. I didn't play it when I was young, and I'm not sure whether it was because I didn't have anyone to play it with me, or whether I wasn't nearly as interested in sitting down for long periods as i am now. I really don't know, but suffice it to say, I came to chess later on in life. I'm playing every day now, pretty much. I'm reading books, talking with people, watching documentaries on major players when I can, etc. I wouldn't say I've jumped in with both feet yet, as I haven't joined a local club, looked into private tutoring or really even played much with anyone but a few friends who are similarly interested in the game. I also haven't gotten to play "over the board" as much as I'd like, since the friends I have who also enjoy chess are almost all situated a goodly ways from me.

In any case, one of the things that I've noticed about chess is that playing online is way tougher than playing on a real board. When looking at a real chess set and a real opponent, you see things you don't really notice or have no access to when playing on a computer. It's tough to explain, but there's a certain element of playing the opponent in real life that doesn't exist on the internet. It's almost like poker in a way. You can watch their eyes, see where they're looking, notice if they're unsure of a particular move, or if they're surprised by one of your own moves. Psyching out an opponent is as effective in chess as in any other game or sport, maybe more so, since mistakes are so easily made and so difficult to recover from.

Another major thing about chess is that a huge number of people seem to think that memorizing the games of grandmasters and playing the moves they played when presented with the same position constitutes playing a good game of chess. I entirely disagree. You're playing chess like a computer when you do that. You're not actually thinking about the position, your pieces, your opponent, or even your goals with the move. It's simply regurgitating what you've seen before. people who do this can probably play better than I do and a lot of them can certainly beat me, but I don't think that's the point. When I play chess, it's me playing. it's my brain looking at the pieces and deciding what should go where. When someone plays a game based solely on what they read in a book (and there are so many books and databases out there, most every position has been recorded at some point) it takes the player out of the equation to a large extent. The other player might as well be playing against the book, or better yet, not playing at all, since he's likely just repeating moves out of the book, too. This reliance on games that have come before seems to take the game out of chess. I don't mean to say that understanding the games of great players is a useless exercise, but the focus needs to be on understanding why things were done, not just what was done.

In any case, it's something I'm really enjoying and if anyone wants to play a game, please let me know. I'd be happy to help you bump your rating any time.