Another Week, Another Post

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!

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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!