Health & Fitness: The Road to 40 (Week 5, Day 2)

Earlier this month I set the goal to hit the gym 5 days a week for the entire month. Well, if you hadn’t noticed, today is October 31. Along with this being Halloween, it is also a milestone in my attempt to “be in the best shape of my life.” Yes indeed, today marks the 22nd time that I got my lazy ass out of bed and down to the gym this month; that translates into every day of the week (weekends excluded; some restrictions may apply).

Cool beans!

So, being Halloween, you’d expect people to come to work all dressed up in a costume. That was also true for some of the trainers at my gym. I found it hard to concentrate on the workout today because one trainer chose to dress in a 1970s fitness outfit; complete with the long hair and head band, short shorts, and tube socks almost up to his knees. Every time I’d catch a glimpse of him I’d get an uncontrollable grin from ear to ear… took a lot of energy not to start laughing. What a great costume; fit the venue as well.

Now this trainer had caught my eye the first time I started at the gym. He’s a handsome chap and I’ve not been able to fully place his ancestry. I’d guess that he’s a mix somewhere between Asian (probably Japanese), Latino, and maybe some Caucasian as well. Whatever the mix, it makes for a great look.

Anyway, the guy always wears long legged gym gear instead of shorts as well as sleeved shirts so a completely accurate view of his physique was never possible; until now. His costume was shorts, shirt without sleeves, and (at first glance) one of those shirts of old that showed the midriff. Cool, I get to finally see what his abs are like. Well, not so fast… upon closer inspection, it was actually a weight lifting belt that he had on. Oh well, at least I finally got to see the legs and arms. He’s got great quads and nice arms with one surprise; a band tattoo on one bicep. Who would have guessed?

I still have not been able to figure out what team he plays for though. My guess would be he’s str8. Oh well, at least it’s some nice eye candy to brighten up my mornings.

Homogenized Milk

I’ve always valued the diversity of Urban America. You can walk down the street and see a hundred different skin tones and hear twenty different languages. This gives character and teaches one to not be afraid of that which they do not understand. Living in Seattle has definitely expanded my horizons and taught me to value most (no one is perfect) everyone.

However, on some of my hikes over the years, I have been to small country towns and one thing always stood out to me. These towns are usually very homogenized with only white people looking almost like zombies. Not to say that under the surface they were not good people, however, living a “sheltered” life, they are usually misinformed about the world and tend to fear that which they do not understand.

On the debate of English as the official language of the US… why? I think it’s just small-town-head-in-the-sand thinking. This thinking is already harming America because of the lack of Arabic speaking citizens. Instead of having an official language, we should require that everyone be bilingual. It’d defiantly make us more competitive in the world.

Anyway, I think this letter to the editor in the Seattle PI is quite eloquent and pretty much says it all.

Coffee shop tale shows need for multiple languages

The English-as-official-language debate ended for me one morning at my neighborhood coffee shop where caffeine and politics mix in a volatile and dangerous way. The topic came up, people ranted about immigrants and raved about patriotism when out of the vitriol and noise came the steady voice of an old man.

He said, "If it had not been for the Navajo language, we never would have been able to keep a secret from the Japanese in World War II." The room fell silent for a moment; you could hear the sound of a spoon stirring milk into a fresh cup.

That settled the debate for me. America is stronger for her rich diversity.

Carl Nelson
Seattle

Health & Fitness: The Road to 40 (Week 4)

So with all the computer problems this week, I’ve had little sleep. Seems like every night I went to bed after midnight. As a result, it was VERY difficult getting up in the mornings.

The official count? TWENTY! ! !

Surprised eh? Even with the lack of sleep, I dragged my lazy ass down to the gym every single day this week. The only blip was on Wednesday when I actually don’t remember turning off my alarm. Luckily I woke up 30 minutes later and was able to get to the gym. Instead of lifting weights that day, I just did extended cardio.

Average weight has remained around 212 lbs. I think part of that is that I’m still weak when it comes to dessert. Friends brought a cake for the Sunday night dinner that I hosted and refused to take the leftovers; how rude! ☺ I couldn’t throw away perfectly good cake; that would be sacrilege. Bow before the lords thy gods Sugar and Fat for they are quick to make their mark on you yet slow to be purged.

On to week five!

It Hurts Us! Blink Blink!Boy Do I Feel Stupid!

To update everyone on my computer woes, last night I went ahead and flashed my BIOS; I’ll try almost anything at this point. Still no Windows load, just that blinking cursor mocking me.

Okay, so I break down and get onto Dell Technical Support chat again. The chap runs me through different things ruling out possible problems; been there, done that! Anyway, we get to the point where he tells me the only possible problem is my hard drive boot sector and we need to reset it and repartition the drive.

But… but… but…. I already tried a different hard drive and it still didn’t work so it couldn’t possibly be a problem with the hard drive. Besides, even though I backed up the most critical data from that drive (see, it works), it would still be a pain in the ass to replace all the stuff that I was not able to backup.

Oh well, I caved in and went ahead and did what he requested. I fixed the boot sectors and then unpartitioned the drive. *cry* After the repartitioning and reformatting of the drive (which took 2 hours), I proceeded to install a fresh copy of Windows XP.

Well shiver me timbers, it worked! Windows loaded!

Now my brain starts to go into a logic loop with smoke coming out of my head. It made no sense! I already ruled out the hard drive issue. Now it works?! If the second hard drive didn’t work and the first one worked after it didn’t work, then the second one should have worked but didn’t while the first one didn’t but did… error… error… error… does not compute.

Meanwhile, the smoke detector in my place went off when my head caught fire and exploded.

Enter today. As far as I can figure, there is was sleight oversight on my part. I think that the second hard drive was not formatted with a boot sector (no OS originally on it) so the only way for one to be written is to reformat the drive and then install the OS; I did not do this. At least that’s my guess.

SO! Tonight, I get the fun task of reinstalling the software and trying to get the damn thing back onto my network.

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When you have a nice bonfire going, jump in the middle of it and warm yourself up.

The Short Road to Insanity!Blink! Blink!

Last night I found the Dell Resource Disk that came with my computer. From this I was able to run system diagnostics on the computer… everything came up normal. Argh! This is definitely becoming interesting. Curse, grumble, curse! There seems to be no explanation why my computer will not boot all the way into Windows XP. Oh, and did I mention that F8 does not work? I can't even boot into Safe Mode (which would mean that I would not be having this problem). F2 and F12 work like a charm! But F8? Nooo! You'd think I was asking for a million dollars or something.

I think I’ll pull out my gargoyle statue and perform an exorcism on the computer tonight; maybe there’s a demon living in there (though I don’t think it will work if it’s just a gremlin infestation).

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When you see flames coming out of your computer, pour gasoline on it.

Still Blink, Blink, Blink! ...With One Fortunate Happenstance

Monday resulted in no fix for the failed computer. Actually, I never had the time to work on finding a solution. Instead, I thought it best to pull the hard drive and try to back up the data using my older computer (the one that works).

Unfortunately, my old computer’s hard drives are not very large so I had to pick and choose what data was irreplaceable. Even still, there was not enough room to back it all up.

Enter the iPod. I have a 60Gb iPod that is not very full. How fortunate is that? I had to start iTunes in order to switch the iPod to data mode so it will be visible as a storage device. To my surprise, when iTunes loaded, it went to the internet to look up music track information.

“What information did it find,” you ask? Well, none other than that for 98 Degrees: The Collection album! I had forgotten that I had left the CD in the drive. All of a sudden, the CD was recognized as an audio CD instead of just a data CD (see previous rant here). Cool! Before doing anything else, I had iTunes rip it and transfer the album to the iPod! Woot! Told you I’d have that music on the iPod! OK, so it wasn’t anything I did per se but still….

So, the iPod finally gets more music and now I start a major data transfer to it. After about a minute, the transfer comes up with an estimated time of completion in about 220 minutes! Yuck! It was already 10:30 pm and starting to get a little past my bedtime. Oh well, I left it running but woke up around 3:00 am and turned the computer off since the transfer was finished. Funny how an earthquake will not wake me, but the thought of needing to turn the computer off does.

I will waste yet another night tonight trying to fix the damn thing. Now you are up-to-speed on my computer misadventures.

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When smoke comes out of your computer, blow on it until you see flames.

Blank Screen With A Blinking Cursor ...Have a Great Weekend!

Ya gotta love computers! They are like spoiled brats that throw temper tantrums if you look at them wrong.

Friday night I come home and booted up both of my machines. One loaded Windows XP, the other did not. I think, “Interesting, this has never happened before… oh well, I’ll just ctrl-alt-del and reboot it.” OK, fine, so it starts its reboot process; gets through BIOS with no problem then hangs at a blank screen with a blinking cursor (BSBC)… no Windows XP.

Now I’m a little worried. “Great, just what I need, another money pit!” So I grab the installation CD and boot from that. First, I head into Recovery Console so I can run a chkdsk. Initially it says everything is fine so I add the old /p to tell it to do a full scan anyway. This comes up with some HD errors. “Cool,” I think, “all I need to do is fix the errors, run a repair of Windows and I’m back in business!” NOT! ! ! Damn thing goes through the process yet all I see is that stupid BSBC again.

Curse grumble curse! But oh well, just to make sure, I unplugged my master HD and turned my slave HD into a primary single drive (Drive 0). Started the computer with the installation CD in and proceeded to install a fresh copy of Windows XP. Installation goes fine and then on reboot I find myself once again at that damn BSBC! #$%@&!

Now I’m a little on the irritable side! So I use the computer that booted fine and hit the internet to try to find a solution. I spend Friday night, all day Saturday, and 4 hours Sunday on the internet trying to find a solution. Everything I did ended in failure. I even spent an extra 2 hours on internet chat with a nice chap from Dell Technical Support. All he did was run me through everything I already tried. I don’t think he fully understood what the problem was because every once in awhile, he’d type things like; “After the CHKDSK /R runs, see if your HD is found under ‘My Computer.’” Hmmm…. If I could get to ‘My Computer,’ that would mean that I am able to load Windows XP! If I was able to load Windows XP, then I would not be having the problem of not being able to load Windows XP now would I?

*takes breath and pulls hair out*

Well, I tried resetting CMOS by removing the battery from the motherboard for a couple of minutes with the computer unplugged… reset the BIOS but still no Windows load. I reseated the RAM, the HD, hey, I even dusted the damn inside with canned air at US$594.59 per bottle. OK, so the air was not that much but it still seems rather expensive just for a bottle of air… even bottled water isn’t that expensive! Hell, one person even got their problem to work itself out by letting the computer just sit at the BSBC for an hour… mine didn’t!

SO, today I bought a new CMOS battery (just ruling everything out). I will spend yet another night trying to solve this mystery.

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When your computer gives you lemons, kick it until smoke comes out!

Health & Fitness: The Road to 40 (Week 3)

Yet another week has passed; the official count? FIFTEEN! ! !

Yep, that’s right, five more days at the gym! The only difference this week was that on Thursday, my bus got stuck in traffic due to an accident and was 20 minutes late getting downtown. This drastically reduced the time available to workout so I had to adjust the routine. Instead of lifting weights, I just concentrated on cardio.

Unfortunately, I am not doing as good of a job with the fat apparently. My average weight for the week is now up to 212 lbs; 12 lbs above my goal. That means that I’ve increased muscle mass but since the pants don’t seem to be any looser, the partial spare tire is still exactly where it has been. Probably what will happen is that fat from everywhere else will go away before the stomach so I’ve a ways to go before seeing that disappear. Did I mention that I’m a rather impatient person and want immediate results?

Anyway, woot! for the third straight week… boo! for the weight increase (but that was not entirely unexpected).

On to week four!

"Enhance" this! @#%&!

I think I’ve almost had it with music companies and their "enhanced" CDs.

A couple of weeks ago I Netflix’d the Music Video DVD 98 Degrees: The Collection (hey, the boys are cute). Some of the music aint that bad and some have decent beats so I thought I’d do the correct thing and buy the CD to play on my iPod.

The album arrived last night in the mail so I fired up the old computer to upload it to said iPod. Well, guess what? The damn thing hijacks the computer and runs a full-screen program that gives me the option of viewing music videos (crappy resolution), going to their web site, and who knows what else. Needless to say, I’m pissed. All I want is to put the damn music on the iPod and be done with it.

That god damned music company Motown has their little copy protection crap on it so I cannot transfer it to iPod. Talk about feeding the illegal industry. All those law abiding citizens who pay for the music but find that they cannot use it turn to (thus support) the illegal web music downloads. When will these companies learn that you cannot bite the hand that feeds you?

Guess it’s time to hit the internet and see if I can find a work-around. I’ll have that music on my iPod somehow. Grumble grumble…

This is now the second CD in my collection that is worthless. Stupid $%&*#, idiotic, good-for-nothing %*$#%&...!

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2006-10-24 Update: here

Health & Fitness: The Road to 40 (Week 2)

And the official count? TEN! ! !

Today marks the 10th time in two weeks that I hit the gym! Who would have thought! Anyway, I worked the ol’ chest again this morning with the following routine:

• 2 sets 10 reps – Inclined bench press for midrange position (45 lb dumbbells)
• 2 sets 10 reps – Inclined flys for stretch position (20 lb dumbbells)
• 2 sets 10 reps – Inclined cable crossovers for contracted position (35 lbs)
• 2 sets 10 reps – Bench press (50 lb dumbbells)
• 2 sets 10 reps – Flys (25 lb dumbbells)
• 2 sets 10 reps – Cable crossovers (40 lbs)
• 2 sets 10 reps - Assisted Dips (-80 lbs of help so ~128 lbs total)

I realize the weight is a little low but I don’t want to overdo it to the point of injury so I’m slowly increasing the weight over several weeks. My goal is to get to 75 lb dumbbells on the inclined bench press. This comes from a little friendly competition (all in my head) with my friend (mentioned below). He is currently pressing 75 lb dumbbells.

So, I go into the weekend pretty stoked about the last two weeks. My goal is to finish off the month this way. Hopefully, this will be a long-term habit.

Health & Fitness: The Road to 40

Let’s change the subject here for a bit… enough of these looser political and religious fools. How about we take a breath of fresh air and look to better ourselves.

So there is an old Bowflex commercial where this guy with his shirt off proclaims that he’s 40 years old and in the best shape of his life. Two years ago, a friend and I (both the same age) looked at this and joked that since we are 35 (that would make us 37 now), we have 5 years to get our act together and start working out again.

When we were younger, we went through the whole fitness thing but as we aged, we each stopped working out and started a more sedentary life. Well, that has changed. Last year, both of us made a new start with the fitness thing again. We both joined gyms and started (and stopped) down the road to being healthy again.

My friend has done a superb job getting the weight off and it shows (I think he is about 4% body fat now). With that out of the way, he is now trying to add more muscle onto his "swimmer's build" (and doing a great job at that as well). Sorry boys and girls, he's already taken; though not by me. Anyway, in all fairness, he does get obsessed when he puts his mind to something so this whole working out thing comes easily to him.

So, enough about him, lets talk about me and what I think of him… oh wait, I already did that. Anyway, I find it more difficult getting into obsessions and, as a result, have had more stops and starts than my friend.

Throughout the past year, I have never been able to hit the gym 5 times in one week; something would always come up (usually too tired to get my lazy ass out of bed and get down to the gym). Well, that has officially changed! Last week (October 2 – 6) I went every day and this week (October 9 - 13) I am well on my way to another 5 since today is the 4th time. Yay me!

I am also quite pumped about using the positions of flexion in my workouts. I have never done that before. Actually, I didn’t even know about it until two months ago when I Netflix'd a DVD called Iron Man Magazine: Critical Mass Positions of Flexion. This basically shows you how to work each muscle through a midrange, stretch, and contracted position for maximum performance.

Since I workout before work in the morning, I am relatively limited in time. As a result, I have currently been only hitting one muscle group per workout along with about 20 minutes of cardio. As I improve, I will probably start doing longer workouts (means I’ll have to get up that much earlier… did I mention that I am not a morning person!).

Anyway, my height is around 6’1” and I currently am pretty stable at 208 lbs (started last year at 220 lbs *embarrassed blush*). My goal is to get that to about 200 lbs with a LOT less body fat and more muscle mass. My build is larger than a swimmer’s so I hope to pack more onto my frame than my friend. The real challenge will to beat him in an arm wrestling contest (he spanked me last time we tried).

Well, it's a start at least.

Republican Child Predator Labeled 'Democrat' on O'Reilly Factor

Looks like Faux News is at it again. You really have to give these guys some credit for trying though. If it works, it will be a great example of the power of subliminal messages. If not, the old college try will be just that, the old college try; a failed Hail Mary attempt.

This from the 'Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly' website; a pretty funny site seemingly devoted to pointing out Mr. O'Reilly's love of hypocrisy and generally low self-esteme.

"October 3, 2006 - Republican Child Predator Labeled 'Democrat' on O'Reilly Factor

We're not presumptuous enough to start naming Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World, but Christ, this one ranks up there.

Tonight on three separate occasions, during two different segments, Bill O'Reilly showed video of his fellow culture warrior, boy-crazy Congressman Mark Foley, with the tagline 'Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL).'

That’s right, kids. Mark Foley, that darling of the right and champion of child protection, was dubbed a Democrat as soon as it came out that he's child predator. This is what we in the business call 'a lucky accident.'

But will the average Fox News viewer see the three-time accident for what it is—a mistake? Consider that, according to the Columbia Journalism Review and Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) Research Center, Fox News viewers have far more misconceptions on such important issues as Iraq's involvement in the 9/11 attacks than viewers of other networks...

...So we can promise you that the average O'Reilly fan is sleeping well tonight with the knowledge that the creep in Florida who was trying to bed boy pages was a Democrat after all."

And, yet another image from Faux News. Though, in full disclosure, this appears not to be specifically from the O'Reilly Factor. Again, check out the caption which states 'REID: Did Dems ignore Foley e-mails to preserve seat?' Brilliant! When all else fails, rewrite history.

Fiscal Lesson

Here's a bit of true Family Values for ya. I think it's definitely a great thing that we are teaching our children the value of money. And what better way than to start them off in life deep in debt. I've always thought that immersion was the best way to learn.

God bless America and the tax-and-spend and tax-cut-and-spend parties!

This has so inspired me that I thought I'd add a debt clock to the Blog so everyone can see how great we, as a nation, are. Bow before our unlimited credit limit!

Congress ready for end-of-war party

Mission Accomplished! (again)

So Congress is planning for an end-of-war party. Don't you think that's a little premature?

The military’s top generals have warned Iraq is on the cusp of a civil war and that U.S. troops must remain in large numbers until at least next spring. But if the winds suddenly blow a different direction, Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party.

Talking about wishfull thinking. But then again, the government of the (not so) United States tends to get it wrong more often than right and this is no exception.

Fools!

Christian right driving wedge into U.S.

I couldn't agree more with John Danforth (as summarized by Joel Connelly of the Seattle PI).

...The Christian right has virtually taken command of one major political party, ruthlessly uses "wedge" issues, and often demeans those who dare disagree with it.

Liberal punditry? Nope. Such are the conclusions of John Danforth, an Episcopal priest, abortion opponent and former three-term Republican senator from Missouri...

"...Followers of the Rev. Jerry Falwell have distributed a bumper sticker bearing the slogan 'Vote Christian,' thereby conveying the clear message that there is a Christian way to vote, as opposed to a non-Christian or anti-Christian way to vote," Danforth writes.

Nor, he argues, does the religious right do the Lord's work...

I see little of the proverbial "Lord's work" being done in religion and politics. In fact, from a strict biblical standpoint, I only see "Satan's work" being done. There is more "hate the sinner" than "hate the sin," and a very large amount of “judging of one another” going on.

...Christian right groups, in our state and elsewhere, sent out propaganda and recruited foot soldiers for the campaign of personal denigration directed at state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander in this year's primary election.

Danforth does not see such tactics as compatible with what he reads in the Gospels as well as the letters of St. Paul.

"When politics evolves into character assassination, all Christians should speak out against personal destruction," he writes. "We may never agree on the issues, but we should all agree that in America, the pursuit of a political cause does not warrant the intentional destruction of a fellow human."

Many so-called Christians see that politics is something to be avoided and refuse to speak out against it. In my opinion, that is a great "sin." Just as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, those who walk by and do not help are just as bad as those who cause the problem.

Jesus called upon his followers to help those who cannot help themselves. Equal treatment for minorities of race, sex, and sexual orientation as "God's children" are all demanded by Jesus to be protected from the mob of the majority. Yet, most in control of this country today (including many religious leaders) turn their back on their god and follow the desires of their devil. For shame.

Danforth sounds a note familiar from this year's U.S. Senate campaign here. He blames wedge issues for Americans' inability to unite and solve their country's urgent problems.

"When they divide America between 'people of faith' and their 'enemies,' Christians become not the means of peace but the cause of conflict," he argues. "They are powerful contributors to what has gone wrong in American politics."

The downfall of many civilizations in history has one thing in common, the conversion to a different religion. I now understand why. Apparently, many religions use the tactic of divide and conquer and in the case of the United States, Christianity is filling that role quite nicely. Unfortunately, this sounds more like the wishes of the biblical Satan than the biblical God.

If the biblical heaven is real, I don’t think very many people will make it there. Unfortunately, that means that I’ll have to share the biblical hell with the likes of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, George W Bush, Karl Rove, all those hypocritical and judgmental Christians, and every single Jihadist looking for their virgins. That will sure make hell not a very fun place.