Been a Long Time, Part II!

  Been a Long Time, Part II!

I'm going to echo the first line of my last blog entry - "Yea, it's been a long time."


  Why?  Well, I guess the blogging craze has dropped out, both in general and for me personally.  There's still always been a place for it, of course.  But now it's re-surging I believe.  So here I go jumping back in a little anyway.  

  And I've just gotten out of the habit of blogging anything, and a hell of a lot has changed in my life since the last entry too.  But I'm going to try and post an entry once in a while, I'm thinking I am going to do some reviews of equipment that I have, and things like that.

  Changes

  After B'elanna died we got a Boxer, Archer (the white one).  We had already had one Boxer, Chakotay, and really liked the breed.

  And recently we have a new kitten, Spock.  Spock is from a litter of kittens and mother who showed up at our place and who we coaxed close enough to catch them all.  We then found homes for all of them except one mostly white kitten who we fell in love with and kept - Spock.

  Also, my father sold his property, his whole farm, to the Amish.  Big thing for him, but also for us as they are now our neighbors.  It's hard to imagine living as they do, and it's a big culture-shock for us.

  I'm also a telephone contact for them, though this went from them assuring me that it might be one call a year to a few times a month and then to driving them and their relatives and friends places and picking up people and stuff. 

  So one day I kind of tried to put a stop to that by not necessarily answering the door if I don't see a car in the yard.  

  Yea, okay, maybe rude - but, despite what some of the people in Jefferson County think; they're just human beings like the rest of us and if you let them take advantage of you then they will.  It got excessive.  No offense but, geez, their sect should allow them to buy a phone for emergencies at least...

  The Biggest Changes

  But probably one of the biggest changes is that we also changed our whole lives with a new attitude, less weight, lots of exercise, and much healthier eating!

  I can't tell you how it all started, and neither can my wife.  We just started slowly I think, and we didn't talk about it and plan it or anything.  I can't even tell you which of us started because it started so slowly.  And we tend to work off from each other's ideas and habits (which I believe is what a good partnership of any kind should be like).

  I just know that I had went up well over 200 pounds (I don't exactly know how much - and it also fluctuated daily) and even though I was still quite active during the nice times of the year; I could feel the weight pulling me down.  More and more as time went on.  If I bent over to tie my shoes I could feel the pressure of it pushing the air out of my lungs, and I didn't like how I looked or felt.  I could feel how unhealthy I was.

  And having a family on my mother's side of fairly overweight people with all sorts of health problems, including diabetes and heart problems - well, it makes you think.  makes you think real hard.

  Jenny, my wife, had gotten quite large and has always been overweight her whole life.  I was always pretty thin until the last decade or so.  Growing up on a farm I'd always been thin, scrawny, but fairly strong (at least I thought so).  

  But after gaining weight I was fat in the belly, chest, face, and neck yet I still had thin spindly arms and fairly thin legs, except where they were fat on my thighs somewhat.

  So again; I don't know how we started losing weight and getting healthier, we just did.

  I only remember deciding to give up soda (cola).  I started it slowly, and even started watering down the soda sometimes, or trying to switch to slightly more healthy drinks.  Sometimes I'd drink water instead.  

  Jenny was surprised at this a few times when she noticed that I was doing it, as I had always been a real big soda drinker.  But right around the same time we both started changing how and what we ate, and our exercise and lifestyle, so I can't say that I started it, we just kind of did in parallel.  Like I said - I remember stopping drinking soda but I don't think that's what started both of us; we just did it a little at a time.  That seemed like the best way, instead of a huge change.

  I immediately started losing weight once I completely stopped drinking soda, even without making any other changes.  For me personally this really encouraged me.  It was amazing, the pounds just dropped off.  And while I mentioned above that I have always been a soda drinker - I was never real super crazy like some people are.  Usually one or two sodas a day, that was it.

  But it was crazy how much weight I was losing just stopping that much soda intake.  That tells you something significant right there.

  We both started watching our weight over time and before long we had gotten a treadmill, a Sole F63, and was trying to get more exercise in general.

  We worked up from there with getting a Wii and a number of exercise-related games for it.  The two of us spent many hours, together as well as separately, working and sweating.  We started small and worked up.  The Wii was an integral beginning part to our changes, and though we rarely use it now it was certainly worth it to get that exercise that interactive physical gameplay did for us.

  Later we picked up some exercise DVD's of various kinds and levels, which opened up a whole new world for us.  We got more and more of them, trying them and doing and re-doing our favorites.  We also continued to watch our food intake and slowly started eating healthier food in general.

  An exercise room was the next thing we did, building it ourselves using a portion of our cellar which only was used for some storage.  In the pic below you can't quite see the whole room, a few more things around the edge there, small but works nicely for two people (and two dogs).

  You might find this strange and I really need to get an updated video on Youtube showing it - our dogs have gotten so used to running on the treadmill that I don't have to say a word; as soon as we go into the exercise room Chakotay goes and gets on the treadmill and waits.  If we're using it I have to make him get off it. Otherwise I start it up, he walks on it (as I slowly increase the speed so he's jogging then slow it down at the end) and when I press the STOP button and it stops, he gets off by himself and Archer comes over and gets on and waits - all without me saying one word!

  Anyway, after we got he exercise room finished we moved the treadmill to the exercise from from where we had been using it, got a Bowflex, and I moved my stair-climber and rowing machine down there also, and I made a pull-up bar and a wrist roller.  Over time we also supplied it with a TV, Dolby Surround Sound with radio, DVD player, and a hookup to our antenna system and Dish Network.  I'm working on adding a weight bench attachment to the Bowflex currently, and I got a few pieces of free weights from a local Freecycle site.  Later we bought more free weights, they're a great to supplement the Bowflex weight training.

  P90X was also something else we acquired, and we both dove into that.  It was hard at first, Plyometrics was a killer but amazingly, over time, we both got strong enough to do it all with Jenny just now getting into doing the weight training part of it.  Tony Horton is the greatest - firm, helpful, funny, and an inspiration.  I also do Insanity and lots of Bob Harper's stuff, like this one.

  Insanity IS insane.  It is very very hard and I could only have worked up to it after getting very fit, and then doing P90X over and over and over again many many times.  I'd consider it only for those who are very physically fit and fairly advanced.  But I am proud to say that I can keep up with the twenty-something's on the disc.

  Some of it is still sweat-producing hard, but it's hard as in 'good hard exercise' now.  Not hard as in 'I'm not fit enough to do this!'.

  Also, Jenny's severe sleep apnea completely disappeared once she lost a significant amount of weight!  Gone, completely, no more machine, no more problems.

  I lost over fifty pounds myself, but did I mention - Jenny lost over 225!  I've been and continue to be so proud of her.  You can read her blog about the process here. 

  And I guess it surprised me a bit when I heard family members and friends say how they never thought that she could do it.  I didn't think anything of it, I knew she could.  I knew I could.  There was no question.

  It's one of the things that surprised me, people not thinking she was capable of it.

  Check out her blog if you get the chance - lots of pics, including those from when she had to have the operation to remove the extra skin (yuk - not for the weak stomached).

  And another thing that has surprised and still surprises me is how some people are so sure that all of a sudden we're going to gain it all back!  And backslide.

  Sure, a lot of people who go on diets gain the weight back.

  And of course you're going to gain it back if you watch your food intake, decide you've lost enough and look good, and then start eating the same way again and stopping any exercise!  Of course you're going to gain it back, how could you not think otherwise?!

  You have to make a change in how you eat and exercise, a permanent change, not a temporary one.  That's how you get and stay healthy, and maintain a healthy weight.

  Seems pretty self-evident and common sense to me.

  Another kind of strange reaction to our weight loss is those people who say 'I didn't think you were overweight before'.

  Huh?  It seems kind of obvious, look at the before and after pic above.  My double chin was even getting a double chin!  And the before picture was taken a number of years before I started losing weight so I had gained even more  weight after that pic was taken, whew!  My hat wouldn't even fit my head.

  Are we so used to the 'average' American being so overweight that it doesn't look abnormal any more?  In 2002 a government study showed that the average weight for an average American male is 191 pounds!  What?!  More than half of US men are over 180 pounds according to a newer study.

  I've also had people who said I was too thin, usually said behind my back of course.  

  Wow, this is mind-blowing to me.  My arms and legs are bigger and stronger and more muscular than they ever were in my whole life, I've lost a lot of my belly (still got some stubborn belly to lose) so I've dropped a number of pant sizes, yet I'm obviously not thin.  I feel great, good weight, in great shape.  Again, I have to repeat it - are we so used to the 'average' American being so overweight that it doesn't look abnormal any more and someone who is at a very healthy weight seems too thin?

  Jenny's also had a person, or maybe more, who insisted that she much have had weight-loss surgery to lose that much.  Insisted that it can't be done.  Wow.

  But I've had a few people who acted like I was going to chastise them because of their weight.  To me, being healthy is the important thing.  If you're overweight and unhealthy you should look at your life.  But if you're somewhat overweight and fine with it, and healthy, then who am I to tell you differently about how you should be?

  It does bother me that some of those who are significantly overweight and in the public eye are quick to tell everyone that we should all be happy with who we are.

  Good idea in principle; but when you have an unhealthy amount of weight then it seems like the wrong message to issue a blanket statement to everyone like that.

  Hey, if you're happy with setting yourself up for health problems later (or sometimes sooner) in life then fine, but with the epidemic of obesity and morbid obese people in the US, it doesn't seem like a good thing to be preaching eating whatever you want until you're fat from the rooftops.

  I think I look pretty good in general, if I do say so myself.  And for starting this in my mid-40's and only being at it for a couple years - I think I've done well.  And I've worked hard, damn hard every single day.  

  I might mention here too, one thing that helped me target what I needed to do once I lost the weight and wanted to continue getting even healthier and more athletic, was the social exercise website Fitocracy.  

  I'm at what is medically considered the correct weight range for my stats, and I've put on tons of muscle, am more muscular than I have ever been in my life, more flexible (and it's amazing how being more flexible can affect ALL aspects of your life - don't discount stretching and Yoga just for the flexibility part of it, not to mention other benefits), more able to do all kinds of things I couldn't do before or couldn't do well.  My resting and exercise heart rate has come now significantly.  Good to have a nice heart rate monitor, like the Garmin series of GPS/Heart Rate Monitor watches, especiall if you're going to do the intense cardio exercises like P90X's Plyometrics or the extremely intense ones in Insanity.

  I've also found that my body seems to be damn fine at recovering from injuries, and not getting sick now.  When I was young I got sick often; colds, flu's, etc.  Now I haven't had a cold in possibly two years or at least a year and a half.  Which is the most unusual thing for me.  Sure, I might have an off day, a day when I don't feel strong because maybe my body is fighting off a cold, or is tired.  But you have to know when to take a rest, drink lots of fluids, rest completely or at least cut down on exercises for that day, and maybe put a little recovery/vitamin enhancement in your water (like Propel) - and that's the day for it.  

  I know some people exercise way too much, but one of the secrets of it is to take breaks - at least give the arts of your body that you've exercised hard a break.

  I'm also biking as much as I can now, getting my distances up to a max of 45 miles!  And I've run eight miles max (on my 46th birthday!) but normally run three to six.  No marathon, but pretty good I think.  Considering the average American probably couldn't run a mile I think I'm doing okay.

  Tomorrow, on Thanksgiving morning we're running a 5k Turkey Run that benefits the YMCA, no big thing for either of us anymore.  We've done a number of runs this year and at one of them I even got first place in my age group, and in another Jenny got first place for women overall!  

  I remember when I was a kid in school I could barely make it through running one mile, and I was walking by the end.

  Yet I wish I could have started this whole thing earlier.  Instead of in my middle age.  The nice thing is there's no upper age limit to getting fitter, gaining muscle or flexibility - it just takes a little longer and sometimes you have to ease into it instead of diving in.

  So, enough about me.  

  I hope this has shown that no matter how much you weight and in how badly out of shape you are you can make yourself over, better than you have ever been.  And it doesn't take a lot of money - if you're reading this you have access to the Internet and can find everything you need to get started.


 Other Things

  We finally got a faster Internet here, via a Virgin Mobile's Broadband Mifi.  It works okay, but not the best.  But for those without any other options it's better than dial-up.  I'm using a hacked router using DD-WRT to make a connection to it and distribute the signal, both wireless and wired, throughout the house; thus overcoming the limitations of the router somewhat.

  As you may or may not have noticed I have changed the blog template, logo graphics, and arrangement and added some ads.  Sorry, but times are tough and despite what some people think - reading an ad won't kill ya ;)

  So, watch for upcoming blog entries as I review some of my favorite stuff.




Products mentioned in this blog:



   

Cat Play Toy, Abuse of Interactive Websites by Users and Bias Management by the People Who Run Them, Freestufftimes.com

Cat Play Toy


It's amazing what you can do with some scrap wood, plastic, carpeting, hot glue, a power staple gun, and some miscellaneous tools. If we had to buy something like this in a pet store it would be kinda pricey.

The bottom piece is two scrap pieces of plywood screwed together, the large round vertical upright near the bottom is a plastic roll that wire comes on (I believe that this came from some microwave-rated cable from a wireless project I was working on); filled with stones. The middle part is a shelf from an old computer desk, the top shelf is a thick piece of scrap wood, and the upper support is an old plumbing pipe scrap. An additional support under the top shelf is a 4x4 piece of wood; a cut-off cast-off from what had been cut off for a deck stairs leg - see; it pays to keep all those small scraps if you have the room. This piece I used a hole-drill to make a long cylindrical hole through and attached the top shelf to it, then slid the pipe up through it for additional stability for the top shelf.

The whole thing is carpeted with some cast-off rug. After I coated each piece of the cat toy thingy with hot glue I stretched the carpeting and stapled it at the bottom (similar to stretching a carpet when you're installing it), adding bits of hot glue to make sure no edges were raised and to cover any staples in case the cats got it turned over (not likely with the stones in the base).

Afterward, I steam-cleaned the carpeting as it had been stored in our basement.

Of course when I was nearly finished THEN I thought to look on the Internet for some how-to's. None seemed to add anything as - like so many things in life - it's pretty common-sense and straight-forward if you use your head. I really wanted some info on how to fold the corners properly but none gave me this info anyway.

It came out well, once I figured this latter out.

In the top picture Geordi, Hoshi, and Janeway investigate it (though I thought the kittens would be the most curious - they were sleeping). I put a little cat nip on it just to make sure someone would take the first try at it - since it was still a bit moist from the carpet cleaning. I guess I hadn't had to worry...

In the pic to the right Geordi and Hoshi are settled in for possibly a nap, while Janeway lunges and plays with a toy.

Abuse of Interactive Websites by Users and Bias Management by the People Who Run Them

Let me ramble a bit. Sometimes I wonder - how many people can handle the 'real' freedom that the Internet sometimes affords us?

What percentage of the "average" (if there is such a thing) members of humankind can responsibly use the Internet without abusing the freedom and the ability to access the mass of information (and disinformation and opinion presented as fact) it provides?

Do the thousands of great benefits outweigh that one negative nasty that sometimes comes along?

I've run a number of interactive websites, discussion areas, webboards, and mailing lists (and still do). But after years of dealing with people abusing the freedom they are given; I've cut back on how many I take care of directly, or indirectly, or help with.

After awhile it wore me down, and occasionally it affected my reputation on the Internet as well as in real life when I took the brunt of what someone else posted. Occasioanlly someone would cause some retribution against me; apparently for running the system - instead of the person who caused the trouble in the first place. I guess it shouldn't surprise me when people are, well, just people - but it does.

Give people a place with a little freedom and a certain percentage seem disposed to abuse it, and then the person providing that very place gets blamed by another percentage. And on top of that - a good portion of the time when you get sick of it and want to move on to other pursuits you get blamed for that too, sometimes by the very people who first-hand saw all the work you put into it. Sheez, you can't win. You just can't win sometimes.

I think we can see this with large sites like Wikipedia too. There's a certain attitude by some of their editors that is showing through - they're getting frayed from all the BS they have to put up with. People editing competitor's entries with false info, people with an ax to grind against a particular subject/website/tv show/person/etc, users who just plain want to cause chaos or post graffiti.

It must get overwhelming - and I sympathize. Though there seems to be a lot of bias and lack of understanding among some of the editors there.

Humans being what we are - biases, bad days, personal grudges, and all the baggage that goes along with that gets mixed in. Same thing I saw among the people helping with running various webboards and mailing lists I had been/are a part of as well as other interactive websites I am just a member of.

What's the answer? Someone trained in impartiality, like a judge? Best solution, but not practical. And even the best judges and debaters are influenced by their emotions sometimes.

Ah well. {sigh}

Free Stuff

Blatant advertisement alert.

Do you like free stuff? Heck, who doesn't? I've been receiving this newsletter from Freestufftimes.com, which lists all kinds of free contests and free items you can request on various pages across the Internet. Some good stuff out there, and companies are willing to send it to you for free! The newsletter has new stuff each day, and 99% of the time it's all updated and valid; I've gotten a few interesting things over time.

Right now they have a contest going - click here for more info. And, well, by posting this here I'm entered. Who doesn't like free stuff, indeed?



Hey, when I said this blog would be full of random stuff you did believe me, right?

Footbridge in Watertown #2, trail down to Black River, Kittens, Pool Table in an Aztek

Footbridge in Watertown, trail down to Black River, second post

Earlier this week I took my father to the doctor's for a routine procedure, so afterwards we made another pass by the footbridge off from Eastern Boulevard. This time the gate was open (last weekend was the whitewater kayaking event, I believe).

The bridge itself has a fine sheen of discoloring (rust?) all over it. The "island" it leads to has a fenced in area where you can look over the Black River, the plant on the other side along with the old walls and base of the original Eastern Boulevard Bridge.

There's also a (somewhat) steep walkway down to the rocks along the Black River. Here's some pics, a few more at my Flickr set.



Panorama from the stones. Taken with my Motorola Razr V3xx. A surprisingly good photo pano, taken with my cameraphone (forgot my Canon on this trip!).


The old bridge foundations.

The trail leading back up. Concreted stones. Nicely done, though maybe too steep for some people, probably slippery during wet times. More photos - my Flickr set.

Kittens are getting larger.

They're wandering around, playing with every other animal and thing they can find, and are developing their own little personalities.

Pool Table in the Aztek

We've fit pretty much everything into our 20005 Pontiac Aztek Rally Edition. The seats come out which makes for a large space, it seems none of the newer SUV's have seats that actually physically come out; just fold down.

Anyway, I didn't think this would fit but it did - a full size pool table.

Powered by ScribeFire.

New kittens

A while back we had been watching a movie one night, when we finished watching it and turned off the TV we heard a cat meowing.

Thinking one of our cats had gotten outside I opened the door and went out. At the end of the deck was a cat, but not one of ours. She looked to be part calico, part tiger - very unusual markings.

She meowed, and kept a distance from me but kept rubbing against the edge of the deck and looking pretty friendly. After some coaxing I finally was able to get her to come over to me.

She was such a nice, friendly and clean cat we couldn't just leave her out there. We brought her food and water, and moist food. All of which she ate while dividing her time between the food and rubbing against us.

Well, we let her come inside, and she seemed to fit in quite well. She was a very affectionate cat, and even slept with us and sat on my lap the first morning she was there.

But her belly seemed kinda round, I discounted it at first - that she might be pregnant. But her belly kept growing and growing until we couldn't say "she's getting fat!" any more.

So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd have a bunch of kittens to find homes for.

She kept getting larger, and larger, and larger. We put together a nice bed in a box for her but she kept exploring every nook and cranny of the house. One place she checked out a couple times was the corner of our home-office, in a space behind a filing cabinet and paper shredder and behind Jenny's computer. I told Jenny that the mother cat (who we named Janeway - all our pets are named after Star Trek characters) would likely just have them where she felt like having them, no matter how nice we made a place for her to do so.

Janeway kept getting bigger and we kept anticipating the birth, and then we started getting a bit worried. She looked like she was going to have about ten kittens, and I couldn't remember how big our cats in the barn used to get. Was her size normal? Was there something wrong? Or were they just going to come out half-grown? ;)

She stayed; for the most part, in our master bedroom's bathroom stretched out on the cool tiles. One night I woke up and checked on her, but she wasn't there. I looked around the house, not finding her anywhere.

Finally I looked in the space behind Jenny's computer. Sure enough, that's where she had had two of her kittens. There was blood and other things there, unmentionable things.

So at 3 in the morning we carefully transferred her and her kittens to the box we had set up, took it into the bathroom near our bedroom, and I proceeded to clean some things out and set up the steam cleaner.

After spending quite a bit of time hand-scrubbing the blood and such, and then using the hand attachment on the steam cleaner (the whole thing wouldn't fit in there) I had the blood cleaned up.

We went back to bed, worrying a bit as she seemed to have stopped her contractions and she obviously had a few (or more) to pop out yet.

I think we both checked on her a few times but she still hadn't had any more.

But the next morning she'd had two more and that seemed to be it. Two little orange and whites and two little half-calico's/half-whites. The latter being females, and the former being males.

Over the next few days she managed to carry the lot of them off into various places around the house a couple times. I also intercepted her in the process of carrying the babies quite a number of times. But finally she seems to have given up and is leaving them where they are.