Bearlee

Don’t sell yourself short on walking the Mall of America. You could of probably gotten 2 or 3 miles in without knowing it.

Happy Black Friday! It doesn’t mean much to me other than it’s the day after Thanksgiving. And marks the time I try to avoid shopping unless it’s an emergency. Exception being buying food because the grocery stores seem to have about the same amount of traffic. So for my Black Friday I woke up early to get my last yoga session for the week in. I should have woken up earlier because I only got 40 of 55 minutes in. Though I figure that’s probably 40 more minutes than Sloth got in. [emoji13] Then took my car in to get the oil changed but they told me the brakes needed to be changed also. Got a ride home since they said the work would take 2 hours. 4 hours later they call me to tell me my car is done. But I was already on my way to see my cousin’s new house. Did the tour and then picked up the car. Afterwards I used the mower to mulch the leaves in my front yard before the big snow comes in a day or two. Otherwise not doing much. The Cubs and I started watching MST3K The Gauntlet on Netflix and survived the first movie Mac and Me. Wife works tomorrow so might get a couple more movies in then. Hope you all are having a more exciting holidays than I.

Morning two of the new life. Monday I woke up at 5AM so I could do my yoga and prep for work. I felt a little rushed so Tuesday I woke up at 4:30AM. Did my Energy and Red Hot Core yoga, got a shower, made and ate breakfast, made a sack lunch, and thawed out the car. Then got out the door at good time and stop and got a 40oz un-sweet tea. My new job doesn’t know what to do with me (but then again who does) so my first day I mostly did busy work but I did learn more stuff about what I was doing over here previously when I was working at my old position. Not sure how well I’ll be keeping up with updates but I’ll do my best.

So I got a text from my foreman saying I’m going to my new position on Monday. I would have liked to have gotten more notice so I could finish gathering my stuff. So I’ll have to spend some personal time to go to work and gather the rest of my stuff. I’ve been bitch’n to everyone about the lack of notice but really I find it amusing though it came at the wrong time. I’ll have to put Cub1 in daycare next week since his school is closed all week. Can’t believe that the thing I’m concerned about is what am I going to do for lunch. And what is my schedule going to look like before and after work. Perhaps it hasn’t hit me yet that I should be worried about the actual job itself. I still haven’t been told what I’m going to be doing. Or if they even know that I’m going to show up on Monday.

What are you doing for exercise? Did you continue with DDPYoga? Thanks for reinforcing the idea that habit is more important than effort.

Friday, I don’t know what has happened to tonight but time flew by and I didn’t do a damn thing. I put off my workout until almost the last minute and then said “Keep the habit even if you don’t keep the effort!” And I’m glad I didn’t worry about the effort because I half assed my way through the whole thing. I got discouraged from the start when I couldn’t get my heart rate up even when I was putting in an effort. The whole workout out I never broke 110 bpm and by the end I averaged 95 bpm which seems a little high considering I was in the high 80s/low 90s most of the workout. Not the way I want to end the week leading into Thanksgiving week. Weeks like that is chaos for my routines. I like to do things at certain times and I can’t think of a plan for next week. And Cub1 has all week off which just adds more to the chaos. Thursday I got invited by my niece to see her High School’s practice robotics competition. I was kind of blown away by the number of engineering students they had there and what kind of projects they were working on. Anything from pin-hole cameras, to First Robotics competition bots, to Battle Bot style robots, to an electric car they race. Where was this stuff when I was in school? Of course back then I had no interest in anything so I probably would have pissed the chance away. Last note as a thank you to whomever has read this far. If you look up in the early evening to midnight and see the moon, the bright “star” next to it (I saw it above and to the left/East) is actually Mars. It should be visible to most since I was able to see it in a brightly lit parking lot (assuming no clouds of course). I don’t know why but I think it looks kind of neat and they track together across the sky which is also neat.

Well the concern was real. I didn’t get my 12 minute workout in. Kept saying “It’s only 12 minutes, I can fit that in anytime” but I didn’t.

Phew! Cleared the first of the big workouts this week. Below the Belt and Red Hot Core for a total of 50 minutes of yoga. The BTB wiped me out and I was sweating so much. The second half of RHC was only half assed due to being wiped. But the damn thing was done and I’m feeling good. Last week I never did get around to doing my electronics project because I sidetracked myself by reading a new book. Finished the book today and finally got around to doing my first project. Kicking myself a little because the wire I bought is the wrong kind and I can’t believe that I didn’t catch it when I ordered it (got stranded instead of solid core, so can’t push the wire into my proto type board). Fortunately the kit I bought actually had wire that came with it that I didn’t see. So I can still do the projects. Just kicking myself for being thick.

Wooo Brother! DDP Yoga being done. Great to hear. We love stories of plagues and gut faeries and strained backs. That and the randomness of your threads bring us back.

I love how Asians just say what they are thinking (pertaining to the commentary). They’re not rude or anything but just state what’s going on. My wife is Vietnamese and I was a little shocked when her family just came out and said you’re fat and they didn’t mean anything about it, they were just stating a fact. Book 11 of a series. Are you reading the Wheel of Time series because that is one of the few ones I can think of that run that long. And great job with the progress. I went back through your thread and saw that you’ve gained Gets, Kips, and now Muscle Ups. It’s like watching a skill tree in a video game being filled out. Awesome work keep it up.

We getting an update anytime soon? The last proper update was ten days ago. And keep going with the DDP Yoga, it gets easier the more you do it. Some dumbass at one time told me “Make it a habit, then worry about progress” which is good words to live by. And my opinion on the Doctors is that which ever one you watch first is usually your favorite and then from there on it’s the previous Doctor to the one you’re watching because you always compare the new Doctor who is trying to establish himself/herself to the Doctor that is fully fleshed out. So 9 is better than 10, 10 is better than 11 and so on. Or if you watch them out of order 11 is better than 9 (if that is the stretch of series you go to next).

Start of a new phase in my yoga started this week. Instead of 3 workouts per week I’ll be doing 5 workouts over 4 sessions during the week. Kicked off the new phase by getting my first workout in Fat Burner. Tuesday is Below the Belt and Red Hot Core for a combined total time of 52 minutes. Then Thursday is only a 12 minute Red Hot Core which surprisingly might be tricky because I might debate if it’s worth moving furniture, get the exercise mat out, and change clothes for a 12 minute workout. Then wrap things up Friday with Diamond Cutter which is 55 minutes and was quite difficult for me last week. Tracking food has been going well also. Most days I’m right on the verge of going over and that is with me watching what I’m eating. It’s scary to think how much I was consuming when I wasn’t paying attention. Keep forgetting to mention with the proper doing of yoga that my right knee has been hurting me but not in a way you would think. I keep getting up and down so much that my knee has what feels like a rug burn. I’ve been putting Vaseline on it for the past couple of week with minor relief. However today after I had my shower I noticed that I had a tube of Gold Bond excema relief ointment on my counter so decided to try that and it seems to be doing well. Today when I got up and down I noticed a sizeable difference in the discomfort of my knee.

Loving your music. I really quite expanding my repertoire. The Danger! High Voltage was really catchy. Great job on the work you’re doing. You may not be hitting all your goals but I could guess that you’re doing better than you were before. Keep it going.

Awesome video! Who’s your cameraman? I need subtitles too. Anything interesting being said? And love that the area is filled with people wanting to do those exercises. Those kids were adorable and fit.

Thanks, though it would be nice to have regular updates with some progress too. And I’ve thought I better be a little more consistent so I can heckle @Sloth the Enduring about the lack of his regular updates. Though I need to get better at posting on other’s threads. Small steps.

I’m glad you mentioned archery because I forgot something. A while back after reading about your archery tournament I called my older brother and asked if he still uses his compound bow. He says he uses it for fishing now. He attached a reel to the front of it and shoots fish from either a bridge or shore. He says he also shoots frogs since he has a friend that likes to eat frogs legs. He says he can shoot a frog from 50ft away. Don’t know if that’s good or not, but better than I could do. Do you know anyone that does something like this? And way back to your Reet Petite song, I know we shouldn’t be body shaming in this forum, but the claymation woman in that video was anything but petite. So I thought maybe I don’t understand the meaning of “reet”, which of course I don’t. So I went down a whole rabbit hole about the history of the song and the meaning of reet. Guess reet means righteous so my criticism is still valid (though sad). And that song holds the record for taking the longest to get onto the Top 100 charts. It was released in the mid 60s and was mostly ignored and then in the mid 80s that video was used for a Miller beer commercial in Britain and the song went viral and reached #1. Love odd stories like that. Though I couldn’t find the beer commercial to back up this story Great job on walking at work and all the other things you’ve been doing. Keep it up.

First things first, I did my first DDPYoga Diamond Cutter 2.0 workout. 55 minutes of stretching, strengthening, and contorting. Some modifications and 3/4 assed my way through some, but I’m proud that I just actually did it. I wasn’t able to keep my heart rate up like the last two sessions, but I maintained a 107bpm for 55 minutes so I’ll take that. The bad news. Earlier in the week I finally got around to taking my measurements and I’ve stayed exactly the same over the past month (inches and weight). Is no gain a victory? This has prompted me to not only cut out the liquid calories but to also log my food in my FitBit app. That in the few days I’ve done it has opened my eyes. I’m thinking a little something here and there (usually something 400+ calories, which isn’t little for most people) wouldn’t hurt. It doesn’t exactly blow my day but it’s certainly not helping me at all. I think the liquid calorie is starting to take. I got a McRib meal from McDonald’s and instead of a un-sweet tea they gave me a sweet tea. Now I did drink some but only about a cup worth and then dumped the rest because it tasted too nasty. Then went to the local gas station and got me an un-sweet tea. Small victories that will hopefully snowball. Of course not having the McRib would probably have been the bigger victory.

Wednesday morning and workout completed already. Below the Belt for 40 minutes with an average heart rate of 124. Two times in a row that I was able to get my heart rate up and keep it up. Possibly a good sign. My electronics kit that complements the electronics book I’m reading came Tuesday. I’m a little disappointed by some of the items missing in the kit, fortunately I work in an electronics shop so I just use the tools here. Though we are surprisingly missing a few things namely 9V batteries and 22 gauge wire. The wire I can understand since we’re not technically an electronics shop and actually a communications shop so all of our wires are thicker to accommodate larger voltages. The battery missing is odd, but just poor logistics on our part. Fortunately we have variable power supplies here that will work nicely for me. And with the kit here I started doing some of the first experiments. Nothing too elaborate but I’m excited that I’m going to be doing my first bread boarding project in over twenty years. (A bread board is an electronics board that has a lot of holes in it that you can push wires and components into and pull out easily to quickly prototype a circuit). My second kit for the later projects also came with an Arduino Uno board (think small cheap computer that hobbiests use for projects such as robots). So I’m excited to see what I’m going to do with that. And for a long with I’ve been dabbling with the idea of doing projects with either this board or a similar one called a Raspberry Pi, but since the decision has been made for me I’ll look for projects that use the Arduino.

Glad to hear things are going well for you, and that nothing seems to have changed at work. I’m with you about the challenges, but the battle log works fairly well for me to keep some accountability. And glad to hear about the weight loss and exercise, you’re doing better than me. If you ever put your new work up on SoundCloud let me know, I’d like to hear what you’re working on. I was going to say what’s up with the question mark, but I’m so back and forth on things I can see why you did it. I’m excited and nervous and a lot of times lately I don’t know how I should feel. Further updates below. Good to hear about the planetarium. I would love to take Cub1 but he gets motion sickness when we go to one. I thought it was odd that he got motion sickness when we went to go look at the stars at the nearby observatory and he would get dizzy just looking up. So much for my ultimate travel companion. No worries though because we still have a ton of things in common. And I know what you mean about the laser show. Is it showing my age to say that I’ve actually been to one?

Wooo! For some reason I was on fire tonight. Took a nap before work and I’ve been a bouncing ball of energy ever since. And it showed in my yoga. During yoga my heart rate usually hovers around 100-115 but tonight it hung around the high 120s and at times I had trouble keeping it under 137 (my supposed uppper limit I should work at). At the end I averaged 121 which considering it’s a 23 minute workout with about a combine time of 8 minutes for warm up and cool down (leaving only 15 minutes of actual workout time) it’s fairly impressive. Though I don’t know what was different about this time compared to other times since the level of exertion seemed about the same. Only difference was that I had pizza before working out. Perhaps pizza is my superpower? But in all seriousness Monday morning I got in my scheduled workouts of Energy and Red Hot Core. And it looks like a lot more combos coming up in the future. I also noticed that I’m going to be doing Diamond Cutter 2.0 every Friday for the next eight weeks. That kind of intimidates me since most of my workouts have been either beginner or intermediate workouts and DC2 is an advanced level workout. Though if you don’t push your boundaries you don’t make progress. Just like with the Red Hot Core, I don’t have abdominal cramps after the first two minutes any more, though there is still a ton of modifications done. On the other hand, I have very few modifications now with the Energy workout other than not doing the Standing Split on my left leg so I can protect my left knee. I can put my full weight on that leg and do a Superman, I just can’t bend down to touch the floor without getting a twinge in my knee. This weekend I got a book to help me prepare for my new position, it’s called Make: Electronics (Burn things out, mess things up — that’s how you learn) from the people that publish Make: magazine. It’s the most basic book that you can get to get into electronics but I’m having fun relearning all the stuff I learned 20+ years ago. It’s a nice little refresher and it even explains some things better than what I knew before. I even ordered the kits that are available online so I can make some of the projects in the book. Perhaps I’ll even do a few with Cub1. Though there is not much about transmissions which is what I assume will be a lot of what I’m going to be working with (since we are a communications department) but it’s nice to get some of the fundamentals down so I will know what people are talking about when we get down to the component level. Perhaps I can even turn this into a hobby. Speaking of hobbies, in the past couple of weeks I’ve found a website called Code.org that teaches coding. TML might give a grin and say isn’t that cute, but it’s a fun place to start with. Though I’m just snapping code blocks together and my mind wanders to all the things I’m not seeing. I input move direction and distance and the sort, but then I wonder about the graphics that are used and the music and sound. Where does all that come from? And I read the code because I’m interested in that and I wonder what are the parentheses () for and why is there a semicolon at the end of each line? I suppose I step at a time. I am a bit concerned though because this is a site that Cub1 says they are using at his school and I thought it would be fun for us to interact with, but it may come down to the old “if my parents like it it’s not cool” kind of thing.

First a shout out to @Emma. I enjoy your likes, but I haven’t heard from you in a long while. If you have time I would like to read what’s been going on with you lately. If not, that’s fine, just glad to know you’re still around.

Noooo! It’s just edible plastic. Unless of course you want to give your candy corn to her then that’s fine. Though I did read a survey that says that candy corn was the number one candy enjoyed during Halloween. It’s just my personal preference. My Lord that is quite the list you have. How did you manage to track it all. I feel like a right Sloth after reading that. Though if you reduce your sleep from 7 hours per night to 5, like me, that frees up 14 hours per week which is almost enough to get your Crocheting in. I also noticed that your trash TV and Crochet times are the same, so a possible multi-task? And those extra 53 hours should be no trouble. You’re a Time Lord Companion after all. Seriously, impressive list and the best of luck with it. And what’s the side job that takes up 5 hours?

Forgot some important stuff on my last post, plus I ran out of time. Sunday was Cub2’s birthday, I had a lot of cake and ice cream that day. And then there were leftovers, so not a good week for sugar. And then on Halloween had a second gathering (not really a party either time, just family getting together) and more cake and ice cream with plenty of left overs. No Halloween candy though since neither kid likes Halloween. Sugar may have won this week, but I should be good for the rest of the month until Thanksgiving, and even that won’t be much sugar. Also, Tuesday I took Cub1 to the cinema and we watched Spirted Away by Studio Ghibli. I didn’t know what he would think of this one but he said he liked it but not as much as My Neighbor Totoro. While we were there I indulged in popcorn and soda. One of the few times now that I actually have soda (and I don’t regret it). The last Studio Ghibli film is on November 20th. It’s Castle In The Sky and I think he will like it, well he should because he’s already seen it and said he liked it but that was a few years ago. Speaking of soda, I have mostly beaten this beast (minus the cinema visits) and my last hold out of mango tea from Taco Bell has also fallen. Taco Bell has started selling their drinks in clear cups and the mango tea does not look appetizing at all when you can see it, so I’ve gone to un-sweet tea there also. I’ve also gotten my Friday workout in. It was DDPY’s Below The Belt. Four weeks in and I’m thinking this next level of intermediate isn’t so tough, but then I looked ahead and see that after next week I’ll be going from 3 workouts per week to 4 and the intensity level will also increase. It’s not an insane increase, just enough to push me out of my comfort zone which should be a good thing. Also forgot to mention that my work still hasn’t given me a move date to go to my new position. However they did post my old position and it hit me that this is really happening. Though they did change the days off on my old position from Friday/Saturday (basically Sat/Sun) to Thursday/Friday (Friday/Saturday). If I thought they were going to have trouble filling my position before, I think they just doubled the difficulty, but it’s not my concern now. I’ll keep you up to date about the job situation as I figure it out. My guess is January 2nd of next year since I’m on vacation from Dec. 5th to the end of the year. Though I would like to know what my job will be and who my foreman will be (there are several) because there are some things I may need to do before the end of the year (like file for next year’s vacation time) and I don’t know how they do it over there. Nice thing is is that I’ll be going in with either the second or third highest seniority out of 25 people, so that should hopefully prove useful to me.

Can’t believe it’s been since my close encounters with the trains that I’ve updated. I survived that ordeal and didn’t find any dead bodies. Though if I would have taken a bad step I probably would have rolled into the creek nearby which looked like it would have been full of leaches. That day at work really threw me off my schedule for sleeping (worked half a day unplanned overtime) and that just ruined my whole week sleeping wise. I did get my planned workouts in but otherwise that was just a survival week. This week is not going much better. Called into work Sunday early because we don’t have a second shift and instead of filling it with overtime they would rather abuse our on-call status and save a few bucks. That started the week out badly for me and has also interrupted my sleep schedule. Sunday to Monday is my longest period of the week without sleep. I wake up Sunday around 8AM, work Sunday night, then go to sleep Monday at 8AM, but usually try to get a couple of hours of sleep in before going to work. Didn’t happen this week and I’ve been sluggish all week. I’ve also come down with the crud and have been trying to fight that off. So far crud protocols (massive amounts of Cold-Eze lozenges, Emergen-C, stay warm, liquids, and as much sleep as possible) have kept the worst of it at bay. End of the month and on my DDPYoga app I ended up at 946 out of 25,000 people points wise. So met the goal of top 1000 but just barely. I did have a missed day of workouts and a couple of half-assed sessions where I didn’t wear my heart rate monitor (which halves my points for that workout). Only two months left in the year and I want to get back into a better flow with the yoga.

Wow about the riots. That almost sounds like the set up for a Jacky Chan or Steven Segal movie. Wonder if the police were late because it would take time to assemble a squad to handle 200 people, isn’t like you could send a few squad cars in. But you might be right that it’s more likely a little bit of corruption going on. That is a mighty impressive (and colorful) list of leg workouts above. And congrats on the gymnastic work you’ve been doing. Sounds like you are making impressive improvements.