Sciread77

I can't recall ever confusing books in my head. People do ask that a lot when they find out I read many things at once. I almost never read two books by the same author or set in the same world at once, so that probably helps. I'm definitely a visual learner, and I've always been able to remember most of what I read pretty well without much effort. I rarely even use bookmarks, as I usually know what page I'm on. I'm freakish that way, so books, IMs, message board threads, and the like work well for me. An actual conversation? More difficult to remember and keep straight. Professionally, I take copious notes and concentrate hard. It's one of the many reasons I avoid bars or other loud places where people expect socialization. It's difficult and stressful. I have remarkably few books on Kindle/iBooks. I've got about 60, and most are either electronic copies of books friends have published (to go along with the physical copies) or copies of old books no longer under copyright. My wife is a theatre teacher who has previously taught 5th grade and High School English, speech & debate, and theatre. So we have a lot of books from that too. When I was teaching math, I still had a classroom library for kids to read when they were done with their math work. I love buying books, and I read most of the ones that I buy. There are several in that category that are queued up for the arrival of the baby, though. Hopefully, being off of work for longer will give me more time to catch up. I'm definitely leaning on that time to make my annual reading goal. My digital books are more hoard-like, although many are books like Treasure Island and the Jules Verne books I read as a kid. I know I'll never finish my to-read pile because any time we get close, my wife and I go buy a bunch more. I also love and regularly use libraries.

See, I knew that the Adventurers were the right group for me. We set up a Trading Post and immediately begin to talk about what we're reading. There's nothing wrong with trashy historical romances. One of my friends has published quite a few historical romances. Twain is awesome, and considered a local in my area. I'm currently reading The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. I'm also reading Jurassic Park ("The Dinosaur Book") to my young boys, who LOVE it when the dinosaurs eat people. My tablet book is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in French, with audio. I don't stick to one book at a time. I usually have a book for every location I read. I'm severely behind my annual goal due to the last... 6 months? of effectively no book reading. Over the last week, I've been sneaking in ten minutes here and there and it's been helping my life quite a bit. I want to get back to reading more fiction, though. I've been reading an overwhelming number of non-fiction books, and most of them have been practical or business-related. Not that it's bad to read them, but they're not quite as good for me mentally as some good old sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, adventure, or thriller books. Or general-hilarity novels like the Stephanie Plum series.

I remember playing soccer as a kid. I could never run fast enough or long enough to be a forward. I was a solid defensive player with a long, accurate, and powerful left foot so I was always able to secure a place on the good teams. Never did score in a game, even though my dad offered me a lot of rewards for motivation. My biggest motivation was to play left defense lol. That's the hard part sometimes. We're members of a private swimming pool in the area, but it's expensive. We've also been YMCA members. I've not gone swimming regularly since I lived in an apartment with a swimming pool, though, mostly because even the YMCA and private pool association pools aren't that close to the house.

I log in Fitbit, usually on my phone. I also keep an Excel spreadsheet with running statistics (it's a tab on my personal D20 Modern character sheet). I'd do a physical chart, but I'd never remember to fill it in. My phone is always with me and I can remember the number long enough to plug it into the phone when I have a moment.

I don't miss a lot about being a teenager, but I do miss the energy levels.

-> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. I ended last week up a bit less than a pound, and this week I'm starting out a bit more than 1 pound over that starting this week. So hopefully I can get back on the right track. -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean bodymass, Major fail Friday and over the weekend. -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal via nutritional value, ie sweets, junk food, etc. The reason the protein was a fail over the weekend was the consumption of this stuff. ->Increase my total push ups from 28 to 35 and my total pull ups from 6 to 8. I actually did ok on this most of the week, but only a handful of negative pull ups on Friday. ->Complete PT daily. Mostly hit this, actually. -> Obtain 8 clock hours of sleep per 24-hour period. I only had about 6 hours of sleep last night but I took about 4 hours worth of nap yesterday. I don't feel great today but it's not quite as bad as I thought. -> Do something social, even if it's talking on forums, with an adult every day. I've been able to do this so far. -> Accomplish one long-term development task per day. I started the day by filling out a questionnaire for a promotion within my department. Here's hoping. -> Complete one side business item per day, even if I don't feel ready. I completed zero of this over the weekend or on Friday. I've otherwise been doing pretty well. -> Avoid news. Reading an article someone shares with me is ok, looking on my own is not. The Jason Stockley verdict has the whole community on edge. Half my friends are out there protesting. I've only checked the news for specific things, but even with the shared articles it's been a pretty bad news cycle. -> Disconnect each day for at least half an hour mid-day and in the evening with the family. This, fortunately, has been a major victory. It's been helping my mental state a lot and it's freed up quite a bit of time. -> Read a physical book for fun at least 10 minutes each day. I'm slowly but surely meeting this one. I think it'll be easier after the baby comes. One thing I've noticed is that my wife reads a lot when the TV is on, which I find to be nearly impossible and incredibly stressful to attempt. -> Listen to "good" music each day. And perhaps avoid "bad" music atm; sometimes it's cathartic but it's been too easy for me to fall back into old thinking patterns. Listening to music has been extremely helpful. There's a ton of stuff to do before the baby arrives. And she could be here any minute. On the flip side, a lot of what we're trying to get done becomes an SEP once she arrives. Friday our work location shut down due to the protests. I can easily work from home when that happens, but I need a better plan on how to deal with eating and activity. At work, I have a routine. Even putting out the daily fires isn't too bad for my stress or eating habits. At home, though, I noticed some issues: I didn't drink nearly enough water, I didn't follow my normal eating routine, and even when I had time to work on stuff this weekend I spent most of the time effectively spinning in circles trying to figure out where to start. I usually work best off of lists, and I need to create one for the must-do stuff at home too. In any case, I'm off to a bit of a rocky start but I'm pressing on.

I completely left that out. We trained with weights on long run days. It's also another critical component of speed, and at the time I didn't take it nearly seriously enough. I was fast but better weight training would have taken me to the next level.

Yes. Several major companies including mine shut down their operations today over it. I don't care about that. I care about the fact that people are hurting, scared, and seem unable to find any justice in our system. I've heard heartbreaking conversations between parents and children. So I can understand why a lot of people, often led by local clergy, are out protesting the status quo. Tensions are pretty high.

My condolences, and you're right. My city is typically either a powder keg or exploding. Denial helps nobody.

There's lots of excitement in the air. I hope the laundry list of goals is not too much.

Thanks! I think that my goals all support each other. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew here. On the other hand, they're pretty easy targets if I can manage to avoid mindlessly wasting time with stuff that mostly just upsets me and makes me feel small and powerless. And I love the GIF. Me too. I LOVE babies and children. Thanks! It's something I've faced for years. I have a pretty good idea of how to take care of myself and what works for me as long as I'm aware of what's going on. The nature of my problem is sneaky and makes it difficult or impossible to be objective. Fortunately, my wonderful wife is able to bring attention to issues changes as they arise without the anxiety and obsession that my parents did when I was younger, and she is incredibly supportive. I also know from looking back at journals, grades, etc. that things usually get worse around this time of year. Over the last 7-8 years I've been increasingly proactive and, fortunately increasingly successful in mitigating the effects. *Disclaimer: I also religiously take medications as prescribed by my doctors, following evidence-based medicine. Without those, other strategies are far less effective or useless.

More or less, this ^^ In high school I went from something in the arena of an eight minute mile to a 4:36 best time in the span of two seasons. I used: Structured Interval Training The coach broke down our goal times into various short runs, and we ran them over and over. Starting with 16 100 m dashes at the target pace, which was brutal. Then slowly moving to fewer but longer runs, with some varying days. For example, 200m runs, 400 m runs, and half mile runs, with a couple ladder days ( 100, 200, 400, 800, 400, 200, 100) and finally the mile at goal pace. We did this 2-3 times a week, depending on our conditioning and performance. The timing and pacing is the key, because you can do a lot to make yourself physically faster but if you don't train your mind and body to pace properly, you'll have serious trouble getting the time down. Sometimes you have to slow down at first to go faster at the end. I found this especially true for sub-6 minute timing. Long runs On alternate days from intervals, we ran between 30 and 60 minutes at a slower pace. The only rule was no stopping. Sometimes this may have included running hills. Weight loss I lost about 65 lbs, which was critical. Bio-Mechanics I originally ran like a duck. It destroyed my shoes and wasted energy. My coach was relentless about form and good form saved me a lot of shoes, injuries, and time. *Disclaimer: I did this when I was 17-18. I'm pretty sure I'd die if I worked that hard, that fast today.

September 17 - October 14 Adventure Prep - Fall Baby! So I've completed my first challenge, and it feels pretty good. I feel like I'm finally prepped to begin Adventure Prep. My aches and pains from odd weaknesses and inflexibility are diminishing. I'm getting physically healthier and I'm in that magic period in which I can make some progress on all fronts. I need to add another category to the long-term goals: Mental. I've struggled with various issues for years, and the last several have been the best. I need to find the middle ground between obsessing and framing my whole life in terms of these issues and becoming complacent or ignoring the problems. Finally, the time has come. Sometime during this challenge, baby 3 will arrive. Her arrival marks the start of the next Grand Adventure. Long-term goals: Body fat: 12-15%. I'm currently sitting at ~20% Strength: I want functional strength. Ideally, I'll be able to carry my whole family at once. Endurance: I'd like to beat Gaston in a push up contest. With matching pull ups and lower body strength Social: Build a stable, loving family with strong roots among friends and family. Mental: Build strong, stable mental health by adopting good habits and shedding unhealthy ones Professional: I want to move up, making a greater impact and more money. I am also looking to build a business on the side, helping business owners and managers standardize and systemize so they can take back their lives, grow their businesses, and/or replicate their successes. Challenge Goals: Body fat: My target is to consistently lose fat while minimizing muscle loss. -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. *I keep a spreadsheet with daily weight, weekly highs, weekly lows, total loss, average loss since I began tracking, and lbs to go until I hit my goal weight. Goal weight is a fuzzy, general number that corresponds to my 12-15% bodyfat goal. Diet: To maintain muscle, I will want to ensure -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean bodymass, -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal via nutritional value, ie sweets, junk food, etc. I expect diet to be a struggle. With a new baby and being at home during the holiday season, I've got two strikes against me. Over the weekend I ate myself a couple of extra pounds of pie, candy, and brownies. I'm not strictly concerned with the one instance, but I am concerned with how easy it is to go back to my old, annual habits of eating desserts like a starving hippo. Strength: ->Increase my total push ups from 28 to 35 and my total pull ups from 6 to 8. I think those are reasonable goals. Maintaining strength during the fat loss period is more important to me than gaining the muscle, but if I can improve during this magic period, I will! PT: I will continued to do calf/ankle exercises as a warm-up. I am working on strengthening my wrist/forearm/grip while improving flexibility. My goal is to do mobility and strengthening exercises daily, with an ultimate goal of being able to do traditional push ups and pull ups without pain. ->Complete PT daily. Rest: My third kid's ETA is October 1st. This is it. She'll be here in less than 3 weeks. -> Obtain 8 clock hours of sleep per 24-hour period. The Fitbit will not really register sleep until you've been asleep for at least an hour, so with a newborn it will be substantially less reliable. I'm the point parent post-partum for a lot of reasons, including 1) Not being the person just recovering from birth and 2) Having the ability to wake up, care for a child, and go back to sleep with minimal disturbance. My sleep agility is excellent these days. I have very little insomnia compared to years past, compared to my wonderful wife who will be up for hours if she wakens enough to care for a baby. Social: I've basically withdrawn socially during these last few months in preparing for the arrival of the baby. We both have to work until she's born too, so most of what is left over is dedicated to taking care of house stuff and the kids. I need connection with adults other than my wife. After the baby comes and we start getting into a routine, we'll start inviting friends over too. -> Do something social, even if it's talking on forums, with an adult every day. Professional: Since I'm looking to build something professionally, I'll list those goals too. -> Accomplish one long-term development task per day. Most of my job for the last 9 months has been a series of emergencies and tire fires. I can't keep doing survival mode (see Mental category below), and I have several development projects going. Once the baby comes, I'll work on a career or business-related skill each day. -> Complete one side business item per day, even if I don't feel ready. I read an article by the World Economic Forum today about overcoming perfectionism, procrastination, and anxiety. A particular quote stuck out to me: "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." Nobody starts out as an expert. Even experts usually aren't the best. I'm not worried about doing intentionally shoddy work. I have a graduate degree. I have years of experience. The fact is, I'm entering an new stage of my life and the time for action has come. Mental: The summer and fall are the worst times of year for me. (Even though fall and winter are my favourite seasons). I'm quite sensitive to sunlight. More tends to be bad for me, and the summer peak usually throws my moods off throughout most or all of the fall. This year I'm sort of stuck in a rut at work, with an understaffed team putting out fires all day every day. It's been a disappointing summer in that regard, and I've been feeling the weight of it pretty hard the last couple of weeks. It's the early stages of burnout, which I've had before and I must be proactive in addressing it. I have a few goals to help mitigate it until I'm out with the baby, and to help me prepare for my return afterwards. -> Avoid news. Reading an article someone shares with me is ok, looking on my own is not. I like knowing what's going on in the world, and it's normally not an issue. But one of my bad habits is constantly checking news ad nauseum, and it does nothing good for me. -> Disconnect each day for at least half an hour mid-day and in the evening with the family. -> Read a physical book for fun at least 10 minutes each day. I 've read a paltry 6 books this year. It's basically a book desert in my life; I've never read so few. I still read a lot, but blogs and other online content hardly count. I've also read several business books and technical guides beyond the ones I counted, but I'm basically not counting it if it isn't on Goodreads. I'm partway into the biography of Robert Moses, Jurassic Park (which I'm reading to the boys), and Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by JV, which I'm reading along with an audiobook). But I've really not read anything for fun since coming back from vacation in mid-July, and prior to that I'd not read anything since March. I had an ok first three months, but for comparison I read 4 books last November and 5 books last December. -> Listen to "good" music each day. Defined as music that helps me achieve feelings of calm, ambition, laughter, happiness, or otherwise helps condition my mind. The good thing here it that the goals support each other. Right now, I waste several hours a day on the obsessive checking of news and Facebook. I can replace that with healthier, more productive, more enjoyable alternatives. Plus, I'll have about 4 months off when the baby arrives. It's a lot of little stuff. I can do it. Only a few short weeks before the newest Grand Adventure arrives.

That makes sense. I wish I was able to do that at work!

This is pretty awesome. I find myself envious of the ability to wander so much. I'm a bit technology addicted, and something like this would probably benefit me quite a bit too. I have some pondering to do!

Potatoes are versatile and delicious. Do you have a prioritization system in place for when things get busy and you have to make choices on what to do? Also, do you use any time management aids? I have a Pomodoro app on my phone that schedules helps me break my day down into 25-minute work periods with 5-minute breaks or 52-minute work periods with 17-minute breaks. I find that helps me stick to my schedule better and take the breaks I need to stay healthy and maintain my focus. I have a tendency to get lost in things, which can lead to sitting for nine straight hours hunched over a computer and feeling like an 89-year-old man when I get up.

Pull ups: 6. Challenge goal met. Push ups: 28. My muscles completely gave out halfway through 29. The weird thing is, I tried it twice this morning and got to the same point both times. I'm not entirely surprised though. Losing weight and gaining strength is difficult and progress is not linear, in spite of what we'd like to believe.

One thing that has really helped me over the last 3 months is negative calf extensions. I found out I had extremely unstable, inflexible, weak ankles and calves. When I stepped my ankle movement was more like a number 3 than it was a solid arc, which of course really made it easy to sprain my ankle and caused all kind of calf pain. The negative calf raises are easy until you do 6 sets of 15 each leg, twice a day, 3 sets with a straight knee and 3 sets with the knee bent 45 degrees. I did that, focusing on smooth arcs and holding isometrically at weak points. My calves are bigger and more importantly, stronger. And oddly enough, also a lot more flexible.

Weekly: --- -2.03 for the week, weekly average -1.25 Total: -9.47 To go: 20.53 PT: 5/5. I've officially completed the Alfredson Protocol, but I'm keeping a shorter version of the protocol as a warm up. My wrists continue to improve, although I'll be continuing at least another month or two with them. Rest: Still hit all my goals! Calisthenics: 3/5. I had set build last Saturday and helped someone move on short notice Sunday. I took Wednesday and Today (Friday) as active rest days. Tomorrow I take my AMRAP tests! Steps: Averaged over 10,100 for the week. It's been a rough week. I've been completely exhausted and moody; I'm sort of burning out at work and feeling stuck. We've been at about 50% of our workforce for 9 months now, and I'm getting tired. My wonderful wife really diagnosed it and I'm taking active steps to mitigate it, especially my moodiness at home. That's not who I want to be. It also doesn't help that summer and early fall are historically the worst times of the year for me mentally. I think that kick starting my physical routine has helped, as has some of the dietary changes I've made. Controlling what I can and setting small, attainable goals has really helped me this summer, but not as much as being married to the most amazing human being on the planet.

Weekly: --- -2.03 for the week, weekly average -1.25 Total: -9.47 To go: 20.53 PT: 5/5. I've officially completed the Alfredson Protocol, but I'm keeping a shorter version of the protocol as a warm up. My wrists continue to improve, although I'll be continuing at least another month or two with them. Rest: Still hit all my goals! Calisthenics: 3/5. I had set build last Saturday and helped someone move on short notice Sunday. I took Wednesday and Today (Friday) as active rest days. Tomorrow I take my AMRAP tests! Steps: Averaged over 10,100 for the week. It's been a rough week. I've been completely exhausted and moody; I'm sort of burning out at work and feeling stuck. We've been at about 50% of our workforce for 9 months now, and I'm getting tired. My wonderful wife really diagnosed it and I'm taking active steps to mitigate it, especially my moodiness at home. That's not who I want to be. It also doesn't help that summer and early fall are historically the worst times of the year for me mentally. I think that kick starting my physical routine has helped, as has some of the dietary changes I've made. Controlling what I can and setting small, attainable goals has really helped me this summer, but not as much as being married to the most amazing human being on the planet.

Challenge Progress Report: -> Lose an average of 0.5 to 2 lbs per week over the course of the challenge. This week I'm down 2.03 lbs, bringing my average loss to 1.25/week since I started tracking averages in mid-July. That's a totaly of 9.47 down in the last six weeks, and 20.53 to go. -> Consume 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass, via nutritional value, i.e. sweets, junk food, etc. I nailed the protein every day. As I've said before, if I focus on protein first I tend to be full and everything else falls into place. -> Eat no more than 1 thing per day that does not support this goal I had a total fail on this Wednesday. I actually figured Monday would be the challenge, with the Labor Day holiday and all. But it was easy. Wednesday was a particularly stressful day, and I ate cookies, chocolate peanut butter hearts, more cookies, a cupcake, and then another cookie along with my protein and little else. That was a lot of empty calories that technically gave me energy but almost completely lacked nutrients. That said, my new day-at-a-time mentality got me past it instead of dwelling on it and ruining my performance and habits for the rest of the week. - >Increase my total push ups and pull ups by 30% over the course of the challenge from 23 push ups and 4 pull ups, respectively. Today is an active rest day. Tomorrow I need to complete at least 30 push ups and 6 pull ups to reach the challenge goal. I'll post it when I do. I'd say wish me luck, but in my experience there's no such thing as luck. ->Complete PT daily. Nailed it. Alfredson Protocol is officially complete, so I'm using a toned down version as a warm up. The wrist and forearm PT is still going and probably will until the end of the next challenge. -> Obtain 7 Fitbit Hours of sleep/night (roughly 8 clock hours) Nailed it again. I haven't slept this consistency well since shortly after my first kid was born. Prioritizing sleep has been incredibly helpful. I normally sleep an hour or more less a night with more variation. Summers are a particularly bad time of year for me, and this (summer end) is traditionally the worst for sleep and health. I've still had quite a few bumps, but for once the sleep part is pretty steady.

I find that a lot of people on both sides make comments that they shouldn't. My family always wants to fatten me up with pie, and my wife's family (as trained by her grandma) always want me to eat another piece of bread. On the flip side, many people seem to have nit-picky comments about food/diet not being healthy enough, especially to women. I try to stay on the muted side when it comes to diet for that very reason; some people are negatively anti-health because they're annoyed by constant health talk and thus take a contrarian stance. Such people are easily silenced (or better yet, not discovered at all) by toning the health talk down. I'm pretty silent about health here at work unless I know someone else is supportive. One guy in particular seems fairly anti-health. Whenever someone starts publicly trying to be healthy, he'll talk almost nonstop about delicious but less healthy food like pizza. I tend to think he does it because he exercises religiously, but never fails to drink a 6-pack a night by his own declarations. I think he sabotages himself and perhaps unconsciously sabotages others. My silence is part of why I prepared Hoth Base over the last 18 months, and why I do my physical work at home or at the Rendezvous Point these days. Too many people take going to the gym as carte blanche acceptance of unsolicited advice, much of it completely counterproductive for me. At work, I rarely talk about my health outside of people I know support my attempts to improve. I don't go to the gym here, instead finding places like my (recently-destroyed) Hoth Base to train without being bothered. It's better for me to go to a non-standard gym that to be there when the people who tempt me are, especially since their habits tend to hamper their own progression. Plus, I don't want to sound like an intolerable health braggart and half the time I feel like I do around them (partly because I don't down a whole pizza and six pack of beer every night like this group does).

Agreed. Over the last 4 1/4 years of having children, I've had to prioritize. Sometimes (often) that means choosing between meal planning and exercise (via exercising instead of taking care of responsibilities like phone calls or other planning at work, which then have to be done at home). I've struggled with weight and I realize that the meal planning/diet aspect has been far more important than the exercise portion of it. I second that it's easy to out-eat your exercise, especially if it's a stressful time and you're not in Olympic-level shape. I think that's what I've been doing over the holiday season the last several years: out-eating my exercise and packing the pounds like I'm about to hibernate.

I think the odds were always in Mayweather's favor. As you point out, he's a boxing champion in a boxing championship. And one of the best defensive boxers in memory. That said, history is littered with upsets and it's always great to see them. I think that McGregor should be proud of his performance, in any case. If Mayweather screwed up big, it could have been an upset.

Also, this is why similar training like fartleks probably hasn't improved your times. It's probably actually improved your health and speed, but it doesn't force you to (counterintuitively) stick to a slower pace so you don't run out of gas later.