The news this morning said the temperature is forecast to hit 34° C today (that's 93° F) with a humidex of 42° C (that's 107° F). The government has issued heat and smog advisories, which is a polite way of saying "don't bother trying to breathe today."
I hate humidity. I'd rather have 120° desert heat than this oppressive soup that Toronto calls air. You can't run, you can't hide, you can't sit in the shade, you can't spray yourself with water because all that does is makes it more humid. The only thing you can do is run the air conditioner, which gets really expensive really quickly, and is apparently going to lead to another blackout like the one we had in 2003.
The only thing worse than humidity is humidity with pollution. There are no clouds, but visibility is down to a mile or so just because of all the garbage in the air, which the enviro-Nazis would have you believe is because of cars ("OH NOES!!! CARS ARE TEH EVIL!!!11!!!one!!!!!"). Never mind that the government micro-manages every gram of exhaust that comes out of everyone's cars but as far as I can tell they're not actually interested in doing anything about huge industrial polluters. It seems that huge corporations make campaign contributions and have lots of expensive lawyers, which average citizens don't. It's easier for politicians to keep up good appearances by making it look like they're doing something about the environment by going after the easy targets instead the actual root of the problem.
Sorry, the weather is making me just a wee bit crabby. It helps to vent these frustrations. Really. A bit.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Call Mulder
It's time for curbside recycling pickup today. I noticed that virtually every house on our street ran out of laundry detergent simultaneously. Orange Tide bottles in every bin. Coincidence? I think not!
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Back to the gym
I guess for most people this wouldn't be particularly newsworthy. Or maybe it would. Being a card-carrying computer and math nerd, I've always felt profoundly out of place in any sort of physical activity setting, even as a kid. I suffered through every second of gym class, hated all kinds of sports, and never could figure out how any of those weird torture devices in the exercise room were supposed to work. Every kid's sports movie you've ever seen has the one awkard kid who carries a calculator everywhere, wears thick-framed glasses, gets straight A's in every subject but gym, and he can't even hold on to a ball, much less throw it straight. That was me, except I never wore glasses. Nor did I have any interest in sports or exercise, I was perfectly willing to let other segments of the population take care of that activity.
And that was my stand on the whole exercise issue until 2004 when Norah convinced me that we really needed to join a gym. We got a personal training package along with our new member startups so we could figure out what exactly we were doing. For a while, I was doing pretty well with it. I learned what parts of the body the various torture devices were designed to be used on. I learned about heart rate and warm up and cool down. I learned that I had these things called "muscles" and a few suggestions about stretching them. Believe it or not, I actually do have some muscles... somewhere. They certainly hurt after I've subjected myself to the torture devices for a while.
After I had used up my allotment of personal training sessions, I didn't want to pay for an extension, so I decided I knew enough to try it on my own without injuring myself (much). I actually kept up with it fairly well for a while. Then, as usually happens with these things, I sort of stopped going. The excuses were too easy to find, and I still think going to the gym is one of the least pleasant experiences there is, short of going to the dentist. But, darn it, the gym is good for me.
I always had good intentions of going over. It's been a recurring event on my calendar every week for the last eight months. But I was always too busy, didn't have time, was late for work, didn't have the energy, had too much knee pain, and so on.
This morning I finally got fed up with the excuses. I've realized that our base camp in Colorado is at about 7500 feet above sea level, and a lot of the 4x4 trails I've been looking at are up around 14,000 feet. Unless I want to pass out, I had better get my heart and lungs working at something over two percent of their capacity. I know it's only seven weeks until we leave, and I probably won't be able to get that much accomplished in that time. The thought does motivate me to get myself over there, so I'm sticking with it. So, despite the fact that I was still too busy, didn't have time, was late for work, didn't have the energy, and still had some amount of knee pain, I just drove myself over and did some exercise. And I didn't get in to work until almost 11:00. Fortunately for me I have a pretty cushy desk job where it doesn't matter too much if I drag in at that time and stay until 7:30 to make up for it. Mostly what the boss cares about is how many hours I work in a week, not so much about what time of day I work them. Good thing.
What I actually accomplished today in terms of strength training or cardiovascular fitness probably adds up to "not much". I think today was more about breaking through the psychological barriers I've put in my own way. Since I haven't been in a long time, I didn't want to overdo it and strain something. I did, however, manage to actually see the inside of the gym, I got myself on an exercise bike, picked up a couple of heavy objects and set them back down again, got my muscles stretched out a bit, and knocked some of the rust off of my joints.
So why am I bothering to talk so much about this? Public accountability. I am now serving notice to the entire Intahrnehtwebbahn that I intend to get my butt off the couch and over to the gym at least twice per week. Maybe even three times. I'll post here whenever I manage to do so. Knowing there's a record of my efforts will help me keep myself in gear.
I hope.
And that was my stand on the whole exercise issue until 2004 when Norah convinced me that we really needed to join a gym. We got a personal training package along with our new member startups so we could figure out what exactly we were doing. For a while, I was doing pretty well with it. I learned what parts of the body the various torture devices were designed to be used on. I learned about heart rate and warm up and cool down. I learned that I had these things called "muscles" and a few suggestions about stretching them. Believe it or not, I actually do have some muscles... somewhere. They certainly hurt after I've subjected myself to the torture devices for a while.
After I had used up my allotment of personal training sessions, I didn't want to pay for an extension, so I decided I knew enough to try it on my own without injuring myself (much). I actually kept up with it fairly well for a while. Then, as usually happens with these things, I sort of stopped going. The excuses were too easy to find, and I still think going to the gym is one of the least pleasant experiences there is, short of going to the dentist. But, darn it, the gym is good for me.
I always had good intentions of going over. It's been a recurring event on my calendar every week for the last eight months. But I was always too busy, didn't have time, was late for work, didn't have the energy, had too much knee pain, and so on.
This morning I finally got fed up with the excuses. I've realized that our base camp in Colorado is at about 7500 feet above sea level, and a lot of the 4x4 trails I've been looking at are up around 14,000 feet. Unless I want to pass out, I had better get my heart and lungs working at something over two percent of their capacity. I know it's only seven weeks until we leave, and I probably won't be able to get that much accomplished in that time. The thought does motivate me to get myself over there, so I'm sticking with it. So, despite the fact that I was still too busy, didn't have time, was late for work, didn't have the energy, and still had some amount of knee pain, I just drove myself over and did some exercise. And I didn't get in to work until almost 11:00. Fortunately for me I have a pretty cushy desk job where it doesn't matter too much if I drag in at that time and stay until 7:30 to make up for it. Mostly what the boss cares about is how many hours I work in a week, not so much about what time of day I work them. Good thing.
What I actually accomplished today in terms of strength training or cardiovascular fitness probably adds up to "not much". I think today was more about breaking through the psychological barriers I've put in my own way. Since I haven't been in a long time, I didn't want to overdo it and strain something. I did, however, manage to actually see the inside of the gym, I got myself on an exercise bike, picked up a couple of heavy objects and set them back down again, got my muscles stretched out a bit, and knocked some of the rust off of my joints.
So why am I bothering to talk so much about this? Public accountability. I am now serving notice to the entire Intahrnehtwebbahn that I intend to get my butt off the couch and over to the gym at least twice per week. Maybe even three times. I'll post here whenever I manage to do so. Knowing there's a record of my efforts will help me keep myself in gear.
I hope.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
w.bloggar
Well, I was looking for an offline blog post editor. I think I might have found one. The first few I looked at were fairly expensive, but w.bloggar is free as in beer, which is good enough for my purposes. I'm writing this post with it as a test to see how well it works.
The idea is to use this on our laptops as we're heading across the country so we can compose posts as we go, then upload them all at night once we can get connected to the net. It'll be interesting to see how it works out.
The idea is to use this on our laptops as we're heading across the country so we can compose posts as we go, then upload them all at night once we can get connected to the net. It'll be interesting to see how it works out.
Busy for a while
Well, it looks like we're going to be quite busy for the next couple of months, even more so than normal. The DML decided to have a National Meet this summer, and we volunteered to be on the organizing committee. Two months to go until we leave. (eek!)
There's a separate blog set up for all meet related information. I intend to do a better job keeping that one updated than I've been doing with this one. This blog is mostly for myself whenever I feel like posting something, but for the meet blog I really want to keep up to date on all of the effort that's going in to preparing for this meet, and it will stand as our record of everything that's happening as we're at the meet. Well, as much as time allows, anyway. We're going to be camping in the mountains, so logging on to the net and writing blog posts might not be highest on our list of things to do.
This reminds me, I should look to see if there's any software (other than a text editor) that'll allow me to compose blog posts offline and quickly upload them next time I'm connected. That'd help out considerably.
Anyway, if you want to keep up with what I'm doing for the meet, be sure to read that blog.
There's a separate blog set up for all meet related information. I intend to do a better job keeping that one updated than I've been doing with this one. This blog is mostly for myself whenever I feel like posting something, but for the meet blog I really want to keep up to date on all of the effort that's going in to preparing for this meet, and it will stand as our record of everything that's happening as we're at the meet. Well, as much as time allows, anyway. We're going to be camping in the mountains, so logging on to the net and writing blog posts might not be highest on our list of things to do.
This reminds me, I should look to see if there's any software (other than a text editor) that'll allow me to compose blog posts offline and quickly upload them next time I'm connected. That'd help out considerably.
Anyway, if you want to keep up with what I'm doing for the meet, be sure to read that blog.
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