Oh my gosh how I wish “The West Wing” was still on the air. Oh, how I miss thee.
September 2012
Autumn.
So Saturday is officially the first day of Autumn up here in the Northern Hemisphere, but Mother Nature is giving us a little bit of a taste today, with a cool, dry autumn breeze and ample amounts of sunshine. I’m smiling right now because this is the beginning of my favorite season. I just love the crisp feeling found at this time of year. I love the sounds the leaves make and the magic one feels on the wind that is rustling those leaves. I just love the energy of the world at this time of year. I find it rejuvenating.
Despite challenges at work today, the smiling continues.
Today was the first day in nearly a week that I did not ride my bike this morning. I opted to work out in the basement instead; lifting weights, doing push-ups, that sort of thing. The magic of the season helps me find the energy to do this. The only thing I wish would happen is that we would put the clocks back in sync with the sun, so we could all have a little natural in the morning. This would make getting up a little bit easier.
Travels.
So Earl and I have planned our vacation for the end of the year. After doing some careful calculations and the like, I determined that I had exactly one week of vacation time left and Earl always has some spare time lying around in his attendance file, so we are getting away for a week in December. We are flying to Houston on December 1, doing some Texas things for a few days and then driving to New Orleans for the latter half of the week, to return home on Saturday the 8th. While driving in the New Orleans area we may do a side trip to Mobile, Alabama just to get Alabama and Mississippi onto the list of visited states. That will raise the tally to 44.
We decided to go to Houston because we’ve never been there before. I have briefly been to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and we had the Jeep adventure outside of Amarillo when we had to take refuge from a tornado under an Interstate 40 bridge back in 2005, but other than that, Texas is a lot of unknown to us, so we are going to do some exploring. We might make it down to Corpus Christi just because we can and because I am a huge geek, I hear there’s a road somewhere around Houston that has a speed limit of 85 and I simply must drive on that and take a photo of a sign.
We have both been to New Orleans before but our last visit was in 1999, so we thought we were due for another visit. My memories of New Orleans are a little hazy because the last two visits were during radio conventions and I think I was cocktailed fairly early in the morning. Who knows, maybe I’ll do the beer for breakfast thing again. Plus, we’ve always flown in and out of New Orleans, so it’ll be nifty to drive from Houston to New Orleans and see what the area around NOLA is like.
We figured that the first week of December would be a good week for us to get away and do our thing. I’m looking forward to the trip. I hope we get the opportunity to meet any gentle readers that might be in the area. If you’re along the way, please drop me a line so perhaps we can say hey. It’d be fun!
Meditative.
So as predicted to myself this past weekend, I have started finding my meditative center again through my cycling. I went for an hour ride this morning before work, but it felt like the ride was only five or ten minutes long. As a result, I have felt pretty good today and I have been productive at work. My stress levels are lower. I’m handling things better. Thing are all good, and for the benefit of another blogger, less squishy.
Because the United States insists on playing God with the position of the sun in relation to the time, it is now pretty dark when most folks are getting up for work, and it will continue to be like this until the second week of November. This is unfortunate in many ways, one of them including the fact that there are folks that would like to exercise in the magic of the autumn morning breezes to give their day a kickstart. I saw several other cyclists, walkers and joggers as I made my rounds today. Exercising in this manner requires dressing up nearly like a Christmas Tree. You have to be as reflective and noticeable as possible, lest you get hit by a driver who is busy trying to send a text message on their 2005 flip phone while speeding along at 60 MPH.
Since I re-entered the cycling arena nearly 12 years ago I have noticed a considerable decline in my safety comfort level while riding the streets and roads of the area. I have to be more cognizant than ever of what’s going on around me. I obey all traffic signals and signs and I ride my bike as if it were a motor vehicle that is being powered by human means (but not Taco Bell gas). My bike is fitted with a very bright headlight, a flashing tail light, about a dozen reflectors and reflective tape. My cycling jersey has reflective tape on it and my shoes have the same. To make me even more noticeable, Earl brought home a fluorescent safety vest from work that I wear over everything. I can’t help but think that folks can see me, however, there was one close call this morning where a car came speeding down the hill on the non-motored side of the white line that denotes the shoulder of the road. I quickly veered into a driveway to avoid having to eat some gravel.
Of course, we have the other side of the coin of all this as well. There’s a part of me that thinks that common sense would dictate that when one saw me with all this gear on, riding a decent bike and following the rules of the road, then I must be someone that knows what the heck I’m doing on a bicycle. However, every once in a while someone will blare their horn right behind me or slow down to my speed and just tail me down the street. I find this disconcerting. I appreciate that they’re considering my safety and welfare but on the other hand, I think I’m showing signs that I know what I’m doing. Perhaps I’m a little cranky. I guess it’s the effort that counts.
The ride this morning lasted just around an hour. The last third of it was in the rain. Luckily I had my rain gear on. The rain was quite enjoyable and didn’t bother me in the least. It didn’t snap me out of my meditative state, in fact, it helped the situation. I enjoyed it so much that I took a break from work this morning and walked for 15 minutes in the pouring rain.
And it felt good.
Fitness.
So with the cooler weather here I have been feeling the need to tend to my health needs. I’m not one for cycling during the dog days of summer. I am much happier when I ride in the spring or autumn, with autumn being my absolute favorite. I was able to get two good sized rides in this weekend and I feel quite pleased about it. I am planning a longer ride this coming weekend.
As I hit the trails and roads with my bike I find myself trying to eat healthier. I have to have a somewhat structured or regimented approach to all of this for it to make any sort of impression on me. Though some swear that it’s foolish, I track my calories in and out on a daily basis. I had been using the Livestrong app and website to accomplish this and while it worked, I never felt that it was a great fit for me. The website is overloaded with advertising and the app didn’t feel intuitive. Plus, there was no barcode scanner built into the app. Barcode scanners are wonderful because you can scan the barcode with your phone’s built in camera and it’ll look up the nutritional information for the exact item. It takes away from the guess work and it keeps you from having to enter search words just so.
Enter the MyFitnessPal app and MyFitnessPal website. Tracking food intake, exercise and weigh-ins with MyFitnessPal is extremely easy. Both the iPhone and iPad apps are intuitive and very fast, which is important for those of us who might have an ADD issue. Plus, the app includes the aforementioned barcode scanner and the database is huge. I was able to scan the milk cap from a glass bottle of Byrne Dairy Skim Milk (a local favorite) and it found it with ease. The database is also crowdsourced, so folks are always adding and editing information as warranted.
It has made being healthier with a structured approach much easier.
I have weight and fitness goals to obtain by the end of the year and I’m pleased to say that I am well on my way to where I want to be. This structured approach is psychological for me but instead of analyzing it I’m just going with it. Why mess with success?
If you’re looking for a good website and/or app to track your fitness goals, I highly recommend MyFitnessPal. I don’t have any experience with the Android version of the app, but if the iOS version is any indication, it’s a sure winner.
The Standard Electric Time Company.
Originally posted on my Google+ stream.
Today I added a new clock to my master-slave clock collection in the house. This one is from 1940. All of the clocks in the collection were made by The Standard Electric Time Company. The are minute impulse clocks, so the make that click-click sound once a minute that was common in American schools in the 20th century. They run on 24VDC and are controlled by a relay board connected to a Pentium II 233Mhz running Debian Linux. The program used to advanced the clocks was written in BASIC by me a couple of years ago and compiled using FreeBASIC. Uptime on the server right now is 340 days.
This particular clock hangs on the wall in my office, replacing a bigger version of one from the same era. It is a smaller, 9-inch model, which would usually found in small offices scattered through a school. Most classrooms had a 12-inch clock hanging on the wall. Gymnasiums, auditoriums, cafeterias, etc tended to have the 15-inch version.
I started collecting these clocks in the mid 1990s. I became fascinated with these clocks on my first day of kindergarten back in 1973.
Withdrawal.
So I know that I’m nearly two years behind the curve on this but I am suffering from withdrawal symptoms after successfully completing the only season of “The Event.” The fact that this show was canceled tells me that the American television viewing public is basically becoming stupid. The show was well written, the acting was decent to great, the action was believable and while they’re are always gaps here and there in a storyline, they kept the plot believable within the universe that was built for this show.
The last scene of the show was a mighty cliffhanger that will now most likely never be resolved. And yes, I know that people were talking about this a year or so ago when the show was canceled but it’s my blog and I can talk about anything I want to talk about.
Flipping through Sirius/XM yesterday I heard some sort of entertainment drivel about all the new shows that are coming out this season and every. single. show. they. mentioned. was some sort of “reality” show. “The Voice”. “American Idol”. “Dancing With The Stars”. If I want to watch Charo do the cha cha I’ll fire up an old episode of “The Love Boat” and watch her contort and growl out the theme song in a lounge that looks like the Holiday Inn under her guise of “April Lopez.”
I am going to state right here and now that if we win the lottery within the next year, I will make a serious investment wherever we need to invest so that we can at least have a miniseries conclusion to “The Event”. I don’t know why someone in Hollywood doesn’t already have the intelligence to do this. Actually I do know why; Hollywood is dumb and it’s trying to entertain the lowest common denominator, the folks that win a “participation award” at a soccer game because they just showed up.
I think I’m bordering on a rant now, so I’m going to keep it real and tell you, probably not for the last time, if you’re into SciFi and you want to see something good with a heaping helping of action, watch “The Event” on Netflix.
Change.
So I am sitting in a different parking lot today. Even though I am working from home, I decided to go out for lunch to give the cleaning crew the room they needed to do their thing without me being in the way. To celebrate this change in my routine, I had a six-inch turkey breast sub from Subway. Now, most would find that this sort of thing doesn’t warrant the word “celebrate”, however, when I get into a routine, I really get into a routine, and doing something out of my routine is kind of nifty for me.
So I’m sitting in this parking lot, still without my iPad (which is scheduled to arrive tomorrow). My iPhone showed that it could be used as a Personal Hot Spot. I fired that up with the intent on using my MacBook Pro with that when the menu option just vanished from the screen. My laptop still sees the hotspot as available but it’s not really. So instead I hacked into the wifi of a nearby house. They really shouldn’t make the hotspot name and key the same thing. I suppose that’s one way to remember it.
As I mentioned in my previous entry today, I went for a bike ride for the first time in a while. I need to pick up a tire pump in my travels today so that I’m ready to go again tomorrow morning. I started out walking but got to the end of the driveway and made a U-turn after deciding that a walk would be boring. I wanted to do something a little more exciting, even though it was 6:15 in the morning.
My fitness goals are coming along nicely. I jumped on the scale this morning and was pleasantly, yet cautiously, surprised. It’s good to see progress on something and now I feel more energized. I’ll have to keep it all in check this weekend. Being sensible and not trying to follow a whacked out diet is what is working for me this time around. It’s all about moving. I might need to get some snowshoes for the winter so I can keep up the effort.
Old School.
So I’m kicking it old school today. I’m working from the office on a Wednesday, which I haven’t done in months, I’m using my MacBook Pro instead of my iPad to type this entry and I’m using the city wifi instead of the LTE connection I usually try to enjoy from Verizon?
Why all this frivolity, you ask? Well, folks at the office asked me to come in and work on the big project in person today since it worked best with schedules. I’ll be working from home the rest of the week. I’m a flexible kind of guy these days, especially when the future of the group may be up for grabs. In addition, I inadvertently left my iPad in North Carolina when I flew back on Monday. It’s expected to arrive tomorrow. Without my iPad, I don’t have a network hotspot to use, so that’s why I’m using the city wifi.
It’s an acceptable solution.
Being without my iPad for a few days has not been as traumatic as one would expect it to be for me. I haven’t really missed it. Anything that I can do on my iPad I can do on my iPhone and I can still do more on my laptop than on either my iPhone or iPad. So perhaps this has been a learning experience for me.
I’m in one of those moods where I feel the need to simplify my life again. Things build up and get complicated and then I do some sort of reboot and things get back down to normal. Last night I startled Jamie by thoroughly cleaning the stove and Radarange (microwave) simply because it was good to do something that wasn’t complicated nor technology based. Doing this felt good.
Earl is out of town on business until Friday. I think tonight after supper I’m just going to sit down and read a good book. I’m going to keep it simple.
