mistakes of my past

I used to sing when I was younger. I never thought the exercise of steady and deep breathing of my younger years would be my first and earliest training on the benfits of meditative breathing. All I remember was that I loved to sing. Whenever I sang I could connect to feelings and emotions not evident to those around me. I was touching, ever so lightly, so thread that binds us all.

There was a boy. A highly functioning retarded boy named "J", who always has the habit of singing "outside" of the group. A key concept of singing in a group is to strive to sound as one voice. to sing "within" a group is the highest ideal. J always would push his voice above the the rest of the group, and it angered me. I would become upset to the point where I would threaten him with bodily harm.

Now, in the midst of awakening self, I now realize J had something I wanted back then. The Tao was speaking more clearly to him than to me. I was jealous.

-nn

energy leaking out of every pore

I have been working out, just not marking my progress here. As I attempt to write about more than just the work out (let's face it, a singular perspective on anything is boring) I have noticed I have nothing in my head to write about. So rather than bore you with the continual blog about what I do to sweat, I have opted to write nothing at all. At least until something crosses my radar I feel is worthy of putting into words.

Until then, read this:

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.

Savour the coffee, not the cups! The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Lovingly liberated from here. I found this aricle to be very wise in the vein of knwoing who we are, what we do, and the how our behavior affects others. Very nicely written also.

-nn

Ode to the "soulless" treadmill

In the past, whenever I heard about or saw someone running on a treadmill, my first thought was "why on earth would anyone want to do that?". They run in one place like an over-sized hamster, going nowhere. They should be outside, where they could at least be exposed to the sun and have a little exposure to nature. What a bland and soulless task to run on an endless twelve feet of belt with nothing to show for it.

Oh what a difference a couple of days make...

There are many benefits to running on a tread, especially for one that is just getting into the running program:
- there are no distractions like cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
- running on a tread allows you to focus on the developing a proper form, which you will not get if you have to stop or slow to accommodate cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
- setting your pace while free-form running is difficult, because you have never had to set the pace before. using the machine to set and keep the pace helps your body set and recognize a proper pace.

In the work out journey, everything has its place. The place for a treadmill is to help you train your body for when you actually begin running "out there".

-nn

Down another 1.6

Yikes! Six days without a post? Unheard of.
While I have been slacking off on posts, the workouts continue. The running has not become routine yet, so I think I will continue for a while. There is something comforting about the rhythm created by my feet. Once I get settled, it feels like I could actually do two miles without stopping. This from a man who has never run more than a half mile in one shot. In my entire life.
So I dropped another 1.6, bringing the total to 63.4 pounds. Yee haw, it looks likes I finally jumped off the plateau of 60 pounds. The challenge, as always, will be keeping it off.

- subject change -

So I took on this super ambitious project of building lofts beds for my girls (seven and three). Having pored over available plans I finally settled on some plans and starting collecting the few woodworking tools I did not already have (a table saw, some clamps, abrasives, general what not). I will not bother listing the huge number of mistakes I made while paring down the pile of lumber into usable bits. I will not bother you with the number of times I made THE SAME mistake nor how costly they were.

I will just submit a list of things I have learned:


- no matter what pictures you find to show the finished product, be prepared design changes that will add significant time to the project.

- it is not enough to measure it twice. make sure you are using the correct measurement to begin with.

- smooth wood, regardless of type, is expensive.

- measure it again.

- square your tools with the same gauge. a sixteenth of an inch on one could be different than another.

- make sure your sixteenth of an inch is accurate.

- add 20% to all your time estimates. this will keep you from having to work all night because the paint booth is only available on Tuesday and Thursday.

- add 15% to all your material estimates (includes consumables: abrasives, glue, et al.). this will save time going to the hardware store.

- power sanders rock.

I am sure there are more things, they just have not occurred to me yet.

- nn

Off the bike, on the treadmill.

Never in a million years did I think I would enjoy running on a treadmill. Too many images of a hamster, I guess. Being of a "large stature" it never occurred to me that I could comfortably run for more than a few minutes. Compared to most people, I do not run vary far or long, but using my personal scale, I am running marathons.

Warm up: 2 min @ 3.8 (fast walk)
Increase: 2 min @ 5.0 (mild jog)
Increase: 2 min @ 5.5
Increase: 2 min @ 5.5 with 1.0 incline
Increase: 2 min @ 5.5 with 2.0 incline
Increase: 2 min @ 5.5 with 3.0 incline
Decrease: 2 min @ 5.5 with 2.0 incline
Decrease: 2 min @ 5.5 with 1.0 incline
Cooldown: 3 min @ 3.8

Total time: 19 min
Calories burned: 220

I will not be performing any 5Ks but I find the minute flying sensation between steps liberating.

Corny, I know.

-nn

perfect plate

perfect plate
Originally uploaded by no_niche.

This is but a small (minuscule, really) sampling of some of the fabulous food I encountered last weekend. I was sure to start with a smallish plate, being careful not to take more than a couple of regular spoonfuls of each item. The strategy seems to have worked, because even after all the gorging, I still lost 0.4 pounds when I weighed in on Wednesday. I was quite pleased.

Starting from the top and proceeding clockwise we have: lomi-lomi salmon, a delicate (and fried) lumpia, lemon spinach, red rice (chamorro style, not spanish), pancit, and dead center, cole-slaw.

The menu fed my soul as well as my stomach.