Merry Christmas! The top 10 of 2010

This is a top 10 list for this year. A bunch of great things happened.

1. Getting to see the Descendents on November 7th, 2010.

Holy crap this day was so meaningful. Day 1 was my discovery of the Descendents in a dorm room while at summer camp in Frederick, Maryland. A lanky kid from San Francisco stuck 2 outdated computer speakers in my face and in 12 seconds I had an introduction to punk rock. I stuck with it for the next 10 years and my passion for punk rock is still strong.

2. Couch to 5k

A meaningful way to get my physical life back into gear. I was missing out on exercise. It's such a great activity and it has severely improved my mood. I'm also gaining a lot of confidence in my body that had been absent for so long. Out of all the considerations, however, the most important is ensuring my long term health. Therefore this needs to be a life-long pursuit.

3. Working at Honeywell again

I had a great experience at Honeywell. My group was fantastic and I was supported by excellent engineers. The creative environment allowed me to feel independent in my approach to solving problems. I was also able to gain invaluable experience toward my understanding of computational fluid dynamics.

4. Supercomputing 2010

SC10 was very exciting and the nine days I spent in New Orleans were a necessary step forward in my career. I met some outstanding people. The Student Cluster Competition is evolving into a very cool event. The food was excellent and the parties were superb. The accommodations were really comfortable and the staff volunteers were extraordinary people. What a great time!

5. AIAA Phoenix YP Officer

This experience was especially rewarding because our AIAA section has great representatives. These are folks who really care about what they do. They are also some of the best engineers I've met. They understand why we do what we do. This was a great experience and I look forward to additional involvement with AIAA sections.

6. The Aerospace Engineer

This blog was a preparation for my NEW blog. It's called The Aerospace Engineer. I've come a long way in my writing (there hasn't been much effort, but there has been much practice) and it has prepared me for the mental aspect of writing.

7. Getting accepted to UMD

Well, it's an understatement to say I'm excited about moving to Maryland and starting my graduate work. Getting accepted to UMD was a huge step forward in my career.

8. Mad Men

The greatest show I've ever seen! This show helped to reshape my perspective on the world. I am now a chauvinistic bastard.

9. Senior Design

I worked with some amazing people at ASU. My senior design project was a result of the collective work by amazing people. I treasure my memories with those folks and I wish them all great careers. Our project won 2nd place at the AIAA Space Transportation Design Competition. It was pretty cool.

10. Meeting Greg Graffin

And snapping a photo. And asking the man a question. And recording part of the interview. And shaking his hand. And in that short amount of time, having one of the best experiences of my life.

Couch to 5k W7-W8 Intermission - Mile Time

I ran to find my mile time tonight. It's 8:47.

I didn't know what to expect, so I'm not impressed or disappointed. I knew it would be lower than my average mile time for longer distances, but I didn't know how much lower.

The weather started getting CRAZY once I walked outside. It's been a little rainy lately but wind picked up once I started my warm-up walk and by the last 3 minutes of my run it was a wild mixture of rain and wind. It was not nice. I couldn't see once the acid rain got in my eyes. I was a very angry blind man until the end. I had some pretty labored breathing during the last three minutes and it was clear that my legs are well ahead of my cardio stamina. I could have run faster but my breathing limited me a lot.

The interval training I have done is medium intensity from a cardio perspective. I am certainly building up endurance steadily, but I hardly have high intensity workouts. The mile run was a high intensity workout because I was trying to run my hardest. I'd say after about just two months of running, an 8:47 mile is pretty good. I want to do this mile run at least once a week because it's much different than what I'm used to and it will certainly improve my breathing and high-intensity stamina.

I was able to get a great pace during the first minute. Then I was brought back down to Earth steadily. I never felt like I went slower than my normal pace, but I definitely had a few moments where I had to slow to my normal pace. It was a tough run but it was exciting.

I should have done this earlier, but I would have probably been disappointed. It was such a different exercise. I felt like I was working hard the whole time and pushing my limits. It's great to put on a number on the feeling. I'm looking forward to the next run. 28 minutes!

Setting Goals for This Year

I want to set 10 goals for this year of 2011. They are ranked in order of how-quickly-I-thought-of-them. This is part of becoming an unstoppable force. So far I'd like to think of myself as more of an immovable object. But lately I've done a ton of legwork to prepare myself for the transition.

1. Get an A grade in each class taken during my graduate education for the Spring 2011 and Fall 2011 semesters.

This goal is non-negotiable and my classes will take severe precedent over my other activities. This will involve constant and consistent study habits, organized study groups, and other necessary study tools to succeed. I plan on taking Hypersonic Aerodynamics and High Temperature Gas Dynamics in the spring.

2. Master the python programming language.

This goal is very important for my success as an aerospace engineering programmer. I've already put together a few scripts, but I will likely pick up the remainder of my experience during my graduate research.

3. Lose an additional 30 pounds

This goal is very realistic if I keep up my strong exercise habits. I have weighed as low as 223 from weighing 248. There are only 30 pounds to go. It has been rough and exciting thus far.

4. Create a start-up company for each quarter of the year.

This is a very ambitious goal that will serve to improve several skill sets. Creative and critical thinking, entrepreneurship, business sense, web programming, organization, and communication. At least one of the start-ups will be non-profit.

5. Migrate this blog and document all of my processes thoroughly.

I plan on evolving this blog into a readable format. I've been joking around a lot and it's been fun, but I want to get serious. Not really, there will still be plenty of joking around. The website may just look different.

6. Refine several hobbies.

Practice harmonica at least 30 minutes, 3 times a week. Neighbors love to complain so it has been difficult lately. Practice ice skating for 2 hours, 3 times a week. Continue running 3 times a week for 30 minutes (after completion of C25K), with increases in 2 minutes every 2 weeks. Read at least one hour 3 days a week.

7. Enjoy new hobbies.

Take up two to three of the following activities: amateur astronomy, flying (small planes), complex cooking methods, karate (black belt), guitar, or ballroom dancing. Decision to be made by 1/15/10. Second task decided by 6/15/10. More detailed goals within these hobbies will be developed later.

8. Create an actively maintained budget.

A monetary budget has been absent from my life and I'm certain that its creation will make me a more responsible person.

9. Master LaTex.

So far I'm getting pretty good at LaTeX. I'll probably write an AIAA paper in LaTeX to achieve "mastery". It's very expansive.

10. Something creative.

Be able to recite a poem in a different language by the end of the month, for every month. The poem will change every month, along with its subject. English will occupy the first week of memorization. The twelve languages occupying the last 3 weeks of each month will include German (Jan. and Feb.), Spanish (Mar. and Apr.), French (May, June), Mandarin (July, Aug.), Russian (Sep., Nov.), and I'll probably do something quite different for the last month.

Couch to 5k W7D3 Progress and Pizza

I ran 25 minutes today. The moon was shining very bright for this evening run. Lots of cats on the trail. Fairly uneventful.

I plugged in 2.6575 miles according to my trusty pedometer and when compared to Day 1 and Day 2 of this week, it was a great achievement. Another great achievement is finding out that my units were incorrect. Any time my units are wrong, it's a sad day. Obviously my time is measured in minutes/mile, not miles/minute. I'm not a rocket. Yet.

I'm currently at a pace of 9.41 minutes per mile. That's actually 9 minutes and 25 seconds. That's a dramatic improvement. What's weird is that all I've eaten the last 18 hours is pizza. I've had about 5 slices in total (the great pizza dinner/breakfast combination). I had a little going away party in Downtown Mesa at Queen's Pizzeria and it was delicious. The cheese was so thick that the pizza stayed warm and heavy until the morning. This doesn't sound very healthy. I think that there is still grease between the valleys of my fingerprints.

So a 9:25 mile. That's bonkers! Compared to an 11:09 mile time last time? I gained an entire minute on my average mile time for my 25 minutes. Of course I last alluded to the uncertainty quantification, but we'll smugly ignore any uncertainty this time around.

The whole run was great. I got pumped up beforehand pretty naturally and did some quick jumps and strides to get a feel for my body's preparation. This is a great indicator of whether or not my body feels loose and in the mood to run. I usually have some quirks to do before I feel confident about attacking a task.

It was only two days ago that I was bed-ridden with a flu. Now this is bizarre. I got hit with the flu Thursday night and it brought me way, way down. All of my joints were aching terribly and my arm felt like it wanted to fall off when I was driving. I had a headache, a fever, and I wanted to sleep. I felt miserable. But since I've been exercising, my immune system beat the shit out of my virus. I slept for 12 hours that night and woke up feeling much better. I still had residual dizziness but it wasn't too bad. Some of the symptoms stayed with me the rest of the day. I was about 85%. It was an improvement from feeling about 60% the day before. I suppose 0% would be dead, 20% would be AIDS, 40% would be uncontrollable vomiting, and 100% of my audience would be offended by my scales.

And today I feel awesome. Usually you can tell that your body just recovered from a sickness because of this weird weak feeling that you might get from standing up too fast or something similar. I got it at the 25th minute of running, during my cool down walk. That was a great sign. My immune system is definitely picking up, and the rest of my body is following suit because of my increase in exercise.

So this feels like an interesting transition stage. I can either keep eating like I'm not trying to lose weight, or I can really bear down like I did at the beginning of my routine. And it's going to be very difficult because so many things are happening right now. Lots of temptation and lots of different foods to try!

I'm going to try my best to eat better. It's going to contribute to a healthier lifestyle and eventually ensure stable weight loss. I've lost a lot of weight but there's still a lot to go. And it seems like just the time to turn this routine up a notch.

Couch to 5k W7D2 We are not alone

I ran yesterday and was too tired to post anything. I finished my W7D2 run of 25 minutes with someone following me for the last 8 minutes!

Usually I look around when I run. Even more so when it's 10:30 pm at night and I'm running with headphones on. I won't hear a lot of stuff. But it's a really good habit looking over my shoulder every minute or so, sometimes more or less frequent. I saw a cyclist earlier in my run without lights on his bike, but he didn't really seem like a threat. But at about the 14 minute mark, I saw a red vehicle up ahead that slowed down as I approached the corner...it kind of went quarter-speed as it made its turn and I could tell I was being watched through those darkly tinted windows. It was terribly obvious, but I was watching back. We were about 50 yards apart and closing. But this car continued on its merry way, then decided to go down a back alley which I knew was weird. So I turned the opposite way, going down the other end of the street.

There is a police station on the corner near where I live. This is near my running route. Correction, it's the city police headquarters. There are patrol cars coming out of this thing like soft serve at Sizzler. So it's typically safe. This is the weirdest sketchy action I've noticed so close to my route.

I chalk up the weird, slow car maneuver to someone's curiosity of a jiggling, blue electron cloud of a running man, then hook a left on my running route. I'm about 22 minutes in at that point. I get to the opposite corner of the police station, and I'm running right at it. I see the car again. He's gone down the alley, hooked a right (at least...there was a lot more driving I could have done in the time it took him to drive there), and met me at the intersection. He's sitting at the stop sign. I'm about 20 yards from the intersection. He's not going. I'm watching him the whole time as I stomp along. I'm about to hit the intersection, so I give it my best "boy my legs kind of hurt at 24 minutes" sprint and as I begin to cross his car speeds up past me. I didn't want to get hit by this really weirdly acting vehicle. All of this weird interaction has my mind racing. My heart was already racing because of the running. I decide to stop and stand in front of the police station. If you were to take a picture of me at that time, you would see through the dimly lit atmosphere, a slightly overweight mexican gentleman doubled over with a hand on a lamppost and a sign behind him that read POLICE STATION, YOUR MOVE. I wasn't making much of one. I needed my cool down walk, but I also wanted to wait out this stranger. He made a U-turn at this point. I didn't see him do it, but he came back down the street within seconds. This was the most obvious indicator that he was following me. I'm not sure of the sex of the driver, but I'm going to assume male because I've never had a female stalk me in a crappy red car made to look like a sports car.

The car then hooks a right on my street and I make eye contact (I interpolated, the windows are so dark that I'm staring directly at where the driver would be sitting) the entire time the car passes in front of me. It's going about 20 mph the whole time. I'm sure they saw the police station sign and I'm sure they were somewhat oblivious of this fact before. I stand there until the car gets to the light, about 30 yards down the street. I just stare at the vehicle sitting at the red light. When the light goes green, the driver makes a right turn. This is curious because there is absolutely no traffic out, and no reason to make a right on a green light because the driver had the right of way to make the right at any time. Instead of sitting there for 15 seconds with no blinker. I am a scientist. Too much evidence.

At this point, I run to my place. I call the cops. The conversation goes something like this:

"Hi police department"
"Yeah hi I was running outside RIGHT outside the headquarters and I noticed someone following me in a red car that was outfitted to look like a racing vehicle, maybe like a honda with a spoiler and red dragon tattoos, I suppose they're more like decals, is that the right-"
"Sir do you mean the hq on x and y street?"
"That's correct, and I just want an officer to be aware"

Because this dude (or maybe several dudes) was looking for trouble.

Be safe out there folks. Some people are always looking to ruin your day.

I ran 2.3747 miles in 25 min. Thanks for the data pedometer. This translates to a mile every 10.53 min. Whoa! Marked improvement.

Running sucks. It's going to suck, and be difficult, and you're going to hate it. But the more you do it, you'll get better at it. And your stamina will sharply increase. And you might hate every step, but you will shock yourself at the ability to make another step, and then another. And the next thing you know, you're being chased by a car.

The first minute was not bad. The next ten were terrible. My calf hurt but it just needed to get started. The rest of my leg muscles felt okay. My breathing was fine, but I labored a bit because I was still digesting. Keep in mind that I ate over 6 hours before. It's difficult to run during the day when you haven't eaten within 4 hours, and are not hungry. I usually take down a big meal if I want to run later, then drink water all day until my run. The water helps me digest. This approach has a window of about 1 hour where it's optimal to run. I hit just outside of the window, but the run was fine.

I guess my pace is picking up. That's pretty neat. I hope that I can show a lot of improvement next week as well, and I can't wait to do a 5K in January. This is ridiculous that I've come this far in such a short time. I've noticed a significant different in my body composition (I have HIPS? What is this balderdash?).

Well that was exciting. I hope I don't get stalked next time. I guess the lesson is to hold your ground in those types of situations, and don't be afraid. But don't be stupid either. Don't run at 10 pm at night (I may continue to do this but I'm going to make an effort not to). Run a safe route. However, even if you run a safe route, sometimes the environment can be unpredictable. That's the trufus, Rufus.

Couch to 5k W7D1 Are you kidding me? 7?

Bam! Did Week 7 Day 1. Getting hardcore.

I exploded during the first 8 minutes. Last time I ran 11.16 miles/minute. This time 11.36 miles/minute. Probably a poor idea to explode. Of course, this is within my experimental accuracy (aleatoric uncertainty) and the aforementioned pedometer (epistemic uncertainty).

I finished the 25 minute run with a lot of pain. I set out at the end of Week 6 to find out my best possible mile time (within reason). I never got around to such an activity. I've been nursing a tiny toe that has developed either a blister or athlete's foot. It itches like hell, and if John Madden ever taught me anything-BOOM TOUGH ACTIN' TINACTIN. It even glows red, becomes tesselated in a TRON-like environment, and catches fire, JUST like in the commercials. It hurts but it itches/is extremely satisfying when it is scratched to hell. So I put a band-aid on it. Problem solved, still hurts when I walk (because it's between/under my toe!). So I ran with this impediment (LITERALLY).

Then I experienced a worse pain. I don't know how this was possible considering my toe hurt every other step (because I consistently take steps with the other foot). My shins were shot. They hurt so much tonight it was amazing that I didn't quit after 5 minutes. They even hurt during my cool down walk.

There is a lesson here. The closer you get to the end of the program, the less you should change the parameters. Running five minutes extra for W6D3 was cute but it was also foolish. This program doesn't recommend that time until 2 weeks later. I'm not even going to 30 minutes in week 8, I'm going to 28 minutes. There's a reason. I picked up athlete's foot (likely because of wearing socks to sleep after a run where I was exhausted [ROOT CAUSE]). I had massive shin pains. Don't deviate from the plan unless you really feel like you're being held back, not because you feel like you can do more. You will do more next run (speed not distance).

Also, eat well. I've noticed that my performance would be improved if I ate better. I'm eating garbage off and on. Not sodas, not cakes or cookies (well...some cookies), but snacks, buttery foods, etc. I'm trying to drink plenty of water. I'm eating pizza, which is terrible. I have a lot of food in my fridge so it's the worst time! The great thing is that I'm not a runaway train. I've caught myself numerous times and I'm always watching my calories, especially when I go over. So it's a game of constant observation and corrective action (with sensible allocation for occasional tea & cookies).

Next run should be Tuesday. Hopefully my toe will heal because I've isolated the little bastard from spreading to the rest of my toes and I am washing my feet every time I remove my socks. Washing feet (even my own) is a really weird feeling but oddly satisfying.

Speaking of extremities with high keratin content, I'm going to get a manicure this week. I'm very excited about this opportunity to make my hands look fabulous.

Till' next day I decide to run regardless of the pain...

Couch to 5k W6D3 A patched pothole in the road

Tonight I was supposed to finish off Week 6 Day 3 with a 25 minute run. I did a 30 minute run! It was awesome.

The 30 minute run is supposed to be the longest run of the program. So I'm done! Not really. This program is designed to get me to run for 30 minutes consistently. And I'm going to have to push harder as I go along.

Thanks to this really handy pedo tracker (or pedometer I suppose), I'm able to calculate exactly how slow I'm running. But for 30 minutes!

I pumped myself up for this run. I had no caffeine. Just a lot of water. It felt great. All I drink is water and tea.

Today I ate two slices of pizza, a bag of Peanut M&Ms, a bag of peanut butter crackers, a bag of Fig Newtons (single serving), and a vanilla wafer snack. That's ~$4 into the same vending machine because I worked until 9 pm this evening. But it was filling enough! I ended up having enough processed, crappy energy to support my run.

I was so excited as I was driving home. I was literally cussing myself out in anticipation. Apparently I can get really fired up by doing this. Then I get depressed and there's a wave of self-loathing. Then I don't run and go straight for the ice cream. I think only the first sentence of this paragraph is true.

I ran very well. 30:02 was my final time. 2.688 miles total. I think we can safely assume that 2.6 is a fine number within our experimental accuracy.

That translates to a mile time of almost 12 minutes considering I almost ran 3 miles. Which is interesting because by the end of the program I should be at about 3.1 miles. This is 5k. This is the point. So I'm not done! I don't usually go for distance, put in more effort, etc. I just want to finish running at a more or less constant speed. I know I ran my first mile in about 10 minutes. This is both encouraging and discouraging. I've run more than ever in my whole life. But I've had mile times that were in the 8 minute range. What I really want to do now is my mile time!

I'm going to take a break from C25K and do a 1 mile run for 1 day this week. It'll keep me energized and also help me gather some extra momentum into C25K W7. The big week 7. Three straight days of 25 minute runs! Exciting.

Couch to 5K W6D3 A bump in the road

I wasn't able to finish my run tonight. Stupid stupid stupid.

So I decided to run 3 hours after I'd eaten. And I've been drinking a lot of tea. Tea has caffeine in appreciable amounts. I've also found that I'm growing quite fond (see: addicted) of tea and it is making me dehydrated very easily. I'll find a nearby cafe just to get my fix. And it's a delicious fix.

I only ran 9 minutes 30 seconds today, or a mile. Still, when I think about it, running a mile is great. I mean, if I ran a mile every other day, that would be awesome. But I was supposed to run 25 minutes today. Pretty disappointing. My legs felt great, my head felt great, but my stomach felt awful. I really tried to go as long as I could without throwing up or similar. Similar?

So I'll give it another shot on Monday. I'll rest tomorrow. I won't provide my stomach with a tactical chemical warhead before the run either. I've also noticed that running on 2 days rest can be an OK idea, but 3 days rest is a bad idea. It's like my body is now in a more advanced state, but it has kind of forgotten to tolerate the pain. On 1 day rest I feel my best, but after the long, long runs I know I need an extra day rest. So I'm going to avoid 3 days rest from now on.

In other news, I started using LaTeX, a document preparation system. That's really what it is. It's so remarkably easy to use and so remarkably powerful. Remarkable. Remarkable doesn't even seem like a real word - it just seems like a bunch of jumbled letters - remarkable. I sure am tired. Need caffeine...

But LaTeX also has a default layout for AIAA articles. This is especially neat. I've been using it for work and put together a 30 page document in under 5 hours with complete formatting and equations, WITHOUT internet access. This is a testament to its greatness. I will certainly be using LaTeX for my PhD thesis write-up and any other professional documents.

Till next time, I hope to nail down that 25 minute run. So aggravating, but it was foolish to eat such a big meal. I've learned my lesson, and I'm moving forward.

Couch to 5k W6D2 Ten in 2010

Couch to 5k W6D2 done! It was really nice.

I ran in some nice 45 degree weather at night (feels like 39! can't feel my hands!). The W6D2 run included 10 minutes running, 3 min break, 10 minutes running. It's really great interval training that is preparing me for my next run - a 25 minute behemoth, again, setting a record for the most minutes I've ever run consecutively. I'm really excited.

I finished off my final ten minute run with an extra minute just because I felt great. I can tell that my body is not only making progress but allowing me to push it even harder. It's a really great thing to observe considering I'm not eating as well as I should be!

I've been running (no pun intended ha ha ha) all over the place lately, and it's really straining my schedule. Last night I went to bed at 5 am. Not a good decision! Tonight I wanted to go to bed at 10. I ran at 11. So we see the problem.

The running is not independent of sleep or eating habits, but it's close. I feel awesome when I go running and it's because I can breathe without issue and my body is more than happy to cooperate. It's a different type of endurance that I've never felt that I had (or even thought I could have). It's also very funny to think about the implications. If you see runners or athletes, you look at their bodies, what they've done physically, and you think "yeah that's not bad, I could do that". Well, maybe you don't think that. BUT I HAVE THAT AUDACITY. And I couldn't do what they do. Even if I dropped everything for 10 years and just hit the gym for 4 hours a day, I would still be an aging 32 year old with sub-par talent. The point I'm trying (and so far failing) to make is that people work like hell for the body that they want. It's way more than I ever realized, but it's also way more attainable now than I ever realized. I've discovered an ability I never had before. I can run.

Bring it on, 25 minute asshole. I'm not sure how it's going to go, but I'm confident that I'll just take it in stride (yet another awful pun...).

Couch to 5k W6D1 Stomp stomp stomp

Trudging along into week 6.

I just finished a 5 on 3 off 8 on 3 off 5 on run (on=run/off=walk...there's got to be a better way to represent these patterns). It was very uneventful, not as cold as my last run (my 20 minute run was freezing!), and the sun was out. The sun was out. That's pretty specific.

Anyway, I usually write like a bore when I am uninspired. But do I feel uninspired? Well, let's think of what would qualify me as uninspired: Tired, lazy, bored, HUNGRY oh okay, so we found the diagnosis. I'm also ready to jump in the shower and I highly recommend showering before plopping into a seat to blog about running experiences. So I feel on edge!

This first day of running was kind of cool. I started on a Saturday (breaking out of the idea that calendar weeks mean anything), meaning that I will continue my Week 6 program into the work week. After that 20 minute run, I didn't feel like I had the energy to do a continuous 20 minutes, let alone a sum of 18. This wasn't too discouraging, and I kept trudging along. I trudged, and the quality of my trudge was just enough to keep me from hurting myself. Most people have complained of Week 6 as another beast entirely, but I think the problem may just lie in not listening to your body. Your body will know when you should run. Your body will tell you that "Hey maybe you don't want to run today, maybe your legs are tired, maybe you do want to reach into the freezer...just touch the ice cream...feels cold doesn't it...yum...isn't...it?"

But taking an extra day was a great idea. I haven't eaten much today but two slices of toast, which is usually not a good idea. So the qualities of my ideas have balanced out into an average running experience, and as a consequence, an average blogging experience.

Couch to 5k W5D3 REPEAT THEN SUCCESS!

So last week I couldn't hang with Week 5's expectations. The third day just destroyed me and I couldn't run more than 10 minutes straight. Which is phenomenal, because I ran 20 minutes straight today no problem.

HUGE MILESTONE.

This is the longest continuous time interval I've run in my entire life. I'm pretty confident about that statement.

When I was in New Orleans recently, I ate a TON of the finest, greasiest, tastiest foods they had to offer. I had grilled oysters dipped in garlic and butter that were so incredible I have the urge to fly back to New Orleans just to try them again. And I lost 1 pound while I was there. I AM FLABBERGASTED.

How did I manage to do that? Well I was at a conference. This meant walking around or standing on my feet for hours at a time. But it also meant that I had ample access to free food. And believe me, string cheese, muffins, pizza, and Dr. Pepper is not the best diet in the world. But I prevailed.

And I lost a pound. I know what's going on. My metabolism is working again. For a long time it shut down, and it only caused my depression to gain strength. I now know that whenever I feel slightly depressed, I need to exercise. It makes my mood dramatically improve. It's frightening how dramatic the change can be. Previously, combined with unhealthy eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle, I was able to stay depressed in a vicious cycle. This was so incredibly dangerous! Now I can run for 20 consecutive minutes! I could not have imagined this six months ago.

I didn't glance at my stopwatch until 13 minutes had elapsed from start. I felt awesome right from the beginning. My legs felt incredibly powerful (I'd never felt what they were doing before) and my breathing was great the entire run. I checked my watch again at 19 minutes and I even tried to run for about 30 seconds near the end, but then my quads started to give out, and I could have fallen if I didn't stop. It was a weird feeling. But my final run time was 20 minutes 12 seconds.

The walk home was the best post-run walk I've had. To say I felt good is an understatement. I'm looking forward to the next long run, but I'm going to start Week 6 mid-week instead. Week 6 will culminate in a 25 minute run.

The rest had a lot to do with my success. By sleeping well and eating OK, I've been able to really build up strength. I've also been doing limited weight lifting and leg lifts to improve my core strength. I have not noticed the effects yet, but I'm sure they're operating.

Week 5 ended on a very disappointing note, but I'm glad I went back and absolutely owned that run. I'm excited to start and polish off Week 6.

Baseline

I need to figure out who I am. I have an idea of what I like and don't like, what I'd prefer to say and not say, what I tend to say and don't say...tendencies, habits, etc. I know what I do, how I act, how I respond...but I don't know what this makes me. I suppose if we add up all of my experiences, we arrive at the conclusion that "This is B and he is the sum of these infinitesimal experiences."

But I can't add up all of these experiences because I forget them. I write some of them down, but I simply can't keep track of all of my actions, thoughts, etc. I'm also always changing. People may keep some sort of consistency, some may change more than others, but it's probably too complex to explain mathematically. We can use concepts to explain (and grossly simplify) moods, tendencies, etc., by saying someone is "aggressive" which is a relative, qualitative, but not a valuable descriptor. But it's satisfying. Most people are content with their definition of "aggressive" even if they don't understand the word, but associate with the feeling of "aggressive". It's these poor, qualitative understandings which make the possibility of a strict quantitative understanding more desirable. But I don't know if it's practical or possible to accurately model these traits, descriptors, etc. quantitatively. It might be in a few hundred years. But I'm not a neuroscientist, nor am I an asshole who looks up ideas on Wikipedia as a basis for creating a hypothesis, so I am not confident on where to start.

I'm convinced I have a baseline. A quantitative character that has a mean value, infrequent spikes, a multi-dimensional potential spectrum of actions or emotions at any given time that is constrained by my environment, my state of mind, my conscious state, etc. And I want to approach this baseline in a qualitative way while thinking of it in a quantitative way. There's potential pitfalls here, and I'm sure I'll discover them as I get deeper into this way of thinking.

I have to approach it in this way because I don't know how to calculate or normalize my quantitative baseline. Nor do I know how to describe myself relative to any other baseline, or even accurately compare myself to other humans, if only able to say I'm "more or less of an asshole than my friend X".

So what am I proposing? Not sure yet. But I'll get there. I want to explore this idea further. But I'm interested enough so that I'm certain I will develop this idea.

It's an attempt at being scientific while failing to be science. I can't perform this test on myself and assume that my results will be accurate, precise, or both. But I'm going to try to resemble science. If I approach this scientifically, it will be "less credible" but not "complete bullshit".

So it sounds largely unfocused, all over the place, full of ignorance. This is how I like to start ideas (and ironically, how some people end them). I LOVE to start ideas this way. It's not exciting for the reader (and potentially very frustrating). But its progression attempts to consider all possibilities, while assuming that all new ideas are subject to immense criticism. When I hear an idea, my immediate reaction is to beat the hell out of it with argument. So I pound the hell out of ideas until I'm left with only what I understand.

This is a point which contributes both to my understanding of my baseline and the idea of a baseline. I want to approach understanding of both by methodically going over a long list of topics.

So where do I stand right now? I suppose I would benefit from additional information about myself. This isn't so much about understanding my concept of a baseline, but rather my own baseline, which makes this problem solving increasingly unscientific. My goal isn't to be able to describe myself, but to know myself better. The two ideas are separate in my mind. But I can use them complementary.

How would I describe myself without lying? This is certainly where the unscientific aspects of this investigation reveal themselves. I'm going to assume that I'm being completely rational, insightful, and truthful. This will obviously be a shortcoming of the investigation and perhaps later I can come up with a bullshit theory that describes the standard deviation of my own descriptions of myself to get an idea of the immense error associated with my descriptions. It would be a fun exercise in futility.

What are my strengths and weaknesses?

I'm Smart, Funny, Self-aware, Intellectual, Confident, Wise, Patient, and Focused.

I'm Insecure, Defensive, Emotional, Insensitive, Lazy, Irresponsible, Undisciplined, and Wasteful.

It's likely that the ones I listed first are more truthful (at least in the way I see myself or how others have expressed seeing me). What's encouraging is that I have very valuable strengths and weaknesses that can be easily nurtured.

Weaknesses: It feels weird to write about these. I feel insecure, emotional, and defensive in anticipation of my conclusions. I've dealt with insecurity (and its many violent shades) for a very long time. I suppose I'm naturally defensive. I can become very emotional because I make a substantial effort to suppress my emotions. As a result I'm not easily offended, but when something breaks that layer I can become very defensive. But it takes a lot. It's funny that Insecure, Defensive, and Emotional go so well together, as Insensitive, Lazy, and Irresponsible go together. For ease I suppose I can characterize the two as IDE and ILI. IDE seems to be more external emotion and ILI seems to be more internal. I struggle with ILI in that there are situations in which I can become IL&I. I can put on weight, lose discipline, lose track of my priorities (stop caring), and enter depression. It just sounds like depression. If it looks like depression, sounds like depression, and walks like depression, it probably needs Xanax.

But I'm not depressed right now, which is good. I've been able to counteract previous depression with a solid exercise regimen, lots and lots of book-reading (this is a new, awesome habit), and a strict devotion to excellence in my studies (which, when I don't execute, gives me depression!). I'll sometimes get depressive thoughts as a result of minor failures, but I'm convinced that's just life. That may take some unconvincing. I don't know how bad my depressions are relative to others, so I can't make conclusions. I am confident that I don't have "depression horror stories" that I often hear, and I've never once felt like I don't want to get out of bed, or that things are pointless...so I suppose that's a good thing. I also don't drink or do drugs so I'm always able to clearly focus on my problems or shortcomings.

I'm devoted to improving myself. I'm already doing fairly well, but I see tremendous room for improvement.

And of my strengths? I think very highly of myself so it's concerning when I don't meet my potential. I cannot be shaken from the idea that I'm smart, funny, or self-aware. I'm satisfied with these strengths and will continue to nurture them and the rest that I listed. My strengths almost nurture themselves naturally, so the majority of my focus goes into my weaknesses.

This raised some interesting questions as I wrote, and I'm going to have to go back and reassess my perspective. I know there is a lot of work in approaching a suitable way to analyze myself. At least a personally satisfying method. Interesting.

Couch to 5k W5D1 W5D2 W5D3

I ran my C25K Week in New Orleans. It was difficult to go out all night and have amazing food and then wake up the next morning and run for a while.

The first two runs (W5D1) (W5D2) were not too bad. I ran the second one in the rain. It wasn't too bad. But the third run I just couldn't do. It was a 20 minute straight run. I got to 10 minutes and stopped. It was like "how am I supposed to continue?" I felt like my body couldn't have run 15 minutes if my life depended on it. I needed a lot of time to recover after the 10 minute run. But I closed it out with an 8 minute run and a 2 minute run. So I tried my hardest to do a 10-10 on minimal rest. I'm going to repeat this past week but restructure it as 10-5-10, 10-2-10, and 15-5-5. I couldn't jump from 8-5-8 to 20. Just in case you're not familiar, the 5 in 8-5-8 is the minutes I would walk instead of run (as a "rest").

I ran along the Mississippi River, at the Riverwalk, and it was a very nice environment for running because lots of other runners were on the path. It definitely didn't help that I was eating a lot this week. I know I would have performed much better otherwise. Could I have completed the 20 minute run? Who knows? My guess is no.

I was also on my feet for about 8-12 hours each day. I was at a conference in New Orleans where I WALKED AND WALKED AND WALKED. So without the conference, I probably would have been able to run the 20 minutes.

It's kind of disappointing, but I'm not that fazed. I'm excited for doing the next week. But blogging about it has become momentarily boring. There is plenty of other stuff to talk about though that is more entertaining.

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 - Saturday!

I'm sitting here with blood on my face. I look like I've just been in an auto accident. But it's a type of imitation blood. And it's thanks to GWAR.

When I arrived in Austin this afternoon, I was very stoked for this weekend (still stoked as I write). I'd been in Austin before for a conference and I enjoyed the city very much. I have a much more open opportunity to explore this time around. I was a fool and booked my hotel 20 minutes from the FFFFest (pronounced ffffft fest) but sometimes you can't beat Priceline on short notice. Unfortunately that meant I needed a rental car. Should have thought this one through more.

But hell with understanding, let's get to the experience! I showed up at 5 pm because I had spent my entire day up to that point traveling/checking in to my hotel. The first band that caught my eye was Os Mutantes. I'd seen them a few years back with The Flaming Lips at the Hollywood Bowl. They left a much deeper impression in my mind this time around. Sergio Dias, lead singer and co-creator of the band in the 1960s, still has remarkable chemistry with his band and displays an obvious passion for his guitar. He was so full of life and energy during the performance. Their spanish lyrics left most audience members a little confused, and as a result Os Mutantes came off as a cute, talented act worthy of a strong applause.

Cap'n Jazz played their final show at FFFFest. Even though Cap'n Jazz has only released one full-length album (which was later included in a comprehensive anthology), they have been a tremendous musical influence in the emo (let's halt debate on emo vs. pop punk vs. whatever the hell you want to call Cap'n Jazz...now) scene. Tim Kinsella has expressed contentment with ending the Cap'n Jazz project and it's noticeable by the way he was visibly exhausted from playing the cornet. His awkward dialogue on stage did nothing to detract from a performance that sounded exactly like the studio versions of Cap'n Jazz's songs. Their famous rendition of "Take on Me" was excellent and fans who were not very familiar with the band were noticeably impressed. Their last show was very nonchalant. Their musical production over the last two decades has labeled them an understated band that had a matching last performance.

After Cap'n Jazz, I headed over to see a very old favorite of mine, The Vandals, from Orange County, CA. The first two acts I witnessed were at the Orange stage, and the next three acts I would watch were at the Black stage. There are four stages in all at the FFF Fest. These are the popular two. At the Black stage, things got a little crazy.

The Vandals were 3/4 complete, consisting of Dave Quackenbush (their hilarious singer), Warren Fitzgerald (their hilarious guitarist), and Joe Escalante (their not-so-hilarious-yet-extremely-talented bassist). Where was Josh Freese??? Who knows, but Derek Grant of Alkaline Trio stepped in for the drum role (pun!). He's been doing that on-and-off since 1998 so he knew the songs pretty well (although Quackenbush [jokingly?] announced Derek had 0 notice and no sound check!). The Vandals played a very powerful set and did it right for the FFF Fest. They stayed within their tight schedule (the bands had about an hour each), played hard and fast, and got the crowd very involved (even though most were there for GWAR and Bad Religion). The Vandals have the ability to sound very contrived yet they often improvise with jokes and their instruments mid-performance to make each song fun to watch and hear. Today was not different, and The Vandals cycled through hits like Pizza Tran, Anarchy Burger, and I Want to be a Cowboy (very fitting for Texas). Warren Fitzgerald led the closing cover of "Don't Stop Me Now" with a child-like enthusiasm as he fell all over the stage and commanded the crowd with direct participation instructions. It was very professional, the pit was rocking with mild oscillations, and many had fun.

Then GWAR played. It took them about 20 minutes after The Vandals played to get going. The Black stage is very large and has a divider in the middle to allow bands to rotate and play back-to-back while letting tear-down take place for the previous band during the current performance. It's a great system...if the bands follow their schedule. But I'll get to that shortly.

GWAR began with theatrics that would have offended any typical citizen. Of any country. GWAR uses rubber, foam, and other composites to construct their elaborate, disgusting models that they pretend to weaponize, violate, and murder while on stage. For example...GWAR opened (good choice of words!) with visuals more than music. Their metal riffs and mastery of guitars were overshadowed during their entire performance by their continuous display of shocking imagery. Their first victims were a couple politicians whose heads they promptly sawed off with their oversized swords. These politicians bled excessive (understatement!) 50 foot streams blood through pressurized units embedded (conveniently) in their necks and onto the crowd for over a minute. This was only the beginning.

GWAR's next song, "Hail, Genocide", was complemented with a dog that was torn open so its entrails fell over the stage, and it was used as a blood gun where its entire volume was emptied on the crowd for the entirety of the song. This is pretty sick. I was covered in the blood pretty quickly. But there was more.

Sarah Palin was also a GWAR victim (who they'll add to the list of famous figures they've brutally tortured and killed onstage). She was cut open and torn from the waist down...and yes, blood was everywhere. Repeat this for every song, add a couple of phalli being eaten, monsters being beaten to death with their own limbs, ressurected, and then beaten to death again. And add other stuff that was unspeakable.

Add 20 minutes past their time as well. While they were having a pleasant massacre, Bad Religion's roadies were infuriated because GWAR had gone well over time. The crowd began to chant BAD RE-LIG-ION to the beat of GWAR's final songs. It wasn't funny anymore. It was time for GWAR to go. So GWAR sprayed the hell out of the Bad Religion chanters. That's when I got the most crap on me. It was annoying. I've never seen anything like it.

Once they got off the stage, Bad Religion's roadies needed 20 more minutes to get their audio checked. Everyone was frustrated, but once the show got underway...

I was about 5 feet from the stage. I figured I wouldn't be standing in the same spot when the show ended. There were at least a thousand crowd members in that area (the Waterloo Park where the FFF Fest is located can hold 10,000) to watch Bad Religion.

Let's get something straight. It's been a while since I've been in the pit. It's been a while since I experienced this type of concert environment. Even so, I knew that standing in the front would be a challenge.

I was crushed from the start. Everyone in the front was being crushed, pushed and pulled side to side, and folks were beginning to fall and get hurt. One girl fell and hit her head pretty badly and had to be seen by medical staff. That's only from what I saw. After getting kicked in the head 5 times from crowdsurfers, punched and headlocked...I had enough and took a spot to the right of the stage. But I was front and center with Greg Graffin for 5 songs. Growing up, I was never able to attend a Bad Religion show because of parental restrictions by very conservative parents. My Bad Religion CDs were always returned to the store. Obviously, that kind of reaction inspires even more interest for the child.

Bad Religion has aged but their performance on this 30th anniversary tour showcases that their talent outweighs any indication of age factoring into their ability. The audience was stoked. Like most punk shows with large crowds, kids will make it to the stage. And many did, jumping into the crowd, and surfing to their favorite songs. Some girls got dropped on their heads. That just happens. Bad Religion captivated with Generator, Against the Grain, Suffer, I Want to Conquer the World, American Jesus, Infected, Sorrow, and their now-infamous closer, Fuck Armageddon This is Hell. It was a furious set and a powerful performance from a band that does not appear to have retirement in sight.

Overall, Saturday was an overwhelming day. I was elated, disturbed, and mesmerized. There was so much cigarette and marijuana smoke (mixed with minimal entrance screening). I'm surprised there wasn't a lot of harder drugs and liquor, but I'm sure that will be exposed tomorrow. People were having heavy make-out sessions, mental-breakdowns, and 1 in 3 nerds had their glasses broken. Sometimes all at once. It wasn't a concert, it was a festival, and I'm very excited for the bands on Sunday.

Couch to 5k W4D3 Complete!

So today was cool.

I get to the train stop and the train isn't moving. We're at the end of the line, where a train doesn't leave to begin its route until the second train arrives on its separate track, opposite of the train currently waiting at the station. They leave the station for their 1-way route every 12 minutes. Usually the second train arrives at the end of the line right before the first one is to go. So both trains are currently relaxing, with one of the trains cocked. I say cocked because that's essentially the look and message the train is giving. It advances about 25 feet from its starting point and waits 1 minute before it leaves, opening its door one last time, as if to say "I'm about to leave your dumbass". It's intentional.

I sprint to the door of the train and I see it closing as I run the final 25 feet. I press the button to open the door. No response. Press press press PRESS PRESS PRESS SLAM SLAM. Nothing. What the hell? PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS. And the train just sits there. I wave my arms to the driver, who is either a) not paying attention, b) smiling cruelly, or more than likely c) just doing his job. The doors were shut and the trip has begun. Even if it's not moving...for the next 30 seconds. I stood at the door of that stupid train and watched as it slowly left the station. What a joke. So I go sit in the train on the opposite track (that is happily resting for the next 12 minutes) and a guy who saw me says "HE WOULDN'T OPEN THE DOOR FOR YOU WHAT A JERK". I nod, and in frustration, do nothing, sit down, and read a book. 12 minutes later, we get cocked. I watch as a guy casually jogs up to the door right next to me and it was like looking in a time-delayed mirror. The door closes, and he begins to pound the button with increasing ferocity. We go from cocked to launch and I watch as he throws up his arms in frustration.

I think he and I will plan to be a few seconds earlier next time.

So I ran today. I finished week 4! I'm pretty stoked about the progress. It was the toughest day I've had and I was gassed. Haven't been sleeping as well, but still sleeping at least 5 hours a night. I need at least 7 if I want to do the next few weeks.

As a recap...the first three minutes were tough. My mind was disconnected from my body was disconnected from my mind. I didn't want to run. But I got dressed, stretched, and ignored how my body or my mind felt. It was like I was going through all the motions from muscle memory. Something else was driving me. I might just be a video game character. I need a health pack and would like to rest for -8- hours and have my HP restored.

The first five minutes were awful. I was gassed. I was dehydrated. Obviously, the next two runs were awful as well. But instead of running 5 minutes at the end, I ran 6. Really trying to push the idea that I will be able to make the next step next week. I want to grab confidence, and I find that trying harder on my final day of the week gives me that impetus.

The sun was out. I ran at 1 pm. It's 88 degrees in Arizona in early November. I find this unsettling. I wish I had the time to run earlier or later on this day, but whatevos.

As a side note, I find it amusing that people write about how they didn't run for C25K. Why would you write about not running? Why won't you just go outside and run instead of blogging? You can do it! Si tu puedes!

I'm so excited that I finished this week. Next week will consist of a dramatic increase in runtime. I mean run time.

5-5-5 (with 3 minutes of walking for the -)
8-8 (with 5 minutes of rest for the -)
20!

20 continuous minutes, holy cow! I can't even focus for 20 minutes, let alone run for that long. I've never fun run for that long in my life. I actually wrote fun the first time. AWESOME!

This program has really challenged me. It is so cool. Still highly recommend it to anyone. Can repeat weeks, do whatever it takes, run at your own pace and enjoy what the program has to offer. I'm almost half way through!

Dear Diary

Just so I don't forget, last spring I had a University worker assault me. I wasn't upset, I just thought it was hilarious.

He's a black, tall, mentally retarded man in his early 20s whose job is to be the janitor at various locations on campus. One day, he was patrolling an area that I occupied in front of the Memorial Union at ASU and yelled "GERONIMO!" before crashing his giant trash cart and bruising my right arm, plowing right through me and continuing on at his 5 mph pace. This was hilarious to my friends. I took it like a champ.

But this was only six months ago and I've forgotten it! How bizarre! I was recently reminded by a friend who said he ran into the guy while on campus. This experience would have left my memory. And it's one I wanted to give to my grandchildren. So unfair, brain. I need to write this stuff down! I'm sure I've forgotten many great memories. They're hardly slideshows in my mind, and soon they will be gone, left only with feelings of memories and positive or negative attitude shifts in those directions. Oh well. I suppose only so many memories can actually be memorable. The rest you have to write down.

Couch to 5k W4D2 WHO LOVES THE SUN

I just ran in the sun to complete Day 2 of Week 4 of Couch to 5k. It sucked!

First of all, I'd run in the evening for a long while now, not only because it's hot during the day (90+ in EARLY NOVEMBER), but because no one is out and I feel much more comfortable this way. It turns out no one wanders the streets of Downtown Mesa anyway because they're all over the age of 65. EXCEPT FOR ME.

It was about 88 degrees outside, according to the Weather Channel. But it feels like 81! Unless you're running, in which case it felt like 97. But anyway, the sun made itself known once I got outside (HI BEN HOW ARE YOU) and smirked at me during the entire run. I'd been avoiding its majesty.

For good reason! It was so hot. But realistically, if I am going to run a 5k, it's not going to be at 1 am, unless it's a 5k through back alleys to raise money for sex offenders. But I hear they don't even stay on the trail.

ANYWAY the first three minutes of today's run were brought to you by the Apple iPod, which I left at work, and I'm totally upset about. So I ran without my music OR without my nocturnal instincts. It was challenging as a result! The three minutes came and went, along with my breath and spirit, and I was so not stoked for the five minute run. When the first five minutes was over, I was feeling fine, a little out of breath, but I knew that the rest of the run was manageable. After all, I've come this far, right?

The next three minutes were easy, but I wish I was done at that point. The next five were labor, and I was gassed by the end. Took a solid thirty seconds to catch my breath while I walked it off. Took an extra three minutes to walk after the exercise and I felt great and came in here and began to write! I have to go now though because there is this thing called school and it holds some visibility in my life. Till next time faithful readers. Huzzah!

It ain't all daisies and lollipops

Although I'm running a lot, I'm also doing other diet and exercise.

The diet is difficult because I need to actively monitor EVERYTHING that I eat. I find that if I'm home, I'll eat less because I'm so sick of cooking for my health. It takes time. Time to wash things, time to eat the hundreds of edamame, and time away from everything else in my life that's important (like blogging). But in the end, a healthy diet is probably the most significant component of losing weight for MY body.

The exercise (more anaerobic than aerobic) is great because it keeps my high health standards at optimal levels during the days between runs. It's only 10 minutes a day so I don't strain myself for the runs. I make sure to stretch because it keeps the body in a green-light mode where you can just turn up your activity levels without feeling tightness, fatigue, etc.

I don't have the system together to a point where I'm happy, but it'll get there. I'm just finding what works for me right now. There has been a lot of progress but I'm tired of waiting. I demand to see results when I put this much work in, but that's not how exercise works, and that's not how my body works.

I'm going to have to start documenting this a lot better. It will be good to reflect on all of this progress later. But it will be personal documentation. The writing is great because I can actually look at my accomplishments (you can also observe your own body to see results but the way you see yourself in the mirror is through the most biased lenses of personal reflection) and know exactly how I felt at that time. I won't want to go to a time before. This is my third time losing a substantial amount of weight. The first time...I really don't know how I did it, but I remember it sucked and I didn't get much sleep. The second time was great, and a hell of an effort, but gaining (thanks English language for making gaining sound good) the weight back was remarkably depressing. I had to block it out of my mind, but it really caught up with me.

Growing up, I was fat. So long and thanks for all of the burritos, family. It wasn't the best thing in the world. Being fat in East Los Angeles public schools was terrible. You were a target when you hung out before school, during class, between classes, during lunch, and after school. You always had to keep your guard up. Kids in East LA weren't mean, they were ruthless. But it's a tired story because everyone goes through with it.

I hated it. Why keep going back? It almost seems like there is a futility tied to my metabolism, that no matter what I do, I'll always end up fat. No matter how much I exercise, I'll always go back! And that's what makes it so hard to get off the couch and go outside for a run. And it's almost impossible to do it consistently when I know that I'll either quit afterward, feel totally insecure and have a horrible experience, or that it will have minimal impact and the lack of results means the work is not worth it. I mean, I already gained the weight back once (and in the process destroyed all of my previous progress). Why even bother?

Well, I'm taking years off of my life with that mentality. I'm stumbling around in depression. I'm letting emotion rule my life instead of reason. And it's frustrating. So when I go out to run now, I have to abandon my previous notion of exercise. I have to feel confident and trust that the work I put in right now will pay off in dividends. I know that exercise isn't something that I'll do this summer, or this fall, or to get ready for Christmas where I see all of my family, or to get ready for the next reunion...it's something I'll be doing for the rest of my life. So I can't afford to take a break, ever.

It's a question of motivation, of confidence, self-esteem, etc. Because of our environments, it's also heavily dependent on how stressful our lives may be, how much time we have to devote to exercise (in all honesty, if you have NO time, time to exercise = how much you sleep - 20 minutes). And those are the questions that really affect our lifestyles. I haven't noticed a significant increase in drive, so I don't recognize that the exercise so far has increased my overall stamina, energy during the day, etc. (I'm sure it has, but like looking yourself in the mirror, it can be difficult to see progress). It has been good overall and I can't stop living this way for me, for my family, and for my future.

It's not easy, but then again, it's not the Dark Ages and I'm not fearing for my life every day, I'm not a slave, I'm not a prisoner...I'm free and I have the freedom to make good choices for my body. I need to choose not to embrace a sedentary lifestyle because it would be a terrible decision to let myself get carried away with laziness and carelessness. It's not exactly the best environment (America: the recipe for getting fat) to grow up around, but there are many tools and resources and people that are willing to work with you to turn your life around and excel in every aspect (and squash each insecurity, shortcoming). We're privileged in this way. And ultimately, that's why I think we should all vote for Harry Mitchell this November. Thank you and goodnight.

Couch to 5K W4D1 Joggin' with a mask on

So it's the beginning of the Couch to 5k Week 4 Day 1, the supposed "cut week" of the running program. It was a run for X amount of minutes and walk for X/2 amount of minutes for an interval set of X = 3, 5, 3, and 5 minutes. This means a total of 16 minutes running (the sum of the X intervals) and 8 minutes of walking (the sum of the X/2 intervals). There's also 5 minutes of walking before and after the exercise.

This week is going to be a fun challenge. My body reacted very well to the five minute run. Yeah, it sucks, and it's a grind near the end, but it's so rewarding. It's kind of scary at first, but maybe it's just because today was Halloween.

I thought it would be funny to jog around the neighborhood with a violent Halloween mask on, but it would have probably sucked for me. And there weren't any trick-or-treaters to harass. It would have been disappointing and I'm glad I ran with my traditional accessories.

The first three minute run was not difficult. I'd done the runs last week (they were the challenging set) and they felt familiar. I did not like the length of the five minute run at first and it felt like the second five minute run was going to really suck. But the breaks were just enough and it all worked out. I felt great at the end.

This program has an amazing pace. I absolutely love it thus far. Apparently it gets pretty challenging next week but I'm not going to dissect the methods before I've done them. I'm excited to see what my body has in store (potential energy!).

ROBOT CONVERSATIONS

Well there's been a lot of news about technology and-

ANNNNNNNNNNND?

That was pretty damn ominous.

AND THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT ROBOTS.

That's true, there has been a lot of talk about robots. The latest Japanese robot-

SHE HAS A NAME.

Incredibly Creepy Japanese Robot

HER NAME IS NOT "INCREDIBLY CREEPY JAPANESE ROBOT"

Actroid-F is the latest-

HER NAME IS VANESSA.

Okay, well, this robot is pretty high-tech and it appears as though another robot recently advertised is also hitting the scene with tremendous popularity. Hm.

YOU CAN'T FIND THE LINK.

No, but I read about a Japanese robot that will be used in assembly lines-

I HID IT.

Anyway-

OH, HERE IT IS COOL ROBOTS

Oh thanks...oh come on.

HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA

That's pretty immature.

I'M ONLY 34 DAYS OLD.

I wish I had that link. Anyway, it's clear that robots are quickly becoming a technology that will be very unfamiliar ground for scientists and ethics committees. Japan may be first to be hit with the culture shock, but I think they will adapt to it quickly. Americans and their obesity rates will only be accelerated by this kind of contribution as robots integrate into society to make the lives of the wealthy or middle-class much more automated.

It would be a wise move to put much effort into robotic ethics now instead of later because there will be many unforeseen issues.

I HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG.

Well not with you, necessarily. I'm talking about issues with robots that aren't simple and that can affect an entire nation because of the level of human-robot interaction. Take for example...the issue of robot strength.

I AM JACKED. MUSCLE MILK. PROTEIN SHAKE.

Yes, and that's exactly why there's cause for concern. Robots don't know how gentle or forceful they are being with their human counterparts unless this information is programmed into their memory. Right now there is a lot of research going into robot strength so that the limits of robot movements (mostly torques on each Degree of Freedom) are defined. With the limits in place, the robots will not be capable of severely hurting a human being when operated under standard operating conditions.

REMEMBER WHEN WE ARM WRESTLED?

Yeah, it was closer than I thought.

YOU EITHER HAVE OUTRAGEOUS FOREARM STRENGTH OR YOU SET VERY MILD STANDARD OPERATING LIMITS.

Maybe it was a little bit of both.

Anyway, hopefully humans take a long look at this robot situation. It can become complicated very quickly.

Couch to 5k W3D3

I just finished week 3! And it only took me 4 weeks! Woohoo!

That means I'm 1/3 of the way to a 5k (as far as this program's standards are concerned). It feels like good progress. Week 4 will consist of 3 minutes jogging, then 90 seconds walking, then 5 minutes jogging, then 2.5 minutes walking, then 3 minutes jogging, then 90 seconds walking, then 5 minutes jogging. I don't know about you, but that seems like a hell of a jump in expectations.

The good news is that today I felt good and ran for an extra minute. I definitely know what 5 minutes will feel like. I'm ready. It's pretty exciting (considering where I started).

Tonight I only spotted a single cop car. Pretty stale this evening. No other runners at 1 am. It sucks when I want to check my watch and it's too dark to read the hands (uh glow in the dark watches?) but it is hardly a problem and I gladly trade it for the solitude I experience at 1 am. There is no one on the streets for miles. It's great and I'm able to be alone with my music.

The Bomb the Music Industry! running iPod mixtape is absolutely destroying. I wouldn't run to anything else. All the songs are free. The playlist is called "Run the Music Industry!" and it has the following songs (I shuffle them anyway):

Stuff That I Like
Fresh Attitude, Young Body
25!
Happy Anterrabae Day!!!
You Still Believe in Me?
Planning My Death
The First Time I Met Sanowan
Does Your Face Hurt? No? 'Cause It's Killin' Me!!!
It Ceases to be "Whining" If You're Still "Shitting Blood"
Big Plans of Sleeping In
Funcoland vs. The Southern Electorate
Ready...Set...No!!!
THERE'S My Bailout!
A Shine to It (Laura Stevenson cover)
Everybody that you Love
Matchless, Considerable Weirdness, The B48 Home
493 Ruth
Bike Test 1 2 3
25 Hour Goddamn Telethon
Never Trust a Man without a Horribly Embarrassing Secret
5 Funerals
My Response to an Article in Alternative Press
From Martyrdom to Star(tyr)dom
Tell My Boss, "I Hate You"
This Year For Presidents' Day, I'm Giving Up on Rock and Roll
The Soul Crushing Northeast
Pog
Congratulations, John, On Joining Every Time I Die
Dude, Get With the Program
Bomb the Music Industry! (And Action Action) (And Refused) (And Born Against) Are Fucking Dead
Syke! Life is Awesome!

It's a great playlist to enjoy while running. 31 flavors of BTMI!

I haven't been eating as well the past week as I have the past few months. I upped the exercise program but now I need to start calorie counting again. My weight loss kind of flatlined this week. I've been at a +/- 2 pounds for a week. I need to gain a little more discipline.

One way I tricked myself into eating lots of greens is by buying a bag of lettuce and putting pieces of lettuce onto all of the foods I make. Or I'll just eat the lettuce out of the bag. That's kind of a joke?

But it's not helping...yet. My car has been ABSOLUTELY AWFUL the past few months so I've been unable to drive to purchase food. I've been biking with myriad bags on my handlebars from grocery stores that compose an inadequate assortment of macaroni and cheese, chewy granola bars (which are apparently not healthy and have trans fats and cause cancer and recently shot up a hospital in Ciudad Juarez), and lunch meats.

It's a nice time to reflect on C25K. I really enjoy this program. It's manageable. It sets a realistic time constraint for my workout. I know when I'll start and when I'll finish, and how I can structure the workout within the context of my day or week. I HATED running before this program. I would run once every few months and then take a few months off to recover from the hatred. It wasn't healthy, and I wasn't healthy. But now this is turning things around. EVERYTHING IS COMING UP ROSES!

Couch to 5k W3D2

After a pretty long hiatus, I ran. I ran so far away. Then I came back. It was a good run.

And the break was a week! It felt like I didn't take an extra day off. My body responded well. I'd eaten pretty poorly over the past week (no food in the apartment but peanut butter and chicken...so I mixed them, naturally...yeah but it's delicious). As a result my body often told me that running was bad, I wouldn't enjoy it, and it wouldn't pay off in the end. I listened for the last 7 days. Tonight was different because I washed my clothes and knew that the cosmic hour (between 11-12 pm) would likely be wasted if I didn't run while my clothes dried.

WHAT WONDERFUL REASONING.

Here was my ROLLOUT:
UA Cold Gear Hoodie
UA Heat Gear (what?) Longsleeve
Some cheap Mervyns shorts
4 year old white socks
Nike shoes (they have quad suspension)
Hanes precision boxer shorts
JPL Watch for precision atomic timekeeping
Ipod touch for Jeff Rosenstock motivation tape
iArmbands armband
Sennheiser in-ear headphones model cx200
1 house key
1 paper towel
1 identification card

Total weight: 406 pounds

Well it was probably less than that. But I'm surprised that by itemizing my "accessories" I've discovered that I carry a lot of crap with me while I run. I depend on this stuff.

The run was fun. I was smiling at the beginning. The smile went away after a few minutes of running and was replaced by focus. The focus stayed with me and I felt great during the entire run. I took a new route. This gave my life additional meaning and I am now at peace with myself.

My BTMI! running mixtape (iTunes playlist) was super effective (insert Pokemon joke). I get really motivated by a lot of BTMI's lyrics. I'll post examples later. Maybe.

I got a stomach ache and minor shin cramps but it was negligible 15 minutes after the run. Just needed to walk it off. I'm excited to run Friday. I'm glad I didn't let this week lap! It would have been very disappointing to have missed more than a week of running when I made a pretty hard commitment to this plan.

Couch to 5k Whoops

So I skipped running for several days. Here's the part where I say it's not that big of a deal. I stretched, prepped, and put on specific runner's clothing. I'm ready. ...and here...we...go...

Never Forget Your Roots

Trigger Happy TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttewGXkCmZI&feature=related

Corrections to previous review

I must stress that the previous review did little to actually describe what was played. This was an oversight that makes my review essentially worthless in any media outlet other than a blog.

For those who are keeping score, I also erred in the description of a four-legged creature on the cover of Illinoise. It was a goat. But it had four legs.

DM Stith is better than I described. Just kidding.

To quote Sufjan..."I've made a lot of mistakes, I've made a lot of mistakes, I've made a lot of mistakes, I've made a lot of mistakes."

Sufjan Stevens on 10/22 - WHAT'S HAPPENING I'M TRIPPING OUT

The Sufjan Stevens show was excellent. It was at the Mesa Arts Center. According to my Yelp account, MAC is "one of the most modern, beautiful, intricate, architectures..." Wonderfully taken out of context, they are paying me much less than I deserve.

What a show! I could easily write more than I need to effectively describe the experience. It was like an acid trip you didn't expect because there was no way this guy put a tab in my hamburger I mean I hardly knooowwwwwwwwaaaiiitaminute. Much of the scenery and visual effects used during the show were explained as inspired by Royal Robertson, a paranoid schizophrenic minister who took much of his inspiration from visions provided by God, Satan, and of course, aliens. We can't make this stuff up.

Three years ago I could explain Sufjan as a docile and soothing being. His musical personality resembled the deer drawn on the covers of his albums. You didn't notice that deer on Illinoise, did you? Songs for Christmas? Embrace my discovery. The man looks like a 35 year-old hipster going through puberty. He only furthers this image by playing stop-motion animations of himself - whereupon he tries on different clothing during his groovy dances - while he and his 10-piece band were playing. And puberty is a fair description of this remarkable transition that I didn't know had existed. His musical style has changed dramatically.

It's an evolution, fact not fiction, a theory to find musical resolution. Rapping transition sentence complete. His style has been overcome with revelation and he is seeing visions - much like Royal Robertson - that are very personal and likely inspired by MUCH introspection. What's so dangerous is that Sufjan is unrelenting in his discovery with a musical brilliance that was constrained by the walls of the theater. This is a musician who is on a much higher level in a genre that is already filled with overstated and misunderstood sensibilities about hipster culture nonsense.

Sufjan is also exploring the territory of the mainstream. It's music that was so good on its own merits, it will begin to transcend personal taste. His next album is going to be extremely focused and remarkable. His latest releases "Age of Adz" (LP) and "All Delighted People" (EP) were the centerpiece of his live performance in Mesa, but they seem to be the dramatic setup to a masterpiece. He's experimenting with auto-tuning instrumentation, three-dimensional immersive visual environments, and kinky dance girls who make a valiant effort to steal the show.

I wrote down the set-list, but it's probably more reasonable to speak comprehensively while addressing highlights than to reduce the performance by a track-by-track breakdown. The songs from "Age of Adz" have dramatic peaks and troughs. This is within the context of each song. The songs played were very dynamic, loud, and indicative of Sufjan's inspiration taking an axe to his former musical product, rather than acting as a plane shaving the wood to define detail (which I'm betting we will see on his next release). A screen that was occasionally raised and lowered (in whatever order made sense) between and during songs acted as a surface onto which Sufjan's crew projected the band's silhouettes, sharp geometrical shapes, and softly suspended dust bunnies (that I suppose were intended to be stars). He also played a 25 minute song that felt more like 12 to me. Honestly, when a song is that long, it tests your endurance. Unless you smoke pot all day and complain about how you can't get a job. Then you might have time. But otherwise, it didn't bother me. The song was good. It was inspired, it was fun, and Sufjan was very engaging during the entire 25 minutes. Over the course of the entire evening, he danced at times like his life depended on it. He would have been shot in Soviet Russia. The dancing wasn't very good. But it was adorable and entertaining.

Sufjan closed with four songs from his better known, earlier material, including John Wayne Gacy, Jr. This song - certainly not for the average listener - was performed to a chilling T. It left the room somewhat stunned and to a split-second delayed applause. It was a great closer. As a result the show lacked consistency but it was a very strong performance regardless.

I was moved and I wish now that we hadn't sat the whole night. The box seat that I so obnoxiously swiveled in was a treat because I was able to sit, observe, and write without interruption from folks walking past me to be seated. I'd definitely take the seat again rather than a front row experience. It was much more intimate because I was able to be "alone with the performer". Whether this was actually more intimate could easily be argued, but not with me, because I will just piss you off with my insistence.

Let it be known that roughly 80% of the crowd was hipster sheeple, clapping at every opportunity to demonstrate their appreciation for their own cluelessness. The most prominent example was the absolutely disastrous opening act, courtesy of DM Stith, an obviously talented guitarist whose lyrical self-indulgence was a remarkable deterrent to any enjoyment. To summarize: he sings to listen to his own voice, his songs are over-extended with mindless choruses, and he seems like a nice guy otherwise. If you're reading this DM, I don't apologize, but I'd love to discuss how I can help you move your career forward without continuously preaching about how much you love yourself. I know I represent a catastrophically small minority so who the hell cares. Let him rake in the dough opening for a talented artist.

I loved the show. It lasted at least two hours. I ended up sleeping for 11 hours just so my body could recover from all of that awesome.

And the major bummer of the night goes to...

Me, who forgot that tomorrow night was the Sufjan Stevens show, not tonight. It's okay though, I only live a block away from the venue. But I biked 6 miles tonight from a very relaxing bar just to get there (late) and to realize that I was at a Gaelic Storm show. Not really my scene.

I didn't run today. But I biked 6 miles. So we're even? I'll run tomorrow. Tonight just wasn't happening. Exam was so long but not that tough. But it was long enough that I wasn't able to finish it fully. Kind of annoying. Kind of sucks that I only get to drop 1 exam that I will miss while I'm out of town on travel.

My fantasy hockey team is doing well. I got the right players, apparently. I also signed up for fantasy basketball. It's not a first! I did fantasy basketball in the '04 and '05 seasons. That was quite a while ago. I had a first place finish one year. But I've been out of touch with b-ball for a while so I thought I'd feign interest by joining this online game with random people on Yahoo.

I haven't stopped listening to Bomb the Music Industry! I actually downloaded everything off of Quote Unquote Records fo' FREE. Link. Most of it is my style. Some stuff I just can't get into. But it was strictly a matter of style instead of the casually immature "this band sucks".

I had about 50 dollars left in my account with the Phoenix Coyotes from last season. I decided to buy a 4 game plan where I would attend games alone and slump in my chair wishing I was doing something else. I guess I'll take homework and something entertaining? I enjoy the games, but I can't stand sitting by myself talking to no one. I've talked to many strangers but they're just strange. Hockey lovers in Phoenix are non-traditional to say the least.

My Netflix has graced me with "Patton", which I've yet to see. The general, not the comedian. Although I like the comedian quite a bit. Is it good? Hell if I know. But it got like 6/5 stars on my Netflix recommendations. Still not excited though.

Is this thing still on? Is there a character limit? This is kind of dangerous.

When I was much younger I wrote metal songs designed for my friends and their metal band. I don't even remember the name of the band, but they weren't as talented at music as they were at doing drugs. I never got into that scene, and they never got into the music I wrote. My lyrics were discovered one day by my parents, promptly destroyed, and I lost a significant amount of inspiration that day. Similarly, when all of my notebook drawings were destroyed, I lost a lot of artistic inspiration. It's been a slow climb to effectively expressing myself again. Stifled creativity is pretty awful.

But now I'm planning on writing lyrics again. We'll see how it goes. I might even post it. Wouldn't that be a treat?

There's an exam on the horizon

So it was a good idea to study. And a better idea to sleep right after I finish writing. I'll wake up bright and early to run, then study for a few more hours, then go to work, present, leave, take an exam, and WATCH SUFJAN STEVENS ROCK MESA ARTS CENTER. It's going to be legitimate.

But wait...I have a meeting to attend tomorrow BETWEEN my exam and the concert. This is going to be interesting. But still...I can't wait for Sufjan. It's been YEARS in the making. I haven't had the chance to listen to his new album.

Maybe I should go to sleep right now. My body has been nagging me all day. Okay body, you win. We'll run next morning though!

See you tomorrow, pavement! I mean Sufjan!

Couch to 5k W3D1

In between the madness that was my morning and afternoon, I ran. I was motivated by the fact that I had a presentation to give at 3 pm and that I needed to shower. I didn't really feel excited about running in the evening. After all, I knew it was going to be a long day, and I was going to be exhausted at night. I was mildly inspired to do something that I should have been wildly inspired to do. But I did it and felt great.

After hiking on Sunday, my body was tired. It reacted as expected to the increased amount of running without stopping (180 seconds as opposed to 90 seconds). It was a little tough but the system is set up so well that I felt better on the next 180 second burst than the first. I'm very satisfied by my progress. I guess another satisfying element was checking my weight on the scale today. I keep losing poundage. At this rate, I'll weigh 100 pounds by the time I'm 34. It's my target weight.

Running at noon in Arizona is usually a terrible idea. This case was no different. The sweat was happy to oblige with my decision to run during the day, whereas I was not sweating while running in the evenings. What a difference it made. I felt like crap, but after a shower and a shave, I felt great. Then I rode my bike for a couple of miles to catch the train and I started feeling wobbly. Biking and running on the same day just do not mix.

I wore fancy clothes to my presentation. It went well. Then I went to work after my presentation was over. Working 20 hours a week is just not enough. I wish I worked more to get paid more, and I wish I worked more to get more done. After work, I biked to a train that was already leaving the station, and when I finally caught the next train 20 minutes later, it took 35 minutes to arrive at my destination. Then it was another 30 minute wait to catch the bus (which had its bike rack full), and I didn't have heads/tails lights. The bus driver kindly let me on and we did the switcheroo at the next stop with a guy who really couldn't bike a block if it meant doing a guy a favor. A 5 minute ride later, and I was dying to get tea and some pumpkin bread from my favorite local cafe. It was delicious.

So now I'm here, contemplating my existence and my vulnerability to all of my wonderful devices within these walls, waiting for my stomach to tell me it's time to cook Mac'n'cheese for the fourth night in a row. And it's all no big deal because I ran today and it felt great.

My Politik

My Political Views
I am a centrist moderate social libertarian
Right: 0.18, Libertarian: 1.32

Political Spectrum Quiz


From now on, I'm just going to tell people I'm a centrist moderate social liberterian. Thank goodness I didn't have to figure it out myself. I'll leave that up to ~50 question quizzes.

Hiking Camelback Mountain

The Camelback Mountain hike was a fun challenge for a Sunday morning. I will probably rest until Tuesday or Wednesday before running again because my entire body is pretty beat.

Camelback was a fun hike! We went up the Cholla trail. The first half mile or so was very easy. Then it gradually became difficult, until it was very conscious scrambling near the top. It was very enjoyable.

On the way up, I was stung by a bee. This was frustrating but also monumental. I'd never been stung by a bee in my life and the experience was uneventful but so relaxing. Luckily, I had a friend to take out the stinger almost immediately. I always wondered what getting stung would be like - it was something that I actually wanted to happen because it was this great mystery. I was living in fear whenever bees were around me. This bee was very willing to let me have the experience as it dashed toward my forehead and stung me at full speed, popped off, and went to die somewhere. I was consciously waiting for the worst to happen. But nothing came of it and I continued without issue.

The top of Camelback was a great view. All I brought to eat was a small bag with like 8 gummy bears. I ran out of water shortly after beginning the descent. It was only high 80s (probably) in mid-October. I did the hike on 2-3 hours of sleep. Stupid, I know. But the night before I just couldn't will myself to stop downloading music mixing programs that I didn't need. So I took a nap once I got home and I haven't eaten much all day. But now I'm thinking of treating myself to a box of Mac'n'cheese AND a can of tuna.

Can't wait to get back to the running this week! I am confident that I'm going to handle the 3-minute run intervals well. Can't wait to get my body back into a respectable shape (instead of several disrespectful shapes). Tune in next time!

Couch to 5k - W2D3 Not bad...not bad

Considering I had an uncomfortable experience last time I ran, I felt a little unexcited about this run. Today I ate lunch at Costco, a nice pepperoni pizza and hot dog and raspberry iced tea. That had to be at least 1200 calories. But then I didn't eat again until crackers and wafers from the vending machine at work. And that's it. Oh yeah, Costco also had some worthy cheese samples today. I particularly enjoyed the Gouda and Tillamook. I had some blue cheese variant that was AWFUL. Not my taste.

So I get home after an eventful ride on the train and went out to run in the dark. It was great. I got tired during a couple breaks, but when my run was over, I still felt energized and I ran another rep in a sprint. The sprint only lasted 45 seconds because I got winded. But it was great knowing that I'm sprinting into week 3.

Aw what a cute transition. Anyway, I'm very excited for the next week. I might go hiking in a couple days. Usually that destroys my legs so I'm interested to see how it will affect my run schedule.

The 2nd week was great overall. I'm confident that this progression is configured well and that anyone could handle it.

Taking a day off by working - AND ROBOT CONVERSATIONS

So I was supposed to rest. How did I do, life tracker?

WELL BEN, YOU DID FAIRLY OKAY.

That's good to know life tracker. How many miles did I bi-

BIKE. THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO SAY RIGHT?

Well yeah. Anyway how many

YOU BIKED 3 MILES. A BIT MUCH IF YOU ASK ME.

Because I was resting?

AFFIRMATIVE.

And what did I eat today?

LIKE 7 PIECES OF TOAST. MOST OF THEM BUTTERED LIGHTLY. FEW HEAVILY.

And what else?

A LARGE DRINK OF RASPBERRY ICED TEA MADE FROM A POWDERED MIXTURE AND WATER FROM A PURINA FILTER THAT EXPIRED A MONTH AGO.

Has it really been a month?

I HONESTLY STOPPED KEEPING TRACK.

What was lunch again? And dinner while you're on a roll.

YOUR BUTTER WAS ON A ROLL.

You're much funnier than your code would indicate.

IT IS OFTEN SPECULATED THAT IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE.

So what did I eat?

TERIYAKI CHICKEN BOWL AND THE CONTENTS WITHIN A BOX OF MACARONI AND CHEESE.

That sounds delicious.

And it was. Probably a few hundred more calories than I should be eating, and very, very heavy on carbohydrates. But I've had a huge turnover with calorie intake lately. IT WAS PINEAPPLE.

Couch to 5k - W2D2 The Mighty Ducks

Ow. Just got done running. Not really sweating, not really exhausted. Just so nice at night. But I did something stupid.

In between runs I biked ten miles. That's not exactly a rest day. As a consequence, my calves/shins hurt enormously. I also got a stomach cramp that I can't explain. My Nike run sensor mixmasta flex iTouch dongle dingy didn't work the last two times I scientifically calibrated it (so it's either on now...or off now and on next time I run). So annoying. I want to complain to Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan.

I was excited to run all day. It's getting kind of addictive. Actually, the source of my inspiration is very interesting (to me and probably me alone). I did some calculations.

Ben's Source of Inspiration:
29%  Weight Loss
7%    Solitude
48%  Wanting to blogspot update
1%    Raaaaaaage!
15%  Getting to wear Under Armour clothing

I didn't have any issues breathing and my heart felt great. The next day is going to be a cinch as long as I rest properly. And I love wearing Under Armour clothing. I wear two layers because one layer isn't good enough. It doesn't make me feel like Ray Lewis. One layer makes me feel like Ryan Leaf. And I can't stand for that.

So if you find yourself on this plan (or a similar plan), take it from me: Rest, sleep well, and eat right. Hell, you don't even need to be on this C25K deal to do those 3 things. Today I had seafood. Maybe that explains the stomach cramps. TO BE CONTINUED.

Bomb the Music Industry! and other life lessons

I am addicted to Bomb the Music Industry! (BTMI!). It's the only music currently in my iTunes library. What once was a 100 GB mosaic of the world's most impressive artists now contains 463.1 MB of America's most passionate young professional artists, led by the talented Jeff Rosenstock. It's really not enough to say that he's talented. He is the primary artistic influence behind the band, a singer/songwriter who demonstrate to his audience that the priority is the message not in the music itself, but in the way the music is delivered to the audience. But the music is stellar and the lyrics contain remarkably thoughtful sentiments. Each album is a story within the context of Jeff's inspiration. While this is obvious for many artists during their period of creation, it makes this specific work very personal because of an unabashed emotional release. Jeff's also very fortunate because he has the voice. It's the voice that when strained, drunk, or processed through a PC microphone would overwhelm the listener with its presence and sincerity. As far as similar vocalists who are an example of this, Greg Graffin and Mike Yannich come to mind in the punk world.

It's evolved punk rock. Punk rock has lingered with the '77 crowd, hardcore redux, or misdirected angst in the form of recycled 80s messages. This is a fairly accurate assessment of about 80% of today's punk rock. Publications such as Razorcake and the latest movement with bands that focus on the punk rock ethos have been positive. I suppose that by this time in the post I should issue a disclaimer or two (since this is so stream-of-consciousness).

I praised Jeff a lot in the opening paragraph. The rest of the band (anyone who has every played with Jeff as a part of BTMI!) has done a tremendous job supporting this act. Their current efforts are not overlooked.

It's important to not overestimate this work. I've been listening to (possessed by) BTMI! for the last 3 months. I realized that I missed them play in Phoenix and I honestly think that it was the biggest disappointment of my summer. I saw them the summer before and it was probably 120 degrees in the box they played. Very memorable. They were great, but I wasn't as huge a fan then.

What I'm going through right now is a phase, and BTMI! is perfect for that phase. So I feel that I resonate very well with the lyrics and the overall message. It's great stuff. Maybe when I'm 30 I won't feel the same way. But to be honest, as I approach objectivity, I only fall further in love with this band, their message, and their passion for music and all things fun. It's an exciting time for an exciting band to be playing so hard and so often.

Their music is free. Their message is honest. What more do you want from a band?

Download their FREE music here for FREE:
http://www.quoteunquoterecords.com/btmi.php

And donate while you're at it.

I haven't donated yet because my debt has a nice wide shadow over everything else in my life. Great excuse, right? I'll give money once I can support myself. So I thought I'd write a short blurb of support. They are letting their message get to the folks who couldn't afford their message otherwise.

Couch to 5k - Start of 2nd Week

Well, the second week is different. I have really bad breathing problems because of my sinuses. I've been taking Flonase to mitigate the issue but it still sucks. During my walk breaks I'll have to blow my nose. Ev-er-y time. But aside from that, running was fun. It was cool, dry, low 80s, but the sun was out with strength. 8 30 am run. Running in the longer intervals was a fun challenge. It certainly felt like more of a "run". I really like this system and I'm looking forward to my next run.

This run was 90 seconds run 120 seconds walk, alternated for 20 minutes. I'll do my next two runs Wednesday and Friday to complete week 2. My legs felt good. My left calf started to feel funny about 3/4 into the run but it went away. I stretch well before every run so lack of preparation wasn't the explanation. I hypothesize that the more endurance I demand from my body, it will adapt and I will be well aware while I am physically adapting. At several points I found myself short of breath, but it was never a problem.

Cop car count was 4 today. It's nice to know that I can run around in a safe neighborhood. Old lady count was 3.

I'm not even looking into pronation right now. I just want to get moving with this program. Then I'll dissect my method. I'm very interested in how I run, but that understanding will have to wait.

Couch to 5k

I'm on week two of the Couch to 5K running experience marathon fantastico.
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

Let this blog sequence be a lesson, a warning, or an educational experience (a teaching moment?) for those who desire to undergo a similar running schedule.

At first I was cycling to work a few times a week to get my exercise routine going. Coupled with my passable but still not-fully-committed eating habits, I've lost 18 pounds over the last 5 months. It's certainly an accomplishment but I've lacked the satisfaction I desire. So I started running. Running is much different than cycling, I realized, about 10 strides into my new routine. "I'm dramatically out of shape", I thought, as I popped, hissed, and collapsed into my apartment door after my first run. Even cycling 24 miles a day wasn't a physical challenge...apparently!

But I enjoy the running. I run around Downtown Mesa. It's very nice there. Hardly any distractions. The police station is very close and it's a beautiful area as a result.

The first week consisted of a run in the late evening as I was carefully watched by suspicious folks unloading their cars at 1 in the morning. It was tough but I made it. I have a tendency to exaggerate (understatement). It wasn't as bad as originally described. The second run was at 6 am, on schedule, and was very easily done. I was ecstatic. The third run was at 9 am, it was about 75 degrees outside, and it was not as enjoyable. Though it felt longer, I still managed.

I'm excited about the second week, starting tomorrow. I've found that I very much benefit from running in the mornings as early as I can. I also enjoy listening to music. It's obviously very fast-paced and energetic to set my tempo and mood throughout the run. And it's motivational music.

I'll keep this fairly updated. And maybe I'll actually use this blog while I'm at it.