Some Exercise: Redux

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Jonathan Creekmore

I am still working on getting a bit of exercise in, but it has been difficult lately. I decided that the best time for me to work out is first thing in the morning — it is just too hot to try and work out any other time. If I can make it out of bed at 6am, I have plenty of time to workout, shower, eat and get to work between 7:30am and 8am. Getting up is the hard part, though. I have gotten some medicine tweaked lately and it is driving my sleep schedule all wonky again. I am laying in bed between 10pm and midnight, mostly tossing and turning before I fall asleep. Then, back to my old habits, I am waking up between 2–3am and I toss and turn for an hour or two. It is very frustrating, but I am talking to my doctor about it this week and will see if I cannot get it straightened out.

However, once I am up and going, I can usually get in 30 minutes of walking. I would like to work my way up to running for 30 minutes, but my knees hurt so much that I just cannot go very far. I know getting some weight off will help with that, but I am trying something different now to see if I can jump-start the process. This weekend, I purchased a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Sprint, easily the ugliest pair of shoes I have ever owned. However, the theory is that the shoes cause the impact to be absorbed by your calves like nature intended, instead of in the joints like tennis shoes cause. I wore them around a bit tonight; tomorrow morning will be first morning of exercise in them.

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Some Exercise

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Jonathan Creekmore

This week, I decided it was time to get back into exercising. However, with my exercise equipment in the garage, it has been hard for me to get motivated to go out there and do it. I really did not want to get up any earlier and try to exercise because that has never really worked out well for me. Also, without my exercise bike inside, I felt like I was spending half my night in the garage when I tried to exercise after Emily went to bed. So, I think I have found something that works well for me — now, I am trying to work out first thing after I get home from work. Usually, I get off of work between 4pm and 4:30pm and would come home and read or something for 30-60 minutes before I started cooking dinner. Instead, I am making the attempt to get out and ride my exercise bike and lift weights on alternating days.

Ironically, today on the Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin ran a short video about getting some exercise as one of the keys to happiness. That make sense to me. Getting some exercise is better than getting no exercise. Plus, any amount of exercise is going to release endorphins and wear me out somewhat, which will help me sleep better (also fulfilling her video from last week).

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Sleepless

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Jonathan Creekmore

Chiming the hours
Beating stalwart companion
Watching through the night

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Snow!

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Jonathan Creekmore

So, looking at the NOAA map, we seem to have gotten somewhere around 8 inches of snow over the weekend. That amount of snow hitting the Deep South means that town pretty much shuts down until the roads clear themselves. One consequence of town shutting down is that Ashley, Emily, and I are all cooped up together in the same house for 3–4 days straight. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my daughter. However, she is very much 3 years old and has decided that she really doesn’t need to have a nap at all. Now, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem if we could get her out and about for a bit, but when we are snowed in, that doesn’t really happen. So, over the course of the past few days, Em has been, let us say, creative in figuring out things to do.

Sunday afternoon, while she was supposed to be napping, she managed to “paint” her fingernails and toenails along with applying makeup to her three Barbie dolls. Monday afternoon, while she was supposed to be napping, she somehow managed to pull over the changing table that we use as a dresser in her room. Luckily, she did not pull it on top of her, but it did hit her on the way down. When I figured out what was going on and got up there to right the changing table (and trying to call down the screaming child), I noticed that she had taken a marker to her forehead and, strangely, to both of her feet. I never could really get a straight answer out of her as to what she was doing to pull the changing table down, but she had to have been climbing on it. This morning, Ashley and I made the mistake of, at 6am, telling her to go up to her room to play quietly instead of getting up with her immediately. Instead, she started drawing on her mini-easel with marker and, getting bored with that, drawing on the coffee table. Luckily, I was able to get most of the black magic marker out of the oak table, so no real harm done.

By lunch today, I braved the cold and lingering snow so that I could go in to the office and get 4 hours or so of peaceful work done without a running, questioning commentary on what I am doing.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out my new site, peruse my thoughts on having a Kindle and an Apple TV and how that is changing my media consumption.

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A New Focus Going Forward

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Jonathan Creekmore

With the new year underway, I have decided to refocus this site on more family- and personal-oriented notes. Thus, I am launching Selected Topics, a place for me to talk more about the engineering- and learning-focused notes. So, if you liked the Inside the Engineer type of articles, you can follow along over at Selected Topics. I have set up a Twitter account that will follow along with that site as well.

So, as the first post on the new site, I present my Books Read of 2010 — 1 of 4. I hope you will join me over there.

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