Month: June 2011

Veggies bought

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

Earlier I wrote about our new veggie experiment.

We just returned from picking them up.

I have mixed emotions. 🙂

First, we see the box. It’s full. We open it. The smell of fresh basil overwhelms you.

Bliss. 🙂

Then you start to look through the box and… I felt a little disappointed. I mean, when you look at the pictures it seems like this bounty. And well, it is… but there’s no size reference, and so, everything’s small.

There’s no way this box will last a family of 5 for a week. Maybe a couple of days?

But I think I’m jaded by huge commercial, massive fertilizer, hormone pumped blah blah blah… so I’m expecting huge stuff. I mean, we’ve got a cucumber in the fridge from the HEB and putting that next to one of the cukes we picked up? It’s David and Goliath.

Then… I cut into a tomato.

O…M…G….

But this I knew. The flavor was wonderful, so much better than you’d get at the big store. But again, I knew this would be the case. If in fact the veggies were picked this morning for pick up today? Heck, can’t get much fresher than that.

I want this. Yes I do. Honestly tho, we’d probably need 2 boxes to feed the family. But wow… $66/week on veggies ($33/box)? Granted, Wife does the grocery shopping so I’m detached from the cost of such things, but it just seems expensive.

But at least now we KNOW what comes in the box. Wife needs to go to the grocery store tomorrow for some stuff anyways, and she’s been tasked with trying to do as much of an apples-to-apples comparison of what we got in the box vs. the prices of stuff in the store. It’ll have to be a guesstimate, since say I doubt HEB will have purple bell peppers. But, we’ll do the best estimating possible. If it comes out to being say $10 for all that? IMHO that’s not worth it since that’s a huge amount of money per month. But if it’s say $28 or more at HEB for the same? I’m fine with that price because it’s close enough, it’s better quality produce, better flavor, and all the other joys of it.

Hey… I’m head of the household and the money man, so I have to worry about these things. 🙂

Still… that tomato was sure yummy. Wife’s preparing supper as I type this. I can’t wait to see what she makes. 🙂

Do you know Visual Basic and Measurement Studio (or know someone who does)?

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Do you know Visual Basic and/or Measurement Studio? Or if you don’t do you know someone who does?

There’s a group that needs some work done utilizing those tools, and I’m trying to help them find someone. If you know your way around there, drop me a line and I can fill you in on the details.

Thanx.

2011-06-10 workout

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Back from the gym. Good day. Gym was a bit busier than usual, but it was no problem for me. Most people there were using machines or cardio stuff. Squat rack and bench were all mine. Works for me!

Here’s the breakdown:

Squat

  • 2x5x45 (bar only warmup)
  • 1x5x50 (warmup)
  • 1x3x75 (warmup)
  • 1x2x100 (warmup
  • 3x5x125 (work)

Set felt good. I remember on the previous workout that I put the bar on my back and felt “whoa! that’s heavy”. This time, yes I felt weight up there, but it just didn’t feel “heavy”… no dialogue in my brain going “oh shit! what are you doing!”. 🙂

Form is feeling good. I’m getting more comfortable with the form and style, especially the low-bar squat. I still have a way to go on form, but I’m getting there. Will watch the DVD again to pick up on things I missed the first time around, refine, etc..

Bench Press

  • 2x5x45 (bar only warmup)
  • 1x5x75 (warmup – I screwed up, should have been 60 but my “plate math” wasn’t working)
  • 1x3x75 (warmup – Should have been 80, but I couldn’t get to the 2.5# plates and at just 5# of difference and this was a warmup set? Meh… just went with it)
  • 1x2x100 (warmup)
  • 3x5x125 (work)

My first work set wasn’t kind to my right wrist. I’ve banged up that wrist pretty bad over the years (martial arts), but I know what the problem was: I wasn’t setting the bar correctly in my hand. I corrected and was just fine on the last 2 sets.

Another habit to break? You’re supposed to hold your shoulders back, like the shoulder blades touching as if trying to hold something between them. Well, I used to try to push my pecs forward, like doing a shrug, in an effort to really work the pectoral muscle. That’s not desired here, and while I wasn’t working on doing that, certainly my arms and body are used to pushing further out (there’s range of motion still in there, technically). Of course, with heavier weights this will stop on its own. 😉 Still, it’s a form issue that I am aware of and will just have to work to break the habit.

So: mind bar position in the hands, squeeze the bar with the hands, keep shoulders back.

Pull-ups

  • 1x9xbodyweight
  • 1x6xbodyweight
  • 1x5xbodyweight

Note: Monday was chin-ups (palms towards you) and today is pull-ups (palms away). This is intentional.

These actually felt a lot easier than Monday’s chin-ups, not sure what that says. One thing I noticed was how fast I was moving. I need to slow down… at least, going down. When I pull/chin up, sure, explode up there. But on the way back down, I need to go slower than I did going up. If I focus a little more on the negative motion, that’s going to help build the strength. I’m not dropping down (my shoulders and elbows would hate me), but I should slow down more.

And again here, squeeze the bar with my hands.

So that’s really the big thing from this workout: form is becoming more comfortable, but still a long ways to go. I’ll watch the DVD again and re-read the relevant pages from the Starting Strength book to mind my form details. I’m aware of my grip, but not aware enough… squeeze the dickens out of the bar, leave fingerprints in it. And don’t forget the negatives on the chin-/pull-ups.

Feel good!

Buying veggies

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Wife’s been wanting to try one of those vegetable delivery things.

I groaned.

But the more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me.

First concern for me was cost. If this is going to cost more than just buying the same stuff at the H.E.B., I’m not interested. I’m still not 100% sure of the cost breakdown since produce costs vary so widely on a daily basis. But, estimates put it at “close enough”.

Second, I didn’t want to get some potluck of veggies that then don’t get consumed. For instance, Wife hates fennel, and if the box is 35% fennel, that does us no good and is a waste all around.

I found this place called the Johnson’s Backyard Garden. It looked alright. I like that it’s truly local. I like that the produce is picked and delivered on the same day. I mean, you can’t beat food that’s allowed to stay “in the ground” or “on the vine” until the last minute. Whereas your big grocery stores have to have the food removed from the ground well in advance of ripeness, then all sorts of things are done to help get it to market, and it’s just not the same.

Now, I’m not really caring about crap like “organic” and “free-range”…. but hey, its fun to prod the hippies about how free-range organic the meat is from the deer I shot. 🙂

And that’s I think what I’m liking more about this: I know where it comes from. We’re getting far too removed from many things in this world, and that tends to create a lot of mystery and uncertainty. I’m growing to like knowing where things come from, especially the things I put into my body. So hey, if we can know where our veggies are coming from, if we can support some small family businesses, get better tasting food, and it doesn’t cost a whole lot more? Fine.

The crazy thing is, since I signed up, I’ve been getting excited about picking up our first box (we pick it up this evening). Click here to see what’s in the boxes (pictures!). In a way, it feels like Christmas because there’s an element of unknown and surprise: what are we going to get this week? It feels kinda fun. Plus, it’s going to challenge our cooking and palates… because hey, there’s fennel in this weeks box. 🙂

I signed up for the initial 4 box trial and we’ll see how it goes.

Quote for the day

/ hsoi

When it comes to preparing for individual security….

Amateurs think equipment,
Students think techniques,
Experts think tactics.

– John Holschen, Insights Training Center

Gear is fun, but get something that works and run with it (e.g. Glock’s aren’t pretty, but they work and they’re reliable). Techniques help you know what to do with that equipment. But tactics are what see you through the situation.

When you seek instruction, yes seek instruction on gear, yes seek instruction on technique. But too many people stop there. You really have to go to the next level and think about tactics and how to work and think on that higher level.

Yes, it’s dry out

/ hsoi

Texas is having one of the worst droughts on record.  We really need rain.

Just saw this tweet that said the Austin Fire Department has denied permits for Austin, Pflugerville, Lake Travis, Oak Hill, and Westlake for having fireworks displays on Independence Day. I’m sure other areas will have a similar lack of fireworks.

While I feel for the folks that make their money and living in that business, we really don’t need to risk the loss of homes, property, and lives.

Please… please… please… people. Please don’t think that somehow YOUR fireworks will be above it or immune or that it can’t happen to you. Or that you’ve done it hundreds of times without incident. Or that “you’ll be safe”. All that and an “I’m sorry” is of little comfort to the person that loses home or life because of an ember that gets away or a firework that misfires.

I love fireworks too, it’ll be a bummer to not have them. But please folks. It’s too risky.

KR Training June 2011 newsletter — and contest!

/ hsoi

The KR Training June 2011 newsletter is up.

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of KR Training, Karl is running a survey with a chance to win an $80 gift certificate good towards any Fall 2011 training class.

Click the above link, take the survey, and enter for chance to win. And yes… take the survey seriously because that will affect what class you might win. 🙂

Lion ONLY through the App Store? Mistake.

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

As soon as Apple announced that Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” was only going to be available through their App Store, I knew that’d be a mistake.

Seems I’m not the only one. Read this TidBITS article.

The first things that came to my mind was 1. bandwidth caps, 2. people without bandwidth. I think Apple said it’d be a 4GB download. Holy crap that’s a lot of data. More and more ‘net providers are working to impose bandwidth caps, throttling, and other similar restrictions on how much bandwidth someone can use. I’m not sure exactly how this install will end up rolling, but let’s say I needed to update all the Macs in my house (and I have more than 1)… what sort of bandwidth am I going to have to chew up? And is my ISP going to throttle me? What about how that affects the rest of my monthly bandwidth allotment for things like general web browsing, YouTube, and I’ve even been thinking about getting that NetFlix online service.

Then I think about a lot of my friends in rural areas that just don’t have this sort of bandwidth available to them.

In talking with foo.c, he doesn’t have Snow Leopard. He contacted Apple and they said you will have to update to Snow Leopard first… because you need at least Mac OS X 10.6.6 in order to run the App Store. So now the cost has risen significantly.

If you read the TidBITS article, they raise many more issues and problems this sole means of distribution create.

You know, I think it’s a great idea for Apple to offer Lion through the App Store. I think it’s good to start moving the world in that direction. But come on Apple… you know how long it took for us to move from 680×0 to PowerPC… how long it took to move from Classic Mac to Mac OS X… then the shift from PowerPC to Intel. All of these major shifts took many years and we were always given a transition strategy. It was always evident as soon as the ball started to roll that the writing was on the wall for the “old style”, but that always gave us time to move along. To suddenly end optical discs for the OS? That’s rather abrupt and not in line with every other transition that this platform has undergone.

So, I’m adding my voice to the cries of “WTF?” regarding this requirement. I do think Apple should offer it through the App Store and encourage folks in that direction. But I also think Apple should offer optical discs, and I think it’d be reasonable to offer it at increased cost, say $10 more to cover the costs of the discs, packaging, etc.. As well, something like Lion Server can be offered solely as a download, since it seems you get that as an additional purchase on top of your Lion install… so, buy “consumer”, install it, then you can buy and install Server on top of it via the App Store. I see no problem with that strategy. It all helps to push people to prefer the App Store, but it doesn’t leave those without such ability out in the cold.

Cocoa Singletons

/ hsoi

A few days ago I saw Mike Ash retweeted this:

“a lot of misinformation about singletons out there” Yeah, mainly from Apple and folks who followed their samples

– @schwa (Jonathan Wight)

Fair enough. I know that Apple’s Singleton discussion has taken a lot of heat. For one such criticism, see here. Now, figuring that Mike Ash retweeted that, plus since Mike does a lot of great Q&A stuff in his blog, here’s what Mike has to say about Singletons. Note however that Mike actually talks about it from a different angle.

Nevertheless, Apple seems to have listened to the criticism and has improved their Singleton implementation. Personally I’m fine with this. Yes I understand all the criticisms, but it’s like most tools out there: there’s a time, there’s a place. Understand things and work to get a job done as best you can at the time given what you know about your context and needs.

Yes, this is some old news… just that the recent retweet made me want to talk about it. I do wonder what exactly was going on that caused the original tweet. Something at WWDC?

Fractional plates

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

One of the hallmarks of the Starting Strength program is that you are constantly making forward progress, that you are always adding weight every workout.

Granted, you can’t always increase by large poundages. So maybe you start off increasing in 10# increments, but that’ll be sustainable only for so long. So eventually you drop down to increasing 5# increments. Eventually that won’t be sustainable, you want to drop down to maybe 2.5# increments. But that’s where a lot of people run into trouble. Most standard gyms and Olympic weight sets only offer 2.5# plates as the smallest increment, so you can only jump 5# at a time.

There are some places you can find 1.25# plates so you can do 2.5# jumps, but even then what if you want smaller jumps? On the SS program even if you can only go up 1#, that’s still progressing and what it’s all about.

So how to manage the fractional weights? There are lots of approaches.

You can get baseball bat weights, which can go down to being 8 oz. in weight, so that can allow you to move in 1# increments. I looked at these and while they’ll fit on an Olympic bar, they’re also expensive at $5 each (that was the price at my local store). So you’ll have to drop $10 for one set, and you’ll want a few sets to allow you to span a 5# distance in those 1# increments. That adds up. Plus, they’re bulky.

Some people go to the hardware store and are able to find large washers that will fit. If you can do this and find washers with reasonable matched weight, that’s not a bad way to go and generally isn’t too costly. Or if you’re at the hardware store, get small links of steel chain and make loops that you can hang off the end.

I even saw one suggestion somewhere (can’t remember the web page now) where someone used cloth and pennies, rolling the pennies into little “sausage link bundles” and then into a looped chain.

Whatever works! It’s just weight. Doesn’t have to be fancy.

But when I was looking around for a solution, I came across what are called “fractional plates”. I found 2 brands: one from Iron Woody Fitness, and the other from APT Pro Gear. Unfortunately everyone was out of stock, but I found some on eBay:

What I liked about these was the clean increments: 1/4#, 1/2#, 3/4#, 1#, 2 plates of each. So, you now have the ability to move in 1/2# increments and cover a 5# range. Sweet! Plus the color-coding is nice for quick reference. Just keep these in your gym bag and off you go.

Sure it’s not as home-brewed as other solutions, but I like this because it’s a “clean” solution. It’s not moving in 6 oz. increments or 1.333# increments. Really of course, it doesn’t matter… but I guess I just like the nice clean “round numbers”. 🙂

Bottom line: the program needs some way to do smaller increments. Whatever way you get there, so long as you do.