Calorie Burn

I had a long weekend in Florida when I came back from home in PA and I had very little I needed to get finished. Most of my projects had been completed or shelved neatly for a nebulous later, so I decided I would take the time to try out a few different activities. I went jump roping, jogging, biking, heavy Aikido session, and tennis. Between those four activities, spread out over four days, I managed to burn approximately 7000 calories just in exersize. The chart I use is at shapefit.com - the largest list I've seen and very similar to other estimates for burning calories that I've seen.

Try picking an exercise you think you would/want to do and find out how long it would take to burn 7K calories. You might be surprised!

I have a few goals in mind for this exercising, and they are listed in order of current imporance.

• Snorkeling - A healthy heart and aerobic system can increase the amount of time a person can hold his breath.
• Better shape for outdoor activities
• I plan on biking to Orlando in a month or two to try out Couch Surfing before I depend on it in other countries.
• When I go hiking (hopefully for a long period; that would be fun) I want to be in shape before I go hiking - not afterwards.
• Lose weight - an obvious advantage with exercise
• Get really good at jump roping. I have a long way to go - I've jump roped for over 7 hours total since I bought my jump rope and I just now figured out how to cross my rope when jumping.
  
• Look incredibly handsome... but there isn't much more to improve so I put this goal low on the list. :-)

Back Again!

This long hiatus was due to my being on vacation, and having no incentive to spend time blogging when I could spend time doing other useful help around the house. The craft show I went home for was a good one. We sold out of our really good sellers in the first day, and the next day people kept coming back to pick up the "pole we saw yesterday"! If you are going to buy a pole, why don't you buy it the day you see it? Some ladies had a good excuse... they changed their mind, but other ladies decided to wait a day. Hmmm. I bet that saves a lot on spur-of-the-moment buying. Maybe they are onto something.

While visiting home ( at my parents house, not the craft show ), I managed to get a lot of weed-eating accomplished. Weed-eating isn't too tough, but it takes time, and it is hard on the back, so my mom and dad save the job for us "young and spry" children to do. :-) On the last day I was there, I got about half way done with a bank but had to clean up before the job was finished; so Dad takes the weed-eater and says he'll finish the job. In the time it took to take a quick bath and get dressed, MY dad had already finished the rest of the job. It was a section of the bank I wasn't looking forward to because of the steepness and the amount of long grass on that particular side of the bank that gets tangled up in the weed-eater - yet my dad did it in under 20 minutes! Just before I entered the shower, I looked out a window to see how the weed-eating was going, and I saw, halfway up this 15 foot tall bank, Dad with his right leg outstretched for grip, his left knee digging into the ground (it is a very steep bank... 80 degree slope I would guess) whacking away... quite the feat for those who know how difficult it is. :-) Go dad!

But what about my mom you say? We had a very nice visit... there isn't much better I can say that would portray the joy of visiting. I caught up on all the news happening in the family, and my mom got a list of plans and ideas for the future from me. 20 minute phone calls don't cover all the fun nitty gritty issues that families have to deal with, but long drives and working together gives enough time for a wonderful visit. I would come back and do a "working vacation" in a moment. I would say more of what we discussed and did, but once I start, I would couldn't stop for 2o or 30 pages. :-) Lots of fun stuff, maybe to come.

Margaret is doing well it seems. I think all that lifting and stacking she does so wholeheartedly is ruining our wrestling sessions. I try to demonstrate a simple Aikido move for her, and what does she do! She refuses to cooperate! If I try to twist her hand, she is supposed to lose her grip and fall down. What happens? I tried to twist, and Margaret's hand didn't budge. There I am, in a chokelock, trying to show how effective Aikido is, and it fails miserably, and I just keep gasping for air and pulling while Margaret just keeps holding my neck. :-) Oh well, we had a good wrestling session. Maybe when I see Jesse next, I can get him to cooperate. :-)

I didn't get to visit with Katie and Ryan as long as I did the others. Mom, Dad, and Margaret I see at home while working, but I only got to see the other three members of the family after getting off the plane and before heading home again. It wasn't nearly long enough. I'm hoping Thanksgiving or Christmas will have a better visit. Christina is as lovely as aways and walking short distances which was very exciting. She wasn't quite sure if she was willing to trust this stranger (me) to hold her though. I'll just have to visit more often! Ryan's foot is still holding up his job, and the doctor won't release him to go back. I think he is seeing the specialist again today to get the go-ahead for working.


The last thing I wanted to mention today was the friends I saw and some plans that are solidifying as something I definitely want to do. I managed to visit some with Ben, Dan, Mark, Stacy, and another Mark. Ben came down for a whole day, and we spend most of the day lounging about, waiting for people to get off work. Ben also offered to room with me if I moved to Ohio. A very tempting offer. Very tempting. As for plans - after work I want to spend a month/a few months/a year traveling. I've very recently started heavy duty exercising to get into shape for hiking/walking/biking and checking out programs that let you stay nights at houses across the world. I'll get more into that tomorrow. No time for spell checking. It's off to bed!

Less than a week to go

I'm going to be seeing most of my family in just under a week. I found out that my boss won't be coming in to work until the day after I get back... so... there was only one conclusion I could reach: I just changed my ticket to stay an extra day at home. Home sweet home.

Yo-Yo

Just a fun post for yo-yos. He is the current world freestyle champion and this is his performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXFTdBqi7jg&mode=related&search=

Snorkelling Pictures

I finally managed to bring my camera to a snorkeling dive. Unfortunately, the first 3 or 4 pictures I took at the springs didn't print. Not all is lost, because the spring was extremely cloudy, even when I first got there - at that point only three scuba divers and I were in the pool. I don't know why it was so bad, but after seeing how the more or less well lit pictures turned out, I'm sure the pictures I took while 40 feet down were almost solid black. Next time, when I'm pretty deep where it is clearer, I'll use the flash and see how that works. Even when the sun was shining directly overhead, I could only see two or three feet farther down at sixty. Oh well.

Here are four of the better pictures I got of the fish as I swam along. Keep in mind that there were only a foot in front of the camera, and I still got the aim off. Live and learn. I saw some bigger fish this time, but I couldn't get withing 2 feet of them.


And here are four obligatory pictures of ME! I didn't want to waste the filem, so I took a few pictures of me, the equipment, the car, a parking lot.

Plans Plans Plans

Not much of one. I'm planning to go snorkeling tomorrow again. This time I will be taking my underwater camera, so hopefully I'll be able to share the view from sixty feet down... hopefully I can go lower though now that I feel a bit more comfortable diving. Going that deep also depends on the scuba divers around. So far I don't cut things close enough to be too concerned about problems, but as my mom says, "Accidents happen." If there are scuba divers around that would notice me passed out and sinking, it gives a person an extra bit of confidence for dangerous and insane stunts!

In other personal news: jump roping is fun! Especially now that I've gotten used to it and have the skill to do more than ten at a time (go ahead and laugh. You try it!). At a very slow rate, I've been able to jump rope more than 20 minutes at a time. I was going to opt for running, but apparently jump roping isn't as hard on the joints as running. That makes a certain amount of sense I guess... jump rope jumping may be constant ups and downs, but it is always on the balls of my feet. While running, I'm landing on my heal at every step.

Training-wise, I am being a little more careful about the 'how' of my training. I started looking into exercise routines to improve my heart health, but mostly just news on what I can do to lower my heart rate (for longer snorkel dives!) I put my current resting heart rate is 54. Oddly enough, I only get that rate while working. While sitting in my room, upstairs, outside, or in the car, my resting hear rate is 60. It's like clockwork. I can do push-ups and curls in the morning, take a shower, go to work and sit in my chair, wait ten minutes, and I only count 54. Just before I go to lunch? Still 54. Walk upstairs, sit a half hour and read, and my heart rate is at 60. It just doesn't make sense.

Someone is Happy!

1st Timothy

There is a lot of information and insight available in the tiniest pieces of the Bible. While I was jumping rope today, I was trying to memorize a verse of 1st Timothy. Since I'm just starting, I am still on verses one and two. In those two verses are an incredible amount of information, and I wanted to share my thoughts on those two verses.

vs 1. Paul. The first thing he says is that he is an apostle by command. It wasn't his choice, he was going his own way, when boom! Jesus Christ stepped in and blinded him and told him what he wanted done. I find that reassuring. In all of our weakness and failures and sin, God can still step in and redeem us and put us back on the right path.

vs 2. Paul says an odd thing to Timothy, and it's something that I'm going to look into further tomorrow: "grace, mercy, and peace." What didn't occur to me until about minute 30 of jumping (at that point, the brain starts loosing focus and going onto tangents) was Paul's repetition. I always considered grace and mercy to be identical. If someone is merciful, he is showing grace. Likewise if someone is showing grace, he is being merciful. I can't see the difference between the two concepts - yet Paul, in wishing three good things upon Timothy repeats himself with "grace" and "mercy". Such basic concepts, and yet my understanding about the simplest?/greatest of God's gifts is lacking.

vs 1 and 2: In order, Paul refers to God as God our Saviour, Jesus Christ our Hope, God the Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord. In those four phrases is a great layout of who God is. For Christians, He is a savior, a hope and our lord - but he is everyone's father. Everything and everyone around us had our source in God. Those that follow Him have even more though: they can count look to god as a savior, a hope, and a lord. I find that a very comforting thought.