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Thursday, June 28, 2007
ZERO INBOX
¶ 10:31 AM 0 comments
Ok, this is sort of technical, so perhaps it should have gone into Geeky Tech, but EVERYONE uses E-Mail, so I think this is generic enough that pretty much everyone could benefit from this.
I've been reading a lot lately about personal productivity, and there's a very popular set of tools & techniques associated with the book "Getting Things Done", often shortened to just GTD.
Anyhow, I read yesterday about a very simple way to get and keep your INBOX to Zero, and I've just tried it out and I like it, here's the article:
Anyhow, I tried it out and got from over 200 messages, down to.... ZERO! Whoohoo! I don't think I've EVER had ZERO items in my INBOX, and it feels GREAT!
¶ 10:31 AM 0 comments
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Reading old Blog Posts...
Back in March of 2006 I wrote:
Feels good to know that I did actually stick with it... Not only to 200lbs, but I'm not hoving around 180! Just imagine... Setting a goal and sticking to it! ¶ 5:07 PM 0 commentsI'm on a diet and I've started a new fitness regime, I'm feeling great and
very positive and I'm committed to losing about 20-25 pounds, getting back to a
much more reasonable weight and size.When I weighed myself for the first time in
a long time last Wednesday morning, I was 226.5, this morning I'm 222... So I've
already lost 4.5lbs in just over a week, so I'm quite pleased... If I can lose
approx. 5 lbs every 2 weeks I should be at 200lbs by the end of May.I'm going to
get into a few little friendly competitions with friends Roger, Pete and Jason,
to ensure that I keep up with my cardio and weight loss, take a good look at my
gut the next time you see me because it's going away, for good! :)
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Thoughts for Today...
EXERCISING
First off, damn it feels good to be exercising again... I'm really glad that I joined this men's outdoor soccer team, it's given me the drive to get active again and I'd forgotten how amazing your body feels when it's being pushed... Muscles are warm, cheeks are flush, adrenaline pumping through the veins... It's all good.
ONLINE PEDOMETER
I've found this great web site - http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ - It's a Google Map Pedometer - Basically you can map out a route and it tells you the exact distance, and if you put in your weight it tells you calories burned as well... Very cool! So I've mapped out a 3k route and a 5k route. I'm going to start doing the 3k AT LEAST once per day, preferrably twice... Each time is 277 calories burned. If I do it twice thats over 500 calories burned, do that every day for a week that's over 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat....
WEIGHT LOSS
I'm motivated once again to kick it hard core and get rid of my last 10 lbs of fat... I think if I get down to the 173 range then I'll be in really good shape, belly will be gonzo... I figure I can probably take off 1-2 pounds a week, so I can make it down there by say end of July... Why not??
VEGETARIANISM
It's going really well, haven't had any meat at all in the past week. I've enjoyed some Yves fake turkey on sandwiches... I love the 7-layer veggie crunch wrap from Taco Bell. the Veggie Roti from Calabash. Nature burger from Licks... I've had some decent protein shakes with bananas, had a Vegetarian Thali from an Indian place I found downtown for lunch today, it included Palak Paneer, something I'd seen many times before but I don't think I'd tried, it's basically cubes of sort of firm cottage cheese with curried spinach, really yummy, I think I'll order that now along w/ Channa Masala (chick peas), instead of the usual Chicken-based curry. ¶ 9:33 PM 0 comments
First off, damn it feels good to be exercising again... I'm really glad that I joined this men's outdoor soccer team, it's given me the drive to get active again and I'd forgotten how amazing your body feels when it's being pushed... Muscles are warm, cheeks are flush, adrenaline pumping through the veins... It's all good.
ONLINE PEDOMETER
I've found this great web site - http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ - It's a Google Map Pedometer - Basically you can map out a route and it tells you the exact distance, and if you put in your weight it tells you calories burned as well... Very cool! So I've mapped out a 3k route and a 5k route. I'm going to start doing the 3k AT LEAST once per day, preferrably twice... Each time is 277 calories burned. If I do it twice thats over 500 calories burned, do that every day for a week that's over 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat....
WEIGHT LOSS
I'm motivated once again to kick it hard core and get rid of my last 10 lbs of fat... I think if I get down to the 173 range then I'll be in really good shape, belly will be gonzo... I figure I can probably take off 1-2 pounds a week, so I can make it down there by say end of July... Why not??
VEGETARIANISM
It's going really well, haven't had any meat at all in the past week. I've enjoyed some Yves fake turkey on sandwiches... I love the 7-layer veggie crunch wrap from Taco Bell. the Veggie Roti from Calabash. Nature burger from Licks... I've had some decent protein shakes with bananas, had a Vegetarian Thali from an Indian place I found downtown for lunch today, it included Palak Paneer, something I'd seen many times before but I don't think I'd tried, it's basically cubes of sort of firm cottage cheese with curried spinach, really yummy, I think I'll order that now along w/ Channa Masala (chick peas), instead of the usual Chicken-based curry. ¶ 9:33 PM 0 comments
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Being Veggie is Easy!
I'm actually quite suprised, but becoming a vegetarian has actually been easier than I thought...
For the first week or two it was tricky, but I wasn't beating myself up... If I felt like some meat, I had it...
But over the past 3 weeks, I think I've only had just a bit of chicken (in some Indian food) after having a bunch of drinks.
To be clear, I'm an lacto ovo vegetarian, meaning I'm still eating eggs and dairy products. I may decide to cut these out at some point, which would make me a vegan, but I'm not in a big hurry to make that step, I want to really get it together with my current diet, make sure I'm getting all of my vitamins and nutrients, protein, feeling great, etc, before taking that next step...
Today was a test of sorts, I was at the Keg for lunch, and the special sounded awesome, a steak marinated in Guinness with fried onions, etc, OMFG, anyhow, I had a salad instead! It was great!
I'm typically having a bagel or toast for breakfast, either with peanut butter or an egg. I might also whip up a smoothie in the blender, using plain yoghurt, some fruit juice, whatever fruit we have on hand, mandarin oranges, strawberries, banana, whatever, they taste totally awesome!
Lunches could be a salad, a veggie burger, vegetarian chilli, a bean-based soup, veggie & bean curd w/ rice from Yueh's, a bean burrito, lots of options, especially in ethnic cuisine. I find by focusing on spicy foods as opposed to greasy foods you still can really enjoy you meals, but eliminate meat and fat...
Dinners have been sort of all-over the place. In order to make sure I'm getting enough protein, I've had plenty of nuts on hand, a few handfuls of peanuts or cashews or something can make a difference.
Just picked up a big jar of Protein powder - that stuff that body builders use... Anyway, something like 35 grams of Protein in 1 serving, you can make like a little glass of chocolate milk and wham, it's something like 30-40% of your required daily protein...
Anyhow, just wanted to kind of dump some of my thoughts about how things are going... My thinking now is that it's so easy, why doesn't everyone just do it?
¶ 12:36 AM 0 comments
Monday, June 04, 2007
Facebook Philosophy
Facebook is an amazing success story and great example of how technology continues to provide powerful tools that improve our lives. Here are a few thoughts I have on the topic...
First, a thought about the growth of Facebook. In Ray Kurzweil's the Singularity is Near, Ray talks about how as the rate of technology progress continues to increase, we're seeing that new paradigm shifts, and new technologies are being embraced much faster than ever before. I see Facebook as being a perfect example of this. Prior to September 11th, 2006, Facebook was only open to College and High School students. So in less than 1 year of becoming open to all Internet users, they've grown to over 20,000,000 users (That stat is as of March, 2007), and I understand they're growing by more than 100,000 users per day. Within approx. 6 months, the site has gone from being virtually unknown by people over age 30 to becoming a core part of most people's web history.
Next, what is a friend?
Definition:
Now, with Facebook, it seems the concept of a friend has been substantially diminished and can mean something more like acquaintance:
I'm sure others who use Facebook are experiencing the same phenomenon as I am. I'm receiving 'Friend' requests from people who I haven't seen, (or even thought of ) in 15-20 years... 15-20 years ago, I would have called them a friend. How should one respond to these Friend requests. I don't want to seem like I'm being a snob, but at the same time I want to use Facebook as a useful tool for communicating with people that I do truly consider as friends, who I know well and trust. Can Facebook be a useful tool to reconnect, potentially rekindle old friendships, absolutely. But adding friends shouldn't be like collecting hockey cards or be seen as some sort of popularity contest, because I feel that just waters down the concept of a friend and renders the site unusable. I don't really want to know what bands all of these people like, or what their status is... If I didn't care to look them up and email them over the past 10 years, then sure it's fun to get a message and hear how they're doing, but that's good enough. If we start an message thread up and find we still have things in common, then fine, let's be friends, but I think to send friend requests to everyone you've ever met is not the right choice.
Lastly, I've touched on this briefly already, but I think in order for Facebook to be a useful tool there are a number of things to consider. Centralize your social messaging... Unless you're dealing with something urgent, encourage your friends to use Facebook messaging for all personal/social electronic communication. In that way, you'll find your work email is less cluttered and you're less distracted using the work day. When you're taking a break, or after work you can login to Facebook and go through all of this in one spot. Secondly, trim down your friend list to people who meet the proper definition of friend. Do you know them well, do you trust them, do you hold some affection towards them. If not, then remove them, they don't get a notification or anything so don't worry about offending anyone.
I'd like to hear comments on this topic! Cheers! ¶ 9:53 AM 1 comments
First, a thought about the growth of Facebook. In Ray Kurzweil's the Singularity is Near, Ray talks about how as the rate of technology progress continues to increase, we're seeing that new paradigm shifts, and new technologies are being embraced much faster than ever before. I see Facebook as being a perfect example of this. Prior to September 11th, 2006, Facebook was only open to College and High School students. So in less than 1 year of becoming open to all Internet users, they've grown to over 20,000,000 users (That stat is as of March, 2007), and I understand they're growing by more than 100,000 users per day. Within approx. 6 months, the site has gone from being virtually unknown by people over age 30 to becoming a core part of most people's web history.
Next, what is a friend?
Definition:
a person you know well and regard with affection and trust
Now, with Facebook, it seems the concept of a friend has been substantially diminished and can mean something more like acquaintance:
a person known to one, but usually not a close friend.
I'm sure others who use Facebook are experiencing the same phenomenon as I am. I'm receiving 'Friend' requests from people who I haven't seen, (or even thought of ) in 15-20 years... 15-20 years ago, I would have called them a friend. How should one respond to these Friend requests. I don't want to seem like I'm being a snob, but at the same time I want to use Facebook as a useful tool for communicating with people that I do truly consider as friends, who I know well and trust. Can Facebook be a useful tool to reconnect, potentially rekindle old friendships, absolutely. But adding friends shouldn't be like collecting hockey cards or be seen as some sort of popularity contest, because I feel that just waters down the concept of a friend and renders the site unusable. I don't really want to know what bands all of these people like, or what their status is... If I didn't care to look them up and email them over the past 10 years, then sure it's fun to get a message and hear how they're doing, but that's good enough. If we start an message thread up and find we still have things in common, then fine, let's be friends, but I think to send friend requests to everyone you've ever met is not the right choice.
Lastly, I've touched on this briefly already, but I think in order for Facebook to be a useful tool there are a number of things to consider. Centralize your social messaging... Unless you're dealing with something urgent, encourage your friends to use Facebook messaging for all personal/social electronic communication. In that way, you'll find your work email is less cluttered and you're less distracted using the work day. When you're taking a break, or after work you can login to Facebook and go through all of this in one spot. Secondly, trim down your friend list to people who meet the proper definition of friend. Do you know them well, do you trust them, do you hold some affection towards them. If not, then remove them, they don't get a notification or anything so don't worry about offending anyone.
I'd like to hear comments on this topic! Cheers! ¶ 9:53 AM 1 comments
Friday, June 01, 2007
Great Onion Article...
Do you love the Onion? No, not the yummy vegetable, the online satarist website:
Here's another hillarious article!
¶ 12:02 PM 0 comments
Here's another hillarious article!
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