Must Say... I Like This Picture

Taken with Elias' "paper camera" phone app.

And that's saying a lot as I don't have my pictures taken often.  Something about this likeness but not an exact image calms my paranoia -- provide a sense of anonymity to it.  Feels as though I'm at a street corner cafe somewhere in Italy :)

Running Again

I was cleaning out my journal last week to prepare for next year's planner and came across this entry on March 2, 2011:

One of the better runs in a while. warm up 5-5.4 mph first mile then kept at 5.6 the whole way with spurts of 5.8-6. most importantly, did not stop or slow down at all after the warm up! yay! i ran a 10K!

Reading that brought back a flood of wonderful feeling of excitement and joy.  I was so proud of myself.  For the next 2-3 months after that run, I continued to average about 15-18 miles per week, keeping up with 4-5 miles runs.

Then, as usual, work got hectic for the summer months.  My morning runs slowly got shorter and shorter until I skipped them altogether and went straight to work at 5 am.  My evening runs got replaced by my evening naps (I changed my Everyman Sleep Cycle around the same time; 3 hours core sleep with 3-20 min naps).  I was having more time -- but all those time was spent on work.

When I missed the first few runs, I told myself it was ok.  I'm not going to lose any conditioning with a couple missed runs.  Then I learned that it takes about 2 weeks of not running before you feel any impact on your running.  So I told myself I'll focus on work to get through that tough week then resume running.  Bad idea. The 2 weeks became 3 then 4 weeks.  Then it was harder to get myself back into the routine.  And the image of starting over again was daunting.

I see now that I should not have considered it starting over at that time.  Even if it was a month of no running, I am sure I could have picked it up again and returned to where I was within a week or 2.  I think I was just looking for excuses not to run.  I had too much on my plate at the time and it was just easier to let running fall on the wayside.

Hindsight, I can see how ridiculous that was now.  I was so sure that I would be able to resume running when things slow down. At the time, it did not seem possible that I would let my new found joy in running lapse.  But I did.  I have not logged a real run since May. Almost exactly five. whole. months.

Well, I laced up my shoes and started my back-to-running plan yesterday. 

W1D1, run 0:30 / walk 4:30 (x7)

I did the Couch-to-5K in 2009 and really liked it but this time around, I plan to start with longer runs from the beginning (C25K starts with 20-min runs) and have chosen the plan from The Beginning Runner's Handbook.  This plan starts really slow but have me on my feet longer - about 35 minutes, not counting the warm up and cool down.

The first day calls for a 5 minute warm-up walk then run 30 seconds / walk 4 minute, 30 seconds; repeat 7 times.  I found it a little too easy -- and once I started running, it was hard to stop after 30 seconds!  I did stick with it for 3 intervals but then the last 4 intervals were more run 2 min, 30 sec / walk 2 min, 30 sec.

I am a little sore this morning so I may try to stick with the plan and take it slow for now.  An injury during this early stage may derail my comeback effort.

I felt good after Week 1, Day 1.  I dug out my old Tech 4O watch:

Time: 40:11

Distance: 2.6 miles

Speed (ave): 3.88 mph
Pace: 15:28 per mile

The  plan calls for me to repeat this 0:30/4:30 but for 8 intervals, giving me a 40 minutes session, for 2 more times this week.  Not sure but I may change this up to 1:00/4:00 (x8).  

We'll see how it goes :)

Manhattan Portage Messenger Extra Velcro Strips

I searched the web but couldn't find the purpose for the extra velcro strips in the Manhattan Portage Messenger Bag. Decided to use them to decrease the exposed surface of the velcro strips sewn in the flap. This makes the flap easier to lift -- speedier access to the bag.

Pixelpipe Update via BlogBooster

Yeah! The video upload worked fine via Pixelpipe last night (Centro). The crashes were due to me recording the video in portrait instead of the landscape that the Pixi video app warned me to change. That must have messed the setting somehow.

Centro

Test

Thumper Video via Pixelpipe

Trying videos again. Previous one of Kobi crashed system.

Danika via Pixelpipe

Danika on Priscilla's 19th Birthday.

 Pixelpipe is working well so far.  Lots of features and will allow me to post to work accounts also. Yay!

Pixelpipe

BlogBooster is great for the style and formatting of blog posts. However, I could not get it to upload images from the phone. That limitation was a deal breaker as I need an app to upload blog posts with my own images.
Enter Pixelpipe.  This is my current favorite picture of Priscilla on her 19th birthday.
Hope this works.

BlogBooster (Part Deux)

The previous BlogBooster published well. I have to remember the return or line break thing - the published version had a lot of lines between paragraphs. There's also an odd square at the end of the post. Could not make that go away; not sure what it is or where it came from.

The hyperlink needs the http:// for it to work.

Otherwise, BlogBooster seems to be a good alternative for mobile blogging.

Let's try the image from Photo Roll. Yesterday was Priscilla's birthday. I snapped what is now my favorite picture of her (you think it's easy getting a picture of your teen niece?)

Priscilla

Addendum: Looks like attaching an image from Photo Roll is not working. That's too bad as that would have been an often used feature.  May even be a deal breaker for me.  I'll have to see if there's a workaround for this. For now, I may have to stay with emailing the posts with the image to blogger.

BlogBooster

This is the third time trying out BlogBooster. The other times failed since it would not let me "Save as Draft" -- they both were published instead. Maybe a bug that still needs to be fixed?
Anyway, I figure we'll try again, at least to see if the other features work. Besides, ideally, I would be publishing the post directly.
BlogBooster allows for different styles such as bold, italic, underline, and color.

It also does text alignment and hyperlinks!

The Family Vet

Adding images should be a snap also. I can add it from Autocontent from the web:

That's just a random image that BlogBooster thought would be relevant to this post.
I can also add from Photo Roll but that gave me an error last time. I'm testing this first without Photo Roll and will try again later with it.
Well, let's see if this posts properly!

CellSpin Simultaneous-Posting on Multiple Social Media

Really enjoying CellSpin mobile blogging, twittering, & facebooking app. Best of all, it has a Palm version!

Testing out the different setting to see if I can post to the blog at the same time. Will likely not continue to do so after this; short updates for Twitter and Facebook but still use this blog for longer write ups.

Reactivating Facebook

I finally caved in and re-activated my Facebook account. I don't like Facebook much --- actually, I don't know/use it at all so can't really say I don't like it. But I need to start using it if we end up using it more for work.
I stuck with Twitter only because having multiple social network accounts seems so redundant. I can barely keep up with my blog, as it is. I wanted to keep the blog more than Facebook. Now, with CellSpin, I can post to multiple sites at once!

CellSpin Mobile Blogging

I came across CellSpin mobile blogging app for Palm OS and had to try it out. I am still surprised when I "discover" Palm apps. Hoping this will also help me with blogging more often. So many things happened these past several months. It's a pity I didn't take the time to document it all.

Let's see how this tool may help.

Re-Discovering the Outliners

I've enjoyed writing the product reviews for work. I get to spend more time doing things with Elaine that I probably would not have otherwise. She continues to amaze and surprise me with her eagerness and cooperation. The other perk is refreshing and improving my writing skills.

I used to write a lot for classes in high school and college. The writing tapered off in veterinary school and almost came to a complete stop after graduation. Medical records are written with abbreviations, notes, and incomplete sentences. Unless I'm writing a referral report, paragraphs have no place in medical records. Frankly, I think the other doctors prefer the abbreviated versions, not the long proses.

One reason I took up journal writing was to practice my writing skills. Actually, it started as a way to practice handwriting skills as that, too, was falling on the wayside as computers took over most aspects of my life. Hence my interest in paper journals and pens. I soon learn that even though my handwriting is still pretty good, I had forgotten how to write things coherently and succinctly. I still don't do it well but, at least, I am working on it and blogging is a good outlet for it.

Outliners had always been a great help with my writing. I used Bonsai back in the days when I thought it was the answer to my GTD implementation (I was wrong). I was clearing out my Palm OS application folder when I came upon Bonsai again. Lo and behold, within minutes, Bonsai spat out an outline for the Canine Vehicle Safety Restraint System review.It feels good to have a big picture of where I'm going with the review. The ability to carry this outline in my Treo is a bonus. I've been known to get the writing bug while waiting in lines, dental appointments, etc... With Bonsai, I can access the outline and work on the review on my Treo. Bonsai has a lot of feature (to do's, etc...) but I'm only using it for the traditional basic outliner.

I stopped looking for a jack of all trade software. Why use an outliner to manage tasks when I already have something for that?

I'm using an outliner to create outlines. Big revelation, I know :)

Rudolph Running

I got home a little later than I had planned -- it being Christmas Eve and all. The family was still chaotic, my youngest brother had not arrived with his family yet. Following the don't think about it plan, I asked Priscilla if she wanted to go for a run.

She was finishing up her presents and cards but she was ready for a break. Lil' Bro arrived as we were about to take off so we stayed a little to greet them. Gosh, how the boys have grown! Then off we went.

Andre, my nephew (Priscilla's younger brother), was cool to lend me his bike light. It clips onto my iFitness belt and is visible through my tank top.It worked quite well; I may look into getting one for these evening runs. Sis wanted me to wear the light on my nose a la Rudolph. I am not that crazy :)

C25K W7D2 - Falling for Outdoor Running

My wonderful sister took me home today, no thanks to my Focus. My brother-in-law thinks it's the battery and will take a look tomorrow.

Other than the car problem, the evening turned out very well. I got home in time to squeeze in a run for W7D2. I mapped out a 2.6 mi run yesterday --- nothing special, no breath-taking scenery, just the sidewalks around an urban neighborhood. But you know what, I had a great run. I'm falling for this outdoor running business, don't think I can go back to running around the indoor track. Don't get me wrong, the track was a great learning place where I did not have to worry about traffic and can use the podcast to time the intervals. But now that the runs are one non-stop run, I had no need for the podcast. I found an unexpected but wonderful joy in running without earbuds / music. I ditched the music when I ran outside due to safety concerns but now, only after 2 runs, I find myself preferring it that way. Maybe that will change when I increase the distance and it gets boring after an hour. For now, 30-45 minutes of allowing myself to think about the day and take in the surroundings are just about perfect.

Back to the run. I was able to run the 2.6 mi non-stop. The pace was slow and it took me 32 minutes to finish the run --- 12:19 min mile pace. Heart rate averaged at 161 bpm, max at 171. I was not out of breath and finished strong.

The Tech 4o watch underestimated the distance to be 2.4 mi. I continued my experiment and fine tuned the stride length from 31 to 34 inches. Hopefully, I'll get the setting close enough soon.

Some thoughts during today's run:

1. Hope it's just the battery with the Focus.
2. If not the battery, need to get it to the repair shop on Monday.
3. Hope Focus will be ok overnight in the parking lot.
4. I think there's a slight uphill slope on this block.
5. Mattress by the curb with "FREE" sign. Hmm. Tempting.
6. Amazing how easier today's run is compared to the last one just 2 days ago.
7. I'm liking this.

Jelly Grip for Parker ''51'' Pencil

I'm going crazy with the grips here :). Couldn't resist one for the ''51'' pencil. That pencil has one of the most uncomfortable grip and it's slippery.

Besides, it's a packet of 20 grips. 2 down, 18 to go :P The nieces & nephews will like some, I'm sure.

Jelly Grip for My Decimo

This may be blasphemy and definitely takes away the sleek look of the Decimo. But ooh, it sure makes for a comfy writing session!

It's the PaperMate Grips. Stretchy, smooth, and cushiony. The clip still works. Added bonus is that the clip position no longer gets in the way.

I've always been partial to grips for pencils and pens --- for comfort as well as for personalization. Couldn't use them with fountain pens with caps but fine with capless.

Plus makes for the wider grip which is easier on my hand.

No Running Day

Rest day today; knees still sore.
The Tech 4O Accelerator Pulse Watch arrived today. Yeah! Got it on clearance. Sorta an early self-birthday gift. Reviews were mixed but I think it will be fine for what I need, esp. the heart rate monitor.

Of Treo, SMS, Emails, and Blogs...

Taking a break before finishing up today's records and prepare for tomorrow's surgery. Using this opportunity to test the text-to-blog feature as Game 5 starts. (sent via txt)

The ability to directly send text messages or emails to the blog is becoming a great asset. I find it simple to snap a picture and email it with a brief write-up to post on the blog. I can always go back and edit the post to my heart's content.

So often, something would catch my eyes: "That would make a good blog post," I'd tell myself. When blogging time comes, I would have forgotten about the idea or it's buried under several other more recent ideas. Emailing or sending a text message with the main points of the post as the ideas come to me will enable me to capture these thoughts. Missed or uncaptured thoughts may have more undesirable consequences than missed opportunities. After all, I may not even see the opportunities if I did not note-to-self to follow-up on that thought.

Text messaging may not be as useful due to the 160 characters limitation. If I have a thought that short, I may tweet it instead. May be a good idea to still send a text here, though --- consolidating into one collection point.

If it's work related, the post can sit here until I can develop it to be worthy of TFV Blog.