26 April 2010

A couple of weeks ago, right after I got the Trikke, I was told about this nifty little device that would help me keep track of the distances I go, time it takes, and more importantly, heart rate and calories burned.

Out of all of that knowing my heart rate has been important; a few times I've had to stop and cool down a bit because I've exceeded my max HR, though not by much. What I've liked most about it is knowing how far I've gone and how fast--seeing that I can shave some time off my distances--and the calorie burn (used to justify a burger, of course...)

But then I discovered I can do this:



Clicky to see full page

I can see maps of where I've been, my average paces, sweet little graphs.

It's awesome.

And because it maps my whereabouts and I can share them with the world, I'm likely to expand my distances, because my ego is that big.

Barring rain, over the next 10 days the Spouse Thingy and I are going to check out some other places to Trikke (because he has a few days off...) and we'll probably do some other things, but dangit, I want to make my maps all squiggly with red lines.

And then, justify a burger and fries.

A really big burger and fries...

24 April 2010

Odds n Ends #987,267

• I am having way too much fun with the Trikke. I managed to get it going fairly easily when I started, which made me happy, but tiny little, nearly invisible inclines were kicking my ass. Now I can get up with with only marginal effort.
• I'm up to 4 miles at a time on it; yesterday (with frequent water breaks) that took me an hour. Today I did it in 50 minutes, with a couple of water stops and a couple of stops to answer questions from curious people.
• I did not mind; one of those people seems to want one, the other was just curious about it, but it was good to stop to get my heart rate down a little, as it was a touch over what I think my max should be.
• I need a bigger water bottle. I could have stayed out a little longer today and gone further, but I ran out of water, and for me that's a big no-no.
• I wore shorts. That's a Big Farking Deal.
• Only lost one pound last week, but that's all right. If I can get back to a pound a week, I'll be happy.
• I shaved my legs so I could wear shorts...that might be a pound right there.
• I may not resist the temptation to go back out later for an easy. Just for fun ride.
• I want cake.

23 April 2010

Max needs an iPad, too...

19 April 2010

Tell me why someone would wear this t-shirt to a TV interview about one's little brother who is recovering from a coma?

I mean...really?
Made me LOL, but...really?

16 April 2010

I had honestly expected that by now I would have reached my goal weight; we started this back in July and I was losing weight at a pretty good clip thanks to Jenny Craig, and I did reasonably well on my own after being booted out of the program—right up until the beginning of 2010. Since then, I've lost a grand total of 3 pounds, and to say I'm discouraged is an understatement.

I wasn't overeating; if anything I was under-eating, but adding a couple hundred calories a day to my diet didn't work. I was having some serious medication issues—my DDAVP was working too well, and I had to skip it a couple of nights a week in order to shed added water weight—but that shouldn't have affected my metabolism.

Other than jacking up my activity level, I'm stumped. At my height and weight, with the calorie level I've been taking in, I should be able to drool and burn body fat.

Hence, the Trikke. It's a very low impact, full body workout, and something I can do every day, especially now that I can really get it moving. I had it out for an hour this morning and half an hour again later this afternoon, and was on it for an hour yesterday...but if I don't start losing weight again, I swear, I'm throwing in the towel and going on a pizza and Sees candy diet.

I should have reached my goal by now, and frankly, I'm kinda pissed that I haven't.

14 April 2010

Just to show I can... ;) (and I apologize for the crappy video quality...it was taken with my iPhone...)




And because I was having so much fun The Spouse Thingy decided he'd give it a try, too, and damn if he didn't really get it moving his very first time on one:

13 April 2010

Sweet...I actually have a workout tool that's fun. The Spouse Thingy and I headed out this morning, him on his skates and me on my Trikke, and we zipped around the park for not quite an hour, and late this afternoon we went back out for another almost-hour. My legs are like rubber right now and my arms ache, but I had a blast. I think I've really got the hang of it; I doubt I could go uphill yet, but that's not because of not knowing what to do, it's being in such piss poor shape.

I'll get there, and it beats going to the gym by a long shot.

He may give the Trikke a try tomorrow to see if he likes it...but if he does we're buying another on because I'm not sharing. I'm mature like that.

11 April 2010

I like spiffy toys, that's no secret. My scooter, my Kindle, my new Trikke...very spiffy toys.

Someone made the mistake of pointing out a new spiffy toy that would have me surely coveting, and they were right. I want.

I'm going to share because I'm betting someone else will want it, too.

It's a StreetStrider, kind of a bike/ellpitical/jogging hybrid. Major calorie burning potential here.

The countdown to my birthday begins...now.

9 April 2010

The day before yesterday, after the Spouse Thingy nicely assembled my Trikke, I tried riding it in the court out in front of the house; the problem is that the court is just not an especially level street surface, which is not ideal for learning on. It crowns in the middle, and slopes a little bit downward on one side and upward on the other. I needed flatness, so we headed for a grade school parking lot, where I got the thing to move, decided I wanted to expand a little bit, so we went to the park where I could go round and round on the sidewalk. Flatness, other than the annoying seams in the cement.

Today I took it back out to the court, determined to figure out how to ride it there, getting it up the very, very slight incline, and still maintaining some speed.

I knew I had to lean, that's what makes it work. It finally clicked that it would move and accelerate if I rode it like I was taking a motorcycle through a slalom of cones: back and forth, weaving through the imaginary cones. It worked; other than a few times when I lost momentum because a car came onto the court, I zipped around for a hour, and only stopped because I didn't want to overdo it.

My legs are feeling it now and I may be sore tomorrow. But, this is what I wanted—a workout I would actually look forward to doing. It's supposed to rain this weekend, which is bumming me out. Not only will the Trikke stay put, but I finally got my scooter back after being in the shop for 2 weeks, and I might not be able to ride it, either (ok, I could ride in the rain, but that doesn't float my boat...)

My goal: to be able to use it as transportation, and get it over to the frozen yogurt shop where I can negate all the calories I've burned.

Everyone needs goals.

8 April 2010

Last night's freaking odd dream...

Funny: I was living inside The Big Bang Theory.

Not so funny: the Spouse Thingy was Sheldon.

7 April 2010

WooHoo. I got my new toy.




And I got it to move. I was worried because I read a ton of "I can't get this thing to move at all, what am I doing wrong?" on Trikke forums and blog posts, but part of it is not unlike being on a motorcycle--as long as you're not afraid to lean, you can make it go. To turn on a motorcycle, you have to lean; forward movement on this, you have to lean.

But dang, it is a full body workout...just what I needed, to be sure. I think I have a favorite new toy, after the Spouse Thingy and my scooter.

4 April 2010

Thanks to rain, I still haven't had a chance to take the skates outside and risk humiliation and multiple fractures. But! Thanks to the rain I've had a chance to do other things, one of which reminded me of this really cool scooter I once saw on TV, which compelled me to get online and research it.

And, well, me being me, and me being a toy whore, I developed a mad case of the Wants.

It's a Trikke. A Human Powered Vehicle. And from everything I've read, it's a bitch to learn how to ride, but once you get the hang of it, it's a royal blast and one hell of a full body workout.

Oh, yeah, I wanted once even more. Hard to ride? Phfft. Surely I would be a natural and take to it like a duck takes to water, except for that one weird little duck that used to wander around the air force base pond; all he ever did was hump other ducks, and I don't think I ever saw him in the water. I can ride a motorcycle, I can get the hang of this thing.

I hope so, anyway, because mine gets here on Wednesday...

31 March 2010

He was pretty sure the skates had eaten my feet...



I dug the skates out of the garage last night--bought them 6 or 7 years ago and never use them--and decided to see if I could remain upright on them. I managed to skate up and down the hallway, but I can't stop worth a damn, and I'm not really sure how to turn...but hey, I didn't fall!



I feel like a giant...

Sometime soon the Spouse Thingy and I will both put our skates on and roll around the court out in front of the house, and if I don't die I may eventually wander off the court. We were going to do it this afternoon, but sudden rain saved me from surefire humiliation. Maybe next week.

27 March 2010

We had to take my scooter to the shop on Thursday; it's time for its routine maintenance--oil change, air filter, check all the belts and hoses and fluid levels--but it's also developed a bit of a problem with the front hydraulic seals.

Every so often I find it listing to one side or the other in the garage, and when I start it up, the horn blows 5 times, the on-board computer code for "Hey, your hydraulic seals are busted.". After digging around online, I discovered it's not an uncommon problem with the MP3, but it doesn't effect how it handles while riding, and it's not a complicated fix.

But...It's an Italian bike and there aren't a whole lot of parts distribution points in the US, so I might not have it back for 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS!

This next week is supposed to be a little rainy, so I'll survive, but the week after? I bet it's going to be all sunshine and warm and perfect riding weather, so I'll be especially grumpy.

This is all punishment for forgetting Buddah's birthday. Yep, I forgot, and the poor little guy didn't get any presents or special treats on his 5th. I actually feel bad about that.

Don't mock me. You'd feel bad, too.

You would.

19 March 2010

Made me LOL, had to share...

18 March 2010

It figures, I find the cool toys when it's so late in the season begging for one is useless...

Maybe for an early Christmas present. Like, as soon as the ski resorts open...

I would totally rock it. But in a good way, not in a concussion and contusion way.

18 March 2010

Finally!

(had to add...LOL no, it's not my birthday and I'm not fifty years old. I hit a weight loss plateau and finally broke through it...I hope...)

11 March 2010

My maturity levels know no bounds.

Look, I've read all the Twilight books; I have the DVD of the first movie (though I haven't watched it yet; I'm waiting until I can lure the Spouse Thingy into bed, where I will use my wiles--or whatever--to get him to watch it with me, further evidence of how mature I am) so I'm not some anti-Twilight harpy. I don't think the books were stellar literature, but they hit their target market well, and anything that gets kids reading is, IMNSHO, a good thing.

And sure, anything that appeals beyond its target audience is a good thing, too; Stephenie Meyer tapped into the inner young teenager of a whole lot of middle aged women across the world, and sucked them in as easily as the kids.

But even I have my limits.
 

This afternoon as the Spouse Thingy and I waited at the Jenny Craig center, a woman walked in wearing this sweatshirt.

We automatically turned when the door opened; that's what people do, even if they're not expecting anyone they know to walk into a room. But I had to turn away and look out the window, literally clenching my teeth and biting my lower lip to keep from laughing at the absurdity of this 50-some year old woman in capris and Sketchers tennis shoes wearing an obviously loved Twilight hoodie with a giant Edward Cullen head plastered on the front.

Ok, so I wanted her shoes.

And I'm not even 100% sure why I thought the hoodie was so absurdly funny. But I didn't laugh, so I get bonus points for that, right?

I should get points for that.

10 March 2010

Spiffy, eh?

Nice and bright and shiny and very red.

Normally, I love getting spiffy, bright, shiny, very red things. They appeal to my inner 8 year old.

What doesn't appeal to my inner 8 year old is having to get a new washer because the old one decided to die a miserable death mid-load. I don't think appealed to the Spouse Thingy's inner anything to have to get his soaking wet, half washed clothes out of the washer and take them to Dixon's only laundromat to rewash them. Me, I stayed home... Hey, they weren't my clothes. And I was busy. Doing...something. I forget what. But it must have been important.

So yesterday, instead of driving back to Tahoe to give skiing another try, we went appliance shopping. Yes, I made him go with me, you can imagine the sheer joy he felt in having to go multiple places, finding the right one, waiting while the sales clerk started the paperwork, then finding out it might be weeks before it came in. I'm sure he was ecstatic having to go yet another place to find something similar.

But hey, it was about a hundred bucks less, so he had that going for him.

Now if only the tax refund would show up to pay for the whole thing...

5 March 2010

Something we learned on our little snow adventure: South Lake Tahoe apparently closes at 2 pm on Mondays. The first hint of this came when we discovered that the restaurant next to the the hotel had a "closed Mondays and Tuesdays at 2 pm" sign on the door.

Not a problem; I whipped out my iPhone and used Yelp to find reviews on nearby places to eat. Less than a mile down the road was a place that sounded promising, so we headed out, and along the way it seemed that there were quite a few darkened storefronts.

And then the restaurant we'd driven to was closed.

Just wonderful.

In the same parking lot was a KFC, and it was open, so we parked in front of it and went in, reasoning that one fast food meal wouldn't hurt. Well, we hoped it wouldn't, but I brought plenty of Immodium, so it wouldn't hurt too much.

Then on the drive home the next day, both so hungry we considered peeling pleather off the dashboard and munching on it like beef jerky, we stopped at an In-N-Out.

And later that night...well, the pizza was a deliberate choice. And it was freaking good.

My diet this week was fairly craptacular, so I wasn't surprised when I got on the scale and was up a pound.

Hell, I was grateful it was only a pound.

The only downside is that now I'm 2 pounds from hitting 50 lost. I'm not moping about gaining it; I knew when I was shoving crap into my mouth that I was likely going to gain a little this week, and I was fine with that. I'm trying to lose weight, yes, but I'm not trying to "diet" so much as I'm trying to change overall how I eat, and once in a while a person caves to the lure of the junk.

And that's ok.

But now it's back to eating sensibly, because I don't want to find myself feeling like the crap I'm eating, and I really want to hit 50, and then move on to hitting my final goal.

Hey, when I get there, I might even admit what weight I started at.

Trust me, you'll be appalled...

2 March 2010

Don't we look spiffy? Almost like we're standing there, knowing exactly what we're about to do, and thinking we have it freaking nailed.

It didn't work out quite that way.

I mean, it started well. I snapped my boot into the ski binding like I'd done it a thousand times, but then it all went downhill from there.

Or more accurately, it didn't go downhill.

I had issues from the start. First, I am so damned out of shape that just getting up the tiny hill was hard work and I had a hard time catching my breath. Then while everyone else was doing that wedge down the little hill, I was stuck. One ski wanted to move, the other was plastered to the snow. So I fell. First person of the day to go down like a sack of potatoes. It wasn't embarrassing, just frustrating.

So because everyone else had wedged their way down the tiny hill successfully, we were pointed toward the lift chairs.

You know, the chairs that take you up a freaking mountain.

Getting on the chair was a snap. Getting off, not so much. Almost everyone got off that lift and fell flat on their asses. Since it was the lift to the top of the bunny slope, the attendant at the top was prepared, practically ripped skis off left and right and moved them out of the way, so that we could easily scramble, lest we trip up the more experienced skiers.

And then my day got worse.

My right ski, it wanted to slide. My left ski refused to budge. We were supposed to wedge our way across the hill, but the snow was sticking to the bottom of that left ski, and I was going nowhere fast. Well, other than the right side of my body, which wanted to take off.

I finally took the skis off, wiped all the snow off the bottom, and got back on, but by then the damage was done. I'd had a little too much time of my right side moving and my left side not, which does not favor old knees.

Forty minutes in, I was done, lest I rip my knee to shreds. I took my skis off and walked down the rest of the way.

You know how hard it is to walk down a mountain in ski boots, carrying skis?

It's not that freaking easy.

The Spouse Thingy went on another run, and he didn't do half bad. But by then the winds had whipped up, snow was falling hard, and we were worried about the worse weather that was headed our way. We'd already checked out of the hotel when we learned that tomorrow called for baby-blizzard conditions, deciding to forgo a second day in the snow on order to get out of the mountains.

We still have lift tickets, though. We may try it again next week, but with skis rented from the pro shop and not the ski school...I got screwed on my unwaxed sticks, and feel like I'm damned lucky I didn't really do some damage.

Still...it was pretty, and we had a killer view from the hotel.

1 March 2010

Across the street from our hotel room



Not a bad view, eh?

28 February 2010

As soon as the Spouse Thingy gets up tomorrow--well, as soon as he's awake enough--we're hitting the road and heading for South Lake Tahoe. Everything is packed and ready to go, I just need to go gas the car up in the morning and probably clean the crap out...because we're taking his car, and I'm not sure he's entirely grasps the idea that just because you drop something onto the passenger floorboard, that doesn't mean it has to stay there until you carry a passenger....or more specifically, a passenger other than one's wife, because he doesn't seem to care if my feet are bothered by his used Kleenex and gum wrappers.

We're taking our laptops--the hotel has free wi-fi...free y'all!--and a digital camera, so hopefully we can post a few pictures. And hopefully the pictures won't be of me bent in odd angles, hanging off of a ski lift.

You know if I'm dangling off a ski lift, he's going to take pictures...

The cats are curious about what's up...the bags are already by the front door, and I put food and water in the master bathroom, figuring that closet is where Max is going to hide from Butters. The Boy will be here while we're gone, protecting the premise from out little town's gang of thugs. Which, basically means he'll sit here and watch TV while he does laundry, because our little town's thugs are mostly teenagers who cut school once in a blue moon to go to Burger King for a Whopper...presuming they don't get kicked out, because random kids in the fast food places during school hours are pretty much ratted out.

But...WooHoo, we're going skiing! Yay for the Spouse Thingy having a schedule with a couple of weekdays off.

But the cats may never forgive us...

25 February 2010

One last shameless pimping of my son...

In two days he's jumping into icy cold water, possibly while wearing a shiny striped cape and mask, and he'll do it SOBER...all to raise money for the Special Olympics.

He's this close to raising $1000.

So yeah, I'm tossing it out there one more time hoping to raise a few more bucks.

2010 Polar Plunge. If you have a buck or two in spare change lying around, please consider a donation that funds not only the Special Olympics, but the joy I will have in knowing my kid is shrinking all his favorite parts for charity.

Edited to add:

 

My pride and joy

This alone is worth a buck.

24 February 2010

Today's random thought: I would eat a lot more yogurt if Yoplait didn't insist on so many chunks of mushy fruit in every cup...