7/52 — Week 6

Most of my photos for this week were taken while I tested out my tripod, inverting the center column and then attaching my camera upside down to shoot pics of whatever I placed underneath it. I was hoping to find some interesting things to shoot with my macro, but ended up not taking as many with it.

But first...

Tuesday, February 8th was Do It For Daron day. I wore purple to help raise awarenes for the cause.

This one is my favourite for the week and is one of my DailyShoot photos. It's looking side my drink bottle, which was pressed up against the end of my 100mm lens.

The first of my test shots. It's a Canadian Dollar (aka Loonie), with the Ottawa Senators logo on it.

Looking into my 18-200mm lens using my 100mm lens.

I have a canvas print hanging on the wall behind our bar in the basement. I didn't make it, but I got it from work years ago when they were getting rid of a whole bunch of them. It's a 3D rendered scene of a game of chess — a checkmate — but there's a sword laying on the board beside the fallen king. It's kinda cool. The print isn't the best quality though, as you'll see in this next shot where you can see the half-tone dots. :)

And this is the same picture, panned back a little.

The last shot — the underside of a glass. All that black is the reflection of the camera I guess. It's pretty cool though.

 

20K - Week 13 progress

I broke 20,000 calories mark in Your Shape Fitness Evolved.

This put me at 30th place on the Worldwide Leadboard and 3rd place on the Canada Leaderboard. Unfortunately, their leaderboard is buggy and it's displaying the wrong name beside the score. You can see in both pics that my score is 20315, which happens to be the 3rd place on the Canada leaderboard.

Wordwide Leaderboard:

Canada Leaderboard:

Sucks. I reported it in their forums, but like many of the bugs being reported, nothing seems to be done about it. Not even an official acknowledgement of them. Anyway, that's another story.

7/52 - Week 5

Had to play some catch-up today to get seven. Why do I do this to myself.... anyway, on with it.

My desk phone at work. This turned out better than I thought it would.

One of my cat's rear feet. I had initially planned on taking a shot of her face, but she wouldn't stop moving. Then I noticed her fuzzy feet and fired off a few shots. I like it.

This was supposed to be an artistic shot of a plug for the DailyShoot. The only artistic-ness I could think of was to apply a colour filter to image. Yeh, not so artistic.

A mirror tile with mirrored glasses sitting on it, each containing a candle. My wife put this out at Christmas, on a table in the basement, and for some reason decided to keep it out after Christmas. I kinda liked the way the reflections all bounce off each other. I should light them one day and try the same shot.

A couple of light hand weights that my wife got me for Christmas to use with my workouts. They work well.

About ½ a cup of corn chips that I munched on for a snack, after using the items in the previous picture this evening. :)

One of two large baskets that sit on our hall closet shelf, each containing mittens, or toques.

That's it for this week.

Back on track? — Week 12 progress

I'm not entirely sure whether eating a little more more or changing my workout fixed it, but I did manage to get back to losing this week. Not much mind you, but it's not a gain.

And then on Saturday, out of curiosity, I stepped on the scale and noticed I had lost a bit more. As of this morning, I was down to 248lbs. Keeping my fingers crossed for this week.

7/52 - Week 4

Not a very exciting week on the photo front, but here we go...

The first was shot for a DailyShoot and turned out pretty good. I have a tube of rare earth magnets that doesn't have much purpose, so I put a couple of them to use. This was a tricky shot, even with using a tripod. I had to hold my hand out in front of the camera pretty far and it wasn't easy to hold my hand still. I had to rest my arm on a chair to get it steady enough for the shot. The magnets really are holding themselves on my finger — they're that strong.

Another DailyShoot shot. This is one of our many TV/device remotes that reside in our living room. Exciting, eh? :)

I've shot this next one before, in B&W. I can't remember if I ever posted it anywhere. We have three of these hanging on the wall in our dining area. For this particular shot, I enhanced the color a little using one of many picture styles for Canon's Digital Photo Professional that I downloaded from the web. I really like it. I took quite a few shots of this, and had a difficult time trying to decide which one I would use for the DailyShoot that day.

This is one of my DailyShoot rejects for the same assignment as the last photo. I couldn't seem to get the lighting the way I wanted. I like the colour though.

This is an origami star(?) that one of my daughter's classmates made for her. She said she makes them for anyone who asks. I shot it for a DailyShoot and never used it.

Another DailyShoot reject. A wooden coaster. I thought it would be cool, until I saw how much my macro lens exposes and didn't like it.

I shot this one moments ago to round off my seven photos for this week. These are books that I have read or am in the process of reading. Talk about diversity. :)

 

Plateau — Week 11 progress

A not-so-happy weigh-in this morning.

I was good with keeping the calorie intake low this week — better than in previous weeks — and yet, there was no loss this week. In fact, there was about a 1 lb gain.

That brings up two possibilities.

The first is that I have officially hit a plateau.

The second possibility that crossed my mind, one that my wife also mentioned, is that maybe I haven't eaten enough and my body is going into storage mode. It makes sense. In past weeks, I would occasionally slip and consume more than I should on a day or two, or get pretty close to my max, and despite that I was still able to lose. My max calculated intaje is supposed to be around 2100-2200. In the last seven days, I was over 1500 calories once, and the rest were in the 1200-1300 range, after subtracting workout calorie burn. Maybe there is some logic to that.

I guess I'll focus on eating a but more for this week. I'm also going to change my usual workout program in YSFE to something with a little more cardio and see how that pans out.

Nicotine is a bitch, and I owned it

Today marks my 2-year anniversary of beating nicotine addiction.

Alan Carr's "Easyway to Stop Smoking" was the best $20 that I've ever spent on a book. It's better than the patch, better than the gum, better than the pills, and better than cold turkey. Smoking isn't just a physical addiction, it's also a psychological one. If you don't beat both, you'll always crave it.

My wife read the book a year later and will be a year quit in March.

I get nothing in return for plugging the book, other than a good feeling knowing that it might help someone else. If you'd like to read some old blog posts about it, check these out.

In celebration of my amazing achievment, who wants to be the first to sponsor me for the 2011 Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life? :)

http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/paterson

 

7/52 - Week 3

Thank god for the DailyShoot, or I might not have anything to post. :)

My cat. My trusty model. She looked so comfortable. I only managed too shoot three or four shots before she woke up.

A book that everyone must have. I liked it so much that I bought the newer edition, even though most of the content was the same as the last edition I bought and read. I had a bitch of a time trying to get my glasses to stay in a triangular shape for the shot. They kept wanting to close or open.

I love our stairs. Coincidentally, I think it was around this time last year that we began our five or six month long renovation project of the stairs, main floor, kitchen floor and ½ bathroom. Dig through my blog and I'm sure you'll see some before pics. This shot was originally landscape but I cropped it to portrait to cut out something that was hanging on the hand rail to the right. And then I wasn't sure if I should convert the entire thing to B&W. It looks good in B&W, but I wanted to keep the colour... because, I think we did a great job of staining them. Like I said, I love our stairs. :)

My scale, that I am somewhat obsessed with using in the last couple of months. I thought it would be cool to take a shot of my weight as I stood on it, but soon realized that having my camera in hand would throw that way (weigh?) off. ;) I suppose I could have gotten the tripod out...

My Xbox 360 controllers. I shot them because... well, I couldn't find anything else to shoot. Besides, they were a part of our Sunday activities -- my wife and I played a few games of Yahtzee. :)

This was more of an accidental shot. I was messing around with the autofocus on my camera, aiming it on my feet, and fired off a shot just as the picture on the TV changed to an advertisement. It kinda looks like my feet have a halo.

Last, but not least -- and also a DailyShoot shot -- homemade chocolate cookies. It was a new recipe that my wife decided to try and they are goooood. :)

That's it for this week. I'm still not completely up to speed on this seven photos per week idea. I keep finding myself running around looking for things to shoot. Being winter with windchill warnings certainly doesn't help either.

Hopefully I can get my shit together soon. Dammit.

Holding steady – Week 10 progress

Friday's weigh-in had me at 248.4 lbs. My progress this past week has slowed down. My calorie intake wasn't beyond the limits, but my workouts were few and far between as my time was a somewhat limited most days.

Anyway, it continues, that's all that matters. :)

7/52 - Week 2

Still not up to speed on shooting often enough, but did manage to get seven for this week. :) A couple of them are from my DailyShoot contributions as well.

This was one of the DailyShoot shots. It's my rarely played acoustic guitar that I got a long time ago... like pre-1982. I never did learn to play more than a few notes, unless you count "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore". :) Everyone once in a while I get in the mood to try and learn more, get it all tuned up and stick with it for a few weeks, then it ends up sitting in the corner of my den. For this shot, I sat it on my lap and placed the camera on the strings, looking down the neck. It looks like I strummed it for the shot, but I didn't.

Another DailyShoot shot; the label on my camera bag. It pretty much holds everything I have for my camera. It's an awesome bag.

I shot this at work one lunch time, for the DailyShoot. It's a Hot Wheels dragster pen that my wife put in my Christmas stocking. It took me a dozen shots until I got one that looked pretty good.

I had a difficult time finding something for this particular DailyShoot. Find two complementary objects. How hard could that be? I think this turned out pretty good. I thought about making it B&W, but decided to leave it as is in the end.

I shot this on Saturday while I was snowing outside. Our bird feeder hangs just outside our window so our cat can enjoy watching them. The colour wasn't too great, since I had shot it through the window, so I decided to make it B&W. I guess I should refill it, eh? :)

My favourite model, our cat Samantha. This is where she spends most of her time, either sleeping or watching out the window. If I move the automan anwhere else, she won't sleep in her bed on it. It must be in front of this window.

I shot this one this evening, for today's DailyShoot assignment. It took me about half an hour to find something blue that I could make a decent shot out of. I spotted the bottle of Dawn dish liquid at the back of the sink. At first I thought I would try to shoot it as I poured it onto a plate. That didn't work out too well. I then made a bunch of bubbles in it and fired off a half dozen before switching to my 100mm lens for a couple like this one. You can see my reflection and other things in the kitchen. I had to make a few small adjustments to the RAW file, with the tone and saturation to bring out the blue a little better.

Milestones - Week 9 Progress

A day early, but I'm feeling a little bored.

I passed a personal milestone on Friday; I weighed in below 250 lbs for the first time in 6 or 7 years, at 249.8 lbs. At that time, when I last made an attempt to lose weight, I got down to 240 lbs before I hit a road block.

240 lbs is my next milestone. I don't remember the last time I weighed less than 240. I suspect it was some time back in the mid-80s, right afer I left the military.

I am less than 10 lbs away from that milestone.

7/52 - Week 1

Not off to a very good start for my Project 7/52. Due to my slackitivity, my seven photos are from two different shoots. It's allowed, of course, but I was hoping for a better mix. We'll see what the next week brings.

Anyway, here we go for this week.

This is me holding my new nephew, Jaxson Edward Wilson; my sister's second child. He was born on January 5th of this year.

Here we have my son holding his new cousin. My son is very unlike me when I was his age. He loves babies and little kids. I guess he gets that from his Mom. :)

My daughter holding her new cousin. She too loves babies. I just hope they remain other people's babies for a long time! :)

My wife, holding her nephew. She commented that he looks so round. Not chubby or fat, just very... roundish. :) He was born via C-section, so his head didn't have a chance to become temporarily deformed like some newborns. His ears are really tiny too. He's a cutie.

I received a few Hot Wheels cars over the Christmas holidays and decided to take photos of them to post in a couple of the Hot Wheels Flickr groups. This, unfortunately, isn't one of them. :) I've had this one for some time. I like it because it's different.

This also isn't one of them, but it's a Mustang and that makes it one of my favourites. I started mostly collecting Mustangs years ago. It has expanded a little to to include cool looking muscle cars or any other car that happens to catch my eye. I don't go crazy buying everything in sight.

This one is one that I got for Christmas, in my stocking. A 2010 Camaro.

And that's that for week 1, with about ten minutes to go. Yeh, technically I'm probably a day late since week 1 ended yesterday, but it's far easier for me to update this and post them all on a Sunday... so there. :) The week begins on Monday and ends on Sunday for this.

Stready as I go - Week 8 progress

I was down to 252½ lbs this past week, but in the last two days I put a couple back on. It's not like I went crazy and over my calorie limit, so I'm not entirely sure what happened. I guess stuff like that will happen anyway. I'm not going to be too concerned about it, for now. :)

My workouts are still once every two days. I find I have way more energy this way. Perhaps that parts of why I put a couple of pounds back on...

I'm still doing the cardio boxing as my main workout, with a 3lb weight in each hand. I'm noticing that they're getting easier than when I first started using weights, which is pretty cool.

I took my measurements a at some point this week and also managed to find the measurements I took in mid-December. Neck, waist, chest and hips were all down anywhere from a ½ inch to 1½ inches. More progress. :)

New Photo Project

I've been toying with the idea of starting a new Project 52, but the fact that I've already done it sort of makes it seem "ho hum". I'm fairly certain that I couldn't handle a Project 365. It takes more commitment than I think I have and I've seen more than a few fail after a few months.

While reading about the return of DaniGirl's Project 365 on her blog, I read a suggestion in the comments about doing a "7/52".

A quick Google search later and I discovered that this might be something I could handle; post 7 photos per week, for 52 weeks. The photos can be taken all in one day, over a couple, or even daily. The only "rule" is that it's 7 photos per week. During my Project 52, on more than one occasion, I had to choose one from many. This makes me a little more confident that this idea could succeed.

Since this is the first full week of the new year and I have half a week to decide. :)

No excuses now - Week 7 progress

I survived the Christmas and New Year indulgences.

Overall, it wasn't anywhere near as evil as I expected it to be and I managed to say somewhat on track. My weight this morning was just under 257 lbs.

I managed to break the 9000 calorie mark at the end of December and I'm just over 500 calories away from reaching 10,000 calories. 10,000 is the last calorie achievement on Xbox Live. When I started this, it seemed so far away.

So anxious to get below 250 lbs. :)

"Out with the old. In with the new"

I had planned to write about this past year, and what I hoped the new year would bring. Like every other blog out there, I guess. After an hour of trying to formulate something that didn't sound corny, I gave up.

Screw it. Keeping it simple always works.

Goodbye 2010; it's been a slice.

Hello 2011.

Resolutions? Who needs them? I quit smoking without one. If you've read any of my previous blog postings, it should be obvious what's next.

Clean slate. New experiences. New goals. New determination to reach those goals. And maybe a little fun thrown in.

I'm ready.

I think.

More than just the turkey got stuffed - Week 6 progress

I should have seen it coming after the Christmas morning breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns exceeded half of my daily calorie intake.

Despite switching from working out daily to every two days, I had to work out yesterday to counteract the evil to come in the form of Christmas dinner. On the plus side, the workout yesterday was the biggest calorie-burner for me this month at 459 slayed calories.

Dinner came and went. It was damn good, but I paid for it adding ~2000 calories to the ~1400 I ate at breakfast. And that doesn't even include the 7 or 8 beers later in the evening. It sure adds up quickly. It's no wonder I am the weight I am.

Anyway, the weigh-in this morning turned out to be no worse than yesterday's weigh-in at around 258. This leaves me at around 2lbs over my lowest so far, so all things considered, I'm not in bad shape (no pun intended). Since I'm off work for the Christmas holidays, I have a week to work it off -- again -- before New Years Eve arrives.

My wife bought me some 3 pound weights for Christmas to use with my workouts. I tried them yesterday when I did my YSFE cardio boxing. They even recommend using hand weights with some of the workouts. What a difference. It's too bad that there's no way to account for using weights in the workouts. I'm sure more calories are being burned and not counted.

Christmas Spirit -- it's what you make it

Every year, without fail, some people get offended that they are not wished a "Merry Christmas". Instead, they hear "Happy Holidays", or something else, and this is supposedly very wrong.

I used to hop aboard that same bandwagon. It was almost like... I felt I was being robbed of Christmas spirit, or something. Denied my right to have a Merry Christmas.

Over the years I have come to realize that it doesn't really matter what we say.

We're Canadians. We're multi-cultural. If you want to say Merry Christmas, go ahead. If you want to say Happy Holidays, go ahead. If you want to say Happy Hanukkah, go ahead. If someone gets offended by whatever you choose to say, that's their problem.

Christmas spirit is what you make it. Say whatever makes you happy. If you choose to say nothing at all, that's fine too. Life is too short to be upset over something so trivial, and you do get upset by it, then you are ruining your own Christmas spirit.

When it comes to Christmas, there are no rules... except maybe holding the door open for that person whose arms are full of gifts for their friends and family. :)

Merry Christmas.

Weigh in - Week 5 progress addendum

As I said I would be, I was under 260lbs this morning at 259.2. :)

I must have jinxed myself in the process, as I was unable to get my workout done this evening due to unpredictable people traffic in my house around my usual time. Had I known there would be people in and out of here, I would have done it in the afternoon. Not a huge deal. I was still under my 2000 calories for the day -- by around 25. :)

I think my brain is being reprogrammed when it comes to food.

First, I was out Christmas shopping with my kids this afternoon. When we were done, they wanted ice cream from Laura Secord. I bought them each a single scoop in a waffle cone. I didn't have any. Just as we were about to leave the mall, I thought about picking up some onion rings from A&W because that's what we did last year when we were finished shopping. Then I thought about what that would do to my daily calorie intake... not to mention the sodium. I quickly scrapped that idea.

There was a lot of baking going on in my house this afternoon and this evening, in preparation for the Christmas holidays. My wife likes to make all kinds of goodies for her co-workers and family, and for when we have friends over. Despite the awesome smell in the house, I didn't indulge in the yummy treats. At one point, my wife even offered me some, holding it within reach and I declined.

It seems to get easier the more I refuse to give in to the temptation(s).

Counting Calories - Week 5 Progress

This counting calories thing appears to be working, thanks to the Livestrong.com web site.

A few days ago I broke the 260lb barrier. Unfortunately, I did put 1 or 2 lbs back on thanks to a yummy pot luck lunch at work, but I expect that after this weekend, they will be gone and I will be below 260lbs.

This makes me very happy.

My goal is set at 2000 calories per day. With the exception of two days that I hit nearly 3000 calories (last Sunday, before I started tracking, and Thursday's pot luck lunch), I'm averaging 1450 calories per day, after my workout burned calories are subtracted. Even without the workouts, the average would be below 2000. Knowing that makes it tempting to skip a workout every once in a while. I have to convince myself that if I do that, then it'll get easier and easier to skip.

One thing that is extremely difficult to keep low is my sodium intake. It's almost always over the recommended daily intake. It's crazy. I have to try and keep a closer watch on that.

My workouts are up to around 30 mins long and are supposedly burning off anywhere between 350 and 400 calories per day, according to Your Shape Fitness Evolved. That's more than double than when I started and it's my plan to keep doing that much as a minimum.

My left hip joint is giving me a bit of trouble. It's bothering me for a couple of years now. It feels like it's grinding or needs to pop. It hurts when I stand for a long time or do a lot of walking, but I can really feel it when I work out and have to kick with my left leg.

Anyway, that's the update for this week.

Kudos for Best Buy?

I had some rather unpleasant experiences with Best Buy in the past, and this was no exception. However, when they do something right, it's also worth mentioning.

Earlier this month Best Buy had a promo where you could earn extra Reward Points for purchases totally over certain amounts. One of those was 2000 Reward Points ($20 value) for a purchase totally $100 or more. I ordered a couple of items and the total came to $104.98 before tax.

The first problem I ran into was not knowing where to enter the "2000POINTS" code that entitled me to the 2000 Reward Points. The only field that would accept this code was the Redeem Digital Dollars field. I entered it there and proceeded with the purchase.

A day or so later, I checked my Reward Point balance and there was no record of the purchase, nor was there any "pending" points balance.

I emailed Best Buy inquiring about this. I never got a reply.

I posted the issue on their Facebook page and I did get a reply saying that I should have gotten them and suggesting I check my balance. Not entirely helpful, but it was a response.

I bitched about it on Twitter and a day or two later I got a message from someone who appeared to be a Best Buy rep asking for details. I sent the ma brief summary. They gave me an email address and suggested sending the details to it and I did.

A day or two later I got a reply advising me that my problem was being forwarded to the Reward Zone reps.

This evening a long distance number called my home phone. We don't normally answer them because it's almost always a telemarketer, but my wife answered it anyway. Moments later she handed me the phone and said "Someone from Best Buy headquarters..."

I don't recall the woman's name, but she was apologetic and advised me that I did everything correct in entering the code, and that I did indeed qualify for the points and they had no idea why it didn't automatically add the 2000 points to my Reward Account. She said they were going to look into it, but she also added that she would fix my account so I got the 2000 points that I was entitled to.

I thanked her for the call and that was that.

I think it's pretty cool that a company will actually call someone to resolve a problem rather than let them go through email hoops.

I will add, however, that the call lead me to believe that the points had already been added to my account. I checked an hour or two later and they still did not appear. I'm hoping that it's just a delay and I won't have to update my blog with a rant. :)

I think Best Buy still has a long way to go to improve their customer service (i.e. responding to ALL emails!), but this is a step in the right direction.

Livestrong.com

I was searching for the calorie count on various food items today and I came across the LiveStrong.com web site. If you create a profile there, you can track what you eat. So, I figured what the hell... I created an account and started entering what I ate for the day. I don’t know if I’ll do it for the long term, but at the very least it’s making me more aware of what I can eat without overdoing it (not that it’s not sometimes blatantly obvious) ;)

I even passed on having a second Light beer this evening while watching hockey. That’s a first for me, and it wasn’t even going to push me past my calorie intake for the day. :)

Fitness hell - Week 4 progress

My suspicion from last week was correct. I have to start keeping a close watch on what I eat.

I weighed myself this morning and was disappointed to see that I gained a few pounds back. It's not like I went crazy with eating, but clearly whatever I ate was really bad for me.

Ugh. Too good to be true. :)

And to top it all off, I burned more calories this past week than the 3 weeks prior: just over 1600. I hate to think of how it would be if I hadn't.

On the plus side, it's looking really good for beating my 2000 cal in 14 day goal that I set for myself; 5 days and 274 cal to go!

I'm really enjoying the cardio boxing routines. That's part of the reason for the increase in calorie burns. It makes for a great warm up.

The Your Shape FE web site is still not fully functional, and it's been at least 2 weeks since I've been able to access their support forums. For some reason I get an error when I try to log into them. There are others with the same problem. At first, the reps in their Facebook page seemed concerned and were passing along info to their support people, but now our pleas appear to go ignored... and the problem still exists.

The leaderboard stats are a little f'd up too. For example, it has me listed twice. The "female" one is not the correct one, obviously. :)

That was yesterday, but it's still listing me twice today.

There have also been some questions about when they're going to post "events" on their web site that we can participate in. No replies to those questions either.

It's annoying when a product is released with virtually no support to back it up.

Here's my current rank:

Kinect & Your Shape FE - Week 3 progress

Since the last update, I discovered that I had entered my weight incorrectly into Your Shape FE when I did the fitness test. I fixed it, and it didn't seem to change the recommended workouts. However, since my weight was incorrect, it miscalculated the calorie burn. Heavier people burn calories faster. Based on the number of calories burned at my correct weight, I estimate it is around 360-400 calories short. Not a big deal though.

After completing the 12 easyier sessions, I went in search of something different. I learned the the Cardio programs will change daily, which makes it a whole lot more interesting. Plus, they appear to be broken down into two or three routines per session, which lets me decide how many sessions I want to do per day. I upped my workouts to burn around 200 per workout. That lasted until the weekend.

I had a little setback (err... night out) on Saturday. I didn't go crazy, but it definitely wasn't part of my fitness agenda. :) Good food. Cold beer. Fun times.

So, on Sunday I was wiped. Not hungover, just tired. I did try to workout in the evening but after a few routines, I was so winded it scared me a little. I had to call it quits.

At least I tried, so the guilt was minimal.

This evening, I decided to re-do the fitness test with my correct weight set to see if anything would change. It didn't seem to affect the recommendations as far as I can see, but it feels better knowing that it's based on my correct weight.

I redid one of the easy sessions for this evening's workout, which is how I determined how much short the total calorie burn was with the incorrect weight. It went well, but it felt like a bigger workout than it was. I didn't feel as energetic. Either I was still in weekend recovery mode, or missing a workout really messed things up.

On to the weight loss for this week. There was none. In fact, I gained about ½ a pound. Should I be surprised? No. Oddly enough, I weighed myself on Friday and it had me about 3 lbs heavier, so in the end a ½ lb is good enough for me.

We'll see how this week goes, but I suspect I'll have to start taking a serious look at what I eat if I'm going to have any chance of achieving a 10lb per month loss. The Christmas holidays sure aren't going to help with that either.

A message to Sens fans

... in particular, the Heatley-hating fans:

It's cool that you're all excited about the game tonight and being able to boo and trash the much-hated Dany Heatley. It's great that you seem willing to display a little energy and emotion for once because we're certainly not known for being anything but comatose.

But what do you say to sharing some of that energy, emotion, and excitement with the home team for once? How about more than a couple of Go Sens Go! chants that don't die the second the other team touches the puck?

Seriously, how embarassing will it be to hear more Heatley boos and jeers at the game than cheers and rallies for the Ottawa Senators?

Very. And to be honest, not too surprising.

Surprise me.

Watt's up?

Not my hydro bill!

Remember my "Killing Watts" post from October 1st? The one where I ranted about our $414.49 hydro bill and our planned efforts to reduce it for the next billing?

That next billing was today and our bill for the last two months is $213.13.

It's kinda hard to believe that changing all of our bulbs to CF bulbs made that much of a difference, so I'd like to think that it was mainly through the efforts of my family being more vigilant about the lights and electronics that they may leave on. Whatever the reasons, they all added up and made a difference.

As I mentioned then, I will be sharing some of the savings with my kids as well.  I decided that they would share in any savings below $250. The point was to make them realize that whenever they leave a light on or the TV on, they'd be cutting into their profits. I'll round it off to an even $20 each. :)

With winter approaching, it'll be interesting to see if we can do it again for the next two months.

My Shape

I'm sort of... round. :)

I've never been a big fan of working out. I don't particularly enjoy exercise unless its a byproduct of something fun. Cycling, for example, I do enjoy, although last summer I didn't do very much of that at all and I'm not sure why.

You would think that being on medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol and being about 70lbs overweight would be enough to make me wake up. You would think that years ago when my doctor compared my health situation to a house that would fall apart in 5 or 6 years, it would wake me up.

You would think.

And it did, for about 2 years. My doctor was somewhat of a hard-ass, no bullshit kind of doctor. Some hated him. I hated him, at first, but then realized that he's just telling me like it is. I didn't want to hear the speech every 3 months when I saw him, so I did something about it. I lost 45 pounds back then, down to 240lbs. Then I had to switch doctors, for reasons beyond my control.

I put most of the weight back on.

On the plus side, I did quit smoking almost 2 years ago, but the weight remained between 260 and 270lbs.

This past fall, I had the opportunity to try something very cool: Xbox Kinect.

When the official release date arrived, we picked up a few games for it, one of which was Your Shape Fitness Evolved.

Perhaps my head isn't screwed on the right way, but the thought of earning Xbox achievements in exchange for burning calories appealed to me.

Yeh, you'd think that perhaps living a longer life would be more appealing.

Anyway, for whatever reason, this "game" has woken me up.

The first day I tried it, the "beginner" workout that it created for me after my assessment kicked my ass. I actually pulled my calf muscle. I had to put my workouts on hold for a few days to let my calf heal.

When I resumed, I tried morning workouts on a weekend and found that I didn't have the same energy as I did after work, so after work ended up being my chosen workout time of day. Since then, with the exception of a few days, I've been doing my beginner workout and the odd "gym game" or "cardio boxing" session on a daily basis. I try to burn at least 100 calories each time, which works out to somewhere between a 20 to 30 minute workout. It's not much, but it's 100 calories more than I was burning before, and I'm sure it's building muscle.

It really didn't take long before the workouts didn't make me feel like I was run over by a truck. I seem to be adjusting to them quickly, and that's a major plus for me.

In that time, I also bought a digital scale. Our old one was so inconsistent. I'm not 100% sure of what I weighed at the start, but if I estimate my starting weight at around 267lbs, I have now lost 3.8lbs since. That's 3.8lbs in under a month. And, I haven't made any significant changes to my eating habits -- yet.

I've never been to a health club or anything like that, so I can't really compare them with "Your Shape", but to me it does feel like I'm at one and I have my own virtual trainer who motivates me and tells me where and when I'm not keeping up with them, all in my own living room; and without feeling uncomfortable or awkward.

Another plus is seeing and tracking my progress in the game and on the Your Shape web site. Seeing really is believing. :) As of tonight, I have burned ~1400 calories in total and completed the beginner workout sessions.

This is a great start for me. The more I do it, the more I want to do it.

I highly recommend Kinect. If workouts aren't your thing, there are more game-like games available for it that are a lot of fun to play. My daughter really likes Dance Central, and Kinect Sports is my fav and can also give you quite a workout without even realizing it.

I'll keep posting the occasional update of my progress, so if you're interested keep checking back here.

Another me

I've been getting emails from a dating web site for the last few weeks. The emails said that people had viewed "my" profile on their web site. It was being flagged as spam by Hotmail. That's nothing new. I deleted them, as I do to all spam.

These seemed a little different.

As I've mentioned before, there are a number of people out on the internet who, for unknown reasons, think that my email address is their email address. It happens for Hotmail and Gmail. I get job offers from HR people, business emails, and forwarded humourous emails that people send to their friends.These aren't spam or phishing scams, these are legit emails. Sometimes I reply to them -- in particular the job offers or business emails -- letting them know they have the wrong person. Sometimes they reply back with apologies.

I began to wonder if these dating web site emails might be legit. Curiosity got the best of me today, and I visited the web site. Throwing caution to the wind, I clicked Forgot Password, entered "my" email address, and clicked Submit.

Minutes later, a message arrived in my Inbox with "my" login and password.

I logged in and there it was. Someone's profile with personal information that they added to the web site.

Now what?

I could have been malicious and changed their info or what they specified as the type of person they're looking for, but as much as it annoys me that people don't take care in entering their email address for things, I couldn't do that. And what would be the point? I'd be the one getting the emails anyway. ;)

Since they had a free account, I a delete account option and killed it. Goodbye me. I hope.

Was I wrong to close their account?

Double Rainbow!

via TweetDeck

White Westinghouse TA-5723 Answering Machine

Got one of these answering machines and lost the manual?

I do.

Earlier this week I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to check my messages remotely. I don't use that feature very often, but I really wanted it on that particular day. It turned out that the remote access code may have reset to the default and I wasn't aware of this.

Not that it would have done me much good. Even if I had gotten into the remote options, I couldn't remember what numbers to press to play the messages.

I scoured the web for information and all I could find was multiple "manual" web sites wanting me to sign up to get information, or posts from people looking for the manual. I couldn't even find a picture of the answering machine anywhere.

Later that evening I came across a quick-reference card that I made years ago. If you have one of these machines, this is for you! (Or for me in the future when I'm stuck again...)

Print this out and write your access code on it if you want. I think the default code is 19 -- that's what mine was set to until I changed it.

The configuration of the machine isn't too difficult with a little trial and error. Just remember that to access the secondary function of some buttons, you need to be press and hold it for a few seconds.

Maybe one day I'll write out detailed information and post it here. In the meantime, if you need to know anything else, post a comment here and I'll do my best to help you out.

Ottawa Zombie Walk 2010

Earlier this morning, a friend posted on his Facebook that today was the Ottawa Zombie Walk. It's an annual event where people all get zombified and walk to Parliament Hill in search of brains. I'm sure they leave hungry every time. ;)

Anyway, I checked out the route for this year and noticed that it went right past my sister's bridal shop on Beechwood Avenue. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to grab my camera gear and go zombie hunting.

I called her up and told her that zombies would be walking by at around 2:00-2:30, and said I would drop by to hang out and shoot some zombies.

I arrived at her store about 10 minues before 2:00pm, passing by a crowd of 30-40 zombies outside the Beechwood Cemetary en route.

A little after 2:00pm, they started their march and we stood outside her store watching the spectacle. It was great! Lots of creative zombies fumbled by. Some even posing. :)

One woman, heading the other way, commented as she passed, "What are these kids protesting now?!" My sister responded, "Nothing. They're just being zombies." The women replied, "Well they're good at that" and kept walking. :)

After the two large groups of zombies walked by, I packed up my gear and stood in my sister's shop and chatted. About 10-15 minutes later, more zombies came down the road. I got out my camera again and took some more shots. And again, 5-10 minutes later more arrived. I'm glad I stuck around because I got some pretty good shots of the stragglers.

Here are the pics, enjoy!

Roger Waters -- The Wall, before the show...

via PockeTwit

After the weekend thoughts

We went for a family walk along some rural forest NCC paths to feed the chickadees. The parking lot was packed with the cars of others who had the same idea on such an awesome day. We, and others, had to park along the shoulder of the road. Not a big deal, but if people wouldn't leave 3/4s of a car width between their cars in the lot, more people could park there.

The next disappointment was finding bagged dog shit hanging from trees along the path. In total, we noticed three or four other bags of dog shit hanging from trees.

It's puzzling. Why do some dog owners even bother to pick up after their dogs, when all they're going to do is hang the plastic bag on a tree? What's the point? Yes, it's the law to pick up after your dog, but it doesn't get you off the hook if you're just going to leave it anyway. You inconsiderate ass-hats.

Anyway, as I mentioned, the weather was awesome today. Clear, sunny skies, cool enough that you needed a light coat, but wouldn't break into a sweat in the direct sun. We had a lot of fun feeding the chickadees and sharing some seeds with families who didn't bring anything for their kids to feed the birds. I'm pretty sure they'll be bringing some the next time they show up. Their kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

My 10.10.10@10:10AM GMT Worldwide Moment

I set my alarm clock for 5:30AM so I could be awake for 6:10AM to shoot my "Worldwide Moment" shot. I rarely hear the alarm clock; it's usually my wife who wakes me up during the week.

5:30AM arrived and I actually heard it. In my half-asleep state of mind, I remembered exactly why it was going off so early on a Sunday morning. I turned it off and slowly crept out of bed and hobbled to the washroom.

Why would I ruin a perfectly good sleep to join thousands of other people worldwide, to take a photo at 10:10AM GMT on 10/10/2010?

Because it seemed like a good idea. It was fun. *yawn*

I needed coffee and I needed it NOW.

As I walked back to the bedroom, my wife woke up to go to the washroom. I asked her if she thought Tim Horton's might be open. She said she thought so, and suggested trying a few different ones. I asked her if she wanted one. She munbled "Get me one just in case..." and crawled back into bed.

I now had ~35 minutes to find coffee and return home.

I put on track pants, grabbed my wallet and keys and off I went.

It was still dark. And cold.

Two of the three Tim Horton's I checked seemed open, but only the third one had the drive-thru open. There was no way I was going to get out of my truck for this, so the third one saved me.

I now had ~15 minutes to get home, figure out what I was going to shoot and actually take the shot.
With 10 minutes to go, I was home. My wife was still in bed. I put her coffee on the kitchen counter and started looking around.

I looked out my back window at all of the leaves on the patio. Leaves. Leaves it would be. And I would add my Timmy Ho's coffee in the shot as well. How Canadian. :) But it was still dark and I didn't want to screw this up, so I grabbed my Gorillapod and attached it to the camera.

5 mins to go.

I quietly slipped out the back door, coffee and camera in hand and set up the shot. I fired off a few test shots while waiting for "the moment" to make sure it was focused.

10:10AM GMT arrived.

*click*

A couple more.

*click* *click*

Done.

I think my neighbour was sitting in his backyard having a smoke. Not sure what he thought I was doing out at 6:10AM, in the dark, taking pictures on my patio.

I managed to get two pretty good, focused, shots. This is the one I used.



Yay me. *yawn*

My coffee has been done for a while now and I think I'm going to need more.

Oh ya, Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians.

(Edit: here's my photo in the Worldwide Moment gallery)

10.10.10@10:10AM GMT - Worldwide Moment

Can you imagine everyone in the world taking a photograph simultaneously?

Can you imagine the feeling of peace, connection, and excitement this moment would bring?

Can you imagine the impact? … We can … Please join us on October 10th!

Worldwide Moment is a not-for-profit simultaneous photography event to create international peace, art, and cultural awareness.

Don't forget, this Sunday, October 10th, is Worldwide Moment @ 10:10AM GMT! If you have a camera, you can participate. Do it! It'll be fun. :)

Be sure to check out what time you need to shoot for your time zone since it's GMT! There's a link on the Worldwide Moment page, or click here.

For my time zone, I have to be awake for 6:10AM.

Gatineau Park

Sunday turned out to be a really nice day. My wife, daughter and I drove up to Gatineau Park to check out the colours. It was crazy busy.

Our first stop was the Mackenzie King Estate. When we arrived at around 10:00am, it was just beginning to get busy. The professional photographers were out in full force, doing family photo sessions, each waiting their turn at the various deformed trees and monuments for that "perfect" shot. Some of the tourists were shooting photos of the photographers as they shot photos of their clients. I was tempted to shoot a photo of the tourists as they did that but thought it might start a massive chain reaction.

We then made our way up to the Champlain Lookout, stopping at too lookouts on the way. We actually had to park the second lookout and walk the rest of the way because the NCC was stopping vehicles from proceeding all the way to Champlain. It turned out that they were doing that because the Champlain parking lot was full.

The views from all of the lookouts was spectacular. This was the first time I had ever been there in the 28 years I've lived in Ottawa. If you're planning on checking out the autumn colours, the next week or two is probably the time to do it. There's still a fair bit of green, especially below the tree line, but there's enough colour to make it worth the trip as you can see in my photos here.

After walking the trails at the Champlain Lookout, we headed home, but not until after we made a quick stop at the Byward Market to pick up a whole whack of veggies and apples.

All in all, a great 6 hour outing on a crisp fall day.

Killing Watts

I had a near-death experience today; I opened my Hydro bill.

$414.49 for the last two months.

The previous bill was $377, which was the most I've ever paid until this one.

Most people blame their high bill on the rising cost of electricity, or the fact that there is HST added since July.  While the rates have gone up and there is HST added to the bill, both of those combined do not explain why my bill is over $100 more this year than the same period last year.

Looking at my bill, I can see why our bill is +$100 more.  Our usage for the two months is up by around 20% compared to last year. And last year's was up compared to two years ago.

I called my wife at work and told her the news. I told her that I was going to start unscrewing light bulbs on any light that I find left on without a person in the room.

She didn't like that idea. In fact, she really didn't like that idea. She even got a little angry with me.
I tried to justify it by saying "We haven't even reached the darker days of winter yet. Can you imagine what we'll be paying in January and February when we need lights on more often?" Seriously, I don't even want to think about it.

Our kids are the biggest offenders when it comes to electricity waste. For example: Our finished basement has 3 recessed ceiling lights, 3 table lamps, and two small spotlights that point at our dartboard.  The light switch operates only the ceiling lights. When we got home from work yesterday, I went to the basement. The only lights that weren't on were the ceiling lights. On top of that, the Xbox 360 was on, the TV was on, and the digital cable box was on. There was nobody in the basement. My son said he was using it and was going back down. Why he needed so many lights on, I have no idea and neither did he.

We're all guilty of waste in my family, but seriously, I think I waste the least. The only waste from me is leaving my PC on for about 18 hours a day. I've been doing that since the beginning of time. As of today, it is is now off. Everyone else seems to feel the need to turn lights on wherever they go, at any time of day, regardless of how light or dark it is in the room, as well as leaving the TV on when they're going to be away from it for more than a few minutes. The only light I turn on is the one in the room I'm in. I don't turn any lights on in the rooms or halls that I use to get to that room. I walk in the dark.

Anyway, I'm setting a goal for the next billing period. That goal is to cut our usage by at least 50%. In fact, I am going to make it a family challenge and maybe even make it fun and profitable for one lucky person. If we can cut our bill in half, that'll give us some extra cash. What I might do is offer some of that savings back to my family... like maybe a cash prize draw using the names of those who didn't waste in the two months? I'm not sure yet, but I'll work out the details.

In the meantime, we'll be making a stop at Canadian Tire on the way home to pick up a few more CFL bulbs. I also noticed that they have a electricity usage meter on sale for less than $20. I'm really curious how much electricity some things in my house use, even when they're turned off. It might be a worthwhile investment.

Stay tuned.

(Update: we picked up three 6-pack boxes of 13W (60W) CFL bulbs on sale for $5.99 w/ the $5 off shelf coupon at Canadian Tire and already used twelve of them. We're going to buy more tomorrow and grab some 40W as well for the dining room chandelier)

New Autumn Colour?

If "wet" was a colour, that would be the colour of autumn here in Ottawa. We're approaching a record rainfall for the month of September. *sigh*

I'm really hoping that the weather prediction for the weekend at least stays as is -- cloudy -- so we can take a drive up to the Gatineau mountains and visit the lookouts to enjoy the real autumn colours. Of course, I will be bringing my camera along.

Keeping fingers crossed...

My Jupiter on NBC

This afternoon I received an email from an NBC Nightly News rep asking for permission to use my shot of Jupiter on a segment about Jupiter sightings. I said they could, as long as I was given credit.

Here's the short segment; my ~15 seconds of fame. :)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

A visit with Jupiter

According to NationalGeographic.com, jupiter is the closest to earth since 1951. Mother nature cooperated and gave us a clear sky tonight so I decided to finally try out the T-ring adapter for my Canon T1i/500D.

I power my wife's laptop from my truck's cigarette light adapter and connected my camera directly to the laptop so I had a decent LiveView, rather than having to stare at the tiny LCD on the camera. This worked quite well.

I started with using just the T-ring adapter on the camera and fired off a few shots of the moon.

Next, I went looking to get jupiter in the scope. It was easier than I expected. Focusing, on the other hand, was not as easy. Lots of trial and error, but I did get a few decent shots.

I tried adding a 10mm eyepiece between the adapter and the camera, which turned out not to be such a good idea. I could't get jupiter in my sights, not could I even find the damned moon.

I then gave the 2x barlow lens a try.

I found the moon and got some good shots.

I then managed to find jupiter. Focusing was hell, but I ended up getting a couple of nice ones.

That shot is cropped, which makes it look a little larger than it was in the original shot.

Overall, it went pretty good. I would have really liked to use the 10mm eyepiece though. If we have any other clear nights this month, I might give it another shot.

Oh yeh, I was pretty happy about was the tracking motor. I managed to get the scope lined up pretty good and the tracking stayed pretty true which made it easier to tweak the focus on the telescope without losing jupiter.

DIY Lightbox Project

I picked up a pair of clamp-on desk lamps today from Canadian Tire for $7.99 each, along with two GE Energy Smart 26W Daylight Compact Fluorescent bulbs (equivalent of 100W each) for $12.99/pair.

I set up my lightbox in the basement and grabbed a few Hot Wheels cars to shoot. For my first attempt, I think the results were pretty good.

I'll take a little tweaking until I figure out the best location for each light, and possibly change the paper (or even remake the lightbox from scratch) Regardless, I'm happy with it and plan on finding more things to shoot in the coming weeks.