These boots are made for walking

I posted about the Eowyn challenge a while ago. It seemed like an interesting way to mark progress on a fitness goal. Well, as of today the idea has resurfaced.

The company I am working at has instituted a One Million Step challenge. The goal is to walk 10000 steps per day (roughly 5 miles), for 100 days. I have chosen to take it on, as have several of the guys who work for me. Since we are the IT crew, I figured the Eowyn challenge would be a fun additional way for us to mark progress.

I am tracking my general progress using a Google doc spreadsheet. If you're interested you can find it here. It will automatically update as I make changes to the spreadsheet.

Wii Fit is mean

Like many of our friends we now have a Wii Fit. It arrived today, and so far I like it very much. We played several of the games and I did some of the yoga poses. Coupled with that and fight rehearsal today, I'm a little tired now.

So here is what happened when I set up my Mii in the Wii Fit. It goes through and checks your BMI, and tells you where you fall. Turns out that it thinks I'm overweight (Which I don't disagree with), but I think it might have been needlessly rude of the Wii to plump up my avatar.

I'm not sure which is worse though, the fact that it plumped up the avatar, or the sound effect that accompanied the plumping.

Again, I say hello

Well I've let this blog languish long enough. 2008 was an interesting year, and I should have taken more time to write. I was recently talking to an old friend from high school on Facebook. We both remarked that we have never written so much as we did in high school during Mr. Blankensop's (Affectionately referred to as B) various classes.
In September of 2008 I started a graduate program at University of Phoenix. Among other things, I have to write papers. A lot of them. About a paper a week. It's interesting, but not the type of writing I prefer to do. Although I did send one of my papers on evaluating internet sources to B, who is now teaching a college class and was discussing the topic with his students. Which makes for an interesting circle of life event.

I also went to the Dueling Arts workshop in Las Vegas. It's always invigorating to go out to the workshops, and I came away from this one with lots of ideas. Some of which I hope to turn in posts here, and at my other website (www.frozensteel.com) which I've neglected as well.

The Shed

Pricey but Perfect: Cloning Peter Gabriel's 'Studio in a Shed'

So the link is a little article to Peter Gabriel talking about his "Studio in a Shed", for a mere 250 grand you can have a 240 sq. foot recording studio in your yard or garden. It's apparently modeled on the one has at home in his garden. Here's a link to the sales site if you want to see some specifics.

Some of you have been to my house so you've seen my Fortress of Solitude. Probably from the outside though, since it is still filled with unpacked boxes (Although significantly less so now that Melody has helped me clean it up a bit).

A backyard studio is one of the directions my Fortress is heading in. I recently purchased my own mixer, I've wanted one for a really long time. I was absolutely giddy the day it showed up. It's a Mackie 1202-VLZ Pro. It's an extremely popular mixer due to its high quality, and relatively low price. It has a lot of options, and the pre-amps are great.

Since getting it I've been putting out a lot more voice over demos. With all the traveling I've been doing I haven't put up for everything I wanted to, but I did get one of them. It was very exciting to get a job from stuff I produced on my very own equipment! Once things settle down some I'll be putting out more demos (Most of the jobs I'm going for require custom demos).

I've been producing most of them on my linux laptop using Audacity. It's cross platform (Mac, Windows, Linux), completely free and high quality. I plan to try Ardour as well once I have some more time. It's closer to what I'm used to using, Adobe Audition (Actually I'm more used to it when it was Cool Edit Pro, I still use the last version before Adobe bought them out.) Audacity has just about everything I need for most of the straight voicework (Noise reduction, normalization), but when I do sound design for a show I need a lot more of the stuff you find in the high end products.

To do voice work you have to have a microphone. I'm currently using a Shure Sm-58, it's a good mic. Really, it's one of the most popular in the recording industry. Is that why I chose it? No! I got it free a number of years ago, and its a good quality mic. That's why I use it. I want one of these though. I'm still saving up for that. Maybe after a few more voice-over gigs.

FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

The cruise is just a few weeks away, and many of us have been working out and trying to lose weight to look better in our swim wear. I was doing pretty well, and then as it tends to do work got in the way. It's hard to keep up my workout schedule while I'm traveling, especially when I'm working an average of 12 hour days. Like wise it's hard to keep up with good eating habits (something that I'm admittedly not good at in general).

Now, despite my working out I haven't made much progress weight wise (I think I may be a bit slimmer, but don't have much to gauge that by except my pants keep falling down.). One reason for this is I haven't made much of a change to my eating habits. I eat far too much fast food for one thing.

I came across the link below on Digg (I think). It is a free, web based Diet & Weight loss journal. You can set goals, and it helps you track them. You can also enter what you've eaten in a given day and it will help you figure out calorie in take. This can be a big help. Most people assume they have to make major changes to their diet, this isn't always the case. Sometimes just a small change can lower your daily calorie intake enough to make a difference.

Check it out, after all it's free!



FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

The Grief That Made 'Peanuts' Good - WSJ.com

The Grief That Made 'Peanuts' Good - WSJ.com

There is a new book about the life of Charles Schultz, and the development of his comic strip "Peanuts". The link above is to a review by Bill Watterson of "Calvin and Hobbes". The review is very well written, as you would expect, and the book sounds quite good as well. Even if you don't read the book, the review is well worth your time.

The Eowyn Challenge

The Eowyn Challenge

My good friend Matt has undertaken a weight loss program of his own devising. It primarily consists of a better diet, and more exercise. He plays a bit of basketball on the weekends, and most days he walks on his treadmill.

The other important thing to know about Matt, at least in relation to this, is that he is a big fan of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

This brings me to the link displayed above, it is (clipped from the site):

"The original Walk to Rivendell Challenge began on Monday, March 17th, 2003, but it is never too late to join in. We have other distances throughout Middle Earth that you may choose to travel. The founder of this fitness challenge is our Ranger Jewel. She began researching the miles, milestones and time frame of the hobbits’ journey to Rivendell in Fellowship of the Ring . We were later joined by Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of the Atlas of Middle-earth. Mrs. Fonstad provided us with very detailed charts of all the Fellowship’s journey through Middle Earth. Much of the information provided is exclusive to the Eowyn Challenge and can be found nowhere else. The challenge is very simple and flexible; anyone can develop their own variation on this basic idea."

So now, you see why I thought of Matt when I saw this today on BoingBoing