LongTom

Rumor has it that he's marooned on the island of Java.

That sounds like a good method, john. What kind of machine? This am: biked to the train (3 mi), walked to the office (3/4 mi). Still have the bike ride home to do this pm. Then tonight is java homework night.

Got my weight workout in this evening. My schedule had gotten rather badly overturned starting the new job, but I think I can get things back on track. Bumped all the weights up by another pound or so, too, which is small consolation for the fact that the scale reads 195 again. Arrrrrrgggghh! How did that happen?

Man! What do they call that torture device where the bicycle seat normally goes? Note to self: in future, if the bike comes stock with a "racing seat", do not leave the shop without a gel pad to cover it. Ow. ow. ow. Other than that, though, the ride to the train station seems tailor made: 3 miles long, slight downhill grade the whole way there (so I don't arrive at work sweaty), which translates to a slight uphill grade the whole way home (so I do get an actual workout in).

Just to put another twist in the aerobics picture, tomorrow I become the proud owner of a new commute. (and all that that implies.) I got a bike today (a folding one, so it can go on the train), and gave if a brief shakedown cruise of 2 or 3 miles. Starting in the morning, I will have some forty minutes of biking every day to call my very own. (For the first time in twenty years. Someone remind me, how long before saddle soreness goes away? Ouch...)

Stair step today. Also about a mile hiking around a lake, as I took the kids fishing. 11 pounds!?! Don't make it look so easy, William! (seriously, though, congratulations.)

Glad to hear the winds are finally drawing fair for you again, Ms. Mermaid. Welcome back. Blackjohn, I have a Tectrix Personal Climber (I can't find any sort of model number). You enter your weight, type of workout (interval, peak, custom), and duration, and it will give you stats about your workout. It looks like this. I prefer hiking to the stairstepper, but I have to admit a half hour on the machine is just more efficient, time-wise. I also have a weight bench with a lat bar (which I used this morning). It looks like this. Mostly I'm doing free weights with dumbbells, but the lat bar exercise is great for the back.

Stairstep this morning. I raised the effort level from "5" to "6" on the machine. No idea what that means objectively (other than the machine says 25 minutes of that is good for 350 calories), but whoo! it made a difference to me!

Excellent, blackjohn! Congrats! Weights this morning. Should have done them last night. Today is stairstep day, which I still owe, to stay on schedule.

Naive question regarding the fantasy quotient of treasure chests: Popular myth and legend aside, why would putting treasure in a chest lead inevitably to burying it? Burying of chests being fictional does not necessarily preclude the existence of those chests in some form. In what sorts of shipping containers did the Spaniards pack all the stuff they were looting out of South America?

I think the scrambled text is intended to defeat spam detection algorithms, by appearing to be legitimate text. Once the spam filter passes the email, they know they have a live address, and can send you more spam.

What, so the spammer has First Amendment protections to send me his crap, but I don't have equal First Amendment protections to tell him what I think of it? This judge needs to be removed for incompetence.

Congratulations, William! Do you have a particular diet system? Did my stairstep, 25 minutes. It's getting a touch more routine now. I haven't exactly developed a good habit, but at least I no longer look on it with loathing. The scale says 191 today! I may make my goal of 185 by end of June yet.

"Turn that thunder down!"

Arrr, ye heretic! Keep yer burnt offerings! If it's a good cut, who needs heat? Cubed and ready to chew is perfect. Other than that, I'm mighty fond of tri-tip with a nice marinade (whiskey with garlic, honey, orange juice and soy sauce), grilled medium rare.

Yes, that is true. Better to use other facets of the physique to monitor progress, because weight is too arbitrary. (You can lose a couple of pounds by forgetting to drink enough water one day, but that certainly isn't good for you.) I have noticed that I seem to be losing my "programmer's slouch", courtesy of the back muscle exercises in my weight routine. And a straight spine tends to straighten out an otherwise poochy gut, so there's a double win there. My day got away from me today, so I guess I'd better go do a stairstep right now.

Thinkin' Chole would be puttin' hearts an bunnies, on the eggs... NOT!!! More like hearts and ... skulls and cutlasses?

The smell you are looking for is the smell of galvanized sheet metal (as in a Havahart trap or two), followed by the smell of gasoline fumes (as in driving the little miscreants to a park at least 5 miles away). I had to do that one year after the little vandals destroyed an entire tree's worth of unripe peaches. (crunch. "Nope, this one isn't ripe either." plop. "Maybe this one." crunch. "Green too, rats." plop. "How about that one over there..." crunch...) Tree-ripe white peaches. Mmmmmm. Now there is a nice smell. :)

...shave the cat? Weights AND stairstep this morning! Trying to up the ante on the aerobic side. Otherwise, I get stronger, but I don't get any lighter. I stayed on track all last week, and yesterday my scale said 193, so I was feeling inspired. Pink eye is the pits. Sorry to hear it, blackjohn. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery. Ever notice how when you start to push the exercise really hard, your body punishes you by coming down with something? That has killed too many of my past attempts at fitness in the second or third week. You might consider buying a couple of the 2-1/2 lb weight plates, back off by a few pounds, and then increase in smaller increments going forward.

the barrels, groping for

That's a very valid point, but I think that a lot of us tend to cover our light with a bushel. "Objective" is the operative word. For every flamboyant rooster brandishing his braggadocio at the podium, there are a thousand who chiefly hope to escape notice, and thereby badly sell themselves short. I don't think that teaching someone how to stand up and smile instead of hiding is necessarily going to turn him into a braggart.

That's a good point. Okay, I take it back: checkins, even utterly routine ones, are a good thing. With that in mind, anybody out there...?

I feel a little silly checking in every day with nothing more than "Yup, I did today's workout." On the other hand, when I can report progress, it feels pretty good. Anyway, for the sake of momentum, if nothing else... Yesterday: weight workout. Progress: looks like I can add one more pound on the triceps extensions. I started that exercise this year at 10 pounds per dumbbell and I'm up to 19-1/4. The others are coming along, but nowhere near that fast. Today: stair-stepper. Progress: I upped the time from 20 to 25 minutes. (And even finished, though I really wanted to quit during the last 5. My brain was saying "c'mon, you did your twenty." ) Now, for some real inspiration: someone who has lost literally half her body weight.

the next, when the

About the only similarity is an accidental one: namely, if you aren't careful when throwing together a quick pirate getup, it is very easy to end up looking like a Gypsy without meaning to. A headscarf here, a waist sash there, and ... oops! You will recognize it in the mirror when it happens. Your friend may have meant, "Oh, just do a Gypsy outfit out of what's in your closet already, and you'll fit in fine." It's probably close enough to get you through a couple days of fun at a Faire (at least as a patron, especially on little to no budget), but the difference is distinct, for when you want to put together something permanent and correct. As far as the history goes, as others have pointed out, there are no ethnic connections between the Rom and "Pirates with a capital P," as it were. An English Pirate would dress like an Englishman, (an English seaman, to be specific), not as a Gypsy.