Nike Plus, ne plus ultra!

So, for Xmas (early) my lovely wife bought me a Nike+ system and an iPod nano (3G.)  I got to try it out for the first time today.   I have to tell you, it's pretty stinkin awesome.  The system consists of an accelerometer that attaches to your shoe, and a receiver that plugs into the iPod.   Once you start your workout, the iPod keeps track of your distance, time and calories.  If you push the center button while you're running, it will give you an update on time, distance and current pace.  

Like most Apple products... it "just works."   It was a real breeze to use.   When setting up your Nike+ system, you can designate a "power song" that plays when you press and hold the center button.   (Mine is currently "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull)   

After your workout, just plug in your iPod and let it sync with iTunes.  If you want, you can have your data automatically downloaded to the Nike website.  This will give you a graphical display of your pace and distance, along with waypoints that show your half-mile splits as well as every time you pressed the center button for an update.  It will also show when and where you activated your power song. 

Check out my workout!

Not quite back on track

So, between getting our old house ready for the closing, the moving to a new house, and not having room to workout in the basement while my Mom was here, P90x got sidelined.

I haven't been totally idle, though! I registered myself for the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. So, to that end, I have started running. I've been trying to run about 2.7 miles a day.... currently at a 10 minute pace. I've run 5 miles once.

My current goal is to pick up the P90x again after the first of the year, and continue running as well. That's probably a little ambitious, but we'll see!

Ryan

Week 3 is in the bag.

Well, week 3 of P90x is in the bag. Recovery week couldn't get here fast enough! Maybe I'll do X Stretch tonight. I've noticed that I do have increased flexibility already, but I need to increase it more to do some of the yoga moves.

Also, Scott Fifer, if those Fifer Scissors from Ab Ripper X are named for you..... you suck. You really, really suck.

Ryan

Slacker

Well, I've been slacking.... but not on my workouts, just on my blogging. I completed week 2 of P90x. Tonight I'll be doing StretchX I hope. It is optional and I skipped it last week, but I'm going to try to get it in tonight.

Kenpo was yesterday afternoon, and I completed about 95% of it. My sister and her husband came over to save me from the last 2 minutes! We played the Wii instead. The Wii definitely didn't keep my in my heartrate "zone." But it was fun!

I could really tell a difference between the first Kenpo session and the second one. I was able to keep up alot better this time.

Week 3 starts Tuesday. Then my first "rest week" starts the tuesday after that. Something tells me that since there's still workouts scheduled for every day, it won't be much "rest!"

Later, gators.

Ryan

Did I say I liked Plyo X last time?

Cause I was full of it. Tony kept saying it was the mother of all X workouts. He said that last night too. I'm pretty sure it's the mother f.... it's tough.

But it's worth it. I'll just keep saying that!

Food:

Breakfast:
4 eggs
3 bacons
Milk
Coffee

Lunch:
Fajitas (chicken) with sour cream and guacamole.
Chips n Salsa

Snack:
Sugar Free Puddin.

Dinner:
3/4 piece of lasagna
1/4 piece garlic bread.

Deja Vu all over again!

Chest and Back.... Ab Ripper X. woof. Tony isn't kidding when he calls this "The mother of all P90x workouts."

Brutal. I can barely type. But I LOVE it. sick, I know.

Food:

Breakfast:
5 eggs
no bacon (I forgot to thaw it last night.)
Milk
Coffee.
Lunch:
Turkey bacon melt wrap from Scubway with 2x meat.

Snacks:
Sugar-free puddin.
South Beach Bar.

Dinner:
Meatloaf.
2 pieces of swiss cheese.
Milk.


Dessert:
Vanilla IceCream. about 1/2 cup. Breyer's. Mmmmm.

Ryan

Ahhh.......

..... Rest Day. I could've done Stretch X today, but I had a migraine, so I'm just gonna go to bed. Glad this day was optional.


Food:

Breakfast:
4 eggs
2 Turkey Bacons
Milk
Coffee

Lunch:
Quizno's philly steak with no bread.

Snacks:
Sugar free pudding
South Beach bar.

Dinner
1.5 chicken breasts
1/2 cup sugar snap peas
Chocolate Chip Cookie
Milk.

And a couple diet pepsis.

Ryan

When do I get to kick some tail?

... I got the pajamas!

Tonight's workout was Kenpo X. I assume this is some sort of martial art, cause I was kickin' and punchin' like a foo.

This was definitely a cardio workout, and it was pretty darn fun. I think I like it best of all so far. I dunno, Yoga was pretty darn awesome.

Here's the food for today:

Breakfast:
~4 eggs
~5 bacons. Real bacons today.
Coffee (whole milk, 2 splendas)

Lunch:
3 hot dogs
chips n salsa.

Snack:
None.

Dinner:
2 hamburger patties
Broccoli n Dip.

Dessert:
Vanilla Ice cream shared with Oli and Stella. prolly close to a cup.

Tomorrow is rest day!

Legs and Back

OK, so tonight's workout "Legs and Back" wasn't too bad. Of course, how do you work your back? that's right, pull-ups. I don't have a good bar, so I've been using resistance bands. it's not too bad. It is a little humbling to watch Tony do 120 or so pull-ups during the hour, and I'm struggling with the bands!

Today's Food Diary:

Breakfast:
3 eggs
2 bacons
Milk
Coffee.

Lunch:
3 Chipotle BBQ snackwraps. (I love those things!)
3 peanut m&m's. Yay!

Snack:
3 hotdogs. no bun.

Dinner:
Baked Ziti. about a cup.
Salad. about a cup.
Vinegarette dressing.
1/2 apple.

And of course, a couple of diet drinks in there.

I saved my Ab Ripper X for the morning, since it's so late.

Yoga X

So, tonight's workout was Yoga X. Of course, with P90x, the "x" stands for Extreme. I had never done Yoga before, and was both apprehensive and curious. As it turns out, this Yoga is both intense and enjoyable.

It may seem somewhat contradictory to have EXTREME Yoga, but I can assure you that it is a net relaxing activity. The first half of this workout was very intense, especially considering you never move faster than a slow walk.

The second half is all balance poses, with the last few minutes before cooldown making up a little ab workout. The cool down is extremely relaxing, and I felt really good after this workout.

I also did my Ab Ripper X that I didn't have time for yesterday. that is one helluva workout!

Today's food diary:

Breakfast:
None. Still full from Pizza the night before. woof.

Lunch:
Meat-Lover's Scramble at Denny's... so, 4 sausages, 4 bacons, some ham, some cheese, and prolly 3 eggs.
1/2 cup of hashbrowns.
Iced Tea

Snack:
10 peanut m&ms

Dinner:
Chicken Caesar wrap.
1/2 cup pasta salad.
small bag of potato chips.

And, a diet pepsi, of course.

Another Day, another workout.

Today's workout was arms and shoulders. This is strongest part of my body, so it was easier than the other days. It was still challenging. I worked out before I had to go and work Bingo. I felt GREAT at bingo. Then, I was so damn hungry that I ate WAY too much. Hopefully just writing down my food for the day will shame me enough to prevent it in the future.

Breakfast:

4 eggs
3 bacons
Milk
Coffee

Lunch:
Cousins Chipotle Steak sub (double meat, no bun)

Snack:
2 BBQ Grilled Snack wraps.

Dinner:
6 hot wings
5 pieces of pizza from papa johns. (YIKES.) No more late dinners.

I had a diet pepsi and a sprite zero in there, too.

Ryan

Don't tug on Superman's Cape....

So, I've been on a diet. Since Ash Wednesday.... and I've lost about 25 pounds or so. But, I kinda plateaued (<-- look ma, 4 vowels in a row!) and I was looking for the next 20 pounds. I saw this workout system on TV, but couldn't bring myself to order something from an infomercial. So, I went looking on the web for reviews of the system. I found a few, and it seemed like it would fit me, both mentally and physically.

I've completed 2 days so far. I gotta tell you, I'm doing about half of what the people on the DVD are doing, and it's kicking my ass. BUT, it feels kinda good too. Hopefully, in about 90 days, people will be saying: "Don't mess around with Slim."

I'm toying with the idea of keeping a food diary in this forum, because they stress that diet is a major part of this fitness program.


Well, here goes:

Breakfast:
4 eggs.
3 slices of Turkey bacon
Milk.
Coffee (nonfat milk w/2 sweetnlows.)

Lunch:
Chicken bacon ranch salad.

Snack:
gigantic Reese's punkin. STUPID.

Dinner:
Pork Roast (maybe 8 oz)
Gravy
A whole mess of green beans (2 cups?)
2 Chocolate Chip cookies (Dummy)
A roll.

And I drank 2 diet pepsi's in there somewhere.


Not too bad. I bet I burnt off that reese's punkin during my plyometrics tonight, too.

Cya. going to bed!

Digital Picture Frame, part deux.

I really got into this project last night, so I had to finish it today as soon as I got the chance. I got up to Grandpa's Garage this morning as early as I could to make the hardware needed to attach the laptop to the frame, and the frame to the wall.

I found 2 thin pieces of mild steel that were just the right size for my project. For some reason, this ALWAYS happens in Grandpa's Garage. First, I had to determine how the laptop should be oriented to best fit the frame opening. Since the screen is centered in the right/left direction on the laptop, it is easy to center the laptop screen in the frame opening. However, the screen is NOT centered in the up/down direction... which you can see in this picture from last night.

If you remember from part one, the dimensions of the screen are about 8x10.5" and the frame opening is about 8x10" so alignment in the left/right direction isn't as critical as alignment in the up/down direction.

So, I had to figure out the up/down orientation of the laptop, and then make sure that I could easily remove/install the laptop and still have everything lined up. So, once I got the laptop just where I wanted it, I cut two small blocks of wood that will friction fit the laptop into the frame. You can see the blocks in the picture below.

With the vertical orientation secured, I set out to make the brackets, which would serve 3 functions:
1. Firmly attach the laptop to the frame.

2. Provide a place to hang the frame.

3. Provide accurate left/right alignment for the laptop screen.

You can see(barely) the brackets I made in the picture below.
















The bottom bracket in the picture is used only for holding the laptop securely to the frame. The top bracket actually sticks out about 1/4" from the laptop, and is used only to provide a support for hanging the frame. I could have made some 1/4" spacers to go between the bracket and the laptop to provide more holding force between the frame and laptop, but the lower bracket seems to be strong enough on its own.

I painted the brackets with a Rustolem Flat Black Textured paint. I like the look alot... it makes it look like someone knew what they were doing. Finally, I used a small cable staple in the middle-bottom of the frame to hold the power cord, provide some strain relief, and make the cord descend from the center of the frame. Without this, gravity would likely eventually unplug the power from the computer. As you can see from the picture above, the battery is removed from the "bottom" of the laptop. This was done because it was no good anymore, and the less weight you have hanging on the wall, the better.

Here is a picture of the finished product, hanging on the wall.



Well, I hope you liked this project, and feel free to let me know if you have any questions, or if you build one yourself.

Later,

Ryan

Digital Picture Frame

So, a friend showed me this and this.

Of course, I had to make one. I had an old IBM 600E laying around (thanks Dad!) that would be a great candidate.

I dug the laptop out of the back room, and started getting it setup for this project. After about 10 minutes, the backlight went out of the screen. Great. Google helped me find this, and after about a week of waiting, I finally had a new backlight to install. These laptops were constructed by first laying the backlight on the table, and then building the entire laptop around it. It isn't really THAT bad, but it was a chore to get the old one out and the new one in.

With the laptop up and running, I was ready to move on. I decided that I wanted to keep the laptop as "whole" as possible, but wanted the package to be as compact as possible. So, I figured I would "flip" the screen so that it would be visible with the laptop lid closed. Since I already had the screen out for the CCFL replacement, I'd get down to the business of cutting the screen.

Here's a pic with the screen removed.













So, I needed a hole in the lid that was the same size as the one in the front bezel. I decided to use the front bezel as a template, and used a knife to scribe the dimensions for the hole into the lid. Here's a picture of that, too!













I used a jigsaw, a workbench, and some creative clamping to cut the hole in the top of the lid. I got really involved in that, and did not take pictures. But, here's a picture of the complete laptop, with the screen reversed. There was plenty of ribbon cable to accommodate flipping the screen. There was NOT, however, enough of the 2wire CCFL connection to flip the screen. I had to splice in a few inches of wire to make the connection.














So, I decided to do a trial fit of the frame, to see if it looks as good as I thought it would. It does!



Stay tuned for part 2, where I make a bracket to hold the laptop and frame together, and provide a way to stick it to the wall.









Later,

Ryan