For the first year I lived in Seattle I was a bus rider. I didn’t even have my bike with me until 6 months in. I still take the bus every once in a while, and this video, in addition to showing what some are calling the “seedier” side of Seattle (really? The U-District? seedy? maybe sometimes), reminds me of that first, gray, dreary, depressing year I lived in Seattle. The people-watching element is something close to my heart.
Found via a Facebook post.
I’m getting all of my posts in that I’ve not done all week.
I learned this week that my gym offers all members a “Getting Started” hour with a personal trainer for free. I’ve been a member for nearly 4 years and never took my free hour. So I did this past week, with Dan. I wasn’t really getting started, but Dan offered a few new exercises to do as it was obvious I was pretty burned out from my standard push-up/bench press/squats/lat pull downs.
1) Push-Ups with the Medicine Ball. A standard push up, but in one hand you are supporting yourself on a small medicine ball (small enough to mostly fit in your hand). Do one set with the left hand, then one set with the right hand. Another alternative is doing push ups on the Bosu ball, which I used to do quite a bit, and I believe is why regular push ups are pretty easy for me now.
2) Yeats Rows. I’ve been trained well by Kate, and this is becoming a staple of my lifting diet. Dan also suggested these were good to do if my goal was to be able to do pull ups. Advanced move. Support your feet on a medicine ball. It was still doable for me, but definitely more challenging.
3) Split Squat. On a Smith Bar. This was the first exercise he showed me where I really thought I would feel it the next day. Again, it’s just a variation on the standard squat that allows for slightly different muscles to be used.
4) Squat with ball, combined with a shoulder press. This was a good combo move. Perform a squat using a ball against a wall. While you squat down you are also pressing a weight above your head, thus the shoulder press. Good time-saving move.
All in all, it was good that this was free. I learned some, but $60 would have been a lot to spend to find out that the exercises that Kate has been preaching in rowing is more or less what the trainers are preaching in the gym. I plan to go back, though. I have a $35 coupon. I’d like to get some mathy stuff done, figure out my true maximum heart rate and such.
By the way, the pull-ups I thought I was doing aren’t pull-ups. They are chin-ups.
Pull-ups = overhand. Chin-ups = underhand. I thought underhand meant cheating. See? Trainers teach you new things all the time.
I can never get my puppy to look at me when I have the camera in my hand. If you look at my photos on Flickr, you’ll see nothing but profiles of Max. Because he’s stubborn like that. He hates it, yet still I torture him. Because once in a while you get a gem. That’s his toy squirrel, peeking out in the corner.
And, that’s a case of ramen noodles, laying below our credenza in the living room. Don’t ask why.
Another variation of our homemade pizza. It’s a whole-wheat/white flour combo crust, a bit more doughy than I like but whole wheat is whole wheat. Olive-oil based; diced tomato; chicken sausage (apple chutney); marinated mushrooms and red onion. Fresh mozzarella and parmesan cheese.
Got a good compliment the next day. I was nuking a slice in the microwave in the kitchen and a passer-by was impressed. Yee haw!
Haven’t written in a while. In general I am distracted by work. When I’m distracted by work I find my eating habits to decline, and my enthusiasm to take photos of what I eat to diminish as well. I’ll do my best to bring it back this week.
However, I read the most sad story today, so sad I wished it was a horrible urban legend, something Snopes.com could refute for me.
Found via Romenesko News … summary – young teen meets cute boy on MySpace. Teen is led to believe the boy thinks she’s cute, pretty, nice, really likes her. One day the boy turns and begins to say mean things. She’s not a nice person. She’s a slut. She’s fat. Teen, completely distraught and confused as to why boy would turn after having such a good MySpace friendship with him, hangs herself in her closet. While her parents are downstairs making dinner.
Turns out cute boy is actually a fake MySpace profile, created by a former friend and friend’s parents. This family who faked the profile lived down the street from young teen.
No criminal charges will be filed, but there is no doubt that this death could have been prevented. Adults are supposed to know better, they are supposed to show their kids how to be the better person. How to be human. Adults don’t get involved in their kid’s squabbles. They show them that this is nothing. How much the future holds. They certainly do not condone torturing young girls at a time when self-esteem is so critical.
The journalistic ethical issue which resulted in this landing on Romenesko in the first place is that the local paper covering the story did not name the neighbors, “out of consideration for their teenage daughter.”
Readers were furious. But it didn’t matter. Bloggers took the matter in their own hands, investigated and found out who the neighbors were, posted their name, address, phone numbers and then some. Did everything but include a link to Mapquest. (Another thread of angry commenters can be found here). Heck yeah, readers of St. Charles Journal have a right to know who. I would want to know who to keep my kids away from. So, kudos to the bloggers. But I can’t help but speculate the debate that went on when deciding not to name names.
Oh, there better have been a debate.
Vicious.
Final afterthought … any repercussions for MySpace? If people were allowed to create false profiles, could this have been prevented? Facebook kicks you out if you are not who you say you are. On MySpace, no one is who they say they are, or so it seems.
If you can’t tell by what I’m reading (see previous post), I’m sort of obssessed with the WGA strike. I think secretly (not so secretly now) my dream job is to be a television show writer. I should say, a good tv show writer. I don’t want to write cruddy lines. I want to write good ones. Ones that Glenn Close or Meryl Streep would want to say. I’m really interested to see how this plays out. As a TV watcher I’m less concerned with, “oh my no more new episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives'”. And if there is anyone out there who is concerned that their favorite TV show isn’t going to continue if there is a strike, well he needs to set his priorities in order. The studio executives are fretting, I suspect, because I should hope that most people are like me, and will tune out.
At this point I’ll say, if you are unfamiliar with why the Writer’s Guild is striking, read any one of the WGA story links in the previous posts, or read this article from Forbes.com.
Their job is TV. My job is the Internet. So I’m interested in how the outcome will playout on the Web. The networks see the dollar signs coming from online advertising. They see the appeal (previous posts show that even I, who never thought I’d ever watch an epi of anything on TV, could get hooked.) There is no turning back there. If the writers get more in the name of programming, how do you measure it? And does this somehow trickle down to me in Seattle/Redmond? What will the outcome do to groups in my organization that work to bring video content (be it original programming or television programming) to the Web? How does this affect our advertisers who, ultimately contribute to me being able to succeed in my job?
There is no doubt that the advances in technology has made this strike more visible than the strike of 1988. Cell phones, instant messaging, blogging, YouTube and the ease to get the word out has turned an LA/NY-centric situation into a worldwide discussion.
BTW, check out the video created by United Hollywood. One of the writers interviewed here is someone I went to middle school with in Connecticut. What are the odds.
11/06
11/07
And 2 more …
I’m busy editing the monthly newsletter for my rowing club, so I’m not posting anything tonight. However, I did keep a tally of articles I read online today. These are the cream of the crop. In no particular order:
Yesterday I posted about and mulled over Drew Ginn’s thoughts on a race plan. Today I raced, and most of those thoughts went out the window. Our race start time was 11:40, which, for the area we were racing, isn’t a good time. By this point, the wind picks up, the rest of the world wakes up and decides to tool around in their sailboats. It’s just messy.
The Fremont Four-Miler, as it suggests, is four miles long. In rowing terms, 6.4K. We weren’t even sure who else was racing in our category. Which means then that you have to row within yourself, imagine a competitor fighting for seats right next to you.
We are first in this flight and start with a building 3 that puts us right at the start line and away we go. We start strong, and take a big lead over the next boat. Following the first turn, towards the south end of Lake Union, some boats start their moves on us. There was still quite a few boat lengths in between us to make it difficult to tell if we were in danger. The danger actually came near the south end of the lake as the water got choppier and choppier. In addition to really bad water conditions, we were forced to fight against the human element as well. Apparently someone was holding sailing classes, so a launch waked us big time, throwing water right over our bow. As we trudged along the east side of the lake, and with these conditions, it really was trudging, Melissa called for us to stop. A sail boat crossed our line and she had to stop us before we hit. We yelled at them that we’re racing … it was completely ridiculous. We picked it up again but the water was continuing to battle us. It was in the bad water that we continued to gain against the other boats, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
The water didn’t calm down until we got past Gas Works Park. At that point it was crucial to forget the fact that I was soaked to the bone, that the oar was hard to handle because it was wet and my hands were wet. That the boat had lost its aggressiveness at the catch and that we had done our best to just continue on. That we were tired and my arms were tired just trying to battle the winds and the wakes. It’s crucial to focus in, leave the rest behind, and pull.
I tried to pull. Did my best to follow the rower in front of me, and to give what I had left to give. Melissa gave the call to raise the stroke rate twice in the last 500m or so. By this time it was obvious we had a huge gap of time before the next boats. Any of them. But we went with the legs and the faster hands to raise the rate, and did it one more time before the final 20 and the loud horn telling us it was over.
Probably the worst water I can remember racing in. There was nothing you can do about it. Just hope that you’re prepared, technique-wise and fitness-wise. As our cox’n likes to tell us, every boat is going to face the same conditions. We just need to do it better.
We did, I think. But man, it was messy. Wet and messy. I’ll update this with results when they are posted online.
In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of the Masters races that happened in the flight before ours. Most of the pics I took turned too fuzzy to bother with. As always, Green Lake Crew took a bunch of great pics.
Update – the results were just posted. In the Womens Masters 8 our crew placed first, with a time of 28:32:61. In the Womens Open 8 we also placed first, with a time of 26:56:03. Our mens team also placed … in the mens masters 8, second. And in the Mens Masters 4, first.
From Drew Ginn’s blog (sic):
“We have in our minds key point of a race where certain things can take place, certain opportunities realised. The race plan should keep your options open which is exciting and creates anticipation and is a great source of energy. On the other hand a poorly conceived, ill considered and unrealistic plan can have an effect in opposition to every athletes desires.”
His words hit the mark when referring to racing. It’s interesting how close it comes to life outside the boat, too.
BTW, the four-miler is tomorrow. Will report back on results.