working out

The past few weeks I've been on a fitness kick. Monday, Wednesday, Friday - still swimming at lunch time at the pool. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday - pushups (part of hundredpushups) . And at least 2 miles a day on elliptical 6 days a week.

Feels like I'm training for something, but I don't know what that is. Maybe I'm just trying to look more reasonable in my Speedos.

It's been crazy busy here at work with the start of classes. I'm keeping up with most of it, but it's been a struggle.

I've started to acquire my Halloween costume supplies - should be a good one this year if I can pull it off.

I got to see my folks and my sister and her family this past weekend for my Dad's birthday. We didn't do much, but had fun with my baby niece. She's pretty adorable and very good natured. And she gets along pretty well with her uncle Anthony.

Finally, I'm trying to learn how to make an origami kangaroo. It's surprisingly slow going - I barely made it through the "basic shape" before I ran into trouble.

yesterday was weird

1. The sign in front of the parking lot said it closed at 12 pm that day for resurfacing? Who closes a parking lot at noon? I pulled in at first thinking I had until midnight and that they had just gotten the sign wrong, but decided I didn't want to take a chance and pulled out and picked another lot.

2. There are two keypads and card swipes on the doors to different areas of the building. The buttons don't move when you push them - instead, they just beep to let you know that they've been "pushed". My colleague and I were trying to each use one of these keypads - and the beeps made it impossible to tell if we'd actually hit a button or not. I just stopped and let him go first and once he had his door open, I used my keypad and went on into the office.

3. Had a 'difference of opinion' with a co-worker over the intuitiveness of a webpage. I wanted the information on the form visible, he wanted to put it as a mouse-over on the checkboxes. We were both convinced that our way was intuitive. I'm pretty sure he was wrong. No, I'm certain he was wrong, but we ended the discussion politely and we're going to leave it up to the department to decide.

4. On the drive home, a car made a turn into the opposing lane facing me and the rear passenger door flew open and a suitcase fell out. The car slammed on the brakes as did I - though I was pretty much out of the way... right up until the driver threw open his door and walked into my lane to go around the car and reload. I managed to go on around him as he went on his way. It should be noted that his passenger in the front - the person ideally that should have made the move to fix things - just sat there.

5. I saved the best for last. I was swimming yesterday, just about to finish up lap #24 when the fire alarm started going off in the building. I climbed out of the pool, looked at the lifeguard and shrugged. She shrugged back, and I went on into the locker room. The fire alarm was painfully loud in there, but I figured it was a drill and grabbed my towel to dry off. Then someone came in and told us we had to evacuate the building. So, still in my speedo and with the towel partly wrapped around my waist (it was too small to cover me completely), I headed out of the locker room, down the hall, and out the front door. I was joined by others in t-shirts and shorts - who told me it could have been worse that a) at least I had my trunks and b) at least it wasn't winter. A few minutes later The director for the facility said we could go to the rec center and finish our workouts - so a few of us trekked across the lawn to the rec center. I hit the pool and did 6 more laps before I got the all clear. I headed back to ONAT, got into my regular clothes, and went back to work.

Like I said - a weird day.

projects, locks, game, exercise, and rearrange

I picked up some supplies over the weekend for a couple of projects. I got a big roll of paper to make a gigantic origami star. Not sure where I'll put it, but it should be pretty cool. I also found a pump to make a small fountain for the patio. Not sure what the actual fountain will end up looking like, but finding the pump itself was a challenge.

I also helped my room-mate with the storage garage for his classic caddy. He called me while I was in Lowe's to come help with the door to the garage as it seemed to be stuck. When I got there, we first thought it was the vinyl flange at the top that was getting in the way, but then I took another look at the door locks after struggling with the door for a minute. There are two, one on each side. When the metal plates are lined up, the door is secured and you can put a padlock through the holes to lock it. One side had the plates apart (open) and the other had the plates together (closed). I slid the plates apart and lifted the door and it practically flew open. My room-mate, who wasn't watching when I adjusted the plates, was frankly astonished when the door flew open. He insists that he checked both plates - which struck me as a statement worthy of an eyebrow raise. But after further thought I concede that if the plates were not all the way open, they could have slid back into the closed position when lifting pressure was applied to the door. In any case, we had the door open and I went on my way.

I've been playing a game called Trine - a side scrolling platforming game with three characters that you can swap between at any time. I beat the game yesterday and I plan on going back and trying to get a "perfect" score on the levels with all the items and experience found.

I've also been trying to get more exercise. Not really with a specific goal in mind, just want to see what I can do. I've been keeping up with my M-W-F swimming and I've added in a daily 2 mile stint on the elliptical trainer. Next up is the 100 pushups, a program to get a person able to do 100 pushups at one time. On my initial test, I could do 20 - which is not awesome, but not that bad either. I'll track my progress and see how it goes. I guess that's part of why it appeals to me - I like the numbers. I'll try to do this T-Th-Sat.

Finally, I spent some time on Saturday re-arranging one of the upstairs rooms to include a reading nook - and finally putting my bench that I made to some good use.

So, lots done and lots to do.