June 2006 Archives

Was under the weather yesterday, and what weather it was! Freakin’ hail storm like the apocolips was coming. Amazing. I didn’t get out for a run till this morning. Again, a short-ish run, half-hour. Nothing else new to report. Move along.

I actually had a watch with me today, to mark the times properly. I don’t know if it was because of the shorter “minutes”, or because i’ve been over-doing it, but i started to get shin-splint pain at the 10th run minute. I’ve gone though some bad bouts of shin-spints, so i cut the run short. I’m not feeling any further pain, so i’m just going to take it easy, and not over do it. The last thing i want to do is injure myself!

Ciara just sent me an article titled “Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence”

“We confirm that there is irrefutable evidence of the effectiveness of regular physical activity in the primary and secondary prevention of several chronic diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, obesity, depression and osteoporosis) and premature death.”

Well, i feel better already! Nothing like preventing premature death to motivate you!

Renew! Renew!

I just can’t help it - does no one else think of Logan’s Run when they talk about running? Must be something to do with me. I mean, i am six years past my renew date - perhaps i’ll find sanctuary, or just a big robot that will freeze my ass off… anyway.

I’ve been doing the one minute run, one minute walk setup for the past 3 runs. Course, because i don’t actually own a watch, i’ve just been counting it out in my head. I thought this was working, until yesterday, when i came back and Ciara informed me that i’d been out for over an hour. I was somewhat surprised to say the least! I had been thinking that i’d been out for half to three quarters of an hour max. It’s good, i guess, that i’ve been able to run for that long, but now i’m all paranoid about over-doing it and injuring myself! Needless to say, i’ll be getting a watch so i don’t have to worry about my poor seconds counting abilities.

Also, my legs are fine today. No problems going up and down the stairs, which, until today, would cause no small amount of wincing.

I did go out and do another run yesterday morning. Did a couple more minutes running, and made each run a bit longer. Not much, but its good to take these things slow! I am in surprisingly good shape today, better then i was after Wednesday’s run.

I had to go out and buy new running shoes, as the old ones were so run down (haha), that i got blisters on my instep. So i’m now all mr. fancy-pants with my new shoes. Looking forward to trying them out on Sunday.

What else… Here is a funny cell-phone picture of Con. I got Halo back from Tony, so yesterday i played online for the first time - i managed to not be too embarrassed by the other players. Alex and i did a ‘cycle ride last weekend - it was a bit of a snafu, there were supposed to be several riders, but communication broke down at the end, which was my fault, so sorry to those that didn’t make it out.

That’s it till Sunday or Monday!

Well i literally took the first step towards a couple of goals i have for this summer. First is to be in good enough shape by the fall to start taking Akido again. The second is attached to the first, which is to loose some of my belly. So i was out running (what happened to jogging?) for the first time in years today.

I did 12 one minute runs, with a minute walk between each. Not wanting to end up as more of a twisted wreck then i already am, i did a bunch of cool-down stretches afterwards. While i’m sure they helped, walking up the stairs to have my shower was… wobbly.

And holy shit did that ever highlight my sorry ass state. But you have to start somewhere, so they say. Friday is my next scheduled run. If you don’t hear about it, bug me! Tomorrow i might try to do some other exercises… but no guarantee! I don’t want to over do it.

Having recently purchased Flash Studio, i’ve been playing around learning some of the new capabilities that it makes available. The first thing i’ve been working with is the BitmapData class, which allows for pixel-level manipulations in Flash. A project that i’m working on is going to involve some finger-painting activities, and i wanted to see if we could do more then the typical paint program.

Wanting to make the paint seem like it was wet was going to be the challenge. This involves smudging the paint as you move though it. I found a thesis which covers some interesting areas related to digital painting, including smudging.

So far, i have it smudging a pre-created background. Next is to get it to paint with a colour, while smudging. And possibly a UI.

Was helping out Geoff H. build his new motorcycle shed yesterday. We were pouring concrete, which i’ve never done before. Pretty darn hard work! I used my fancy new phone’s camera to take a series of shots over the course of the afternoon.

Ok, i got the memory card and reader. Its kind of scary just how small the microSD/TransFlash cards are - smaller then the nail on my pinky finger. I feel old even having to talk about how small it is. Getting generation gap’ed.

Anyway, i’ve done a couple of quick experiments with compressing the VOB files (these are the ones that you get when you copy your DVD to your HD) with different programes. I was using Mpegable X4 Live, but am now trying 3gp_converter. The UI for 3gp_c is, well, lacking, but it has some good geek cred to it, and uses open source compressors. Since i haven’t done any real comparisons yet, i have no idea which software will make better vid’s. Right now i’m just playing. I’ll let you know how this one works out.

I also wanted to mention that the MP3 audio playback is good - as it should be since the MP3 were encoded at 320kbps!

Well Ciara and i both just got new cell phones. Our contracts with Bell just ran out, so we went with a “special” plan Ciara gets though her work, which is still Bell, but cheaper rates. We also upgraded our phones to the Motorola E815. I choose this one because there is an abundance of info on how to hack it.

Since this phone can play video, i’ve also been fooling around with converting some of my DVDs to mobile friendly formats. I’ve found 2 very useful and free tools for Windows users to do this painlessly. DVDShrink is used to pull the content off the DVD itself. Pretty excellent if you want to be doing backup’s too. Then i’m using MPegable 4x live, which has all kinds of great params to tweak, or you can use the excellent built in defaults. The company that created it, Mpegable/Dicas no longer sells or supports it, so use at your own risk.

I’ve got some video all converted and ready to go, now i need to get a memory card and a card reader! Well, and a data cable for the hacking, but that’s already on its way…

Update: I’m actually going to get the memory card and reader from my local computer shop, Roger’s Computer, 1 gig for $64 + tax. Let’s see - i can get a one hour show (2.6 gig) down to 38 megs. So, that’s about 28 one hour shows on the card. Nice.