Double Unders are the New Suck

Today, after finally getting a set of squat cleans in that felt like some kind of fluid motion instead of a mechanical series of moves, we moved onto the WOD that I’m sure was designed just to make me angry:

15 minute [abbr title=”As Many Rounds As Possible”]AMRAP[/abbr].

This is the kind of workout that I’m sure I’m going to look at in a month or two and laugh at, because let’s face it, the first 3 pieces are pretty simple.  I actually treated the first two as rest phases today.

But that’s because I’m still learning double unders:

Yes I am a big whiner. But salty sweat + wound = ouch!

This is only the second WOD we’ve ever put them in (usually we just triple the number and do singles) and I’m steadily improving but at this point I’m at the “single, single, double, single, single, double” rhythm stage, and I can get 5 in a row on a good run.  The trouble is that that goes away as soon as I get tired, and the more tired I get, the more I miss.  Which makes me more tired.

In the second round my coach called an audible and dropped me to 12 double unders, and made it a 15 minute cap with a four round target, so somehow I managed to finish in 14 minutes.  The cleans and leg raises stayed easy, the wall ball got a little tougher, but we might as well have just made today be 60 double unders and be done with it.

Here’s the thing about jumping rope: it’s all about the wrist motion.  Everything else stays as still as possible.  Here’s the other thing about jumping rope: the second I try to think about any of that, it all falls apart.  Oh, and the bonus thing is that it gets my heart pumping like nothing else.  Plus the “rope = whip” thing.

And the top comment for that video says it all:

Best way to learn DUs: Buy that rope and fuck up a lot. It hurts like shit until you get it right.

The ballad of New Guy

New guy started work today. New guy needed to be let into the building, and I needed to spend the day showing him the ropes. New guy mentioned in the interview process that he’s a morning person. New guy confirmed that he’d be in around 8. I normally don’t get dressed until 8:30, which meant one of us had to make a change. I lost the coin flip, so I’m in at 8, mildly groggy, waiting for new guy. New guy got stuck in traffic and didn’t make it in until 9, which is when I normally drag my ass in. Ack.

My new obsession

I came home for lunch today and AngelA had thrown together this chick pea toss from The Garden of Vegan. It was so good I kept thinking about it all afternoon and I actually stopped at the grocery store for some more chick peas so I could make more for dinner. AngelA’s out of town until tomorrow night, and I have a meal plan until she gets back. Yes, really. It’s super easy to make, but that’s not enough. I want this stuff on grocery store store shelves, premade, possibly in oversized toothpaste tubes.

Music: The Get Up Kids The Most Depressing Song (balance, baby).

…but what am I?

Toronto Police chief Julian Fantino is upset with the media for what he claims is biased coverage of an event where a crowd booed during his talk about racial issues. “‘You’re going for the sound bite, the fast clip and the media moment,’ he said. ‘I go for fact and reality and balance and interaction.’“.

Right….

Hey, does anyone remember the time he held a big press conference with a table full of guns and knives, and he said that some of them were obtained at raves? Remember when it turned out he was lying? Oh, sorry, I mean that he was misinformed, or mistaken… although I don’t think he ever responded to the requests for “clarification”.

I seem to recall other stories about the guy, and they’re probably out there on the internet somewhere, but I’ve got to get back to work.

Stupid internet

10 years ago, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but these days, if I’m not connected to the internet, it’s like my computer is broken.

Things look sorted out now. To recap, my Airport, which has been flaky since the holiday trip, started to ignore my request to share an IP address over the WAN port. This, coincidentally, started on the day that Apple released the Airport Extreme upgrade. I’ve read many conspiracy theories over the years, and in case this was a deliberate plot by Apple, c’mon guys, at least make it look like aliens or the mafia did it. Anyway, I reverted to my old cable router for a short while, which meant no AppleTalk, but we have an external Zip drive, so this would do in a pinch, but the “pinch” lasted about 6 hours, after which my ISP developed a serious case of wonkitis. It’s enough of a pain to troubleshoot home network problems, but when you can’t even be sure that it’s supposed to work, it makes my work problems seem trivial.

To make a long story short, re-uploading the firmware to the Airport seems to have resolved the NAT problem, and manually releasing my DHCP lease on the one Mac I’d managed to connect cleared the way for the Airport to resume its dirty business. Now I just have to get through my email backlog and post a few VP stories, and I can go to work.

“Work” involves, on top of frantic coding of objects I never ever understood, configuring 10 new development PCs. Why am I in charge of installing PCs? I have no idea. If I’m in fact the best qualified, I really should sell my shares in the company. The best part? I’m having network trouble.

On to what can now be considered “old business”, the Piebald/Choke concert was mostly disappointing. Maybe it’s the concept of an all ages event where the band goes on at 11 on a Tuesday. Maybe it’s the fact that “100% no alcohol” really meant no alcohol this time, even in the front section of the Horseshoe, where the barstools were sitting on the bar. I’ve no idea, but Piebald seemed like they were dong a recital or something. I’ve never seen them live before, but I could have saved myself the trouble and just listened to a CD. When I go to a live show, I expect some kind of added value – witty banter, clever song introductions, some form of energy, etc. I saw nothing of this nature from Piebald, although the earlier Choke performance was great, and I didn’t really like their stuff the one time I heard it a week or two ago. Now I want their CD. Go figure. My music week may yet be saved, as The Golden Dogs are doing a just-announced show Friday night at the El Mocambo, and I’m tabling for the vegetarian folks at some ska thing Saturday. That’s three concerts in one week, which I think is a new high score.

There is no music of the moment, lest I wake someone.

Cheer up honey I hope you can

Ok, covering the technical, the vegnical, and the entertainical today…

It looks like Apple did one of their big updates to the product line. I usually don’t look too closely at the new stuff unless I’m serious about buying things, and as I’m about to pay off my last shopping bill, I really shouldn’t be looking very closely here, but is it a coincidence that Apple upgrades the Airport on the same day that mine goes on the fritz? It’s true – there doesn’t seem to be any NAT going on in the Thrust compound, which means I may have to reconnect the cable router, which means I may lose AppleTalk, which means I may cry. Also “coincidental” is the release of Final Cut Express, a much more affordable alternative to the Pro version that I’ve been staring at longingly, although to purchase that would leave me without any more excuses as to why I never do any VPTV. Still….

On the veg front, I forgot to mention my outreach efforts on the weekend. I’m at the RC, checking the mail, and some biochem professor from Quebec has written us to tell us that marine seal oil is way better than linseed oil. No preamble, no “in reference to your statement that…”, just a full out assault on all that is flax, complete with big words. I crafted a very nice reply (without the use of profanity or references to his penis size) that avoided the standard arguments and references to studies that I’ve never read, steered the discussion directly into my court without avoiding any issues, and somewhere along the way implied that the man was a bank robbing grandmother killer (I used nicer words). It wasn’t the greatest thing ever written, but I felt like it justified the past year and a chunk of VP. I can’t wait to see the reply.

Entertainment wise, season 3 of Buffy is out, and I don’t know when I’ll have time to watch any of it, but it’s here anyway. We’re also, as mentioned earlier, catching the Choke/Piebald show tonight. More entertaining than all of that combined would be to have a webcam focused on my desk, where I’ve been working on the same problem for three days. It’s worth the effort, but damn, it’s frustrating to know that the technology’s been around for 5 or more years and I still haven’t taken the time to wrap my head around it.

Music of the moment: Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Back to the grind

When I was younger, I’d have stuff out of the box before I even got it home. Today I just installed Macromedia Studio. It’s been on the counter for a week now. Any bets on when I actually do something with it? I am looking forward to this though. I’ve been mocked for a while for using vi as my editor of choice, and I’m the odd man out at work for electing to roll our own applications every once in awhile, so it’ll be interesting to see how things are at this end of the spectrum.

Speaking of work, everyone’s back now, and what timing! Our intranet site proudly proclaims that we’re one of the 50 best companies to work for in Canada. We’re not in the top ten, exactly. In fact, I got to spend a good chunk of the morning reading about where I should be. Apparently, I’d be better off at McDonald’s, because they offer a “Bachelor of Flipology”, or perhaps I should be working for a cigarette or pharmaceutical company, because they offer, well, drugs and cigarettes, I guess. High morale day indeed.

Most likely something upbeat tomorrow – we’re going to see Piebald at the most messed up all ages show ever (11 p.m. on a Tuesday??), so I’ll have a bit of time to kill.

Things better left unsaid

If you’ve been worried about the semi-coherency in the past few entries here, worry no longer, because I’m going to be all over the map today. Actually, I’ve no idea if the past few entries have even remotely approached coherent, because I don’t want to read them right now. The green layout’s bugging me. It can wait a while though.

Zeldman has a decent quote up that I’m going to print out and tape up somewhere: “Writing a book is like having a year-long nightmare from which you cannot wake up, only with royalty checks. We are writing a book. We wish we were not writing a book. Every author wishes he were not writing a book. Unless he is a she. Then she wishes she were not writing a book.” No, I’m not writing a book, but I’m sure I’ll find many phrases that this works with: debugging an application, changing a site layout, cutting your own hair, etc.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but the falafel place next to the Bloor Cinema in Toronto sells baklava that contain neither butter nor honey. They come in a decent sized box and they’re around five bucks, so basically if you already have a Golden Dogs CD, this is a valid second choice for your hard earned cash.

We rented a car today to facilitate a few tasks, and as I was the only one who signed the agreement, I was the only one allowed to drive. I drive once every month or so on average, and it’s a different car each time, so it’s always a teeth clenching adventure for whoever’s in the passenger seat, usually AngelA. This time the vehicle of the day was a Crown Victoria, which has enough power to get me into all kinds of trouble (usually when braking), but also enough power to get me out of most jams (usually by accelerating). I was starting to get the hang of the boat by the time I pulled into the garage, so if I manage to get the same car in a few weeks when I need to drive again, lives may be saved, but I’m not counting on it.

Everlasting Blort has a link to a flash thing that, for once, isn’t a cartoon. I might break my internet ban at work tomorrow for the lofty goal of freaking people out. It’s kind of relevant to the job if I can get the discussion pointed to interface design, because I’m sure this is just what a contact centre desktop needs.