Month: September 2016

I have been exercising regularly for a few months now. I switch between using the elliptical machine at the gym and running on the trail right outside my place. Once I hit 40 years old I became concerned about heart health. So now I monitor my heart rate with a chest strap when I run and use that as a metric to go by.  I set a target heart rate that is almost my max, or if I am working on a distance I watch my heart rate to know when to take things slower.

Things with my monitor started out fine. Then things went wonky. At first it would just have the occasional drop out or seem slow to adjust. It got worse as time went on. As soon as a would take off on a slight jog the monitor would instantly shoot up to over 170 bpm. The drop offs became way more common.  The monitor soon became totally useless and unreliable.  I took a screenshot of the results from one run below.

Either my HRM isn’t working or I died several times

I have been trying not to spend money so I hoped to fix the problem without buying anything. The chest HRM consists of two parts. The strap itself that has the sensors that go against your skin and a pod that takes a battery and transmits the data, in my case to a GPS watch. I changed to a brand new battery.  Thing improved slightly but not for long. Next I cleaned off the strap but that didn’t help. I tightened the strap. I loosened the strap. Nothing mattered.  I actually had another strap sitting around and so I tried that, but I still got the bad results.  At this time I decided the pod itself had gone bad. Luckily I had gotten an amazon gift and it covered the cost of  a new monitor. So far it works fine.

The Great Mosquito Assault

For several weeks now I have been having a mosquito problem in my apartment. But Wonky, how can you have a mosquito problem inside your apartment? Well you see I have a small fuzzy child. He likes to hang out on the balcony. Yes even at night. Since I don’t have some sort of cat door and I can’t close the door while he is out there because he would be perturbed. This means my balcony door stays open for like an hour each night. The mosquitoes take full advantage of this situation. One night a couple of weeks ago I killed eleven of the blood sucking monsters.  They have a particular liking for my feet and ankles. To counter that I have taken to wearing big socks pulled up as far as they can go on my feet. Each morning as part of my morning ritual I check to see how many new bites the legion of ziki have given me. Wednesday morning my left foot was extra itchy. I pulled off my sock and to my horror counted seven bites on the top of my foot. I can only assume that at some point during the night my foot came out from under the covers.  Also these socks have some sort of special cooling mesh on top and not normal sock material so I guess the west nile attackers had no trouble sensing my nummy flesh.

I Ground the Death Machine

You read that right. Shard of metal fly at your face.  The equivalent of a shotgun explodes in your face. After reading that I went down to the dealer and asked them for a loaner since I wasn’t going to drive the car until they fixed it. The told me they didn’t really do that. So I grounded the car. It sits out front of my apartment and won’t move until they are going to fix it.

What’s the point of having a Honda if you can’t show it off?

When I wasn’t working my main job I was working my second one.

Dream of the week

I was living in a house with a bunch of people but there was’t a door to my room just one of those beady curtain things.. Then when I looked out the window of the tall apartment building I saw that the opposing army was moving into the streets.  The war had not started yet but I worried about getting out before the occupation began.  So I went downstairs and my uncle pulled up in a big red diesel 4×4 and we decided to leave town. We didn’t want to take the main highway so we took a back road. We ran into a road block so we drove through the forest.. the end.

How to keep your cat happy

I had planned to go for a job Friday after work. But it ended up being like this for two hours.

So on Saturday morning  I went for a jog.  It was cool and overcast with a slight drizzle when I started. I actually had a great run. I had plenty of energy, nothing hurt. I ended up running farther than I have since restarting running five months ago. I had finished and waking the rest of the way. There is one little bit of path left before I got to my place. A song came on my ipod(yes I still use an ipod). It wasn’t supper fast or upbeat, it actually was kinda mellow and emotional. I felt the gentle breeze in my face and the sun on my skin. Then a hawk came soaring over my head and glided along the path. I started running again. I then broke into a sprint as fast as I could go. I shot my arms out like a kid pretending to be an airplane. It didn’t last long because I got to the end of the path. I stood there breathing heavily and looking at the blue sky and the green grass. For a moment this old chubby man felt alive and young. Then I felt like I was dying since sprinting had shot my heart rate up to over 180 bpm.

Picture of an sky as empty as my brain

I have no idea what happened this week. I really don’t. I worked and Jobu is now obsessed with eating treats. He begs and begs and begs.