New Desk Setup

Recently I had read a lot about how bad it is for you to sit all day and connected that with the amount of sitting I do for work and personal projects.  I saw a couple of people that I follow on Twitter were trying stand up desks and decided to give it a try.  There are supposed to be many benefits of a standing desk once you get used to it. The biggest obstacle that I faced was how I was going to modify my desk to give me the correct ergonomics for standing.  After a little looking around the office and house I came up with a solution and I have included a picture of that below.

I have only used the new setup for one full day now but I am optimistic that it is going to make a difference for me.  It is taking a little getting used to but so far I like it.  I do need to take a break every now and then and want to find a good high stool that I can pull up to work at the desk when I need a break from standing.  So far so good.

Back to Drupal Again

I had converted my blog back to Wordpress a couple of months ago and I liked how it looked and was easy to access using mobile tools.  The problem with it was that I could not do some things that I wanted to do with Wordpress that were trivial when using Drupal.  You take things like CCK and Views for granted when you don't have them.  For instance, I keep a list on my site of the names of people that I walk in support or in memory of when I walk in the Komen 3-Day.  I could not find an easy way to keep that list in Wordpress but it was very simple in Drupal.  Define a custom content type to store the names of the person and how I now them.  Then setup a view to only show the names.  5 mimute effort with Drupal but really not easily done unless you use a commercial Wordpress module.  So back to Drupal it is.  I have pretty much finished up making the changes that I wanted to my blog and I have something that will work for now.

New iPhone Case

I purchased a Lifeproof case for my iPhone 4 and there are some things I really like about it and some things that I hate about it. I did the water test on it and it was waterproof so that is good. I am not really considering going swimming with it but I do like to have a nice durable case for when I am out walking. I am pretty confident that it would handle rain pretty easily. I also like the belt clip that comes with the case. It holds the phone in place securely and I am not worried about losing it.

One of the things that drives me nuts about it is the screen protector. I ran into the same thing with the Otterbox Defender on my older iPhone. It protects the screen but it makes the screen less responsive. I also didn't really care for the implementation of the switch to silence the phone.

I am going to keep the new case for when I need protection for outdoors but will go back to my regular Otterbox Commuter case as my everyday case.

Back to Training

Between work and kids end of school year activities I have not had much time to do as much training as I want to get in.  I did take some time today to go out and stretch it a bit.  I probably should have worked up to it again but it was a nice day and I had time so I went out and did 13 miles today.  I am sure I will be feeling it tomorrow.  I got had intended to hit the road at 6:30 like I would if I was walking on event but I took a little longer to get organized and ended up leaving about 7:00.  The weather was perfect to start but got a little warm as I got close to the end of my walk.  70 is a very comfortable temp but 85 is getting a little warm.  I had a little cloud cover so the sun was not bad either.  I am going to try and get in a couple walks a week now until the 3-Day the weekend after Labor Day.

Relay for Life

 This past weekend I was able to chaperone my daughter's team for the American Cancer Society - Relay for Life. This event was planned by a committee of High School students with a representative of the American Cancer Society. The idea behind the relay is that each team should have at least one person on the track for the duration of the event which in our case started at 6 PM Friday and was to finish at 6 AM Saturday.

Each team was given an area on the football field to camp overnight. This was where the team hung out when they were not walking. The Committee also did a nice job of scheduling other activities throughout the night to keep the students busy.

One of the most moving moments of the event has to be their Luminaria lighting when the lights are turned off and you can see the little decorated bags with candles that line the track.  Each Luminaria is there to remember or support someone that has battled Cancer.  During that Ceremony, a young man from the school told the story of how he had been diagnosed with Cancer as a Sophomore and what he had gone through.  He is now a Senior and getting ready to go off to College.  These activities to raise money do make a difference. It doesn't matter whether it is the American Cancer Society or Susan G. Komen.  They are both fighting the enemy.

The event was a lot of fun and it's good to see young people getting involved in these kinds of activities. Will be back next year.

Back to Wordpress

This weekend I converted my blog back from Drupal to Wordpress.  I like Drupal and will continue to use it where it makes sense to.  I just decided that for my personal blog it no longer made sense.  It was more complex than I really needed for my small blog. The other major issue with Drupal from my perspective was that they removed blogapi from core when they went to Drupal 7.  That made it impossible for me to use the external editors that I had been used to using with Drupal 6.  I like being able to update my blog from my phone or Mac and not have to always use a browser.  Maybe now that I am settled with this I can get back to using the blog more than I have been.

Another Decent Walk

Well I decided to start out my Easter Vacation with a training walk today. The weather was really nice for early April so I decided to add just a little to my last walk. I ended up walking 8.5 miles today. That's not bad progress for this early in the year. Waiting for the weather to get better so that I can get some consistent walking in. Regardless of the weather, I will be ready in September. This is my 6th year walking and I know what i need to do to finish all 60 miles of the 3-Day.

Unreal Weather for March Walking

Well I was off work today and was running errands earlier but I had to take advantage of the weather to get in another training walk. I had to go over to my Dad's house to take a look at his computer so I decided to walk over there. That gave me another 7.3 miles for this year. I just could not believe this weather though. I have never done a training walk in March and worried about getting too warm and keeping hydrated. It was actually over 80 today and might be again tomorrow. The weather has been unseasonably warm but I didn't get much walking done last week because I was commuting to Chicago for a Class. On Sunday we went to Appleton for my niece's birthday party so no walking then either. I hope to try and get in at least 10 miles a week for the next month and build from there.

First Training Walk for 2012

It was such an awesome March day I just had to get out and get in a training walk. We usually don't have many 60 degree days in March. Usually I would start with a 3.5 or 5 mile walk for the year but the temp was great and it was sunny so I ended up doing a litle over 7 miles today. Was a little sore afterwards but that was to be expected with that kind of start. I have been spending some time on the treadmill but walking there is nothing like walking outside. I find walking outside to be very relaxing and look forward to many more miles before September.

 

First Training Walk for 2012

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