Proof of Global Warming
I spent the day cutting the lawn. First cut of the year. About five weeks before normal.
8 Great Workout Songs
I’ve been working out pretty consistently for the past six weeks or so. And by that, I mean I’m going to the gym about 4-5 times per week. My workout usually consists of a little weightlifting, some situps, and I’m now up to 45 minutes on the treadmill. That’s where the music comes in.
I’ve got a workout playlist on my iPod with 24 songs. Here are the best workout songs I’ve found so far:
“Chocolate” by Snow Patrol
Such an ironic title for a workout song, but this one has the perfect drum beat and rhythm. I’ll let me treadmill time go a little long when this song comes on at the end. It’s too perfect. Unquestionably, the greatest workout song ever.
“Politik” by Coldplay
Another one that’s great because, depending on how fast you’re walking, each step hits at the same time as each drum beat. There are some slow parts in this song, so it’s pretty good at the beginning when I’m just starting the treadmill session.
“When We Were Young” by Whipping Boy
Great, short song from an Irish band you’ve never heard of. I’ve never seen this video until just now when I went searching on YouTube (since LaLa doesn’t have it).
“Hysteria” by Muse
Perfect song for the middle of a long treadmill session. “Uprising” is another great Muse workout song, but I like this one better.
“First Time” by Lifehouse
Remember this song from the Dodge TV commercials a couple years ago? It was good then, but even better for a workout. Again with the consistent drumbeat that you can walk to super easily.
“The Secret” by Vib Gyor
Another one I couldn’t find on LaLa, so here’s the video. If everyone listed to this song first thing every morning, there’d be no need for coffee runs. Wait ’til the drums kick in at the 15-second mark, and then you’re off.
“Bad” by U2
You knew there’d be U2 somewhere on my workout playlist, didn’t you? I’m still searching for good U2 songs to include, but the live version of “Bad” is winning so far. It’s kinda slow in the beginning, but builds up over the second half of the song. It’s good at the beginning of a walk, and also at the end for winding down.
“Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” by Counting Crows
One of my all-time favorite songs. It’s a great, great driving song and also works in a workout. Pretty good wind-down song since it’s not super fast.
Okay, enough of my workout song list. If anyone has their own favorite workout songs, drop a comment so I can build my playlist!
John Wooden Quote #7
You can make mistakes, but you aren’t a failure until you start blaming others for those mistakes.
No excuses. I used to struggle with this many, many years ago — especially when I worked in TV/radio sports. It was never my fault when a newscast or radio show went south, or when we missed a big story, or when the ratings weren’t very good. But that, of course, wasn’t true. I think I’m better now at not making excuses and blaming others. It doesn’t accomplish anything.
If you don’t know what this post/series is about, see the John Wooden tag and specifically the first quote I posted.
Twitter & the Super Bowl
Twitter apparently averages about 40 million tweets per day, which makes the following an amazing nugget of information:
“As the game ended, one out of every two tweets on Twitter was about the Super Bowl!”
That comes direct from the Twitter blog.
Amazing.
Found via Techmeme.
My Favorite Super Bowl Commercial
There were 3-4 that I liked, but this is the only one that made me LOL and rewind to watch it again with Cari and Sean.
Who knew Jim Nantz could act?!?
John Wooden Quote #6
I believe the greatest joy one can have is doing something for someone else without any thought of getting something in return.
I wish more people, me included, acted that way.
If you don’t know what this post/series is about, see the John Wooden tag and specifically the first quote I posted.
Random Thoughts: Apple, Tablets, etc.
Right before starting this post, I read my first article about the Apple tablet-thingy that’s apparently being announced tomorrow. I’ve seen lots of headlines about it in recent weeks, but have skipped all the articles for one big reason: I don’t need a tablet-thingy.
Rewind: For Christmas, a good friend finally got an iPod Touch (you know, the iPhone but without the phone) and immediately emails me to say, How did I live without this? This same friend is not an Apple fanboy by any means; very much a PC guy, though now he’s considering a full switch.
Back to now: The article I just read is this short piece in which the guy credited with creating the idea of a laptop computer had this to say to Steve Jobs when Jobs showed him the iPhone years ago:
“Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world.”
And this occurred to me: Just like now with the tablet-thingy, I didn’t get wrapped up in the iPod hype years ago. I didn’t buy an iPod when it first came out, nor when the 2nd or 3rd versions came out. I didn’t buy the first iPhone, either. And yet today my reaction is the same as my friend’s — how did I ever live without these things?
Here’s what I think will happen next: I won’t buy the tablet-thingy; I’ll wait for version 2 (like you should almost always do with Apple products). And then I’ll buy it, and I’ll wonder how I ever lived without it.
Sergey Brin, Backseat Crisis Manager
Did you happen to read Sergey Brin’s account of his recent relief trip to Haiti? It’s heartfelt and somewhat interesting, and it ends with three suggestions for how the crisis management could be better:
“First, while there is tremendous relief effort from the US, UN, Haiti, and NGOs, the coordination and organization between these remains unclear.”
“Second, it is necessary to scale up the provisioning of shelter, food, water, sanitation, and health care by at least an order of magnitude.”
“Lastly, there are several categories of people who should be evacuated out of Haiti to other countries (notably the US) where there is far more capacity to provide care.”
For real, Sergey? You go and spend a couple days in a country that was already in poor shape before the earthquake, and you think that qualifies you to tell the experts — the people who’ve been dealing with earthquake relief their whole lives how to do things? C’mon now. I’m sure they appreciated your help, but I doubt they appreciate your advice. Stick to running a search company, and let the relief experts do what they do. Kthxbai.
The New Me :-)
Well, not really a new me, but some new business photos of me. And long overdue, too — the photo I’ve been using on my web sites and blogs (and as my social media avatar) is at least 5-6 years old now, and I just don’t look that young anymore. I haven’t seen all of the photos we took on Saturday, but of the ones I have seen, these are my favorites:
How’d I do?
Strange that both are serious poses. There are some good smiley shots, too, but I just like these more.
The photog is a guy I’ve known from the Tri-Cities group on Flickr. I posted a thread about wanting to get some new portraits done, and chose him from the people who replied. He’s not really even in business for himself yet, but has a little studio down in his basement at home, and all turned out well. Now Cari’s thinking about having him do new portraits for her, too.
John Wooden Quote #5
You should learn as if you were going to live forever, and live as if you were going to die tomorrow.
I love this. He’s talking about the need to always be learning and improving yourself, as if you were going to need this knowledge for the “long journey ahead.” But at the same time you should appreciate every moment and live with a sense of immediacy, and “not waste even a minute.”
That’s what I was talking about in this post when I said this:
“Realizing that your life is probably more than half over seems to refocus everything. I cherish the Good Things more than ever. I have less and less patience for pettiness, silliness, and stupidity.”
If you don’t know what this post/series is about, see the John Wooden tag and specifically the first quote I posted.
