August 2013 - November 2013 Man On A Mission

November 2013

I haven't posted in almost a year, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing tons of stuff.

Most noteworthy for me was a determination to get back on a path to a healthy lifestyle. At 53 (when I started) I was determined to be in the best shape of my life by 55. To that end on August 12, 2013 I started doing the 7 minute workout on Tuesday and Thursday (days I was working from home). I did that through a September 7-14 trip to Tampa with my parents to their condo. While at Tampa, every other day I ran/walked on the beach and did my 7 minute workout after.

My path to better health included more than just exercise. The first several weeks I drastically cut what I ate. In fact, until I could get my metabolism kicked back in I completely cut out breakfast (I know... those of you who are health experts don't need to lecture me about breakfast being the most important meal of the day... for me it was the most important meal of the day to eliminate completely). Overall, I eliminated breads and potatoes almost completely, and reduced the portions at all meals drastically while cutting sweets to almost nothing. I also tried not to eat after 7pm.

Upon my return from the Tampa trip I had built up enough "in-motion" momentum to transition to the workout room at my workplace (and began eating a bowl of oatmeal from breakfast on workout days). Since I'm in the office three days a week it was perfect, and thus my lunches became workout time (mind you I didn't skip lunch, I just ate a small, healthy lunch at my desk after my workout). I began this new phase of re-vitalization by spending 25 minutes on the elliptical machine followed by 30 minutes or so of lifting on the universal machine they have available.

In addition to the exercise and much better eating habits, I also adjusted to intentionally include eating some super foods that burn fat. I had eliminated caffeine a few months before but now added in some green teas as well as increased my cinnamon intake. I was pleased to find out peanut butter was a super food (and other guys who are getting up there in age will be pleased as I was to learn peanut butter is supposed to help replenish testosterone more naturally) and began enjoying it, apples, and raisins as afternoon snacks.

I believe it was mid-October when I began transitioning off the universal machine at our work gym and onto free dumbbell weights. My workouts were spread out between three different sets of weight lifting designed to work specific muscle groups. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would spend 25 minutes on the elliptical and then 30 minutes of lifting. Typically I'd do a set of three specific dumbbell exercises for 10 - 15 repetitions (and if I started out on a certain weight at 10 I've increased up to 15 over time before jumping up to the next dumbbell set), then another set of three dumbbell exercises for same repetitions. Each day was two different sets of three exercises for 10 - 15 reps. Then I'd cap it off with what began as three sets of 15 sit ups on the bench and has transitioned to a set of 25, a set of 20, and a set of 15 sit-ups on a fancy sit-up device at the office gym and added three sets of 10 leg raises in between each sit up set.

While I didn't have a specific weight goal in mind, in the back of my mind I knew I was about 178 lbs when I graduated high school so that was floating around in my mind, however, I truly had no weight goal I was working towards. This was all about getting my lifestyle back "in-motion" and being healthier. That said, I began this regimen weighing in at the heaviest I have been in my life... 205 - 207. In mid-November I was pleased to get on the scales and see my weight was staying around 175 - 177. Yep, 30lbs lighter in 3 months. I was really shocked that I did it. I was even more shocked that it was doable. I honestly expected the transition to take a couple of years.

So that was five months ago, and it's been eight months and one day today since I began the whole journey. I'm pleased to say I'm still seeing 175's, 176's, and 177's on the scales. This is a good sign as I know, since I'm continuing to workout and eat better, that the little residual fat pockets across my body that had built up for 30+ years are slowly (much more slowly) being replaced by heavier, stronger muscle tissue.

Oh, side note. In August I was wearing pants size 38 waist and shirts were between large and extra-large. I know I'd been wearing 38's since the mid-2000's and X-Large shirts since about the same. Mid-November 2013 I replaced the 38 waist pants with 34's. I do not remember the last time I was wearing 34 waist pants. Also, I am wearing between a medium and large in shirts. More large than mediums now that my muscle is beginning to build, but grateful for the better fit! Oh, and the 34 pants are a little big now. In fact, I bought a couple of pairs of 33 waist Levis' the other day.

Last piece of catching up on this journey. I felt good enough to get signed up for and start playing in city league volleyball for the first time in at least 10 years. I'm playing twice a week and it feels great! This body and life that had grown heavy and sedentary has returned to a more healthy weight and is becoming more "in-motion" again. It's great. So happy for the motivation to do it.

Father's Day Hike 2013 - Roxborough Park CO

Our fourth annual Father's Day hike destination this year was at Roxborough State Park in South West Denver. It was a delightful day, even though we had to rush due to an unexpected rain shower.
I really like Father's Day to be low key so, as usual, we all stopped and picked up our choice of "picnic food" before meeting at the park. And we set off on a short journey to enjoy each other and a new, beautiful location in the state where we live.

I had heard about Roxborough Park a couple of years ago, but we'd never made it out there. In fact, based on the description from a friend about where it was, I was not that excited about what it sounded like it had to offer. I was SO wrong. The park is GORGEOUS!

I recently learned that the state name "Colorado" was inspired by the Colorado River, Rio Colorado for the red color and Colorado means something like, "the color red". Another story about the name of the state said the "color red" influence comes from the abundance of red rock formations that are found throughout the state. Well, Roxborough Park is a great representation of this feature that inspired the name of our wonderful, and gorgeous state.

The park has several hiking trails offering a variety of difficulty and distance. I chose the Fountain Valley Trail which features a 2.3 mile loop around the North end of the park at 6,100 ft above sea level. We followed the dirt trail, taking pictures along the way, and enjoying reminiscing about the years and experiences we've all shared. An offshoot lookout trail took us to the top of a small hill in the middle of the park with some great vistas. This is where we paused to eat our lunch. That's when the lightning started in the near distance so we quickly finished our lunch and got off the high point in our journey.
As a gentle sprinkle began to fall, we happened to be at the North end of the trail where there are some preserved historic homes. We enjoyed a wonderful summer rain shower under the covered porch (and of course all checked our phones for email and other interactions since this spot had wireless connectivity).

As the rain subsided we set out and finished the other side of the trail going South. It was an awesome day with my wonderful kiddos! Now, where to go next year?

Funny Lizard vs Kitten

Those of you who know me know I seldom laugh boisterously. One occasion was when I saw this video on a friend's Facebook timeline.

Almost a year... lots going on!

Wow, just realized I had not posted in almost a full year. Then, reflecting on all that's been going on I realized why I had not stopped to post.


In the last post we visited Buena Vista CO on a long motorcycle trek. We actually were visiting because I was anticipating an interview and perhaps moving to Buena Vista. This was all transpiring time-wise about a week before I was due to commit to a full semester of teaching at Front Range Community College again. Long story short, two days before I had to commit to Front Range I turned down the job offer and we stayed in Longmont and I taught and continued to work freelance web and video projects. August to December was crazy busy with three classes as well as a couple of independent study students.

Christmas was obviously busy and January kicked back off with another full semester of teaching and freelancing. Toward the middle of January Julie and I reconnected with an old friend from when we had lived in Colorado before. Other than a great dinner and reconnecting with friends that dinner resulted in an interview for contract work with a startup with which our friend was working. The contract began on Feb 14 and was for three months and required me to be in the Denver Technical Center (DTC) five days a week when I was not engaged teaching. For those of you not familiar with the Denver area geography that was about an hour to an hour and a half from our home in Longmont.

So for the next three months I was teaching part time, working for a startup full time, and doing what I could for freelance clients.

As the semester ended and the contract with the startup was coming to a close, I was offered a permanent full time job as UI/UX Lead Developer with the startup beginning my last day of teaching for the semester. I accepted. Obviously a relocation made sense. Julie resigned at the consignment boutique she had been working at for over 2 years and began getting us ready to move.

May 26th we left Longmont and moved (this is so trite a statement compared to the grueling weekend it really was, but that may be another post) into a townhouse in Castle Rock. My 1 - 1 1/2 hour commute is now just 15-20 minutes. Love the house... love Castle Rock!

The startup is WaveCloud - a web-based e-book focused business working to bring together several facets of the e-book universe into one single site. It's a very robust and ambitious vision. We launched in beta in early June and following an ambitious release schedule to enhance and expand what WaveCloud offers for readers, authors, as well as agents and publishers.

For now, Julie continues to help get us settled into Castle Rock and is slowly, patiently watching for where she'll be working.

That's the cliff notes for the year. Maybe I can fill in the pieces as well as keep up to date going forward.

331 Miles

Julie and I slowly working our way up to an overnight ride to Durango CO. It's about 370 miles from Longmont to Durango and Julie's motorcycle has a range of about 120 miles per tank so we have to break that up into several smaller segments. We don't like to push it, so we usually only do 60 - 80 miles per stop.

Our first "big" trip was to Sidney NE. It was 168 miles. This last Friday, after a crazy and difficult week, I gave myself the day off and Julie and decided to ride up into the mountains where it would be a little cooler. We chose Buena Vista CO since we'd never been there before and had heard it was an amazing place.

Our first stop was in Conifer CO for gas. Then we made our way to Fairplay CO. The next stop was Buena Vista. What a quaint little place. Had no idea it was one of the hottest (not temperature wise) whitewater rafting destinations in the country. We had ice cream at Punky's and while sitting there decided to see if Jes and Paul wanted to have dinner at a Cheddars they had found in Aurora/Parker. So after tooling around Buena Vista for about 45 minutes we headed to Cheddars.

Then after a great dinner we headed home. 331 miles total. That was almost Durango distance. We were really exhausted when we got home though so we have some riding stamina to build up still.

Oh, the chicken nachos at Cheddars... WOW! Still the same and LOVED them.

Father's Day Hikes

Yesterday was our second annual Father's Day hike for the extended Kendall family. Two years ago, contemplating what I wanted to do with the family for Father's Day I realized I wanted to depart from the normal let's have a meal somewhere and watch a movie. I wanted something simple and something that afforded us the opportunity to take advantage of the gorgeous Colorado we moved back to in 2007. The idea for a short family hike was conceived.

Last year, our first we went to Chautauqua near Boulder. It was a great trip. The day began with us meeting at a local grocery store to purchase simple meal items and throw them into a backpack. Then a short drive to Boulder and off we went. It was a great experience.

Yesterday we all hit the grocery store or made our lunches before we met at our place in Longmont, CO. Then we took off through Lyons, CO on our way to the Sleepy Lion Trail in the mountains just West of Lyons. The drive was less than 30 minutes and then we ventured on foot into the gorgeous mountains. The Sleepy Lion Trail is moderate beginning hike for anyone who has not been hiking much. It's got some great inclines as well as a really nice meadow of grass and flowers you hike through. Vistas include the view of Ralph Pierce Reservoir along much of the trail. The spot pictured above is a huge outcropping of rocks/boulders where we stopped to takes some fun photos.

[gallery]

It was a great time. Can't wait for next year!

Temple Grandin

Occasionally you see a movie, read a book, or hear a story about someone inspiring and hope to meet the person. Then there are the once in a lifetime opportunities you have to not only meet that person, but to get to work with her (or him). Late last year I found out there was a project on which I might be working with my friend Dan (of Vendor Hippo). The project was amazing in and of itself. But then came the part about the "talent" for the video project.

I had never heard of Temple Grandin till that day. About a month ago, as part of preparing the shoot I viewed the Made for HBO movie about her life and was moved to tears by -- well, many things in the movie. Today I got the rare privilege to direct a shoot with Temple explaining the ins and outs of handling sheep. What an amazing morning.

It was awesome to hear her explain the things the movie depicts but related to sheep. Her passion for helping people understand livestock so the handling of the sheep is less stressful on the animals and the humans was evident.

Claire Danes... I'm impressed. What a great job of portraying this special person. You definitely deserved the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Mini-series or Movie Oscar you won for the portrayal of this bigger than life lady.

Those of you who even think you have a tough life and need a leg up to move forward in this life... see the movie!

Teaching, teaching, and more teaching!

There haven't been many posts here on my site/blog in quite some time. That's because I've been busy!

From sheep, sheep, and more sheep to teaching, teaching, and more teaching. I was all poised to teach four courses at Front Range Community College here in Longmont (their Boulder County Campus) when Colorado Mountain College asked me to teach one of the same courses I've taught at FRCC for them online. They had several students who needed the course for their certificate or degree and couldn't find anyone to teach it. That was one week before the course was supposed to start. So I've been pretty busy converting the classroom experience into screen casts, discussion topics, exercises, and assignments that can be completed through a Blackboard interface.

Then, I was excited to meet yesterday with the folks over at Boulder Digital Arts (http://www.boulderdigitalarts.com) about teaching some PHP and MySQL over there. It looks like that will begin just as the FRCC and CMC gigs are winding down for the semester/summer.

Whew! I love it but it's definitely a schedule killer!

Sheep, sheep, and more sheep!

Well, I've been kind of more silent than normal but I have an excuse. I've been traveling weekly shooting (video of) sheep. It all began in late July with a trip to Sacramento followed by trips to Ohio, Iowa, Meeker CO, and Greeley. Below are some photos of the folks we shot interviews with for the American Sheep Industry. The interviews will break up the panel discussion segments during a live television broadcast on the RFD-TV channel in September. It was a very interesting set of shoots and the editing is going great. I learned so much about sheep and what it takes to raise them here in our country... oh and I met some GREAT folks who put food on your table every year.

Great times! Thanks Amy Trinidad from the American Sheep Industry and Dan Borgmann of Vendor Hippo for all the help!

Spread-arden

I've dubbed it our "spread-arden" because we're using small places across the yard to grow our veggies rather than one big section. The seedlings we planted on May 2 are transplanted into a large brick area around a tree, but we're going to have to move them since they don't seem to get enough sun. More on that later.

The tomato plants we got from a friend that were in a little Target starter pack (seeds, soil, envelope -- just add water) started out great in the starter pack, but once transplanted went to pieces. So we replaced them with a starter plant from a local nursery and added two other types of tomatoes as well as red, green, yellow and orange bell pepper starter plants, a jalapeño starter, an Anaheim green chile starter plant (thank you Rod Grice for introducing us to these as hors d'oeuvres to be placed on the grill as it's heating up and eaten while the real meal is cooking on the warmed grill), and last but certainly not least a cucumber starter plant.

It's only been 2 months and we've already learned so much and can't wait to set out next year's "crop" based on what we've learned so far. Nonetheless I'm really enjoying tending the small plants and watching the beginnings of the fruit (or veggies) of our efforts. Today we added tomato cages around the tomatoes and bell peppers so I thought I'd snap some photos to share.

Three Years Ago

Yesterday was a busy day and an important anniversary slipped by. On June 12th 2007 I was summoned to the office of my supervisor to find out I would be part of the sweeping annual layoffs at LifeWay. I'd watched a number of friends go through this experience as it happened about this time every year. There was little anxiety.
Today is the more memorable anniversary. On June 13 on my way to lunch with some of our very best friends it became clear it was time to return to Colorado. The events that followed from June 14 - August 26 when we arrived back in Colorado were unmistakeable. We put our house on the market in early August and had a contract for our asking price within 5 days. Closing wad in two weeks. We loaded up all the stuff and headed to CO.
Three years later were still delighted to be here. Starting your own business during a horrible recession (no doubt fueled by a volitile election season) I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Herb Garden & Veggies

Week 4 plus a few days we planted the herbs and we got some starter plants for our veggies. Here's some pics:

[caption id="attachment_217" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Herbs Planted & Sage Transplanted"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_219" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Tomatoes"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_221" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Green Bell & Jalepeno Peppers"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_220" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cucumbers"][/caption]

Seed Nursery Day 14

So we are 14 days into our seedling nurturing. As you can see several FINALLY have sprouted and are beginning to look hopeful. Lavendar, Spearmint, and Parsley pots still show now sign of life but the others just popped out one day over the last week (Basil was first) and seem to be progressing quite well. Today we may spend some time prepping their outdoor home for transplanting in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday we bicycled around town to a couple of nurseries to look at starter plants for some flowers, fruit, and vegetables we hope to add to our horticultury mix for the season. Other than a few pretty flowers for Julie, we're planning to put out some tomatoes, peppers (jalepeno, anaheim, bell), squash, cucumbers, cantalope, watermelon, and I want to try some beans of some sort... green, peas... not sure yet.

The last time we attempted a garden was in TN and we planted a number of seeds for tomatoes and peppers. What we got was WAY too many. Yesterday we were thinking one or two tomato plants initially. Then we remembered we could make fresh salsa and decided to up it to four or five. YUM!

TV 2.0

After many years of a love=hate relationship with paid cable tv we decided last week to give it up. There were several longstanding annoyances that led up to us finally deciding to pull the plug:

1. paying for someone to advertise to me
   I actually remember when cable tv was appealing because it had few or no commercials.


2. paying for 800+ channels 24/7 when I only really DVR'ed and watched a handful of shows each week.


3. whenever I did sit down to just watch something live while sipping a cup of coffee or something clicking repeatedly through 800+ channel and finding NOTHING worth watching.


4. the simple reality that all the shows we watch are now posted online for free by the network, or they can be bought for a much smaller fee than the sum total cable tv bill for a month.

That's just a few, but the most obvious and highly contributory factors. Last night I watched my first two shows from the computer that I did not have DVR'ed due to no longer having the service. It was easy (fewer commercials too) and overall a pleasant experience. I had to wait one extra night after they aired but usually we don't watch shows the night or even the week they were aired.
So, that's a report on our latest experiment. We are now paid (subscription) tv free!

We're trying something new this year!

When we lived in Hendersonville TN we attempted to plant and eat some of our food from a garden. We were not very successful. Partly because we were pulled in SO many different directions with work and other commitments. Now though, we're less over extended and more motivated since Julie's diagnosis with a wheat allergy and it's associated food changes. This morning thanks to some seeds and materials from our daughter and friends we attempted to launch at least the seasoning and spice portion of our new garden for this year. (and some tomatoes not pictured here... maybe another day)
We're attempting to grow some seasonings and spices, as well as some vegetables. I'm going to try really hard to post regular pictures and blog posts of some of the stuff we're trying to do. So for today, here's the first post and picture:
[caption id="attachment_208" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Our Seed Nursery Day 1"][/caption]

Fix Hijacked Search From URL in Firefox

So I don't really know when it happend but I noticed a few months ago when I entered just a set of words in the address bar in Firefox rather than giving me a list of Google results I was presented some kind of Comcast sponsored Ask.com search (thanks Comcast... I'm guessing some "gift" from you since I'm a Comcast subscriber). I wanted my Google results back. A quick search on Google gave me the answer to fixing it. Here's the page I found to help me get it back the way I wanted it:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/06/12/hack-to-modify-firefox-3-address-bar-to-return-search-results-when-query-or-invalid-url-is-entered/

Thank You

With all the hyper-marketing to buy stuff surrounding them these days, holidays in the USA seem to have simply lost the essence of their meaning. To many, Easter means candy and gifts, Christmas means food and gifts, and Thanksgiving means food, football, and Black Friday. Today I'm going to do my best to spend the day looking at the many amazing people who have been provided all around me to help me become a better person and to just plain enrich my life. So if you are reading this, chances are you are one of those folks and I'm just plain thankful for you.

My Favorite Veteran

[caption id="attachment_182" align="alignleft" width="209" caption="Captain Charles E. Kendall"][/caption]

Today is Veterans Day and we all have much and many for which to be thankful. Though my dad never went to war, he supported the war and defense efforts of our country for over 27 years in the United States Air Force. I truly appreciate those who put their lives on the line with bullets and rockets flying all around them. But today I want to also remember that behind them are guys like my dad who work their tails off helping to make sure there are fewer bullets and rockets flying around for those on the front lines to dodge. Thanks Col. Charles E. Kendall (US Air Force Retired)!

[caption id="attachment_185" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Mom pinning Colonel eagles at promotion"][/caption]

Bailout My *ss

(Ma, don't panic over the title... it was the only appropriate comment I could find for the title)

So, I've put off writing about this for a while. But felt like writing about it today. In September 2007 we "purchased" a home in Henderson CO via an owner finance deal (that's the simplified version of the whole deal) where the owner held a mortgage from CitiMortgage (a subsidiary of Citi which has seen at least $25billion of our tax dollars) and was supposed to pass our payments through to the Citi loan for two years until our self employed status allowed us to refinance with a conventional mortgage. In September of 2008 we became aware the owner had not been passing our monthly payments back through to the CitiMortgage loan and Citi was proceeding with foreclosure on that loan. Essentially that meant we were screwed and would lose all we had invested in the owner finance deal. At the time the house we had "purchased" for $275k was valued at around $242k and the outstanding on the original owner's Citi loan was right at $242k (our outstanding was $235k).

All that to get to this beef. On June 15, 2009 the property was sold by the the clerk's office at Adam's County for $263k to a single bidder. Who was that bidder that paid $21k over what the home was valued and the same amount over what the original owner owed to CitiMortgage? Yep, you guessed it... a Citi subsidiary. So the huge and failing mortgage company you and I are paying taxes to cover a $25billion plus bailout to, paid $21k more for a house than the value of the home, not to mention $21k more than the orginal loan that they were foreclosing on.

So there's another reason for the bailout to have a bad taste in your mouth.

Simply Marvelous - Flute Meets Beatboxing!

This is simply amazing. I love how folks are mashing up what they do into new forms of stuff!

[youtube width="600" height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF2hzA5RNwg[/youtube]