Tag Archives: gym

Wanted! Companion

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Once again, it was 4:00am, the alarm clock was ringing and I kept there lying. There’s no other way than going to gym right after work this week. Actually, I don’t feel that much like losing time of the day and I’m not that tired. The big disadvantage of going to gym in the afternoons is very simple, the building is packed. I’m used to switch freely between different machines and no one’s there occupying. This makes my training in the morning more individualized and I simply don’t have to care about others. Whatsoever, going to gym, even if it’s packed, is way better than just staying at home and doing nothing. The schedule for this week says, training on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon and the fourth day comes up randomly this week.

I’ve recently (2 days ago) finished the single player campaign of “Portal 2” and switched to “DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue” till I’ve found a mate for the coop campaign. If you’re also looking for someone to play “Portal 2” coop mode with you, feel free to add me on Steam (n3G.!nV4d3r). I’m also looking for someone who wants to play “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” with me. Actually, there are so many games that need a companion, so hook up and join.

Lowered expectations… or the lack of time

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It’s a cross. I overslept like three times this week. Firstly, I missed gym two times in a row. Ya, I know that four o’clock in the morning is a terrible time to get off for some training. Anyhow, I feel good with and I’ll stay with it (if I can make it out of bed). Whatsoever, I also missed my regular alarm clock for work today. It rang, I noticed it and fell asleep again. Luckily the loss of time wasn’t that huge so I can get back home pretty early.

I took a training session the day before and, well, my overall condition was not that bad. Okay, okay, I just missed one week but I was actually expecting the worst. Maybe I’ll be able to throw some loops this weekend and get a little boost on my stamina.

The Sony network is back online and Sony’s offering lots of free stuff and compensations and all kinds of shit. I’ve got another 45 days left to play the “DC Universe Online” and hopefully Sony will come up with a lowered subscription fee as well. I was totally fine with 24 Euros for three month but unfortunately did I have some issues with one of my credit cards and they put me back on normal rate. Life’s tough sometimes, you know?

The curse of sleep

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I feel so terribly bad today. It was set that I have to go to the gym today and continue training but I simply haven’t made it out of my warm, sheltering bed. I’m not sure where this tiredness actually comes from, but it’s horrible. I can never get enough sleep and I’m that kind of a guy that sleeps no longer than six hours a night, except for the weekend.

I was thinking about going to the gym this very afternoon, but I know how it’s going to be. The place will be packed as hell and all the exercise machines will be blocked by fat and ugly housewives pushing 5kg weights. I’ll try to make it out of my bed tomorrow and hit the road to training. Once again, I don’t feel very well with my whole condition. I feel fat and rusty and like I lost the last spark of power in my muscles. It has to be changed and it will be changed.

striped stockings

What else happened. Well, I’ve silenced my HTPC once again a litte bit more. I added a resistor to the fan located on the side of the chassis and I also exchanged the graphics card. Right now I’m using a Geforce GTX 560 Ti which is much quieter than the Geforce GTX 460 and offers much more power. A lot of frame rates are locked at the magic 60 mark. I’m not sure if I’m going to sell the old card our if I just put it in my fourth PC that is just standing around without any particular function.

Besides all this, well, I was off to Berlin last weekend without anything exciting to mention. It was just my father birthday that needed some celebration so I went there and celebrated. I was not going out or anything like that. I feel like I could need a night of partying again with all its benefits. Maybe somewhere in the future.

Thor’s hammer training

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Here’s the thing, you wake up pretty early and you’re completely prepared to do your job at the gym, but the gym is not prepared to do its job. This is what happened. I woke up at 04:00am, like I do it every time. I brushed my teeth, push my hair a little from the left and to the right and hit the road with my bike. I got to the gym and was already wondering what all these trucks were doing there. Right after entering the building I saw that the locker rooms are getting refurbished. Actually, it’s more a decoration because all the lockers are getting exchanged by some fancy new ones with nice wooden fronts.

Anyhow, I wasn’t able to find the improvised locker room within thirty seconds and everything was pretty messed up so I decided to just leave and continue my training next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to shoot some hoops within next couple of days with some friends of mine. I’m really bad when it comes to aiming, but I’m a wall when it comes to defense. Whatever the case, it’s fun.

As you may remember, I was off to the cinema the day before watching ‘Thor’. Even though the movie was in 3D I wasn’t getting that much into it and did not affect me either even though I was a big fan of the ‘Thor’ comic books. The story itself was nothing more like, Thor made his father angry. Thor got banned from his world. Loki was jealous and betrayed Thor. Loki brought the enemy ice giants to Asgaard. Loki wanted to get rid of Thor. Thor returned with the help of his friends. Thor defeated Loki and saved the Yggdrasil. It sounds complex by just skimming these words, but the movie was pretty lame in a story matter. I also missed a little more action and the use of 3D was not worth it. Here and there a little depth of field and that was it.

A little exception

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Today’s the first day of my recently started training period where I decided to stay in bed instead of hitting the to road to the gym. Actually, I was really tired and additionally will I meet up with a couple of friends this very evening to watch a movie at the cinema. It would be a waste of money getting there and just falling asleep only because I forced myself to get up too early.

I want to keep a little comfort for myself and I don’t want to get to a point where I start hating sports just because I can’t find time for anything else. Or I’m too exhausting to do anything else. I’m glad to be a person who’s totally fine with six hours of sleep per day (or night) and I don’t want to bend it to the limits too much. There’s still my gaming hobby. Photography plays a big role, too. And of course do I want to meet up with some friends even during the week. Not to forget my girl also deserves a lot of time.

Well, anyhow, I just wanted to mention that this is not going to be the end of the road and I’ll stick to my sports plan, but you sometimes have to make some exceptions. I assure you that you’ll find me in the gym tomorrow morning training my ass off once again.

The mystical cat report

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Hello out there, it’s been a while since my last update on what’s going so far. First of all, fitness is still existing and starts kicking ass again. I cannot deny that I had some serious difficulty to get back on the track, but with this week, everything seems to be on a satisfying level. My stamina feels like it was the day I let the whole fitness thing fade away, for say, it’s still on a high level. For my circumstances. Actually, I still have like 15kg of weight too much on my bones, but like I said, I’m not facing any serious trouble during training. I’m running solid 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by 30-40 minutes on the cross-trainer.

I decided to take no prisoners and I also increased the weight on many exercise machines. I’m doing very well with this and I’m making a lot of progress in this particular area of my training. Besides losing weight is gaining muscles one of my main goals for now. I know, it sounds weird, losing weight and gaining muscle mass on the other side but according to the serious amount of overweight at the moment a goal that can be reached. Like losing at least 15kg of fat and getting like 5-6kg of muscle mass.

What else happened? Well, I got a little bit more into photo editing and developing of RAW pictures. I’m not making great progress but it finally is some progress to be found. I also joined a couple of new groups on deviant Art to get a little bit more feedback on my works. And of course a few eyes more watching my stuff. I’m also looking for a new camera, not for now but for the end of this year. I’m thinking about buying a Canon 7D, this camera got all the features I want and is not that expensive as the Canon 5D MarkII. At least, it would be a total waste of money according to the fact that photography is just a hobby mine. It’s like 1,500 bucks that ring on the bill, but I’m sure it’s totally worth it.

Gaming, another passion of mine. If the days has like 36 hours I would definitely play some games, but currently I don’t really have time to play some more story based games. I play a lot of “Bad Company 2” these days, for like one hour a day. There are still some games in queue that I need to play. There are plenty of games, as there are “Medal of Honor”, it can’t be more worth than “Homefront”. The “Dead Space” games, I started “Dead Space 1” several times, but never managed to finish or do any larger progress. Several LEGO games are waiting and so on. Most importantly, “Portal 2” is hopefully in my mailbox these days and I’ll definitely play this game as soon as possible.

Last game I played through was “Homefront” which was a kind of disappointing. Weird performance issues. Weird story and pace of the game. I can’t say that I didn’t like it, but, well, I don’t know. They whole concept was promising but the presentation was a big and epic fail on the whole line. I instantly switched back to my beloved “Borderlands” after finishing the four hour campaign. I barely had any interest in the multi player mode.

Passions regained

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This is the announcement, that I’m back on track. Well, actually, it’s just an announcement that I’m finally back to a fixed, regular schedule for my gym sessions. It’s three days a week in the morning and one day in the afternoon. I’m totally happy and completely satisfied with this new schedule, it doesn’t burn me out too much, leaves enough room to rest and I don’t have the feeling to lose to much free time. Apparently, I’ve to go to bed pretty early because the alarm clock rings at 4:00am but like I said, it’s easy to handle when you have only three days per week to get up that early. I’m also making good progress when it comes to dexterity and pure muscle strength. The dexterity is good so far and much, much better as it was in times where I was a smoker, even with my massive overweight. Even though I’m at the beginning of training my strength is as good as it was the time I let the training fade away. I was also able to increase weight on some stations in the gym. Right now, I’m focussing on chest and neck. I guess it’s pretty obvious and I don’t have to mention it explicitely that I always train belly and back. Nothing’s more important than a well trained centre. Within the next couple of weeks I will also start a protein diet to get a little boost to muscle growth and lose some fat.

Pike's place

Secondly, I’m once again a little bit more into photography. During my trip to London, I haven’t even used a whole SD card for my pics. Compared to previous trips it’s an improvement, because I used like two or three cards within one or two days. A lot of crappy pictures came up these days. Just let us say I reached a border where quality took over quantity. Whatever the case, I personally see me making progress in photography and my picture are getting better. There are still some issues with incorrect focusing and a weird usage of depth of field, but this okay for the moment. I do no longer have these completely wrong exposures. It’s natural to get a couple of pics that too bright or too dark, but you don’t have to forget that some pics are snapshot style and I’m not always rethink light and stuff before a shoot the pic. This happens from time to time.

My besty gifted me on X-mas with a nice book about Lightroom and Photoshop. I’m currently working myself through the Lightroom book and it’s giving me a blast in knowledge about digital photo development. Until a short time ago, I was using Lightroom for collecting and organizing my picture only. The whole editing always happened in Photoshop and it happened a couple of times where the final product was worse than the original picture. Lightroom is fun and it’s so awe-inspiring to see how my pictures can still develop, even those that I already abandoned.

Finally, shame on me, I still owe you an article about XBMC and a couple of nice add-ons I don’t wanna miss anymore. It’s coming. Just be patient.

Whatever the case

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To be honest, nothing special was actually happening during the last days and this post is only to proof that I’m still alive. Well, some things did happen apparently. One thing that’s really important, my bike is finally fixed and repaired. I personally changed the tires and the rest was done in a repair shop. Brakes are working fine again, the gears can be shifted again and the suspension is now a little harder. I already did a couple of trips in and around my hometown. I’m a big fan of these trips at dusk, driving through the parks, along the river and nothing but windy noises in my ears and a couple of jogging people running by. This much more enjoyment than the gym, which I’m gonna visit again this week. At least two times is the plan. Actually, thinking of the gym brings a lot of boredom into my mind. But according to the digits popping up on the scale, I guess, well, it’s time to take this path again.

I’ve done the complete opposite of being a sports dude, I was even more a couch potatoe enjoying lots and lots of movie I always wanted to see and that are stored on my media centre for such a long time. Besides this I was involved in a few BBQs that were “celebrated” by some friends of mine. The first rays of the sun after a long cold winter are always an undisputed sign to do a BBQ. ALWAYS!

BBQ

Even though it’s nearly two weeks ago, I was off to London over a stretched weekend. All in all, it was a fine trip, if I’d brought the correct pair of shoes with me. I finally had to find out that both pairs that I brought along are not “sightseeing compatible”

You can also say, they were simply too small at this particular point. After giving them the stress test of walking London for like four days, they DO fit. Another pr0blem was, I’m actually having 20kg overweight which does not bring up any comfort when it comes to walk around the whole day and explore a metropolis like London in Chucks All Stars that are like new and half a size too small. Nowadays, they fit perfectly and finally made an agreement with my feet. I guess, I’ll revisit this city when my weight is on a healthier level and I also got the correct pair of shoes with me.

Talking about couch potatoe and overweight, I already made every pre-order for all the interesting games coming up this first half of the year. I recently finished “Bulletstorm”, which was also ‘Game of the week’ (Link) here in this blog. I also started playing “Amnesia” which scared me to death and gave me the creeps. This game is really scary. It’s meant to be scary, it’s not that the game quality is scary, but give it a try on your own. Next game in queue is “Homefront”, but I actually do not expect that much of it. And, most importantly, “Portal 2” is coming out next week and, hell, I’m so excited about this game. The predecessor was so brilliant, but unfortunately way too short, and I’ve got high expectations for “Portal 2”

That’s it for the moment, some stuff about photography and of course the HTPC is coming up within the next seven days and I guess I’ll also be able to do another “Game of the week”.

It’s floating away

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There’s this strange, weird phenomenon I’ve recently discovered in my life. Everytime I start something with a special goal in a creative matter, it’s no longer coming to an end. When I was younger, like years ago, I finished so many art projects like solo album (which was more a compilation of some tunes of mine). I did some nice stuff with the band I once had and so on. Nowadays everything gets a start and right after beginning the whole thing is stuck or abandoned. I was working on my second solo album and it didn’t make any progress. I wanted to dig a little deeper into the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop workflow to improve my exposure with these tools. I wanted to do much more photography and it stucked as well. I feel more and more as if time is slipping away. Actually, time is always floating away and barely able to grab, but why do I have this immense lack of time? Probably because I’m working too much. Work is wasting like eight and a half hour a day and it feels like an eternity or two till it’s over, so one reason for this time lack seems to be my daily work. For the love of God, I can’t quit because I need the financial income. Damn it.

time

Sleep might be a reason but I cut down the time for daily sleep to something around five to six hours, which has to be enough. Sleep is for the weak, never forget that. One thing that was sucking time like a blood-thirsty vampire during the last month was the need for technical maintenance on my PCs. Changes to another operating system. Service pack crashes. Raid crashes. Hardware exchanges. All this cost a lot of time and most the invested time was wasted, because it mostly led to another maintenance or repair. Right now, I finishing working on my PCs so that I can go by and work with them instead of on them. PC number four is still in queue, but it’ll stay there for a while because I simply don’t have the delight to build up another machine that wastes time.

I actually forgot what I wanted to say in this particular post, because I’m pretty tired and exhausted today and today’s gym session will be horrible I guess. Anyhow, I’ll continue unveiling the time killers in my life and hopefully get back to more creativity or other kind of ways to spent my rare free time.

Slightly getting back to basics

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There’s something wrong in the state of Denmark… not that I know, but I just wanted to start the post with a sentence that does not start with “I was blabla…”

Actually, I’m a little pissed by myself because I simply don’t feel like I should. No, I’m sick in any kinda way, but it’s my whole condition that bothers me. I’ve got a hell too much weight hanging on my bones, I’m once again unsatisfied with my job and I haven’t found the time to actually follow up some of my hobbies. But first things first. The whole weight thing is going to change, definately. I just ordered new tires and flexible tubes for my bicycle to get mobile again, because I’m so nerved of walking. Getting me back on the road also means that I personally will get a little bit more “sportish”. I just love to cruise around with my bike around the city without any specific destination. Most importantly, I’m going to grab my photo camera to catch some fine moments while being on the road. I miss shooting with my and even though I don’t have the real talent to be a great photographer I’ll keep on doing this, because this is giving the relaxation I actually need in my daily life.

Over the last couple of days and weeks I had to struggle with lots of system and hardware crashes at home (that’s the curse of having so many PCs) that I had to fix that I had a massive lack of free time actually. First it was my gaming system that died while upgrading to Windows 7 SP1. I fixed this issue to about 90 per cent. After having solved this particular problem, the raid system in my HTPC started having issues as well and one hard drive wasn’t running as stable as I would like it to be. I replaced the hard drives, cloned the whole system, rescued the data and installed a fresh, new system which isn’t finished yet already. I’m not in a hurry with that one and I’m not going to stress me with that one. As long as the XBMC is running, everything is fine.

Bicyclet

There’s a trip to London coming up within the next two weeks and right after that I’ll restart doing early sessions at the gym again. I’m stressed and nerved and bothered with the packed gym right after work and I’m sure to gain much more when I’ll go to gym pretty early. I’ll also change my nutrition as well and get back to the healthy way of life. To get the facts straight, I’m going back the roots of my personal straight edge project. It’s clear for me, that I don’t want to live the way how I live at the moment because it’s simply not good for me. I’m doing fine when it comes to points like stamina but I completely fail meanwhile due to things like pure strength.

Anyhow, it’s curious to see how everything goes down the drain when my bike’s broke. It’s always the same, the tires burst and I gain pounds and pounds and pounds. There seems to be some kind of an invisible band between me and my bike. Like it was between Elliot and E.T. in the movie of the same title. If my bike’s doing well, I’m doing well. If my bike’s getting sick, I’m doing sick.

Till my short vacation I’ll keep my gym schedule as it is now and I’ll do some slight changes to my nutrition. The tough break is going to be right after the vacation which leads me back to no sweets and candy. I’ll also reduce the amount of coffee per day, which is now at an average of four to five huge cups a day. I’ll also reduce the consumption of Diet Coke for one simple reason, Diet Coke causes hunger and hunger finally leads me to eating and eating causes weight. Well, there are tons of things that will change all with this one particular goal to get back to a healthier nutrition, but one the other hand I’m not going to live like monk in a monastery. I still want to get a little bit of fun out of life.

PS: If you want to ask about the pic in this post, well, I just thought “Sex Sells”