Posted 4:40 PM by Tim
No updates for nearly a week. Well, I think I said that I was going to be busy. At least I hope I've said something to that effect. If I didn't, well, I was busy this week.

I've been taking 2 different programming courses. I let one of them get behind. The one that I take at my own pace, of course. I let myself get stuck behind chapters 4, 5 and 6, and a final project. I thought I'd take the week to put all of the things together for it. About 10 applications all told. Some of them were pretty small upgrades of existing work, but some of them were serious stuff. New things that I hadn't already learned. I got through it though. That left me with just the project for the other class. I should be able to get that done pretty quick, if I can just sit at a system long enough to actually do it.

I've been giving the novel a little more thinking again. I got an email from a friend of my mother's who is also a writer (hmm, did I just call myself a writer?). She's had a copy of my manuscript since February. Its only taken her 5 months to read it. Hmm. I didn't think I wrote that much. Anyhow, she likes it. Thinks I should be trying to get it published. Of course, I think that the novel is "good, but not great." I don't think it'll publish as it stands now. I'll need to edit it to make it great.

So. I've had the novel done since December. Have I got it edited? Nope. Maybe I really did write more than I thought? No, that's not it. I'm just lazy. Editing the novel runs at about the rate of 1 page per day. That's spending at least an hour or so on just that page. And that doesn't include the retype. I'm just ssssllllooooowwwww. If I could pick up the pace, then I might just be able to get the novel finished.

Oh yeah, my mom's friend is the first person (other than me) to actually finish the novel. Nobody else has managed to get through it. Not really encouraging. I have been looking at the options though. Not sure if the publishing idea is serious yet.

Posted 12:30 PM by Tim
I've been missing music lately. That is, I've been missing the feeling you get when you make music. Like when you play an instrument. I used to play music just about every day. Back in high school, I played an instrument every weekday - and then promptly forgot to practice on the weekends.

At one point, I had thought about a career in music. Pick an instrument or five and learn them well. Practice all the time. Join a band, or symphony, or quartet or something. But I didn't follow that path. Science interested me more than music. In high school, I took advantage of band. I learned Tenor Saxophone. A good instrument, even if the Alto gets much more show in jazz bands. Of course, once you learn one saxophone, you've got them all, because the fingerings are all the same. I picked up clarinet, and then Bassoon. A little guitar, 'cause my dad had one at home. Some string Bass. And a little electric bass. I even tried flute, which I didn't totally suck at.

After high school, I knew most of the woodwind instruments to some degree. I then joined a brass band and picked up things like E-flat Horn, and Tuba. I tried trumpet and coronet, which I've always liked the sound of, but never been very good at managing to play consistently. I've shied away from Trombone, becuase it seemed like such a difficult instrument to master. Always loved the sound though.

On the side of everything, I've picked up a little bit of recorder (everyone does, don't they?), tin whistle, and percussion. I've always liked drums, but I have to get into a totally different mindset to play them. All mechanical motions and no thinking. As soon as I start to think, I lose the rhythm. I could get by with a single drum (maybe even 2), but the drum set always stumped me in its complexity. I used to do a little singing. I was told that I had a good singing voice. My singing range has considerably reduced since then. I used to float somewhere between a tenor and alto, and I think I've dropped mostly into the tenor range.... though I have no high notes at all without falsetto.

Anyhow, I've been missing music. The only instruments still around the house are my recorders (I have enough for me and both daughters to play), my tin whistle, and most of a flute (one of the parts was stolen - probably to replace a missing part in a school instrument). If I had my wished fulfilled, I would probably like to have a lot of musical instruments. A Saxophone, a Guitar and a Bassoon. The last one is a bit of a wish though. A good Bassoon would cost about $1000 USD. That's for a reasonable student instrument. Sure, there's plenty of music stores about. They have lots of instruments. But I have no money. Even if I did have some cash, I can't see me buying an instrument. Playing music is fine, but it gets a bit boring if you don't have anyone to play with. And I don't know anyone who plays.

Now, I must say that I've thought about trying to join a band here in the area. There's lots of them. And a lot of them need someone. Trouble is, I'm so out of practice that I'd never be accepted into one. Besides, what would I do in a band? I'm just not that connected to the music scene. It's all just pointless wishes and nostalgia.

Still. I miss making music.

Posted 10:31 AM by Tim
Woo! Blogger is starting to look all snazzy. I like the new look.

Anyway, been too long since I put anything up here. Time to write something.

Last weekend I saw Finding Nemo. Not a bad movie overall. The characters were good, and the animation was good. Of course, it's a PIXAR movie, so you've got to expect that they're going to do things well. I have very few complaints about the movie. In fact, nothing comes to mind right away. On the same theme, I can't think of anything that was done terribly great either. Nothing really spectacular about it. I did notice that a lot of the textures were very nicely done, but that's not something that's going to stand out to a casual observer.

I'm gonna discuss the plot of the movie now, so if you're interested in seeing it and not wanting to know what happens, you can skip the rest of today.

The movie's plot is pretty straightforward. Husband and wife fish have a lot of little fish eggs. The wife fish and eggs get eaten. All but one egg, which turns out to be Nemo. Nemo's dad is overprotective of him and this leads to Nemo eventually smimming out to a boat on the ocean. Of course, Nemo's got a bad fin, so he's not a very good smimmer. I'm not sure what the whole "bad fin" thing is supposed to be exactly, but its used in the story a few times. Anyway, Nemo gets taken by some divers and put in a fish tank with some other fish. They hatch a plot to escape the tank, which involves Nemo, because he's small enough to get to the tank filter. In the meantime, Nemo's dad meets up with another fish, Dory, who happens to have short term memory loss.

The short term memory loss thing is cute for a while, but does start to get annoying over time. Anyway, Dory and the dad fish spend most of the movie trying to get to Sydney, Australia. You'd think that it really wouldn't be that far, given that the divers were on a fairly small boat, but that'd make the movie too short.

I'm tired of going over the rest of the plot of the movie. To sum up, the dad fish finally realizes that he's way too overprotective. The little boy fish doesn't learn anything (other than that his dad loves him, which he knows already) and Dory forgets everything that happened. They end up back at the place they started from and everything is just great.

Anyway, like I said, it was a good movie. Just not a spectacular movie.

Posted 8:04 AM by Tim
Alright. This week is almost over. We're heading up to the inlaws this weekend. I'll be taking the laptop with me, because I really need to get some programming done.

Life has been a lot of the same old, same old. I get up, get the girls to school, do some work, get the girls for lunch, do some work, get the girls at the end of the day. Figure out what to make for supper. Make it. Eat. Play Halo against Wayne and Bren on the X-Box. Bed. Not a whole lot of changes there. Very routine.

Of course, in some ways routine is good for me. I don't have to keep thinking about what I need to do. I don't have to come up with new things all the time. I just do what comes next.

I've got a bit more to post today, but its more of a storylines thing, so I'll post it there.

Posted 4:10 PM by Tim
I'm not sure that anyone who doesn't use blogger would care, but they're making some serious changes to the interface. It looks good, and it at least seems to work like it's supposed to.

Posted 2:25 PM by Tim
Exercise. That's the word for today. I've been thinking about it - and my shape recently. I'm a firm believer in the adage "I don't need to get into shape, I have one already. Pear." Yeah. That's me. A little rounder about the middle than I'd really like.

I've thought of ways to combat this before. I've been logical about it too. I've got a lot of courses in biology, and I know that I'm not going to get into shape with magic machines or chemicals (BTW, yes, both of these are options, and, under the right conditions (starvation, pre-disposition, disease), you will lose weight).

The last time that I checked, I weighed just a little over 200 pounds (10 pounds is "a little" isn't it? It's 5% - that's not that much really). My ideal weight (not scientifically determined) is 180. I would love to be 180 again. Of course, I'd be happy weighing 220 if I knew that the extra weight was muscle. So, I've been trying to think. How can I lose 30 pounds?

Let's look at it rationally. 30 pounds is only about 15% of my body mass. Depending on you weight, 15% might be dangerous. I have my doubts for someone my weight. I've got obvious extra weight. Of course, losing it all at once is going to be impossible (and if it were possible, it'd be dangerous). So, there's no reason that I can't lose the weight over time.

Dieting is one idea. I've never been much of a fan of diet fads. I don't think that I want to take a pill, or eat only starches, or wrap myself in cellophane at night (yep, this is actually a dieting method). Anything that radically changes my diet plan (or is silly) isn't going to fit into my lifestyle. I've mentioned the "stop eating so damn much" diet. Which is probably the best plan for me again. See, I've been home all day, so I get to snacking. Of course, I'm basically skipping meals until supper, so it sort of balances out. Empty calories in, and lowered protein. It'd be good for me to swap that over to reasonable meals, no snacks and a nice balanced diet. Get some vegetables back into me again.

Then there's water. If you weren't aware, most of the diets that give you super quick weight loss are just dehydration diets. You drink nothing and try to get yourself to sweat a lot. You'll lose weight quick. Sometimes as much as 5 or 6 pounds in a day (or less time). Don't do it. Bad for the system, and as soon as you drink something you'll swell up and look all bloated. Anyhow, there's something to be said for drinking more water in a day. We're supposed to get 8 glasses of water a day. That's 2 liters. It's better to drink more than that on a hot day. Of course, overdoing anything is a bad deal. I've got to try to drink a little more water and less juices and things. Milk too. In the mornings.

So, I'm eating better (not necessarily less) and drinking more water. Good things. What else.

Exercise. Back to where we started. I've had the craziest notion about running. Like I should be doing it. Bad idea. See, I hate to run. It makes my chest pound, my head spin and my shins hurt for a whole day after. Running just isn't a possibility. There's swimming, but it looks like the pool won't be set up around here for a while. That's not going to cut it. There's biking, which I can do. I've got to get my bike fixed up and I'm all set. That's the trouble there, I'm still too lazy. So, I've been thinking about trying to get a little more exercise into my daily life again. A daily walk (I can walk anywhere - but I can't run there.) is a good start. I've been thinking about taking a walk down to the grocery store. Trouble is, I always want to buy something when I get there. Maybe I'll have to try walking the other way.

We've got stairs in the house (and on the route to school), so I should be taking those more often - and probably faster.

There's always home exercises. Free weights, stretching, yoga, tai-chi and all that. I find I never stretch enough, never warm up enough and always end up hurting myself with weights (or get frustrated trying to follow an exercise video). Maybe I'm taking it too seriously?

Maybe I should be looking at sports that involve some amount of activity. For me, I find that the best sports are the ones that allow me to hit something. Helps with the aggression. Fencing, Karate and such I've tried. I'd be happy to do them again, but we're low on cash.

Baseball is an idea, but it involves throwing and catching. Two things that I am absolutely terrible at. I can improve over time, but I'd rather do that as a park activity than a sport. There's soccer, which I've always liked - but there's probably too much running. Badminton, volleyball and tennis I've liked too. See, I get to hit things in each of those sports. You really need a second person for them though, and that's not always possible. If I get a second person, I'll see if I can get them to join me in a game or two :)

So, if I'm going to exercise, it looks like walking (maybe some running over time), biking and free weights are going to be it. I think that's probably a pretty good balance, but I'm missing an aerobic activity (unless I'm going to race around on the bike). The walking and biking can both be more endurance activities, while the weights can be part of strength training (a few push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups will help here). Toss on some stretching and I've got myself a workout that I can handle. I just have to phase in a little each day.

So, I've got a goal (several goals really), and I think that I can reach it. Sounds like a plan to me.

Posted 8:25 AM by Tim
Well, long time no post. There just hasn't been much to say. My youngest had her birthday this week. She's 5 now.

Our cash situation is still unstable. We're losing money faster than we can make it. I've complained enough about that.

Wayne's been letting me borrow the X-Box while he's at work. I've been playing some Morrowwind on it. It's not bad once you get used to the controls. I look at it as a very free form role-playing game. Basically, you figure out something to do for yourself, and work out how to solve things. A little exploration, a little mystery solving, and doing the odd job here and there. As for me, I'm a thief and a spy and I'm trying to become an assassin. Maybe if I kill enough people?