Last night, Taylor and I went to The Parish to see AWOLNATION.
Opening act was Zeale, and as usual I was skeptical because I didn't know who he/they were. Well, that's why you never assume. It was a rapper + DJ group, and they were pretty damn good. He had a longer set than I was expecting, too, which was impressive. I'm by no means a rap expert, but he reminded me of Lupe Fiasco. His lyrics were fresh, and he touched on many subjects aside from the typical crap you hear on radio. He closed with a "freestyle" rap, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he prepared most of it. Maybe not, though, in retrospect.
After Zeale, AWOLNATION came out and dropped a couple good songs on us. Then, believe it or not, the drummer broke his bass drum head. I wouldn't have expected the drummer to have another one just lying around, and he didn't. The highlight of the show was the intermission that followed.
While the band briefly dismissed while they figured out how to address the bass drum (they later acquired a whole new bass drum from somewhere, as a solution), they later came back out but with Zeale on the mic. What followed was pure awesomeness: the band started jamming a little funk groove, and Zeale just started freestyling while we waited. It was very good, too. Unfortunately I can't describe the awesome, but I'm sure somebody was recording some of it. It's bound to be on YouTube. They just jammed for 7 or 8 minutes, with Zeale freestyling the entire time. He definitely has talent, as I would have run out of words after the second or third line.
Once they found a new bass drum, the show continued to rock. They had a lot of energy and it all sounded great. That was the most bang for the buck concert I've been to in a while; tickets were only $8 a pop. Here are some samples of Zeale, and AWOLNATION, respectively:
Zeale - Monzter Hospital
AWOLNATION - Sail
Friday, December 3, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
the best stovetop ever
I want this stove top! It's such an ingenious idea. How has no one thought of this, yet? Unfortunately, it's just a concept and it doesn't actually exist. But when it does...
Monday, November 29, 2010
quarter-centennial
I am now 25 years old... yeesh.
What has happened in the last few days? Well, I had work Wednesday but I left just before lunch because I was tired of being there. Instead of staying, I took a half-day vacation to precede our holiday break. It turned out to be a good choice, as the extra half day felt like a whole day and made my break feel much longer.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I drove to my cousin's new house in San Antonio to spend time with the family. His new house is nice, and I had a good time there. We ate a lot of food, and cake in celebration of my birthday. Football did not go well, however, as the Cowboys and Longhorns both lost stupid games.
Friday was my birthday, and it was pretty eventful. We jammed for a couple hours earlier in the afternoon, and then people started coming over for our "friends" version of Thanksgiving (since we were all busy with family on Thursday). We played some touch football outside for maybe 30 minutes worth, but I still had a good hour in me. I really like playing football. Unfortunately, other people didn't share my enthusiasm, so we went back inside. The food was all delicious, with people bringing various things, and the remainder of the night was filled with games, chatting, and drinking.
On Saturday, Taylor came back so we spent most of the day hanging out. We watched Social Network and caught up on our various TV shows. It was a nice, relaxing day.
I was in the mood to be out and about Sunday, so we went to Fry's, Academy, and the mall. I didn't end up getting anything from Fry's, but I found some "cheap" 30lb adjustable dumbbells at Academy, so I bought two ($50 each). $100 might sound expensive for two dumbbells, but it's actually a decent deal. They're adjustable, so that means that with a slider I can adjust each dumbbell from 5-30lbs in 2.5 lb increments. That means I don't take up a bunch of space with many different dumbbells. Furthermore, if you were to buy individual dumbbells, they cost on average about $1/lb. That means if I wanted to buy a pair of 15's, 20's, 25's, and 30's, that would cost 15+15+20+20+25+25+30+30 = 180 dollars. So I'm saving money and space! They are far from great quality, but they're good enough quality to get the job done. Similar dumbbells are on sale on Amazon for $150-300!
This dumbbell purchase is obviously for P90X. I don't remember if I mentioned before, but the dumbbells and weights I pulled from Travis's storage unit aren't going to get the job done. They're adjustable, but in the manual sense. You have to unscrew the clamps on each side, pull the plates, put new plates on, then screw the clamps back on — for both. Adding 1 minute in between many 30 second routines in P90X is aggravating and slows you down considerably.
At any rate, P90X is still ongoing and I haven't given up yet. I am on day 10 today, and so far I have no desire to quit. It's hard, but not too hard. It's challenging, but not too challenging. Dare I say I'm already seeing some improvement? I've started week 2, and my results have increased from week 1. That's not all that surprising, however. When you first start something like this, I expect that you would see gains pretty easily at first, but the trick is to keep improving without plateauing. We'll see where I am on day 91 when I do my fit test again!
At any rate, P90X is still ongoing and I haven't given up yet. I am on day 10 today, and so far I have no desire to quit. It's hard, but not too hard. It's challenging, but not too challenging. Dare I say I'm already seeing some improvement? I've started week 2, and my results have increased from week 1. That's not all that surprising, however. When you first start something like this, I expect that you would see gains pretty easily at first, but the trick is to keep improving without plateauing. We'll see where I am on day 91 when I do my fit test again!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
almost there...
One more day of work and then I'm on Thanksgiving break! It's only 4 days, although I'm hoping it'll feel longer. Today is going to be a slow day at work, so I'm starting my day off with this blog entry...
Not much else has been going on, unfortunately. The past weekend I spent mostly with Taylor because she left Monday to go home for the week.
Justin, Andy, and I are working on a cover of "Tighten Up" by The Black Keys, and we're going to record a video of us playing it. I'm going to post it up here on my blog to share. Hopefully we'll have that done by the end of next weekend. Justin's on guitar, Andy's on bass (and our sound tech, and our audio engineer), and I'm going to attempt to rock the drums and vocals at the same time. You're in for a treat (sarcasm).
Otherwise, I've been continuing on with P90X. I've finished day 3 and 4.
Day 3 was Shoulders/Arms, and Ab Ripper. There were 12 shoulder/arm exercises, which you repeat in groups of 3 (1-2-3, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 4-5-6, etc). I need to get actual dumbbells for these. I have Travis's weights, which are the weight plates that you can slide on and off the dumbbell to adjust the weight you need. However, when moving quickly with P90X, it becomes really hard to slide them on and off in a timely manner. Instead I had to find a weight that worked more or less for every exercise, and just kept the dumbbells at that.
Day 4 was Yoga X. Man, that was different. I had never done any yoga before, and the P90X version was pretty intense for a yoga workout (at least I'd assume). The first 45 minutes you're doing a lot of twisting and lunge positions (burns your legs a lot), then you do about 20-25 mins of balancing positions, another 20-25 mins of floor work, then end with 15-20 mins of stretching positions and ab work. All in all, it's about 90 minutes long, but I had to skip the last 8 mins and go straight to the cool down because I was getting really hungry and fatigued.
Here are some of the crazier positions I attempted (some semi-successfully, some not so much):
Not much else has been going on, unfortunately. The past weekend I spent mostly with Taylor because she left Monday to go home for the week.
Justin, Andy, and I are working on a cover of "Tighten Up" by The Black Keys, and we're going to record a video of us playing it. I'm going to post it up here on my blog to share. Hopefully we'll have that done by the end of next weekend. Justin's on guitar, Andy's on bass (and our sound tech, and our audio engineer), and I'm going to attempt to rock the drums and vocals at the same time. You're in for a treat (sarcasm).
Otherwise, I've been continuing on with P90X. I've finished day 3 and 4.
Day 3 was Shoulders/Arms, and Ab Ripper. There were 12 shoulder/arm exercises, which you repeat in groups of 3 (1-2-3, 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 4-5-6, etc). I need to get actual dumbbells for these. I have Travis's weights, which are the weight plates that you can slide on and off the dumbbell to adjust the weight you need. However, when moving quickly with P90X, it becomes really hard to slide them on and off in a timely manner. Instead I had to find a weight that worked more or less for every exercise, and just kept the dumbbells at that.
Day 4 was Yoga X. Man, that was different. I had never done any yoga before, and the P90X version was pretty intense for a yoga workout (at least I'd assume). The first 45 minutes you're doing a lot of twisting and lunge positions (burns your legs a lot), then you do about 20-25 mins of balancing positions, another 20-25 mins of floor work, then end with 15-20 mins of stretching positions and ab work. All in all, it's about 90 minutes long, but I had to skip the last 8 mins and go straight to the cool down because I was getting really hungry and fatigued.
Here are some of the crazier positions I attempted (some semi-successfully, some not so much):
Twisting Half Moon
Right-angle pose + grab
Crane (balancing position)
You're holding this position for 30 seconds... yeah right
Overall, I actually enjoyed it. It was challenging and I can tell that it will help my balance and flexibility. It's pretty repetitive in the beginning but they're also kind of hard so it's good to get a few chances at things.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
p90x day 2
Plyometrics? Piece of cake!
Okay, not really, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm too tired to go into details though, but it was a lot of jumping and squatting exercises, which burn. At the same time, your heart rate is high most of the time, too, so you're working up a good sweat.
The whole thing was about 58 mins including 5 mins of warmup and 5 mins of cooldown. I did pretty much all of the exercises, but I skipped the ones that involved doing 180 degree jumps because they were making me dizzy. I opted instead to take 30 second breaks or continued to run in place during those 4-ish exercises. There were also a few "bonus" exercises at the end which I skipped, but I think I'll have the stamina to do those next time. Excluding the bonus exercises, there are 20 exercises that you repeat in sets of 4. For instance, you would do exercise 1-4, then repeat 1-4, then continue doing 5-8, repeat those, etc.
Phew.
88 days to go...
Okay, not really, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm too tired to go into details though, but it was a lot of jumping and squatting exercises, which burn. At the same time, your heart rate is high most of the time, too, so you're working up a good sweat.
The whole thing was about 58 mins including 5 mins of warmup and 5 mins of cooldown. I did pretty much all of the exercises, but I skipped the ones that involved doing 180 degree jumps because they were making me dizzy. I opted instead to take 30 second breaks or continued to run in place during those 4-ish exercises. There were also a few "bonus" exercises at the end which I skipped, but I think I'll have the stamina to do those next time. Excluding the bonus exercises, there are 20 exercises that you repeat in sets of 4. For instance, you would do exercise 1-4, then repeat 1-4, then continue doing 5-8, repeat those, etc.
Phew.
88 days to go...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
p90x fitness test + day 1
Even the fitness test was rough! Although, the fact I had a huge bowl of pasta only 30 mins prior probably didn't help. I'm really stupid sometimes.
Before day 1, here are my results:
Resting heart rate: 72
Pull-ups: 5
Vertical leap: 23"
Push-ups: 35
Toe Touch: -2.5" (I'm 2.5" away from touching my toes)
Wall Squat: 1' 27"
Bicep curls: 14
Ab test: 36 in-outs
Heart rate test (1.5 mins of jumping jacks, then 30 seconds of jumping jacks as fast as you can):
Immediately after: 142
1 min after: 126
2 mins after: 112
3 mins after: 106
4 mins after: 106
And Day 1 begins... Chest and Back.
Chest and back is structured as 12 exercises that you repeat in two rounds, over about 50 minutes excluding warm-ups. I got through the first round, and I was noticeably having to push myself through the second round. I got through almost all of it, having to bail on the last 3 exercises because I was physically fatigued and thought if I pushed myself any harder I might risk throwing up. Whoopee!
It was rough, but I did better than I thought I would. 21 out of 24 exercises on the first day! I used a stool to assist my pull-ups, which allowed me to do more and push myself better (the stool was essentially spotting me). I need to increase the weight on the dumbbells though, but I have to run by Travis's storage unit to pick up more of the plates.
My weakness is cardio - once my heart rate gets up I don't feel very good. On strength training days, such as today, you do a 15 min "Ab Ribber X" workout as well. I had to take quite a few breathers and it was truly ripping up my abs, but I didn't feel as gross as I did for chest and back. Maybe because my endorphins kicked in, or maybe because my heart rate wasn't up as high. Who knows. Despite it being ridiculous, I enjoyed the ab exercises.
Day 2, tomorrow, will be Plyometrics, and I heard this is one of the hardest, most vomit-inducing ones because it's a lot of high-impact movements. The key though is to push yourself hard, but not too hard. I expect that at some point through these 90 days, I will be very close to puking. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, although I prefer not to do it. It just shows that I'm truly pushing myself hard and I'll hopefully see the rewards by the end.
I don't foresee updating you guys every day for all 90 days, but I'll probably write up everytime I do a specific routine for the first time. I'll also periodically update you on how things are going, and if I'm continuing onward or giving up.
89 days to go!
Before day 1, here are my results:
Resting heart rate: 72
Pull-ups: 5
Vertical leap: 23"
Push-ups: 35
Toe Touch: -2.5" (I'm 2.5" away from touching my toes)
Wall Squat: 1' 27"
Bicep curls: 14
Ab test: 36 in-outs
Heart rate test (1.5 mins of jumping jacks, then 30 seconds of jumping jacks as fast as you can):
Immediately after: 142
1 min after: 126
2 mins after: 112
3 mins after: 106
4 mins after: 106
And Day 1 begins... Chest and Back.
Chest and back is structured as 12 exercises that you repeat in two rounds, over about 50 minutes excluding warm-ups. I got through the first round, and I was noticeably having to push myself through the second round. I got through almost all of it, having to bail on the last 3 exercises because I was physically fatigued and thought if I pushed myself any harder I might risk throwing up. Whoopee!
It was rough, but I did better than I thought I would. 21 out of 24 exercises on the first day! I used a stool to assist my pull-ups, which allowed me to do more and push myself better (the stool was essentially spotting me). I need to increase the weight on the dumbbells though, but I have to run by Travis's storage unit to pick up more of the plates.
My weakness is cardio - once my heart rate gets up I don't feel very good. On strength training days, such as today, you do a 15 min "Ab Ribber X" workout as well. I had to take quite a few breathers and it was truly ripping up my abs, but I didn't feel as gross as I did for chest and back. Maybe because my endorphins kicked in, or maybe because my heart rate wasn't up as high. Who knows. Despite it being ridiculous, I enjoyed the ab exercises.
Day 2, tomorrow, will be Plyometrics, and I heard this is one of the hardest, most vomit-inducing ones because it's a lot of high-impact movements. The key though is to push yourself hard, but not too hard. I expect that at some point through these 90 days, I will be very close to puking. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, although I prefer not to do it. It just shows that I'm truly pushing myself hard and I'll hopefully see the rewards by the end.
I don't foresee updating you guys every day for all 90 days, but I'll probably write up everytime I do a specific routine for the first time. I'll also periodically update you on how things are going, and if I'm continuing onward or giving up.
89 days to go!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
TSA and you
For those of you who check out my links to the left, you may have noticed a trend lately - the TSA. I am not a fan of the direction the TSA has taken since its inception in 2001. In fact, that's an interesting tidbit for those who have forgotten. The TSA has been around for less than 10 years. It was created as a division of Homeland Security after 9/11. What about before then? Private security companies were contracted for each airport, and I think that's how it needs to be once again.
First, let's take a look at what TSA has become: an overreaching, privacy-invading security theater for airports. Now, that's of course just my opinion, but I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I think every additional security step they have introduced has been simply reactionary, and they have little imagination and foresight to prevent future attacks. In fact, its creation was reactionary. We had the tragic 9/11 attacks, so we created the TSA because we thought it would help. We had the shoe bomber, so we started taking off our shoes. We had some liquid scare, so now we can't have more than 3oz of any liquid. Now we have this underwear bomber guy, so they escalated their roll-outs of the full-body scanners. At one point, however, have they actually prevented a major incident? None that I can recall, although I could be mistaken. All of those potential attacks went completely by the TSA. Imagine that.
Before 2001, I am fairly certain that we were targets of terrorists. In fact, to my recollection there have been extremists out there who have hated us since the mid-1900's when we screwed up that whole Israel-Palestine thing. Yet, we still somehow got by. Since 9/11, we (the U.S. Government) have been infused with fear, and that fear has driven us to points that I deem unacceptable.
The sad truth is that if a terrorist wants to wreak havoc, they will find a way to do it. Not to instill fear in anyone, but we could all be sitting at our jobs and a suicide bomber could just come in and blow us all up. There are some harsh realities out there, and one of them is that we could die at any moment. But it doesn't even have to be from a terrorist attack. It could be from a car accident, natural causes, or anything really. Think about the New York subways for a moment. There are thousands of people who ride the subways every day, and yet we don't have crazy security restrictions involved there. Metro buses? Trains? Ferries? What makes an airport and an airplane any different?
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have any security, nor should we just abolish the screening process altogether. However, I just don't think TSA helps and it's been pretty evident so far. Now they are starting to cross lines. Not only are they inefficient and ineffectual, but they continue to impose stricter security on us simply to appear as if they are actually doing something. At some point, we as a people have to push back. "Pushing back" is one of the foundations of this country (think the American Revolution), lest we forget. At what point do you draw the line for a "security theater"?
So what is the TSA doing these days? Full-body scans and invasive pat-downs. Those are your two options in most airports if you don't get the trusty metal detector. You have two choices for the body scan: x-ray and radio-wave/millimeter-wave. The former has some people questioning the legitimacy of their safety claims. These type of x-ray full-body scanners are still in their infancies as far as I'm concerned, and we really have no way of knowing long-term effects and potential cancer risks. The radio-wave or millimeter-wave scanners are apparently safer, according to the previously linked article. Is it actually dangerous? Hell if I know, but to me, it's not worth the risk. It might be worth the risk if I thought that we as a society actually valued the full body scanner. When we get radiation at a hospital via x-rays or treatment, we are doing it because the benefits outweigh the risks. I want to see if my bone is broken. I don't get shit from being scanned at the airport.
If you've read this far into my blog, then you have the patience to read this very interesting piece on how they handle security at the Israel airport. They profile people, have behavioral specialists everywhere, and only scan belongings as a backup. They don't look for weapons, they look for people. It's a method that actually makes sense, but I admit that at this point, setting up a system like that in the U.S. would be very costly. Then again, I wonder how much money we're draining into this piece of shit we call the TSA.
Also, did you guys know that airports can opt-out of the TSA and go back to privatized companies now? They only had to use the TSA for 2 years after its formation, apparently. A representative has already started contacting airports to let them know about this clause in the original bill.
Here are a few more views on the TSA:
-Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
-Has Airport Security Gone Too Far?
-TSA screenings: Government stupidity at work
I'm not one to really take up causes, but I think we're at a crucial point in our society. I know some people simply don't care and will do whatever, but that doesn't make what they're doing right. Apathy does not breed anything good. The TSA has no qualms to continue to violate our privacies for the sake of "security" and eventually it'll be on us to tell them we've had enough. They have no concept otherwise. In fact, they seem to have no problem harassing 3-year-olds.
I'm curious if you guys have an opinion on this. Am I just going overboard here? In the mean time, you can count on me to opt-out of the scanners. Yes, I'll have to deal with getting violated with a pair of hands, but at least I know for certain that there won't be any adverse side-effects.
First, let's take a look at what TSA has become: an overreaching, privacy-invading security theater for airports. Now, that's of course just my opinion, but I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I think every additional security step they have introduced has been simply reactionary, and they have little imagination and foresight to prevent future attacks. In fact, its creation was reactionary. We had the tragic 9/11 attacks, so we created the TSA because we thought it would help. We had the shoe bomber, so we started taking off our shoes. We had some liquid scare, so now we can't have more than 3oz of any liquid. Now we have this underwear bomber guy, so they escalated their roll-outs of the full-body scanners. At one point, however, have they actually prevented a major incident? None that I can recall, although I could be mistaken. All of those potential attacks went completely by the TSA. Imagine that.
Before 2001, I am fairly certain that we were targets of terrorists. In fact, to my recollection there have been extremists out there who have hated us since the mid-1900's when we screwed up that whole Israel-Palestine thing. Yet, we still somehow got by. Since 9/11, we (the U.S. Government) have been infused with fear, and that fear has driven us to points that I deem unacceptable.
The sad truth is that if a terrorist wants to wreak havoc, they will find a way to do it. Not to instill fear in anyone, but we could all be sitting at our jobs and a suicide bomber could just come in and blow us all up. There are some harsh realities out there, and one of them is that we could die at any moment. But it doesn't even have to be from a terrorist attack. It could be from a car accident, natural causes, or anything really. Think about the New York subways for a moment. There are thousands of people who ride the subways every day, and yet we don't have crazy security restrictions involved there. Metro buses? Trains? Ferries? What makes an airport and an airplane any different?
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have any security, nor should we just abolish the screening process altogether. However, I just don't think TSA helps and it's been pretty evident so far. Now they are starting to cross lines. Not only are they inefficient and ineffectual, but they continue to impose stricter security on us simply to appear as if they are actually doing something. At some point, we as a people have to push back. "Pushing back" is one of the foundations of this country (think the American Revolution), lest we forget. At what point do you draw the line for a "security theater"?
So what is the TSA doing these days? Full-body scans and invasive pat-downs. Those are your two options in most airports if you don't get the trusty metal detector. You have two choices for the body scan: x-ray and radio-wave/millimeter-wave. The former has some people questioning the legitimacy of their safety claims. These type of x-ray full-body scanners are still in their infancies as far as I'm concerned, and we really have no way of knowing long-term effects and potential cancer risks. The radio-wave or millimeter-wave scanners are apparently safer, according to the previously linked article. Is it actually dangerous? Hell if I know, but to me, it's not worth the risk. It might be worth the risk if I thought that we as a society actually valued the full body scanner. When we get radiation at a hospital via x-rays or treatment, we are doing it because the benefits outweigh the risks. I want to see if my bone is broken. I don't get shit from being scanned at the airport.
If you've read this far into my blog, then you have the patience to read this very interesting piece on how they handle security at the Israel airport. They profile people, have behavioral specialists everywhere, and only scan belongings as a backup. They don't look for weapons, they look for people. It's a method that actually makes sense, but I admit that at this point, setting up a system like that in the U.S. would be very costly. Then again, I wonder how much money we're draining into this piece of shit we call the TSA.
Also, did you guys know that airports can opt-out of the TSA and go back to privatized companies now? They only had to use the TSA for 2 years after its formation, apparently. A representative has already started contacting airports to let them know about this clause in the original bill.
Here are a few more views on the TSA:
-Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
-Has Airport Security Gone Too Far?
-TSA screenings: Government stupidity at work
I'm not one to really take up causes, but I think we're at a crucial point in our society. I know some people simply don't care and will do whatever, but that doesn't make what they're doing right. Apathy does not breed anything good. The TSA has no qualms to continue to violate our privacies for the sake of "security" and eventually it'll be on us to tell them we've had enough. They have no concept otherwise. In fact, they seem to have no problem harassing 3-year-olds.
I'm curious if you guys have an opinion on this. Am I just going overboard here? In the mean time, you can count on me to opt-out of the scanners. Yes, I'll have to deal with getting violated with a pair of hands, but at least I know for certain that there won't be any adverse side-effects.
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