Archive for July, 2008
30 Jul, 2008
The Six Pack Ab Day #9
I’m still recovering from the bout of flu, though I think there’s really not many days left of “recovery” before I considered myself “recovered”.
The past couple of days have been spent really settling down, and as such not much thought has been put into maintaining my six pack abs goal, save for the cutting out of junk food and (unthinking) snacking in between meals.
I’ve managed to put in some push-ups yesterday, though I think they wouldn’t do anything save for getting me psychologically ready (or more accurately: readier) for exercise than if I didn’t do so otherwise.
By Friday I should be ready to do my first run or my first strength training exercises, or perhaps I may jump some rope.
I haven’t weighed in yet, but waist currently stands at 30.25″.
28 Jul, 2008
The Six Pack Ab Day #8
Six pack ab day #7 was skipped due to my being too lazy to write anything after touching down in Perth. Ha.
I’m currently suffering from the flu, not too bad a case but enough to put me off exercise for the next few days, though I’m also eating less due a case of a loss of appetite.
Weight’s currently 70.5kg. I haven’t lost weight, just that I’m using a different weighing scale and this scale measures my weight a little differently.
I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to get back to my exercise routine soon. I miss sweating it out already.
PS: I think I’ll put up pictures weekly instead of daily.
25 Jul, 2008
The Change Log
I’m currently writing a new content management system (CMS) that I will be replacing my current Wordpress installation with. I had written one before, way back in 2003, and was actually pretty happy with it. But as Wordpress gained in popularity, I didn’t want to get left behind, so I jumped onto the Wordpress bandwagon and became one of the millions of Wordpress users out there.
Another reason for my switch was that I was afraid I’d need more features than I had available. Writing these new features were deemed too troublesome for me, and I thought that if somebody else was willing to do them, why not just let that somebody else do it?
But four years on, and the artist in me is getting increasingly indignant: I should be using my own software, not somebody else’s.
This past month I’ve been keeping myself busy playing Pro Evolution Soccer (PES 2008) and catching up on some reading. But apparently it wasn’t enough to prevent my mind from wandering into thoughts of re-writing my CMS. And so I did.
The CMS is coming along pretty well, and many of the features that I had in my old program have already been written into it. But I noticed one aspect of my coding style that bothered me: whenever I finished coding one aspect of the system, I would suddenly become unsure of what to do with myself.
I’d then either mindlessly StumbleUpon sites or go play some PES. It is only after a number of hours are up before I would finally get back to coding. It was when I was having a shower that a solution to this problem came up: I could use a change log.
A change log is simply a list of changes that a developer notes down when writing a program. For example, it could contain bug fixes, new features, or improvements to existing ones. Change logs often come together with new versions of software.
The idea of having a personal change log hit me: what if we could have “versions” of ourselves? Being a work-in-progress, I suppose you could call me the perpetual Donn v. 2008b (substituting 2008 for whatever year it is).
Objectifying your life will help you look at things more systematically. Though you may think that it removes the emotional aspect of living your life, take it that it is the removal of emotions at the planning level. The actual living of your life will still be filled with emotions and relationships and other spontaneous things like ringing the bell at Long John Silver’s.
You could keep a “bug reporting journal”, where you list down all your quirks and things you’d like to improve upon, and have lists for what bugs the next version of you will iron out, as well as the new features you’ll be introducing into your life (”Donn v. 2008.1b will have six-pack abs”).
Every time you reach a milestone, a version where the bugs you’d plan to iron out and the features you’d planned to implement are achieved, you can list it all down in a change log, and then see “where to next”.
25 Jul, 2008
The Six Pack Ab Day #6
Not the best of days, snacking a little more than I would have liked. But overall, I think no real damage done.
Did strength training today; it’s the last time I’ll be doing it while in Singapore. I will be flying off to Perth on Sunday morning. I don’t exactly have any strength training equipment there, save for a resistance band so lovingly bought for me by Li Shya, and a 15 litre water bottle that I’ve converted into an improvised dumbbell.
I’ll take a picture of those and upload them when I get there.
Weight: 72.1kg, Waist: 30.375″
25 Jul, 2008
The Six Pack Ab Day #5
It’s day five and I think things are going relatively well. Nothing spectacular today. Took a day off from training as I’m feeling sore from the previous days’ worth of jumping rope and strength training. Did put in some push-ups despite the slight soreness — I believe in active recuperation.
Food-wise was probably close to the past couple of days, meaning that “slightly less than normal” seems to be becoming “normal”. Which is good.
Have cut down more significantly on my rice consumption during dinner. Eating approximately half the amount of rice I’ve been eating since I came back from Perth.
One thing that I really ought to cut down on is my after-meal snacks. I tend to eat without much thought after a meal, perhaps due to not being quite able to know what to do with myself.
This morning’s weight was a little less than I had anticipated; I was pleasantly surprised, but am expecting a slight weight gain tomorrow, since a loss of 1kg over the course of a day seems slightly exaggerated.
Update:
Weight: 72.3kg, Waist: 30.5″
