Today in class our Guro decided to work our cardio. After a couple of footwork drills she had the class running laps around the dojo. While we’re running each student takes their turn in the middle of the dojo to do a set of strength training. We don’t stop running till everyone has taken their turn in the middle.

After that Guro set up the pylons on the mats and had us running zig-zag patterns around them while working our freestyle stick work. So now you not only have to worry about your feet but you’ve also got to keep your arms moving as well. This was much harder than I thought it would be and I could really see how doing a lot of this would help with your co-ordination.

Running has never been my strong point. Having a nagging knee injury doesn’t help with it either. But today I think I managed to keep up a pretty good pace. I was breathing well and watching out for my knee which made it through the entire class without bothering me too much. I was starting to get a side stitch near the end of the second set of zig-zag laps but I managed to keep it from flaring up by controlling my breathing.

All in all we did a good 30 minutes of cardio training and it felt really good. I think I’d like to add more cardio training into my exercise routine as well as I’m sure it would help keep the old blood pressure down. I don’t think I’ll take up jogging but I might look into swimming at the local Y. Anyone else have any suggestions?

I weighed in tonight at 226.6 lbs. Wow.

A week and I’ve already dropped some weight. I don’t think I’ve done much other than try to make some better decisions when eating. L and I are trying to cook only vegetarian dishes at home and we’ve been pretty successful. When we do need protein we are sticking to eggs and fish. We’re not cutting out meat, chicken or pork completely though. We save those for when we eat out at restaurants which we try to keep down to a minimum anyway.

One big change I have made this past month is what I eat after my weekday Arnis classes. Instead of a regular meal I’ve been eating cottage cheese melted on toast with tomatoes. Very tasty with a little salt and pepper for seasoning. I know what you’re thinking but it tastes pretty good and is surprisingly satisfying. I used to think that I needed a big meal after practice but I find just this, some fruit and a good couple glasses of water are all I need.

While it’s great that these little diet changes have dropped my weight I’ll still need to start increasing my activity levels. That’s the next step in the plan, fitting in at least another session or two of exercise sometime during my week. Maybe some Hip Hop Abs or perhaps a session of Turbo Jam … we’ll see.

I am currently sitting in front of the computer trying to stop myself from downloading the new Operation Anchorage addition to Fallout 3. I have read some horror stories of how hard it is to download and it is too late for me to start mucking through the snow/muck/radioactive goo/what have you.

I am also trying to stop myself from playing the next chapter in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I know this game came out four years ago but I finally managed to get my hands on a copy and I am loving it. The game has humor, tension, great Anime style graphics and very interesting gameplay. Once I’m done with this game I am going to have to scour the used bins for the other games in this series.

Finally L is sitting in her chair watching The Bourne Supremacy while knitting. Since my back is to the screen I am trying to piece together what is going on from just the sound track and I have a feeling I am mixing up parts of this film with The Bourne Ultimatum. It is sort of fun in a “exercise your brain and imagination” sort of way.

Oh, now she’s watching the extra features on the DVD and as you know I’m a sucker for that stuff. Gotta run!

Just another evening at the Tripledoubleyoudotcom abode.

That is how I felt at the end of the night last Friday. We were celebrating two birthdays that night and one of celebrants happened to be my best friend. Since it had been awhile since my friends and I have been out to a bar we got a little carried away with the celebrating.

There’s no denying it, I was drunk. Well not quite as drunk as the puppy up there but still pretty tipsy. Admittedly I was farther off then I have ever been before. An obscene amount of Vodka will do that to you.

The good news is I was still thinking pretty coherently and I can remember everything that happened that night. The only problem was my fine motor skills were completely out the door. I could walk and get around without stumbling over myself but all of my movements felt exaggerated and out of control; like when you’re trying to control a remote control car but the controller is way too sensitive.

I dare you to say control one more time.

I actually found it pretty interesting at the time and I remember testing out my co-ordination just to see how bad it was. Since this isn’t something I do … well ever, it was amazing to see just how much of a disconnect your mind can have from the rest of your body. Fascinating stuff really.

In the end I made it home safe and sound thanks to my lovely (and patient) fiancee. I don’t think I’ll be drinking that much again anytime soon as it’s rough on the body, not to mention the pocket book. My only regret for the evening is that I lost my favourite tuque at the bar somewhere. That makes it 4 years in a row that I bought that exact same hat from The Bay only to lose it or ruin it in the wash mid winter. Such a shame …

Not much to say today. Unfortunately most of my evening was spent doing some overtime work. I would have preferred to spend the evening either:

• Continuing my second play through of Fallout 3 with my “Scoundrel Gunslinger” character (Speech and Small Firearms FTW!)
• Looking up potential wedding band designs online
• Snuggling up with L on the couch to re-watch The Bourne Supremacy
• Doing a bit of a workout to make up for missing sparring class this morning

Unfortunately none of these fates were in the cards tonight. In the absence of anything else to say I’ll leave you with this:

You will have to excuse me. I am recovering from watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. Thankfully the next episode comes out tomorrow so I won’t be suffering from withdrawal for too long.

I do wish I had the previous 3 seasons on DVD but I never managed to pick them up. Yes, I could download the episodes off the web but what I really want is access to the commentary tracks. Whenever I get a television series on DVD I dig into the commentary tracks and special features, eating up all the itty bitty nitty gritty details I can get. I’ve done it with Buffy, Angel, Firefly and I’m working my way through He-Man as well.

Yes He-Man. The original series thankyouverymuch. Who needs cable when you’ve got Mer-Man and Man-E-Faces?

I am currently sitting at 230 lbs. The lowest I have been was around 218 lbs which I hit during my training for the WEKAF World Championships last summer. So I have gained back a solid 12 pounds since then which isn’t a surprise to me.

My diet has not changed much these past 6 months but my level of exercise has. Prior to the tournament I was training a good 5 days a week. Three of those days were hard training days with the rest of my class. Now that the big competition has come and gone I am back to my regular schedule of 2 days of regular class and only one day of hard training.

I am comfortable with being at 230 lbs. I was at this weight for a long time after losing a 30 pounds before. Prior to the WEKAF World Championships I was even resolved to being this weight and wasn’t to worried about it. However, now that I know I can make it below 220 lbs, being 230 just doesn’t cut it anymore.

So the goal is now is to hit that 220 mark again. I think it is reasonable to aim to hit that goal around the end of March. After that I would like to see if I could actually hit the 200 mark but I know that would take some big changes to my diet and exercise routine.

I think blogging about this will help me keep on track, so expect more posts about this in the future. I probably won’t be as detailed as 60 in 3 but who knows. Maybe a weekly weigh-in post is just what I need.

The big news event today was the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. While I didn’t watch the proceedings, I listened in while my co-workers were streaming it to their workstation. I have to admit it was a great speech and it is hard not to get caught up in the excitement and hope that everyone is sharing.

So I celebrated the new President in my own little way. Soon after Obama took his oath I checked change.gov and discovered they were already pointing people to the new White House Website. I was pretty impressed how up to date the site was even with all the stately celebrations going on.

I also took a look at the Inaugural Luncheon menu but I was kind of turned off at the food selection. I’m okay with their dessert selection and the seafood stew sounds nummy-yummy but I am not a big fan of duck myself. I do think it is neat that they decided to use replicas of the plates Lincoln used during his time in office. It’s all about the little details.

Finally, not that I wish the new president harm, but I did wonder just how far down the line of succession Hillary Clinton is now that she’s the Secretary of State. It turn out that she is holding the forth spot down just after the President pro tempore of the Senate (which was a position I didn’t even know existed). The Speaker of the House and the Vice President round out the number two and one spots naturally. Thanks Wikipedia!

Let’s face it; I am a terrible blogger.

I used to be pretty good at keeping this site updated with all the wacky and mundane moments in my life but that has slowly trickled away. After that I fell back on YouTube videos and “this is neat” links. While it is a valid form of blogging I felt it was sort of the easy way out. Mainly because most of that content was just re-posts from other blogs that were doing a better job of it in the first place.

What I want to do is return tripledoubleyou.com back to its original format. I want to have a bit more of myself included in this site and not just what I had bookmarked off my RSS feeds. There will still be a place for “this is neat” links here, I just hope to include more “this is me” posts as well.

I was hoping the “2008 in Review” posts would be a springboard for that change but I think the idea has already lost its steam. It was probably an idea I should have done at the end of the year instead.

So let’s try to kick this blog back into full gear. Hopefully you and I will have fun along the way.

The best meal I had during 2008 was during my trip to the Philippines this summer. It was my second morning in Las Pinas, just outside of Manila. For our first day of training in the Philippines my martial arts class went for a 5:00 AM run in the local park. I wasn’t prepared for the heat and humidity in the air, even before the sun had risen. By the time our run was over I was tired, starving and had sweat enough fluid to fill an empty water bottle.

When we got back to our hostel we were treated to a traditional Filipino Breakfast of tocino (cured ham), sinangag (garlic fried rice) and itlog (fried egg). Until that morning I had not had a good Tosilog in quite some time. Digging into a big serving of it after our first grueling run in the Filipino heat was a heavenly experience.

I had that same breakfast many times while I was on that trip and even a couple of times here in Canada. None of them have tasted as good or have satisfied me as much as the Tosilog I had then.