My Life in Bullet Points

“God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” - Bill Watterson quotes (American Author of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes)

• I went to shoot bluebonnets recently and realized that the lack of sharpness in my photograps over the last few months is NOT a result of bad user technique (thank god), but a problem with the auto-focus on my camera.

Its hard to tell from a tiny picture, but blow it up and it's completely blurry

• Its great to know my photography is not getting worse, but a repair bill from Nikon is not what I needed at the moment.

• Lord knows when Nikon will complete the repair and ship my camera back so I'm now experiencing serious photographic withdrawals.  All I have to take photos with is my iPhone and a little digital point-and-shoot.

• I still get reminders every now and then that I am not a professional photographer yet.  I don't quite have the mindset.  When I was taking the above photo, I parked across the street and was crouching down in the tall grass.  A cop drove by and stopped to check out my car  (he couldn't see me).  My first reaction SHOULD have been to snap a photo.  I didn't even think of it until he drove away.  (Very nice guy, I have to report.)  Oh well.  It will come.

• I added another interval to my run today.  I am up to six.  Give it another month and I'll be able to move on to week 2! :)

• The pain in my ankles when I run has not completely gone away, but, barring a few relapses, its significantly decreased.

• Maybe a year from now, when I've completed this 8 week course, they will actually have strenthened up a little bit.

• I mentioned before I have started using twitter.  I'm actually up to maybe 2 tweets a week, which is fantastic for an anti-social loner like me!  My twitter handle is @remmarkphoto if anyone is interested.

• The springtime wildlife is out in force at the lake.  I got a few shots with my iPhone.

Cute little bunny down for it's morning drink from the lake

A Yellow Headed Blackbird passing through on it's way north

• I finally got my new car!!!  My poor 16 year old Honda Civic was dying a slow and painful death and deserved to be put out of my misery.  It was a good car and I was sad to give it up, but now I have a nice shiny new (used) CR-V that I have been lusting after for several years now.

• Isn't there a rule that you have to take a new car on a road trip?

• I'm planning to visit a friend in Georgia. :)

• I just pray my camera will be back in time or I'll be shooting with a Cannon PowerShot.  How embarrassing!

• It's weird.  Once you actually accomplish a major goal, you kind of have that feeling of, "What now?" 

• Time to look at that list of things to do in my life, pick the next thing to work on and get cracking. 

• Maybe that should be to start my photography business...for real, legally speaking.

 

 

Presidents Everywhere

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." - Albert Ellis

All five living presidents are in town today.  Forget that it is an unprecidented historical event.  The event itself is "invitation only" so it's not like the locals can participate in said historical event.

Road closures.  That is what I'm talking about.  Half the roads in my neighborhood are closed becaus of this historical event.

On the bright side, I got up early to beat the traffic for my run and was treated to a spectacular sunrise.

I Did It!

"Wearing your running shoes everywhere this spring may increase your odds of actually running." - Unknown


...and then I didn't.  I actually completed all 8 run intervals on the first day of the second rendition of week 1.  I had quite a bit of pain in my ankles, but I FINISHED.  And then...

Day 2 the ankle pain was so bad, I could only do 4 intervals and wasn't sure I would be able to walk back without a rest.

Argh!  I even bought a new pair of running shoes (the least intense ones I could find in my size).

The only reason I'm not too concerned about the ankle pain is because I experienced it before when I started walking, but with the greater effort of pace, I am experiencing a greater intensity of pain.  Even with pre-run stretches.

I did find that, instead of running 4 intervals in a row and walking (hobbling) the rest,  it is much more tollerable if I run every other interval and walk the intervals in between.

It took several weeks for my ankles to aclimate to the regular walking.  I have no doubt it will be the same with running.  I refuse to be deterred.

I keep reminding myself that it is not how fast I progress that is important right now.  I consider it a complete success to get myself out of bed on a regular basis and moving my body as much as is possible for my current  level of fitness (or lack thereof).

As an added incentive, I am enjoying the change of landscape to spring.

Trees are budding their leaves:

Birds are strutting for the ladies:

 

 

Even a pelican passing through has stopped for a paddle.

 

 

Life is good and only getting better.  :)

 

 



Social Media

“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I could actually consider myself NOT a social media user.  Yes, I have a blog.  That is to encourage my writing and post pictures for my friends to see.  Yes, I have a facebook page, but it's not my fault.  I had to sign up for one to assist the marketing department with a technical issue on the corporate page.  And, ok.  I have a twitter account, but I never actually tweet...

Until this morning.

I made my first tweet.  In conjunction with my first Instagram post.  Yes, it seems I now have Instagram as well.  Oh God!  So much for avoiding the time-wasting, soul-sucking black hole of social media.

This is what I posted:

"Not something you see every day!"

I played with instagram because it was taken with my iPhone in lousy light from a distance.  In other words, it sucked.  It was a crappy photo and couldn't get much worse, so what the heck.  The funky Instagram presets actually made it look better.  Go figure.  But I couldn't save it without sharing it and while I was at it, since I seem to have inexplicably gathered a few twitter followers, I why not tweet it.

My first tweet.  And it actually amuses me.  I'm so ashamed...

Sigh.

Run For Your Life

"Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity."  - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Normally I keep things like this a secret.  More often than not, I fail and if people know about it I have to admit my failure.  I don't like admitting to failure.  But I decided to use this blog for accountability in my quest to change my life so...

I have decided to start the Couch to 5K program.

Sigh.  There, I said it.

I have never been a runner.  Even at my fittest, running was...difficult.

I have been walking for almost a year now.  3 days a week (almost) like clockwork.  I haven't lost any weight.  Although some of the weight has redistributed itself a bit as I am wearing the next size down and my legs seem a little less jiggly.

I have always liked the IDEA of running.  Thanks to lack of time, money and opportunity, I have very few options for sporting activities in my adult life so running seems like a good idea.

I have no illusions about how challenging this is going to be.  Physically AND psychologically.

The program is laid out as an 8 week course.  I thoroughly expect each "week" to take me a month before I am even remotely able to move on to the next level.  I already did the first day, which consisted of a warm up walk, 20 mintues alternating between running and walking and a cooldown walk.  It was a push to run half of the running cycles.  I walked the rest. 

But that's ok.  I'm thrilled that I even tried.  Maybe day 2 will see me running one more cycle before I have to walk.  I will not let frustration or feeling like I am not progressing "like other people" to be an excuse for quitting.

My goal here is not to run a race.  My goal here is to be able to move faster than a stroll without asphyxiating.  In my perfect life I am able to move across varied terrain all day shooting pictures.  For that, I need to be fit and not pass out if I climb a hill, or rush to catch a shot.

Psychological Warfare with Cats

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." - Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
I have 2 cats.
 
I'll make formal introductions another time, but they are named Sam and Kate.  Both are female, about 10 years old and I adopted them from a friend of mine.  Fantastic cats with definite personalities.
 

Kate (left) and Sam (right)

Sam has been losing weight for a while, but I didn't really think too much of it at first because she was overweight.  Then she started to lose too much weight and I found out she may be closer to 16.
 
Off to the vet we went.
 
Hyperthyroidism.
 
According to Mirriam Webster Online: excessive functional activity of the thyroid gland; also: the resulting condition marked especially by increased metabolic rate, enlargement of the thyroid gland, rapid heart rate, and high blood pressure

She needs special (read expensive) food.

Have you ever tried to feed one cat one kind of food and keep the other cat from eating it?

Yeah.

It's ok for the other cat to eat this special food, but as it is very expensive, I'd rather she stuck to the old food.

I started off mixing the new food with the old food.  She would pick around it. (point to the cats)

I tried the "you'll eat when you're hungry" method.  After three days of looking at her recently acquired thinness, I gave in.  (another point to the cats.)

Sam couldn't jump very high - not the most graceful of felines - so I fed Kate her old food on the bathroom vanity.  Sam was hurling herself up there to get at the other food.

I tried the canned version (even more expensive).  Sam would eat this, sort of, but Kate was jealous, shown by increased aggressivness in their play.  (point 3)

Of course, Sam didn't like it in a chunk from the refrigerator.  So I'd have to mix it with water and feed her on the couch next to me to keep Kate away (yet another point)

Kate was even more jealous so I bought her some cheaper canned food for her.  (how many points is that?) 

Funny, I seem to be losing this battle.

At this point, Sam has decided she doesn't like the canned food either and she wants Kate's food while Kate is avid to get Sam's food.  (I can't win.)
Finally, a PLAN of ATTACK.  I continue to feed them separately but I give them the SAME(expensive) canned food.  I check back and Kate is happily eating Sam's food and Sam is happily eating Kate's.  (Finally, a point for me!)

The next day, Sam is not eating again and Kate is eating two servings and getting fat!

Cats 8
Me 1 (ish)

Sigh.  I surrender.  Back to the vet to discuss alternate options.

Stress

 “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” ― Leonard Bernstein
 

I hate it when I let stress affect my life.  I rarely let it but sometimes I can't help it.
 
And it's the reason I haven't blogged in a while.
 
I got my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification three years ago, but I only started working in the field in October when my company finally opened up a position for me. 
 
The certification is good for three years and you either have to renew it or take and pass another test of equal or greater significance on the Cisco heirarchy of certifications. 
 
Mine expires in the middle of April. 
 
The CCNA material was actually fairly easy for me once I got the hang of subnetting and binary math (not as difficult as you might think).
 
I say this because when I took a class for Advanced Routing, the first exam in the track for a CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), you will understand what I mean when I felt like I had been transported to mars! 

Clear as mud?  I just didn't get it.  At all.
 
So I took another class.  These were at the same community college campus where I took my CCNA courses.  Then my company sent me to a corporate training facility.  Ok, a little clearer but still pretty dim.
 
Thousands of practice questions later, I was finally so sick of looking at it that I just said "screw it" and signed up to take the test this past weekend just to get it over with, pass or fail.  At least that way, I would know what areas I needed to work on instead of just answering question after question over and over.

I then proceeded to get food poisoning. 

Great, what if I'm still (actually) sick on Saturday?  I would be out the (not insignificant) test fee as it was too late to reschedule.

Thankfully as Saturday dawned (it's not like I could sleep) my stomach was settled (or at least not unsettled by bad food) enough for me to get myself to the test and be relatively confident I wouldn't have to go running out in the middle.

And....

I PASSED!  I passed so well, if I hadn't screwed up one, yes ONE, simulation, I would have gotten 100%.

So much for stress. 

Unfortunately, while I apparently understand the concepts well enough to answer multiple choice questions and a few basic simulations, I still can't acutally set up a VPN tunnel with IPSec without looking at the notes.
 
So, now the test is over and I have another three years on my certification. 

And two more exams to actually earn the CCNP...

I'm off to study.