Ohio Mega Millions Lottery not very Random?

Do you play the Ohio Mega Millions Lottery? Do you always check your ticket's numbers?

We do play the lottery on occasion. Specifically, when the amount of the Mega Millions goes at or above 100 Million dollars. We do an office pool, $2 per person. We purchase the tickets at lunch, on the day of the drawing and then email a scan of them all to whomever participated in the group buy.

Here's where things get interesting. We purchased our tickets Friday, January 22nd 2010 at a local Columbus Ohio Lottery vendor. We do the auto-lotto, so that it generates the numbers for us.

One would think "auto lotto" would be fairly random.

One would be wrong! Look at the these two tickets!

The Ohio Lottery Mega Million's random ticket number generator gave *two* tickets with the exact same numbers in one setting. Even statistically speaking, this should *never* happen. Yet it did.

It's one thing if the ticket's a winner, but if it's not, then for every two tickets your purchase you may in affect only be purchasing one ticket's worth of chances to win the lottery.

(Note: I blurred out the actual main parts of the ticket numbers, because each ticket is actually a $2 winner.)

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Mac Tablet Predictions: Mobile Bonus

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon (daring fireball and John Siracusa), among many others by now...

Yes, it'll have a ~10 inch screen. And do graphics. And video. No, it's not CocoaTouch, it's CocoaTouch+. It'll have iWork installed on it (Siracusa). One of the things everyone's seemed to miss is the way the Tablet will pimp Apple's Mobile Me.

Many of the people who will purchase the new Apple Tablet at launch already own one Mac. Maybe even a Mac and an iPhone, but definitely one Mac. So they purchase a Mac Tablet (to be one of the cool kids? who knows). But they want all their stuff on the Tablet, just like their other machine. I mean, who wants to be in the computer room on the desktop iMac, then later lounging on the couch with the Tablet and not have their bookmarks syncing. Or not be able to get to their files? (How many mac people do you associate with that can mount remote disk shares from other computers?^[1]) If it's not "just there" on the Tablet, people will have "issues" with the device.

A simple Mobile Me subscription solves all this. Everything's in sync and the user doesn't have to do squat. And it's more income for Apple. It'll be another neatly wrapped tie-in to another Apple product that prompts you to open your wallet even further for Apple's coffers, and there'll be many many people in line soon to do it. Heck, just think of 125k developers, many of them will purchase the thing. Not that they'll use it but they'll most assuredly better become aquainted with it to write code for it, not to mention testing (and bragging on #iphonedev about your purchase). And yes, count me in that group that'll be buying it. <sigh>

^[1] I'm not harping on Mac users. Most windows users have the same issue. Hell, most computer users have the same issue.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Keeping up with Flickr

A co-worker gave me a link to 10 Flickr Groups For Serious Shutterbugs. Which overall is a pretty good article. But...

I've found it incredibly difficult to keep up with the Flickr users. I tried to check the feeds of the groups I belong to to review their pictures. I can't keep up. And that's not even counting the attempts at trying to be involved with their discussion groups. I can blow a few hours each nite on the couch with the laptop trying to look at all the photos in the Flickr groups I belong to. And yes, I've tried RSS'ing them.

The system I came up with is to read the RSS feed for the local flickr user group. That way if there are events or discussion, or what-not, I generally read the new posts within a week. As to all the other Flickr groups that I belong, I've relented and don't participate in their discussion forums. I try to look at new photos posted once per week. Generally on the weekends when we are vegging in front of the TV at the end of the day.

Of course, there's also the emails, public comments and private comments that I receive from my own photo's. I try to respond to them as best I can - when it makes sense to do so. Someone quipping "Nice Photo!", that generally doesn't warrant a response in my book . I know there are some Flickr users who'll post a "thanks" comment for each one of the niceties that someone's posted on a photo's discussion thread. I'm not one of them. Not that I don't appreciate it, but a photo with 30 "thank you" comments? Nah, that's not me.

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

A real timesaver: summarize

If you're like me, time over the course a weekday is very valuable. Free-time is scarcer then it's ever been it seems. But how would you like to get at least a few minutes back for yourself?

If you're a Mac user, remember the folllowing out-of-the-box key command: cmd-control-s. What is it? The "Summarize" service. Use this the next time you are surfing with Safari and you come across a long article, that you'd like to read, but don't really have the time to spend reading it. Highlight the text of the article. Press cmd-control-s. Use the slider to adjust the number of sentences and paragraphs in the summary. Less time available means crank down the sentences and/or paragraphs. More time? Crank the slider up.

If an article has several pages, look for the "printable" version of the article. Choose it, and then use the summarize technique above on it.

This little key combination can save you loads of time. To be honest, I don't use it all the time. In fact, sometimes I'll go for a spell without using it at all. Then realize I've been "wasting my time" by not using it and pick it up again. :)
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

How long do you keep old machine backups?

I'm spring cleaning the computer room. No, I've not moved anything physically. Rather, I've powered on all the old hard drives and and backing up, backing up the backups, verifying the backups are working (or have worked) etc etc.

One of the drives is a full backup of my old G5 PowerMac tower (which I need to sell. If you're interested, let me know). It was replaced by the current machine, a Mac Pro Tower in late 2008.

Why do I still have a backup of it the old G5 machine?

Do I absolutely need that backup?

I don't think I should. I "migrated" the old machine to the new (via OSX's migration tool, when you buy a new machine).

One would think that the fact it was migrated alone would alleviate the need for keeping the backup of the old machine.

Yet, here I am, looking at this drive, thinking I should format it, relabel it and use it for some other task. Have I formatted it? Nope. Will I? Probably not. Unless I need the diskspace. Which ATM I don't think I do. So the drive will continue to sit there, unused, untouched. But just incase I need a file from the old machine, which I would have deleted from the current machine, there the drive sits.

And the G5 still sits in the corner of the room, ready and packaged to be sold, and that's still not done yet either. Procrastination++.

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Face recognition in photographs: OpenCV and iPhone

Last Wednesday at our March 2009 Central Ohio Linux User's Group meeting (COLUG) the topic was Social Networking on the 'net. That of course led to some discussion about privacy. Inevitably the Google came up because of it's intertwining of it's services. Case in point; Gmail and Picaso. Upload photos to Picaso, and it can start matching faces in photographs with people you know. Are you sending those pictures through Gmail at all? Who's in your contacts in Gmail?

jawildman demonstrated how the facial recognition worked within Google's Picaso. It's amazing technology that seems to work very well.


Hence the reason for this post. After the meeting I stumbled upon OpenCV. OpenCV is "A computer vision library" that focuses mainly on real-time image processing (thanks Wikipedia).


And someone's done the work to link the library to your XCode iPhone projects: Using OpenCV on iPhone. How cool is that? They even took the time to wrap it all up in a nice git-clonable repo with example iPhone Xcode project that'll run in the simulator and "just work". It seems to work quite well.


Now to come up with some iPhone Application ideas that could use this and sell well in the AppStore. ;)
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Can books be cursed?

A while back I was reading "When Ghosts Speak". If you've viewed the front page of this blog, it shows that I'm 'reading it'. Well, I was. I finished it. I didn't update the blog. Yes, I need to. I will. soon.

But that's not the point of this post. I was reading that book and "Ghosts amoung us". I didn't feel anything odd while I was reading them, but my wife did!

She just brought this up the other day by saying something towards "Those books gave me kreeps". I was surprised, and noted that I didn't recall her saying anything about it when I had the books here from the library (for a total of about a month). She says that she mentioned it a number of times. I don't recall this.

But what she did say is that she felt like someone was here with us while I was reading the books, and left when the books left.

What's weird is that I've always considered myself more psychic then her, if I am psychic. I get vibes from people. I believe I've seen spirits a few times.

But I didn't get a feeling off the books at all. In fact, I quite enjoyed reading the books and thought I got a lot out of both of them.

My mom's since given us a few quince seeds, which I need to put above the doors. My wife took one and put it in her purse, but I don't think the quince seeds are intended for that use. Anyone know?
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

I wish my laptop...

I have a MacBook Pro (Late 2008), 17", 4GB Ram. I received it two xmas's ago from my employer. It was s'posed to be my "main machine" that I'd use for everything. The laptop held up to that requirement for a bit, but then...

Then we switched from a LAMP shop to a .Net shop. It's a vast change that affected everything.

Including my needs as the developer/network admin/sql-dba. I knew I could run Visual Studio via Parrallels or VMWare just fine. I had never tried running it 24/7, along with MS SQL admin tools and various other win32/64 apps. I quickly found out 4GB of RAM really wasn't going to cut it.

And that's where this blog entry comes in. I wish laptop could handle 12GB of RAM. On the surface, that seems like an extravagent amount of RAM. However, run a WinXP VM, a Win2k3SVR VM (Sharepoint Devel), then run LAMP on the local machine (because we still use it, and seemingly always will, where it fits to be the "best tool" for the job that we have the authority to make the decision) and then XCode for Cocoa. And what do you have at the end of the day? a 10GB RAM requirement.

That's what I have on my new Mac Pro tower, and it flies. I wish the laptop could have done it, I'd still use it as my one and only machine.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Why business phones are awesome no more

When I first started in IT, I thought getting a pager was the coolest thing. I could carry it around, almost like a badge. "See, I'm important!" it yelled to everyone. "Everyone can contact me" whenever needed! Of my group of friends, I was the first to get one. I was kewl. At bars I looked like someone important. I could pickup chicks with it because they could see I was "the man". I dreamt of the day of having a work-provided cell phone, because though I wanted a cell phone, they were much too expensive at the time to justify the monthly.

Years later, I graduated to my first personal cellphone. It was now a badge of importance. By this time in my life I was married with kids and house in the burbs with my very own brick of a cell phone. It was convenient to have, and one typically justified the monthly cost as "I need this".

The curse of curses was soon to arrive, I just didn't see it in my headlights. It came around the corner in an awesomely brilliant flat-black motorola disguise, the Nextel.

Over time I moved IT jobs just like everyone normally does when they're young. I had recently moved to a new venue. They suggested that with the importance of IT ever-increasing, IT needed cellphones. We received Nextel phones. We were the only staff provided phones. We were l337.

It took only about a week or two for the honeymoon to wear off. When you are on the couch for the evening and someone from work beeps in "Shane, Shane are you there. I thought of something" and then 10 minutes later does it again... and again. When your wife ends up describing the phone as "that damned beepy thing" and "if you don't shut it up I'm going to throw it in the toilet". When your heart skips a beat and you cringe anytime you hear the Nextel beeps no matter where you are, you know something's not quite right.

Luckily it only lasted about a year. It turns out the Nextel coverage out where we were wasn't all that great. We were missing calls and having connectivity issues.

Our phones were upgraded to Sprint phones. I liked this phone very much. I could tap into it to get online when needed with my laptop (Dell Inspiron 8000 I believe, cool at the time but now viewed as a "brick"). This phone was reliable, the coverage was excellent. It was tiny and silver and with the remote connectivity was everything I'd ever wanted in a phone. I pulled old code from my sourcecode repo's from the pager-days for announcements. Our equipment and systems SMS text'd us as needed. Even threw a nice little perl scripted web page up so people could SMS page easily enough.

Alas, this too was not to last. We weren't the only ones given phones. This time it was corporate bigwigs that were using Sprint phones with us. And it turned out some of them weren't having much luck with reception.

When our contact was up, we switched to Verizon. All staff who had phones sang with glee. Except me. I was quite happy with my prior phone. We were told Verizon would give us the best coverage. Which some of our staff do agree with. But not me, I wasn't having problem-free reception. And I couldn't just tap into the phone's bluetooth to get online with a laptop. Oh no, Verizon plays games with crippling phone's bluetooth protocols. So you can't always sync your phone's contact information in/out. And you certainly cannot assume that you'll be able to use the phone's bandwidth to get your laptop online.

We've stayed with Verizon for quite a few years (still are to this day, in-fact). We'd even been upgraded from the normal tiny cellphones to the WinMobile PDA/phones.

I hated these WinMobile phones. Winmobile (was it 4? or 5?) version at the time sucked. Slow. Crashed all the time. I immediately begged for a different phone. Nope, this one's what everyone wants, it has a keyboard and everything and you can get your Outlook on it". Sigh. (To my supervisor's credit, he did bend over backwards and was able to finagle a choice for me, but the choice was a phone without Bluetooth or one with but Verizon had hacked it so bad no one who had it could get online. Though I had a choice, I really didn't).

The phones we were given just flat out sucked. They crashed all the time. Eventually only a full reset helped. But you had to put all your information back into it every-time you did a full reset. Once, ok. Twice, no problemo. Tenth time, forgetaboutit! Slowly, but assuredly, it turned out I wasn't the only one having such problems. A staff revolt ensued. People were missing calls. Their phones crashed. Verizon sent us new "black" versions of the phones that were supposedly better. For a short time period they were. But they really were not.

Fast forward to this past year. It was deemed these WinMobile phones had to go. Viva La Revolucion! I rejoiced! We were about 3 months from the supposed iPhone 3G rollout. That's the phone I wanted. Everything I had read signaled this would be the phone to have for quite some time.

But wouldn't you know it, I was presented with a shiny silver box from Verizon. My new shiny silver Blackberry phone arrived! They had bought everyone Blackberries. Why? So everyone can "stay in touch" and "your Outlook is in it" and "it has a keyboard" and "it doesn't crash".

Keep in mind this was done about 3 months before the 3G iPhone was announced. I pleaded this was a rush decision, that we should have at-least waited for the new to-be-released iPhone to appear to make a decision. Nope. This was it.

I had joined the Crackerberry gang.

People that I knew, that had a Blackberry, welcomed me. "Your one of us now, young Padawan" they said. "You can download stuff on this and use it as an mp3 player" (I was already on my 2nd or 3rd iPod by then). "You can reply to your email wherever you are" they exclaimed.

Blech! By this time, I didn't want to be connected 24/7. In-fact, I was damn well tired of it. Sure, I have IM running most days and nites. Yes, IRC too. But that's to "my electronic life". It's to keep in touch with people on freenode and open source projects and side-work. I will admit I use IM to communicate with a select few of my real life friends that are electronically inclined.

Most of my friends don't know what IRC, IM and Twitter are. They have a cell and they use SMS. Some have a gmail or some-such free email and only occasionally check it.

When I go home, I can turn these things off if I choose. In-fact, I can turn the entire computer and network off if I like and it in silence and read a book. Or go take some photographs. Whatever it is, I can disconnect and be in peace.

You can't turn the blackberry off. You can't stop it from beeping that there are new corporate emails because someone from work couldn't sleep and are emailing at unGodly hours.

And if you do turn it off?!? The faithful scream "but you're not supposed to turn it off!! You'll miss something!!".

I did not like the Blackberry phone. The UI was horrid. The browser was severely lacking and painful to use. They keyboard was small, the keys were lit with a blue that made it hard to see them. People will be quick to point out this is not blackberry's fault, but the phone manufacturer's. Yes, I know. Guilt by association.

But worst of all, I did not like the fact that I could not seemingly keep my work information on the phone totally separate from the personal stuff when I synced the phone. In iCalendar, I had two calendars, one for each. I use Exchange for work, and various pop/iMap for personal (ie gmail) picked up with Mail.app. Everything was kept 100% separate, even contacts. I was told the answer was "well just put everything Outlook".

Say what?!? That's totally *not* what I want. I don't want anyone at work to know that from 6-8pm I'm going to Lady Heather's place for a 2 hour wild session. (ahem joke...).

I was just tired of being on call 24/7 all the time. "But the website's important, it can't go down". "You need to be online all the time". Yes, I realize this has nothing to do with the Blackberry, per se. It's corporate policy. Many would say "If you don't like it, leave" I suppose.

Uh, no. 100% uptime is what you want? Then buy a load balancer set and redundant equipment. Shell out the cash for infrastructure. Make it happen.

When the iPhone 3G came out, I waited in line and bought one. I spent that week investigating it, to see if I could do everything with it that my Blackberry did.

It did (and more!), and I gleefully turned in my Blackberry.

Yes, that's right. I said it. I willfully gave my Blackberry back. I gave up my free ~$85/month phone.

My neighbors and friends with Blackberries did not understand how I could do such a faux pas. "I'd give anything if my employer gave me a phone" I heard that several times. I heard the "You're an idiot" in some people's breath or in their tones. People casually whipped out their Blackberries and demonstrated how easy it was to do the things they do with their phones. They eagerly showed me, visually showed me, sometimes stepping into my face near forcefully, that I was insane and must come back to the fold.

It's been near 6 or 7 months now that I've left "the clan". The past year has seen some of the quietest, most stressless (from work, anyway) times that I can ever recall. I'm not reading work email all the time. I'm not on a beck and call.

And I absolutely love my phone. It works. It works as advertised. My work and personal information is on it, and it's 100% seperate. If I need to, with a click, it can sync back and forth with work's systems giving me email and calendar and contact information. Or not, if that's what I want. Most amazingly of all, I can code up whatever app I want for it if choose to (which I do!). This phone is one of, if not the best gadget, that I've ever purchased. It is so useful, that this is the first time in my life that if I lost the phone I would really be "lost" because of the conveniences it provides.

For those of you who may have read all of this, take heart. Load balancers and equipment for redundancy were ordered too!! The light at the end of the human-on-call-for-24/7-uptime is shining!!
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Cocoa programming for Tiger

I believe I have the old version of the Hillegass Cocoa Programming for OSX (link) laying around somewhere. I haven't had a need for it for a long time now. It's not new, it was read a few times over years. If you're in Central Ohio and you're interested in having it, drop me a note. If you're still running tiger and have thought about becoming a Cocoa programmer, this is great book. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Evolve TV show

The history channel has a really fascinating show out called Evolve. We've only caught two of them so far (I'm typing this while we are watching one about sealife. The Indonesean mimic octopus is just amazing). Catch the show if you can!

PS I'm testing writing and posting this from my iPhone. So far, so good; I'll see how the browsers render it tomorrow one the laptop. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Success with iPhone Provisioning Profiles

I spent all day (literally, all day) trying to setup my iPhone app such that it would run on my physical iPhone. For those of you who have problems, some of this may help you.

My application has always run OK in the simulator. Since I've had the phone for a few months now, and I'm recently a certified Apple iPhone Developer (paid the $99 too) I thought it was about time to get my app on my iPhone.

I just didn't think it'd take me an entire day. And by entire - it was actually more then a day; I had setup my 'Team' and done the root CSR request about a week earlier. Over the span of the week, I had skimmed the documentation. And I had scheduled today, the entire day for iPhone stuff. Meaning code, and putting the app on the phone.

I started this morning. Followed the doc's in the how-to tabs. And had absolutely no luck. From the dreaded (0xE800003A) error, to (0xE8000001), "handle_install: Installation failed", (0xE800003A) Verifying Application, etc etc. "

Late this afternoon I gave up; I shut everything down, rebooted, deleted /Developer, rebooted, then downloaded Xcode 3.1.1 and the 2.1 iPhone SDK. And proceeded to start over.

After all the installations, then I went into Xcode "documentation" and let it "download" . Then I devised a strategy - I had been doing bits and pieces of trying different things all da long -- things people suggested in Apple's Developer Forums and many other "non-official" sites (easily findable via the Google). I decided I would start completely over with my developer setting as well. Here's what I did:

Deleted Xcode and iPhone SDK (mentioned above) and reinstalled. I don't think you must reboot, but after an XCode installation your boot cache's will be updated so I think it's a good idea to do the reboot.

I deleted ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/*.

I went into the iPhone Developer Program and revoked my certificate and re-did it, as well as deleting all of my provisions.

Then I created a new app ID. I called it "My Application Suite App ID" . I gave it a wildcard. Why? Well, the more I'd read, the more I decided this was the correct way to do this. It would let me put any iPhone app that I compiled on my iPHone. Oh, and don't use the "App ID Name" of "test". I spent the afternoon getting frustrated trying to get all this to work. The system does not seem to like things named with 'test'. YMMV.

Once the Privisioning is approved and you can download it, drag and drop the file onto XCode. That installs it.

Now, take the iPhone, goto settings:general::profile and delete any out of it. reboot the phone. launch xcode, then plug the phone in. switch xcode and goto the organizer (cmd-control-o) and make sure your provision is added (checked) to the iphone device. One the phone it'll look like this:

Now we create a simple Xcode app to see if it'll even run on the phone., In Xcode, cmd-shift-n for a new project. It will be of type iPhone Navigation-Based-Applicaiton. (The following is in the iPhone Develper Docs, but I'll quickly summerize for the sake it): Call it 'Foo' or whatever. Expand the Targets folder in "Groups & Files". Click on 'Foo' within the Targets folder. Click the "info" blue-circle icon in the top bar of the window. Switch to 'Build' Tab. There's section called "code signing". You want to change the "iPhone Developer" to "iPhone Developer: Firstname Lastname" and they "any iPhone OS Device" to the name of your provision, namely in my case "My Development Provisioning Profile". Close the window.

Then test it all cmd-r. In a minute or so the app should be running on your phone. Not that it'll do much, but that's left for you to hack at :)

There were a few sites I found helpful in figuring all this out: preflightingapplication errors (0xe8000001), mac rumors forums, Debugging iPhone provision profiles/certificats and Apple's discussion forums.

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Apple iPhone Developer Tech Talks

Apple Launches iPhone Developer Tech Talks.

I suppose that explains why Apple held that NDA out so long. By doing so, no one could have possibly usurped Apple with their down Developer Conference/Talks. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

5x5 week 3 review

I'm a little late posting my week #3 results. However, I made it to the gym everyday and added cardio...

I added 10 minutes of cardio on an eliptical machine after the workout. I did it twice. On Friday, I ran out of juice and skipped it. But to make up, over the weekend I went and did about 45 minutes worth of cardio.

Is it working? I think so. I'm feeling stronger. My shorts are now nearly falling off me (I'm going to have to buy some belts). I'm not going to bother posting the weights, since I'm on track (or better). The 5x5 suggests only measuring your fat/weight every 2 weeks. Given that, and the fact that I forgot to do that this past weekend, I'm got nothing to report on that front either.

I intend to do that this Saturday morning, however. I will post the information hopefully Saturday morning.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Ohio would be PERFECT for this

There is one project that would jump-start the Ohio Economy and put Ohio on the map for some years; High Speed Rail.

California is attempting to build a high speed train system that would connect Anahim, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco. They have launched a $9.9 billion state bond offering to finance the proposal.

Ohio needs to do the exact same thing. Such a train system would connect Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Phase two could connect Toledo, Akron/Canton and the South-East Appelachian area. Phase three could go to Indianapolis, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

This is what's wrong with blogging

People post crap. They make a "huge issue" of "something important" yet don't do due-diligence to research it. Then they look like idiots for barking about something that is a non-issue.


Case in point: Ars's Apple's patch release policy is a concern for enterprise IT (be sure to see Gandhim3
's comment further down the page). Anyone who has a responsibility with managing a bunch of machines (whether Windows, Mac, Linux, Sparc, etc) has the responsibility to read the documentation and learn the recommended methods of management. It's called common sense and "Best Practices".

In this case, anyone w/o their head up their ass would know about ARD. And if you team it up with a neat little piece of hardware called an Xserve with OSX Server and a little bit of reading you find out there's an entire community of people doing this. And they have discussion forums too: Apple Remote Desktop Forum, Mac OS X Server Forum.

Neat, huh?

It's articles like these that remind me why I quit reading Ars a few years ago. Maybe I'll delete it from my rss feeds yet again.

P.S. I love that "Dear sophisticate IT manager morons..." :)


>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

My photo at the Rubin Museum of Art

One of my wildlife photos is being used with an exhibit at the Rubin Museum of Art, in New York.

It's in their "Family Programs" Bhutan exhibit The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan.



For those that have never heard of a "Takin"; Takin Information.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

My Photo's famous!

One of my Portland Photo's has been used in a local visitor's guide!



Personally, it's not "one of my best". It was early in the morning, hazy. But the Eco-Tour was an absolute blast. I'd do it again in a heartbeat the next time I'm out west.

Here's a link to the visitor's guide.
>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

2nd week of Stronglifsts.com 5x5 Report

This is my report after doing 2 weeks of the Stronglifts 5x5
Beginner Strength Training Program. I intend to post regular updates that detail how it's going.

Oh Gawd I'm sore

My whole body is sore; legs, ass, back. The only solace I have is it's a "good sore". It wears off late in the the 2nd day (ie the day after you lifted).

Realizations

Some things I've learned:

• Make sure you have everything in your gym back the nite before. (I lift first thing each morning)


• Don't leave home w/o your notebook to know which routine you should do, and the weights you should be using (I did)


• My gym needs another squat rack


• People that use the smith machine for squats, I have to try not to look at them like they are chumps


• My gym needs more 2.5lb weights


• That prone position for 90 seconds makes my whole body shake! It literally pulls all the last remaining energy I've got straight out of my body

Goals

How'd I do with my basic goals?

I did not miss a workout! Check!

I did not falter and mis a rep! Check!

While both of those made me feel good, I have to realize I'm using extremely light weights; the level of impressiveness is directly relational to the amount of weight you are using :)

I made 1 consequential mistake this week. I forgot my "gym card" so I didn't know what weights I should be lifting. Rather then drive all the way back home @5:15am, I guessed; luckily I guessed high, and was able to do the weight. This made my squat and bench jump more then it normally would have from my week 1 results.

Overall, I'm having difficulty not adding more weight. I am feeling very confident I could do significantly more weight on the deadlift. I have to work hard to resist the temptation not to throw another set of 45's on there. I keep telling myself "use light weight to learn proper form, and build slowly. The thing is, I'm not conditioned for slow. I want my code compiled quickly. I want to drive vehicles quickly. I want to see my fat be 10% and my squat near 300lbs and I want it now! ;)

I am also having difficulty deciding on the weights to warm up with on the squat. Friday, I did: bar-barx5,bar+20,+20,bar+45 x 5,bar+45+20 x 5,bar+45+40 x 5. I think those were too much. I was more worn out by the time I completed the 5x5 squats then I've ever been. I don't know if it was because I did too many warmups that sapped my energy; or maybe it's because of the additional weight, or maybe it was because it was Friday morning and I was just plain tired from the week of work. I don't know.

My progress

Pre-Start specifics

My Weight and Fat Percentages

Week	Weight	Gut	Body-fat [1]
PRE	250	43"	20.0%
1	245	43"	19.6%
2	241	43"	18.6%
[1] using healthcentral.com's measurement method

5x5 Week #2 Results

Here is how I managed to do, weight-wise:

How much I've lifted

B	lbs	A	lbs	B	lbs
Squat	165	Squat	175	Squat	180
Press	80	Bench	175	Press	85
Deadlift	145	Inverted Row	3xF	Deadlift	155

Overall

My muscles are harder, sorer. My legs are stronger - I've noticed I'll do stairs 2 at a time like when I was much younger, without thinking about it. Though my fat percentage says it's lower, I'm not feeling it. I'm not seeing it either, my body looks as fat as it's looked for many years now.

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

1st week of Stronglifts.com 5x5 Report

This week I started the Stronglifts 5x5 Beginner Strength Training Program. I intend to post regular updates that detail how it's going.

Why?

Because I'm out of shape. I'm in my late 30's. I feel like I have a body of someone in their late 40's. I sit at at desk all day writing code. When I do get out (to mountain bike, hike, hunt, gardening, housework, whatever) I'm sucking wind and my back is sore.

I know my core is out of shape. I can feel it.

When I've tried some of the stretches that are recommended in the 5x5 forums I've found that I have great limitations in my lower back, hips and thighs. My range of movement in all of them is pathetic.

I think all of this is related to me blowing a disk out a few years ago in my lower back. I believe my body wasn't meant to sit as much as I regularly do. I'm trying to undue years of this and institute a framework that I can exercise by for the rest of my life. ie "fix the core".

My Goal(s)

1. First one: just to do this, 3 times x week, like you are supposed to. That means waking up on time, getting to the gym on time. Going to bed on time.
   
2. Second one: increase strength 5x5 @200lbs squat (or more) at the end
   
3. Third one: use this to work toards decreasing my fat percentage to 10-12% over the next year or two.
   

Starting weights?

My first difficulty has been determining what starting weights to use. When I looked at the spreadsheet that people often use to track their progress (downloadble from the Stronglifts website on the 5x5 page, the bottom), I felt I could definitely lift more then it's starting weight on all exercises.

The question remainde: could I complete a 5x5 with a heavier starting weight? It doesn't matter if I can squat a max of 250lbs. If I can't do it 5x5, that's not where I needed to start. And if I can't do it with proper form, it doesn't count either.

I decided to go with the bar and 2 45's. That's 135lbs total. I figured "I should be able to do this".

After reading the stronglifts website, I found the mantra "Start light, focus on correct technique and add weight progressively. " so I knew I was on the right track.

At the moment I'm more concerned about form. I know I can lift more weight than this, but I want to train myself to have correct form and posture. Yes, I'm trying to undue years of messing around in the weight room (ie smith machine) off-and-on.

Starting Information

Pre-Start specifics



Pre-Start specifics

Weight	245
Height	5'9"
Gut	43"
Body-fat	19.6% ([1])

5x5 Week #1 Results

5x5 Week #1 Results

A	lbs	B	lbs	A	lbs
Squat	135	Squat	140	Squat	155
Bench	135	Overhead Press [2]	140	Bench	155
Barbell Row [3]	100	Deadlift	135	Barbell Row	135

Fat Results

Week #1 Fat Results

Weight	242
Height	5'9"
Gut	43"
Body-fat	19.6% ([1])

Overall

Overall I feel good that I completed the first full week. And I feel great. Friday taking the stairs at work, my legs didn't burn. My back didn't ache at the end of the day from being in the chair so much! I noticed I think my posture throughtout the day might have been more upright. Forcing myself to get out of bed @5am (and go to bed @9pm Sunday evening) is rough. There sure is a huge difference in the amount one can squat using the smith machine and not. I am glad I am finally not using it.

There is a new guy at the gym, doing a similar workout. We are intersecting on the gym's loan squat rack M&F. Not good. It slows me down.

I've found the B-workout, with the deadlifts, is a much faster workout then A. The dips, holy hell, do they end up zapping every once of energy I have left at the end of the workout (and by then, there's not much left let me tell you).

I'm sore. Yes, I admit it. I lift first thing in the morning. I get up @5am and drive to the gym. The rest of that day, I've not been sore. But about the afternoon of the next day, my ass my ass my ass!! So that evening when I get home from work I stretch and stretch and rub and stretch. I'm considering trying to implement some stretching/cardio/yoga on the Tuesdays/Thursdays inbetween each workout to help.

I did not "watch what I ate", however I did try to eat something more then 3 times/day. Which, by the end of the week, I had to! I was hungry about every 3 hours. Not the "I'm bored" hungry, the "my stomach feels empty and is now growling" hungry. I'm not too concerned about what I eat. My meals usually consist of:








My normal daily diet

Morning	Afternoon	Evening
Bowl of oatmeal, glass of v8, green tea	Leftovers from prior evening dinner or a baloney/turkey sandwhich, apple, banana, veggies, yogurt	Roast, Chili, Grilled Chicken, Grilled Pork, Spaghetti, veggies (steamed++), salad. Rarely desert.

So now I'm supplementing with a piece of fruit and maybe a granola bar @10am and 3pm. One day I ate a pre-dinner at 5pm. Dinner's normally at 6:30 (depends on when I get home from work too).

This week was also more difficult on the diet; my wife made a pan of Apple Dumplings the Sunday before I was to start this. It's a rare thing - about once every year or two. So each evening through the week we had Apple Dumplings ala-mode for desert.

[1] using healthcentral.com's measurement method

[2] I actually did Power Cleans here (ie going from the floor, all the way above my head, on each rep). Woops!

[3] Barbell Row or Power Cleans, your choice according to 5x5, just remember to alternate

>>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments