A day in the life of…..

Well I just upgraded Zenphoto now as well to the latest version. I finally sucked it up and came to terms that the apostrophe problem will not be fixed. I lost all the comments for those folders which I was going to be ok with, what I didnt expect was when I change the folder names, the modified date on the folder changes, and according to zenphoto, so does the album, so it went and called all those albums new, which then I had to use manual sorting and move about 20 albums all around to get them into the right location.. What a PITA.. that sucked..

Impressions… it is definately heavier than the previous version.. and I would say it runs slower than the version I was running(1.0.8) but that was expceted.. by me at least. Big difference between the versions..

Oh well.. all is set now for the future and beyond.. Now I just gotta start adding stuff to the site..

Oh!.. and I know none of the pics show up on the blog section anymore.. havent figured that one out yet.. Maybe I will.. maybe I wont.. We’ll see..

Well… it has been a loooooooonnnngg time since I last upgraded my wordpress installation.. But I did it.. Easy as pie as always..

Well over the weekend I went out and bought some new running shoes and intended on running Sunday. Well the weather wasn’t all that hot down around here.. and by hot I mean good to run in… it was definitely hot outside.. but the tornado sirens and throwing winds didn’t really make for good running weather..

But today I ran.. for the first time in over 5 years, I went out for a run. NOW. I have been to the gym an awful lot over the past 4 years. I am down from 198lbs down to 168lbs and I am in my best shape since high school. However, this was all done in a gym on elliptical machines and treadmills, never outside.

I was skeptical what my time would be. I was hoping for 7:30 to 8:00 but I was going to be thrilled with 9:00, considering its been 5 years since I have “gone for a run” and since 10th grade since a timed mile. Over 10 years. My time was 8:01. Not bad. I am going to try to improve on it, and with a little bit of conditioning I think I can get to where I want to be.(I haven’t been to the gym since the end of my biggest loser competition at work(2 months, see a few posts down)) .

I am really happy with that time. Jackie ran with me, she is training for a full marathon. She beat me by 11 seconds. I tried to catch her but the closer I got, the farther away she was, I couldn’t gain on her. She is an amazing runner. Well this is just the beginning. I hope to eventually build my time back down to 7:00(6:59 is my goal) I don’t think it will be all that hard. The muscles weren’t really tired at all, but my breathing and endurance was Achilles’ heel(get it…. lol.. ok sorry) I couldn’t suck in enough air.

Now I did a timed mile my first time out because I wanted to see progress of me… average health male to average active athletic male to runner. In 1 month I am going to time myself again and ever month after I will run at least 1 timed mile. Like I said above, I am going for sub 7 min, once I get my speed where I want it I am going to start for distance/endurance, I want my 3 mile time to be 20 - 21 min. which I would be absolutely thrilled with. That would put me just below my high school pace.

Well it’s all for talk now. Now I gotta do it. lets see if I got it in me.

We went off roading in Paul’s new Jeep today. Chris brought his as well. It was definately an interesting day. Here is the review

Paul sees a mud puddle. Makes Chris go first.
Chris makes it through.
Paul makes it through.
They go back through it to the next puddle. (Paul makes Chris go first)
Chris makes it….Paul doesn’t
Paul’s car stalled and wont start
Chris burns clutch trying to get Paul out
Paul’s jeep starts up.
We dig him around Chris’s jeep
Paul pulls Chris’s jeep out and home
Paul realizes he had Traction Control on….

Ill bet you thats the last time he forgets that.

Anyways…. heres the pics

Today we celebrated the 50th Wedding Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa Windy. Jackie and I traveled out to Reese for the church ceremony then headed up to KingFish up on the water in Bay City where we had dinner and a few drinks. It was nice to see the family and celebrate the occasion with everyone.

Not something you would normally want to say about yourself, but this time it is a good thing. Today we had our final weigh in at work for our biggest loser competition. My starting weight was 186 and my finishing weight was 171 for a total of 15lbs weight loss which is about 8.1% bodyweight lost. Not too bad for 1 month. All in all I am really happy. I went and found some old pictures that Jackie and I took when we first got our gym membership. I didn’t really think I was in as bad of shape as I looked. But compared to now, I can’t beleive I ever looked the way I did. I am actually pretty embarassed about these pictures but whatever, I put up embarassing photos of everyone else. So brace yourself. What you might see is disturbing. The first ones are from June of 2006 when I was 188 pounds. When I started the competion I weighed just just about the same so this is a pretty fair contrast.

And these are from today

Not bad..all it took was a lot of working out and some strict dieting. I am really happy about what I have accomplished and I am not done yet. I am after those 6pack abs which have eluded me since high school. I am gonna get them back.