Today is the big day - my first goal check. How did I do? Not bad, as the post title indicates. The results:

January 31, 2009
Pullups goal: 1 (actual: 0)
Pushups goal: 10 (actual: 10)
Waist around navel: 38.5” (actual: 38.25” )

I’m pretty happy with the results overall. I wasn’t worried about the pushups (in fact I could have squeezed a couple more out), I wasn’t sure what to expect with the waist and am very happy with it, but the pullups were a real disappointment. Based on my pullup negatives training over the month of January, especially as the month was drawing to an end, I wasn’t surprised by the zero, but I thought I’d still be able to pull about halfway up. What I was surprised by was the fact that I could barely budge upwards at all, maybe a centimetre tops.

Clearly I need to do more research on how to best improve my non-existant pullups! I knew the first one would be really hard but it should get easier after that. That’s why I only set the goal of one for the first month but two for each month thereafter. Now I have to go from 0 to 3 in the shortest month of the year - yikes!

Good evening,

Below is the text of Jim Flaherty's Canadian Federal Budget for 2009. I don't approve of the deficit, that's for sure. The world got into trouble by spending money they don't have - a deficit won't necessarily make things better. Flaherty's justification that we'll still have the lowest debt load of all the G7 countries doesn't make it right.

For example, suppose you have seven factories spewing all sorts of toxic chemicals into the water, poisoning the fish and contaminating the drinking water. One of the factory owners says, "Yes, we're poisoning the fish we eat and the water we drink, but at least we're not doing it as much as the other six factories." Technically, it is better than the other factories, but that still doesn't make it right - you shouldn't be doing it at all. Now, keep in mind I'm not an economist - I'm an engineer. A good engineer makes the best out of the resources that are available, and having to go in debt means using resources that aren't available. Clearly, this doesn't sit well with me.

Despite that, I do think there is a lot of good stuff in there. If we've got to take Canada further into debt (yikes - I really hate to make that concession), at least there are some good projects that will come out of it.

Here it is - the text of the Budget 2009 speech: Read More...

I couldn't help but laugh at this. I saw it in The Winnipeg Free Press, but it was from The Canadian Press so I imagine it's everywhere. I’m not sure if it’s a stupid criminal so much as a really unlucky one, but either way it’s good for a laugh! Read More...

Good morning!

I was involved in a small movie making project at work recently, and I found it to be really interesting and a lot of fun. Although I only saw a small portion of the video editing to make the final clip, it also looked like it was fun to do. Now, he was using professional level software (Final Cut Pro), but there are many other tools you can use for beginners like myself.

I have iMovie ’08 on my computer, but I’ve never used it. Well, I finally blew the proverbial dust off the program and gave it a go. I used the videos I had taken from the Holiday Mountain trip on January 2nd and combined them along with a title, credits, and probably more transition variations than you’d actually use.

For your enjoyment, I present a 5 minute video showcasing the snowboarding trip.

Being a wireless guy for the Manitoba telco, I have to share this!


After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Ontario scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Ontarian workers, in the weeks that followed, Alberta scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, headlines in the Calgary Post newspaper read: "Albertan archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Ontarians."

One week later, the "The Russell Banner" a local newspaper in Manitoba reported the following:

After digging as deep as 30 meters in canola fields near Russell, MB., a self-taught archaeologist reported that he found absolutely nothing. He has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Manitoba had already gone wireless."

Good evening!

I’ve created a Goal Tracker page to... keep track of... my goals...
(Imagine Austin Powers saying that as though he was saying “Allow myself to introduce... myself.” )

That is where I will be keeping score on the aggressive health and fitness goals I’ve set for myself for 2009. I’m sure people will say to me “You want to lose six inches? Why? You’re not overweight!” I’ve had people tell me things along those lines before when I mentioned in the past that I’d like to shed some pounds. I think the reason for that is because compared to many, dare I say even compared to most, I am of average (or even below) weight for men my height (and proportionally for men taller and shorter). While that is well and good, that doesn’t mean that I’m in the best shape I can be. Read More...

Hi,

After testing the videos live this morning after they uploaded to my web host last night, I realized that it really hurts the user experience when you have to wait for a couple of hundred megabytes of data to download before watching the videos. It was late last night when I posted them and I was tired from a day on the hill, so my brain wasn’t altogether there. If you didn’t try it between last night and now, trust me - it’s much better this way!

Also, if you’re familiar with YouTube videos, often you’ll now see a link under the video that says “Watch in high quality”. I was able to figure out how to embed the high quality flag in the videos below, which is nice because they default to low quality and the user can’t change the setting when the video is embedded in another page like I’ve done here.

Holiday Mountain pictures
Holiday Mountain videos

Well, it took a while, but we (Sean, Dan, Adrian, Ryan, and I) finally made it out for our first snowboarding/skiing trip of the season. We tried to make it out to Springhill a couple of times, but being right on the floodway they are more sensitive to the wind chill and so they were closed down on those days. Today, we planned ahead and got an early start for the drive to Holiday Mountain in La Riviere, Manitoba.

We had a great time, the weather was nice (mid -20s Celsius), we all worked on our jumps, and while there were some spills, nobody got hurt.

Pictures and Videos from the day

Happy New Year!!!

I wish everybody all the best in 2009, and hope that all your goals and dreams come true. If you set goals or resolutions, make sure they are SMART goals:

• Specific (well defined)
• Measurable (can track progress and define completion)
• Agreed upon (if it involves more than you)
• Realistic (within your means, resources, laws of physics )
• Time based (enough time to complete goal but not so much that it is forgotten about until the end)

With this in mind, here are some of my goals for 2009. Read More...