Archives 2010

I just completed my 6th EA Active workout last night.  I am hoping to hit the 24 workouts required for the 6 week challenge.  I have been enjoying the challenge so far and the game as well.  There are really only a couple issues I have seen with it. 

Although the exercise sessions are diverse, the stretching sessions before and after each workout are not.  In fact they are exactly the same every single time.  That is sort of dumb. Also, I wish they could squeeze some better graphics out of the Wii.  The quality is circa 1999.  The Wii is great fun but it just doesn’t do a great job of pumping out eye candy.

The other thing that has a few flaws is my new gym, Retro Fitness. I love the facility, I love the equipment, I love that it’s clean, yet it is not perfect.  The staff there are mostly young kids in their 20’s.  They seem much more interested in chatting among themselves and texting on their cell phones than making customers feel welcome. Many times you walk by the staff either at the counter or on the gym floor and they act like you are a ghost.

Yesterday I was back in the free weight area and saw the McNabb press conference was coming on one of the various flat screen tv’s that are mounted on the walls.  I went over to one of the staff and asked if they could turn on the closed captioning so I could see what was being said.  At first he told me “I” could go up to the front desk and ask. I said “Well can’t you go check?” since wtf, you do work here dude?

So while I do a set of pull ups the guy goes up front.  When he returns I walk over to him and he shakes his head.  “When we first opened we had closed captioning turned on and people complained” he says. “Complained?  Why would someone complain about closed captioning? It makes no sense”  The guy shrugs his shoulders and walks away.  The lack of common sense that was just demonstrated annoyed me throughout the remainder of my workout.

Speaking of the McNabb press conference, I listened to the audio later.  McNabb seemed a bit embarrassed to be in the situation of being traded.  He offered a few jabs at the Eagles by declaring the Birds were rebuilding while the Redskins wanted to win now.  He also joked about the Eagles thinking 33 was old as well as their lack of a running game.  However for the most part he carried himself well and said the right things. 

It will be very interesting to see how this season plays out.  Even if the Eagles aren’t very good, there will be plenty of side drama to pickup the slack.

I left the house last night around 8:15 to pick up Ali at the airport.  Her flight was scheduled to land at 9:05.  Imagine my surprise when I get a text message from her at 8:20 saying her flight just landed.  It worked out ok though.  By the time they plane docked and Ali got her bag she only had to wait about 5 minutes until I got there.

I took party van 2.0 along with the dogs who were very happy to see Ali.  Sadie immediately made herself comfortable on Ali’s lap.  Ali was glad to be home even though she had a good time during her PA visit.  She didn’t get very solid sleep the entire time so she was pretty exhausted.  It felt good to have a non-canine bed companion once again.

I watched all of Kevin Kolb’s press conference yesterday.  I have to say I liked pretty much everything I saw and heard. Kolb has a quiet confidence that makes you feel like he can get the job done. I seriously am looking forward to next season.  It will be refreshing to have a new face behind center.  Surely there will be bumps in the road but I’m hopeful that by November Eagle fans will be glad that McNabb was sent packing.

I found Dave Spadaro’s comments interesting when I was watching the original announcement on Easter night.  He was talking about how the Eagles will be able to expand the offense with Kolb in control.  It sounded like what he was really saying was “since McNabb was inaccurate and not great at reading defenses the Birds had to scale down what they asked him to do”

I was surprised Spadaro would say something like that since he generally has to keep most of his commentary pretty vanilla as an employee of the Eagles.  He seemed very enthusiastic about the move.  I agree with his commentary.

How do you like this quote from Brian Baldinger?

“The Eagles get at least two chances to expose the same flaws they’ve been covering up for 11 years. It works against the Redskins that McNabb is still in the division. Andy Reid can finally stop covering up for one of the most overrated quarterbacks in the history of the game,” Baldinger said on the NFL Network

About a year or so ago I was having terrible issues with my content getting hacked.  I would contact my web host and they would repeatedly point the finger back at me, saying that my local workstation had to be at fault, the victim of a keylogger or some other malicious program.  I keep my workstations pretty secure so I knew this was very unlikely.

Regardless I still verified that my computers were clean, they were.  This process repeated many times with the end result of IX shrugging their shoulders and again pointing at me as the source of the problem.

Well finally IX decided to actually look internally.  It turns out that a number of their servers had been compromised, allowing hackers free reign to compromise their customers data.  They finally had to admit that the problem was actually theirs. The internet was filled with IX customers complaining of similar compromises to their sites.

Since that revelation things with IX have been running smoothly.  I have had no hacks on my content, until recently.  Once again the target of choice was my blog.  You all can remember a couple weeks ago how Ali’s PC got infected after loading my blog and all of the subsequent bullshit that ensued as a result. 

I never was able to definitively tell what happened to cause the hack but changing my theme for the blog seemed to address the compromise.    Well once again I noticed a PDF trying to load when viewing the blog.  I ftp into my content and see 3 files that were modified yesterday afternoon.  I was not in the site yesterday.  When I opened the files I saw that a line was added to load a hidden IFRAME designed to redirect people to a shady site.

I deleted the shit code and then immediately changed any passwords that could have given access to the site, although the current passwords were strong and unlikely to be cracked. Iframe injection can occur without the hacker having any ftp access.

I contacted IX about the hack.  The first time it happened I figured it could be an isolated incident, to happen again so quickly is not a coincidence.  The tech sounded concerned and knowledgeable.  He said he would run a clean script, restore the modified files and send me info on how to limit the IP addresses that have the ability to ftp to my content, great.

Well instead I basically get a form letter from IX.  There is no mention of restoring my files nor any info regarding FTP restrictions.  Instead it again focuses on pointing the finger back at me, saying that I could have had a keylogger installed, scan my machine, blah, blah,blah.

This pisses me off, especially when you consider IX’s history.  When I was talking to the guy on the phone I suggested the possibility of a server compromise like before.  He said that if it was the case they would be inundated with calls.  I said “funny, that is the exact same thing you guys told me before, yet the server WAS compromised”

So I fixed the tainted files and everything should be fine once again. However I will be watching very closely.  If IX has once again allowed their servers to be compromised there will be major hell to pay.

Wow my head is teeming with things from my bachelor weekend.  For those of you that are interested in my initial reaction to the McNabb trade let me give you a quick one liner.  I’m fine that he was traded, I would have preferred it wasn’t in division.

So typically when Ali is out of town I spend a lot of my free time geeking out playing WoW.  This time around it was different.  I guess I basically had other things I felt like doing.  I watched a lot of movies  over the weekend, a total of 5.  I watched two on Friday night.

I started off with Underworld, Return of the Lycans.  I’ve always been a fan of the Underworld series and specifically Kate Beckinsale.  Vampires versus werewolves is a pretty good premise.  This latest chapter had one big thing working against it, no Kate Beckinsale except for a brief cameo at the very end.    Even so I found it very entertaining, it’s definitely a worthwhile rental if you are into this type of thing.  B+

Next I hooked up the laptop to the new tv in the bedroom and watched Hurt Locker, the best picture winner this year.  When the movie finished I was scratching my head.  How the hell did this beat Avatar?  Don’t get me wrong it was an interesting film but I didn’t see anything that would have made it worthy of swiping best film honors away from something as epic as Avatar.  Hurt Locker does a good job of depicting what modern day warfare in Iraq / Afghanistan is like and it isn’t pretty.

Imagine walking through a foreign land when you never know if the guy on the street likes you or hates you.  If he is the latter he might just have a vest full of C-4 that he will use to take out you and anyone within 50 yards.  It’s hell.  However, war is, was and always will be hell.  A good movie, but not Avatar good, not even close, B+.

All weekend I got to enjoy beautiful weather.  I took advantage of it by working outside quite a bit on Saturday.  After doing my normal weeding I turned my attention to our saw palmetto bush.

Our neighbors had theirs trimmed back hard and I liked the look of it so I decided I would do the same to ours. It was a big job.  In total I spent close to two hours cutting away fronds.  I brought over my car kreepy krauler to sit on since I didn’t want to wreck my knees. 

I wore my leather gloves for the job.  The reason this bush is called a “saw” palmetto is the fronds have a saw tooth edge to them.  They do a nice job of ripping through human flesh.  Although my hands were protected my arms and legs were not.  As a result my appendages were a bloody mess at the end of the project.  Hopefully the end result was worth the effort.

I got a second wind and decided to do some more “trimming” well actually it was more like hacking and slashing with the machete.  I worked on skinning some of the cabbage palms on the property.  Skinning a cabbage palm is the process of removing the dead cross hatch pattern wood that is left over from dead fronds as the tree grows. 

I have tried to skin the palms in the past with the machete and had very poor results.  Initially I had very poor results again with the machete just bouncing off the wood.  However eventually I fine tuned my technique and was able to effectively remove the dead wood.  I found hacking the shit out of a tree with a machete to be a great stress reliever as well as a good workout. In the picture you can see a skinned versus unskinned tree.

Saturday night I planned to go to the movies.  I put a general invite out on Facebook for anyone that wanted to go see Clash of the Titans 3D however I had no takers so I was fine to head out solo.

My initial plans were to go to the 7:40 showing.  Prior to the movie I was going to eat at the Carrabas that I thought was in Coconut Point.  I figured I would sit at the bar, drink a few beers and eat my meal while watching sports on tv.  Well there was one problem, there wasn’t a Carrabas there.  I got it mixed up with the Carrabas at Gulf Town Center. 

So it was a little after 5 o’clock.  I went up to the theater to see when the earlier show starts, I figured maybe it started at 5:40.  I thought maybe I could just grab some food quick and hit the earlier show.  I asked the clerk what time the movie started.  5:05 she said.  I looked at my watch which read 5:15.    Hmmm I did some quick math, knowing that there are typically at least 10 minutes of previews. I still hadn’t eaten so I would have to make do with a movie theater dinner.  Ok, give me a ticket.

I figured I still had a couple minutes so I hurried up to the food counter and ordered a nutritious dinner that consisted of a hot dog, a soft pretzel and a large Diet Coke.  I got into the theater just as the last preview was wrapping up, Iron Man 2 (which looks great). 

There were a decent amount of people in the theater but I still had no problem finding a good seat.  When you are by yourself your seat options expand exponentially.  It felt a bit weird sitting down to watch a movie myself but I didn’t mind it all that much as I worked on my fast food meal.

This movie was not shot in true 3d like Avatar was.  Instead the film is mutated into 3d in post production somehow.  The 3d effect was there but it wasn’t nearly as realistic as Avatar.  In the past I remember pulling off my 3D glasses and have the screen look all blurry with shades of red and blue.  Several times I pulled my glasses up to see what it looked like to the naked eye.  Surprisingly it wasn’t much different at all.   Whatever object that had the 3d effect looked slightly blurry without the glasses but for the most part it looked like a regular 2D flick.

The movie itself was fine.  There was the typical crazy good special effects and plenty of action through out.  There was nothing that would make me think about the movie the next day or make me recommend it wholeheartedly to somebody.  It was decent and I always enjoy the 3D thing.  I’d give it a B.

I wasn’t done with my movie night yet.  Saturday night I watched Terminator Salvation for the second time.  It was such a good movie up until the end.  The ending is so dumb it almost negates the rest of the movie.

My Easter Sunday was again busy.  I headed to mom’s place mid-morning with the dogs.  Mom asked if we could move some stuff over to her new place awhile before we had our Easter meal.  We moved a bunch of boxes and some smaller, lighter furniture items.  I also brought my socket set to disassemble the day bed in her spare bedroom. 

I got my first tour of her new place which is conveniently located right across the parking lot.  It’s a nice unit which is obviously better maintained than where she is now.  It has a totally different floor plan which has some advantages and disadvantages but I think most of the changes are positive.

Mom and I enjoyed a simple Easter meal of ham, asparagus and sweet potatoes.  After we finished eating we ran a few more items across the street.  We came back to the middle of a crime scene.  We walked in to Sadie eating ham on the floor.  Evidently mom left the left over ham in a tupperware container uncovered on the counter.  Sadie knocked the ham down and ate at least 2/3 of it.  I am curious if Nicki also participated in the crime although I did not see her licking her chops.  I scolded Sadie loudly.  Although having open food on a counter is a big temptation, I don’t want her to think it is ok to pull stuff down off of them regardless.

So mom is scheduled to move completely next Sunday.  I just realized this morning that we have a race to time on Sunday as well so I will be going right from the race to  mom’s place.

Sunday evening I watched my fifth and final movie of the weekend, Apollo 13.  For some reason I just got the urge to see it again.  It’s a great movie and when you think about how it was based on an actual event it makes the film even more special.  Unless, it didn’t.  

After I watched the movie I got on the net to look up “apollo moon video”.  Lots of links came up, including the links to various sites that claim that the entire Apollo  program was faked.  Anyone that reads my blog knows that I am always open to the possibility of a conspiracy theory.  I am not the type to blindly accept what media tells the public as the gospel.  Although I have heard about the moon conspiracies before I never looked into many details because mostly I don’t want to believe that something as sacred as walking on the moon could possibly be just an elaborate sham put on by the federal government.

Well I went to one of the links that details the hoax and spent a good hour pouring through what was there.  I also went through some sites that supposedly debunk the hoax proponents.  I’m not going to go point by point as there are far too many to cover here and they are covered completely in the link above.  However there are a few things that stick out in my head as odd.

The Apollo program occurred at the height of the Cold War and it’s specific goal was to reach the moon to display dominance to the Russians.   Kennedy proclaimed this goal in 1962.  Man supposedly walked on the moon 7 years later.  7 years in space exploration time is a drop in the bucket.  If you look at the technology of that era it was miraculous that the US pulled this goal off, unless they didn’t.

Does it seem within the realm of possibility that we could have faked landing on the moon in the name of national security?  The nuclear threat from the Russians felt very real at that time, establishing the US as the top dog in space was viewed as the ultimate trump card.  4% of the national GDP was funneled into the space program.

Why is it that in the 40+ years since the moon landing there has not been the simplest verification that we were there, pictures of the abandoned equipment on the surface?  Now the easy way to dismiss this is there is not a telescope on Earth powerful enough to provide such pictures.  However the reality is there are other ways this could have been proven.  For example any of the various lunar probes that have been launched post landing could have been used to photograph the supposed landing site.  Hell we just crash landed a satellite onto the moon a few months ago, why not use that satellite to send back some proof before smashing it into the surface? 

Why in 1969 were we able to transport man 200,000 miles into space but since the Apollo missions ended the farthest we have been able to travel is 350 miles into space? It really doesn’t make any sense.  With the huge leaps in technology since 69 you would think in the span of four decades we would have made a return trip to our closet neighbor, yet we have not.   

Take a look at that site and take the time to read about the various red flags, there are a ton of them.  Then ask yourself if you think there is ANYTHING the government would deem out of bounds when it comes to national security.  Is it possible we would actually lie to the world about landing on the moon? Man I hope not, but do I think it is a possibility? Absolutely. Read the info and make your own determinations.

I got a call around 9pm from Ali telling me the big news, McNabb has finally been traded.  I was very surprised when she told me his new team was in the same division, the Washington Redskins.  Typically you never want to trade a player to a team in your same division.  It’s just bad karma since you have to play that team at least twice each season.

Although I am not thrilled with number 5 going just down I-95 I am ok overall with the trade.  The Eagles got decent value for Donovan, scoring a high second round draft pick this year and another next year. 

As I watched the Andy Reid press conference it was with some mixed feelings.  McNabb has been involved in some of the best times in Eagles history.  His overall winning percentage during his 11 year Eagle career was great.  He has made countless big plays in that same time period yet many Eagle fans, including myself were ready to say goodbye to him.  Why do you think that is?

Well I think although McNabb was part of big wins he also was part of some of the biggest disappointments Eagle fans ever had to endure.  The repeated failures in the NFC championship games ripped the soul out of most fans. When the Birds finally did make the leap to the Super Bowl it was once again the vision of McNabb doing a piss poor job of clock management while acting exhausted down the stretch that is burned into our memory. 

Despite his many successes it is the epic failures that stick with many fans.  The way this season ended with back to back embarrassing lopsided losses to the hated Cowboys was especially bitter.  In those games where the Eagles had a chance to take their season by the horns McNabb came up McSmall, in a huge way.  He played like shit. 

McNabb’s personality was never a good match for Philadelphia.  He seems to be happy go lucky guy that is always laughing and smiling.  Eagle fans don’t want their quarterback laughing and smiling all the time.  We never felt that McNabb felt the losses like we did.  He never seemed to invest as much of himself emotionally in what happened on the field as the fans.  We don’t like that.

Once McNabb had a chip on his shoulder about being classified as a “running” QB his game was never quite the same.  Gone was the threat that would give defensive coordinators nightmares.  Instead Donovan was determined to be a mostly in the pocket passer.  The problem was although he is physically gifted, accuracy was not one of those gifts.

  For a decade Eagle fans have suffered through McNabb making some pretty horrid throws, above, below and behind open receivers.  I wonder how many run after the catch yards have been lost over the years by our receivers having to dive at ankle high throws?

Donovan was never viewed as a real emotional leader on the team.  You never got a sense players fed off his leadership.  I want my QB to inspire other players.

In a nutshell, I appreciate what Donovan did while he was here but I was ready to see him move on.  After 11 years I know what he can do and what he can’t do.  Maybe he will go to the Skins and catch on fire.  Maybe he will magically be able to hit crossing receivers in stride or not choke when the pressure is on at the end of the game? Maybe, he won’t.  

How do I feel about Kevin Kolb being in charge? Who knows.  He showed some sparks of brilliance when he started a few games when McNabb was hurt.  Hopefully he turns out to be the next Tom Brady instead of the next Bobby Hoying. I’m willing to roll the dice.  Evidently the Eagles are rolling the dice in a big way.  Their housecleaning of big name veterans is something I have never seen before in one Eagles off season.  Hopefully they are proven to be prophets and not boobs.

Ali comes home tonight, it’s about time! 🙂

I forgot to mention last night I had a bizarre and disturbing dream.  I was in the office working on the computer.  I came out to the kitchen for something and I see that the house is flooded with water.  Ali was working on trying to clean it up although the water was still flowing from the utility room.

I went BESERK.  I start screaming at her “Why the F didn’t you call me!!!”  I look in the utility room and one of the knobs on the wall that controls the water is gone with only a bare post remaining.  I run out to the garage and grab a pliers and shut the water off.

My attention one again turns to Ali as I look at the wet disaster all around us.  I was literally insane with rage.  I continued screaming my disbelief that she would not have called me out as the house was flooding with water.  I screamed and screamed and screamed some more.  I couldn’t believe this was happening.  Luckily it didn’t.  I was so mad in my dream that it actually woke me up.

I’m pretty laid back 99% of the time but when I get angry, I mean really angry, it’s pretty scary.  I’m talking ME HULK, ME SMASH!! sort of angry.

Needless to say I did not have a very restful nights sleep.

Florida is doing a short term rebate program for upgrading appliances.  It’s basically cash for clunkers.  Just like C for C, there is a finite amount of money available for rebates, 17 million and change.  The potential savings are considerable.  20% of the purchase price plus $75 if you recycle the old appliance.

I need to talk to Ali about it but it may be a good time to upgrade our washer.

So last night after doing my 4th EA Active  workout of the week I decided to go get groceries.  I decided to make it a different sort of grocery trip by going to the Publix at Ave Maria, the new catholic university/town in the middle of nowhere.  If you remember, this was the Publix I stopped at when I almost ran out of gas on a drive back from the volleyball tournament in December.

I always thought it would be interesting to shop there since it was so empty. I also figured it wasn’t all that much farther than our regular Publix which is between 8 and 9 miles away.  Well it was actually a lot further away than I thought, around 15 miles door to door.

Once again the place had more employees than shoppers as you can see from the picture.  The store is much smaller than my regular Publix and has an entirely different layout so it took me awhile to find all of my items. 

Ironically when I went to check out I had to wait a long time.  They only had one register open and I just happened to be behind a woman that had two shopping carts worth of food, it was incredible.  Her bill had to be pushing $300.

As I left the store the manager manually pushed the automatic door open.  I thought that was weird and I asked him if the door was broken.  Nope the store is closing, he said.  I looked at my watch, it was roughly 7:15.  I looked at the hours on the door and saw 9-7 everyday.  Wow, life in Ave Maria certainly is different. 🙂

Last night I actually turned my computer on but it was only so I could copy a movie to my Tivo. No WoW, once again.   This weekend I plan to watch Underworld Return of the Lycans and Hurt Locker.  I had issues getting Hurt Locker to play via my Xbox so instead I tested the PC monitor capability of my new Sony LCD tv.  I was able to hook up a laptop to the the Sony and play a movie just fine, very cool.

My weekend as a bachelor is shaping up to be pretty mundane.  I have plans to do some outside spring clean up on Saturday.  Saturday night I want to go see Clash of the Titans in 3D since it’s a movie Ali wouldn’t want to see.  If nobody chimes in that they want to be my “date” I will just go by myself, it will be cool either way.

Sunday is Easter.  I am going to mom’s place to enjoy Easter dinner as well as help her do some stuff to help with her move.  She has the keys to her new place so we are going to move some of the stuff over awhile.  I am looking forward to seeing her new place.

I was trying to come up with some creative thing to post on here for April Fool’s day.  I struck out, everyone tries to do something silly anymore on this day so what’s the point? You’ll just have to put with a boring entry instead.

Yesterday I went to the dentist to have more of my silver fillings replaced.  This time I had MY dentist.  I have always liked her not only because she is attractive and friendly, she also is very good at making unpleasant things like cavities pain free.  The last time I went I had the other female dentist and it was not pleasant.  Even though she shot me up twice I could feel the pain.  Yesterday I felt zero pain for the three teeth that were worked on.  I will be sure to explicitly request her services in the future.

So last night was my first night alone.  In the past I would typically be on the computer way too late playing WoW in similar situations.  Last night I didn’t even turn the computer on.  Yes you heard that right.

Instead I watched a Cliff Notes version of V that basically highlighted the series up to this point so you could hop into this season with a base understanding of what’s going on.  Jeremy said it was a pretty good show.

I did chores like emptying the dishwasher and laundry. I also worked on getting the new TV set up in our bedroom.

Setting up the new TV was easy, getting the old tv off the dresser on to the floor was hard.  I am a pretty good pack mule.  I can lift and carry pretty heavy objects.  Well the old 32″ tube TV was just about at the limit of my carrying capacity.  The combo of it being so big around and heavy made just moving it from the dresser to the floor a risky task.  I was right on the edge of dropping it.  The old TV will live on the floor of our bedroom until I manage to sell/give it away.  When it comes time to move it again I will either use my furniture sliders or a dolly.  I really would like to get that sucker on a scale.  I’m guessing it’s close to 125 pounds.

I wrapped up my night by watching about 2/3 of Private Parts on my new tv.  The picture looked nice and I like that it takes up considerably less real estate on the dresser.

Maybe I’ll turn the computer on tonight, maybe not.

Jeremy just knows exactly the type of person that makes my skin crawl.  Welcome to today’s edition.  My advice to this poor, gun stroking citizen that finds it necessary to proudly display his assault rifle on camera, get a knife instead, they won’t tax it as much.

I got up at 3:55 am this morning in order to get ready for having Ali at the airport by 5:15-5:30 am for her trip to PA.  She will be up visiting her nieces and other family through the weekend.  We took the van to drop Ali off so the dogs could travel comfortably.

After dropping her off it was early enough that I had time to drive back home and drop off the dogs with time to spare.  I am trying something different during this Ali hiatus.  Instead of driving all the way home and back over lunch to let the dogs out I am instead going to leave work an hour early. The hope is the girls can hold it that long.  I am crossing my fingers I’m not pushing the limits too far.

Getting up so early meant I had some extra spare time before work.  I decided to stop at Wal-mart.  I wanted to pick up a cheap desktop mic to test with our new private IM system.  While I was in the electronics department I decided to take a look at the LCD tv’s.  I think I mentioned I was looking to replace the monster 32 inch conventional tube tv in our bedroom.

A few weeks ago I saw a 720P Visio for like $370 at Sam’s Club which seemed like a decent deal.  I noticed that Wal-Mart had several similar deals on 32 inch sets but the tv’s in that price range were lesser brand names like Sanyo, Emerson, etc….  I walked towards a corner and saw they had several display model LCD’s stacked on a shelf.  These are models that have been replaced with the latest and greatest. 

Well my eyes locked in on a 32 inch SONY 720P LCD tv.  I have always been partial to Sony over the years, even now that they have been somewhat passed by Samsung.  Well the TV was 20% off which brought the price down to $318 bucks!  A Sony for $318, I’m there.  Yea it’s a display model with no box but it appeared to work just fine.  I have 90 days to return it if something turns up fishy.

I did my second session of the new EA Active last night.  Even though it was shorter, it felt much more difficult.  My abs were dying at the end to the point where I had to stop briefly in the middle of a set.  The push ups on the Wii Fit board are brutal when you incorporate walking your hands off each side in an alternating fashion.  Try it, if you dare.

Last night I finally got a chance to try out EA Active More Workouts, one of my Christmas gifts.  My after work Wii fitness routines has been generally lacking and instead I’ve been doing my standard quick crunch / push up routine.

Well much like Wii Fit Plus, they did a nice job with the second iteration EA Active.  Instead of a park in the mountains, this version of the game puts you in a tropical location which of course I would always prefer.  Almost all of the activities and exercises are brand new. 

They made a couple really cool additions, including a warm up and cool down period for every workout something that was severely lacking from the old game.  In the original within the first minute you could find yourself doing jumping split squats with no warm up which is a recipe for injury.

When I did the workout challenge in the original game I selected the medium intensity level.  I decided to crank it up to high this time around.  A half hour later I was thoroughly tired.  A quick tip, wear briefs when doing EA Active, the jump rope activity is murder on the jewels otherwise. I’m going to see if I can get a session in after work each day outside of Fridays and the weekend.

My brother Patrick just got back from Japan.  He was there for nearly a month for his job.  Pat is an incredibly cool kid.  If I was able to go back and relive the period of my life from the age of 16-22 I think I would use Pat as a template.  He has done and experienced so many interesting things in that time period it makes my head spin. 

During that same time period in my life I was spinning my wheels just trying to get by after wasting an opportunity to go to college because of youthful disillusionment in a relationship that went nowhere.  Patrick is a great athlete (recently completed his first marathon),  extremely intelligent, adventurous and maintains an off center perspective on life that is refreshing. Oh yea, he also plays guitar. 

Although he has had several girlfriends during that time period he wisely never allowed them to become the focus of his life.  Instead Patrick did everything a kid his age should do, experience life to it’s fullest.  I have no doubt his future will be filled with great things.