Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
What feels like several lifetimes ago I started this blog. In reality it was 18 years ago today. It is so weird to think how much my life has changed in those 18 years. There may have been dry spells where I did not write for a while (a year or so now and again) I have continuously journaled in that 18 years. For someone who used to get claustrophobic in 2 year mobile phone contracts I am impressed that I kept at it.
With a long list of post ideas here is hoping for another 18.
For my birthday I felt a bit nostalgic. I finally will post this entry I wrote almost a year ago. I simply had a lot I wrote and never was sure when to post it. So here I am.
For over a year now (I started writing this post in Jan 2020) I have been thinking about things I am interested in writing about. As much as I like to share, this blog is really for me to just write above all else. That is why I jump around to several different unrelated topics. In thinking about what I write about or want to write about I broke down my writing into a few different categories. Some of them like technology or writing about the girls I’ve been doing for a while. Writing about life as an ex-pat is also not really new anymore either.
There are some distinctly new categories I decided to focus some time on as well. One of which is stories about my dad. The inspiration for that came about around the time he died. In talking about all the funny interesting stories about him he got thinking that I wanted to write some of them down. I have written and posted a few already. There are many more I just haven’t wanted to address however they seem like pretty good stories.
After I started brainstorming about ideas to write about my dad I realized I probably want to write about some things about my childhood and things that happend long ago (aka childhood or single life). The working “category” for those are my origin stories. This particular post was inspired because there’s one story I want to tell. As I started thinking about how to tell it, I realized it is really three separate stories. Each one related and building off the other one. Or that is how it flows for me. As I fleshed those stories out I realised there are more beyond those that I find interesting and would want to tell.
Another category I don’t write a lot about is work. I used to do that often. If you search the archives of this blog you’ll find many work-related posts. There used to be more. However I documented previously how I had to curtail that due to minor issue while working at Parksearch. Nothing bad happened. It was actually pretty funny, even when it happened. I can’t seem to find the right keyword to find that story or else I would share it now. Long story short I originally wrote about work long before it was common and became probilimatic with conflicts of interest. Now I simply do not do it to be safe.
If I orchestrate this properly this intro post will go up right before I start posting some origin stories. Now all I have to do is go write them.
The photo in this post is of a rocket launch pad my dad had at our beach club in the late 1980’s. My dad and rockets will be a post at some point however when looking for a photo that best sums up any origin stories i thought a rocket one was the most appropriate.
The big argument in the Weinstein household tonight centred around frosting. There are those that believe that cake is a delivery mechanism for frosting. Then there are those that believe is not.
No matter how good the cake is it is obvious that all cake is the delivery mechanism for frosting. How in 2021 is this still a thing?
Prior to covering and working from home all the time I was semi-active. If I went to the office the amount of walking between the home, the train, the office and back again (along with lunch or whatever else i did) was close to my exercise and move goals on my Apple Watch. I went to Sainsbury’s something on the way home I would go over my goal with room to spare. That’s not to say I was extremely active. I would force myself to get up and walk around at the office when my watch beeped at me that it was time to stand up. Even then I knew I needed to do more.
Then the lockdown happened in March and I worked from home. Things deteriorated from there. I bought a bike in April hoping that I would use it to ride around. I did for a while however not every day. I have loved riding bikes since I was a kid and I still do. What I keep remembering is when I try it is not something for me that I will do everyday. I am glad I got the bike however it is not my daily exercise.
Over the summer and early fall I cannot recall. I decided that I would go for coffee every day since that would force a walk. I was actually pretty good at doing that for most day is however not all. It would give me a lot of the exercise I needed. It just wasn’t enough. I tried to walk more however I had an issue with walking that i wont go into detail on.
I needed something more and I knew it. My sister and one of my good friends said I should buy a Peleton Bike or Treadmill. When I stopped laughing I realised they were serious. My sister and my brother in law swear by the Peloton. M and my experience with exercise equipment is they take up a lot of space. We had one in our apartment in New York and I don’t know how many times are used it but it was probably less than two dozen in the 4. Years we owned it. We were lucky that the local fire department needed one and they came and took away for us and were happy to do it. Fight story they offered to bring the kids out to the fire truck some of them climb around as a thanks. They showed up with a pickup in the firetruck am at the lights wire on the street and my girls were petrified and did. To go anywhere near it. I thought it was cool though.
Besides the space a bike or treadmill takes up I am not for a $2000 or more so piece of equipment and $35 a month in subscriptions for the service. I never went to a gym other than the one in my building because I didn’t want to pay money for a plan that I would not use.
When Apple announced Apple One and Fitness+ I thought it sounds interesting and moved on to other news. When it launched in early December there were many reviews on some of the tech sites I read. So I read one review. That I read a few more. If the service came out a year before I would have totally ignored it. It is launched at probably the perfect time for me. I need something easy. I needed something with a low barrier to entry. I didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money per month. Fitness+ offered all of that from me. Sidenote nice a low barrier for entry I am talking about me personally. I already an Apple Watch. I already own an Apple TV and iPad. That means I can do the workouts with nothing more than the service. With homepods in the house instead of echoes (i will likely write about that in another post) we switched from spotify to Apple music family plan. With our iCloud plan getting the Apple one bundle with fitness+ was cheaper and i got even more stuff I will write about later.
With my new trial Fitness+ and a yoga mat I borrowed from one of the girls I was doing a work out in the home office or living room. The girls even joined in with me. I have been doing yoga every day of my holiday. I am hoping this is a habit I will adopt. And setting aside 30 minutes a day and I can do the work out literally feet from my desk. The beginner courses are perfect for me. For the first week I did the 10 and 20 minute beginner course. Then I would do a 10 minute wind down that was really a lot of stretching that I needed anyway. I have since moved on to 20 and 30 minute regular yoga classes. with a 5 or 10 minute wind down of stretching. I am now looking at doing a 20 minute and then a 10 minute yoga course in a row to get my 30 minutes of exercise a day. I am finding the 30 minute courses are a little too fast for me. 10 and 20 minute courses seem a bit more geared to beginners or at least slower paced.
M is even getting in on the action. Since i got the Apple One bundle she can use it too. I have been trying to get her to use my Series III Apple Watch I had spare since I upgraded to a series 5. It wasn’t worth selling so I kept it and was just using it at night. She wanted something for when she did bike rides. she never took it then. With me trying this she seemed eager to give it a go. At the moment we were competing in a seven day activity challenge. It is too close to call so I will not trash talk.
I am hoping this is not one of those things that in a few months I will look back and go yeah that was something I did. I am hoping that the habit will take it has such a low barrier to start doing every day.
If you are reading this then first of all thanks. Second that means my switch to my self hosted server is working (for now). I have a post about the what and why. That story is still being edited however I needed to post something to confirm that if I or anyone see’s this post on the site then you are being routed to the new site. if you do not see this, well then you will have no idea that you are pointing to the old site.