Personal

The Story of Me Getting off My Bum For a While

by

Prior to COVID-19 and working from home all the time I was semi-active. If I went to the office the amount of walking between 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. If I went to Sainsbury’s or 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 every hour telling 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 all the time. Things deteriorated from there. I bought a bike in April hoping that I would use it to ride around. I did for a while. It just was not every day. I have loved riding bikes since I was a kid and I still do enjoy it. What I keep remembering is as much as I like bike riding since i do not like riding in every weather condition it is not something I will do everyday. I am glad I got the bike. It is just not what is going to be my daily exercise.

Over the summer and early fall I cannot recall. I decided that I would go for coffee every day. I figured that would force a walk. I was actually pretty good at doing that most day’s. 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 their Peleton. M and my experience with exercise equipment is they take up a lot of space. We had an elliptical machine in our apartment in New York. I do not know how many times I used it. 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. Funny story about that was the Firemen offered to bring the kids out to the fire truck and let of them climb around it as a thanks. They showed up with a pickup for the elliptical and the firetruck with the lights on. The girls were petrified and did not go anywhere near it. I thought it was cool though.

Besides the space a bike or treadmill takes up I am not up for paying nearly £1,750 or more for a piece of equipment and then £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. That is a story on its own that I may write about

In September 2020 when Apple announced their Apple One bundles 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. Then I read a few more. If the service came out a year earlier 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, a low barrier for entry I am talking about me personally. I already had an Apple Watch. I already own an Apple TV and an iPad. That means I can do the workouts with nothing more than the Apple Fitness+ 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 it was cheaper to add the top end Apple One bundle for Fitness+ than just adding Fitness+ for me. By doing this we got Arcade, TV+, News+ and M got to use the services too instead of just me. It seemed well worth the price

I signed up for the Apple One trial. With the new trial account 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 did a yoga every day of my holiday. I turned that into doing 30 minutes of work out every day since mid December with the exception (as of this writing) for one day in January.

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.

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. With me trying Fitness+ she seemed eager to give it a go. At the time of this writing we are 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.

My Story of Reading Again Thanks to Audiobooks

by

Growing up I loved to read. As an adult I still enjoy reading however I have done much less of it over time. Looking back I don’t see one single reason why I stopped reading as much as I used to. When I was single I still read. It may not have been as much as in High School or College let’s say, however I did it. When I got married there was even less reading. I think the reasons then were that there was less time to sit and focus on a book. Especially when I would get into a good book and stay up very very late to read. Not something I could do with small children and feel good in the morning. Funny enough it is something my wife has done.

I have been maintaining a pretty big list of things I want to read. In the past two or three years I have started reading a bit more than I had been in the presiding 8-10 years. Interestingly as I started reading more I found it difficult to physically do it. I turned to e-books more and increase the font size. Around the same time turns out I needed progressive lenses. Small type was never my friend however it became more of an enemy in recent history.

I have known about audiobooks for ages. As a kid we even had a free tape recorder for books on tape because of my vision challenges. Back then I just decided to read instead of listen. Until very recently I think my parents had the take recorder they got for free from some service As an adult I have heard many people talk positively of audiobooks however I never really paid it munch attention.

For several years I have known I need to avoid the news. I went back to my blog archive and apparently I have been avoiding watching the news since at least 2005. I have been trying to actively avoid reading it completely since the summer of 2018. Every productivity and mindfulness person that I have read talks about how the news is not good if it doesn’t make you happy. At the same time I continue to read about how using social media is bad for you. I have gone off and on for a while not reading the news. I will go a few months and then fall back into old habits. Less so with social media. I have all but cut out Facebook and don’t really use many other ones.

Earlier this year, around January I decided that one way to help me cut out looking at mainstream news would be to read more long form books. I think the inspiration to try audiobooks instead of a regular book on my phone or tablet was that I was commuting on the tube and listening would be much easier. With that in mind I signed up for trial subscription with Audible.

Since signing up from Audible the amount of books I have read this year is more than the last 5 to 10 combined. Listening to books has been very transformative for me. I have not even wanted to read mainstream news as much and I am engrossed in books for 8 to 10 or 20 hours per book. I did relapse to the news after the US election through Christmas. At the time I am editing this post I am back to actively avoiding the news.

I have read so many interesting books that I would like to write brief reviews for some of the stuff I have read. It has been a mix of Sci-Fi, Fiction, & Non-fiction. I started almost about a year ago so I have a lot to catch up on.

Am I Missing America or Just Hungry?

by

It has been 3 years and change since I moved to England. Other than missing family there really hasn’t been many things I have missed or longed for. Now sadly there finally is something. Apparently you can get Girl Scout cookies delivered by Grubhub. I saw this on Lifehacker. I cannot get Girl Scout Cookies in the UK at all. Even though both of my girls are in Girl Guides. They do not do anything similar.

Two years ago we had our sister in law bring us over some. It was glorious. In 2020 we did not get the opportunity. We should have planned better and brought back cookies when we were in Florida in February. Such a fail on my part. Having cookies delivered like take away would be brilliant right about now.

The Story of Our Meet-aversary

by
Our Wedding Cake Topper

Today is an important anniversary for me. Today 10 years ago I meet the most amazing lady. I knew from early on that something was different about her. It turned out I was right. 10 years later that superstar is my wife, and we have two awesome kids. We are on our 3rd place together. And second country.

It is like thinking back to another life i lived when i think about all the things that were different before then. Even with all the crazy going on in the world I cannot believe how unbelievably lucky I am to be with M, and have A & T.

Bedtime Stories For Grown-Up’s

by

A few years ago I download the app Headspace. I didn’t do much with it at the time. I had tried a few meditation apps and haven’t really done very much with them. About two years ago I decided to really focus on things I could do to calm down and be more focused. I made a leap of faith and spent some money on an discounted annual subscription to headspace. I have been using it ever since. That’s not what I specifically want to talk about in this post. It is just the background.

A friend of mine who I sat next to in the office till about year ago was talking with me one day. He asked if I had the Headspace app. I told him I did. He asked if I’d ever tried their bedtime stories. I had seen them however I had not every tried them. He proceeded to tell me how awesome they were. He summed it up by saying basically you start listening to some story they tell you and wondering what the hell is this. Is this really going to do any thing for me? The next thing you know he said you wake up the next morning surprised that it worked.

Since I already subscribed to the app I figured I would give it a try. For years I have used a white noise machine when I was in New York. Since the machine wouldn’t travel to London I have been using a simulated raining sound from my Amazon Echo. I still figured this wouldn’t hurt to try to get me to sleep.

My friend was right. The first night I tried it my experience pretty much went the way he explained it. I have been using it ever since. There are a bunch of different “Sleepcasts” you could choose from. Some are more appropriate in certain weather or seasons. I do have some favourites. Headspace claims that they are suddenly different each night. And they are different. If you listen to some of them enough and do not goto sleep right away you can tell that much of the difference is that the segments of the story are presented in different orders. There are enough of the Sleepcasts that I like to keep the variety going. The good news is every few months the release three new ones. Almost always I will fall asleep before the story ends. Sometimes if I am unable to sleep I will get to the end and the story will stop. I could tap my phone and say I am still awake and it would play more. I haven’t done that yet. I usually just tried to fall sleep on my own after that. In almost all cases though I don’t make it to the end of the story. There are many nights I don’t remember getting passed the wind down in the very beginning of the story.

The headspace Sleepcasts are now my new Grown-up’s bedtime stories. M thinks I may be using them as a crutch. She does not believe in really using aids to get to sleep. She felt that way with the sleep sounds as well. She is cool with me doing it though. And sometimes is curious to what we will listen to. I do not care how much of a crutch it is if it helps consistently i will keep using it.

The Return of Writing

by

A recurring theme for me in my writing is to talk about my writing. I think the reason the topic comes up is I go through a very visible cycle of writing and not writing. Other than periods of lack of motivation I cannot figure out the pattern. There are different ways that I write. The most public being this blog. I also privatly journal. I use an app called Day One. I have for years. I love it. Besides journalling about things I am finding that I use Day One too log where I have gone and what I have done. It easy since you can geo-tag entries and you can also attach photos to them. It paints a good picture of what I’ve done on a day. Even when I have been less consistent sometimes about actually writing about things I have done.

In the past three or four years I have also taken to writing actions in a paper notebook. The intention is to then complete things and check them off on the day. Anything else goes into my electronic task list. I have read that the tactile act of physically writing helps in memory. As much as I like the idea of physically writing it was something that I would only do every now and again. I would go a few days and then stop for long periods of time. Right around the time of the lockdown I started writing actions out on paper more consistently. I know that I started doing it daily after the lockdown. I did try to do it more frequently even before the lockdown. I remember packing my notebook in my book bag I took to go into the office in March.

Through April, May, and June my physical writing consisted of writing out action lists of things I remembered that I needed to do that may or may not have already been in my electronic to-do list. It was my way of clearing my mind of things I was thinking needed done. sometimes the actions were already in my to do list. As I would think of things I would write them down. If I would complete something I would check it off the list. If I didn’t finish it that day I put it on my Trello board (my electronic task list) to work on later I will mark a T where I would normally check the completed action. If I didn’t do the action and I didn’t put it on a Trello board I would simply mark it with an X. I thought it was simple enough.

I have for years had an aversion to paper. When I finished a day of writing in the notebook I would take a picture of it and save the file as a PDF. That way I have all of my actions/notes stored electronically. I still kept the physical notebooks however if I lost them or decided to part with them I had the PDF’s. Sometime along the way in May or June I started adding things I had done already to my daily list. Just as an FYI so I knew it happened. After I started doing that I realised if I have all these PDFs of what I did it is a good indication of what happened on that day. I started adding those PDFs to my Day One journal. The OCD in me later realised after a few weeks that my Day One journal would start getting very large in size. Each PDF file was about 250 kB. I already bloat my journal with photos of things that happen on the day. I wanted to avoid adding about 2 MB of size to the journal a week. My solution was to take the hand written notes and write them out into my daily Day One Journal entry. At first it felt like a good idea. Again the act of writing or typing is good for memory or so I have read. Inevitably I grew tired of it. That daily process evolved then into me dictating out what I had written into Dragon Anywhere. I would then paste the dictation into Day One. The thing with dictating was that it was very easy to do. What I had written was very simple and short since when writing I was trying to limit what I wrote to as little as possible yet still trigger my memory. It was hard to say so few words about the topic since dictating was so easy. I found myself starting to elaborate more on each line that I have written. After a few days that turned into a Complete Journal entry of what went on for the day all be it in bulleted format instead of paragraphs. It was still pretty complete. Instead of having to sit and write free form things I thought about for a daily recap I now had an agenda for me to discuss if I want to.

At the time I am writing this I have been journalling in that way for about two weeks. This week I found that I slacked off a little and had to go back to several days and go through the process. Luckily I was able to recall enough of what’s going on by what I wrote. It feels like that I could go several days and not lose that much detail. Any more than that and it’s probably not worth it. I am liking the new style of writing because I have the notebook with me everywhere and using it gives me that physical touch I don not get with just a phone. I can see myself ditching the paper notebook and doing the same thing in an electronic format. Yet for now I do like the old school approach.

I have been putting my daily writing into moleskine notebooks. I am on my third Harry Potter special edition notebooks. I can get about three months worth into a full notebook. The first two notebooks spanned over a year each. At the time I was not writing in them daily. The one I am on now I hope to fill completely from now until sometime in the autumn.

In the same time I have been journalling more I have neglected my blog entries. It is not a conscious decision. I just don’t give myself enough time to write. Since writing for me is dictating in an app I need a quiet place alone to do it. M has said several times that she is okay with me dictating with her around. I am self-conscious about doing it so I do not. The routine I have gotten myself into lets me take my written bullet point journal and dictate it into a Day One entry takes about 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much I decide to elaborate on what I wrote out. That makes it relatively easy to do every day as long as I remember.

The blog on the other hand requires me to think of what I want to talk about. Then I dictate it. From there I do proof read and edit the entries. I have to make a lot of manual typing since the dictation is nowhere near perfect. For a private journal entry its perfectly fine. For something to publish on the internet it does need work after dictating. Once done writing and editing an entry I need to label it and find a suitable photograph to go along with the post. Then it is figuring out what I will post next. I know that I sometimes write a lot and then not at all for long periods of time I limit my posts to once a week. The big question that comes up in my mind when writing something such as this post is how long the lead time between when I write something and when I publish it. In some cases that has been months.

As of the Autumn 2020 this is my process. Since I wrote this post in late summer my process has changed a bit. Since marking that update in the Autumn of 2020 I am still loosely following the same pattern. Before that changed I figured I should finally post this entry before it has its own birthday. I am glad that I am keeping with the routine!

The Story of My Chuck Taylor Dilemma

by

If you know me now you may have noticed that most of the time I am wearing trainers (aka sneakers). Specifically Converse Chuck Taylors. Surprisingly it is a relatively new phenomenon for me. It was only maybe five years ago that I started wearing them.

When i first started wearing Chucks they were not that comforatable. I tried insoles and they were ok. I was about to stop wearing them when Convese announced their Chuck Taylor II’s. They claimed they would be even more comfortable. I was curious. I could not wait unitl they came out. When they did i got bought a pair. They were very comfortable. I ended up buying pairs in several colours, both high and low top. From then on that was pretty much what I would wear everyday.

I ended up buying about three colours in each of the hightop and the low top variant. I like the hightops for work and the low’s are easier to get on and off when I am home and out with the kids. So I own several pairs.

Since I have several I don’t wear any one pair down very quickly. Right before we moved to London I think I had to replace one pair for the first time in a few years. When I did so it was no problem to get a new one.

Last fall i had two pairs of hightops that had the souls start ripping. They needed replacement. When I went online to buy replacements I was confused not to see the Chuck II’s anywhere. What I did not know was that the Chuck II line of shoes was cancelled after about a year or so of production. Apparently diehard fans were not a fan of the new look. The look was not bad for me. The big deal was that they were much more  comforatable than the traditional model. When I previously bought replacements they must still have just had stock of them. Now no one had them.

I tried the Converse one Star as an alternative. I wasn’t too happy with the way they looked however I needed something so I tried them. They were not comfortable at all. It was a total waste of money from me.

Then I tried what are used to do before the Chuck II’s came out. That was purchase a regular pair and put an insole in them. It was what I did to the dress shoes that I used to wear before wearing the sneakers to work. Oddly after wearing the really comfortable cushion on the Chuck II’s the same insoles were not as comfortable anymore. I did force myself to wear that one test pair with the insole for a while. I am still wearing it and they are totally fine however not nearly as comfortable as I used to have. I could buy more of those however I was trying to find other alternatives before I did that.

My next step was to go to eBay where I was surprised to find a half way decent selection of gently used Chuck II’s. I was hesitant on buying that sort of used stuff on ebay. The prices were super cheap so I gave one a try. They turned out to look exactly like the picture and were in fantastic shape. It was like they were never used. I was able to buy one or two more like that however then the supply dried up. I realise I needed to find a better long-term option. Since I was totally over thinking my solution at this point i continued my investigations.

In my research I keep coming across comments about the Chuck Taylor 70. People had said that they were definitely more comfortable than the originals.  Some people were also comparing them to the II’s that i had. Then one or two people said they probably were not as comfortable but close. Since I was running out of options I decided to buy one pair of the Chuck Taylor 70’s high tops. I was hoping to see how they fit.

The first pair I got was definitely way too big. I bought the same size I wore in my other chucks. I quickly returned them back to converse. I then went looking for 1/2 size smaller of the same shoe. I could not find it anywhere in stores. Most stores didn’t even have this model at all. I finally did find one store that had them in stock. Unfortunately they were only one size smaller. The sales clerk said they don’t stock half sizes. I tried the one size smaller and it was too small. With that information I rolled the dice and ordered the half-size smaller than the original one I bought online.

When it arrived, I realize it fit a little bit too big. I decided that would work good enough since the full size smaller was too small. I have been wearing this pair for a while now. I even took it as my only pair of shoes on a week long holiday. I can’t say for certain if there as comfortable as the II’s. They are comfortable enough that I can use them as my day-to-day shoe. Since I was able to buy a few cheap pairs of the II’s on eBay I haven’t had a need to buy any new 70’s beyond the first pair I bought. At least I know now that when another pair wears out I have an option for replacement.

The Full English vs Full Irish Breakfast

by

This post is topical since I have friends visiting for Thanksgiving and we had this discussion about breakfast. Their feedback was simply its all a lot of food.

Previously I have written about my picky eating habits. Specifically my lack of trying new foods until relatively recently.  I wrote “If The 12 Year Old Version of Me Could See Me Now” back in 2012. In that post I talked about how breakfast was transformed from me after I started eating eggs. Since then I have enjoyed going with M for diner breakfast.

When we moved to London we were no longer able to experience a good old-fashioned American diner. Thankfully there were lots of other options for us. I started ordering the full English breakfast. Mainly because it was an option available on most menus when we would go out for breakfast. I enjoyed it. My challenge was there were parts of it and I just didn’t like and would not eat. Mainly the baked beans, tomatoes, or mushrooms. If given the chance I would simply order eggs and some sides. The full English was typically enough if it was the only option.

We went to Ireland for a holiday in May. I was intrigued between the differences of the full English versus the full Irish breakfast. I was surprised to realize there were some distinct differences between them. Our first morning in Ireland I tried out my first full Irish. Instead of beans, tomatoes, mushrooms they added black pudding, white pudding and bacon. Since coming to England I have tried and liked the black pudding. I had never tried the white pudding,  however I give it a go. It turned out to be pretty good.

In the end the substitutions between the full English and the full Irish made it so I would eat the entire meal of a full Irish breakfast. I am going to say that is a good thing. Depending on how you look at it it could be a bad thing since probably not healthy for you. Every day of our trip I had one. Like the perfect lobster roll or piece of chocolate cake I am now on a mission to find the perfect full Irish breakfast. The catch is always even if I have the best one I’ve ever had a better one could still be out there so I have to keep trying…

I will still eat the full English. It just pales in comparison (for me) to its Irish cousin.

Civilised Working From Home

by

My sister in law came to visit in March. When trying to come up with something that we would be interesting to do with her I thought going to the Doctor Who shop. She is Doctor Who fan like I am. I wasn’t sure if she had ever visited the store in her trips to London. She had not so we planned to go. M was going to take the girls to a park nearby while we browsed the shop. When it came time for us to get ready to leave the girls were a bit crazy. Since M had spent time with our sister and law while the girls were in school she suggested that I take her on my own since I was more of a fan.

It was well worth the trip. We geeked out in the shop for a really long time. I bought the girls the latest Sonic screwdriver (13th Doctor) to go with their collection. I also got a Tardis tea set for one.

We also paid the pound to each to go into the museum they have in the back. That may be its own post since it was super awesome. One of the owner showed us around and he was supercool about explaining everything.

It was a fantastic experience even though I spent more money than I had anticipated. On the plus side now I have a tea set to help me get into the tea drinking habit.  Since I got the tea set I have been making a mini pot of tea when working from home.  I am even having it on the weekend.  I treat myself to one or two tea biscuits.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the new ritual.

The girls are even getting into the ritual sometimes on the weekend.  They saw me doing it one day.  I couldn’t say no to them after they saw the tea biscuits.  They also love tea.  Since team to them is really a tiny amount of tea and the rest of the drink being milk in the cup.  Adding a biscuit to the ritual sold them too.

London Mug Mark III Lives For Now

by

After the untimely demise of London Mug Mark II M looked and found the name of who makes the mug. An easy search on the internet found a place selling the exact mug. About £20 later I ordered the replacement. I didn’t even have to go to Heathrow for this one like I did for the Mark II. The mug arrived right before our holiday (in February). This post is late getting published.

Hopefully Mark III has a longer shelf life than Mark II at 4 years or Mark I at under 2. If we are aging these thinks with a half life that means Mark III could last 8 years!