Fitness and Health..

As many know, I am on a health kick. I love to ride my Mountain Bike on the trails with and friends. So the other evening, my wife tells me that we/she joined the American Family Fitness Gym here in Richmond. It is a local chain, not to be confused with 24 Hour Fitness in Texas or elsewhere. So we went to the gym on Tuesday evening and looked over the facilities. They are very nice. We go to the Swift Creek facility. They have racket ball, basket ball, free weights, swimming, and an assortment of other activities.

I like to think that I am in good shape, so I decided to give the stationary bike a try and I did a cardio program. I entered my age and time that I wanted to ride. I entered 30 minutes and the bike stated I needed to get my hear rate up to 147BPM. Ok, I started the ride and after about 5 minutes, I hit the target. I kept up the pace and was riding at about a 2.5 minuet mile. I got over 11 miles in 30 minutes. I was impressed if I do say so myself. I also did that the next night as well.

I also started lifting weights for my lower back to strengthen it up. I talked to a trainer and he suggested that I do “dead lifts” and I said ok. I do 4 sets of 10 reps at 100lbs and them 2-3 sets of 10 at 110lbs. My lower back was very soar. I need to get back and do some more as I am no longer soar and ready to continue with the training.

My ultimate goal is to try to do the ride in Houston Texas that goes to Austin. It is called The BP MS 150. I am going to continue to train and stay in shape to be able to make this happen!! I will let you all in on more details as they happen.


What is your opinion?

Bob Woodward...

I like to read at least 3-4 books a year. I have read all of Dan Brown's books, Holy Blood Holy Grail, Rule by Secrecy, just to name a few.

I am reading the series of by Bob Woodward and I have started with "Bush At War" and I will go next to "Plan Of Attack: and finally to "State Of Denial" I hope to do this during the next 6-9 months. I love the whole "conspiracy theory" stance and also real world current events type of reading.

If you like the current event type of reading, I strongly suggest a book by Robert Baer called See No Evil. It tells about the decline of the CIA over the last 20+ years. It is a very good read. Also watch the movie called Syriana as it was based on the book.

Happy Readings...

What is your opinion?

11 things you may not know about "Star Wars"

I have not read this book. I have a PDF file that is called The_Secret_History_of_Star_Wars. I have read some of it, but it is over 400+ pages and i have not had the time. At the moment i am reading a book by Bob Woodward - Bush At War.

I will tell more about it as i get more into the book. But, back to the title. I found this on a blog that i was reading and i wanted to pass this along to you all.

Thanks to Jacoblog for this little rundown on the book.

1. In between the second and third drafts, Luke was changed to be a girl. (p. 40)

2. Because of its size and proximity to the Tunisia-Libya border, the Sandcrawler set was searched by the Libyan army to make sure it wasn't a secret Tunisian military weapon. (p. 157)

3. The R2D2 robot went out of control and wandered into the set of Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth," which was also filming in the Tunisian desert. (p. 159)

4. Alec Guinness got mad and almost quit when, midway through production, George Lucas decided that Obi-Wan Kenobi would die. (p. 166)

5. During the entire production, only two people were fired and no one quit. (p. 255)

6. Carrie Fisher stood on a turntable to film the R2D2 hologram message. (p. 257)

7. After playing the part of C3P0 for the entire production, Anthony Daniels was almost replaced during voice-over recordings by someone who could make the character sound more like an American used-car salesman. (p. 265)

8. The trench that the rebels fly through isn't the one that runs around the equator of the Death Star. It's one of 18 vertical trenches that start halfway up from the equator and run toward the north pole. (p. 280)

9. The motion picture review board rated "Star Wars" a G, until the studio went back and demanded a PG rating. Also, some of the raters fell asleep during the screening. (p. 289)

10. Lucas and Steven Spielberg swapped profit points on their two movies, "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," each believing the other's would do better. (p. 298)

11. Twentieth Century Fox's stock jumped 450% immediately after the movie came out. (p. 301)


What is your opinion?

The Blog.

Has everyone lost interest in the site?  This is the lowest hits that I have had in many months.  Please let me know that someone is out there reading what I put out.

 

Thanks,

 

RMStringer

+++++++++++++++++++

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata"

 

Homeland Security Funds LED Light Saber...

By Ryan Singel

The Department of Homeland Security is funding the creation an LED flashlight that uses powerful flashes of light to temporarily blind, disorient and incapacitate people. Homeland Security's Science and Technology arm hopes government agents can use the "light saber" to arrest people on planes and at the borders without using traditional weapons.

The LED Incapacitator uses a range-finder to measure the distance to a target's eyes and then unleashes continually changing, multi-color light pulses that both blind and disorient the person. Intelligent Optical Systems, a small company in Torrance, CA, is developing the weapon with money from Homeland Security's Science and Technology division, which thinks its possible to have the weapon deployed to cops, National Guard troops and border agents by 2010.

The company's president Bob Lieberman says the tool would be perfect for confronting border jumpers."You don't want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody," Lieberman was quoted as saying by a DHS newsletter. "With this, they don't need to know English to comply."

The tool could be scaled up to make a light bazooka that could subdue a crowd, but the company is focusing on miniaturizing the device to make it resemble a traditional D-cell Maglite. Right now the prototype is a non-svelte 15 inches by 4 inches wide.

But first the company's chief scientist Vladimir Rubtsov wants to discover more powerful patterns and colors, which he'll get this fall with tests on volunteers at Penn State University's Institute for Nonlethal Defense Technology.

"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," Lieberman said, according to the newsletter. "Vlad calls it the evil color."

THREAT LEVEL can only wonder how long will it be until war protesters and Rio Grande swimmers start wearing reflective clothing?

I wonder if Lucas said that they could use the term Light Saber? Can someone say copyright?

What is your opinion?

Web Trend Map 2007

This is the Legend of the map.








This is the top left corner of Web Trend Map 2007 Version 2. It's based on the Japanese subway system. The creators are Information Architects, a Japan-based design agency.

They took the top 200 tech (definitely tech) sites and placed them along subway lines. The lines are used to group together similar services. For example along the blue Community line there's Facebook, Xing (think European Linkedin), Vox and LinkedIn. Each one also has a weather forecast and an incremental web number. The more suns and less clouds represent a positive prediction about a site's future.

I had to smile at the fun the Information Architects had. Here is some of the Tokyo symbolism that they put into the map:

1.Google has moved from Shibuya, a humming place for young people, to Shinjuku, a suspicious, messy, Yakuza-controlled, but still a pretty cool place to hang out (Golden Gaya).
2.Youtube has conquered Shibuya.
3.Microsoft has moved to Ikebukuro, if you know what I mean.
4.Yahoo is in Ueno, a nice place but nothing going on there.

This link is a very sweet site with hyperlinks on the site.
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/slash/ia_trendmap_start.html
Go to it and try some.

Thanks to iA for this material.

Little to Big comparison...

Big = Radar, is a Belgian draught horse with his own big claim to fame - as the Worlds Tallest Living Horse. Radar, at 6ft 71/2in from hoof to shoulder, is from Mount Pleasant, Texas.
At 2,400lb, he has a giant appetite to match, putting away 20 gallons of water a day and 18lb of grain.

Little = 17 inches, the miniature brown mare known as Thumbelina takes pride in the lofty title of the World's Smallest Living Horse. Thumbelina, who weighs 4st 9lb, was born on a farm in St Louis, Missouri. She eats two cups of grain and a handful of hay each day.

What is your opinion?