Donair Date

For months now we’ve been putting off painting Caile’s room. We had some repair work done to the top of her wall and ceiling so it has been needing done since then. We’ve even had the paint for the whole time. Jen and I finally took the afternoon to get it done. Neither of us are painters but I think it turned out pretty well. Now she has two purple and two green walls.

It seems like I’ve written about donairs a lot on the blog. While I do really enjoy donairs I don’t really eat them very often. Since my month of being really good I’ve been wanting to treat myself with one though. So with that good month and after knocking that off that big item from our todo list we decided to go out for a donair date night.

It might not be super fancy, but anytime Jen and I can go out by ourselves is a big deal. Besides House of Dough makes some delicious donairs. The large just about got the best of me though. But it was so good I had to finish it off. From now on though I think I’ll still with the small as sitting here at home I’m settling in nicely to my meat coma while my arteries harden up just that little bit more.

 

Presenting WordPress

One of the goals I’ve been working on is to try and get out of my comfort zone a bit and start doing some public speaking. Being up in front of people is not overly fun for me, but I do see the good of doing it.

One area where I can see me potentially able to help people is by talking about WordPress. By no means do I know everything about WordPress, but I do have a pretty strong understanding of how it works, and I help people use it as my job as a Happiness Engineer. So far I’ve done two presentations on the topic. One I wrote about before where I did a WordPress.com 101 for a university business class. Last night I did one at a local meetup for Refresh Annapolis Valley. WordPress is a pretty popular topic because there was likely more people out last night than I have seen before.

My idea was to give an intro to WordPress and show people the basics of getting started. While preparing I went through creating so many slides with screenshots and taking people through the process of setting up WordPress and then working with it. Near the end I scrapped most of it and decided to go against a lot of the advice I had received and do a live demo instead. It still feels like the right move to really give people a feel for how to work through the WordPress dashboard but almost immediately backfired on me.

The talk took place on the same university campus and the guest internet connection is pretty locked down so I couldn’t load one of the pages needed to do the demo because it ran on a different port which was blocked on the connection. Thankfully the organizer fired up the hot spot on his phone and I connected to it and went through.

My intention was to record my screen so I could share it after, but once up there nerves took over and  I completely forgot to start it.

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One of the things I mentioned in my talk was the mission of WordPress which is as follows:

To democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.

One of people who has given me the motivation to start presenting in public is a team mate Mahangu Weerasinghe. Each year our company gets together and one of the things we do is each person has to do a flash talk while there. It is just a short, up to four minutes, presentation on anything you would like. His inspired me greatly and today an article about his story was published that is both inspiring itself and goes to the mission of WordPress. I encourage you to give it a read. http://heropress.com/essays/breaking-the-silence/

I’m sharing my flash talk below which is certainly less inspirational, but it shows how nervous I am in front of people I think and was my first time up in front of a group of people in a long time.

Angry Legs

Two nights ago on Friday night I set out for a long run. Pretty much my maximum distance has been about 10k for my runs. I did do 13k once by mistake when I had gotten lost at one point when out for a run at a friends place.

My original plan for the night was to do 15k but when I make it to the 7.5k point in the run I felt so good that I kept going. I should have turned around then as I had a limited amount of time but it completely slipped my mind. When I made it back to the 15k mark I still felt pretty good but was also lots tired. It would have been a good ending point but the car was still 5k away. Around the 18km mark Jen called and she had to leave the house to pick up the girls, but I still wasn’t home. Thankfully my Mother in Law looked after Noah when he was a sleep so Jen could pick them up.

Not sure I’ll ever try for 20k again though. I made it but my legs are still hurting and very upset with me right now. I am proud that I made that far though and that I did it at a pace that I was running 5k at just a couple months ago.

first-20k

Sunday Afternoon 

A perfect way to spend a bit of time on a Sunday afternoon while the rest of the family are celebrating birthdays. Drinking a coffee directly beside the machine which roasted the beans my coffee was made with and accompanied by a good book. 

   
 

March Personal Challenge

Since February went so well I figured I would keep up, at least for a while, doing monthly challenges to myself. I’ll still keep on with the fitness but not be quite as strict with myself as I was last month. 

For March I’m going to focus on reading and personal organization / productivity. Recently I’ve taken on a number of tasks, all of which I’m excited about, but a lot of them outside my comfort zone. For example there are two upcoming talks I’m doing. I’ve also volunteered to help organize our team meetup as well as run the project we are going to work on while there. There are also other tasks at work I’m doing, all of which I need to get organized so I can get them done. 

With all that there are some books that will help me in both the planning and executing these things. So that is the main goal to read and use these books and other resources to help make me a more productive person and be able to complete these projects. 

Three of the books I have already and another one is on its way to me. I think I’m going to start with the top one in the picture so it can help me figure out how I can get to the rest 🙂

Getting Things Done, Managing Humans, Game Storming

My main goal is to read at least 5 hours a week as a minimum. Hopefully even more than that, but I’ll aim there. 

FFF Final Update

February is over which means this will be the final update for my Fight Fat February challenge. This week  was rough my knee had been bothering me some, I lapsed in my eating habits, and my weight actually started to go up!

Food

Really I was good over the whole month for eating. I had a couple days where I lapsed but I don’t think with the level of working out I was doing that shouldn’t have been enough to cause my weight to go up. That was my thought process, but I was obviously wrong. I don’t really think it was the little bit of extra snacking I did though. I made the black bean chili I made in the first week and had it for my lunches this week. My guess is that because I was at the end and pretty much at my goal weight I was eating to much of the chili. Portions were the same as the first week, but it was probably too much.

Five Fitness Workouts

For the last week I was able to get in all five of the workouts I wanted to. About mid week though I switched it up from doing the Ripped in 30 to doing cardio workouts from Jillian Michaels Body Revolution.

Forty Kilometers

My running went awesome this week. Was able to get in a total of 45km even with the sore knee. I also had some really fast runs, for me anyway. On Sunday I did a personal best on 10k with a pace of 5:15 min/km which is awesome. There were also another two 10k runs that were in my top four fastest and my fastest 5k since back in 2014 as well.

fast-runs

Fifteen Pounds

Around midweek I was actually up a couple pounds and was really worried. On Friday even it was showing 185lbs which was up two from the beginning of the week. After switching up lunches, and switching to the cardio workouts instead, along with keeping up the running I managed to hit my goal. This morning on the scale I was 182lbs which means I dropped 15lbs exactly in February!

goal-weight

FFF Week Three Update

For week three of my Fight Fat February I had a couple slight setbacks. Nothing super major, but a little disappointed about one day in particular. Thursday this week had me off my game.

Food

For the most part food was still pretty good. There was one day I planned for that Jen and I went out for lunch and I ended up ordering a club sandwich. I did opt for the salad instead of fries but there were still quite a few more calories involved then my typical lunches.

Thursday night, which was my off day, I ended up having my usual night snack of a yogurt. When that was done I added a helping of nacho dip and chips. Because that obviously wasn’t enough I finished off the night with a blueberry bagel. Not good choices and even with Jen reminding me I would not be happy with myself I kept going.

Five Fitness Workouts

Reading back over week one and two I realized I’ve been saying I’m working out with Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. It is in fact her Ripped in 30 program I’ve been doing. This is week three now and I don’t believe I made it this far with this series before. This one I missed my goal on this week. On Wednesday I was pretty sore and tired so I decided I was going to take the day off and do Saturday instead. That would still give me my five workouts and would have been fine. But then Thursday happened and I flaked on my workout as well as stuffed my face.

I despise the fact that I’m still letting my emotions dictate my eating and activity levels.

Forty Kilometers

This is the one area that I really kept up with this week. In fact after taking both Wednesday and Thursday off from working out on Friday I was able to do my fastest 10k run since late 2014. If I hadn’t ran through a busy area at dinner time causing me to get stuck at red lights and crosswalks I would have creamed my personal 10k record from back then. That Friday run also put me to 40k for the week.

Fifteen Pounds

Even though I messed up on eating and only completed four workouts during the week the weight loss still turned out OK. From 187lbs I am down to 183lbs. That four pounds puts me at 14lbs all together. So close to the fifteen goal and I still have one last week to go! If I could pull another 5lbs in this last week it will put me at 178lbs which puts my BMI in the normal zone. No longer would I be classified as overweight. Not sure I can do another week of 5lbs lost and I won’t be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.

To My Biological Father

Recently it was brought to my attention that you are looking for me. The term look is used loosely because http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Sandy+McFadden

There were a number of years early on when yes in fact we were hiding from you, but that hasn’t been the case for some time. But just as my above Let Me Google That For You link makes it very easy to find me, let me make this easy for you as well. Don’t bother trying to make contact. Unless your desired outcome is just to be able to tell people, or yourself, that you tried to make contact but they wanted nothing to do with you, than this is not going to be a happy outcome for you.

Let me be clear, I’m not mad, and I also very much can understand that maybe over the past 30 some years you’ve wanted to try to make contact. That isn’t an easy thing to do though. If the roles were reversed I don’t know if I would be able to make the step. You’re not missing anything though. Had I wanted contact I’ve had a pretty good idea where you live for some time and could have easily reached out. Note that I didn’t on purpose.

It’s easy for me to understand why you would desire to try and make contact now as well. You’re getting older, likely reflecting on life and family. Chances are you’ve lost some loved ones or people you’ve cared for. Maybe your own health isn’t that great. All those things could be great motivation for you to try now. It still won’t change the outcome.

There is nothing I want from you, and I have no desire to give you anything that you might need, regardless if that is even just piece of mind. Even if you won the lottery and wanted to share it with me I would not accept. Over the years I’ve grown into my own man and am doing just fine without you. I will continue to do so. Not to say I made it here by myself, because of course I have had much help along the way. It’s my good fortune to have surrounded myself with an amazing network of family, friends, and co-workers. All of whom have helped get me to this point in my life where I am very much happy.

In closing, if you happen to look a bit harder and come across this post it is not an invitation. Please do not call, comment, email, or in anyway try to make contact. It is unwanted and will end with no one involved being happy or in a better spot in their lives.

Truly I hope you are well and that your life has drastically changed since I last knew you when I was five years old. Live your life and I’ll live mine, happily.

FFF Week Two Update

This is my second week update for my Fight Fat February month and things are still on the right track.

Food

Food went again this week. My usual breakfast, but switched up lunch. Most of the week I had a spinach salad. Stuck with the same snacks, carrots, apples, and yogurts. Again had the same dinners as the rest of the family, we even had cheese burgers one night!

Five Fitness Workouts

Moved on to week two of Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. This week is a lot tougher than the first. I had to take a break one night during the week so I did Saturday night as well to get my five in for the week.

Forty Kilometers

We had some rough weather the beginning of the week that kept me from getting out running so it made the rest of the week tougher between the sidewalks and running so many days in a row. However with a 9km run on Saturday it took me to 40km even.

Fifteen Pounds

This week ended up being a surprise to me that this goal went as well as it did. I’m down another five pounds. That’s down to 187lbs and 10lbs total in the two weeks. Only 5lbs to go in the next two weeks.

My New Favourite Thing

Tonight we picked up my favourite new thing we have had in a while. It’s pretty simple and not at all fancy. It isn’t a new electronic gadget which would normally be the type of thing I get excited about. 

This is a bench to sit in our kitchen. For those of you who know our house my office is directly off the kitchen. We’ve lived here for a little over three years now. Almost every single day since we have moved in the vacuum hose for the central vac has sat plugged in here. 

Usually it’s not so bad, but if not put there in a tidy way it would creep out over the floor and I would trip over it while going into the office. That and in a normally pretty tidy home it looked untidy. We left it out because it was used so frequently that it was a pain to out it away in a closet and dig it back out every time. 

We solved that today with the bench. It sits in the same place the hose did, but now it holds the hose and keeps it contained. It is neat and tidy and it provides extra seats for when we have company over. 

I’m so pleased with this and that there will be no more tripping over vacuum hose when coming and going from the office.