Untouched

Just remembered my dad's going in for surgery tomorrow to have a cancerous area removed. I've been feeling really on edge yesterday, to the point where I was driving my wife crazy, this probably has a lot to do with it. I'm glad that all the holiday festivities are done, for the most part - I mean there's NYE tomorrow night, but we're not planning a huge outing to a nightclub or anything, I think we're either staying home or spending it with my mom and dad at the hospital. House is still a mess, even after K. and I worked on it for several hours last night after I pouted about it and gave her a lot of shit for not helping around the house, which I realize now was not fair to her. Feel so out of balance right now. Work is going slow, I have not had a lot of extra time to spend on getting caught up at work. I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions, if I did then I'd have too many to keep track of - really apply myself at my job next year, apply for a new job maybe, read a book a week, train for a half marathon, record 10 songs this year. Probably out of all of those the one about my job is most important, that's the only way I'm going to get some extra income, move my family out of our current house, and finally be happy about what I do for a living. Things seem very hard right now, very solemn and grim. Maybe it's winter, or this fucking recession. I took a look at what 2 bedrooms with parking are going for in my building these days - holy crap that was depressing. Maybe I should set aside a couple of hours later this week, do some meditating and a weekly review. Maybe I should go out running again - it's warm out again, I better take advantage of that.

Anyways, other than this relentless grimness, N's first Christmas went really well. She partied with her cousin C. at my mom's house, then we got up early Christmas morning and drove 85 mph to make it to Christmas brunch at the Inn with all our family in MI. That side of the family is really nice, they all love N. We also went on a sleigh ride with my mom in law's employer's family, which was really fun. They had a huge bonfire out in the woods with hot dogs and pasties and marshmallows, I've never done anything like that before. Me and the father in law also went ice fishing with some of the uncles, that was a blast. I'm just glad my wife and N. had a good Christmas, our first Christmas together. It's not surprising to me that my warm holiday cheer evaporates the minute I go back to work and remember that my dad's going in for surgery again. K. was crying a lot last night. I must be delightful to live with these days. I really shouldn't take out all my career frustrations out on her, she doesn't deserve that crap. God our daughter is so cute, she's talking a lot these days, it's hilarious to hear her trying to hold a conversation. Soon she won't be a little babbling infant anymore, but a little girl that runs around and talks, at that point it'll really seem like the 3 of us and not just me and K. and this helpless baby that we have to fend for constantly. I wonder what she'll look like when her hair grows in, what her first word will be - stuff like that. You worry about them so much, you never want them to ever get hurt, or frightened. You just want them to be happy all the time.

The Psychadelic Furs - The Ghost In You

I remember watching the video for this song back in 8th grade or freshman year in high school, on a video show called MV3 based out of LA playing on a Chicago UHF channel. That's how old I am. Later on I came to despise the Mark McGrath version of this song from the 50 First Dates soundtrack. This has been my 'screw around on guitar' song for the past week.


The Psychadelic Furs - The Ghost In You

Alone in the chain, it remains to be seen how well you can play when the pawn takes a queen now

I'm at the office early today, the boss just sent an email saying no managers will be around today, but feel free to leave early this afternoon to get an early start on the holidays. Feel bloated already and the celebrations haven't even started. It's been sub zero blizzard weather around here for more than a week. I've been trying to keep the faith with watching my diet and going to the gym, but the past couple of days it's just been too cold outside and difficult to walk in with all that snow. The other night K. came home from a 'holiday cookie baking party' with her girlfriends with a TON of delicious cookies and fudge. So I've been munching on those for the past few nights. We're going to be bringing the rest to my mom's tonight for Christmas eve. Our plan is to spend Christmas eve in Chicago, then we're going to get up early tomorrow and drive to Michigan. We should be in Michigan until the 29th, visiting K's family. I get so restless whenever we go for an extended trip to Michigan - I feel like I just sit there and there's nothing for me to do. The weather seems to be warming up today - precipitation was coming down as a mixture of rain and snow on my way to work. Yesterday I thought I might just take the week off from dieting and working out, lord knows I haven't given myself a break since June when I really started training hard.

This blog will be 4 years old. I feel like this entire year has been about me settling down into a domestic situation with my wife, becoming more connected with my family, and having N, while the year before was about my whirlwind relationship with K. and moving in together. It's not like I've devoted all my time to focusing on my career with a laser like intensity. I think about Balzac, who swore off women and even when he broke down and visited prostitutes lamented that 'there goes another novel'. It just seems to me sometimes that science, art, literature, etc. is accomplished by geeks sublimating their sexual urges for their art. I don't think I could do this personally, I mean I tried and it worked for a time, but I guess I eventually cracked. There has to be a way, of course the answer is 'balance' - but has anything great ever been done by someone who stops working at 5 o'clock, goes home and walks the dog, and goes shopping at Target with the kids on Saturdays? That's the stupid shit that I worry about as I waste another hour of my life on something other than learning new things, creating a piece of software, starting a company, updating my resume and looking for a new job.

My friend Paddock sent me a bunch of awesome burned albums for Christmas and I've really been digging them. I'm starting to get back into following new music again, after being apathetic/indifferent to 'hipster' culture for a long time. I just discovered Stereogum and have been downloading zip files of their top 50 MP3s as well as the Pitchfork top lists - I also brought my terabyte hard drive to my brother's house and stole my brother's and cousins' MP3s off their computers. I'm going to fill this terabyte hard drive with all my old shit also and finally get my music collection organized. It's funny, I'm like the 'hipster dad' who 'reads all the music blogs' that hipsterrunoff makes fun of. I just like music, I need tunes for running and driving around town with my wife.

It doesn't feel like Christmas, despite all the snow. The country is in the midst of a huge recession, I'm constantly worrying about money - not that we're bad off or in danger of losing our house or anything. I still feel the need to smile and keep up appearances. Last year felt more like Christmas and we spent it at the hospital with my dad while he prepared for his heart transplant. Honestly I feel really stressed out, every time I look at my wife and baby I'm reminded that their well being and happiness is my responsibility. The truth is they deserve a bigger house and only the best in life, but I'm not sure how I'm going to provide it for them. The answer of course is that I have to place the appropriate value on my life, concentrate on my career, believe in myself, and the universe will respond to the positive energy that I'm putting out into the world. It's very difficult though, I feel like all my free time is taken up with the baby. K. bought this 'christmas stocking needlepoint kit' - you know, the felt christmas stocking with embroidered angels or reindeer or something that your mother made for you when you were a kid. My mom made me one a long time ago with a picture of Snoopy on it that still hangs in her house every Christmas. Well I guess K. felt the need to make one for N., the thing is K. is very slow at things like sewing - so it's been almost a month and she has not finished it yet. But I have to hold N. on my lap and play with her and talk to her and feed her etc. while K. does her sewing. It's driving me batty. I can't even play freaking guitar, and I can't get extra stuff done for work. How am I supposed to be excellent at life when there's no time to do anything? I've found an answer, sort of. The past few weeks I've been getting up a couple hours early during the week - to get extra work done - which frees me up a little more in the evenings. It's a brutal schedule though, I get so tired, especially with all the exercising, last week with the blizzard like weather I guess I just gave up trying to follow this schedule. After Christmas I will try again. This is really my only option, otherwise I will never improve at my career/record more guitar songs/earn more money. Time is the most valuable thing you have in life, and I've squandered so much of it - I feel like I'm past the halfway point already in terms of living a vital life. But the thing is, you have to deal with your life now, especially now that I have my family to look after. There's enough time to do everything I ever wanted to do, I just have to find the resolve inside myself to make these things come true.

MGMT - Time to Pretend

Probably my pick for single of the year, at least it's the one that has left the biggest impression on me. I really like the lyrics for this song - I can imagine this running over the credits in a movie of my life circa the mid 90s.


MGMT - Time to Pretend

The Shins - Phantom Limb

A sultry wintry song that I was jamming to this morning on the way to work.


The Shins - Phantom Limb

Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8k

Here's my next run, so I don't forget. I start training for this bitch after my current 12 week schedule is over at the end of the month. There's a 10k in April that I will probably do immediately after, might as well as long as I've been training all winter. Dreading training in the Chicago winter. It'll be interesting to see at which point the cold will finally drive me indoors to the monotony of the treadmill. So far I've run in sub 10 degree weather, with a ton of snow and ice on the ground. It totally sucked, though.

that's how you let the skeet build bitch

So I missed my run. I've been training for the past 3 months for this 10k race - I thought the entire time that the race was on December 18, but I checked the website to see when I should register - and it turns out that the race was yesterday! We were so busy this weekend, I don't know if I even would have done the race. Parties Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Work Holiday party on Friday - all the people at work of course got a kick meeting N. N. had a hard time at that party, which is weird because she usually enjoys being around people. I think the music was just too loud or she was too tired. Met C.'s baby there, K. insists that ours is cuter. We had a board games party at J's house on Saturday, which was also for C's 30th birthday. We bought her a bunch of wine from Trader Joe's for a present. P. and his wife R. were there, we played Apples to Apples. Left N. with mom and dad that night, uncle J. was there and he claims he got N. to giggle all night. Wish we had a video of that. Sunday we skipped church and went out for brunch at Wishbone, then went to B.'s house for her kid J's 5th birthday party. Some girls from K's work were there, and they enjoyed passed N. around the room. The weather is crappy. It was around 30s this weekend, but it was still crappy running outside with the wind from the lake. I've been losing a lot of weight lately, I'm starting to like how I look again, which is great after stupidly letting myself go for a year with the baby and all the wedding crap. Made a vow to myself that I won't let that happen again, shouldn't be a problem if I maintain this running habit. I'm starting to look like a runner, I definitely will after I lose another pound. One change I notice - after my long run of 7 miles, I feel tired but honestly I could run a few more miles, whereas previously I'd be totally exhausted and go home and fall asleep the rest of the day on the couch. K. has been knitting this stocking for N. which means I have to hold N. on my lap while K. works on this shiznit - which also means that I haven't been practicing guitar that much. So, I'm a little edgy, I can't stand it when my practice schedule gets thrown out of whack. My baby is cute! Everybody loves her. It's really funny, she's like this little bear cub or baby monkey. When her mom holds her, she's perfectly fine to sit on my wife's lap and nurse, but when I hold her she has to climb up my shoulder like I'm some sort of human jungle gym. She is really high maintenance, too. She has to be held at all times, and she whines if I don't walk around the room with her on my shoulders. We finally set up our Christmas tree, looks nice unlike last year's tree. Still haven't finished shopping. Back at work today - we have to take N. for her 4 month shots this afternoon (early, she's 3 months old right now). What else. Been working my ass off. I feel pretty good about that. I feel like if I just maintain that type of work ethic, it's pretty much inevitable that some good things will start to happen in terms of my career.

Portishead - Machine Gun

This album's really been growing on me. I guess Portishead has always been brilliant. This is my fav song off it.


Portishead - Machine Gun

Stephen Colbert - Another Christmas Song

I'm thinking about posting mp3s once in a while on this blog, I'm experimenting with various mp3 streaming formats. This is just a test.

what you have already lost, consider as totally lost

Have been getting up at 4:30 am every morning before work as part of a concerted effort to become an 'early riser'. This decision was influenced by two articles I read online recently: Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine  and How to Become an Early Riser.  There are basically several reasons I've decided to start getting up early.  One is my wife has gone back to work, and our morning routine has become very hectic - I have to shower by 6:30, then wake K. and N. up and give N. her bottle and change her while K. takes a shower and gets everything ready, then help them get everything to K's car then kiss them goodbye while K. takes N. to my mom's house on the way to work.  Quite a change from my previous morning routine of rolling out of bed with just enough time to take a shower, change and drive to work before everyone takes all the parking spots at work.  The other reason is the desire to change my life and career.  I've talked so much about my desire to finally grab my career by the horns, get a new job or a promotion, start my own business, increase my income.  I'm still sort of coming up with ideas about what my next career move, but I do know that before I make a move I need to be excellent at my current job, which I'm not.  I mean, I'm ok, but I'm not excellent - which is what you'd expect from somebody who for the past couple of years has worked 40 hours or less a week.  If you habitually put in the time and work 10, 20 hours more than you are expected to at work, you will eventually become successful, you will distinguish yourself among other 9 to 5 workers.  So far so good.  It was tough getting used to it at first, and I think I'm still getting used to it - I noticed I was a lot more tired at night, I had a few mornings where I felt really sleepy driving to work, and left my lights on one time.  One side effect I hadn't anticipated is that I find that I'm able to enjoy my free time more with my wife and baby due to less mental energy being expended worrying about how I should be working harder on the job, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing that I'm living my life with integrity.  

Sometimes something happens that reminds me of certain things, mistakes I've made over the years, personal slights.  Things happen that frustrate me about my coworkers or my family.  I notice myself acknowledging these negative thoughts for a minute, analyzing them in a detached fashion, then letting them fade away.  This is a very good indicator of spiritual growth.  I was watching 'Britney - For the record' a couple of weeks ago and Madonna said something pretty relevant about a person's ability to affect their reality - when you are young, it feels like things are happening to you, and you have no control over your environment.  Growing up is the process of realizing your ability to shape your life through your thoughts and actions.  And growing up is the process of prioritizing your life so that the important things are always your relationship with yourself, with God, your friends and family, your personal development - everything else in your life radiates from this core of positive energy.

What's the matter have you never seen a talking snowman before?

Thinking about the experience of driving on a fairly deserted stretch of road, N. on i43 to the UP, up through Milwaukee and Green Bay, WI - the area of the country my wife was raised in. Full of small town folk, farms, billboards, car dealerships, lots of bars, and of course the ever present Culvers. Concentrating on the road stretching out into the distance, narrowing to a small point on the horizon, as my wife and baby girl sleep in the back seat. I realize that this experience has been replaying in my dreams, half remembered and sublimated, for many months now. For the past couple of years I've focused on maintaining balance in my life, as a result my life has narrowed and slowed down as I focused on things that were previously out of whack in my personal life. This image of driving, of trying to maintain control while gradually increasing speed, seems especially relevant to my life right now.

Working from home today, taking care of N.. She is really fussy, refusing to sit down in her chair and watch tv, or lay down in the bed and sleep. I have to keep her in the baby bjorn with me, it's really awkward having to stand up an type this while she kicks and coos while strapped to my chest. I feel like working from home isn't really helping my productivity at work. Cold out, I'm still running, I feel like I'm going to slip and break my neck on all the ice on the sidewalks. Getting used to our new morning routine now that K. is back at work - I have to get up extra early so I can feed the baby while K. showers and packs everything for the day. I don't know how I'm going to work out in the morning now, I guess I'll adjust. Me and K. joined the Y so we're planning on working out a lot together on the weekends. Been slowing ramping up the hours at work - 5 extra hours last week, working on 10 extra this week. I think if I work around 50-60 hrs a week consistently I'll start seeing some changes in my career situation. If you genuinely work that hard at your career, good things are bound to happen.

I could repeat information about the finest things until I die and never grow weary of it. You are quite welcome.

Somehow I'm in the doghouse with my parents because I have to take my wife and baby to visit my in laws once a year whereas they get to see them practically every day. Or maybe they're pissed because we voted for Obama instead of buying into the propaganda emails forwarded secondhand by distant relatives who don't even live in the States. Drove all night last night while K. and N. were sick in the backseat. Listened to Dave Ramsey and worried a little about money. Came home and unpacked. Going to spend the day doing nothing, taking care of my girls, waiting for the big snowfall. I joined ilxor.com, sort of an elitist hipinion, with a more mature crowd. So far I like it, that's what boredom with only the internet to keep you company does to you. I'm so out of it in terms of the latest music, I can't begin to answer a question like

So we're halfway through 2008; what are your top 10 albums of this year, so far?

as most of the music I listen to on my iPod is old stuff, or news podcasts, or internet radio. And most of the stuff I listen to at home - 99 percent of the stuff I listen to at home - is my own guitar playing or piano playing. I know I'd rather make music, however badly, than fall into the rut of the 'music elitist nerd'. But it's vaguely troubling to me that I don't know any current bands. My resolve to be productive and excellent every day pales the face of cold harsh reality. Today I have to: do some work, work out, play guitar, and go to my mom's to pick up my keys. It always seems like there's not enough time in the day for everything.

Stay Crunchy

K's dad took the car back to the dealer for us. Woke up late this morning, spent the day watching college basketball on TV, surfing around on the internet. This is how bored I am around here - I signed up again for an account on . Reminder to myself to delete said account once I get back to Chicago. I can't believe my life used to revolve around that place, what a gigantic waste of time. Went running so we could meet everyone for breakfast at the Inn before they closed, but by the time I get back, K. tells me they're closing the Inn early, and she's tired and taking and nap with the baby. I eat leftovers and sit on the couch and write blog posts. Thinking about family members last night making vaguely racist jokes - or quoting vaguely racist jokes some of their friends said -about President Obama getting elected. I guess I'm not a minority now that I'm in the family. Sometimes when I hear people making these kind of comments about our new president I wonder what it is about having a black man in the White House that makes them feel so threatened. Been thinking about how my career has been stagnating for the past 4 years or so, and what I can do about it. I seem to fixate on this issue, resolve to make changes, and yet nothing seems to change that much. My New Years resolution should be to get back on track in terms of my career. I photoshopped my face and K's face over a picture of Perseus holding up the head of Medusa, and set it as my Facebook profile pic. Oh yeah, looks like there's some bad snowstorms coming to the UP so we may have to leave for Chicago tomorrow instead of Sunday.

I Am the Unknown

Thanksgiving day, I wake up and sip coffee on the couch and hang out with the in laws while they play with N. Went running for the first time since I got here - 5 miles. Father in law tells me local ordinances require that I wear bright orange as it's hunting season and I might get shot. So I'm wearing a bright orange vest as I listen to altbro music and do laps around the track at the local high school - they were right too, I could hear gunshots going off every five minutes or so. When I get home, Thanksgiving is in full effect. N. is over, Aunt T., Aunt M., Grandma, N., M., A., R., V., and E. all stopped by. N. must've been tired at the end of the day - everyone seemed to agree that she was very cute. I ate a *lot*, by the end of the day I was just immobile. Called my parents - they are being ridiculous about us going to the UP for Thanksgiving. Tried to watch Meet The Robinsons in bed with K. but I fell asleep. I've been having very weird, vivid dreams here, but I forget them as soon as I wake up.

Let It Be Me

Day 1 in the UP. Woke up late, hung around the house sipping coffee and talking with the in laws as they played with N. K. had scheduled a lot of visiting today, N.'s social schedule was pretty booked. First we went to town to drop off N. with Aunt Cookie's, cousin F. was there. Then took K's car at the Ford dealer, then borrowed K's mom's car to go shopping at Shopko. Bought a new pair of running shoes, threw my old shoes in the garbage and wore my new Nike trail runners around the rest of the day. Met up with some family friends at Shopko, then visited Aunt M. at the grocery store. Then visited A. and her new baby T. T. was there, he was fixing up their nursery upstairs with his brother. Baby T. looks just like a cabbage patch doll, very cute, but in a different way than N. Then went home, and went to the school to see Cousin M. performing in her first school play - cousin A. and husband M. were there. Lots of cute kids. Met some of K's high school friends there - they were either pregnant or with their kids. I really like cute kids, I was struck by how different it is to raise baby boys than girls - they are a lot more work, but also seem more 'fun' from a dad's perspective. Fell asleep early again on the couch.

All You Fascists

After work, drove to my mom's in bad holiday traffic to pick up my wife and baby. Had some chicken pot pie, then drove the entire six hour drive to the UP, stopping a couple of times to change diapers/enjoy the traditional Culvers. Listened to hipster tunes all the way, with a minimum of complaining/ridicule from the wife. Talked about the state of our lives/marriage, we're both generally satisfied. Kept worrying that a deer would pop out the side of the road at any moment. Made it home at 12:30, fell asleep on the couch while my in laws bounced the baby on their laps.

Quote

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him.

- Eleanor Roosevelt, human rights advocate



Conquering your fears through action

Life brings with it many doubts and fears. But the unknown and the untried have held more people back than any lack of ability. Most successes are never seen because they're never attempted. The courage to face your fears can build momentum that creates magic. Each time you overcome an obstacle, a fear or a step back, you gain confidence. Every small victory helps you feel more certain of yourself and your direction, pushing you further and faster than you ever thought possible. You can do it! What's holding you back? True, fears are intimidating. So start small. Believe in yourself and take one small swipe at your fear today just to see what happens. If you can't talk yourself past the "point of no return", get a friend to help. In the end, half of the doing is in the deciding. If you stumble, don't be afraid to brush yourself off and jump back in.

Candy left over from halloween, a unified theory of everything

Reasons for me to run in the morning instead of after work:
1. Yeah it's cold and harsh in the morning, especially with the wind along the lake, but the biggest reason I don't run in the morning is I don't want to get up early if I have to run outside in the cold. It will be just as cold in the afternoon, maybe a little warmer but not much to make a difference.
2. You waste a shitload of time running after work. If you run in the morning, it takes about an hour plus a little weight lifting and yoga at the gym, then shower, then go to work. If you run after work, you get home from work, talk to the wife, bounce the baby on your lap, change, work out for an hour, go home, sit around and talk to the wife and baby, then shower for the second time in the day - easily a two hour process, usually more. Less time for relaxing at night, watching tv and playing guitar.
3. You feel better throughout the day if you start your day with a workout.

Of course there are reasons to run after work - it's a great way to unwind after work, more people out on the street for peoplewatching. Probably a mix of morning and after-work runs, mostly mornings, would be ideal.

I watched 'I Am Trying to Break Your Heart' for the first time. I know I'm late to the Wilco party but I think I'm starting to get into them now.

Weird dream about me going back to my old job and begging my old boss for my job back. Almost a nightmare.

Bought K. a sapphire and diamond ring as a 'push present'/early Christmas present, she loved it.

I'm a man of simple tastes - Potbellies chicken salad salad and Jello sugar free pudding.

All I used to be will pass away eventually, all I want now is happiness for you and me

K. and I did a lot of good work last week related to finances - paid off a bunch of bills - credit cards and K's car, refined our budget spreadsheet and rolled some more money into our 'debt snowball'. I went to see John last week, it's amazing how much progress I've made since I started going to see him a little more than two years ago. Pretty much most of the areas of my life are in in great shape, being handled, etc. Feel more in touch with family, in better shape financially, I'm even more in touch with old friends from school. The one thing I'm still sort of dissatisfied with is my career situation - not that it's in a bad place, but I still feel like I need to 'leave my mark'. I have to figure out what exactly that is, in fact. It's becoming clearer as I keep working, that the future may not involve going back for another degree or trying to climb the corporate ladder (at least here).

Let's take a ride to the easy plateau, where the cold don't come and the wind don't blow

Went out for lunch with J. and D.. P. is having a dinner party this weekend at some greek place, I'm going to be bringing K. and the baby. This would be the baby's first dinner party. Only 3 hours to go at work, I've been working hard, I even manage to get in a few hours of overtime a week with all the craziness at home. It's a good craziness, don't get me wrong. The baby is very high maintenance, but is also very cute and entertaining. Spent election eve watching the results come in on CNN while playing guitar for my wife and babby. I am playing again - a lot - I discovered the secret to not getting any shit from the wife for spending all my time playing guitar: play fingerstyle acoustic.

how is babby formed?

Quote

Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

- Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu's teachings

Hello Blog, I have a baby now

Sorry I haven't written in a while. We had a beautiful baby girl last month but she is so HIGH MAINTENANCE! We're not getting much sleep, I'm still training for my next race, I took a lot of time off of work and I'm trying to get caught up these days, I haven't been playing much guitar lately either. I'll write later. Peace out!

5K Training Schedule for Intermediate Runners

Here's the schedule I'm using to train for my next 5k btw. I started training immediately after my last race, my next race is second or third week of October. I'll probaby repeat week 5 a couple of times as I did previously with my hardest training week to kill some time before the race date.

Training's going good - I actually don't dread running anymore, I enjoy it in fact. I like the meditative aspects to it, I like how good I feel afterwards, I like how I'm losing weight, I like all the cool clothes and gear that are associated with my new sport. It's just fun.


5K Training Schedule for Intermediate Runners

Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
1 CT or Rest 3 x 400 IW 2 m run 30 min tempo Rest 5 m run 30 min EZ
2 CT or Rest 4 x 400 IW 2 m run 30 min tempo Rest 5 m run 35 min EZ
3 CT or Rest 4 x 400 IW 3 m run 30 min tempo Rest 6 m run 35 min EZ
4 CT or Rest 5 x 400 IW 3 m run 35 min tempo Rest 6 m run 40 min EZ
5 CT or Rest 5 x 400 IW 3 m run 35 min tempo Rest 7 m run 35 min EZ
6 CT or Rest 6 x 400 IW 3 m run 40 min tempo Rest 6 m run 40 min EZ
7 CT or Rest 6 x 400 IW 3 m run 40 min tempo Rest 7 m run 45 min EZ
8 CT or Rest 3 m run 30 min tempo run 2 m run Rest Rest 5K Race!

Book a week - 37/52

I probably will not have much time to blog next week as we are expecting a baby (more about that later) - so I'm just going to post this now.

My book for the 37th week of 2008 is What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter.

Book a week - 36/52

My book for the 36th week of 2008 is The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year by Armin A. Brott .

Book a week - 35/52

My book for the 35th week of 2008 is What Color Is Your Parachute? 2008: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Book a week - 34/52

I'm thinking about start a book-a-week program, modeled after the guy at the Largehearted Boy blog. My wife reads probably more than a book a week, and I used to do this myself before grad school. I'm going to try to do it again starting this week. There are several reasons I'm going to try this book a week program:

1. The same way I'm into running to develop my physique, I'm starting this program to develop my intellect. The habit of reading makes a person knowledgeable, competent, and articulate.

2. I already have a large collection of books, and I like books. I tried audiobooks and eBooks, these did not work out for me. I have a hard time reading eBooks due to the limitations of current eBook readers - no I haven't tried the Amazon Kindle yet - and I find that I have a hard time retaining information listening to audiobooks. I tried reading stuff on the internet - but it is just way to easy to get distracted when researching a subject on the internet - I find the majority of my internet research devolves into digg.com or youtube. The amount of information on the internet is practically limitless - I like the idea of a book as finite unit of information.

3. To develop expertise in a number of areas - these being business and finance, economics and politics, and computer science. I don't know if I'll be able to read a tech book a week, as these tend to be a lot longer than the average book and require a lot of interactivity. I guess I'll deal with that as I go along.

This is the 34th week of 2008, 18 weeks left to go in the year. This week's book is 'The Total Money Makeover' by Dave Ramsey.

5k Aftermath

I ran the 5k in 28 minutes, which is not shabby for a first race. I was not expecting the race to be as fun as it was, I was dreading it actually. But when the day came K. and I drove to Millenium park, there were a ton of people there - less people dressed as Elvis as I though there would be. And we ran the race - towards the end, when we hit the 3 mile run I started sprinting, that was cool. I'm doing an 'intermediate 5k race training schedule' now for the Pumpkin Patch race at the end of October. After that I'm planning on spending the winter and early spring training for a 10k - probably the 'Wrigley Early Start 10k run' in Lincoln Park.

Quote

'The price of great bacon is eternal vigilance.'
-David Edwards (Young Dave)

Quotes

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. --Mozart


If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

5k race training week 8

Losing weight steadily since I started really watching my points and training for the 5k. It fluctuates a lot but it averages to about a little more than a lb a week. It seems like with all the running I should be losing more - but this is a lifestyle change, 5-6 months is not so long a time frame to reach my goal weight in a healthy and maintainable manner. I don't feel hungry or tired all the time as I would if I tried to do a crash diet - certainly if I did a crash diet I would not have enough energy to do all the running. I keep thinking about reaching my goal weight and all the changes that will happen in my life when that time comes 5-6 months from now.

Feel good about the running, I accidentally did 5.25 miles due to incorrect mapquest statistics. That was not such a big deal, I also had my best time for 4 miles on Sunday. The race is towards the end of next week. I'm going to run this afternoon and time my 3 mile run.

Weight ranges

I'm at 192 right now - still fat. I'm 5'11" by the way. Still working on losing the weight, hope to be back to my ideal weight by Christmas.

I've been thinking - at least for someone with my body type, weight goes something like this:

190 and above, especially over 195 lb - fat, ugly and borderline obese, thick neck, man tits and big belly - you look fat no matter what you wear unless you want to buy a whole new wardrobe in XL and XXL.

180 to 190 lb - You look presentable, but don't kid yourself that you are 'skinny'. You look ok with clothes on but don't think that you can take your shirt off credibly on the beach. You wear L shirts, M shirts still look tight and stupid on you.

175 to 180 lb - Borderline nice physique. Probably what I've been the majority of my life. You can start wearing size M shirts credibly.

165 to 175 lb - This should be your ideal weight. You look good with clothes on or off, you look great with a shirt off or in a tank top. Libido and energy level is great. You wear size M shirts and they look great on you, waist is around 30-31. You should stay in this range for life.

Great quote, probably my favorite

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future."
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

Still training - 5k week 7

Still training. I repeated week 6 4 weeks in a row.

Back at work. I did 45 mins on the elliptical this morning and feel pretty good. Still kind of mulling over the results of my blood tests yesterday:

red blood cell count ok, white blood cell count ok, basically no anemia, no diabetes, testosterone level ok, thyroid ok (so basically I can't blame my inability to lose weight on my metabolism).

The one glaring thing is my high cholesterol - level is 245, ldl level is 165. Overall level should be under 200, ldl level should be beneath 160. My Dr. tells me that 250 used to be the cut off point for high cholesterol, so I'm right on the border - so I won't need to go on any cholesterol drugs like lipitor, but I need to keep watching my diet and continue with the running. I think when I hit 10 percent, or goal, my cholesterol will be about normal.

Back from vacation as well - I thought I had gained 4 lbs when I got back but I weighed myself this morning and I lost the extra weight, it was probably water. Running is going well I'm able to run 4 miles without stopping, times are good. Only 2-3 weeks to go til my 5k race.

The Case Against Overtime

really good article at the Caffeinated Coder's blog

The Case Against Overtime
Posted April 6, 2008

I remember reading the eXtreme Programming Core Practices several years ago and smirking when I got to the practice that called for regular 40 hour work weeks for programmers.

Like many of my fellow developers, I saw overtime as a geek badge of honor and felt pride at having enough stamina to regularly work 60-80 hours a week on my death march project.

Although I occasionally received half-hearted warnings from management to slow my pace down in order to avoid burn-out, the underlying message from above was clearly that my willingness to work long hours made me an exemplary employee and that overtime was one of the surest paths to professional growth and advancement.

While I may have agreed with the XP practice of capping the work week at 40 hours in theory, my traditional geek machismo prevented me from accepting it as anything other than a naive and idealistic goal that would probably never be gain widespread acceptance in corporate America.

That was then.

Now, when given a choice, I rarely opt to work overtime for my employer (at least not directly according to my task list). I would never hesitate to work extra hours prior to a release or due to unexpected production problems, but I now view anything more frequent than that as a serious problem and even as a potential reason to start looking for another job.

Why the dramatic change in attitude?

Here are some reasons that finally caused me to stop seeing overtime as a heroic effort and start seeing it as a destructive practice that is a sign of a seriously broken process within an IT organization.

1. Lost Opportunity Costs in Professional Growth - Once I completed a handful of large projects in my career, the opportunities I saw for professional growth started coming more and more from external sources outside of my job. While I still learn plenty during the day by observing my co-workers and attempting to solve common problems in novel ways, I often feel that my skills grow faster outside of work through reading, writing, presenting, social networking, and pet projects. It is sometimes tempting to spend 10 extra hours a week clearing the items from my daily TO DO list, but I believe that I am accomplishing much more for my professional career by devoting those hours to catching up on my RSS feeds, working my way through my tech book reading list, or exploring new programming languages instead.
2. Increased Professional Risk from Lack of Diversification - Everyone knows that diversification is the key to managing financial risk, but few people seem to apply this principal to their professional careers. Most developer shops are relatively limited when it comes to the number of technologies and problem domains they deal with. If you want to diversify your resume without job hopping every year, then it makes sense to actively seek out technology experiences that are different from the ones you use in your day job. By this reasoning, working overtime will increase your professional risk by reinforcing skills you already have whereas working on open source or pet projects that require you to learn new skills will mitigate your professional risk and make you more marketable should you ever decide to leave your current job.
3. Decreased Professional Passion - To paraphrase Jean-Paul Boodhoo, the best fuel for professional growth is always a developer’s joy and passion for his or her craft. I find it much easier to sustain this passion when I am allowed free reign to follow my curiosity. Work doesn’t usually allow for this type of unstructured exploration, but free time does.
4. Lost Productivity - Overtime work is highly susceptible to the law of diminishing returns. Spending long hours on the same tasks in a high stress environment leads to fatigue, which in turn leads to producing poorer quality work at a slower pace. When you factor in the time it takes to find and fix bugs and design flaws produced by overly tired developers, the net gain for twenty hours a week of overtime probably drops down to only a few hours while at the same time greatly increasing the risk to the project. Overtime just doesn’t yield the results promised by management Gantt Charts which provide an oversimplified view of the software development process by only measuring the quantity of the hours spent on tasks without also taking into consideration the quality of the time.
5. Poor Code Quality - Besides being more likely to miss obvious errors, developers who are under pressure and fatigued are far more likely to cut corners and engage in shallow thinking when it comes to design solutions. Besides driving up the long term cost of a project by making it more difficult to maintain, code quality issues can put the whole project or even business at risk by introducing critical errors and undermining customer confidence and loyalty.
6. Lost Personal Revenue - If you are a salaried employee and your are concerned with maximizing your personal income, then you should read this post by Max Pool where he points out that you are almost always financially better off to focus your time across multiple revenue streams rather than allowing your time to be sucked up by one job through excessive overtime.
7. The Usual Personal Reasons - These are all the usual things that workaholics neglect until it is too late, such as family, friends, health, and entertainment. Although I think they are among the most important reasons, many of us seem to have blind spots when it comes to these issues due to cultural biases so I chose to focus on other more novel arguments about overtime in this post instead. Nevertheless, these are some of the most compelling reasons to question any work schedule that consistently includes overtime.

If you are convinced about the evils of chronic overtime but don’t know how to break out of your current overtime cycle at work, then meditate on the following two concepts:

1. Time Should Be Fixed, but Features Should Always Be in Flux - If a customer went into a store and put more items in their shopping cart than they had money for, then they would reasonably expect to have to put a few items back while checking out. This is exactly how it should work in software, but the reality is often that customers naturally have a very difficult time connecting their feature requests to a real cost because IT departments have traditionally been so willing to hide the extra cost through overtime. Agile iteration planning and planning poker does a great job of addressing this issue by having developers assign a relative point cost to each feature, tracking an average velocity of points completed each week, and then only allowing customers to choose enough features to equal the velocity points in any given iteration. Besides providing a much more realistic expectation of what can be accomplished in an iteration, this approach emphasizes that developer time is a fixed resource and that feature requests must be variable based on continual assessment and reprioritization.
2. A Large Number of Proposed Project Features are Unnecessary and even Harmful to the Project - It is amazing how many "must-have" features suddenly become unimportant when a project is time-boxed and resource-boxed in an effective way. I’ve actually seen overall product quality and customer satisfaction increase in these circumstances because it helps focus stakeholders on what is essential about a project and aids them in more easily spotting bloatware features that would otherwise delay implementation, increase cost, and hinder usability without returning discernible value.

Sometimes you just can’t change the way your processes work or management thinks, but you can always change your own attitude by resisting self-imposed or peer pressure to work overtime. I’m guessing that the majority of overtime is not officially mandated, but rather manipulated through subtle peer pressure. If that is the case, just say no.

If your goal is constantly to maximize your own professional growth, then you’ll be surprised at how much respect you can still win without playing the overtime game. For example, who do you think is going to get noticed more, someone who closes a few more issue in the bug tracking system, or someone who is able to introduce a new concept, process, tool, or technology to the group because of work done in their spare time?

In conclusion, the next time the opportunity for overtime arises, ask yourself if you are really maximizing your professional growth or if you are just focusing too much on short term job goals and not enough on long term career goals .

5k training week 6 pt 1

I supposedly have a race 8/7 in Millenium Park. I've been training a *lot*, I'm sore and hungry all the time, but I can feel that it's getting easier. I did my 4 mile run on Saturday - my route was south on Lake Shore, past Belmont and back. I was able to run this without stopping for a long time and I wasn't that winded. I did feel a lot of soreness in my calves and ankles the next day however. I will be repeating week 6 training for the next 2 weeks, then resume the scheduled training. Holiday weekend, my diet was horrible as I was eating a lot of barbecue type goodies. I'll be going back to my regular diet of organic greens and such this week.

Quote

He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
- Douglas Adams

I've played the spades, I know I'm a jack of all trades

I haven't written in a while, things have been really crazy the past month. So many cool things have happened - I should've been writing as I went along but you know how it is.

I think the last time I sat down to write any personal stuff about my life it was the end of last month when I was worrying a lot about my career but was suddenly told that I'd soon be assuming more responsibility. That's actually still in progress and like everything here at work it seems like changes happen at a very gradual pace. We had a company picnic last week - one thing I noticed is the huge change in my relation to coworkers. Last year I felt a lot of hostility from a few people while this year I get along pretty well with most people I work with.

I told J. the other day about how grateful I feel for all the good things that have happened in my life, ever since we got married - maybe even as far back as a year ago when we first started dating and talking about moving in together, it seems like things have been changing at such a rapid pace in my life. I'm constantly amazed at how happy I am, and I know K. feels the same ways, as she's always saying stuff like 'I love my life'. I told John that perhaps K. is the main reason for all the positive developments in my life as they seem tied in my mind, but he told me that I deserve some credit too for letting all the good things into my life and having some self respect, which is valid I guess.

Family and friends are the most important things in my life, with my wife and my baby coming first, my immediate family coming second, and my friends third, although I have to admit my friends are a lot more entertaining than my family sometimes while my wife is probably the most entertaining person of all. I can spend days on end with her doing hardly anything and be perfectly content. We do this practically every weekend, although I manage to get some guitar playing, working out and hacking in. Last Saturday we sat around, watched tv, I played guitar, worked out, went to therapy, we went out to eat at Wishbone - we ran into C. from work there, a nice surprise - got rained on, came in, dried off, I went back out and got dinner, then I read to her in bed before we went to sleep early. Weekends are frequently like that. Sometimes we go out and hang out with friends or hang out with my mom and dad. My mom loves K. and loves to have us around.

K. graduated last week, me J. and C. attended her graduation at Navy Pier, took pictures and went out for ice cream afterwards. Yesterday my family took K. out to celebrate her graduation - my parents, brothers and even cousins all got her presents, which is a lot more than even I did for her. I'm really blown away by how much my family loves her, although it's not surprising to me really. We went to Marcello's for brunch, which is awesome - but I always feel bloated for the next 2 days after I go there.

Probably the most important events of the past month were my bachelor party and our wedding reception in the UP. This has been a very memorable month, probably one of the best in my life, which came as a little bit of a surprise. I had actually not really been looking forward to my either my bachelor party or my wedding party - for a long time they just seemed like these events on the horizon that we always talked about in the abstract. I didn't feel ready for them because I was 'fat'. and they always just seemed like something 'planned', but when they actually happened, they were much more enjoyable than I thought they would be and brought me a lot closer to my family.

We got so hammered at my bachelor party - it was funny, we kept talking about how we were 'going to make it rain' but we actually only spent about a half hour at the strip bar. J. J. P and D. came as well as my cousins and brothers. There were about 11 of us in all. We started out at Smith and Wollensky, which was awesome, then went out to this club Moda - J.'s hs buddy was a bouncer there and got us in free. Me and J. went around approaching girls just for fun again and I did really well - bringing some hot latinas over to talk to my family and friends. I haven't lost my 'magic' - and actually I think the wedding ring actually helps, it's sort of a disqualification and dhv all in one. Later on everybody agreed we should have stayed at the club we were having so much fun, but since it was a bachelor party we all decided to drive over to the strip club, which sucked. We went to VIP's which is this club next to Crobar - what sucked about it was that it was really crowded and there seemed to be very few strippers - there were like 10 of them for 300 guys. So we got a few dances and everyone went back to L.'s, P. in particular was blown away by L. and M.'s swank pad. The wedding party was pretty awesome, everyone had a great time, I was actually surprised by how well the two families got along. We were there for 5 days. My dad and bros played a lot of golf while K. and I went around and visited relatives. I won't be able to write enough to adequately describe all the cool things that happened last week. There's just not enough time right now. One thing - when Uncle Tod called me and K. out to dance our first dance in front of our family and friends, that was probably the best moment of my life.

There's not enough time for me to write today. A couple of things - I've started on a cool software project outside of work, using the Google Data API, J.'s bbq last night was cool, I'm learning Bury Me by SP on guitar, we talked to a mortgage officer at the bank last weekend to refi our mortgage, and we came up with a really good plan to deal with our impending housing problem with the new kid coming, which I'll probably go into in detail later on. I have to get to work.

5k training week 5

I'm gaining a lot of cardiovascular endurance. Yesterday I went for my Sunday 'active recovery day', and I kept running even after the 40 minutes - I wound up running about 5 miles, which seems a lot for me. I don't remember being able to run that distance comfortably in the past. I also received a couple compliments on looking trimmer. I'm probably not losing a lot of weight though. I generally watch what I eat when I'm at home and there's nothing going on - but this summer's been really crazy, there's a party every week. Yesterday I tallied up my weightwatchers points and I'm slightly over my weekly points as well. I'm just going to keep training and trying to watch what I eat as I go forward, what else can I do? I also told my family about my 5k at the beginning of August, so now I have to be accountable to that. I'm going to start cooking some weightwatchers recipes too this week.

5k training week 4

I double timed this week so that I could fit all my training in during the week of our big wedding reception. The longest run is now 3 miles, which I'm doing fairly easily. I'm doing about 2 days of strength training here and there, and about 150 crunches a day. Working out in the morning pretty nice in the summertime, I'm going to keep doing it until the fall when it starts getting too painful. I don't see how these guys at the gym can stand to be on the treadmill every day, it just gets too boring - although I'm going to have to do it in the winter. I'm enjoying it now though, I bought a new pair of shoes and shorts when I was in the UP so I look cool ;).

So I'm keeping up with my training but my diet is another story. The wedding party was pretty awesome - I'll probably write about it later. But I ate so much, we all did. We also drank a lot. It felt like I was eating for 5 days straight, but it was a great time so I'm not going to regret it. I'm not even going to weigh myself, I'm just going to concentrate on getting to the gym and getting my running in every day.

5k training week 3

I'm keeping up with training, it's not so difficut yet - longest run is 2.5 m which is not a lot for some people, but I am definitely tired at the end of it. Still managing to do my yoga and weight lifting on top of the running (cutting down on the weight lifting though). This week was tough, the workouts were manageable but I'm tired a lot of the time, I have no energy after work to do anything other than sit on the couch, the house is a mess because I'm too tired to clean, or just lazy. K. is of course pregnant and not in any shape to clean, so the place is a mess. I'm also hungry all the time. Weight went up last week and I gained back the 3 lbs I had lost. This week will be even more difficult as we have the wedding party coming up and I'll have to squeeze in training this week as well as watch what I eat and drink all weekend in the UP, which is really tough to do. I'm just hoping not to gain anymore weight. They have an exercise room at the hotel so I'll be able to do something over the weekend which may motivate me to watch what I eat.

Quote

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963), Vedanta for the Western World, 1945

Quote

The best way out is always through.
- Robert Frost

5k training week 2

I had a good week of training last week, but I fell off towards the end. On Saturday my brothers threw me a bachelor party, which I'll probably elaborate on in another post, and I was so hung over on Sunday I laid in bed all day with K. So I only wound up working out 4 days last week. Since I believe in balance and moderation in training as in life, I will just leave it at that and not try to make up the extra training day this week. Energy levels are down from last week, I really struggled to complete my long run on Saturday, and even my short run in the middle of the week, I had to stop a couple of times and walk on Saturday, but I made up for that by running a little farther towards the end. It seems to be harder to run on the lakefront due to the excessive wind resistance, vs. running around my neighborhood with all the tall buildings to block the wind for me, however it's a lot more 'scenic' if you catch my drift, running on the lake. That's a nice perk of this new running routine actually. I did a really good job of watching my diet last week, even with K's birthday dinner and all the eating out and partying last week. I lost a pound, which I'm satisfied with as it's a healthy weight loss level especially with all the training.

Quote

Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.
- Thomas Fuller

5k training week 1

Finished first week of my 5k training, so far so good. First week was pretty easy for me actually, as I've been sort of doing some cardio work already, but not seriously and for the purpose of eventually entering a race. I now seriously want a pair of those Nike+ iPod shoes. Today is a rest day - I like how I don't feel guilty about taking scheduled rest days. This week I'm aiming to work in a couple days of weight training along with all the cardio. Not too tired - even after the double work out yesterday. I don't even really sweat that much compared to how much I used to sweat on the treadmill. Maybe that will come. So far I lost about a pound - one pound a week is pretty good progress. By the end of the summer I should be in great shape, and have a 5k under my belt. Note to myself to pay more attention to stretching and yoga this week.

Fleet Feet Sports Elvis Is Alive 5k

I'm on my first week of training for my first 5k run. I've decided that I'm going to participate in the Fleet Feet Sports Elvis Is Alive 5k run on August 7. So far my legs are little sore from the first few days of running. This at least gives me some sort of goal to shoot for.

When you decide that your life is a prize

You know what they say - be careful what you wish for you just may get it. I can't really go into it very much on here but I've just been given a *lot* of responsibility at work. This is actually a good thing, considering I've been complaining that I never get to do anything 'cool' at work, this is definitely cool stuff, it's going to be a challenge for sure. More on this later, but just wanted to jot this down and note that things at work are really changing for the better lately. D. is really in my corner, I'll never doubt him again.

Another lifetime

I worry a lot about my career. Sometimes I think I'm doing ok, sometimes I feel like I'm getting nowhere at my current job. The truth is - I work basically 40 hours at my job, no more, no less, every week. If there are outstanding things to be done they generally have to wait til the next business day. I honestly don't know how I'm regarded by my bosses - I feel like I've gotten a lot of stuff done over the past year but I'm not the 'go to' guy on my team. I feel like I want to take on more responsibility and keep growing in terms of my technical knowledge. But the reality of the situation is that I don't work enough to stay competitive with people - my peers, and my competition in the job market - who really take their careers seriously.

I started from behind, I had a solid 3-4 years, maybe 5, where I was extremely motivated and made some huge strides in my career and education. Then there was a period of about 2 years where I was just treading water in terms of my job. The past year I feel like I've been trying really hard, at least when I am at work, but haven't really put in that extra 10-20 hours a week that distinguishes the superstars from the average workers. I have a performance review coming up at work in a couple weeks, we'll see what kind of feedback I get from my bosses.

I've also historically been lousy with money. In the past 2 months I've did a lot of organization with my money situation, in order to achieve the type of financial goals me and my wife talk about I will have to not only stay on top of my money situation, but master my money situation to the point where it is self perpetuating.

Billy Corgan told himself that - from the ages of 20 to 40 - he would work as hard as he could and see where that gets him, he's almost 40 now and look at what he's done.

I've decided today that, from my age right now to when my daughter turns 18 - I'm going to work as hard as I can - that means putting in an extra hour or two a day at work or on work related research, or on my home business, or managing my finances. We'll see where that gets me.

I'd really like to look back on this blog entry in 18 years and say to myself, 'that's when I really started to take my career and financial situation to the next level'. I tell myself that I'm doing it for Nina and K. - my wife and child. What else is there in this world to motivate me? Am I just going to go the rest of my life without ever really trying to be the man I've always wanted to be?

I'm Fat - 10 pounds by my birthday/Running workout

It's time I accept that I'm fat. My current 'weight loss' plan of tracking my points on weight watchers and working out at the gym haphazardly is just not cutting it. I lose a few pounds here and there, but over the past year my weight has remained relatively stable. It also doesn't help that I'm living with a pregnant woman who is eating double the amount of normal calories and is fond of chocolate and ice cream. Some days I just give in and eat whatever my wife is eating, it's certainly a lot more pleasurable.

I gave up for a while - for the past few weeks I haven't been tracking my points and haven't been going to the gym. My intense cardio work outs at the gym at the beginning of the year have also sort of tapered off.

I will probably not be able to lose a lot of weight in time for our wedding party - but that doesn't mean I should be a fat slob for the rest of my life. I have too much self respect to let my physical appearance continue to deteriorate, in the end it will also be better for my career, relationships, etc. as well as my self esteem.

I've decided to get on a running work out, and possibly compete in a 5k by the end of summer, I'll try to run as much as possible outside because I hate the treadmill. I take my inspiration from my friend B. who got a treadmill for Christmas and now is competing in half marathons and looks fierce. I have decided to cut down on the weight training, it just makes me look bulky, makes it difficult for me to lose weight, and it was never my goal to look like a body builder anyways. I like a slim build with some muscle tone. My plan is to use 2 resources online: running.about.com for training info and mapmyrun.com to log my training.

Here's my training schedule for the next 8 weeks.

5K Advanced Beginner Training Schedule

Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
1 Rest 1.5 m run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 2 m run 30 min EZ
2 Rest 2 m run CT 1 m run (race pace) Rest 2.5 m run 30 min EZ
3 Rest 2 mi run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 2.5 m run 30 min EZ
4 Rest 2.5 m run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 3 m run 35-40 min EZ
5 Rest 3 m run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 3.5 m run 35-40 min EZ
6 Rest 3.5 m run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 4 m run 35-40 min EZ
7 Rest 3 m run CT 1.5 m run (race pace) Rest 4 m run 40 min EZ
8 Rest 3 m run CT or Rest 2 m run Rest Rest 5K Race!

Quote

It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
- Arnold Toynbee

Quote

"And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution." - Christopher McCandles

Quote

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. ~Mark Twain

Quote

When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you.

babynameworld

Girls names I like

Adriana
Akira
Allie
Aria
Arwen
Aubrey
Ava
Avril
Bailey
Celine
Chloe
Daphne
Darcy
Darlene
Dina
Eileen
Elaine
Ella
Erin
Fallon
Fiona
Florida
Gabrielle
Gia
Gianna
Juliet
Kira
Kennedy
Kinsey
Laura
Leanne
Lena
Louise
Luisa
Madeline
Maria
Marley
Maxine
Meadow
Mina
Mira
Nadia
Naomi
Nina
Nora
Phoebe
Riley
Samantha
Sarah
Valerie
Winona
Zoe
Zsa Zsa

It's a girl!

We went back to the hospital the other day for our 20 week ultrasound, this was the big one we have been looking forward to as we were supposed to find out the sex of our baby. Aaaannndddd ...If you look at the picture second to the top you will see the baby's butt, and 3 lines that are labia. So that picture is x-rated!

My mom's going nuts, of course. She screamed so loud when K. called her to tell her I could hear it over the radio in the car. It's funny how we were calling her 'Jack' this whole time. This pretty much decides it - we have to try again because I need a son! Not that I care very much either way, a daughter is fine with me. My boss tells me that she's going to spoil me silly (and vice versa), I'm already starting to think of her in a 'daddy's little girl' kind of way. We already knew anyway that this baby was going to be spoiled rotten.

I think about her all the time, stupid stuff like if she likes it when K. eats ice cream, or if she can hear me playing guitar. We've started messing around with her at night - K. likes to hold a mini flashlight up to her stomach to make the baby wiggle around. Last night we held iPod earphones up to K's belly and played music for the baby. The first song my baby ever heard may be my guitar playing - or it may be 'Hijomalind' by Sigur Ros. She also seems to like 'Wildcat' by the Ratatat.

Dave Ramsey on never having car envy again

http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/lms/drive_free/player.cfm

Only love can win

I wake up to the K's alarm clock since I am too lazy to set my alarm clock at night - it goes off initially at around 6 o'clock, playing a static-y classic rock FM station. We hit snooze 4-5 times as we toss in turn in bed, half awake, until I have to get up to be at work on time by 7:30. This is my favorite time of the day, the early hours of the morning, where I just lay in bed with my wife thinking contented and hopeful thoughts about the future, making plans, thinking about what I have to do that day at work. I take a really quick shower - just rinsing myself off and brushing my teeth - as I do most of the time consuming grooming stuff, flossing, taking vitamins, shaving, etc. - at night, usually when I get back from the gym. Today I am wearing jeans and my white and green striped hoodie - a fairly common ensemble this fall and winter, although most of the time I dress a little more formal for work. I spray myself a little with cologne, put my laptop in my bag, put pomade in my hair, kiss K., and talk to her a little bit about the day ahead before leaving for work. I take the elevator downstairs with a few sleepy neighbors, and touch fists with Derrick at the front door and wish him a good day as I walk out to my car.

It is a cool morning, sort of windbreaker weather, about average for Chicago this time of year. Last weekend it snowed again, go figure - it does not get really nice here until the end of the month usually. I start my car and note that the keyless entry is still broken, and the tire warning on the dashboard is still flashing - mental note to take it into the shop for my scheduled maintenance. I missed my 10000 mile maintenance by 2000 miles, I'm too busy to go to the dealership to get my car worked on, although I have plenty of time for other things like going out to eat at restaurants and recording stuff in GarageBand.

I drive to work like all the other worker drones - Lake Shore Drive is a lot less congested at 7am, although there are still a lot of drivers on the road. There seem to be a lot more potholes on the roads these days in Chicago, there are a fair number of huge potholes on Lake Shore Drive and you really have to watch out for them or else you will blow out a tire. I arrive at work and am one of the first people in the office, these days my office mate is in a little earlier than I am although for a long time I was the first one on the floor. I sit down at my desk and unpack my laptop - the first thing I do is update podcasts in iTunes and load up a playlist with my favorite podcasts - CNN News, BBC News, 3 feeds from ESPN, The Onion, Dictionary.com, Dave Ramsey, Diggnation, The Week in Tech, NBC's Meet the Press, KCRW's Left Right and Center, Newsweek, Newshour with Jim Lehrer - this is how I get most of my news, I usually listen to these feeds on my iPod throughout the day, it's the main way I get my news, although CNN seems to always be on at home. These days I'm a little sick of all the election coverage and spend more time watching ESPN and Bulls games.

Work is still kind of boring in a way. I spend more time than I care to doing repetetive things, although I must admit things are improving as I take on more responsibility and work on more interesting projects. When I finish this migration project and/or we hire some new people, I should be able to spend even more time doing cool programming things. I check mail, talk to my office mates, my bosses come in and shoot the bull. I shop eBay, work on my personal website, sneak peeks at ultimate-guitar, gmail, and my various RSS feeds throughout the day as I do stuff. Usually on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays I go out to lunch with J. and/or P. - usually to restaurants around the area - sometimes we take a longer lunch and drive to Chinatown for lunch at Lao Sze Chuan, then we get back to work and are so bloated and lazy that we wind up surfing youtube for the rest of the afternoon.

I'd say my career is on the upswing, after a long period of stagnation due to burnout after finishing my Masters, preceded by a burst of workaholism and rapid career advancement. My hours hover at about 50 per week - I know that when I was getting a promotion every year at the start of this millenium, I was working 60-70 if you count the amount of time I spent on schoolwork for my Master's classes. I tell myself that after I square away some of these financial odds and ends - I'll get to that later - I'll have more time to devote to focusing on my career and personal programming projects like starting my side business that are related to my career. It is busy, on the weekdays I only have an hour or two at night to sit around veg out, usually before bed. I like it that way, better than being lazy and feeling guilty about it. Ideally I'd like to work around 60 to 70 hours a week, at least 20 of that on my personal programming projects, and side business, all of which will make me a better employee and make me more valuable on the job market. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a plan to go back to school to get my MBA - probably after K. gets her Masters - but I'm dreading that. Going for my last Masters degree damn near killed me, and made me hate my field, I'm only now starting to get back on track. Thankfully despite my career burnout, I managed to do really well in school so getting into another Masters program shouldn't be that difficult.

Work is generally enjoyable, although there are definitely a fair number of days when I walk out the door just a giant ball of stress, ready to pop. The bottom line is I love programming and any tasks that involve logical thinking, I like being around smart people, although it wouldn't hurt if there were more women in my field - not that I'd do anything since I'm a married guy, it would just break up the monotony of looking at geeks all day. I like my bosses, although I have issues with some of their managerial decisions, I generally get along well with my co workers, although there are a few that are weird and/or assholes. One recent development is that my buddies always tell me that I'm well liked around the office - after hearing that so often I'm starting to believe it. That's a good thing, and it's definitely a sign that I'm learning to get along better socially.

I can sense a change in my perception of myself. Last year I told K. that I'd like to eventually get my resume and start interviewing for a better job, but I'm generally satisfied where I'm at - and, more significantly, I didn't feel confident enough in my skills to embark on another grueling round of job interviews. After interviewing new employees over the past couple of months and doing a lot of good work this past year - I no longer feel so insecure about my skills. If anything I feel pretty confident about my skills compared to the competition. I'm still pretty happy with where I work as I said - pay is decent, work is interesting but not too stressful, generally good relations with coworkers, etc. - but I may throw an updated version of my resume out there and see what opportunities arise.

Lunch with J., I have a few hours left at work. I drink a lot of water throughout the day and wind up going to the bathroom quite a lot. It doesn't help that drinks are free where I work. I have my iPod on most of the day, it's a pretty laid back afternoon as our bosses are gone on some leadership retreat. Thinking about life and all the things I have planned for the rest of the day. I get out of work around 3:30 - on my way home I usually call K. and talk about our days, on Wednesdays she has class until around 9pm, so I'll have the house to myself until she gets home. Since K. is so busy with class, and since she is unable to do a lot of physical stuff due to her being pregnant, I generally take on all of the daily household maintenance tasks. After work I have to drop off some stuff at the dry cleaners, work out, meditate, practice guitar if I have time. I'm starting to record again, btw - I feel like my guitar skills have been growing in leaps and bounds the past few months, all due to my regular practicing and the discipline of having to perform for K. on a regular basis. I also have to clean the house, when K. gets home we have to finish assembling 300 invitations for our wedding reception in June. We spent 3 hours on this last weekend and we're still not done with it. There are scraps of papers and ribbons everywhere in the living room as a result.

I try to use every available minute of free time after work, sometimes I'm too exhausted to do anything but early on in the week I have a lot of energy - the past two days were pretty productive. Sometimes I get sidetracked - for instance, my parents asked me to come over and move some furniture yesterday which ate up most of my free time after work, or K. will want me to accompany her to Target or All You Can Eat Sushi, so the night is a wash. The hardest things to slip into my day at this point in my life are: extra reading for work, personal programming projects, and especially - work related to taking care of my finances. It seems I can always find time to work out 5 times per week, or go out to dinner with K., or practice guitar. That is my big roadblock in life to be honest. I'm improving lately, I'm a lot more productive as I said but I still don't get as much stuff done per week as I'd like. Probably nobody does, unless you are some kind of robot. I just know I have to work on being disciplined, with a baby on the way it will not get any easier, and I'm far from where I want to be financially or career-wise.

I'm losing weight again these days. My mom and K. and K.'s mom give me shit for trying to lose weight - 'you will make your pregnant wife look fat when you have your wedding reception party'. So they would rather have me fat, and K. would rather have a fat husband. This is incredible to me, so I resist as much as possible, I work out a lot - I'm running on the treadmill again these days, which is rough on my knees. I'm always covered in sweat at the end of a workout. It's also tough in that I come back from a hard work out really hungry, and wind up eating a lot before bedtime. I'm doing as much as I can though, given the fact that I'm living with a pregnant woman who eats whatever she wants and is now off weightwatchers. I'd really like to get down below 180 for the wedding party in June.

After the working out and the guitar playing and the working on the personal programming stuff and the eating out at restaurants and sitting around watching Lost or whatever is done, we wind up going to bed around 11 most nights. K. yells at me when she is trying to sleep and I'm still watching youtube videos on my laptop. I try to leave the laptop in the living room and just read a programming book or something. That's hard because I like to try stuff out in whatever programming book I'm reading. Eventually my eyes get heavy and I fall asleep wrapped around K. like she is my favorite pillow, which she is.

You always smile but in your eyes your soul shows

My wife is an emotional wreck, she's crying all of the time due to all the pressures of 2 graduate programs, a full time job, pregnancy, and planning an upcoming wedding. There's not much I can do except take on all the cooking, shopping, laundry, cleaning, basically everything I can to make her life easier. She chose the graduate school lifestyle but this pregnancy and wedding were sort of unanticipated. She reminds me of myself when I was going through all the crap for my Masters at NU, being pulled in all of these directions, always worried about some test coming up on top of all the worries of dealing with life, letting stuff like cleaning or bills go due to lack of time then having to deal with the stress of letting it go. There's really no time - unless you are one of those rare humans who require little sleep or downtime - so you have to prioritize and let stuff go. She's actually pretty lucky I'm around - she'd be living in a pig stye eating from McDonalds drive through every night.

I've been up since 4:30, went into work early today. Been working hard, also I've done some good work on myself the past week in my free time, organizing bills and such - just as in the past, the process of getting organized is itself very stressful, even though the end result is the calm of an ordered mind and life. I'm determined this time to take my life to another level - one where I'm not only on top of things, but also excelling in the most important areas of my life - family, relationships, wealth, etc. I'm meditating again and going back to the gym after about 2 weeks of being a lazy slob. Gained about 5 pounds, I really have to lose it fast because spring is right around the corner.

The temporary insanity of my parents due to baby on the brain

What is it about parents and babies? After 30 years of being a black sheep of the family, all of a sudden I'm the greatest guy in the world to my mom, and she wants me and my wife over at her house all the time. Of course it has nothing to do with me, it doesn't have a lot to do with K. either. I think if my mom could pick the baby out of K's stomach and put it into her own menopausal stomach, she would. Perhaps that's all it is - a desire to relive the early days of parenthood, and being able to care for a cute newborn baby but not have to pay any of the bills. This just seems crazy to me - you'd think after a lifetime of raising kids, the last thing they'd want to do is take care of more kids.

Of Moons, Birds & Monsters

Purging my blog of a lot of the 'seduction site' related spam. I haven't frequented that type of stuff for almost two years now, and it doesn't have much relevance to my life anymore.

Feeling stressed out lately. I haven't been sleeping well. I finally came out and admitted to K. about all my various financial situations that I still have to deal with - seems better to be out in the open with my wife about those things, instead of keeping them a secret and not dealing with them. I will probably take some nagging but it's better this way, and I know now that I will have to get off my butt finally and deal with them. Honestly, I'm about 3 months backed up again. I hate feeling like this. At first it was my dad's operation, then it was getting engaged, then pregnant, then married all in the space of 2 months. I know that's no excuse not to stay on top of your shit, but that's why I'm like this again. At first I was too preoccupied with my dad being sick to worry about anything, then I was too preoccupied with the pregnancy stuff, things don't seem like a problem until later on when you've let them slide for a while. It's not as bad as it has been in the past - I just can't afford to let myself get in trouble again, I have a wife and baby to worry about now, and it's about time that I get serious about my career and financial situation.

I took two days off work to drive up to the UP with K. and visit the in laws. We drive around in the snow looking at houses, we visit with cousins and play with their babies - K's family has gorgeous babies with blonde hair and blue eyes. We eat in these restaurants that serve ungodly large portions that leave you feeling all groggy and bloated. My father in law is such a nice guy, I really like hanging out with him. Right now we're sitting in a coffee shop in Iron Mountain - K's doing her final online and I'm blogging and sporadically reading crap out of my Rails book. We sent all of yesterday and will probably spend the rest of the weekend visiting friends and family. We're going to visit A. this afternoon, she's gonna hook K. up with a new phone. We took a look at the wedding reception spot at the Iron Mountain Country Club yesterday - seems nice. Holy crap, the beer bill is gonna be like 3 grand! Man, this wedding is so expensive and we're actually doing it on the cheap compared to some people.

Quote

Great minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss events.
Small minds discuss people.
~Elanor Roosevelt

20 something girl names

fiona bright one
maria bitter- a bitterly wanted child
riley valiant, a rye meadow
helena light
phoebe bright shining one
vera truth
sadie princess
simone heard
hannah favor, grace
Zoe
vivian full of life, vibrant
chloe verdant & blooming
allie of noble birth
gabrielle hero of god
teagan good looking
nadia hopeful
gianna god is gracious
nina
reese
aubrey
bailey
sasha

Hell no I ain't happy, but I ain't too crappy

My wife is annoyed that I'm staying up all night. I can't help it, I'm just not sleepy. I wind up getting out of bed and surfing around on my laptop in the bathroom. Eventually it's like 1 in the morning and I have to take a Benedryl to fall asleep - then I wake up in the morning totally out of it. Maybe this is because I have sort of been blowing off working out lately, I used to fall asleep like a baby after a good workout. K. thinks it's because I bring my laptop to bed, something about the lights on the screen not being conducive to falling asleep. I am going to switch to reading books in bed before sleep. I'll wind up spending less time messing around on youtube and more time reading stuff that will help me in my life.

Good weekend of hanging around the house with the wife. We watched a lot of movies - Hot Rod was pretty good, I'm surprised it wasn't a big hit. Felt sort of underwhelmed @ Transformers. We went to see the Hawks play Calgary on Sunday at the United Center. I'm not that into hockey - I want K. to buy some Bulls tix or something.

Work going well, have to keep up my focus so this trend continues. I'm worried about my other responsibilities. Revamped my GTD weekly review processes, gonna spend a lot more time working on myself. I've made so much great progress, it would be a shame to fall back now.

IMDB Top 250

K. and I are trying to watch all the IMDB Top 250 movies. We have 1-50 queued up in our NetFlix account - So far I've really liked City of God and all the spaghetti westerns. K. however, is complaining that she doesn't like any of the movies - I guess the list is loaded with male dominated shoot em up type movies. She just queued up La Vie en Rose. Here's the list again, it may take a long time to get through it.

Top 250 movies as voted by our users

For this top 250, only votes from regular voters are considered.
Rank Rating Title Votes
1. 9.1 The Godfather (1972) 266,645
2. 9.1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 315,395
3. 9.0 The Godfather: Part II (1974) 152,715
4. 8.9 Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) 87,092
5. 8.8 Pulp Fiction (1994) 270,702
6. 8.8 Schindler's List (1993) 181,453
7. 8.8 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 135,795
8. 8.8 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 191,380
9. 8.8 Casablanca (1942) 118,878
10. 8.8 Shichinin no samurai (1954) 66,525
11. 8.8 Star Wars (1977) 231,231
12. 8.8 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 242,344
13. 8.7 12 Angry Men (1957) 63,953
14. 8.7 Rear Window (1954) 78,696
15. 8.7 Goodfellas (1990) 147,575
16. 8.7 Cidade de Deus (2002) 92,379
17. 8.7 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 164,237
18. 8.7 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 275,547
19. 8.7 C'era una volta il West (1968) 44,033
20. 8.7 The Usual Suspects (1995) 186,478
21. 8.6 Psycho (1960) 96,884
22. 8.6 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 112,368
23. 8.6 Fight Club (1999) 240,486
24. 8.6 Citizen Kane (1941) 102,230
25. 8.6 The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 165,357
26. 8.6 North by Northwest (1959) 64,206
27. 8.6 Memento (2000) 176,855
28. 8.6 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 226,854
29. 8.6 Sunset Blvd. (1950) 34,208
30. 8.6 It's a Wonderful Life (1946) 72,127
31. 8.6 There Will Be Blood (2007) 41,903
32. 8.5 The Matrix (1999) 258,804
33. 8.5 Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 56,164
34. 8.5 Se7en (1995) 178,517
35. 8.5 Apocalypse Now (1979) 120,082
36. 8.5 Taxi Driver (1976) 99,439
37. 8.5 American Beauty (1999) 201,856
38. 8.5 Léon (1994) 121,352
39. 8.5 Vertigo (1958) 62,012
40. 8.5 Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001) 121,568
41. 8.5 American History X (1998) 138,550
42. 8.5 No Country for Old Men (2007) 76,747
43. 8.5 The Departed (2006) 151,660
44. 8.5 Paths of Glory (1957) 28,691
45. 8.5 M (1931) 25,473
46. 8.4 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 56,712
47. 8.4 Chinatown (1974) 51,368
48. 8.4 The Third Man (1949) 34,619
49. 8.4 Leben der Anderen, Das (2006) 33,437
50. 8.4 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 137,751
51. 8.4 A Clockwork Orange (1971) 128,623
52. 8.4 Alien (1979) 119,889
53. 8.4 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) 21,155
54. 8.4 Laberinto del fauno, El (2006) 87,163
55. 8.4 The Shining (1980) 110,623
56. 8.4 Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) 62,031
57. 8.4 The Pianist (2002) 78,107
58. 8.4 Double Indemnity (1944) 23,381
59. 8.4 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) 112,079
60. 8.4 Forrest Gump (1994) 187,894
61. 8.4 Saving Private Ryan (1998) 184,760
62. 8.4 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) 40,518
63. 8.4 L.A. Confidential (1997) 118,491
64. 8.4 Boot, Das (1981) 50,335
65. 8.4 Requiem for a Dream (2000) 115,043
66. 8.4 Reservoir Dogs (1992) 140,927
67. 8.4 Untergang, Der (2004) 47,271
68. 8.4 Aliens (1986) 115,668
69. 8.4 The Maltese Falcon (1941) 35,614
70. 8.4 Raging Bull (1980) 58,407
71. 8.4 Metropolis (1927) 25,073
72. 8.4 Rashômon (1950) 24,937
73. 8.3 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 149,325
74. 8.3 Modern Times (1936) 21,825
75. 8.3 Hotel Rwanda (2004) 54,526
76. 8.3 Singin' in the Rain (1952) 37,714
77. 8.3 Sin City (2005) 160,261
78. 8.3 Rebecca (1940) 22,946
79. 8.3 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 111,447
80. 8.3 Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957) 22,671
81. 8.3 All About Eve (1950) 23,696
82. 8.3 Some Like It Hot (1959) 45,676
83. 8.3 City Lights (1931) 15,978
84. 8.3 On the Waterfront (1954) 26,592
85. 8.3 Amadeus (1984) 66,288
86. 8.3 Vita è bella, La (1997) 70,786
87. 8.3 The Great Escape (1963) 40,411
88. 8.3 Touch of Evil (1958) 21,478
89. 8.3 The Prestige (2006) 104,585
90. 8.3 The Elephant Man (1980) 35,847
91. 8.3 Jaws (1975) 92,403
92. 8.3 Full Metal Jacket (1987) 96,806
93. 8.3 The Sting (1973) 43,952
94. 8.3 Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988) 28,999
95. 8.3 The Manchurian Candidate (1962) 24,969
96. 8.3 Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 44,830
97. 8.2 Braveheart (1995) 167,381
98. 8.2 The Apartment (1960) 22,206
99. 8.2 Blade Runner (1982) 129,771
100. 8.2 Strangers on a Train (1951) 21,498
101. 8.2 The Great Dictator (1940) 22,521
102. 8.2 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) 22,297
103. 8.2 Batman Begins (2005) 155,798
104. 8.2 Salaire de la peur, Le (1953) 8,223
105. 8.2 Ladri di biciclette (1948) 15,977
106. 8.2 High Noon (1952) 22,964
107. 8.2 Ran (1985) 23,362
108. 8.2 Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) 149,819
109. 8.2 The Big Sleep (1946) 19,326
110. 8.2 The Wizard of Oz (1939) 70,677
111. 8.2 Notorious (1946) 20,566
112. 8.2 Back to the Future (1985) 131,072
113. 8.2 Fargo (1996) 114,058
114. 8.2 Oldboy (2003) 52,350
115. 8.2 Unforgiven (1992) 61,504
116. 8.2 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 112,241
117. 8.2 Ratatouille (2007) 63,198
118. 8.2 Donnie Darko (2001) 134,265
119. 8.2 Mononoke-hime (1997) 42,060
120. 8.2 Cool Hand Luke (1967) 28,414
121. 8.2 Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 150,358
122. 8.2 Yojimbo (1961) 18,962
123. 8.2 Per qualche dollaro in più (1965) 24,489
124. 8.2 Million Dollar Baby (2004) 84,811
125. 8.2 The Green Mile (1999) 125,386
126. 8.2 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 77,367
127. 8.2 Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957) 6,324
128. 8.2 Battaglia di Algeri, La (1966) 7,740
129. 8.2 Gladiator (2000) 183,709
130. 8.1 Annie Hall (1977) 42,657
131. 8.1 Die Hard (1988) 119,784
132. 8.1 Ben-Hur (1959) 38,924
133. 8.1 Into the Wild (2007) 19,692
134. 8.1 The Deer Hunter (1978) 57,566
135. 8.1 The Sixth Sense (1999) 168,971
136. 8.1 It Happened One Night (1934) 15,712
137. 8.1 The General (1927) 12,661
138. 8.1 Platoon (1986) 72,117
139. 8.1 Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) 7,855
140. 8.1 Life of Brian (1979) 63,763
141. 8.1 The Killing (1956) 15,161
142. 8.1 Smultronstället (1957) 12,721
143. 8.1 Diaboliques, Les (1955) 8,250
144. 8.1 Amores perros (2000) 38,260
145. 8.1 Finding Nemo (2003) 99,948
146. 8.1 The Incredibles (2004) 96,163
147. 8.1 V for Vendetta (2005) 132,894
148. 8.1 The Wild Bunch (1969) 20,699
149. 8.1 Children of Men (2006) 91,046
150. 8.1 Brief Encounter (1945) 7,560
151. 8.1 Heat (1995) 93,071
152. 8.1 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 38,202
153. 8.1 Juno (2007) 64,453
154. 8.1 The Princess Bride (1987) 91,943
155. 8.1 The Graduate (1967) 52,558
156. 8.1 8½ (1963) 17,633
157. 8.1 Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) 8,275
158. 8.1 Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) 28,634
159. 8.1 The Night of the Hunter (1955) 15,500
160. 8.1 The Big Lebowski (1998) 110,565
161. 8.1 Crash (2004/I) 112,084
162. 8.1 Dog Day Afternoon (1975) 35,636
163. 8.1 Stand by Me (1986) 59,534
164. 8.1 Gandhi (1982) 32,114
165. 8.1 Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 12,692
166. 8.1 The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) 14,833
167. 8.0 Harvey (1950) 15,031
168. 8.0 Snatch. (2000) 103,520
169. 8.0 Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 115,574
170. 8.0 Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 10,492
171. 8.0 The African Queen (1951) 23,984
172. 8.0 The Thing (1982) 44,811
173. 8.0 Trainspotting (1996) 99,417
174. 8.0 Gone with the Wind (1939) 53,134
175. 8.0 The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 15,017
176. 8.0 Belle et la bête, La (1946) 6,152
177. 8.0 Wo hu cang long (2000) 82,222
178. 8.0 The Gold Rush (1925) 12,834
179. 8.0 Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 87,501
180. 8.0 Groundhog Day (1993) 87,966
181. 8.0 The Conversation (1974) 20,821
182. 8.0 American Gangster (2007) 55,970
183. 8.0 Scarface (1983) 90,294
184. 8.0 Patton (1970) 26,730
185. 8.0 Duck Soup (1933) 17,941
186. 8.0 Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) 18,209
187. 8.0 Toy Story (1995) 88,619
188. 8.0 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) 11,468
189. 8.0 Twelve Monkeys (1995) 113,489
190. 8.0 Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das (1920) 10,276
191. 8.0 The Terminator (1984) 113,075
192. 8.0 Umberto D. (1952) 4,718
193. 8.0 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 19,355
194. 8.0 Sleuth (1972) 9,922
195. 8.0 Stalker (1979) 11,700
196. 8.0 The Hustler (1961) 16,181
197. 8.0 Glory (1989) 39,738
198. 8.0 Ed Wood (1994) 48,020
199. 8.0 King Kong (1933) 25,330
200. 8.0 Grindhouse (2007) 54,102
201. 8.0 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) 75,692
202. 8.0 Hotaru no haka (1988) 19,746
203. 8.0 The Exorcist (1973) 67,158
204. 8.0 The Lion King (1994) 77,425
205. 8.0 Bride of Frankenstein (1935) 10,398
206. 8.0 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 13,994
207. 8.0 Spartacus (1960) 33,320
208. 8.0 The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) 5,224
209. 8.0 The Lost Weekend (1945) 7,383
210. 8.0 Magnolia (1999) 85,964
211. 8.0 Stalag 17 (1953) 13,671
212. 8.0 The Lady Vanishes (1938) 10,451
213. 8.0 Lola rennt (1998) 59,095
214. 8.0 In the Heat of the Night (1967) 14,219
215. 8.0 The Philadelphia Story (1940) 19,147
216. 8.0 Frankenstein (1931) 14,519
217. 8.0 Out of the Past (1947) 6,644
218. 8.0 Big Fish (2003) 85,530
219. 8.0 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) 6,174
220. 8.0 Anatomy of a Murder (1959) 9,151
221. 8.0 Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) 5,204
222. 8.0 Casino (1995) 65,360
223. 8.0 Rosemary's Baby (1968) 29,490
224. 8.0 Toy Story 2 (1999) 76,745
225. 8.0 Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 25,363
226. 8.0 3:10 to Yuma (2007) 46,534
227. 8.0 Mystic River (2003) 72,084
228. 8.0 A Christmas Story (1983) 39,384
229. 8.0 Hot Fuzz (2007) 77,616
230. 8.0 Ikiru (1952) 10,536
231. 7.9 Mou gaan dou (2002) 21,666
232. 7.9 Manhattan (1979) 24,669
233. 7.9 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) 15,168
234. 7.9 Young Frankenstein (1974) 41,681
235. 7.9 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) 21,091
236. 7.9 Dial M for Murder (1954) 17,601
237. 7.9 Rope (1948) 18,056
238. 7.9 Roman Holiday (1953) 19,619
239. 7.9 Quatre cents coups, Les (1959) 14,205
240. 7.9 Once (2006) 12,752
241. 7.9 The Searchers (1956) 20,275
242. 7.9 In Cold Blood (1967) 6,828
243. 7.9 His Girl Friday (1940) 13,195
244. 7.9 Ying xiong (2002) 56,387
245. 7.9 Haine, La (1995) 16,867
246. 7.9 Shaun of the Dead (2004) 77,321
247. 7.9 Harold and Maude (1971) 18,186
248. 7.9 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) 159,850
249. 7.9 Samouraï, Le (1967) 5,849
250. 7.9 Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) 10,968

The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:
weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C

where:
R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 1300)
C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.7)
for the Top 250, only votes from regular voters are considered.