Physical training is as much a conditioning of the human body as it is the human mind. To make something a reality, we must first be able to envision it with our mind. By conditioning the mind we can push our bodies beyond our perceived limitations. You can do it -- don't let anyone, including your mind, tell you otherwise.
2009
Forcing fsck to Run on the Next Reboot
If you need to make sure fsck runs on the next reboot, here's a really simple way to do it:
[sourcecode lang="bash"]
$ sudo touch /forcefsck
[/sourcecode]
Alternatively (and depending on your version of Linux) you may also be able to pass an option to the shutdown command:
[sourcecode lang="bash"]
$ shutdown -rF now
[/sourcecode]
The Three W's: What to Write Where?
I'm not sure why, but lately I've felt as though I haven't had much to write about. I'm not sure if it's that I haven't had much to write or that maybe I just haven't felt the desire to write what's on my mind.
As I've mentioned in the past, I intentionally don't write a lot of personal things on this blog. That's not why I started it and I'm not narcissistic enough (yes, we're all narcissistic to some degree) to think that my thoughts, dreams, and personal observations are all that important. I don't really feel compelled to express myself or talk about what's on my mind and it's not that I don't feel like people will care what I have to say; it's simply that I don't care what I have to say. In this age of information, I feel as though anything to be said has already been said and so why should I repeat it?
But I digress. Perhaps all the definitions and various places to write are slowly killing my creative outlet. Perhaps making the decision of what to write and where is becoming difficult enough that I choose to simply not write anything. My time can be used for more important things than figuring out where I should write, let alone what I should write.
Writing about events and places is easy: I simply recount what happened and maybe include some pictures for eye candy. But nobody wants to hear about the ride into work, or the meetings, or the support emails, or... or maybe some people do? Well, to those people I say go find another hobby. Or at least, find another blog. I find it absolutely revolting and a total waste of textual space and time to see people writing about things that have absolutely no substance. I will not become a twitter shitter or an iRaam. The last thing I want this blog to become is my personal diary. (This post is coming dangerously close to what I'm trying to avoid.)
Then there is the question of where to write. When I started this blog, it was easy. Facebook wasn't even open to the public and Twitter didn't even exist. Now I find myself posting thoughts, activities, and other updates on Twitter (trying desperately to stay within the 140 character jail) with my Facebook status automatically being updated by Twitter. (Then my Facebook friends, who probably never read my blog, comment on my updates and make me feel compelled to reply on FB.) Anything that doesn't fit on Twitter I usually put on my blog as an Aside (it appears without a post title), and longer stuff, like this post, get the honor of being a full-blow blog post with a Twitter update announcing it being published.
So why haven't I been writing more? I've been asking myself that question a lot the past few weeks and the only answer I can come up with is that my rule of not writing about passing thoughts or seemingly pointless observations is leaving me without much to write. I've been very busy concentrating on work and fitness and I haven't had much time for exploring my various interests or writing about them. So I'll try to start writing more asides with what's on my mind and see where that takes this blog.
Second April Camping Trip
On my way up North on Saturday, I stopped at an Army Surplus store in Milford, NH to see if I could find a decent survival knife. My old knife had a cheap stainless steel blade that broke apart last weekend while I was using it to start a fire with the magnesium fire starter. I found a nice fixed-blade Air Force survival knife with a heavy base that doubles as a hammer. It came with a sheath and a sharpening stone.
The weather was much colder than it was when I went camping last week, although a lot of the ice along the river had melted (compare the pictures of the ice from last week, to the pictures from this week). It was also a lot more windy, with frequent gusts of 25-30mph.
On Sunday morning, while it was still partially sunny and the wind was blowing, it started snowing heavily. It was very surreal (and very cold). Overall a great trip and a great way to spend my 27th birthday. Thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday. To everyone I'd like to say: Happy Everyday!
Book: The Warrior Elite
The Warrior Elite - The Forging of SEAL Class 228 by Dick Couch follows a class of students as they go through Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUD/S). BUD/S is only one of the many steps it takes to become a Navy SEAL and it is considered to be one of, if not the toughest military training in the world. The drop out rate for BUD/S is extremely high; only about 20% make it through. Physical and mental endurance are pushed to the extreme.
There are three phases in BUD/S. The first phase consists of lots of physical training: pushups, situps, pullups, daily four mile timed runs, boat drills (both in the ocean and carrying the boat around on the land), and log PT where students spend hours doing exercises together while holding telephone-pole-sized logs to help build teamwork. The first phase concludes with Hell Week, which tends to see the highest number of DORs. It's five days of non-stop training with less than four hours of sleep (total).
The second phase is dive phase, where students must become extremely comfortable in the water. Students are expected to be able to swim for long periods of time with their hands and feet tied together. They learn deep diving techniques, with and without scuba tanks. They also attend classes to learn about the physics of diving. There are open ocean swims, with and without fins, and as with the timed runs, there are timed 2 mile+ swims. As in the first phase, there is also continuous PT mixed in with the diving instruction. Daily run distances are increased and maximum allowed times are decreased.
The third phase is the demolitions and tactics. The training is conducted mostly on land and includes land navigation, mission planning, plenty of shooting, and learning and becoming familiar with various weapons. But things don't get easier in third phase. Run distances are increased again. Daily PT continues. Things never get easier for the SEALs, only more difficult. "The only easy day was yesterday" is what the SEALs like to say. They're constantly striving for perfection, both physically and mentally, and improving their skills.
BUD/S training lasts six months. For the few who manage to graduate, another six months of vigorous and more specialized training is required to earn their Trident (which officially makes them Navy SEALs). After that, they're assigned to a platoon and there's another block of even more advanced training called SEAL Tactical Training (STT). When all is done, a SEAL will have been training for eighteen to twenty-four months before having a chance to be deployed.
During the past few months the SEALs have been an enormous source of motivation for my own physical fitness goals. This is the first book I've read cover-to-cover this year, and it was so good that I will no doubt read it several more times. What appeals to me the most about the SEALs is that they're all about pushing past mental roadblocks and striving for perfection. They're all about understanding the real physical limitations of the human body and conditioning it to the extreme. Several books on Navy SEAL fitness and nutrition are very detailed and describe with scientific precision how to train the human body. One such book is The U.S. Navy SEAL Guide to Fitness and Nutrition.
One of my goals for 2009 was to read one book every month. I'm already reading two others, and I hope to have a total of four books finished by the end of this month. For every book I finish reading, I'll write a post like this one.
Where is the time going?
As of late, life has felt like the pages of a book in the hands of a speed-reader -- a speed-reader with only 10% comprehension. I've been focusing solely on my changing duties at work while trying to maintain a daily workout routine and get a healthy amount of sleep. It feels as though I have neither the time nor the energy (and maybe not even the motivation) for anything else.
I've been making it a goal to get away from the computer as much as possible on the weekends to fill my love for the outdoors and relax. During the week, the three hour daily commute to and from work seems to suck away any available time I might otherwise have for writing and learning new things. To fulfill one of my goals for 2009, I've also been trying to set aside time after work for light socializing. Still, I feel like I'm missing the entire day; like time is moving on without me while I'm stuck in a pool of molasses wondering why.
April Camping Trip
On Saturday I decided at the last minute to go camping in the White Mountains. I arrived at the entrance to the trail around 5:30pm. On my hike in, there were patches of half melted snow all around with moose and deer footprints everywhere.
That's when I heard a stick crack and looked to my left. Standing not more than 20 feet off the trail and totally oblivious to my presence was a huge 8' tall female moose. As I stood there admiring the huge creature, a sense of fear quickly settled in when I realized how screwed I was if she decided to charge at me. This was a seriously big animal. She noticed me standing there after about two minutes and after that she didn't take her eyes off me. When she made a grunting sound, I knew she was nervous and uncomfortable, so I slowly started walking away. Much to my relief, she too turned around and walked in the opposite direction. From that point on, I made noise (made up songs and talked to myself) to help prevent any further accidental run ins with big game wildlife.
The rest of the evening was quite uneventful. The place I camped was next to a river where huge ice shelves had formed. Without much daylight left, I quickly started gathering wood and material for a fire. Using a magnesium fire starter, my knife, and a small piece of birch bark, I had a fire going within thirty seconds. The fire didn't last long after I stopped feeding it and laid down to sleep.
The night was cold (<30 degrees) and constant gusts of wind made it worse. I woke up several times during the night from the cold, but managed to get about 5 hours of sleep. I awoke at 6:30am, shivering and freezing. It started to snow. I did some jumping jacks to warm myself up and then collected wood to get a fire going. Once again, the magnesium fire starter with some birch bark did the trick. I spent the next few hours feeding the fire and keeping warm before finally making the short one-mile trek back to my truck. I didn't bring a camera, but I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone. (This is the picture of the moose, but she's extremely well camouflaged. She's standing behind the clump of trees in the long patch of white snow.)
Did You Know?
This has got to be the most awesome, awe-inspiring videos I've watched in a long time. It hits at the core of what fascinates me about the way technology is changing this planet and all the people living on it. My favorite line: "There are 31 Billion searches on Google every Month... To whom were these questions addressed before Google?".
My New Workout Routine: Navy SEAL PT
I've started doing a Navy SEAL calisthenic workout routine that takes about 60 minutes and consists of a warm-up, various types of pull-ups, dips, various types of pushups, various ab exercises, a very tough lying neck rotation exercise, and finally lunges, calf raises, and 250 squats.
The only thing I can keep up with is the warm-up, pull-ups, and leg exercises. However, after two weeks I'm definitely seeing huge improvement. I do this workout three days a week and mix in 4-mile, 35-40 min cardio sessions in-between.
I've never done this much running before (15 - 20 miles a week) and my calves and knees are still adjusting to all the pounding on the treadmill. I'm ignoring the pain, but I need to be careful not to injure myself (I'm crazy enough to push myself to the point of injury; I've done it before).
I rarely feel the need for inspiration when it comes to fitness, but the Navy SEALs have given me a benchmark from which I can compare my own fitness. In fact, after reading so much about them the past few weeks I have undergone some profound changes mentally. But I'll leave that for a separate post. 🙂
Clay Shirky on Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
I just finished reading Clay Shirky's post, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable. It's a bit long, but well worth the read. He gives excellent insight into what's happening with the newspapers today and how technology will change journalism forever. He explains how what we're going through now is the same thing we went through 500 years ago!
The Importance of Offline Backups
WebHostingTalk.com, a very popular community used by both consumers and business owners to review and advertise web hosting services, was hacked recently. The cracker deleted all database backups (including the remote backups). The earliest offline backup appears to have been from October 2008, and if you've ever had to run a forum you can probably understand how frustrating losing even a few days worth of posts can be for the members.
This got me thinking about how important offline backups are and why we should all be using them. Never assume your online backups are safe and be sure to take extra precautions when setting up a remote backup system. For example, your server shouldn't be able to connect to the remote backup server. Instead, the remote backup server should connect to the server to retrieve backups. This way, if your server is compromised, the cracker can't gain access to the remote backups!
I've had my fair share of experience with data loss over the past 15 years and I make it a point to backup everything. But I'll admit that I'm not doing enough to keep my offline backups up-to-date. This event at WebHostingTalk.com has reminded me just how important they are to a well-rounded disaster recovery plan.
Hiking Loverens Mill Cedar Swamp
On Saturday, I visited my friend Adam in NH and we spent five hours hiking in the Loverens Mill Cedar Swamp. The area was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1998 and the conservation was expanded in 2006.
There was a good amount of snow still on the ground and several days of mixed warm and cold weather left the snow with a firm crust but a soft core. We found ourselves randomly falling knee-deep into the snow where the crust was too weak to hold our weight, sometimes falling into hidden pools of water. (Note to self: Wear waterproof boots, not breathable boots, when hiking in the snow.)
We ventured far off the trail and found dozens of untouched boulders and amazing rock formations. These formations are commonly called glacial erratics, although there seemed to be a very strange consistency to them. Evidence of repeated camp fires scarring the rock hinted towards heavy use of the area by Native Americans hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. We even found stone arrow heads scattered around the many small caves that were created by these huge formations.
Both of us forgot to bring a camera, but I managed to take a few photos with my iPhone. We found a huge tree that had been split in half from the ice storm a few months ago and you can't really tell from the pictures, but it was so big that both of my arms only wrapped half way around! I found an interesting fact about the area: Pollen studies have shown that the Atlantic White Cedar (which is actually a cypress, not a cedar) has existed in the area for more than 4,000 years, and its presence is rare because the species is usually found in much lower altitudes.
Overcoming Desire, Part II
My brother bought a motorcycle this past weekend (a black 1992 Honda Night Hawk 750cc) and after seeing him and my uncle riding together I suddenly had a huge desire to own a motorcycle. But this isn't the first time I've wanted to buy a motorcycle.
Last year when I got my motorcycle license I had planned on buying a bike shortly there after. I rode my brother-in-law's Honda CBR600RR a few times and went to a couple of Harley Davidson demo rides to compare sports bikes with the Harley's. I decided the Harley's were much nicer for long rides and since I expected to be doing a lot of riding, a Harley made the most sense. I quickly found the bike I liked the most: a 2008 HD 1200XL Sportster Nightster:
It's about $9,500 new, which isn't that bad for such a nice bike. However, due to financial constraints, I simply couldn't afford it at the time. I was still going through a bankruptcy and my bank accounts were empty. It was clearly more of a want than a need and even if I decided to buy one, I didn't have the money and I wouldn't be approved for financing. That made it pretty easy to dismiss the desire and bury it for future reconsideration.
After seeing my brother's bike this past weekend, the desire was unearthed and I found myself again wondering how I could buy a motorcycle. But I ran into the same problem: with my tight financial position it's hard to justify spending any amount of money on something that I only want and don't actually need. That's when I began subconsciously looking for ways to justify buying it: "I'll save money on gas!", "I'll save money on insurance!", "I'll be able to enjoy the open air!", "I can sell my truck and worry about winter and snow when it comes!", etc, etc. Inside, I knew I was trying to justify the desire for something that wasn't needed and I heard a tiny part of me quietly rebelling.
I felt a sense of déjà vu as I observed myself doing this and that's when I remembered going through the same exact same process of overcoming desire a few years earlier (in fact, almost exactly three years ago) when I wanted to sell my truck and buy a Jeep Wrangler. That got me thinking... what the hell would I really do with a motorcycle when the ground looks like this:
During the winter months, there would be absolutely no way to use the motorcycle and I'd need to spend more money storing it (or risk spending money on maintenance in the spring). I started thinking about the goals I set for this year and the things I've already decided I really want to do, all of which will require money: complete the AFF program, learn scuba diving (classes, gear, etc), spend lots of weekends camping (commuting gas money), plane tickets to fly to various fitness events, and of course simply saving some money!
It really comes down to priorities. When I stopped thinking about how cool it would be to ride around on a motorcycle and I started thinking about what my priorities were, overcoming the desire for a motorcycle became easier and easier. The motorcycle simply didn't fit anywhere within my priorities! This didn't obliterate the desire, but at least now I feel like I'm thinking more rationally.
"Maybe I can find a cheap $3,000 motorcycle that I won't be so worried about spending money on maintenance and that I would feel comfortable tinkering with (great learning experience!)." "Maybe if I find a good deal, I can resell it before winter." Suddenly my approach seems more practical and I don't feel this urge to just go out and spend money.
Three years ago, when I almost sold my truck a splurged on a Jeep Wrangler, my truck had 133,000 miles on it. Now it's got 190,000 miles and I've had it for 4 years 8 months. Here's to another 110,000 miles of overcoming unnecessary desires. 🙂
Adjusting to a new routine
A few days ago I decided to finally get into a routine of starting the day off early. My intention was to leave for work earlier so that I could get out sooner and still get some sunlight. However, despite waking up at 6AM and coming into work three hours earlier, the past two days I've left work at the usual time, 6pm or 7pm. Ugh. Couple that with my intense late night workouts (around 10pm) and I'm beat. This has also screwed up my posting schedule, as I am not finding any time (or energy) to write. I'm going to get things back on track this week.
Starting the Day Earlier
I've decided to start going into work earlier (6:30AM) so I can leave the office sooner and still catch some sun. I'd really like to start spending a regular amount of time outside during the week instead of only on the weekends.
Conducted my first two interviews
I conducted my first two interviews today and I must say, it's quite a different experience being on the other side of the table. I've got plenty to work on (I need to be more conversational), but overall they went better than I expected. Here's to new experiences!
The sooner you start, the easier it will be
I've been put in charge of hiring someone at work to help elevate some of my workload and, this being my first hiring experience and all, even doing the initial phone interviews was a bit stressful. But once I had done three or four the anxiety was gone (OK, almost gone) and the experience reminded me that the sooner you start doing something you're afraid of, the sooner you'll overcome the fear of doing it.
Installed Subscribe to Comments Plugin
I installed the Subscribe to Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith, a plugin that WordPress.com chose to enable on the millions of blogs hosted there (congrats Mark!). I've always liked being able to subscribe to follow-up comments on posts that I comment on, so perhaps my visitors will appreciate having the same option on this blog.
Exhausted
I've been keeping up with my workout routine quite religiously lately, spending about two hours every day either running and stretching or doing body-weight workouts and stretching. With my recent commitments to exercise I haven't found much time to do anything else. At work, my workload has been heavier than usual and the three hours of time I spend driving to and from work really feel like a waste. I'm beginning to consider taking the T again so I can at least read/write while commuting, but that means an additional hour of commuting every day.
Learn to Easily Interpret Military Time
For at least half my life now I've favored military time, or the 24-hour clock, over the 12-hour clock which is much more common in the United States. When I was younger and learning how to convert the 24-hour clock into 12-hour time, I accidentally discovered an easy solution: Simply minus two from the hour, and then drop the first number.
For example, 18:30 (24-hour clock) = 18 - 2 = 16, drop the first number and we're left with 6. Therefore, 18:30 is 6:30 on a 12-hour clock! It gets slightly more tricky when the 24-hour clock gets to 22:00, because 22 - 2 = 20. But now you simply replace the leading 2 with a 1. Therefore, 22:00 = 10:00. Telling AM vs PM is easy: if the time is greater than or equal to 12, it's PM. Less than 12, it's AM.
Once you've used a 24-hour clock long enough, you won't need such methods of converting between the two types. For me, when I see the number 18 I now automatically see 6pm, and when I see the number 23 I automatically think 11pm. However, for those who are clueless when it comes to 24-hour clocks, this simple method of converting between the two might help. Of course, the only way you're really going to get used to reading military time is to change all your clocks (at least as many as you can) to use a 24-hour clock.