by MODU on April 22, 2010
There is a poll question CNN.com asking: “Are you doing anything to mark Earth Day?” My answer is … no. Sorry, but I don’t need an artificial holiday to go out and do something in honor of the planet. Besides, it’s Thursday. By the time I get home from work, it will be too late to go outside to do anything (plus I’m tired and have my exercise challenge to address).
No, to me, Earth Day is an artificial holiday for people who don’t think about the planet the other 364 days out of the year or for environmentalists who need a “Christmas” of their own. For me, everyday is my Earth Day. As you know with my on-going landscaping project, I’m busy taking care of my lawn and plants. This has taken up more time that I would like on the weekends, but at least it is preserving the soil while cleaning the air. During the week days, I carpool with two others to save on gas as well as wear-and-tear on my car.
Forty years ago, when Earth Day was first established, I could see the purpose of the artificial holiday. The industrial side of our society had really left a scar on the land, in the air, as well as the water. We have come a long way. With a natural cultural shift to bring people in line with views held by groups such as the Boy Scouts, we are doing a much better job of living in harmony with our environment. There is still a lot of work to do, but I think we’re on the right track.
by MODU on April 16, 2010
As you know, I love my trains. I also love storms. Here is a video showing what happens when you mix the two together. From my understanding of this video, this tornado occurred in Illinois back in 2008. There was no way for the train to avoid the powerful storm as it crossed its path. The end result is predictable.
While watching the video, look at the upper right- and left-hand corners. You can see how conditions change real quick by the way the trees suddenly wave out of control. Very impressive!
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by MODU on April 15, 2010
Yes, you heard me correctly. While relaxing after a good session of rowing, I decided to play a few rounds of Hearts on the computer. Hearts is a card game where the object is to have the least amount of points when one of your competitors reach 100. During the game, the person with the 2 of clubs starts off the round. Whoever wins the hand determines which suit is played next. All suits are in play except for hearts.
Hearts have to be introduced by someone that does not have a card matching the suit leading off the hand. The goal is to avoid collecting any hearts or the queen of spades, since these cards increase your score. The queen of spades is worth 13 points while each card in the suit of hearts is worth 1. However, for the skilled player, you can intentionally collect all the hearts as well as the queen of spades. Doing so will award your challengers with 26 points each.
This brings me to the point of my article. I successfully went four straight rounds collecting all the hearts and the queen of spades. As you can see below, my challengers never had a chance, ending up with 104 points before they knew it.
by MODU on April 13, 2010
For those on the East Coast, Charles Town is synonymous with horse racing and slot machines. If you crave horse race betting or tackling one of the numerous varieties of slot machines that are out there, Charles Town has been your friend. However, if you are like me, there wasn’t much to draw you out there. But that is soon changing.
Charles Town Races & Slots will be rolling out table games this summer, giving people an alternative to Atlantic City for their gambling needs. For me, the craps table is my game of choice, though there will be the classic casino games available, including blackjack, roulette, baccarat, Texas hold’em, and much more. Plus, it will be an easier drive than trying to make your way out to New Jersey. This is even better if you are planning a weekend get-away during the fall, as you can see all the beautiful colors of the season as the leaves begin to change (something that Atlantic City and the Boardwalk lack).
by MODU on April 13, 2010
As I announced the other day, I am starting a new six-week exercise challenge. The goal for this challenge is the same as the last one: lose five pounds. It sounds like an easy goal, but as we discovered with the first challenge, it is easier said than done.
After the first challenge, my weight stayed the same (at 202 lbs), I lost 1.5 inches around the stomach, lost 0.5 inches around the waist, but gained 0.5 inches around the groin/glutes. Losing the 1.5 inches around the stomach was a nice trade-off to the lack in weight loss, but I still want to lose those pounds and get back under 200 lbs.
Since May of last year, I have gained an inch around the stomach, an inch around the waist, and 0.5 inches around the groin/glutes, as well as put on two more pounds. This is not where I expected to be, especially after the two blizzards we had this past Winter and all the hours of shoveling snow. So the quest begins to correct all of that.
In this new challenge, I am going to be measuring four points compared to the three from last time. The additional point in this challenge will be the chest. Since rowing involves a lot of upper body work, I thought it would be a good measure point to track over the next six weeks.
I am doing something different this time around. Instead of developing my own exercise routine, I am using a workout I discovered on the Concept 2 website (pdf format). This routine consists of 24 separate workouts, which works perfectly for the challenge I have in mind. I will be rowing Monday through Friday each week. On Mondays through Thursdays, I will follow the next workout in the routine. On Fridays, I will do a 2500 Meter race; recording the stats from these races to compare them with each other to see how well my performance improves over the six weeks.
Wish me luck!
by MODU on April 12, 2010
What is the meaning of life?
I’m sure you’ve been asked that famous question at least once your life. I’m asked it at least once a year, for what reason I do not know. I’m not the old all-knowing guy sitting on top of a mountain somewhere after all. Anyway, no matter how many times I’m asked, I always give the same response: suffering.
What would your life be without suffering? You would be “happy” all the time with no concern over your actions. Wonderful, right? Not really, since your life would be meaningless.
Think about it for a moment. Without suffering, you wouldn’t be able to know what happiness is, let alone appreciate it. And if you weren’t afraid of doing something that might result in you suffering, you wouldn’t be able to identify the tough choices in life nor their circumstances. I think the Lady Antebellum song “Need You Now” has a great one-liner that summarizes this perfectly. “Yes I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.”
A life without suffering would be almost numb, just like your mouth when you go to the dentist. When they numb your mouth, your lips can’t form a proper smile, you accidentally bite your cheek or tongue, and you can’t sense much of anything as far as feeling nor taste. Why would you want to live your life like that (if you could even call it “living”)?
Next time you find yourself feeling down, reflect on what made you happy in the past. And when you find yourself feeling happy, be thankful that you were down before so you can appreciate the positive emotions you are experiencing.
by MODU on April 10, 2010
For the past 24 years (the time that I have been back to the mainland), I have noticed three waves of “symbols” in the United States. By symbols I mean icons that appear in every major population center in all the states I have traveled through. I wonder if they have something to say about they type of lives we live in.
The 80′s seemed to be the era of the 7-11. For a time there, it seemed like there was a 7-11 on every-other street corner. Some of these stores also had gas stations at their location, but for the most part it was just their main store. You could walk in, get whatever quick snack or item you need, and then dash off to wherever you were heading next. This met the need of our ever-growing fast-paced lifestyle.
In the 90′s you saw more fast food and chain restaurants popping up on street corners. With people transitioning away from your standard sit-down meal (that went along with our on-the-move lifestyle of the 80′s), families could go out and have more meals away from home without breaking the bank. This is because of the increased competition between the various chain restaurants who tried to draw as many people into their establishments as possible.
The turn of the century brought about a different symbol though. Instead of more services to meet the fast-paced society that was developing over the prior two decades, this new symbol highlighted the materialism that occurred by those who fed the economic growth of the nation. I’m talking about the self storage facilities.
These places were popping up everywhere I turned. Some were in dense residential areas while others were in heavily commercial zones. Some were even on the outskirts of town, where the price for the acreage of land needed to house the facilities were cheaper. The need for these ever-increasing facilities only highlight the culture of materialism that expanded in the 2000′s, and might be why so many families were hit hard when the economic bubble collapsed at the end of the decade.
Maybe these three symbols were the warning signs that we overlooked, or maybe their existence were merely coincidental. No matter what they are, we might want to pause when we see the next symbol that appears on the street corners, and project what they might mean and what impact they might have on our culture and our lives.
by MODU on April 8, 2010
It has been a while, but I’m bringing back the Exercise Challenge. This time, I’m bringing in the big guns.
I have purchased a Concept 2 Model D indoor rowing machine to replace an Integrity Air 3000. The reason for the purchase is that the Integrity rower was just too short, causing my hand to hit the flywheel casing as I made my approach on the slide. I compensated by placing blocks of wood in the foot stretcher, but that left me very little clearance at the end of the slide.
The layout of the Exercise Challenge still needs to be ironed out, but my initial concept is to row Monday through Friday, gradually increasing the distance and/or stroke rate during the week. However, the goal will be the same: lose 5 pounds. My plan is to have everything ready to go by this Monday, giving me 6 weeks to burn 5 pounds. That means, come May 21st, we’ll find out if I achieved my goal.
by MODU on April 8, 2010
Continuing with my series on making money online, one of the most popular methods used by junior and advanced bloggers alike is Google AdSense. Almost any website you visit, be it a small-time blogger to a large news site such as CNN’s news page, will have or had used Google AdSense at one point in their history. The reason for this is the ease of use and customization.
Google’s AdSense service is popular for two reasons. For starters, AdSense works by mining the text on the webpage that the ad is located on to find a set of key words. These key words are matched with the terms Google’s advertisers are wishing to associate their product and services with, therefore, your site will display relevant content that your readers might want to click on and explore. So, for example, if you wrote an article about visiting Manhattan, you might find advertisements for travel agencies or special events that are happening on Broadway.
The second reason it is so popular is that it is easy to use. All a person needs to know is how to page a section of code into your website in the location where you want the ads to be displayed. After that, Google does the rest. Because it is so easy to use, there are so many bloggers who subscribe to and use Google AdSense. With this large pool of users out there, Google can bring in even more advertisers to into their service, creating a wider variety of products and services to be matched up with your content.
Some users have taken Google Adsense a step further. It is not uncommon to find a pool of users signing up with an adsense revenue sharing site, where you can pool your content with others in the hope of generating even more revenue. After all, the point of running AdSense is to generate money, and with Googles technology of matching relevant ads with your content makes this practice even easier. So take a moment and register with Google and practice with adding AdSense to your site.
by MODU on April 4, 2010
This was the first weekend where I had a chance to work on the lawn. I went to the store to buy a couple bags of soil and seed and went to work. The first thing that needed to be done was to clean the section of lawn that was to be treated. I dethatched the area using a metal garden rake; digging the combs into the soil to remove dead grass and leaves. Afterwards, I went over the area again with a leaf rake to ensure all the loose debris was removed.
Once the section was prepared, I applied the seeding soil and started working it and spreading it around. Since the first section needed the most repair, I worked in an inch of fresh seeding soil with the loosened top soil. This not only added needed soil, but also gave the seeds a lush bed to grow in.
As I worked in each new bag, I finished off the soil by going over the new patch with the leaf rake. This allowed me to create grooves parallel with the slope of the lawn. Once all the soil was worked onto the lawn, I started hand-spreading the seed over the lawn. The seed would fall into the grooves, making it easy for me to cover them up with a thin layer of soil as I dragged the leaf rake lightly over the soil.
Once I was done for the evening (as you can tell from the last two pictures), I turned on the water and let it run for an hour. This allowed the soil to absorb a lot of water to help stimulate seed germination. Now all that I need to do is keep watering this patch and begin work on the next section.
