So this looks like a normal battery, right?



Here it is from a different angle (I included a dime for scale):



I'm a victim of the infamous bulging battery. I will be passing by the Apple Store in Salt Lake tomorrow, so I will stop in to get a new one through Apple’s replacement program.

15 sec. on (7 snatches) 15 sec. rest, 50 sets (PR) 16 kg kettlebell

275# deadlift, 1 set of 5
255# deadlift 2 sets of 5
3, 2, 2 pullups
2 sets, 8 per side, side bends hanging from Eagle Loops
25# pinch grip lifts, 5 reps per side
5 quick squeeze, slow release reps per side with #1 CoC gripper
20# pinch grip lifts, 5 reps per side
5 quick squeeze, slow release reps per side with #1 CoC gripper
80 reps, 20kg kettlebell one-arm swings, switch every 10 reps, no rest (2:15)

I wrote articles for my high school newspaper during my senior year. That was my first extensive exposure to Macs. At the time, I preferred PC’s because those Macs were Mac Classics, and they were SLOW. We wrote our articles in Word and laid the newspaper out in PageMaker. While writing my first article, I learned about the difference between the foot/minute mark, and the single quote/apostrophe. I also learned the difference between the inches/second mark and the double quote.

' - foot/minute mark
’ - single quote/apostrophe
" - inch/second mark
” - double quote

So how do you type those nice-looking single and double quotes?

’ - option-shift-]
” - option-shift-[
“ - option-[
‘ - option-]

And how did I find these typographical symbols and how to type them?

Click on the apple symbol in the top left-hand corner. Click on System Preferences.

Click International. Click on Input Menu.
Put a checkmark next to Keyboard Viewer.
A new menu item (a flag) shows up in the upper right-hand side of the menu bar. Click that flag and choose Keyboard Viewer.
A little keyboard shows up. Hold down the option key. Check that out! All kinds of cool symbols show up. You can press the corresponding key to type that symbol. Also try holding down option and the command key. A whole different batch of symbols show up! Have fun, and please use ’ instead of ' when writing an apostrophe, and you and I will remain friends.

“So how do I do this in Windows?” I have no idea, and I don’t have a Windows machine to figure it out.

Woke up and had an idea for a new workout:
2 Turkish get-ups per side, alternating sides after every rep (L, R, L, R), 24 kg kettlebell
20 swings, 24 kg kettlebell
30 seconds jump rope
30 seconds rest

5 circuits of the above. Beat me up!

morning:
3, 2, 2, 2, 1 pullups

evening:
270# deadlift X 5 reps
250# deadlift X 5 reps
60# side press X 5 reps per side
50# side press X 5 reps per side

Hanging around on Eagle Loops between sets.

morning:
3, 2, 2, 1, 1 pullups

evening:
15 seconds snatch kettlebell (7 reps)
15 seconds rest

30 sets (15 minutes)

Felt much easier this time than last time!

Under the advice of a guy who competes regularly in the Scottish Highland Games and the International Strongman's Competition, I have decided to only deadlift twice a week instead of my original plan of three times a week. He said it's just too much of a shock on the ol’ central nervous system to deadlift that frequently. I'll turn Tuesday into a variety day. On that note, here's today’s workout:

Warm up with 45# cleans (learning the form and practicing this lift for warm-ups)
3 supersets:
3 reps per side Captains of Crush #1.5 gripper
5 reps per side pinch grip (using ironmind block) 20#
30 sec. hang on Eagle Loops
1 min rest

3,2,1,1 pull-ups 45 sec. rest between sets.

5 reps 55# side press
rest 1 min.
5 reps 45# side ress
rest 1 min.

3 reps per side 45# barbell windmills

write this blog entry, shower, get some sleep!

P.S. I know this has turned into my Workout of the Day blog and that could be pretty boring. I am working on several longer pieces of writing to spice things up and I am still collecting links for Links of the Week. More variety coming soon, I promise!

1 min. jumprope
10 per side snatches with 16 kg kettlebell
repeat 10X

3,2,1,1,1 pull-ups
5 @ 265# deadlift
5 @ 245# X 4 deadlift
5 per side @ 55# side press
5 per side X 4 sets @ 45# side press

Going to do strength on Sun, Tues, and Thurs and do conditioning on Mon, Wed, Fri. Sat off. Tired of carrying around this extra body fat. Used the same method the military uses that has been correlated with the water-dunk method and the caliper method, but you don't need any equipment except a tape measure to figure your body fat percentage. If it's accurate enough for the Navy SEALS, it's accurate enough for me. You can find the method and the calculator here.

My measurements today:
Neck: 16"
Waist: 37" (measured at your navel, not where you wear your pants)
Height: 71"
Body fat: 21% (yeah, that's why I'm starting the intense six-days-a-week hardcore attack on fat!)

Yes, I know. I am not meeting my goal. However, I’m focusing on moving forward. Can’t get down on myself for missing a day and get discouraged and give up. No.

So today’s workout:
1 min jujmprope
1 min snatches, 16 kg
X 10

Today's workout comes care of Mike Mahler. He wrote this article about it.

2 min jumprope
10 snatches per side (I did it with the 16 kg kettlebell. Yesterday’s little endurance stunt really did a number on my body so I decided the 24 kg wasn't a great idea.)
repeat 10X

That sounded fine on paper. Banu was doing it with me, and after the first two sets I realized I probably wouldn't make it at that pace for 30 minutes, so we decided to go to 1 min jumprope, then 10 snatches per side (which took about a minute). We still did 10 sets, but the total workout came to 20 minutes instead of 30. Felt great!

5 per side, 3 sets 20kg kettlebell swings to get the blood moving.
15 sec work (7 snatches) 15 sec. rest, switch sides - 30 total sets (15 per side) - 15 minutes
rest 5 minutes
5 per side, 3 sets 24kg kettlebell swings
mess around on Eagle Loops (old elementary school stunts like hanging and pulling feet up and over head, rolling backwards as far as possible, then rolling forward again. Stuff like that.)

Eclectic links for your reading pleasure below. And with this post, I'm all caught up on the backlog! Onward and upward from here on out!

Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser Ten Times - Yes, that's right. A 56-year-old woman. With a knife. In a wheelchair. What choice did the cops have but to Taser her ten times!

Federal Government: "We're winning the War on Drugs. Cocaine prices are higher!" Drug dealers: "It's because everyone's buying Meth now."

News Flash: War on Drugs futile.

Reactionary thinking is not the way to outsmart terrorists - From the article: "To understand what makes these measures so absurd, we first need to revisit the morning of September 11th, and grasp exactly what it was the 19 hijackers so easily took advantage of. Conventional wisdom says the terrorists exploited a weakness in airport security by smuggling aboard box-cutters. What they actually exploited was a weakness in our mindset — a set of presumptions based on the decades-long track record of hijackings.

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail."

George Orwell's original preface to Animal Farm

The world's single most comprehensive, detailed, updated, accurate, and complete source of amusement ride accident reports and related news.

Tug of War: World Champion Sumo Wrestler vs. Orangutan

Sample pages from new Intelligent Design textbook

You think using an unnecessary apostrophe is bad? You'll love these signs!

I don't know anything about the culture of cosplay (short for "costume play"), but these pics are hilarious!

If you've never heard of Toothpaste for Dinner, a daily web cartoon, I feel sorry for you. Very dry, very funny! Here's a recent one that made me laugh all day and fits the recent political theme around here:


toothpastefordinner.com

I haven't put up Links of the Week for awhile (almost a month! Crap!). I have to wade through the backlog and get them all formatted for you. I have also started adding more commentary to each link, and that's why they're taking longer now. You'll find the first batch below:

Since it's Primary/Caucus season, I have a lot of political links:

Former soldier undergoes waterboarding procedure so that you can see just how dastardly this method of extracting information is

Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It"

Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed

Huckabee Squashed Charges Against His Son for Stoning, Hanging Dog

6 states defy law requiring ID cards. Now if the other 44 would follow suit....

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950. I read this article, and the declassified paper it refers to, and the similarities to today's political climate are disturbingly similar. Suspending habeus corpus, imprisoning 12,000 American citizens, military tribunals that "will not by bound by the rules of evidence." President Truman saw the obvious unconstitutionality of this proposal and vetoed the McCarren Act, which was a codification of Hoover's proposal. Coungress overrode the veto and the McCarren Act became law. So Bush's power grab is not new. Unfortunately, he didn't have the same commitment to the Constitution that Truman had, however.

Five myths about torture and interrogation" - From the article "Torture's defenders insist that the rough stuff gets results, but evidence suggests it's hard to get anything under torture, true or false."

FBI to put criminals, security issues up in digital billboard lights - Here's an idea that sounds good on the surface. Everyone wants to help catch the criminals, right? But I have two problems with this: what happened to being presumed innocent until proven guilty? Having your picture on these billboards automatically brands you as a criminal in people's minds, which brings me to the second problem I have with this. What happens when the wrong picture gets associated with a criminal's name? Or what if someone accidentally puts up the wrong picture/information? And what if you were wrongly accused? "We'd like to hire you, Mr. Firth, but your picture was on that criminal billboard for grand theft auto." "They got me mixed up with the guy from the video game!" "Well, I'm sorry, but we can't be hiring guys whose pictures have been on that billboard." And that leads me to the bonus problem I have with this: this turns everyone into a spy/operative for the police force. Everyone looks at everyone else suspiciously and is afraid to say anything to each other. The ultimate FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) tool for the government!

5 rep set, 4 rep set, 3 rep set, 2 rep set, 1 rep set: Deadlift 275 for first two sets, 285 for last three sets, 3-4 minutes rest between each set
Between each set I was hanging from the Eagle Loops and doing 3-5 knees-to-elbows. Why? Because I have ADD and get bored during the rest periods.
Next, side press: 3 sets of 5 reps. 45 pounds for first set, 55 pounds for remaining two sets.

“How are your forearms feeling?” Oh, I don’t know, like someone took a dull carpet knife and dragged it along my tendons.

Took it easy in the workout today because I knew we were all going to a new indoor rock climbing gym, so I didn't want to burn my arms up.

60 swings (switching every 10) with 20 kg kettlebell.
3 sets of 30 sec. hold with 25 pounds with the IronMind Blockbuster Pinch Grip Block
2 1-min. hangs on Ironmind Eagle Loops attached to pull-up bar
100 jumprope
20 jump burpees

About two hours later, we went to the indoor rock climbing gym. Second time there, and this time I climbed their 5.10 path with a pretty nice overhang. Using the Eagle Loops has really improved my endurance for climbing and my confidence in my grip. The girls both did very well for their first time and we all had a great time.

I'll have to admit that I've gotten pretty addicted to improving my grip lately. Why? Good question. So that I can hold the mouse longer? Type harder? I don't know. Regardless, I've enjoyed lighting my forearms on fire, and today I got some new tools from IronMind.com that I have fallen instantly in love with. I just finished my workout with these new tools and I can hardly type! Here's what I did:

5 sets of 3 per side one-handed deadlifts. Using one of these tied to a loading pin with 105 pounds loaded:



It's made by IronMind.com , it's a rotating two-inch handle, and it blasts the forearms!

Next I did 3-30 sec. holds per side (with 30 sec rest between), using one of these tied to a loading pin with 25 pounds loaded:



I know, I can hear you saying it now, "25 pounds? What a weak grip!" Try it.

You can get these little jewels here and I'm not saying this to line my pockets with cash. I don't make any money off you buying IronMind equipment. It's just good equipment, I had a fun time using it, and you will too!

Now, for the rest of the workout:

3 sets of 5 - Deadlift - 300 lbs.

between deadlift sets I was hanging from Eagle Loops from IronMind stratpped to a pull-up bar to help extend my spine and to build up hanging strength in my forearms.

1 deadlift 325 lbs.

1 deadlift 345 lbs. (personal record) (All the weight I own on the bar)

Up-dog and down-dog yoga positions for 5 minutes.

That's it!

Rested yesterday after the SSST. Today, took it pretty easy. SSST pushed me hard.

Shovel snow as fast as possible
3X3 Turkish Get-ups
4 sets of 10X10 one-handed swings. 24kg kettlebell, Eagle Loops from Ironmind strapped on to kettlebell.
1 min rest between sets.
3 ladders to 5 on 1.5 Captains of Crush gripper

SSST (Soviet Special forces Snatch Test)
As many snatches as possible in ten minutes using 24 kg kettlebell for men, 12 kg kettlebell for women.
Can rest, if needed. And I needed the rest. Numbers:

Jeremy: 135
Banu (my wife): 205

Banu kicked my ass. She never stopped for the whole ten minutes and kept up a great pace. The same could not be said for me. I started taking breaks at 85. After 85, I would do five per side and stop for 30 sec. Still have a lot of work to do on the conditioning side.

Check out the recent donor. Ron Paul is the first political candidate I've ever donated money to. I donated because he's the only candidate I've heard who believes in returning the government back to its Constitutional roots. Click on the image to learn more about Ron Paul.

I guess the first New Year’s resolution should be to not procrastinate, since I'm posting this six days after January 1st, but I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with life changes. A lot changed for me in 2007. Sapphira has grown from a little lump of sleeping clay into a happy, smiling, delightful little girl. Here's her one-year-old picture I took of her today:

If you want to see more pictures of her on her first birthday, I've added a gallery of my favorite pictures from our shoot.

I changed something else pretty drastically in 2007: I started working out and getting in shape again. The last time I worked out consistently was in 1995 (in high school) so needless to say, I had slipped pretty far down the fitness/health continuum. I've learned a few things about myself since working out consistently since March of 2007. Namely, that exercise is the best cure for anxiety, depression, lack of self-control, ennui, insomnia and back pain that I have ever found. I thought I had back problems until I started working out. Turns out I just had a weak back. I feel much calmer and can go to sleep much more easily than I could before I started exercising.

I will be reporting my workouts here, so that I can track my progress and so that I have a record of my progress.

So, New Year's resolutions:

1. Exercise three days, rest one day. No matter what.
2. Write in a journal every day. No matter what.

That's it. Well, that's it for January. I am going to try these resolutions out for thirty days and decide if I want to keep them. From what I've read, that's enough to form a habit, so if I want to keep these habits, they'll be mine to keep or discard. Also, only taking them thirty days at a time makes them easier to keep, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the idea of trying to do something for a whole year. At the beginning of February I'll let you know my new habits for that month. For now, it's exercise three days on, one day rest, and journal writing.

Happy New Year!

Well, kids, I know you've been really patient about your favorite (the only) feature on this website: Links of the Week. I have still been collecting the links, but I haven't put them all together into a post. I will sort through them and get them all formatted for your reading pleasure in the next couple of days.

5 ladders (1X2X3 reps) of clean and press with 24 kg kettlebell. 1 minute rest between.
rest 3 minutes
farmer's carry 3X up and down the stairs using Ironmind's Eagle Loops (you can find them here) tied to 24 kg kettlebells
rest 3 minutes
20 sec. one-handed kettlebell swing (alternate R and L every set), 10 sec. rest for 8 sets (4 minutes total)

What's a kettlebell? Click on the ad on the right and learn everything you need to know. They've changed my life.