After 4 Days...

I got a lot done in the past 4 days but none of it was exercise related, unless it was an exercise in bureaucracy and paperwork. I finally got my son's custodial child savings account transferred to adult status, and we went to the DMV for the second time to get him an official Real ID, although he has not yet committed to learning how to drive. One step at a time. Now it's a mad scramble to get an Eagle Court of Honor organized and set in motion for the end of this month. Made all the more difficult because we are holding it with two other Eagle Scouts. The pandemic wrecked a lot of celebratory plans and we're all playing catch-up.

I must've finally caught up with my sleep because I woke up early enough to go to the gym before the alarm even sounded. I can't say that was true for the past 4 days where I woke up just in time to throw back some coffee and run off to the dog park with my pups. Neither the parking lot nor the gym was crowded although there were a few familiar faces. It is Holy Week and there's no school (Spring Break).

My knees feel a bit sore but I still pedaled decent enough to make it past 2.8 although the HR monitor suggests I'm stressed. Which I am. I was worried, as usual, about getting pull-ups done, but it's only been 4 days since I was last at the gym. The second round didn't go quite as well but still well enough. The Aerobics Room is already set up for the mid-week Boot Camp class. I see a handful of women head in that direction as I eye the stretch cage and then the cardio platform. Finished off with some stair climbing where I see again that my heart rate is higher than usual. 

I am happy though that I managed to add several "new" songs to my iPod over the weekend once the new CD/DVD drive arrived. My old MacMini (2012) works fine but hardware limitations keep the operating system from upgrading, which means it's not web browser safe. And now, for no reason I can think of, the CD drive refuses to accept discs. So I had to buy an external and of course I looked up reviews and didn't buy the cheapest one because that one is 100% made of plastic. 

I buy the one that's next cheapest but seems to have the best quality (as well as a USB adapter from USB-C) even if the instruction booklet and warranty page are cutely and slightly nonsensically translated by non-native speakers. What I didn't anticipate was the need for the MacMini to have an internet connection just so the CD player could read the disc properly and assign it an album name and track titles. I had to plug the ethernet cable back in once the first disc showed up as Untitled. I really had no idea! All the other CDs imported fine, and with their respective album cover art.

If the songs I wanted to put on my iPod had been available in streaming format, I would've bought them (again) as MP4s or whatever the current format is, loaded them onto a thumb drive and installed them into the iTunes software resident on my MacMini. (And yes, I know that Apple no longer makes nor supports iPods or iTunes but since mine still work, I'm using them.) The Irish alt rock group Walking on Cars disbanded a few years ago and even their CDs are hard to find. (Amazon would rather you subscribe to streaming music for a monthly fee. Uh, no thanks.) The band said it had just run its course. I can respect that.

I don't want to pay to stream songs I already own on CD. Why rent when you can own, right? Today's the first day I can actually listen to these songs while working out and that makes me happy. Sometimes the transfer from CD to iPod doesn't go as smoothly and the song is so muted that it's not worth listening to on the playlist. That happened with a few "greatest hits" CDs...

4 April 2023
Mid-Week Wednesday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 1
Time: 30 + 5 (5598)
Distance: 2.83
Cal: 314
Avg Hr: 146, 192-130

HGPU 22

15 Hip Bridges
Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
15 Hip Bridges
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12x
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

HGPU 20

StepMill (L)
Manual 10 min
Speed 6 (52-55)
Steps 542
Floors 33
Cal 79
Hr 153