I finally got around to creating a page for my entries to the 2016 edition of Inktober. The idea is to every day of October create a drawing in ink. More information on the gallery page.
Personal
A little bit of everything
The subtitle of my blog is “A little bit of everything”, and that really describes the various things I put my energy on. I can be really interested in something for a few weeks, try to learn and do as much on the subject as possible, and then my focus shifts to something else.
The main focus of this blog has so far been on technology, but as you can see in the older posts, there was a lot of running at one point in time. If we start from there, and from what I can remember, I’ve been into:
- Cycling
- Crossfit
- Weight lifting
- Growing chilis
- Origami
- Crocheting
- Photography
- Drawing
Most of these are really practical, physical things. I think that there is much value in having something that is entirely separate from what you do for a living (in my case: computers and programming).
My current interest is drawing, and has been so for a while. It started out when I got my first set of ProMarkers, and really got interested in the blending techniques you can do with them. Then, after a short stint with pencils, I got interested in comic-style, pure black and white ink drawing. Currently, I’m getting my feet wet (no, not really) with ink + watercolours.
I never considered myself being artistic, but I think the biggest step you can take if you want to paint or draw, is just daring to do it, and keep doing it.
Rantamaraton 2009
On Sunday 2009-09-20 it was time for my third half-marathon. It was the second Rantamaraton for me. About half of the route follows the sealine from Matinkylä to Otaniemi, the rest is cycling paths varied with forest paths.
I finally managed to reach my target of 2:20, I finished in 2:19:58 🙂 I had my pulse monitor all the way, but the last few kilometers I stopped worrying about my pulse and started to worry about my target time instead. The last 100 meters I had to run as fast as I could, but I made it 🙂 Last year my time was 2:33:27, so compared to that, I made a huge improvement. Next target to reach is 2 hours…
20.09.2009 also marks the day of our marriage 🙂 Even though the papers officially say 23.09.2009, we will always celebrate 20.09.2009 as our real wedding day. It was impossible (unless we wanted to travel to Lohja) to get a registrar on our chosen date. Instead we had a small ceremony the following Wednesday, just me, my wife, and our son at the register office.
eCross 2009
I participated in a cross-country run called eCross on September 6th. It is a 7 km race in quite varying terrain. Last year I finished it in 43:45. This year, I finished it in 39:42. I’m quite happy with the result 🙂
Last year they had a service station at about 4 km where they had water and sports drink, but not this year. If I would have known that, I would have brought a small water bottle, or drank a bit more before starting.
This was my first competition with a heart rate monitor. I found it quite useful for keeping up the pace, while not pushing myself too hard. I suppose that training using the pulse monitor could also make the training more efficient.
Vacation
I have my summer vacation the entire month of July. It’s nice having some time off from work, spending time with my son. The work on my thesis has been down for a couple of weeks, but today I opened up the stuff again to see where I left off. I’m feeling confident that I will get some loose ends wrapped up soon.
Update to thesis
I finally got something written on my thesis. I have had writer’s block for over two weeks, but today I actually managed to fill out quite a few empty sections. Just sent the newest version to the professor. We will have a meeting on Wednesday just to check out a few things. Soon all that is left on my thesis is the actual research. All the theory and plans are written.
Week 1, day 3
Didn’t think it was possible, but it felt even harder today to do the sit ups than last time. The pattern to do today was 17-22-14-14-max. I managed to do it all, the max being 10s-10l-10r-30s bringing the total to 60.
I don’t think I’ll report this each day anymore. I suppose it is a boring read. Perhaps once a week is more appropriate.
Cycling
Yes! Today I finally took the time to fix up my bike. Last autumn, I hit a curb too hard and the rear tyre of my bike went flat. But today I cleaned it up, and fixed the tyre. It was a small sharp object that had made a tiny hole in the tube, almost looked like a spruce needle, but a bit harder. Now all I have to do is to adjust the brakes and gears, then I can (at least in theory) start going by bike to work.
Week 1, day 2
Just a short update. I motivated myself to do day 2 of the 200 sit up challenge. The series to do was 15-18-15-15-max. Today, the max was 20s-5l-5r-20s. Felt worse today than last time.
Week 1, day 1
I did not have time to do the sit ups on Monday, so instead I did them tonight. The repetitions instructed by the program were 15-18-10-10-max with 60 seconds of rest between. After the first 15, it felt pretty bad, but during the 60-second rest, my muscles recovered from the shock of actually having to do something, so the next repetitions went like a breeze. For the last repetition, I varied the straight crunches with sit ups to the side (right elbow touching left knee while left elbow was on the ground). So: 10s – 5r – 5l – 5s – 5r – 5l – 5g – 10s – pain, bringing it to a set of 50 repetitions. Explanation: s = straight/normal crunch, r = right side sit up, l = left side sit up, g = leg lift from ground.
Now it’s time to go to bed and rest, on Thursday it’s time for day 2: 15 – 18 – 15 – 15 – max
Asmand's Blog 