Reorganizing Music Again

On By Michel McDonaldIn MusicLeave a comment

It wasn’t that long ago, like a week or 2 ago, that I had to download all the cd’s from my Dell DJ mp3 player to my computer then fix all the tags then put them back on my DJ but when I did that I didn’t count on the fact that their file names had something to do with anything.  For example.  If a song says 01 Politik instead of Coldplay – A Rush of Blood To The Head – 01 – Politik then when I go to make a playlist I’m not going to know who the artist is or even which CD that song is from.

Yes, I am really anal about things like that lol.  I don’t know why, I just am.  But it’s not for no reason.  When I ride my bike sometimes there are songs that are way too loud or they don’t have any sound at all then I have to pull over in the dirt on the bike trail, pull the remote control out of the bike frame bag and push the next button.  I don’t want to have to do that because it slows me down and brings my average speed time down too.  It’s also annoying to be riding happily then all of a sudden a song blares into your ears and then they start to bleed lol.  Or you don’t hear anything for a minute before realizing you aren’t going to but the song is playing.  I don’t really understand how that song got put in there.  Also there is 1 song that is in there twice from Uncle Kracker.  I don’t know how that happened.

So, I’m downloading the music to my computer and I will reorganize the names and write down what is going into the playlist and look at each song with a microscope to make sure my ride is full of good music and not annoying music.

Actually, I’d also like to just add the popular songs from certain CD’s, the ones that made it to the radio, this way I can cut down on the amount of songs in my playlist which is typically between 550 and 600.  It’s not going to be easy to weed through them all though, it will take hours, possibly days.  Well, at least I have something to do lol.

Day Off

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I wanted to ride my bike today but Darrin reminded me that I said that I was going to take the day off so I did.  Even though I really wanted to ride lol.  Oh well.  I probably should take the day off anyway because if I do this too much I might get too tired of it and stop.  I do like the routine of doing it everyday though.

When I was going to the gym 6 days a week in 2005 I had a routine for about 5 months and I wasn’t seeing any results and I started eating junk food even though I was trying so hard to lose weight.  I pushed myself so hard at the gym then turned around and ate twinkies and cupcakes.  I don’t want to make that mistake again.  That’s the reason I quit going to the gym.  That and it took 2 1/2 hours just to get there on the bus then 2 1/2 hours to get back home on the bus.  I would’ve been better off riding my bike there, that way I’d get exercise on my way to getting exercise lol.

R&R

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Today I decided not to go bike riding because I wanted to give my legs a chance to rest since I’ve been going such a long distance.  Tomorrow I will be going out again.  I’m just not sure if it’s worth riding 17 miles a day while I’m still in this stage of still getting used to riding a bike at all.  I mean it’s only been a month and even though I’ve seen 8lbs of weight loss so far I’m not seeing very much weight loss even with 17 and 18 mile days.  It’s nice to go a long distance to really step it up and everything but I just don’t see the results.

Now I realize that by me saying that I’m saying that I’m giving up on going such a long distance and I don’t want to say that but at the same time I think I can just do the 11 miles and get away with it for now.  I want to burn calories but not at the expense of causing myself pain and possible injury to my muscles.  I’m probably going to notice no weight loss at all this week and that’s possibly because I’m building too much muscle in my legs causing me to gain muscle weight so I don’t see the fat weight disappearing.

The first month was only 8lbs and normally I would be upset by that because 7lbs isn’t a lot to lose in a month, that’s 2lbs a week but at this point I’m just happy to not be in the 240’s anymore.  Being in the mid 230’s makes me feel that if I can get there then I can get to 220’s and so on but it takes time, a lot of time.  I need to stop worrying about the scale and stop thinking about it too much.

Tonight I decided that since I was weighing myself as 238 which is more than last weeks weigh in by 1 calorie that I would start eating salads for dinner, just to give me smaller calories for that meal of the day.  Breakfast I’ve been eating toast and a yoplait, lunch a peanut butter and jam sandwich or a ham sandwich.  Actually I’ve been eating 2 sandwiches but I’m going to limit myself to just 1 from now on and as soon as I get more yoplait’s on friday I’m going to limit my breakfast to just a yoplait.  I love coffee but I’m going to try to limit that too.  Darrin bought me this whole big thing of creamer so it’s going to be difficult to not be able to enjoy it.  I’m thinking for now coffee every other day.  I have been drinking a lot of water though so that helps big time.  Not the sparkling bottled water with flavor that Darrin has been buying from Albertson’s but just plain filtered water.

Well, I’m blogging this just before bed, I’ve taken my ambien already so I’m gonna go do the litter box then get in the shower and go to bed.

17 Miles

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, ExerciseLeave a comment

Today I did the same route but only did 17 miles.  The reason why is because yesterday before I went on my bike ride I rode the bike to the post office then back.  It’s just 3 blocks from my house and I wanted to count that time that I rode because I’m greedy lol.  Anyway, here are my stats for today.

Distance 17.527, max speed 27.3, average speed 11.1, time 1:34:32, calories 813.7, fat calories 85.2.

Since this is going to be my route from now on this is going to be the last time I put my stats.  That is unless I decided to go further.  I’d like to just keep this as my current route just so I can lose enough weight so I’m lighter on the bike and I will go faster.  Once I’m faster then I can go further.

18 Miles

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, ExerciseLeave a comment

Today I have broken my record of 11 miles by going 18 miles.  Here are the numbers from the computer:

18.290 miles, max speed 26.8, average speed 10.7, time 1:42:33, calories 835.7, fat calories 81.2.

My max speed could go up but as I’ve said before, the weight is what is slowing me down.  I’m 236lbs and that’s a lot for the bike to carry.  As it is even with 20.7 pressure in my tires which is what it’s supposed to have (Edit: WRONG!  It’s supposed to be 60 I believe) , they look like they are going flat when I am sitting on the bike.  That’s definitely heavy lol.  And I feel that my weight is what is holding me back from going faster.  But as the weight goes down my speed will go up.  I have faith that it will.  When the speed goes up then I will be able to go longer distance.  For now the 18 miles that I rode today will be my bike route.  I won’t go further than that.

More Rain

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

It rained this morning and I was going to go riding when Darrin left for church but it was still raining so I just decided to stay home until the rain stopped instead.  He just came home so we’ll eat then I’ll wait 20 min before going out.

BAH it’s still raining.  I’m gonna just have to wait for the rain to stop.

Bike Maintenance

On By Michel McDonaldIn CyclingLeave a comment

Yesterday when I came home from riding my bike I tightened the gears on the handlebars and fixed that but decided today was the day I was going to do maintenance on my bike.  I wanted to get some degreaser and cleaner for the gears on the back wheel and the chain and scrub it all to clean it then put some new grease on it but I need Darrin to take me to the bike store.  I don’t want to ride it there because it’s kinda far and I don’t want to have to have bottles of cleaner and grease in bags hanging on my handlebars.  Yeah I know I could use a backpack but that’s ok.  I’d rather be driven there.  I’d also like to walk through the store looking around and not worry that my bike is getting stolen.

What I did do today was I took the back wheel off because it has been wobbling and I know it’s not supposed to do that.  Before I figured out how to fix it I noticed that the ball bearings were getting close to falling out.  That’s not good.  I knew that I am lucky that I finally got around to fixing it because if it got any looser that I’d be in trouble.  I got it tightened but too tight so I had to loosen it hehe.

All fixed but not lubed up so hopefully soon I can get the cleaner and grease and get that done.

O.J. Back In Court

On By Michel McDonaldIn NewsLeave a comment

O.J. Simpson and C.J. Stewart were back in court today in front of the same judge who sentenced them both to life in prison for attempted robbery.  They were both asking for a new trial because the foreman juror has been fired from multiple jobs for racial slurs.  So basically they are saying that they didn’t get a fair trial because of race.  They are always bringing the race card in.

The judge denied their motion for a new trial and said see you in December for sentencing.

The judge denied a few motions today actually.  The lawyers for O.J. brought him a suit to wear and the judge said no he can’t wear it, he has to wear what he came in which is his blue prison suit.  Then they asked if it was ok that he not be there because they didn’t want him to be on tv without a suit and she denied that.  This of course was at the very beginning.  After O.J.’s attorneys asked about the suit issue, C.J.’s attorneys asked about the suit for him and she denied that as well.

No Sweat

On By Michel McDonaldIn CyclingLeave a comment

You know the old saying “No Sweat” which typically means no problem.  Well, in my case it is a literal translation.  When I’m riding the bike there is literally no sweat coming from my body.  The only thing that is wet on me is my collar and my hair as well as the helmet straps.  When I get home from my long bike ride I take off the helmet and let my hair dry and that’s the extent of the problem.  I don’t have to change my shirt or quickly take a shower because my body is drenched because it just isn’t.  My body is as dry as a bone all except for my cranium.

I mean, I’m very grateful that I am not sweating and ruining shirts with the sweat stains or having to buy so much Degree for men that it will last me until eternity.

Maybe the weather is the problem.  Maybe since it’s in the 70’s outside when I go riding.  It’s too cold for me to sweat.  In fact if I didn’t wear a helmet made out of Styrofoam I probably would be completely dry.

So, I absolutely will not need bike shirts until Spring of 2009 when the weather is going to start getting too hot again,  I have faith that when it is so hot outside like 100 degree weather, I will be drenched just from typing this blog out.  Hmmm maybe I should wear bike shirts and shorts everyday in the summer lol.

11 Miles

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, ExerciseLeave a comment

Wow I thought 9 miles yesterday was awesome but today I surpassed that by going 11 miles.  I was riding for 62 minutes total.  That’s awesome.

My legs aren’t getting as tired as fast as they usually are.  I mean there were some points where I had to stop because I was going slower and so I knew if I stopped, got off the bike and drank some water and gave my legs a rest for a minute or 2 that I would recharge and it worked.  I’d get back on the bike and go 12-14 mph again.

I don’t know where I was this time.  I will have to look it up on google map.  I saw a bunch of mobile homes.  There was a stop light ahead.  I just looked at the google map website and it was Manor st. where I stopped and started going back.

Anyway, here are the stats from the computer.  11.231 miles, 29.7 max speed, 10.9 average speed, time 1:01:54, 536.2 calories and 53.5 fat calories.

Tomorrow is my official weigh in day and I will update the image on the Spark page but I weighed myself and I was 236lbs.  I was 244lbs.  But it isn’t official until I weigh in tomorrow after my bike ride.