I'm not happy. This whole knee / IT band thing is really getting on my nerves. After a week of rest, I made it to a spinning class on Tuesday. I pushed pretty hard. Probably much harder than I should have, since I nearly passed out after. Yeah, that bothered me a lot. My HR dropped down to 50ish as soon as I stopped. I've had that a little bit before, but not like that. Worrisome. After I recovered and went in to work my knee started hurting again. This sucks.

It looks like my riding season is pretty much done. I don't expect to ride into October because my lungs don't co-operate in the cold. I might reconsider later... but at least I'm out for this month. Stupid IT band. Yes, I'm going to see a doctor about it, and maybe get sent to some sort of physio type place or something. I know nothing about that type of stuff, but I suspect I will become quite familiar over the next while.

So it's looking like I need to find a new drug... a new way to get my endorphin/adrenaline rush for this month or so.

Drug 1: Running
I think I'm going to try running again, but at a slower speed. I'm going to try and keep my HR down now, instead of the crazy highs I was getting to before when I was running. Probably instead of 6.2 mph, I'll go down to 5.5ish. Maybe lower. I'll pay a little closer attention to any warning signs too.

Drug 2: Swimming
Another thing is I'll probably make a trip down to try out the pool in the Manulife Centre. I'll see if I can do anything at all in the water on my own. I'm sure that would be good for my knee, and it's not too far out of the way if I TTC it to work. I'll see how the running goes first.

Drug 3: Weight Training
I've also been looking into actually lifting weights. I didn't want to do this until I've lost all the weight I want to lose, but I don't think I have much of a choice right now. I'll be able to do this even if I can't run or don't like swimming. I'm starting to look into some routines. The hardest part for me is to walk into the gym and actually start doing things. Maybe I'm a little self-conscious or something, especially with the weights I'll be able to lift. I'm really not very strong in my upper body.

Phil is helping by explaining a lot about what to do, and how to target specific areas to build up. He really knows a lot more than I thought. Most of what he says is a little over my head though. I'm getting there though. Right now I'm looking at the workouts here, especially looking at the chest ones. I'm thinking about concentrating on my chest, back and arms. I kinda want to say "screw strength and endurance" and just build them up for size a little. I can't help it, and yes... I suppose I'm vein like that.

Drug 4: Racing?
I don't know what's going on, but I'm having some issues selling the fucking car. I'm really pissed off about this... I picked the worst time ever, and now I actually need to sell it. There have been a few nibbles, but it looks like nobody wants to buy the car without an original engine. It looks like I'm going to have to swap one in. There are quite a few potential options for this, and I'll post what I'm doing after I've decided on which route to take.

It looks like there may be a spare engine somewhere for me. I don't know how to handle this right now... half of me wants to keep it and throw it in the car I just christened the "Shitvic." I might have a pic...







It's a piece of shit, but I might swap some winter stuff on it and use it as a winter beater. If it's still around by spring I might swap a real engine in it. I don't know if I'd actually take it racing or not (I know how addictive/expensive that hobby is), but I would love to have such a dirty whore to drive on the street.

Drug 5: HTPC
It looks like I'm getting more and more sedentary the further I go down. I'm toying with the idea of rebuilding my Beyond TV box again. This time to try MythTV again. Again. I never got past installing Linux the first time... I don't know why I think I can do this this time. I'm tempted after learning that Linux can do unencrypted QAM. If that doesn't mean anything to you then you're lucky. It's like Pandora's box... once I learned about it it's the end of the world for me.

Basically right now I'm getting HDTV over the air. I get maybe 8 channels, depending on weather. I use my computer as a PVR and DVD player and all that good stuff. I want to completely start from scratch so I can record an extra few channels by resubscribing to Rogers digital. Yes, I'm an idiot for even contemplating doing this. I'm not that good of a geek. It'll be the worst of all worlds. The complexity of Linux, the unreliability of cheap PC parts, the cost of Rogers combine for dozens of hours of wasted time.

Hrm... maybe I'll leave well enough alone here.

Drug 6: Money
I've touched on money earlier. I really need to get that under control... I think it's time for a budget. A lifestyle change? Whatever. I'm starting to get excited about selling on ebay. Oh yeah, BUY MY CAR! There is literally a full-time business in selling all my old junk. That'll actually be exciting too. Looking forward to that. Once I get my shit in one sock things will be good again.

Drug 7: Work
Probably the most important one, and the one I've neglected for the past while. Ties in with the last one. Things are progressing here, but it's certainly not anything I've been addicted to. I've been starting to geek out again, working on the magazine's site. I might actually make a public call to have a look at the site soon. I actually have some updates I've been applying and a domain change. I might make a semi-public call for a beta tester or two, if anyone would like to leave a comment. Not yet though... like everything else I've left the updates for too long, and now I have a whole swack of them to apply.

I don't do many sites, mostly because that's not my specialty. I'm great working with applications, but this part of design gets a little too technical for me sometimes. I'm able to do it, but sometimes it's a bit of a struggle. I wouldn't know where to start with Ajax or APIs or any of those things. On the other side I'm not all that creative. I just sorta straddle the middle. Only thing with web stuff there isn't all that much of a middle. With print I'm fine though.

Web publishing keeps getting easier all the time, and I imagine soon you'll be able to get 90% of all basic stuff done without having to look at any code. This is where I hope to fit in. The same place I am in the print world.

There's a lot more to work, but whatever... work's work, and not usually the most fun thing to blog about (unless you're the Accordion Guy or something). Whole point is there's a lot to figure out with this too.

Wow. Looks like I have a lot on my plate. Hopefully I'll have the self-control to keep myself away from drugs 4 and 5.