Upping my fitness plan.

Well, I'm joining Planet Fitness today.  It's right down the road from me and I have run out of excuses to not work out.  I've lost a lot of weight over the past couple of years, and since I find myself with a lot more energy nowadays, I think I need to put it to good use.

I may sign up for the "Black Card" membership.  It's $19,99 per month.  There's a lot of amenities that go with that. But, the main reason for me is that I'll have unlimited guest privileges.  That means that once per day I can bring a guest with me to work out.  So, I'm planning on taking my wife or my daughter with me.

I did the "Body for Life" work-out years ago, and it worked well for me.  It was an alternating daily schedule of upper-body, cardio, and lower-body work-outs for six-days per week for 12-weeks.  Sunday was a free day.   Now, on that plan, I could eat whatever I wanted on Sunday (because I was following a limited diet during the week).  That worked well for me.  But, since I'm already following a particular diet for the next several weeks, I think I'll just co-opt the work-out portion of BFL, and use it.

While I'm happy with the weight that I've lost, I feel that there's more that I can do to "tone up" a little.  To be brutally honest, the weight loss has given me some sagging skin issues so I'm hoping that a moderate weight-lifting routine will help, at least a little, with that problem.

Anyway, I've heard good things about the Planet Fitness that I'll be going to.  I'm looking forward to getting in there and sweating a bit :-)

I got a couple of new toys today.

When I work from home, I like to sit on the couch and use my laptop.  I have it on a laptop table whose legs go under the couch, so I can pull the table close to me.  It's nice being able to be comfortable while working, right?  I even have a little stool under my table so I can stretch out my legs and rest my feet on it.  Ahhh, so nice!

One thing I didn't like, though, was that I only had the one screen, my laptop screen.  At work, I have multiple monitors that I use.  I can test a program on one screen and debug the code for it on another.  It's nice!  So, I wondered if someone made a "portable" LCD flat panel screen.  I figured that if they did, I could use it in conjunction with my laptop.  Sure enough, a quick search on Amazon resulted in a few hits for "USB portable LCD screen".  

Wonderful!  I found one that I liked (linked below) and ordered it.  However, if you remember, I'm on a laptop table at home.  There's no real estate there for two monitors.  So, I also did a search for some type of stand that would let me put my portable screen above my main screen.  I found something that worked perfectly and ordered it, too (also linked below).

Well, they both arrived today and within minutes, I had a dual screen set-up on my laptop.  You wouldn't believe how thin that LCD screen is!  It plugs directly into the USB port on my laptop, so there's no need for an external power source or power cord.  Here's a picture of how it looks from the front.  I don't have that great of a camera, so forgive the quality, please.

The cool thing is, I can carry the whole set-up (the laptop, the portable screen, and the screen stand) in my laptop bag easily.  The stand folds flat, and doesn't take up a lot of space.  The portable screen came with a slip-case, so it'll be protected while in the laptop bag.  I work from home three days a week, but I can easily work from anywhere with my two screens, as long as there's reliable wifi.  No need for an extra power plug-in, either!

Man, I love technology!

ASUS MB168B HD Portable USB-Powered Monitor with USB 3.0

VEYEM Portable Ergonomic Stand for Laptops

A change of plans... perhaps.

After talking with some expats in Shanghai, it appears that Taiwan may be the best place to have our first overseas adventure in the Orient.  I'm not completely sold, yet, but there were some great points that they mentioned that I wasn't aware of.

One major thing is that was brought up was that Shanghai is three times more expensive than Taiwan. Also mentioned was that Taiwan was a lot more "foreigner friendly".  Of course, that's a subjective reason, but several of the expats mentioned this.  Another reason, and it's a big one for me, is that Taiwan has awesome night markets.  I assumed that Shanghai would have awesome night markets, too, but was informed that the night markets in Shanghai are a pale comparison to the ones in Taiwan.  I watched a few videos on YouTube that seem to bear out this assertion.  The Taiwanese night markets are a lot more lively, and seem to have a lot more shopping options.  The Shanghai night market seemed to be a lot smaller  (if you're unsure of what a "night market" is, check out some videos on YouTube).

So, anyway, at this early stage it's easy to change our mind.  Nothing has been committed to, yet.  I'm going to do some more research on both Shanghai and Taiwan and get a general consensus from expats in both areas before making a concrete decision.  Either way, in October 2017, we're going to be in the Far East.  Exactly where is still up in the air.

On a related note, several friends have expressed an interest in joining us.  I'm all for having a large group of friends travel with us.  The more, the merrier!  Right?  Hmm... group discounts?

Top 10 Night Markets in Taiwan

Night Markets in Taiwan (Wikipedia)

Being a programmer is like being an artist.

You know what's cool about being a programmer?  It's the same thing that makes being an artist cool.  The ability to envision something, to see it in your brain, and then write code to make it manifest into reality.  That is what's cool about being a programmer.

We're working on an app at work that started from nothing but an idea.  We looked at an old, outdated app that needed replacing, and envisioned ways to make it better, more modern.  Slowly, but surely, we've built that app, piece by piece.  Our thoughts, our words in meetings, our emails, they've all been poured into a creation that, for a time, only existed in our thoughts.

Same with web design.  If you can think it, you can build it.  Saying it that way, I guess you could apply this to almost any job!  But, still, I think it's cool that someone can just have idea and with a little perseverance they can produce something that exists in reality.

So, think about this: If you have a computer, and can program in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, you can probably find a lot of businesses that need your help.  Think of how nice it would be to be able to work from home, doing work for companies as a freelance web designer and getting paid for it.

If this sounds interesting to you, and you're willing to put in the time equity, you should check out Free Code Camp.

Free Code Camp has over 800 hours, a year's worth, of tutorials and lessons that teach you how to be a web developer.  The best part is, it's totally free!  No contracts, no signing away your first born.  All they ask is that while you learn your skills, you help a few non-profits with their web problems along the way.  That's it!  You get online training AND real-world experience, for free.  Just for helping out.  And, if you don't want to help, you don't have to.  You can take the entire curriculum, learn at your own pace, and never have to help a non-profit.  But, you'd be doing yourself a huge disservice by doing that.  You don't want to miss out on what working on real-world web problems can do for your skill set.

Anyway, if you're inclined, check them out.  Learn some new skills, help some non-profits, and get started on an awesome path to a new career!

How I'm Learning to Love Public Speaking (well, not really love...)

I'm giving a presentation today to the Safety Council here at KSC.  I do one every so often to help out the chair-person of the group.  At first, giving these little presentations were scary.  The research involved in putting together a presentation was nothing.  But, having to speak in front of people is something that unnerves me a bit.

However, one thing that I've noticed is that I'm actually getting to the point of looking forward to these presentations.  I think they're helping me to break out of my comfort zone.

I've also been doing demonstrations of the latest app that I'm working on.  Here at KSC, it's usually the project manager that does the demo, but since the start of this project, I've been the one doing the demos.  I was asked to do so, the first couple of times.  But, I've volunteered to do them all the time now.

I guess by exposing myself to a fear of mine (public speaking), I have slowly, but surely, made progress in getting over that fear.

Oh, the reason I chose a beach scene for the graphic above is that my safety presentation today is all about staying safe at the beach! :-)

Twittering away...

I'm trying to figure out how to get Twitter to update when I make a post on my blog.  Since my Twitter account is also tied to my Facebook account, that means it'll post to Facebook, too.  Do not mistake this as me being back on Facebook.  It's just an automated thing and I won't be responding to comments on Facebook.  Feel free, though to comment on my blog :-)

Look what NASA gave me!

There was an awards ceremony today at KSC.  I got an award for a project that I worked on when I first started here.  For almost a year, I worked on the Circuit Information Management System.  It is an AngularJS-based application.  The biggest challenge was getting the old data, spread across numerous legacy systems, imported into CIMS.  Seriously, I wrote data migration programs that parsed spreadsheets that were almost 30 years old to get the data needed for this project.  On a related note, I can't believe that Microsoft Excel was released in 1985!  Wow.

Anyway, even though this award is only an honorable mention, it still means a lot to me.  I poured a lot of hard work into this project and it's nice to be recognized.