Oops - I forgot to make an entry

I forgot to make an entry on Satuday. I hope that did not make anyone worry. I was anxious to get my chores done, and forgot about this part. I wanted to put more time in for work. I was able to get all my chores done by 3:00 (except I forgot to vacuum). The pattern is that I vacuum or mop on alternate weekends.

I worked 7 hours yesterday. I am modeling another database - called InR - for Inventory Retrival. It associates a customer with his contracts, the circuits and hardware used to fulfill the contract, and the types of connections/access provided the customer over this medium. It is huge. I have been working on it for 4 days. I have to finish soon. I have made great progress, but it is not done - patterns are starting to emerge.

There is a lady I go to Church with that has a serious back injury. She spoke in Church about having to do 2 hours of cardiovascular exercise a day to maintain her health. She listens to the Bookk of Mormon on CD when she does that. At that rate, she is able to go over the entire book of Mormon in 10 days.

I have been doing that for a week or so, for the 35 minutes of cardio I put in each day. But the idea occured to me that I could also sit and read the book while listening to the CD. This would keep my mind from wandering. Then it also occured to me that I could get something to speed up the auido on the CD and read it faster. Varying speed audio with pitch adjustment has been around for a while. I downloaded some software last night (Amazing Slow Downer) for $60 that will allow me to speed up audio 200%. Usually these tools are used for music students, to slow odwn a piece of music (while staying in pitch/key), so they can learn to play it.

Although speed-reading techniques can increase speed, it is based on widening the field of view, so that you are taking in more text without moving your eyes back and forth. Since I want to use this to read scripture, that thechnique doesn't help, since the text is broken up into 2 columns per page. 2x speed is as fast as I can understand speech. I just read the entire book of 1st Nephi in 90 minutes. Interesting!

Today, the older singles are having a potluck and 3 short talks on the "Proclamation on the Family" given by a Single, a widow(er) and a divorcee. I forgot to prepare something to being. I think I will bring 3 bowls of fruit - sliced apples, peeled clementines and dates. That is something I can do.

I keep meaning to make an emtry about my exercises, so I will do that today. This is going to be a long entry. Befoer I get dressed each day, I do 4 activites: Pelvic rotation on an exercise ball, leg stretches, knee squeezes and then cardiovascular using an exercise step.

The pelvic rotations I do first because that is typically where I feel pain in the morning (although I rarely feel that anymore when I awaken). 50 counts of bounce, left-right, forward-back, counter-clockwise circles, clockwise circles, alternate legs lifts (25 each). I was taught to do this my my first personal trainer in CA. I found it to be more effective than the stretches I was doing from the "Pain Free" book. If I don't do this for 3 days, I can feel the vertebrae in the lumbar clicking when I walk.

The leg stretches were taught to me by my current chiropractor. I place my heel on something 1 foot tall, flex the foot up, strainghten the knee, keep the back straight, and lean towards the toes - for a count of 30. This really helps alot. I do it several times a day. It is amazing how well it cuts down stiffness and pain.

The knee squeezes were also taught me by my currrent chiropractor. He said that my hips tend to mis-align easily, and this exe4rcise will strengthen those muscles to keep the hips in place. I place a rolled up towel between my knees and shins, and squeeze hard for 3 sets of 10.

For Cardio, I have a 7 inch step, and I do that pattern: Right foot up, then left, right foot down, then left (but only touch toes to ground), Left foot up, then right, left foot down, then right (only touch toes) - REPEAT. When I used to take walks with Karen, I had to go too slow because her legs were shorter than mine. So inorder to get a workout, I bought a set of ankle weights where I can add increments of 1/2 pound up to 10 pounds per leg. I am using them know, 1 LB per leg - although I increase each Staurday, so today is 1.5 LBs.

I have started doing something very strange during the pelvic rotationS and knee-squeezes. I flail my arms around in random patterns. I thgouth of it as a way of isolating the upper body muscles from the lower body muslces. I also believe that it will encourage more movement oriented brain cell connections. It probably looks really weird! But I know it is working because when I don't do it, the rotations seem a lot easier to do - I mean VERY easy.