apete's apage

A place for me to speak and be heard.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

To Allison...


The Glasses
Originally uploaded by apete.
Here is that photo with the glasses that you requested. There are a few more low quality photos on my flickr site.

Also for everyone else, I've completed two days over 10 K steps. Monday it was 10181 and Tuesday it was 14005. Tomorrow is a work day.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Woo-hoo Walker

It's 8:30 PM and I've surpassed 10K steps. Too bad I'm at a computer now.

Here's the bad news:

Saturday - 3018 (ugh!!!)
Sunday - 5985

Saturday, September 24, 2005

The Single Chopstick Man

First my last few days of the pedometer:

  • Wednesday: 7815 (started at 2PM)
  • Thursday: 4748 -This was the work day that I dreaded and I can see why. I can't believe that I used to do this 5 days a week!
  • Friday: 8265 - Still not 10K but I think I have potential
Now, we'll see what the weekends are like. I have no clue what I do on the weekend. I'm curious about many things. How many steps to mow the lawn?

Now on to the real post...I went to Sushi.come yesterday for lunch and I was sitting across from this couple and the guy was hilarious to watch. They ordered a bunch of rolls and I missed them having their salad and soup which disappoints me because I wanted to see him eating his salad. Anyway, I only saw him with one chopstick in his hand at any one time. He used it to point and poke a lot but my favorite was that he used it as a spreader. He asked for some extra of the ginger dressing that they put on the salads, which led me to believe that this wasn't his first time eating sushi. He would then spread the dressing on the rolls with one chopstick. Then, he would set down the chopstick, pick it up with his fingers and toss it in his mouth. It was fun to watch and I hope that I wasn't staring Finally at the end there was the big ball of pickled ginger on the plate and he started rolling it around with his chopstick and said to the woman, 'You try this?" She didn't and they left.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Seeing to world a wee bit clearer

So if you've seen me around lately, you may have noticed something new on my face. Yeah, they are glasses. It's been about a month and I've been doing really well with remembering them.

It's been about 5 years since I received my first prescription. I did get glasses then and wore them about 12 times. Sure, it made things a little clearer but I really don't think it made my life better. I can't tell you where those glasses are right now.

The next stage was about 2 years later and I went back to the eye doctor and he told me my prescription hadn't changed and that, "I wouldn't kill someone on the road because of it." That was good enough reason to not get another pair that time.

This last time, I gave in and got a pair of glasses. I REALLY hate to wear them and it doesn't help when everyone tells me that I look good in them. I just told the guy there to pick a pair that looked good on me. He gave me several to try on and then we chose between three frames all together. It seems to have turned out well.

So here are some of my big complaints about glasses. I don't know if there will be ten...but it will be close:

  • No depth perception. I feel like an idiot.
  • Screwy periphial vision. There are times where I see the frames and I will look over and the frames move with my head...go figure.
  • I don't like having to prop them up on my face after they slide down.
  • If they get a smudge on them, I can see better without them than with them. It is impossible to get gunk of of them.
  • If I wear the glasses for part of the day and take them off, my vision does not go back to normal until after I sleep. It is like a third level of vision quality that I have and worse.
  • I've had more headaches since I've started wearing them. Isn't this supposed to prevent headaches?
  • I have to be careful of what I do while I have these on. They are fricking expensive.
  • I am a macro guy, not a micro guy. Details aren't exciting to me. I like the big picture, these just magnify certain things that I was ok with not seeing before. For example, a hair on a computer screen or a scratch on my car.
  • Yeah, I just hate having things in front of my eyes. Even glasses.

Walka-wear

No I didn't get shoes. It's even better than that. I have a pedometer that will upload through some software and sort out the number of steps I've done an hour, week or month. Why? Well, for my Information Visualization class, my group has decided to go with a health theme for our project. There is some research going on that is measuring steps of a certain group of people in order to motivate them with goals. We are going to try to convert this data into a meaningful visualization that will help motivate. In addition, I think in order to get me blogging again, I'll be reporting my step count on a regular basis on my blog.

Right now, I'm at 3477 steps and that is since about 2PM. It's almost 6 now. And if you are curious there are about 2000 steps in a mile. The recommended number of steps in a day is 10,000. Most people do not even come close to this. I know I don't but I am going to try. This is supposed to be a motivational tool after all right? It will get me blogging and walking!