Portable music players

Almost every person today is owned a portable music device. It became very popular, therefore music players are everywhere, and are not so expensive.
Most of the devices today come with very large capacity of memory that can keep all of your songs, so when you carry your portable device with you, you are actually carry all of your songs.
There are 2 main technologies; small devices use a flash memory, which is an electronic chip of memory, and larger devices use a magnetic disk. Devices with a magnetic disk have larger memory than devices based flash memory. However, flash memory devices are much smaller, and are very comfortable to use when exercising.

Music devices organize the music by artist, genre, album, personal playlists and more. When I find time, I create play lists of different types of music. For example, workout music, 90s, 80s, trance "shmans"... However, having so much music is often confusing, and it's not easy to choose what to play. Therefore, what I really like the most is to just to play the entire list, after all, it contains all the songs that I am supposed to like.

Rock climbing

The day after Thanksgiving 2008, I went rock climbing with my brother in law Evan. I have done it once before, but this was my first official one.

There are 2 types of climbing, one is usually a very tall wall, and you need to tie yourself to one edge of the rope while the other person that with you is tied to the other edge. It is very important to communicate with the other person since he is supposed to hold the rope in case you fall. Once you get to the top (if you do), you have to signal the person at the bottom and make sure he is ready to get you down; he can do it by releasing the rope slowly while still pulling the rope down which makes it still partially locked. The second type is climbing on low walls without ropes. An individual climber places a thick mattress at the bottom in case of a fall. It is usually more technical and if he gets to the top he can dab the X and then he jumps on the mattress.

All the walls have little rocks, and each rock has a piece of colored tape underneath that indicates the track that you are climbing on. There are different levels of tracks; harder tracks require you to use different technique since the rocks are spread on the wall and are pretty far from each other. On the other hand, easy tracks have more rocks and the rocks are closer to each other; what makes it easier to climb since you don't need to make big steps, and you have more options.

It was a fun experience and very challenging. However, there was something that made me feel uncomfortable. Using certain muscles that I normally don't use, caused me some kind of weakness in my arms, and it felt scary being up high without being able to hold myself close to the wall. But eventually I got used to it even though it was hurting from time to time. But like in every sport, practicing improves your abilities.

Are you a rabbit? He said...

It was lunch time, I was eating with a group of people from work. Everybody got his food and of course me, I had a salad; a good one actually with lots of greens and good stuff. the guy in front of me had pizza and cola. After not more than 10 minutes he swallowed 2 slices of fatty juicy triangles with some kind of dead meat on top, the cola was gone too I think and he already had the look of a "food coma" on his face. I was still eating my salad since it was huge. Then he said to me: "Are you a rabbit or what??" I was not surprised by the comment and immediately responded to him: "Are you a garbage can or what??" At first he didn't get it, but then I explained to him that if eating some greens makes me a rabbit then eating junk(food) makes him a garbage can...
I would prefer to be the rabbit in this story, and you?

Spices

 

Something smells good here...
Spices are great addition to make your food tasty. It's a whole world of flavors that can be on your shelf.
When I started using spices in food I had a hard time choosing the right one that fits the meal. Since they are all different it's not so easy to know how to choose the right one and when. Some spices go well with cold meals, like Gazpacho soup or a salad, and some go better with warm meals; it doesn't always work if you don't use the right one. It may take a while to get to know better about which spices to use and when. However, if you start with some basic ones like paprika, pepper, chili Basil it will give you a sense of idea and then you can start "getting crazy" and try some spices that nobody has heard of...

I found that using rosemary and basil on a chopped salad gives your salad a refreshing taste. Also, using cinnamon on a sweet potate can make a great sweet and healthy side dish; and please don't ruining it by adding sugar.

Spices are the tools of the chef. If you made a mistake by using the wrong spices you can always "fix" it by adding others.

Bon appetit...

Free food is NOT Fat free

Think about this phrase for a second...
We all like to get free stuff. It almost feels like winning a lottery or something. However, when the free stuff is food, we barely think twice and it's already in our mouth; even if we are not hungry. We tend to forget that our body is not a garbage can, but we are happy because it's free.
This is when my phrase comes into picture, when we get free food, it has the same amount of calories and fat as if we would have paid for it. So we shouldn't forget it, and for the next time when somebody offers you any kind of food or drink for free, whisper to yourself: "Free food is NOT Fat free... and think twice if you need it or not; and It's OK to say "no thank you", leave it for the next garbage can in the area.


"Free food is NOT Fat free" - Created by me...

Heart rate monitors

I have recently started using a watch that can read my heart rate while I'm exercising.
There are two types of watches: One that has a chest strap, and one that doesn't. The watch with the chest strap measures your heart rate continuously unlike the one without it; I have been using the one with the chest strap. I found it very motivating and helpful. It's very important to know your heart rate per minute in order to improve your shape. The watch tells you the range of the rate that you want to be in, based on the selected exercise; so if it's below the lower range, you would know to increase the exercise and vice versa.

Based on your age, height, weight and gender it also tells you during or after the exercise the amount of calories you burned and the maximum and average rate of the workout. For example, I used it when I was mountain biking for about an hour and a half; it was pretty amazing to see that you burned about 600-700 calories.

And what makes it more like a personal trainer, is that every midnight on Sundays it puts an icon of a trophy if you reached the goal that you previously selected.

Pumpkins

Fall is normally not my favorite season; the weather gets colder and it's the end of the summer...
However, it's the pumpkins season which is really nice. Many people use them for decoration for Halloween, and then cook them; they are really tasty and are good source for Calcium (good for bones), Potassium (good for the brain and nerves), vitamin A and C; pumpkin is also low in calories, so you don't need to worry if you are on a diet. I simply like to cook it in the oven and then put some spices on it; it's a great side dish that can go with almost anything. It can also be a great dessert with some cinnamon on top. Enjoy...

First Aid

Yesterday I attended a first aid training class. It was held at my office from 5pm to 9pm. Unlike CPR class, first aid is very basic, and in most of the incidents they teach you that you should call 911. However, I found it very useful for me, since the last time I took a CPR course as a Ju-Jitsu trainer was 13 years ago, and it's good to refresh the knowledge about it. I would recommend everyone to take a basic first aid course or even CPR if you can. You never know when you need it...

Little things…

I sometimes find myself doing things in a different order; I am talking about little things that we do during the day. For example, if I forgot something in the room while the light is on, I would turn the light off and then walk in to grab what I need. I just did it recently and noticed that it wasn't the first time. As a result I walked into the room can hardly see anything and I almost spill the glass when I reached it. The thing is that after I did the first step I wouldn't go back to turn the light on, since I already passed the switch; weird…
I know that if I take another second or 2, just to plan or think about those little events during the day, I would do it in a better way.

Before I leave the house, it usually takes me forever to me make sure I took everything I need, and turned off all the lights, heat, closed all windows and debating with myself: "do I need my mp3 player?, do I need sunglasses? Hat etc…

When I get out of the car and too many personal items to carry, instead of just taking some and come back for the rest, I would try to carry all of them at once. For most of the times I make it home safe without dropping anything. However, it's not so comfortable to walk out of the car with mail, sunglasses, phone, bag, keys and whatever I have to take with me and then lock the car, and then try to open the door of the house while I'm using my chin to make sure things won't fall…

There is must be a better way; I guess I haven't found it yet...

My first computer

In the late 1980's, my father bought us our first computer from one of his coworkers. Atari 800 XL, was the model, and it came with games and even books of how to create little programs. At that time, internet was not for the public, and without a modem it was impossible to communicate with each other, so it was harder to get new games. However, I was lucky to have a few friends with the same computer, so we were able to share and copy games to each other. Having a first computer was a special experience, and the games were way more simple than today's games. There were no special computer monitors at that time, and computers from those types were plugged into televisions; we had a little 14" color TV that was served us as a TV and a monitor. Some of the games were made for a single player, and some for multiple players. I remember how my sister and I used to play games together after school. Even though the graphic of the games was simple, the games were fun to play with. Unlike many games today that are very sophisticated and hard to operate, that the player loses the interest of the playing. After about a year, I bough a printer from a friend. It had a little black pen that you could actually see how it draws every single letter.

Today, Atari computer is a nostalgia in the computer world, and can be easily be an item in a Hi-Tech museum.

Mountain Biking

This summer I have started a new hobby; Mountain biking...
I ride on off-road trails and parks. In addition to off-road riding, I also ride on the road/side walks to some places. Back in Israel I used to ride a scooter (50cc and then 125cc). It was fun and convenient but riding a bicycle is something else; to everywhere you go, you have to use your legs, and the more you ride the better and stronger they get. In the parks it feels great and powerful to be able to ride on rocks, logs and anything that is on your way. If your bike has full suspension, that means that you have springs in front and in back; it makes the off-road softer and allow you to jump off things and land softly.

Power breakfast!!!

Good morning everybody...

It is finally morning, I can't wait to have my delicious meal which I call "Power Breakfast". What you see in the picture below made of of great ingredients with no added sugar (which is bad for you) or extra oil.

The Ingredients are:
1) Rolled oats
2) Walnuts
3) Pecans
4) Almonds
5) Blueberries
6) Goji berries (also called Wolf berries - Originally from China) - you can replace with raisins.
7) Soy milk
8) Pumpkin seeds

A breakfast like this give your body many important vitamins and minerals and enough energy to prevent unhealthy snacks before lunch. I just want warn you in case you are watching your weight. It may contain large amount of fat from the nuts, but this is a good source of fat. And you can decrease the amounts depending on your diet. However, I would recommend exercising on a daily basis, so the calories you intake are not larger that the calories you burn.

Bon Appetit...