Geocaching

Well, it's not running but at least it gets me out of the house.

The only bummer was that out of four caches I found none. When I was back at home I looked up all the geocache 'hints' and I'll probably go back out today and find them.

Wow man, like what a flashback.

Ah yes, I remember those days. Listening to Led Zeppelin, The Who, Moody Blues, The Kinks etc. while smoking special cigarettes... My twenties had some good, waisted times.

What jarred me into this flashback was my inability to figure out the obvious. Okay, you have to picture this; I set up my speakers differently and I wanted to test the sound, so I've got Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon going as my test music. I start getting into it and decide to just sit back and let it play through. It was sounding great.

When I was a younger man and I was in this situation I would pick up the TV remote, mute the sound and flip channels. I became quite proficient at reading lips. So that's what I did. I spent about 30 seconds trying to read the lips of the characters of one of my favorite shows before I realized the problem... I was watching Family Guy.

If there is anybody reading this who doesn't understand what the problem was may I suggest you give sobriety a try?

Oh, and FYI, I haven't had ant 'special' cigarettes in years. :-)

Goodbye Geocaching

I wasn't sure which blog to put this in. I have several under a different name. :p However it is somewhat fitness related so here it lives.

Geocaching is wonderful. I never went into it like some people, purchasing all kinds of specific equipment. Okay, I guess there's really only one required piece of equipment, a GPS device, but I do know some people plan vacations around geocaching and parties and basically have great fun with it.

I, on the other hand, fell into it. My Garmin Forerunner 205 that I purchased a few years back has a compass screen and a way to input GPS co-ordinates so it was just so easy to download waypoints for my area, load them into my watch and head out the door. Although not the intended use it did feel wonderfully geeky. I'd occasionally run into someone hunting the same treasure, with their big, clunky hand-held GPS device and I'd stroll by intently looking at my wrist, wether I needed to at that precise moment or not, to wow them with my spy gear technology.

I have used geocaching when I haven't been able to actually run but still wanted some exercise. I've used geocaching as my run, running to and fro, to break up the monotony of the same course. My ex-wife even came with me once. (Or rather I had convinced her she's enjoy it, which she did not. I should have known this. I mean she's an ex and I'm still trying to convince her things are more fun my way. That's it... tomorrow I'm going to be open minded and try it her way! Tomorrow I'm having Pizza Pops, a bottle of Coke and watching The Price is Right.) I'm pretty sure I took my lithium but I'll double check.

Now comes the unfortunate part. I kind of don't want to say anything because I don't want some scoundrel saying they read the idea here. However it's happening so I suppose it doesn't matter who said what & when. Advertising has found its way into geocaching.

I'm not going to post the links of the advertiser's here, I don't want to give them the extra business, but one was an offer to make geocaches and place them in your business to lure geocachers. I think that's hilarious. The second one uses technology that I don't understand. They offer to place you business name in the waypoint so when people are looking at the caches they want to hunt for your name appears on their screen. Sounds like just naming the waypoint as your business.

So these seem kind of lame but how long before I open a cache and find a pizza coupon, or a Wal-Mart flyer?

If you think I'm being cynical you have to keep in mind that I had an internet connection long before the World Wide Web came along. Yes, there was and is an internet aside from the web. The web simply makes use of it. There was a plethora of people saying not to worry, the web will make things easier but the business world sees no interest in it. (Cough)

Well, not a very positive post for not having posted for a while. I'll try to be more positive later. :-) Now I have to go geocaching and see if I can find a coupon for a free burger.

[EDIT]

I think I failed to make my point. All I was trying to say is, even though I did not geocache very often, I took some pleasure in knowing the completely free, healthy and fun activity was available any time. It is said to see it being exploited.

Larger Rant. Skinny Chicks

This is what I intended to rant about before the last rant got in the way.

I don't leave my apartment much. I suffer from an assortment of psychological issues that make it difficult for me to go out in public. However, I do have to see my doctor quite regularly and that means taking public transit. (It's ironic that I have to go out in public to see my doctor to get the meds that make it easier for me to go out in public) Lucky for me a bus leave my street and goes all the way to my doctor's office across town.

Happily for me when I board the bus it's practically empty, then it becomes standing room only as it goes through town, and by the time I reach my doctor's office it's practically empty again. This allows me to be an observer. I feel like a spy with my dark glasses (if you can't see my eyes you can't really see me), toque and iPod.

An observation I have made is about women and size. Why are there so many underfed females these days? I mean if you have a butt the size of two baseballs you're probably not eating enough. Is this sexy? They make it worse by wearing, what I just learned are called, 'skinny jeans'. These jeans are designed to follow the contours of the wearer's skeleton. I even observed one woman who must have been six or seven months pregnant and she was skin and bone!

I've always equated sexy and beauty with 'healthy'. There's nothing healthy about zero percent body fat. Shouldn't there be a little muscle in you butt? I keep expecting these women to faint from the effort of boarding the bus. They practically have to use two hands to pul the cord to let the driver know they want to get off. God forbid anyone hands them a helium balloon to hold on to.

So I think we need to start a "Feed the Skinny Chicks" foundation. We can walk around town and hand out hamburgers and ice cream sandwiches.

Thankfully this seems to be something that women outgrow by their late twenties and they start to fill out to the point of actually having hips.

I'll end the rant here. It's really none of my business how much people weigh. I just feel that it's become trendy to weigh nothing and I had to say something. I know anorexia is a serious issue and I'm not trying to make light (Pardon the pun) of the situation.

Who are the people telling women that this is something to emulate? Hollywood? The fashion industry? Men?

Small Rant

So I'm sucking back my morning coffee and the TV is on. (Not my doing) and this commercial comes on advertising a college. You know, one of those private colleges. The girl in the ad says "I can't believe how much I learnt!"

What quality of education is someone attending that college going to receive?

Then, still on the same cup of coffee, a realty person said "It's a whole nother room."

I turned the TV off.

I'm meeting a new psychiatrist in less than two hours from now. So keep that in mind if I sound like I'm ranting. :-)

Getting it Togther

So I'm trying to decide if I should stat another blog about my issues with bipolar or if I should just write about it in my running blog.

It seems to me that people write about everything that effects (affects?(I always get these words interposed)) their lives.

This applies to podcasts as well. What would 4feetrunning be like if we didn't hear about a crazy boss, Garmin eating dog, and a stranger's enthusiastic praise of Nik's chest? (From ep. 1 and possibly the same guy who insulted her shirt mentioned in the last ep.)

Where would we be without Steve Runner's sermons... er, insights in Phedipid... phadip... that running podcast he does?

Of course there are many more, too many to list.

So I'm going to write about everything here and hopefully I'll get some running done and can share my progress. I haven't run much in the last years as is reflected in the sidebar.

My homework this week from my psychiatrist is to contemplate where I developed my morals/conscience from, considering I come from a family that shares none of my values. (Plus a couple of other projects I won't share here... too personal and boring I'm sure.)

Diagnosed bipolar/manic depressive

For anyone who's tried to follow my blogs over the years it's probably been difficult as I disappear for months at a time. Only to come back as a different incarnation.

Such is my life. Now I have some answers as to why I pull out of communities in which I've come to enjoy, such as the running community.

I have been diagnosed as bipolar. This is actually a good thing as I now have a course of treatment and can begin to build a somewhat normal life. And it doesn't appear that the medications are going to affect my fitness or ability to run or work out.

Will post more when my treatment has been refined and my life is back on track.