The Column

Motto: If you can't eat it you don't need it. I'm ending the October Project a few days early. First I'm going to post the picture you've probably already noticed. Next, I'm going to share with you my subjective and objective results. Finally, I'm going to reflect and give you my thoughts on the whole thing. Picture: Subjectively:  I feel like I fit clothes a bit better.  My walk can now slightly more accurately be described as a "lumber". My hair got a little shorter, my shorts changed color, and I adorned wrist accessories. Objectively: My head circumference was off by 0.25 inches. Either I got way smarter or my measurements have a 0.25 inch margin of error. I used a control because science. My chest (under armpits and around) and my waist both grew by over an inch. My forearms, arms, and neck all grew by at least half an inch. My upper and lower legs and stomach didn't grow beyond my margin of error. I gained 7 poun...

Motto: I wish they played basketball in the NBA I've kind of decided the whole "Wednesday Sunday" update thing will be more like a guideline than a rule. I'll try to do two a week. Because this is Wednesdays post - I guess that means I have to write one tomorrow too? Wednesday I couldn't write because I went to Wichita to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder play the Chicago Bulls. I've never watched an NBA game in person, so I made sure to take advantage of the opportunity. Generally, I don't like the NBA. You don't see the passion and you don't see the teamwork that I'm used to watching in college ball. I hoped that it would be different if I watched it in person - maybe it was just the magic of television making the players look like they didn't care. It wasn't. They don't look like they care about basketball. The only time I really saw anyone show any real semblance of passion was when they had a chance to make themselves lo...

Motto: He then let out a mighty, roaring mew Melissa and I each got a kitten. We named them Thor and Loki and they are awesome. I am going to dedicate this Column to gushing about the kittens. I'm going to get out all of the crazy kitten pictures out of my system. Starting now. Thor and Loki They Play They Fall Asleep Reading Reddit They Stay Ever Vigilant  They Respect and Fear the Hulk All pictures taken by Melissa. She wanted credit. I'm giving her credit both for the pictures and for wanting the credit for the pictures. Continuing with the kitten theme - I made this recording earlier today: About the cats - they are interesting. I'm going to probably tell some stories about them at some point because they are interesting. They have these complex and unique personalities. They are so interesting. The following video is a one minute commitment: Column #125 - The Asgardians - Volume 1 from Aaron Gillespie on Vimeo . I had to cr...

Motto: the Fattening The October Project is half over. Brief recap - I'm doing a month long project that can basically be summarized as "Eat more, workout more"; and it's half over. Although I've done a shakey-at-best job of meeting my goals, it has already revealed a couple of interesting things: First off, I now weigh 227 lbs... meaning I've gained 7 pounds in 17 days. I think the majority of that weight has been in areas I wasn't hoping to gain weight in - but I think some of it went where I wanted. If I hit 235 lbs (another 7 pounds) before the end of October I'm going to STOP . Note that 235 lbs is not my goal weight. I think 225 is probably where I'd like to be. Having said that, I'm 227 right now and still trying to gain weight because I'm stubborn and because I don't like to give up on projects. The other, much more interesting thing that's happened is my macronutrient ratio has remained 99% constant. Macronutri...

Motto: Owed In Son Today is Monday. Today is not Sunday. I didn't get my workouts done consistently last week. I'm going to lift as soon as I post this. This post is going to be short. I'm mostly writing it to get the video that I made specifically for this post online. I like it. It's 30 seconds I cut together of the disc golf I played with cousin Jon. Thor: The Dark World comes out in a little under four weeks. It's the last time we'll see Loki, as far as we know. Loki isn't going to be in The Avengers 2 (Age of Ultron). Speaking of the Avengers: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on TV. It's pretty cheesy. It seems like it's supposed to appeal to a more general public than comic book nerds. Either way, I'm recording it every week (thanks to Google Fiber). In other news - t he Nexus 5 comes out in... ugh. They still haven't announced that one. I'm very upset about it... Random thought - It seems like nobody on ...

Motto: Darn the Bad Luck There I got sick. It ruined everything. I haven't worked out since Friday. I had less than HALF my goal calories yesterday. I also missed my Wednesday post time. I didn't get to splice together the video I wanted to make for this Column. I'm angry about it. I will not start another sentence in this post with the word "I". Let's talk for a second about photo backup and storage - First off, if you are storing your photos on your phone and nowhere else that's bad. Don't do that. Either pull them off your phone manually every couple of weeks or, better yet, install an app that backs them up for you. There are several services on Android and iOS that do that. Dropbox, iCloud, Google+, Flickr, and others all offer private, automatic photo upload of some sort. They all work, but I'm going to tell you about the two with which I have experience. Dropbox is a great service. It is essentially just a folder on ...

Motto: Otto Octavius was in a skydiving accident. Sadly, he's now an octoplegic. Before I start talking about these things, I'd just like to say that I have not given up the ambition to complete any of the projects I'm talking about in today's Column.  I always have kept a running list of ideas for fun things to do with my down time. Projects for me are what TV is to others. If I don't know how to fill out an evening, you'd probably have a decent-to-good chance of finding me working on any of the things listed in this column. With out further ado, trials, and/or tribulations, I present to you the list of projects not-yet-done: Videos Rather than talk about each video individually, here's a list of potential synopses: "Red-Green Colorblind" - where the person just can't see red or green objects "Life Before the Internet" - series of videos falsely remembering life 20 years ago "First Ever Photobomb Vid...

Motto: Like Before, but More It's October. That means a few things - Halloween is coming, it's getting colder, and my second second-a-day video is already 16% done. I was writing in my Moleskin e during lunch on Tuesday (the 1st), when I realized I wanted to try something big for October. A post came up the other day on r/fitness about what really really tall weightlifters can and cannot do well. I learned a few things from reading that (for example, 6'2" is considered really really tall for some people). From that post, I moved on to articles aimed at weightlifting for the "vertically gifted". I decided that, with my diet, I hadn't ever given my body much of a chance. Here's what I wrote - So that's my plan. The October Project: get Large.  ...and because I'm Life Tracking, I'll be able to see objectively how well I adhered to the guidelines. Day 0: 223 lbs Day 1 - Calories - 3013 Fats - 85 Carbs - 454 Pr...