Written by There was no moon, but the stars — you’ve never seen stars, if you’ve only seen ‘em from England. They don’t twinkle faintly in the tropics, they blaze; and the sea … it was alive with phosphorescence. Our wake and our bow-wave were great swirling tracks made up of billions of spots of white light, and all the sea on both sides was full of deep glowing movements — fishes darting through the depths, great shimmering clouds and veils of shadowy color, little surges and whirlpools of light far below — once or twice in your life you get a night like that, and it’s a sight to leave you breathless.
— The Ruby in the Smoke, Philip Pullman
Stars
Keys
It was a nice bunch of keys that he brought out, for two were golden and many were richly ornamented: you could see at once that they were keys made for opening solemn and secret rooms in palaces, or chests and caskets of sweet-smelling wood that contained royal treasures. — The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis
At the lake
Patrick and I are spending some time up north with the parents :-)
The camping trip that never happened
Patrick and I had big plans to go camping this weekend, but the storms derailed us. We had planned to go to Glacial Lakes State Park a little northwest of St. Cloud. I had reserved us a cute-looking site isolated from everything else, and we would spend two nights there.
Looking back, I wasn’t properly prepared for the trip in the first place, so it was probably a good thing we called it off:
- I got a car permit through a donation to MPR, but I found out they wouldn’t ship it until June, so I had to scramble to borrow someone else’s. (And it arrived today, the day we were supposed to get back, btw.)
- I was planning on renting a tent from REI, but I waffled on spending the money because I could also have borrowed one from a number of people. I ended up grabbing one from my parents’ place the night before, and I didn’t know how to set it up.
- Our menu was a little haphazard, and I didn’t do any fancy prepping and packaging ahead of time. We would have rolled in with a Target bag.
- I packed a lot of stuff the morning of, and I don’t have the proper backpack gear.
- I felt rushed that whole week at work and had zero time in the evenings before, so there was never enough time to really prep properly.
So all in all, I’m out the fee for booking the site, and Patrick had bought the food, but at least we stayed out of the storms. We did watch the radar and several red blobs went over the park, so I’m sure it was the right decision.
Lessons I learned:
- Get your permits early!
- Don’t pay to reserve a campsite if (a) it’s before Memorial Day or after Labor Day and (b) the park is outside the metro area.
- Pack early, especially food. Just grab and go in the morning.
At least I know I’ll be looking forward to the next one!
Work rumors
Lots of rumors going around at work about the reorganization. It doesn’t affect the majority of the museum but it’s all I’m talking about with my direct coworkers. What we know right now is that our three departments will be dissolved and re-combined. There will be some new resource pools (teachers, materials coordinators, registration personnel) that will be used by project managers to run permanent programs (like my birthday parties) or grant-funded projects.
My boss will be doing some sort of new job writing more grants, and I know I won’t be reporting to her any more. This is actually pretty sad for me, since Kit’s been my mentor for years and I want to continue learning about leadership and management from her. But there will be some new challenges and opportunities to grow, so that’s always exciting.
Also good work news: I’m going to a conference in July! Even better, I did some networking and was asked to present at a session! Very cool and we’ll see how it all develops. Though I pity those who have to see first-hand how much I’ll sweat in mid-July Orlando weather.
Training
I finished the plan I was working on. Was fun to do and satisfying to finish, but then I felt a little stranded. After finishing it I got sick for a week and it totally threw me off.
So to get a fresh start, I signed up for a little personal training. I’ve been to three sessions already (at 5 in the morning, ugh) and I have six left. It’s great to have someone to teach me new things, give me feedback and push me harder. I think that last one is probably the most useful. I need a good kick in the pants to get me to where I know I can be.
In other news, our department is getting reshuffled and I think I’ll find details out this week. I’ll still have a job, but it might be different!
New routine
Hey everyone! Just thought I’d give a quick fitness update. I was tired of trying to plan workouts each and every time I went to the gym (and as we all know, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail). So I picked a workout plan from one of my fav fitness sites, Muscle and Strength. It’s called Shaun’s 3 Day Muscle Building Split Workout and it’s a collection of pretty classic big muscle group exercises. Nothing too fancy, just back to basics here. I needed a reason to get back to the gym more regularly, so here it is! I’ve done a week and it’s good so far. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Last personal training session
Had the last session with the personal trainer today. I have to say I’ve really enjoyed going the past four weeks. I can’t say I’ll be paying for more any time soon, but it was great to have someone else logging the workout, telling me to keep going, etc. I also picked up a lot of new exercises that I’ll definitely be working into some workout plans (although not everything — there were some ridiculous things I was embarrassed to do in a gym full of people). I really liked that the exercises she gave me usually incorporated cardio and core/stability work. I’ll definitely be using the bouncy exercise balls from now on.
Dinner tonight: Yummy rice and beans — extra easy when you buy the pre-seasoned beans and use up some celery, too.
She kicked my ass!
Well maybe that’s a stretch. But my first session with a personal trainer on Monday was pretty intense. We spent an hour doing strength exercises, some with body weight and most with free weights. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t any cardio involved, so I think next time I’ll get there 10 minutes ahead and go for a jog to warm up.
Here’s a run-down of the exercises:
- Walking lunges, with twists (20 lbs.)
- Tricep dips (bodyweight)
- This strange lat pull that was like a row with some leg action mixed in (40-50 lbs.)
- Leg curls (20 lbs.)
- Something she called a “delt matrix” which was basically a couple different deltoid raises in a routine (10 lbs.)
- Dumbbell press on a Swiss ball (25 lbs.)
- Bicep curls while squatting against the wall (20 lbs.)
- Squats in a padded machine thing that felt like a roller coaster seat (80 lbs.)
I really liked that she incorporated some core work into standard exercises, like adding twists to the lunges (which was kind of embarrassing but worked well) and squatting against the wall with the bicep curls.
I was pretty damn sore the day after, and even today I was so exhausted that I couldn’t make it to the gym. I think I’ll make up for tomorrow after happy hour and Saturday after work.
Fitness
At the suggestion of the Get Fit Guy podcast, I’m going to try blogging my fitness experiences in the hopes that putting them out there for everyone to see will hold me more accountable and make me commit to them more. We’ll see!
On Monday this week I got a fitness assessment at Life Time. There were some goofy/gimmicky parts, like calculating my “body age,” but the most useful parts were when they gave me some reliable data about myself.
First, the personal trainer measured by body fat percentage. I came in at 9.8 percent, which is very low and much lower than I was expecting. She measured it with a caliper, which is more accurate than electrical impedance but less accurate than other methods. She did it through my clothes, so I’m thinking there was a little overestimation there. Nevertheless I’m really happy with this result and I’m excited to see if I can get it any lower. The fitness assessment and some charts I found online say that going too low could get me into the unhealthy range, but I maintain such good nutrition and activity that I think I’ll be OK. Being underweight isn’t a big concern for me.
Second, the personal trainer measured my VO2 max, which is an assessment of my body’s ability to take in oxygen (aka aerobic capacity). She measured this with a program on a treadmill. I entered my weight, gender and other vitals, power walked/jogged for five minutes and then measured my heart rate with the on-board sensors. My result was 42.9 ml/kg/min. Again, this was an OK way to measure it, but there’s always room for more accuracy. The fitness assessment said this was average, so I guess I’m happy with it, but I know I’d like to work toward greater aerobic capacity.
This Monday is my first workout session with the personal trainer. Since I’m doing this with free “My LT bucks,” I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll let you know how it goes!