Pic Spocket

Quick update on my weight loss program. The diet and training regimen started well! I did not cheat yet and the results are coming. Out of the 50 or 60 lbs I need to lose, I have lost over 20 lbs already, 12 lbs since starting training.

The rate is always much quicker at the beginning. I currently loose 2.7 lbs/week. This will drop down over time. One reason for that is the gain in muscle mass. 

As mentioned before, there is no better motivation than seeing results! Here’s the updated graph.

Click on chart for larger version

I am however unexpectedly leaving for a business trip to France this Sunday for 2 weeks. The 3-4 weeks trip for March is still on. While this is good for business and photography, the weight loss program will probably take a toll… No access to the gym (and when possible, very expensive), eating in restaurants all the time, long working hours, stress, etc. We’ll try to not deviate too much.

The 2009 NAIAS Detroit Auto Show was running for the last week or so. There is a photo contest organized for the show. People wanting to participate in the contest and showing up at the door with any other camera than a camera phone could access the show 1 hour before official opening last Tuesday.

I did not necessarily want to participate in the contest, but could not pass the opportunity to enter early while the crowds are not yet there. I always went to the show on weekends and it usually CRAZY over there. I usually end up with a headache from the sensory overload (light, noise, etc).

Maybe 20 or 30 people showed up for the early entrance. I’ll tell you: it seemed almost strange to walk this show with virtually no body there for a while. It helped to get many pictures without people in them. That being said, the show did not seem as big or as crowded as I usually see it. With the actual economic crisis, there were some big companies missing such as Nissan.

So I did not originally planned to participate, but finally submitted one picture per category of the photo contest. Here are my entries:

Convertibles and Coupes		Black and White Photos
Cutting Edge Concepts		Coolest Close-up
Luxury		Snapshots at the Show

There are many good submissions though and only one winner per category, so I really do not expect anything. It’s just for the heck of it. You can see the pictures submitted by other people here: 2009 NAIAS PHOTO CONTEST.

Here are some more of my pictures during the show:

You know it… larger versions and many more pictures in the album below. Enjoy!

Quick site update: the blog is not showing the default template pictures in the banner anymore.

It’s now randomly displaying some of my pictures.

I go to the gym 3 times a week for weight and cardio training. It is more beneficial for weight loss to do additional cardio sessions to that: ideally 4 to 6 sessions per week. However, I simply do not have the time (or even the desire) to go to the gym more often.  Just the round trip drive to the club, changing, shower and you lost at least one hour, without the actual cardio session.

So the best is to be able to train at home. I have often thought of this in the past, but made a move. While you can get a decent treadmill around $1000 or less, my knees can’t stand the impact. I am not too big on stationary bikes either. And the last thing I want to do is spend money on something I will not use. I always have been a fan of elliptic trainers, especially the ones with arms. You can really push hard if you want, get really good workouts using your complete body, and there is no impact on joints.

The downside of these machines is the price. The cheap ones are really crap. Moreover, when you get use to the heavy duty club machines, it’s hard to find a “home grade” machine at a reasonable price that feels good and solid.

 A very natural stride combined with a smooth motion is a must if you want to enjoy your workout and minimize stress on your body. For that reason, I really wanted a rear drive elliptic with magnetic resistance: these always felt more natural in the clubs I frequented. So I headed to my local fitness shop a few weeks ago and tried many machines of all prices. One machine brand really seemed in a different class: Octane Fitness. It’s a very compact front drive system, but the motion is incredibly smooth and natural. And their entry level machine, the Q35, is affordable although more expensive than my original budget walking in the store. But that seems to be my life story…

After more research, reading all the positive reviews online, I decided to go for it. I decided a while back that money (wisely) spent on health and fitness is worth it. Here are some pictures of the machine from Octane Fitness’ website.

One funny story is that coming back from the store I had big plans to put the machine in the back of our home theater in the basement. There is a huge empty space behind the couch.  I was picturing myself watching DVD’s on the big screen while exercising. Of course, I bought the machine with these plans in mind before consulting my wife.. That did not go too well hehe! She categorically refused the idea. Both camping on our grounds, we did not speak to each other for a day

 I finally caved in and changed plans. It’s tight, but after moving things around I found a place to put it in my home gym. And I shopped for a small LCD TV to put in front of it. I got a 22” Samsung LCD with a cheap DVD player. That was an unexpected additional expense, so the whole project put a serious dent in the small amount of savings I had. That alone will be motivation to use it!

Here it is in my home gym, with the entertainment setup:

So now, I have no excuse to not do 5-6 cardio sessions per week, including the ones at the club. I’ve been using the new machine for about 2 weeks now, and I really love it. I started to watch Season 1 of “Prison Break” while training. I do not see the time pass while I watch which helps a lot!

I posted recently some pictures of the ‘psychedelic tunnel’ on the Detroit Airport. I mostly posted wide shots of the corridor at that time.

Few weeks later, I was back at the airport for some more business travel and took more pictures. This time, I focused on the details of the back-lighted walls. The walls are made of frosted glass panels, embossed with patterns that flow continuously between panels. Here are some of these detailed pictures:

While I was there, I also took few pictures of the access to this psychedelic tunnel.

Finally, I took some pictures of the shuttle train and long corridor of the main A Terminal. The long corridor helps creating leading lines in the photograph that hopefully draws the viewer’s eyes inside the frame.

More additional pictures were added in the original album, linked below.

 If you’ve known me for a while, you have seen me quite heavy and quite skinny. Between my sweet tooth and my low metabolism (efficient body), I am naturally overweight without taking any corrective measures.

More than a decade ago, I did a training and diet regimen that made me lose about 60 pounds, from 223 to 165 (I pretty much looked sick at that point).  Then I moved into a rural area, started a new job, stopped working out and gained everything back in the following years.

Then I did the weight loss thing again in 2002 with success. But since then my weight have followed a roller coaster. After a while, either a vacation time or a period with frequent business trips will trigger a slip and I let myself go for a while. In the period till 2007, I have been good at catching myself up before it was too late and bring it back down. But since, I completely lost it and recently reached my heaviest state to date, last December: 228 lbs. Here is a graph of my weight from 2002 to early January. Did somebody say “saw tooth”!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

For the last year I’ve been saying to myself that I needed to do something but without acting on it. Last December I went to Mexico…
  

(more…)

Last weekend, we went for another walk at Ojibway Park with Newton. Our dog really LOVES the snow. He actually becomes a bit crazy when there is snow on the ground. He jumps in it, hides in it, digs in it, hide his toys in it, etc.

 So the of course Newton had a blast after the snowfall last weekend.

We encountered the usual suspects: Cardinals, Woodpeckers and Tufted Titmouse.

Hope you liked the pictures. The album has much more.

I have a bunch of stuff to post, but time is missing. In the meantime, here is something interesting on the net: some of the best news photographs from 2008.

You may want to skip the black ones with warnings for graphic content. Otherwise, there are several awesome inspiring pictures in the lot!

Here are the links

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

We’re back from out annual Christmas trip to Quebec City. That’s about a 12 hours drive from where we live. We brought Newton our dog with us. Turns out he travels really good! We did the 1st trip in 2 days, to give him a chance, but came back in one shot. We did not hear him for the whole trip. We just had to stop every 3 hours and let him run a bit.

Newton is still a handful sometimes, and I could not leave it too much alone at my parent’s home. The first time we did, it did not go too well. So we did not get to see all of our friends as we usually do.

We got away one night for our annual dinner with my friends that I know from the university. We see each other at least once every year since our graduation in ‘96. Steve and Isabelle were unfortunately unable to make it since they have a newborn (Congratulations!!!)

The dinner was awesome, and the party had a lot of energy afterwards for the 6 persons that we were. Thanks to Jean and Renette for the invitation!

With 2 photography enthusiast (with Martin), we did take a lot of pictures that night! We also played with my new wireless flash controller that allowed us to use the flash off-camera.

Here are a few pictures from that night!

Bigger versions and much more in the album linked below.