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Crabs

I know I said I’ll post about the hike… The problem is that the hike post wouldn’t be any good without some decent pictures. I did go out and take some pictures but it happened to be very cloudy that day and I din’t get out early enough to catch the animals out and about. So I’ll see if I can get some pictures of the animals. I would at least like to get a picture of the deer family that I always see if I get out there early enough. I usually also get to see a family of turkeys and a bunch of jack rabbits. Once I saw a bobcat hungrily gazing at the turkeys from the next hill, a rare sight. Also saw a silver fox one morning; he was trotting down the path just far enough away to be safe.

Meanwhile, here is a picture of our pet crab for your enjoyment. We actually have two crabs. They’re both about the same size. (approximately 2 inches across) We caught them in the tidepools of a beach near here called the Pebble Beach. No not the one where they play golf; this one is more closer to Half Moon Bay. The crab in the picture is enjoying his meal of turkey breast. (just a sliver)

Here are some pictures from our trip to the Pebble Beach, a bit over two months ago… You quickly understand the reason for the beach’s name when you get there. Instead of the usual sand, the beach is covered with… pebbles. Thousands of teeny, tiny, wonderfully colorful pebbles.

The pebbles are everywhere. They cover the beach and your feet sink into them with a somewhat strange feeling. They feel good in your hand and they look very pretty scattered on the sandstones. There’s a prominent sign at the beach warning you NOT to take any pebbles home. I can see why the sign would be needed. My daughter really wanted to take a bunch home and was sad to leave behind the pretty ones she had picked out.

The pebbles connect to an outcropping of well fissured rocks that hold pools of water as the tide rolls in and out. Most of the pools are occupied by one or two crabs. (Click the picture on the right to see one hiding) The people who took us to the beach managed to catch two crabs and let us have them to keep as pets. (Their children already have a hermit crab for their pet) Those round, green things in the picture are anemones.

One smart thing I did was to take a small rock from the beach that day. (I know, even though the sign only warned about pebbles, I shouldn’t take rocks either. But I needed something that the crabs could get on to breath while in the water. I didn’t want them dead by the time we got them home.) The black rock, shaped like a bent wedge, seems to provide a familiar surrounding for the crabs and provides little hiding places as well. We keep the crabs in a clear plastic tub about the size of a large shoebox. I’m glad they at least have the rock to climb on and hide under. Without the rock, it would be awfully boring for them. You can tell the crabs feel much more at ease when they have squeezed themselves well into the space under the rock. (The rock is also a necessity, by the way. They do need to get out of the water once in a while to breathe.)

The kids named the crabs “Stu” and something else which I can’t remember right now. (Finally remembered; it’s “Speedy”) I think that’s Stu in the picture above. He is eating the usual meal of a sliver of turkey breast. (It’s incredibly entertaining to watch crabs eat, by the way) We did try the fish pellets from the pet shop but those things made the water really dirty very quickly. Since crabs are scavengers, I figured it wouldn’t really matter what kind of meat we gave them as long as the pieces are small enough. They seem to like the turkey fine and it keeps the water so much cleaner. We also give them some lettuce once in a while. If you know anything about crab diet, please let me know. They seem to be doing well but it would be good to get some advice from someone knowledgeable.

I thnk it’s a miracle that we haven’t killed them both yet. One of them did get very sick early on and was quite near death. After we tried out those fish pellets, the water got very dirty and I was lazy about changing it. Also, I wasn’t sure how I was to provide them with the right salt water. But seeing the crab near death, I did some reading on the web and picked up some sea salt from the pet shop. Changing the water did wonders. It was incredible to see the sick, blackened crab come back to life with more vibrant colors after a few days in the clean water. Both crabs are doing very well now. 

We ran out of salt after a while so I went back to the pet shop to get some more. (In the back of my mind, I kept thinking, “Why can’t I just use the sea salt from the supermarket?”) Turns out the shop now sells sea water, complete with all natural bacteria, etc. So I picked up a 5 gallon tank which should last us for several months. The picture to the right is from the beach. For a second, I thought someone had left a whip on the beach…

I’m not sure how big these crabs are supposed to get. The biggest one we saw at the beach was about the size of my hand so I guess, if we don’t kill them, they will be around for quite a while. At the rate they’re growing though, it might be years. Neither of them have molted yet; not sure if it’s just supposed to take a long time before it happens or if we’re not feeding them well enough for them to grow and molt. Again, any tips would be appreciated. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Food, Glorious Food

Next in the series… All about what I’m eating as part of my fitness program. The picture to the left gives you an idea of what I no longer eat. Basically, anything with more than a bit of fat or sugar is out. That include a lot of food that I used to eat… So what do I eat now? To describe simply, the program I’m following allows me to eat from 3 groups of foods; vegetables, carbohydrates and proteins. I eat six times a day and each of these six meals are to include a serving of protein and a serving of carbs. (The vegetables are to show up on two of the six meals)

I know my limitations and knew I wouldn’t be able to stick to this if I had to spend a lot of time preparing the food. So I picked out the foods (from the approved list) that would be the least time consuming to prepare and that I would be able to eat day after day without getting sick of them. Also, the food couldn’t cost a lot; I didn’t want this to become an expensive program. So… the choices came down to whatever’s cheap, easy to prepare and tolerable over long term. The picture on the right shows the carbs that I chose for the program. (Click on the picture to see all the choices) Yes, I know tomatoes are not carbs; they’re in there to brighten up the picture and I do eat a lot of them.

The picture above wasn’t quite complete as far as carbs go. For breakfast, I now have cereal with cottage cheese. This is probably my favorite meal of the day. (Which I guess doesn’t say a lot for the rest of the meals) I eat a mixture of the GoLean and Total. GoLean has a bit more sugar than I would like so mixing it with Total lowers the overall calorie count and I get my vitamins without having to take it in a pill form. (Total is basically a whole wheat cereal with a bunch of vitamins ground in) I wanted to go with skim milk but my wife insisted we had to have at least 2%. I can’t blame her; even 2% tastes pretty flat when compared to the regular milk we used to drink.

Yes, I actually eat cottage cheese now. When I saw cottage cheese for the first time in my life (about 30 years ago), I couldn’t imagine anything more disgusting. So I was very hesitant to include it in the list of foods but several factors won me over:

• it’s a very good form of protein
  
• it’s a relatively inexpensive source of protein
  
• surprisingly, when mixed with selected foods, I don’t gag on it

So I have a tub in my refrigerator at home and another in the refrigerator at work. I generally don’t eat a lot of meat so I’m really thankful that cottage cheese is working out for me.

As good as cottage cheese may be (as far as proteins go) can’t eat that stuff all the time. So the other preferred protein is chicken breast. Yes, grilled chicken would probably taste a lot better but the canned chicken breast won out for convenience and cost.

The chicken breast above is convenient enough for eating at home but I don’t really want to deal with opening cans at work. So for meals at work, turkey breast fills the protein gap. I buy all of the foods I mentioned at CostCo. (a large warehouse like wholesale store) I picked out the butterball brand because it’s the cheapest one that has all breast meat. (the program does not recommend the dark meats as they apparently contain more fat) I generally eat two turkey sandwiches a day. I wish it tasted a little better but now I’m so used to it that it doesn’t matter much.

The first time I had the turkey sandwich, I realized I couldn’t use mayonnaise on it because of the fat in mayonnaise. I happened to have this wopping big jar of Grey Poupon so I tried that instead. Turns out, mustard has no fat and basically no calories. This along with the sharp taste made it the perfect choice for the turkey sandwich. I wouldn’t be able to munch through those two sandwiches if it weren’t for the mustard.

I mentioned in the last post that I drink about 10 cups of water a day. I manage well enough but drinking that much water is pretty boring. And since I no longer drink any soda, I wanted to find something that was more interesting than plain water. My Korean background comes to the rescue with barley tea. (Bo-Ri-Cha) When I was growing up in Korea, this was the drink of choice. I was surprised to find out how much I enjoyed drinking it again. And my kids like it as well which is a major bonus.

One of the other things I decided regarding this program is that I would not use any supplements, shakes, protein mixes, etc. For one thing, those things are very expensive and I already mentioned I needed to stay on the cheap. Also, I wanted to do the program with foods that are generally available and not use any specialty products. I do, however, take some medical supplements for my knee. I started taking these a bit before starting the program. You can read the name on the picture; they’re supposed to provide nutrients that help lubricate the joints and strengthen the cartilage. I’m missing most of my right medial cartilage so I take these hoping they’re as good as the medical literature claims and keep the pain away from my knee. (The results of patient trials on these are so good that even orthopedic surgeons recommend them) I’m not used to taking pills so these are a chore to swallow. The barley tea definitely helps me get three of these down every day.

The pictures above probably aren’t very appetizing. For now, I’m not focusing on interesting meals. I just want to make sure I eat all six meals a day with the portions that I’m supposed to while having the least impact on my time and money. The choices I made above have been successful in that regard. Once I’m almost through the 12 weeks, I think I’ll take some time to develop some more interesting meals but that’s not for quite a while (7 more weeks). Next time, I’ll post some pictures from my morning hikes. You’ll understand why that’s my favorite part of the program. I’ll end the post with some numbers; as of today, 165.0 lbs and 16.8% body fat.

Equipment List

As promised, here is more information on the fitness program. One of the things I like about this program is that, so far, I can do all the exercises with the equipment I have at home. I didn’t have all of them to begin with though. The pull up bar to the left I had already but I had to purchase the rest of the items in this post. The pull up bar was about $100. My older daughter uses it too. She can now do 5 pull ups. Not bad for a fifth grader. I use this also for push ups and knee/leg raises.

Major part of the program is working with weights; 3 days a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Since I wanted to do the workouts at home, I had to buy the weights and a bench. The bench is to the right. I decided to get a folding one so I can keep it in my bedroom. This was based on the hope that, if I have the bench in the bedroom, I would just be able to roll out of bed and get to work on the weights in the morning. Believe it or not, this has actually worked. You can see the bench folded up if you click on the picture. My wife is so happy to see me getting back in shape that she hasn’t complained about the bench being in the bedroom. The bench cost about $110, including shipping.

And here are the weights. I started out with just a few because I didn’t know what I’d need. After a workout or two, I realized I needed a lot of them. Eventually, I ended up getting dumbells from 10 to 45 pounds in 5 pound increments. That’s a total of 440 pounds at about 50 cents/pound, or $220 for the weights. If you’re doing the math, you’ve realized that the maximum weight I’m lifting is only 90 pounds. So far, that’s been OK but I’m soon going to need heavier weights to keep some of the exercises challenging. I don’t really want to work with dumbells heavier than 50 pounds so I’ll most likely end up getting a barbell as well. Not sure if I can talk my wife into keeping that in the bedroom…

On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I skip the weights and go on a 3 mile hike. Ideally, I would jog the distance or go on a longer bicycle ride but my bad right knee doesn’t allow me to do that anymore. To my pleasant surprise, the hike has turned out to be a great substitute. There is a county park near my house with a dirt trail that goes up a bit over a thousand feet. The hikes are the best part of the program and I really look forward to them now. My wife joins me for the hike on Saturday. I’ll write more about the things that make the hikes so enjoyable on the next post. Getting back to the equipment, here are the sneakers. I’ve had this same pair for years; they’re now starting to wear out and are covered with the dust from the trail.

I’ve had back trouble on and off as well. So I generally wear sneakers to work since there’s much less stress on my back than if I’m wearing shoes. Since my old sneakers are yellowing with dust, I had to buy a new set for work, $25 on sale.

I already mentioned that I have a bad knee as well as back problems. So I was very concerned about preventing any injuries from hiking or lifting weights. Here are the things that protect my back and knees. The big belt (that says Back-A-Line) is the one I wear when I go on the hike or do any other exercise other than lifting weights. I bought this several years ago when the back problems started; about $20. The other belt is for use while lifting weights; about $25.

And these are the gel inserts I added to the dirty Nike’s shown above. These little guys do wonders for absorbing the shock to the knees during the hike. I bought these on a whim and I’m so glad I did. I know these are making a major difference for my knee and back during the hike; $10 for the pair.

For each weight lifting exercise, there are 6 sets of reps. You get to rest 1 minute between each set and 2 minutes between each exercise. So you need a clock. (without the clock, I was resting a lot longer) You also need a log book for planning the exercises for each day and recording your progress. (Which exercise, how much weight with each set, how you felt after each set) So these also stay in the bedroom for easy access.

I actually cannot remember when I last owned a scale. But for a program like this, a scale is a must. Bought this one for about $55. It’s a bit expensive but it measures fat percentage and water retention percentage along with the weight. It also keeps track of your previous measurement which is nice when the numbers actually go down.

So I’m in my fifth week now and I guess I’ve spent about $500 on equipment alone. But I’m losing about 2 pounds/week, fat percentage is down by 5 points and about 3 inches gone from the waist. I no longer eat any junk food or fast food and have stopped drinking sodas. Coffee is down to 1 cup (sometimes 0) per day. So moving along quite nicely. I’ll follow up on next post with more about what and how I eat.

What Bugs to Fix When

I make it a rule not to work on my weblog during the work day. (Not that I’ve really been working on it at all…) But this article about fixing bugs resonated so much with the frustration I’ve felt at a number of software companies I’ve worked for. So I’m putting up the link before I forget. Hope you enjoy the article and end up doing something in response.

Few other things…

Hi, Yati. Thanks for your comments here. I’ll post a few more things here to let you know what’s going on in my life. Please send pictures of your family or send me a link where I can see them.

I’m on the fourth week of a 12 week fitness program called “Body for Life”. Basically, I’m trying to get back in shape by controlling what and how I eat and by doing regular exercise. It’s been working very well so far. Will follow with pictures and more details.

Korean Female Rock Singer

I heard this woman sing on a Korean TV program about 3 or 4 years ago. I remember thinking three things at the time:

1. She has a rather unique name. (I’m sure all Korean names sound unique to most non-Koreans. Trust me, her name is unusual, especially when you realize that it’s not her real name)
   
2. It would take a lot for me to get tired of hearing her sing.
   
3. Getting to see her at a concert would be great fun.

Apparently, her fourth album “Now Here”, which was recently released in Korea, is getting her a lot of attention. (I never realized this before but putting a space in Nowhere gets you Now Here. Neat, isn’t it? Yes, I’m easily impressed.)

I’ve been listening to the title song while doing some work and I think I’ve let the song loop around about 50 times now. Her voice, as I originally thought, is so easy to like and the song is pretty good too. You can hear the title song at her website. An artless translation of the title song would be “I love you more than myself”. But you get the idea…

Family update. My son is still managing to appear pretty cute in pictures. Wife was enjoying some bonding time with him. For the first time, she is regularly spending time away from the family every week and the kids had a bit of a time getting used to it. I think they’re doing pretty well now. The plus side is that I’m getting to spend a lot more time with the kids and getting to know them better. I’m getting a small taste of what she had to deal with when I used to travel regularly for work.

Another picture update. This is from my daughter’s musical at school, Jack and the Beanstalk. Yes, there was only one Golden Goose in that story but in the musical there were multiples of everything so every 3rd grader could have a part in the musical. (very American thing…) My daughter is on the left and her favorite friend is on the right. The favorite friend is Japanese. I somehow ended up mentioning to her that my father speaks very fluent Japanese. The resulting conversation:

Friend: Isn’t your father Korean? How come he speaks Japanese?
Me: Well, when he was young, the Japanese controlled Korea for a long time and they made all the Koreans learn and speak Japanese. They weren’t allowed to speak any Korean.
Friend: Oh… That wasn’t very nice of them.

Many Koreans waited for years and years to hear something that is so obvious to a 3rd grader… I’m glad they’re such good friends and don’t have to worry about stuff like that.

And lest I get in trouble with my first child for leaving her out of this post, here’s a picture of her birthday party at the ice rink. (she’s the one in red) You wouldn’t be able to tell we are in the States except for the English on the cake and my daughter’s Indian friend looking very much like Princess Jasmine in Aladdin.

Neat Software Stories

Some time last year, a few posts ago, I linked to a story about the acquisition of Oddpost. By the time I get to posting these stories, they’re already old news but I don’t mind. As one of the writers of today’s featured stories says, “I Love Stories”.

So here’s a neat story about a group of software developers who enjoyed a different kind of success. [via Wired and Cult of Mac]

And another about a road not taken.

Happy New Year, by the way!

Unbelievable!

“The Miss America pageant is a different medium for an MIT grad, a medium that requires significantly more communication skills than a typical MIT endeavor. So I feel like I’m expanding the Institute’s boundaries in a way, and I’m doing it while having fun and earning money to continue my education.”

If you’re not familiar with MIT, I guess you’d have no idea why this is unbelievable. But then I haven’t been on campus for many, many years so I’m sure the student body has changed quite a bit. (For the better, apparently.) For those of you who’ve never trodded down the infinite corridor, course V is a chemistry major.

Learning to Program

Say there’s a High School student who wants to start learning to program and he comes to you for advice asking, “How should I start?” What language would you recommend and why? If you do respond to this, please don’t leave out the why. Thanks.

Oddpost

Enjoyed reading about this. I can just imagine how much fun the folks at Oddpost had while putting this page together. It’s going to be a fun weekend for a bunch of people. [via ScriptingNews]

I can also picture my weblog buddies Suman and Erehwon reading this and daydreaming about their big day. I sincerely hope the day comes for both of you!

By the way, it’s been incredibly hectic for me since my last post here. If I can manage, I’ll add some notes here about the past few weeks a bit later. Feels like it’s been a lot longer than a few weeks.