Ben Benner’s Blog

I mean not to get all morbid, but everyone dies sometime.

However, my use of that particular saying, “Not dead, yet!” in regards to what I shouted (or at least I meant for it to come out as a shout, might have sounded a bit more raspy and with a slight hint of wheezing.

(note: when I yelled out ‘Not dead, yet!’ I was half imagining myself on a cart of dead folks from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”)

I made it through my 2nd night of Gladiator Bootcamp. My poor aching body is wishing that I had taken a nice hot bath on Monday and Tuesday night, instead of only just having taken one tonight (Wednesday).

I am sore, I mean to some degree that doesn’t begin to describe the pains I have discovered in my muscles (and my right knee). In terms of my right knee, that one I know exactly what happened there, I tripped and fell last Friday.

I tripped over the gate that we have separating the living room and the kitchen. I don’t know exactly why I tripped, I remember my right shoe catching the top of the gate and me thinking ‘Crap, this is gonna hurt, A LOT.’

I think I was able to cushion the blow with my knee mostly, but I also landed on my right hand (and arm). The pain from that was pretty intense for a few minutes. But once I was able to get up from the floor to a seated position, I figured I wouldn’t need to call anyone for help. After another few minutes, I got myself up onto my feet and didn’t falter.

So, umm I “walked it off” and went about the rest of my day, thinking to myself, “I wonder how bad this is going to effect my performance on the first night of camp gladiator?”

Answer: Not at all really. My knee is sore, but by Monday night, it wasn’t bugging me enough to interfere with the exercises they had us doing.

However, the real question I should have been asking myself was “How would an intense 1 hour work-out effect my body, given that I spend the VAST majority of my time seated at a desk, typing on a keyboard?”

Answer: A LOT!

The pain I feel, is only when I move around, not while just sitting here, which I think is a good thing. Cuz, if I hurt as much as I do when I go up and down stairs, I might have to start drinking at the office.

Anyway, I think you get the point, I am EXTREMELY out-of-shape and have managed to overdue it, a little bit.

I did my best tonight at bootcamp and made my way through all the exercises they threw at us. I will openly admit that I did not complete all of the ‘mountain climber’ sets and that my push-ups look more like I am just holding myself up and moving about what I imagine is like 15cm, maybe 15mm, it’s the metric system and I went to public school in Michigan, you do the math, as I might be a little challenged.

(Just kidding, I actually think my public education was pretty good. It would have been better, had I attended classes more regularly, but that is a post for another time.)

In regards to the push-ups, to me the few centimeters (or millimeters) that I managed to move my body up and down via my chest muscles were like me going through a full-range of motion with what felt like an elephant on my back.

Given that my chest muscles twinge a little bit when I wash my hand vigorously at this point, I am going to say that I am definitely getting a work out, even if I am unable to complete a full push-up.

But this is only the first week. And I am already getting the crazy notion into my head that I might be able to go and do the 5:30am Friday bootcamp. Maybe, possibly, no promises.

I definitely think I will be doing three bootcamps next week, this week might be pushing myself a little bit too much.

In terms of tonight, it was a series of sprints (which due to the my performance on Monday night, I did my best to jog), followed by 50 of each of the following exercises: push-ups, alternating lunges (or ’scissor lunges’), bicycle sit-ups, squats (I did the rowing squats that I have been doing on Wii Fit, just felt more familiar to me), and finally ‘mountain climbers’ (which I cannot do properly, yet).

After doing 50 of each exercise, you had to do two laps around the field, returning to your exercise mat for a set of 24 of each of those same exercises that you just got done doing 50 of. Following your set of 5×25, you doing 1 lap around the field and then take a break.

I finished in 30 minutes and like 5 seconds (might have been 15 seconds, honestly at that point I was proud to be standing under my own power).

I give many props to Kevin, Daniel, Jeremy and Eryn, all of them finished before I did.

The instructor stated that we will be doing that same ‘assessment’ at the end of bootcamp. Provided that I can keep my legs from feeling like they are made of rusty metal, I think I will be able to shave several minutes off my overall time.

The one thing I will say about bootcamp day/night #2. I feel better than I did after night #1.

Don’t get me wrong, I still ache (all over, speaking of, time for more advil), but I honestly at the end of tonight felt my muscles loosening up. I really, really need to get to the field like 10 minutes earlier, and do some good stretches and walk around the field a few times, get limbered up.

At this exact moment, I feel almost normal. Of course soaking in a tub of hot water that has been laced with epsom salt for about 45 minutes does wonders for those aching muscles.

But I might also be feeling good, because apparently Chocolate Milk can aid in recovery after a hard work-out. I have Daniel to thank for this tip, I stated on Twitter that he might be lying to me. And he told me to Google it, to which I found he wasn’t making it up. Check out the search results for yourself.

Ok, the maintenance has been over for a bit and my blog post here is finished up, I need to go and get some sleep.

Laterz

PS. Thanks to everyone running and attending the Camp Gladiator. Everyone is very supportive and it makes pushing yourself to do exercises that I don’t necessarily want to do, easier, keep in mind I paid money for this, so the encouragement is very helpful.

bdbenner Uncategorized austin, bootcamp, bootcamp gladiator, daniel, eryn, exercise, gladiator, jeremy, kevin

For those that don’t know, Austin is sometimes referred to as Silicon Hills, a play on the whole Silicon Valley name.

As far as music goes, Austin is the LIVE music capital of the world, so it seemed only a matter of time before someone made a web page that would show you all the shows until the end of the year.

That time came this afternoon, AYearOfAustinMusic.com was born. Daniel was showing Kevin some stuff that he had been working on for his own personal use, in regards to tracking musical shows and within those few moments Kevin found himself some inspiration.

Kevin showed me what he had thrown together and asked me to put it up on Jules, my beloved server up in Dallas. I got everything setup and within a few minutes of Kevin finishing the DNS up on GoDaddy, the site was live on Jules.

I took a few minutes after work closed up and got the code checked into my personal repository and also took the liberty of installing Google Analytics.

Before Kevin took off he was already talking about some cool JavaScript effects that he could work into the next version.

It is amazing how quickly one can create a very dynamic web app. Just sprinkle in a little RSS and throw on some CSS to make it all ‘purdy’ (some PUN intended).

Anyway, I have finished my acceptance testing of Release 2.0 and need to get out of here.

Laterz.

(almost forgot, if you scroll to the bottom, you will see the “credits”)

bdbenner austin, kevinNuut, music austin, ayearofaustinmusic, daniel, kevin, music, web app

Gina and I will be heading out to the farmers market here soon. I would really like to encourage everyone out there to visit their local farmers market at least once a month. I mean around here there are several different markets, thus far Gina and I have decided that the Sunset Valley Farmers Market is the best one in town.

We have visited a couple of others around town, the one that is in downtown austin, the historic one that is on Burnet, but the Sunset Valley is the one we visit, almost every Saturday. The market is 24 miles from our house, as per Google Maps. We usually grab a coffee on the way down and make a morning of the trip.

I have recently fallen in love with the bread that this one vendor makes. He has been there the last 3 or 4 weeks, though I don’t remember him being there last year. He makes fantastic artisan breads, I favor his Rye breads. He said that he has made pumpernickel on occasion, but that demand for it isn’t really high enough for him to bring it to the market.

From looking at his setup, he bakes probably about 50-60 loaves of bread. I might ask him today, to see if my judgment of how many loaves his setup holds is anywhere near correct. His bread ranges from $7 - $9 (I need to check and see if he has anything more expensive than $9).

Now, we are talking about a circle of small artisan bread. My last loaf of bread could not have had a diameter of more than 7 inches and was no taller than 2 inches. It cost me $7.

Seven dollars of mustard rye goodness. I have to say that while, it is the most expensive bread I have ever purchased (even surpassing the bread obtained at Central Market), the mustard rye is worth every penny.

Today, though I am going to go out of my comfort zone. I am going get something other than a rye from this vendor, I am also going to try and get a name, his or his businesses’, so I can quit referring him to as ‘vendor’.

I have a feeling we will also pick up another cauliflower. We are still good on cabbage, got 2/3 of a cabbage left that I need to turn into slaw. I might try to smoke some chicken and turkey tomorrow, those don’t take too long.

Gina might find some various organs from the meat vendors to feed the dogs. The time before last, she found a lady selling chicken hearts and gizzards. MMMMM, bleh.

But the dogs loved them.

I will have to ask her about the lamb hearts she bought, I don’t remember if she fed those already or not.

If you do plan to get meat from a farmers market, I would definitely advise going early. The meat vendors always seem to sell out. There is this one stand there that sells some sort of goat cheese, milk, and various cuts of pork (not sure if I have seen beef there too), but I know they sell pork.

More often than not, their stand has a line. It seems to be a mix of folks waiting for cheese and meat. But I know the meat sells out.

There is this one stand that sells Basil (when it is in season) for a steal. Like $1 for a decent sized “bunch”. Even if they raised their prices to say $5, it would still be a steal over prices you pay at a regular grocery store for Basil.

Also, arugula is another great find you get at the farmers market. There are several vendors selling salad greens. Mixed spring style greens, arugula, spinach, and bibb lettuce.

I remember that when I was little my dad would take us to the farmers market in downtown Lansing. The experience of walking into a building with lots of hustle and bustle going on. I haven’t been in quite a long time, but I remember there being only one long row of vendors with little alleys at the various entrances on the sides of the long building.

It is kind of funny, all of the markets I have been to here in Texas are more like a traveling bazaar, whilst the Lansing market is in a big brick building. I mean, if the Lansing one wasn’t in a building it would only be able to be open at the end of spring through the beginning of fall.

Next time I am back in Lansing, I will need to swing through the city market and see if I can find myself an artisan rye.

I was poking around for artisan bread references while writing this and ran across the blog for the following book, “Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day…” I have to admit, that the man’s rye bread makes me want to bake. Not so much to avoid paying him that $7, but to hopefully be able to make something so tasty myself, at home anytime I want it, not just after a 30 minute drive on a saturday morning. I say this, because I am pretty sure my loaf of rye ran out on Wednesday. I mean, what am I supposed to do then?

Bake my own maybe.

I need to get ready to go to the market.

bdbenner food austin, farmers market, lansing, lansing city market, sunset valley, tx

… vs wisely.

I chose poorly this morning.

I wore shorts to work instead of a longer legged garment (ie jeans or pants). I have been normally checking the weather every morning before making my wardrobe selection, I skipped that part of my routine this morning. And as the wife pointed out to me, I had gone outside earlier this morning and returned to the house saying loudly “Wow, it is cold out there. And did you see the ice on the deck?”

Ummm, yeah so I should have put 2+2 together and gotten that it was going to be cold ALL day. However, in my meager defense the weather here this past week has been that it starts way COLD and during the day gets WARM (or at least one day it was like 80, which means it was HOT, for winter).

All in all, I am reminded of the fact that I used to wear shorts to Sexton (high school), partially to be weird, the other part because the school was heated with radiators which meant that it was usually too HOT to be comfortable in jeans.

This time around, I made a poor choice. In part thinking that it would be warmer during today, based upon the widget on my desktop it is 37 degrees (Farenheit) outside. Also, I cannot remember if the office that Jeremy and I share is too hot during the winter times. In part, our office is way too COLD in the summer. I was assuming they would kick the heat into overdrive during the winter. Thus far, not so much.

Lunch is over and time for a meeting.

Laterz

Update: On the way into work today, I was thinking about my blog post from yesterday, as I wore pants. And it struck my why all day the “I choose poorly” didn’t look quite right. I am going to blame it on being in a hurry, but it struck me on the way into work, I apparently “wrote poorly” yesterday too.

bdbenner weather austin, cold, hot, jeans, shorts, tx, weather

The show was a while ago, but I have been tied up with work and haven’t felt like blogging for the last few weeks (or months really).  Ben Folds is one of my favorite artists, it has been at least 6 years since I saw him live, the last time was at La Zona Rosa.

This time it was at Stubb’s BBQ, a nice sized, outdoor venue. It was a pretty decent night for a show, not too cold and not too hot (yes, I said hot, in Texas during the summer it can still be 80+ degrees outside at night.)

I had hoped that Gina could have come along, but she isn’t a big fan of the Folds and she happened to be in Manila at the time. Jeremy is also no lover of the Folds, neither is anyone else in the Jaduka dev crew. And at a price tag of $50 ($41.50 for the ticket and $8.50 for delivery) you have to really like the Folds to pay that kind of price.

I was a little late arriving to the show, but I didn’t miss the start of the opening act or anything. I managed to grab a beer (or two), some food and found a nice perch behind the light boards and sound deck area.

To my pleasant surprise the opening act, Missy Higgins was good. I really liked their set and have thought about getting some of their music. To me her sound was a little reminiscient of Sheryl Crow’s early stuff. I have to be honest right now, I don’t remember too much about her music, except that I didn’t hate it and it reminded me a wee bit of early Sheryl Crow.

I kept a mental note about not hating the opening act, because of the fact that the opening act for Flogging Molly, completely SUCKED. I mean was absolutely HORRIBLE, they were this bad like 70s coverish band, bad outfits, bad songs, bad performance.

Back to the Folds.

After Missy Higgins’ set was done, I took the opportunity to grab another beer (or two), unfortunately some folks took the opportunity to steal my perch. I mean, sure they managed to use the space slightly more effectively than I was, being two folks sort of crammed themselves into the same area that I had been occupying.

Downside to all of this was the fact that I had a nice setup, there is this railing running behind the light board area, fairly sturdy, sturdy enough for me to lean on it with comfort, like the old man that I am (becoming).

I spent the rest of the evening just to the left of the lightboard by about 6 feet or so.

The concert was great, everything that I could have asked for. Ben played some of his really old stuff (like “Underground”), some of his more recently old stuff (like “Zak and Sara”) and pretty much everything off his new album (like “Effington”).

I had purchased Ben’s new album shortly after it came out on Sept 30th. By the time of the concert I had listened to the album more often that I would choose to admit. The benefit of this was that I knew the words to the songs, which meant I got to do the thing I love the most when drinking and listening to music, sing along (in my own tone-deaf sort of way). I tried not to sing too loudly, as not to ruin anyone elses enjoyment of the concert. All in all, I am glad that neither Gina nor Jeremy was there to witness me singing along.

After two encores, Ben Folds and his band left the stage and it was time to go home. I hit the back alley of porta-potties to return my ‘rented’ beer and then worked my way out of the “exit” lines. Feeling a bit peckish, I went off in search of pizza. There are several pizza by the slice places down on 6th street, Hoek’s Death Metal Pizza is where I ended up.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/3049704958/sizes/s/

I had a slice of pepperoni (which came fresh out of the oven) and then headed home.

I had a fun time at the concert and it made me want to go and see another concert (not necessarily for at a $50 ticket price).

The one thing that I did find interesting was that whilst sipping on my Miller High Life, was the economy. I am guessing that there were at least 2,000 people there (best I could find on the net is that Stubb’s holds 1,800). The sh#t had hit the fan about that same time as far as the economy goes, everyone in the nation was (and most still are) worried about the economy.

The future of the presidential election was still uncertain (as no voting had yet occurred), Obama was not yet the President Elect.

And yet, here at Stubb’s BBQ there were 2,000 people enjoying themselves. I mean, most likely all the tickets were purchased earlier in the year. But you figure folks had to take taxis or pay for parking, let’s assume that folks carpooled and on avg at least 2 people per car. Let us also assume that 2/3 drove in their own cars (or carpooled). Then let’s assume that one half of the 1/3 remaining took a taxi.

So that breaks down to:

1,333 folks rode in cars, at least 2 folks per car, parked the car for $7, equals $4,666 parking.

667 folks came by other means, figure 333 took taxis, figure $20 per person taking a taxi (some of them will have doubled up), $6,666 for taxis (round-trip).

I figure that at least half the folks there ate some sort of food while there, if memory serves the avg price of something to eat was like $5. So, another $5,000 spent.

Then comes the real money maker, the booze. I really can’t remember how much the prices were, but beer I think was like $3 for a Lone Star or Miller High Life and then slowly working their way up in price. Bottled water was like $4 or $5. Mixed drinks started at I think $7 dollars.

Let’s assume half of the folks had two beers, assuming an avg price of $4 per beer, so $4,000. Then let’s assume that 3/4 of the folks had a bottle of water, assuming that water was $4, that makes $6,000. Then let’s assume that 1/3 of everyone there had 2 mixed drinks, avg price $7, that makes $4,662.

( I mean I am probably going a bit light on the booze calcs, I mean there were A LOT of people drinking.)

So the totals in terms of the general economy.

Tickets: $100,000

Parking: $4,666

Taxis:    $6,666

Beer:      $4,000

Water:    $6,000

Mixed:   $4,662

Food:     $5,000

Total:     $130,994

This doesn’t even begin to calculate the price of the t-shirts or what not purchased at the show, I won’t speculate there, as I didn’t pay attention to the prices enough to do so.

Including my ticket, parking, beer, food a the show and slice of pizza at Hoek’s Death Metal Pizza I think I spent about $105 or 0.08% of the estimated total that I think was spent that night because of the concert. Mind you, I didn’t speculate on other folks going out to other bars (or pizza joints) before or after the show let out, I am sure that folks did that as well.

Like I said, whilst sipping my Miller High Life, I thought briefly on the economy and how the folks down here in Austin at the Ben Fold Concert didn’t let themselves get depressed. How they spent money without immediate fears of home foreclosures or inflation (or deflation) or the rising price of gas (which has now dropped to prices that are likely lower or on par with before Bush took office, the first time).

Maybe they spent the money as to fully enjoy the evening and they would worry about such things the next day. Maybe they enjoyed the evening (and possibly the following day) without worry because we down here in Austin are still somewhat isolated from the major economic sh%t storm that has gripped the nation.

I know that I enjoyed listening to the music and drinking a beer without worrying about the economy or other such topics that night.

Well, I need to get to bed.

Laterz

PS. I am starting to get back into a routine and feel the need to write more lately, so that likely means more regular blog posts.

bdbenner Uncategorized, music austin, ben folds concert, concert, hoeks death metal pizza, live music, missy higgins, stubbs bbq

And grateful it is Friday.

I have a number of home projects that need to get squared away this weekend to ensure a relaxing vacation, so this weekend will be action packed.

The trip back from Dallas was fun. Jeremy and I had a chance to catch-up with a buddy who lives in Dallas. It was good conversation and pretty decent food (we went to Bone Daddy’s).

On the way back we listened to the music on Jeremy’s iPod  (we listened to some of mine on the way up). Oddly enough most of the music we listened to I also have.

We finished off the trip listening to different tracks off of Billy Joel’s greatest hits albums. I always enjoy a good singalong with the Piano Man.

Back to grind.

Laterz.

bdbenner Personal austin, billy joel, dallas, jeremy, road trip, travel