94 - Grading Day - Brown Belt!

Today I got a Brown Belt in Karate. It took alot of work, alot of training. Alot of getting off my ass and practicing katas. Alot of coming home from work only to turn on my heal and go up to the hall in Carraroe for 2 hours. But I was training with a great bunch of people and at the end of every class it was all worth it. Going up a belt is the ultimate reward for all this work. They symbolize all the work you have done I think. That is what it means to me anyway.

Brown Karate Belt

So this Saturday we had a grading where we are tested on basics and katas. I passed all my tests and now I have a brown belt! There are 3 belts in the brown, so I have 2 more grades and then a pre-Dan. After the pre-Dan I have the 1st Dan which is a black belt. In other words, I am on the first of 3 browns and then I am going for Black... that should happen hopefully some time in 2016 I think, or 2017.

Pretty cool. I am really looking forward to the next few years!

70 - Wednesday

I was at karate this evening and not a whole lot more happened apart from that. But the karate is funny really, it is so easy to mess up by mistake. I have realised at last that you can have a good class where most of what you want to do goes correctly if you really focus on what you are doing.

But you have to be really focused and leave the outside world at the door. When you walk on the floor if you're in the moment from that time onwards, you will have a good class.

2012 - Day 57 - Monday - Alpha07

I was not at work today, but I tried to do some work at home, but you know what, the day just flew.. I was at karate though which is always cool. But the big karate news was that there is a grading on April 7th! A mere what, 6 or 7 weeks away! But if I get it I will be up to a green belt. W00t.

You know, it is funny. I have been learning a programming language on and off called PHP. I have been learning or dabbling rather with programming languages on and off all the time since I was a (late) teen. But anyway, it is one thing to mess with a language and a whole other thing to do something with it. So in an effort to learn PHP I began making a game based on the browser based game idea of "Torn City" or "OGame". Remember Torn City? How big were we into that at the time!

Anyway my game is called Alpha07 and it is based on this idea where you have a planet, you can build space ships, fight other players, there will be an economy in it where if you need titanium to build your space ship but your enemy knows that you need lots of titanium then the enemy can buy up the titanium and increase the price of said titanium... therefore fighting you economically before flying his ship over to your planet and blasting it to pieces.

Screen Shot 1 - Login Screen

Screen Shot 2 - Complete with naff pics I drew myself....

Yeah... I have put a few screen shots together to show you that this is not actually a dream in my head.. I have actually been working on the game for a good while.

My point about all this is that I have actually begun working on the game again, hopefully I will get to launch it properly as a playable game! I will keep you posted.

My weight...

I was at one point 17 stone something... I think 17.5 stone.. thats around 245 pounds or 111.36kilograms. Then I realised... I am going to die sooner than I need die if I keep on gaining weight. I will get diabetes...  or a heart attack... or something. So I made a few changes. Nothing difficult at first, I started looking at what I was eating. I got a notebook and wrote down everything I ate for a few days. Then I wrote down the amount of calories all these things had in them.

Can of Coke Cola.... how many calories? 2 slices of white bread, how many calories? Funny how quickly all food changes from this yummy thing you ate that really you never thought about to this thing... this product that adds weight on to you.

This is not me.... This is Arnold Schwarzenegger!

But I am realistic. I know that if I have a good work out and then have a cup of tea and a biscuit afterwards that I have pretty much undone my workout. You have to do something here. Be consistent... ve-ry con-sis-tent. Either do not diet at all! Or be 100% on your diet.

Well being 100% on it is very difficult, I would say I am around 70% on it. I do kinda watch what I am eating now. I still eat lots of crap.. why? Because I like eating crap. But I know that I am going to have to bust my ass working it off again.

Which takes me onto my last point... and it is very simple. Unless you exercise you will not loose weight. Well at least that was true for me. I try to get a good bit of exercise in a week, in any way that I can. Walking up stairs, not taking the lift. Doing karate. Walking to the shop if it a reasonable walk instead of taking the car. Going to the gym.

So in the space of around half a year I have lost over a stone and a half. It is not easy. It is slow... painful. But at least I regularly weigh in around 16 stone or half a pound under, like 15 stone 13 1/4 or 224 pounds around. I lost 21 pounds. My aim is to get to between 15 and 15 and a half stone. At least if I get a heart attack, or something, I can say... like Jack Nicolson in 'One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest' when he tried and failed to throw the sink across the room, "at least I tried".

Battles - Icecream

I was thinking "I shouldn't put this video up". Its obviously a video for guys - well no, aimed at guys, but for whom ever. You know, there are good looking girls everywhere in it, some of those girls are licking nobs... yes. Then I realised, I don't really care what haters think. You got something agains't hot chicks? Funny how I feel like a bit of a sleeze posting this... Whats wrong with me? It is actually a good video. I know I sound like the guy who says he reads Playboy for the article, but I am too tired to care :) I just got an hour sleep last night!

34 Years Old + 155 Days

Really didn't do much today, this SUNDAY....

It was not a SUN day. More like rainy, damp, cold, unconfortable day. Guess Sun rolls of the tounge better thought? Thought about Black Swan alot today. I don;t know really what I did, the day passed fairly quickly. Well, Lindas parents were down so I slept in as much as I could without getting a headache. I did some streching and I felt great afterwards. I want to be able to throw proper kicks at karate tomorrow, and I realised that I need to strech slowly for around 15 mins before I can move like the other in the class, who are basically, younger than me. Yep, I love and will keep with my karate.