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Metrics 101: Who's Really the NBA's Most Improved Player? | Bleacher Report (via https://br.app.link/get-the-app ) http://teamstre.am/2oI7bhP

HTPC, Meet PLEX.

New life changes are happening. The wife and I recently recieved a new couch. Along with the couch, we are making plans to make the living room better for us. We just purchased a new TV console to use with HTPC, Wii, 360, and other electronic devices. I believe the HTPC can fit inside it, which will be nice due to having doors, and we have a tiny human. While this transition is happening, the main PC, Charlemagne, will be moving into the bedroom on a new desk. I think I'm going to pull the HDD [2 TB] one and put it into the HTPC. Then, I can reorganize the Movie and TV Show files so I can set up an effective Plex Media Server. This would include making sure that there are no duplicates of any files. I am hoping that between Plex, Kota, Netflix, and Hulu we will be able to have an effective way to watch videos. The HTPC is always on, so it makes the most sense to have it host the server. With 4 TB of storage on board, it will hold all the Movie files I have. Also, having a Blu-Ray drive, we can watch Blu Ray disks. I am excited to partake on this adventure, I am hoping this goes smoothly, and goes as planned. I have more research to do on the hardware transitions, but I think I should be good to go. The main issue I am going to have is going to network support. I am going to make sure I have the bandwidth to stream the HD movies. But, this is going to be a testing as we go process. Until next time, Goodbye.

A sweaty post

Hey there again everyone. Today's topic of discussion: exercise/weight loss and the journey involved with each. After the post, feel free to join the discussion in the comments.

Weight loss. It is a big topic of discussion. This is something that everyone deals with. I'm in my current battle. Now I have always been heavier throughout my life. I had noticed early on, during the early years of schooling. I noticed that I wasn't as fast as some of my classmates. I had noticed during the physical tests that I couldn't do any pull ups. It's not like I ate a lot. I was always outside playing as a kid. I was in sports. I was a catcher in baseball. I was a football player. I don't know why I was, and never understood. I know that genetics plays a part in everything that makes us up. I'm not entirely sure if weight and/or obesity are affected by our genetic code. I had wondered throughout life, but never worried too much about it. Then high school hit. Through the summer practices in football, we were requires to log our weight throughout the day. Mainly it was for the coaches to see if anyone was losing too much weight due to the heavy practice schedule. But I was able to see the weight of my peers. From here, I made half hearted attempts to lose the weight I wanted to, and to get in shape. They all failed because I wasn't serious about it. Everything kinda quited until the second half of my freshman year in college. Here, I joined the Ultimate Team. Once again, the self conscience thought regards their head. I would go running maybe once every two weeks (when not at practice), but never stuck to anything. I didn't eat healthy at all. There weren't many changes, maybe some more stamina, but not much. It repeated until my junior year, but didn't kick into gear until my senior year. Junior year, I developed a routine with the help of my friend, Laura. We would regularly eat dinner together, and sometimes lunches. It helped me settle into a consistent feel of my days. It was around this time, I met Cody. He played Ultimate with us. He was smaller, but built. We had connected through our history of wrestling in high school. We became friends during my final years at college. Cody and I started working out together. We would go to the gym after Ultimate practice and dinner. We would do interval sprints on the track (small indoor one, each lap was 1/8 mile), and some weight work. He taught me an ab workout that was killer. I was finally seeing some sort of results. I felt good. I was looking good. We kept this up. This ended when my time was up in Peoria. It was after here when I fell.off the wagon, so to speak. Over the next six years, I gained and gained weight. It was never super out of control. It came to a head when I was reading 310+ lbs. I took small steps to try and negate this. Nothing really worked, and if it did, I never stuck to it. Everything changed, January 6, 2015. Cynthia was born. Here is where everything changed. Being a father has helped me out on my journey more than anything else. I slowly started to notice my jeans fit better. My shirt were not as tight. I had lost 45+ lbs since she was born. She has helped inspire me to keep this going. I don't want to be that father who can't play with his daughter because of his weight.

To this end, I have picked up running again. I'm going to be cha going up my running routine here. I can do the distance fairly decent (by distance, I mean 1-3 miles), but not shirt distance. I am going to work on a system of interval sprints. I also have plans to work in an ab workout routine to help slim down even more.

I have found that this has started because of a reason. A strong reason to accomplish my goals. I often take my dogs on a run as motivation. I want to tire them out. They enjoy the runs, probably more than I do. That's okay though. They look to be in great shape also.

So what are your thoughts on exercise? Are you on a current journey of your own? What inspires you? Tell your story in the comments.

Google Fit Review

Google Fit Main Screen

Most of the people reading this know that I have started running in the past month or so in a effort to get in shape. I don't have the goal of running a marathon, or anything like that. My main goal is to be able to be there in the future for my daughter. In an effort to accomplish this, I have enlisted the help of a fitness tracking app. I was using MapMyRun, but I have decided to try Google Fit. I have a Nexus 6, which came with Google Fit preinstalled. I have this app tracking my step count on a daily basis, so I thought, why not? So here is my initial impression of Google Fit. Note: I have only been using this for a couple runs. I will update when I have more miles logged with the app.

Workout Screen

The Good: Ease of use. Let's be honest: Why do we like a certain app, OS, or car? Because they are easy to use, and just work. I mean, isn't that the whole campaign around Mac OS X? This is a big plus for me for this app. Ease of use while using one hand to hold the phone at a stop light with the pup's leashes in the other hand is a big issue. There are minimal buttons found on the activity tracker screen. With a lack of buttons, it makes the ones you want and need to use easy find. As you can see in the screenshot on the left, you have three buttons at your use: Volume, Pause/Continue workout session, and one to lock it. The lock system is really easy to use. When you don't touch the screen for a period of time, it locks the workout pause button. To pause it while locked, press and slide to the left. Simple. Once unlocked, the lock toggle button because the stop button, which ends your session. I like that is just works. It have an easy layout, which is a great thing to have when you are tired and trying to end the workout logging. Also, no ads. Thank you. I don't run enough to pay for a run tracking app, so not having ads is a boon. I can't count the number of times I have had to delay my runs because of ads popping up on MapMyRun.

The Bad: So here is the main fault that I have found: Unless the app loads correctly, which it didn't for me after I saved my run, it can be annoying to close out completely, and restart. Luckily, there isn't a opening sequence so to speak, and it opens to the main page. But once loaded properly, everything shows up in a vertical scroll format which is easy to use. It brings up all the information I want at a glance.

Records Card followed by Weight Card

Record Card followed by Weight Card

Recent Workouts Card

Overall, I would currently recommend to someone looking for a fitness app. It lets me set the goals that I want to set, and automatically tracks them. Another plus for me is the ability to set the voice feedback intervals to half miles. I am not running a lot currently, so having that half mile encouragement and pacing helps me out a lot. It also has maps tracking, so you can see your routes. It ties to Google Maps, so 99% of roads and walking trails/paths are there. On the main screen, it store your goals, personal records, recent activities, and more. I don't have to go into separate menus to find your most recent workouts. I'm going to be using it for a couple weeks so I can fully see how it works for a long term solution, but so far, so good.

How Do I Do This Parenting Thing?

Hey there! Here is the topic of the day: Parenting. Parenting is the one thing that everyone knows nothing about, yet is an expert at the same time. Here is why that is. No one is born with the ability to parent. Now, I'm talking solely about Humans. Non Homo Sapien living beings have an instinct to raising their young. Those young are also born with the "Animal Instinct" on what they need to learn as they grow. Humans are taught everything they know, whether that is from other people or self taught. We have a natural curiosity about the world around us. We do not know what is going to happen to us. This is where the parenting kicks in.
 We, as parents, have a certain responsibility to our children. We are the primary teachers that they have. Yes, we have professional teachers at school, but we are with them through their biggest periods of learning. A healthy baby has all body functions, and an instinct to nurse. They know what to do. Apart from that, we teach them everything. How to roll over, crawl, walk, get dressed, use a spoon, not to stick your finger in the electrical socket. If you have pets, then you need to teach them about those pets. We are currently in the learning to pet, and not hit stage of pet learning. She learns things on her own, but we are there to guide her. I get the joy of being able to watch her grow and learn how things work in this world. Seeing the physical growth is a painful thing to witness also, at least for me. We teach our child how to fend for themselves and how to be able to live on their own. We groom them to the point where we as parents are no longer necessary. And this fact tears me apart. I don't want her to get to point that she no longer needs her daddy. And it sucks.
Now, another topic that sucks and it is something that I don't know how to approach. Discipline. I know how I was brought up. I received spankings, I have had to wash my mouth out with soap, groundings, time outs, etc. After the first few times, I began to think: If i do this, what will the consequences be? This taught me to think about these things growing up, and as an adult. My wife accuses me as being non decisive, but I like to think about things thoroughly. I want my daughter to have this mindset. To not be entitled, and to think about what are the results of her actions. I want her to be conscience of how her actions not only affect her, but affect those around her. Knowing that I want this to be the ultimate goal, how do I go about to instill those values and thought process? Do i go about how I was taught? I know my wife doesn't want to spank our children. And I respect her thoughts and ideas. I don't necessarily want to either. I don't want my daughter or any future children to be afraid to come to me. I know growing up, and still to this day, I have hesitations to ask my dad for help, or tell him bad news. This is the dilemma that I have going forward, and I'm not sure how to solve it. I know what will eventually happen: My wife and I will have to sit down and have a discussion about how we want o discipline our daughter. Until then, still an uncertainty.
 Now back to my opening statement. No one knows what they are doing as parents. No matter how many children you have, each child is different. There is the popular saying that the first child is the "tester child". While this is basically true, they shouldn't be treated as such. I remember that before my daughter was born, her mother insisted on having multiple things of hand sanitizer available to clean our hands before holding her. While I know that a newborn, and for their first few months, they are more susceptible to illness and disease. But having that much hand sanitizer can overall be harmful. Killing bacteria like that so often can weaken ourselves for the bacteria. This here is where it ties with vaccines. I think that vaccines are very important to our growth as humans. They have been formulated in such a way that is safe, and it helps us prevent diseases that our past generations feared. Why don't we have Iron Lungs anymore? Because we have the vaccine for Polio, which has all but eradicated because of this vaccine. People think "pumping our children's body full of chemical" is going to have growth defects, both physically and mentally. Which brings me to my final, and most important point regarding this: People are more afraid of a mental disability than a life threatening disease that can be easily preventable. Disease that can cause agony and pain. We, as parents, citizens, and humans, do not understand mental illness. Simple.
My daughter has reached her Terrible Twos. Which sucks. She is not listening and thinks that she can do anything. I'm going to be struggling through this phase. But I know that we all will be better off once it is through.

Regularity

Well, Hello again.
I'm working on trying to get back into the swing of updating on a regualas basis. I'm trying to figure out what direction I want to take. I'm not doing too many tech related these days. I have a little girl that I'm learning on the fly how to raise. I think I'm doing alright, but you never know. I think the most techie thing I've done in a while is I just upgraded my laptop to Windows 10. I wanted to get in before the deadline at the end of July. And so far, I'm liking the update. Now, I have had Windows 10 on my desktop and HTPC. I dont use my laptop too much these days. But I'm happy at the speed of which my aging laptop has again. Not like a brand new, state of the art laptop. But like it was a new laptop back in the day. It came preloaded with Windows Vista, and a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it was released. An Athlon x2 2.0 GHz CPU with 2GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD. The battery doesn't work too much, and the charging cord has seen better days. I am looking at spending the extra $100 to give it new life. I would be looking at a new battery, charging cord, SSD to replace the HDD, and new RAM. I could just expand the RAM, but buying two sticks that are matching would guarentee that they would work in duel channel mode perfectly. This could range in price from $70 to $100. The RAM, Battery, and cord will be inexpensive. The SSD would be the pricey item. I might hold off and see how the other pieces work out in the overall big picture. A SSd would be an instant upgrade in the way of speed. Boot times on this thing were rediculuous. But I still love my laptop. Well, this is it for now. Good night everyone.

Guess Who's Back? Back Again.

Hey everyone! It has far to long for this to pick up again. I'm still up to no good, and having fun. So let's catch up. I'm still a daddy to a wonder little girl, Cynthia. Nothing much has changed he's on the technology front. The only major news was a complete system crash and that has been resolved. I don't have much else going on besides work and parenting. I'm trying to get back heavy into gaming, photography, and just trying out shit in general. I'm looking at my collection of media in different eyes now. We have so many streaming options available to use that it is becoming less and less necessary to have terabytes of digital content. While I will never get the speed and consistency of a ripped file compared to streaming, it is a more viable option some times. I will always have my DVD movies ripped to a hard drive. No ifs, ands or buts. But TV show rips isn't that necessary anymore. We will explore everything and go from there. Until next time, peace.