P90X almost 2 weeks in
This Monday began my second week of P90X. I can handle the workouts for arms, chest, back, legs kenpo and even abs, but when it comes to Plyometrics and Yoga X it just kicks my ass leaving me gasping and trembling on the floor.
It’s almost embarrassing to admit how much Yoga is kicking my ass. Before P90X I thought that Yoga was for soccer moms and to limber up not leave you drenched in sweat and trembling in poses.
My diet has been going very well. The only day I didn’t stick to the diet was Valentine’s Day when Brooke and I went to Roy’s restaurant in Woodland Hills ( http://www.roysrestaurant.com/ ).
Besides that I have lost nearly 4 pounds and body fat has dropped 3%.
I’m quite pleased with my progress so far but I’m worried as well. I only have 1 week more of phase 1 and then the week of rest. Now that week of rest is far from rest, it’s full of cardio, yoga and kenpo. I’m worried that come phase 2 I may nob be as far along as I should be. I guess I just have to really buckle down this last week and give P90X my all and a bit more.
P90x Day 1
So tonight I started p90x. I am doing a modified version of the nutrition plan as it’s a tad extreme for me and with Brooke here part of the week I need the flexibiltity to make just about what ever I want.
This morning I started out with a cheese omelet made with egg whites, low fat cheese, tomatoes and green onions. I snacked on low fat string cheese before lunch and for lunch I had a chef salad with butter lettuce, tomatoes , low fat ham and turkey. I ended the afternoon with a small banana.
I came home and walked Jack and got ready for my workout. I out in the chest and back DVD and prepared for my one hour workout. This has to be one of the most intense workouts I’ve ever done, and that even goes back to when I was a lifeguard.
I’m definitely more out of shape than I have been, especially when it comes to upper body strength but I was able to get through all the exercises, some far more easily than others. I only had to pause the DVD once tocatch my breath, but the workout totally kicked my ass and for a good 45 minutes after finishing up I had a rough time lifting my arms above my shoulders.
For dinner I cooked up a 1.25 lb steak, took a quarte of it and some tofu and laid it over some baby greens and tomatoes with a worscherster dressing.
It’s now 11pm and I’m totally beat. When Brooke isn’t here, like tonight, I’m usually up until 1am or so, but I have a feeling this workout is going to leave me exhausted for quite a while.
Day 1 down. 89 to go.
Gear Planning For My Prot & Holy Paladin
So, I just hit 78 ( well, nearly 1/2 way through 78 now ), and I have been struggling with Ret. First it was pretty bad as I wasn’t using Seal of Corruption ( OOPS ), but the more and more I play, I can’t get out of the mind set of tanking or healing.
Rewinding back to when I first started playing WoW, I played my druid and I tanked. I was a force to be reckoned with both in instances and in the 3 Battle Grounds available at the time. Before Burning Crusade launched, my druid was Exalted with all 3 factions and had hit “Marshal” in the BG rankings ( I was SOO close to Field Marshal, but I just could NOT keep up that level of play ). I eventually got into raiding, and I was an OT and a healer when needed. I had more than enough gold to get me through my play times, so I could respec as necessary by my guild, which tended to be about twice a week ( RIP The Dark Legion ). Once Burning Crusade came out, I wanted to stay resto for raiding but feral for a tank for 5 mans when needed. I’ve never been good at DPS. I understand the concepts, but I always end up watching health bars and trying to protect the squishy ones to be too successful at it I guess. This was the case with my druid, my shaman, my DK, my warrior, and my mage that hasn’t seen beyond level 70.
I started leveling my Paladin again after re-activating my account and have been enjoying leveling in Northrend again ( after a break ) and having the new dual spec was great. I decided I’d go ret/holy and that way could end up healing when needed, but would have the ret spec to quest with. Questing as ret is pretty easy, unless I pull a few too many ( read 5+ ), I usually walk away from a fight at about 98% hp and 90% mana. Not too bad. In groups though, I’m kind of frustrated with my DPS output. Sure, I’m in partial greens and blues and not the IDEAL spec ( I know I screwed up a few points, which I’ll fix come 80 ), but topping out at 1500DPS and getting passed by a hunter that’s a level below me by anywhere from 200-500 DPS is kind of ego bruising. I know part of it is gear ( he was 1/2 in BoA gear and 1/2 70 pvp epic gear ), and I know some of it is b/c I keep looking at bars, and dispelling what I can dispell and taunting off the healer if they pull aggro and blah blah blah, so I decided I need to go prot/holy and just face the music.
Holy build 1 and eventually Holy Build 2
Gear, I’m going to grab crafted items, and perhaps a few BoE items to start my gear sets, along with whatever marginal greens & blues I may already have.
I hit 79 tonight and went holy and still have ret as my “other” spec. I picked up a Titansteel Shield Wall for 300g ( cost of mats ) when it was going for 800g on the AH. Probably should have turned around and tried to sell it and use the profits for other stuff. The LFD tool has been good to me while leveling, I’ve been able to get 16 emblems of triumph so far, 30 will get me new gloves while 25 will get me a new libram ( which I desperately need ). Hopefully, before too long I’ll have the gear to heal the new 5 mans in Icecrown and can start stock piling badges and really gear up quickly. At this point I have a hard time healing lvl 74/75 5 mans, but that’s likely due to a combination of not being used to the healing style and having some pretty piss poor gear at this point.
My WoW Characters
Kanaloah – 80 resto shaman
Bbqlol ( formerly Kyane )- 80 feral druid
Lokelani – Leveling Paladin, will be holy / prot
Imoo – Death Knight
Beyond these I have quite a few more characters, 2 others above 70 and 5 others between 50 and 60.
IThumbnailProvider Re-Visited
Note for the source downloads, see the bottom of the post.
About 3 months ago I posted about 64-bit versions of Thumbnailers written for Vista and Windows 7 using the new “IThumbnailProvider” class. Writing new functionality in managed code ( C# is what I used ), just made it very easy to get code up and running. Well, with Windows 7, there was a problem. The file was being locked by the sytem, and we couldn’t delete it, programmatically nor manually. In fact, when attempting to do it programmatically, Windows returned that the file had indeed been deleted, yet looking at the folder the file persisted. Almost mocking my attempts to delete it. Then, after some magical period of time ( usually between 10 seconds and 5 minutes ) the file would finally give up, and Windows would wisk the file away to Never Never Land.
This was all very confusing, and after a while I called up Microsoft. I got my case ID and was told that someone would call me or email me within a few days. Later that day I got a call from someone, but after showing them with a remote meeting the problem that was happening they determined they were the wrong group to handle it. This happened yet again, and I was passed along through 4 or 5 more people before I got to someone that I believe worked up in Washington, had a name that was easily pronounceable, and had no noticeable accent to someone that lived on the West Coast of the United States.