Saturday, February 28, 2015

Amazonia: February 29th

For Sunday 01 March 2015
Warmup: 10 Pushups

9 exercises x 21 reps, 10 burpees, 2 rounds

Complete the following exercises in order, 21 reps each. Rinse with 11 burpees and repeat.



1. Squat Jumps
2. Squats
3. Plank (1 min)
4. Mountain Climbers
5. High Knees
6. Jumping Jacks
7. Bridge (1 min)
8. Lunges
9. Chair Dips

10. Burpees

X2

Core: Rest


Thursday, February 26, 2015

Amazonia: Core Breach

For Friday 27th of February.

30 mins, 2 rounds of 15 exercises, 50 seconds on, 10 off.

Warm up or cool down with 1 mile run.

1. Plank

2. Crunches

3. Mountain Climbers

4. Flutter Kicks

5. Half Sit Ups

6. Side Plank, left.

7. V-ups
www.menshealth.com

8. Bicycles
www.pinterest.com

9. Russian Twists
www.fitnessmagazine.com
10. Oblique Crunch, left

11. Side Plank, Right

12. Oblique Crunch, right

13. Superwoman

www.euclidchiropracticinc.com

14. Bridge

15. Scissors
tuningpp.com

Rinse and Repeat.

http://youtu.be/iN001iUenmU

#Hero Number 2: Tecumseh


Be a Person of Action.

Egi Hoc Diem. Action this Day.

The world has enough Sayers, and few enough of them worth listening to. What the world needs are Heroes, striving for greatness and carrying the weight of noble actions upon their shoulders.

Just as worthy deeds deserve excellence, worthy thought, brought to life, deserves heroic strife.

Choose today as the day you act. Be a #Hero.


“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. 


Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. 

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. 

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. 

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
~ attributed to Tecumseh

Some of you may recognize the poem from the movie Act of Valor. It is delivered as an epitaph to the main character via a posthumous letter to his son. 
(Ignore the Dutch sub-titles)

Sing your death song, be a person of action. Tecumseh was a man of action, a man who lived by a ethos.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Amazonia: Rule #1

For Wednesday, 25th of February 2015


Today is Cardio, Cardio, Cardio!

.25 Mile Run

.5 mile Elliptical

2 mile Bike

750m Row

.25 Mile Run

.5 mile Elliptical

2 mile Bike

111 High Knees

No set order, alternate between exercises and keep everyone moving.



Cabin Fever on #Vikings

Or, rather, Longhouse Fever.

Last week the third season of Vikings premiered on the History Channel. Yesterday, my wife and I watched the first episode. It's titled "Mercenaries" but should be entitled "Cabin Fever."

I like the show for many reasons - I am a legacy History channel fan, before it became the every-thing-but-history-reality-tv-channel. I am excited they found a good balance of show centered around the semi-mythical Ragnar Lodthbrok so they can build some main stream melodrama and still have a interesting story line based off some actual history.

I'm also a fan of the concept surrounding the Viking Legacy. The Vikings themselves are semi-mythical. A warrior culture in which every man and woman strive to emulate the heroic deeds of their Gods and demigods. Truly, the only way to make it to the Viking Heaven, Valhalla, is to die a hero. We should all aspire to such epic action.

Thirdly, I like Vikings because it is an awe inspiring story, well told. What we all want is a good story, with great characters we can either relate to or aspire to. 

What really struck me about the premier was the Jungian subplot of the first third of the episode and something everyone in the North can relate to. It's been a long winter and and we are all ready to get out and seek action.

The male characters of the show all represent a different stop along the archetypal story-line. They all have longhouse fever and all for different reasons.  



Ragnar is making the transition from explorer to ruler, from self to selfless and wants out of the long house for his one last hurrah. He is trapped in a complex 'modern' family where both his wife and ex-wife are close at hand and he is required to balance the needs of a knitted family in which his eldest son Bjorn, by his ex-wife, is the heir apparent and his youngest son Ivar, by the current wife, is physically disabled.

Bjorn is young, transitioning from innocent to hero and anxious to make his own name before he inherits the family biz. He has also knocked up his lover, Porunn. She has no interest in being a doting longhousewife but aspires to be a career-woman as a       shield maiden. Let's just avoid our domestic problems and go kill some Saxons, that'll solve everything.

Rollo, the brother, is a recovering alcoholic and on the way from Hero through Rebel back to Hero and on to Sage. He has been struggling to get from beyond Ragnar's shadow and hopes to find a new path. In other words, he just quit his job at the meat packing plant and sunk his 401k in a new cross-fit gym. Oh yeah and his gal, Siggy, used to be a Real Housewife of Kattegat. 



Torstein, the dependable #3, wants to get the heck out of dodge because Maury Povich won't stop collect-calling the fjord. He has managed to knock up both his mistresses and isn't the least bit interested in the paternity test results. 


 Athelstan is a born-again-pagan with all the baggage that concept entails including a stigmata from a recent Crucifixion (yes, literally). He is the Orphan (abducted by Ragnar from Lindespharne) and anxious to return to England to discover/rediscover his roots and perhaps be re-re-born-again (echem...again). 

Lagertha, Ragnar's first wife, (whom everyone man, woman and child has a crush on)  made the widest arch. Before we knew her she was a shield-maiden and has since moved from Hero to Lover to Caregiver to Orphan, back to Hero and onto Ruler parallel to Ragnar. Despite all the BS she's had to put up with from Raggedy Andy, she still loves him and hopes to rekindle the sparks if she can get Ragnar away from his 6 foot tall born-of-an-epic-hero-and-shield-maiden Victoria Secret model of a wife and her equally epic chin.



Floki is going through his third-life-crisis. He has everything that he could want but is still unhappy. He feels smothered within his new marriage turned new family and can't put his axe upon the reason why. His wife, Helga, understands and hasn't said anything about the REO Speedwagon T-shirt, the new long-ship parked in the driveway or the constant need for 'space.' Floki, the Jester/Creator, must have this last night in Vegas with the boys before he can realize what he has and make the leap from Creator to Magician. 

No matter how the story ends we know their hearts return to Kattegat. 


Every guy watching the show can relate to one or all of the Vikings, especially this cold time of year as we all get a little stir crazy. Every gal watching the show can understand too, especially as she offers a knowing glance at the warrior sitting next to her.

We all know that whatever we hope to find while raiding pales in comparison to what is back home on the fjord. It is the journey that makes the story worth telling. 

So, whether you still rock the long-ship or have long since traded it in for a minivan - Get out there and Be the Hero. Skol!

The 6th Sense

At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.


Monday, February 23, 2015

Amazonia: Squatter's Rights

For: Tuesday, 24th of February 2015


"Whats a 'woggle'?" - A woggle is when you are too exhausted to run but too determined to give up.

iCrazy Interrupted

By: Callie Oettinger | Feb 20, 2015 12:30 am

Read in browser »
(This first ran August 10, 2012. It’s making a repeat appearance this week as a reminder to unplug and clear the head while clearing the snow on the ground.)
The headline stared out from the magazine rack in the check-out line. Beyond the guess-which-celebrity-has-the-worst-beach-body headlines was:
iCrazy
Panic. Depression. Psychosis.
How Connection Addiction Is Rewiring Our Brains
It was splashed across the top of Newsweek.
* * *
In January, my husband and I bundled up our kids and headed skiing. The lodge where we ate lunch was the only place to plug-in during the day.
The first day I was a wreck. I needed to get online.
“You’re on vacation,” my husband reminded me. “People know you’re gone. It’s ok.”
That wasn’t the point. I needed to know what was going on. What was I missing out on?
And then it started to pass.
And by the end of the trip, I realized my head was clearing.
And I knew why.
The things missing during vacation—those things that ate up much of my usual day-to-day life—were e-mail and the Internet.
* * *
I found iCrazy by Tony Dokoupil sandwiched between pieces  about Tom Cruise and Syria. It opened with the example of Jason Russell, the man behind the documentary “Kony 2012,” who went from little social presence to overload—to stripping down on a street corner, slapping the pavement and ranting.
* * *
I didn’t watch much TV as a kid. If chores were done and behavior good, Little House on the Prairie and Saturday cartoons were a treat.
My parents tuned in for the evening news, UCLA football and basketball, and the annual Army-Navy football game.
Otherwise, my sisters and I challenged our play station of the day—the jungle gym Dad erected in the back yard—or we torn up the neighborhood on our bikes, played sports, were involved in Girl Scouts, or hanging at the library, which Mom took us to once a week to pick out books to read.  We didn’t have time for TV. No Atari. No computer.
* * *
Before our family ski trip this past January, I felt like my brain was atrophying. I couldn’t sit and read books like I used to. I moved like a cat who’d lost her patience. My focus was on getting that piece of string being wiggled in front of me, not on waiting out the string—and its manipulator—like a seasoned Tom, so I could grab it for good in just one pounce.
I was constantly checking, monitoring, replying, posting.
* * *
According to the Newsweek article:
“The brains of Internet addicts, it turns out, look like the brains of drug and alcohol addicts.”
* * *
I’m one of those people who can’t hold a conversation and watch TV at the same time. I’ve tried. Doesn’t work—even if the show is about something for which I have no interest. It draws me in. And I can’t produce anything when it’s on. I need silence.
That same feeling of being distracted started tugging at my brain a while ago, as I sat in front of my computer. For my work, I spend more time in front of a screen than I do anything else in my life.
And it hurts my head.
It’s not that pain, in a nasty hangover, hammering a nail into your brain sort of way, but more of that leaking pain in your heart sort of way—which comes about when you’re losing someone or something of great value. It just keeps going. No one to shore up the dike. Just a long, heart-wrenching, painful leak.
* * *
My dad’s a doc. When I had my own kids he started going on and on about limiting their screen time. For the first four years of my son’s life, I didn’t listen. He watched a lot of TV. And then my daughter came along, and we were busier than ever. My son was old enough to play sports, we were at soccer practices and games, and TV time faded.
And when we did have free time, and he started watching TV again, I noticed a difference. He wasn’t as calm. Didn’t sit as still. And then the Nintendo DS came along and the iTouch.
We’re a gadget family, so he and his sister bought into those, and then into the iPad, and then I noticed the same. After long periods in front of the many screens they were easily distracted.
I listened to Dad and started limiting their screen time. No TV, no DS, no computer, no iTouch, no iPad during the week. Weekends only.
It didn’t occur to me that I needed to limit my own screen time.
* * *
On the last page of the Newsweek article, a mention of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl made me pause:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” begins Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl, a beatnik rant that opens with people “dragging themselves” at dawn, searching for an “angry fix” of heroin. It’s not hard to imagine the alternative imagery today.
* * *
In the public relations world, there’s an attention to staying on top of everything, all the time. I live in it. I get it. If something bad happens, you need to be on top of it—right away. And if something good breaks, you want to blow your horn—loud, within seconds of the fab news.
BUT: That need to know has fueled the social media addiction. The latter services the former. It provides that quick-info-now fix.
AND: It’s expanded it’s territory. It’s hooking up more than just the PR world these days.
* * *
One last line from Newsweek:
The Internet is still ours to shape. Our minds are in the balance.
* * *
I’m still a fan of social media for sharing and connecting. I’ve met some amazing people that way, but I know I can’t be on board 24/7.
Get in.
Get out.
When I started limiting my social media time, my head felt better and I collected lost time—and I found that my time online was more rewarding. I accomplished more within the same time by limiting the distractions, keeping to my time limits. And I’ve extended it to e-mail, too. I’m either on, or off. No more having it turned on in the background all the time.
The feeling that my head is being invaded by the mush Dad said TV would turn my head into, is fading.
The thing is, I know I’m not alone in this.
As that last Newsweek line said, “The Internet is ours to shape.”
We’ve got to eliminate iCrazy from the equation.
“Our minds are in the balance.”
We can’t let the howling spread.
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/2015/02/icrazy-interrupted/?mc_cid=083a680061&mc_eid=028e6a9f2d

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Amazonia: Pair Up

For Monday the 23rd.




Diamonds are: Leg Throws
Clubs are: Crunches
Hearts are: Mountain Climbers
Spades are: Jump Squats
Aces are: 3x7 reps of pickers choice.
Jokers are: 3 minutes of Plank.

We will have a deck of 52 in a bag to draw from:

The suit you pick determines the exercise.

The numerical value determines the reps. You will do 3 sets of the reps indicated. Back to back to back.

For example: If you draw a 2 of clubs you will do 6 crunches (2+2+2) and if you draw a King of diamonds you will do 39 leg throws (13+13+13).

Jokers and aces are the exception. Jokers = Planks. Aces are picker's choice, any exercise they can imagine x 21 (7+7+7).

Everyone picks in turn. 30 mins or exercise.

Amazonia: Noah

Tabata: 20 seconds on/10 off, 8 rounds. 4 min per exercise.

1. Jump squats.
2. Lunges.

3. High knees.
4. Jumping jacks.

5. Flutter kicks.
6. Russian twists. Weighted. 8-15#

24 mins total. Short rest between conditioning, cardio and core.

Tabata = MAX EFFORT.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Amazonia: AnnaBelle

For 19th February 2015 - Friday

All sets are step-downs: 21, 14, 7.

1. 500m Row

2. Butterfly Press


3. Lat Raises
www.rivertea.com

4. Lat Pull Down
www.popworkouts.com

5. Cable Cross Pull
au.prime7.yahoo.com

6. Military Press
www.teachpe.com

7. Bowflex Press


8. Dumbell Row
www.leanitup.com

9. 500m Row

10. Resistance Band Curl
www.popsugar.com


11. Triceps Curl
www.womenshealthmag.com

12. "ABCs"
chiffonsouffle.com
Keep your arms straight. Trace all 26 letters of the alphabet in the air in front of you with both arms simultaneously.

36 minutes total. 404 reps. Some very sore but very firm arms.

tHero #1: Lars Andersen

Hero Tenet #1:

Strive for perfection in one thing, be excellent in all things.

What? Did I just quote Bill & Ted? Yes, yes I did.


But I also paraphrased your Grandmother: "Something worth doing is worth doing right." 

Who in turn, stole the quote from this guy: 
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.

The point is this: Find That Thing which defines you, and work to be the best at it. Strive to be the Perfect [insert]. 

Everything else that is worth your time is worth the best effort you can give it. If it isn't not worth your time, throw it out.

Be the best Mother, Artist, Father, Warrior, Servant, Spouse, Athlete, Leader...
Hero you can be.

This is Lars, his perfection is Archery:

 

Lars is a Hero. Lars is a person of action.

http://youtu.be/BEG-ly9tQGk

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Prezi: Visual Storytelling brought to Life

http://prezi.com/


Everyone seems to assume that a presentation must be accompanied by a PowerPoint. Conferences even require presenters to submit their PowerPoints as a condition of being accepted. But we’ve all seen terrible PowerPoints that detract from the presentation, and many people just don’t use PowerPoints well, hence the term “PowerPoint-induced sleep.”
But maybe it’s time to (gasp) question the use of PowerPoint itself (stick with me here)! Why do we assume that we must put up an outline of our points to help the audience understand them? The best presentations on TED are not accompanied by a PowerPoint of bulleted lists, but rather photos or other imagery that illustrate a point or make an effect. A speaker might flash the simple word “why” on the screen to prepare the audience for questioning a common belief. A single photo could be used to elicit a laugh or set the tone of the discussion.
One alternative to boring PowerPoint slides is to use Prezi. This web-based tool allows the user to create a single canvas of text, images, videos, etc. online. The presenter flies from location to location on the canvas, sometimes turning elements upside down, sometimes zooming in or out, to explore the relationship between ideas. Like a painter, the canvas draws the developer to choose visual imagery to create the presentation, in contrast to the text-heavy, outline-based methodology of PowerPoint.
- See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/prezi-a-better-way-of-doing-presentations/#sthash.Tj0pBcqv.dpuf

http://prezi.com/

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Amazonia: Lola (aka Katie #2)

For Wednesday, 18th of February 2105



Today is Cardio, Cardio, Cardio!

.25 Mile Run

.5 mile Elliptical

2 mile Bike

500m Row

.25 Mile Run

.5 mile Elliptical

2 mile Bike

300 Jump Rope

No set order, alternate between exercises and keep everyone moving.

Don't forget to thank Katie, "Danke Katie!"


Wal-Mart’s manufacturing recovery?


Getty Images
President Obama, in his State of the Union address, told Americans that manufacturing in the United States is back. The president is right to applaud job creation in manufacturing. But both elected leaders and the public should be wary of one company in particular falsely taking credit for this “manufacturing renaissance”: Wal-Mart.
Two years ago, Wal-Mart launched the U.S. Manufacturing Initiative, a pledge to create 1 million new jobs over the next 10 years through buying “U.S.-made goods.” But Wal-Mart has done very little to improve American jobs. In fact, it continues to harm our nation’s job market.

Wal-Mart is the largest buyer of consumer goods in the world and is the nation’s largest importer of goods. Wal-Mart’s public relations campaign about U.S. manufacturing aims to distract Americans from two core aspects of Wal-Mart’s business model. 
First, as the country’s largest private sector employer, the company has played a leading role in driving down service-sector wages for millions of working families. The majority of workers in Wal-Mart stores are paid less than $25,000 a year.
Second, the company is hoping Americans will forget that Wal-Mart has played a leading role in the offshoring of American jobs.
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers: Obama says more than 780,000 manufacturing jobs have been created since February 2010. Yet, American workers have lost an estimated 3.2 million jobs, most of which were in manufacturing, since 2001 due to trade imbalances with China alone. Between 2011 and 2013, 500,000 jobs alone were eliminated or displaced, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute. This job loss — much in advanced technology manufacturing, meaning parts for electronics — created a gap in job creation in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturers need to hire at a much higher rate to even approach closing the gap.
Wal-Mart has not made public any real numbers regarding its impact on U.S. manufacturing job creation. The suppliers that are part of the Wal-Mart initiative have created only about 2,000 U.S. jobs in the last two years, according to anecdotal evidence on Wal-Mart’s website. 
Sadly, even Wal-Mart’s poster child for its U.S. manufacturing initiative, Element Electronics, seems to be little more than window dressing. Wal-Mart sells Element televisions marketed as “American-assembled” at Wal-Mart stores nationwide, yet as The Wall Street Journal reported last year, the TVs arrive in the U.S. nearly completely assembled from China in boxes labeled “Assembled in the U.S.A.” Workers in South Carolina check for defects, install a memory card and put the TVs back in the boxes, to be shipped to Wal-Mart. This is not the kind of high-skill, high-investment manufacturing that will help rebuild the American middle class.
Wal-Mart says it wants to be part of the solution of rebuilding our manufacturing sector. But to walk the walk, Wal-Mart needs to sell a much higher percentage of goods in its stores that are actually manufactured in the U.S., thus helping to stop the offshoring of jobs and creating real, quality manufacturing jobs in America. And if Wal-Mart wants to really make a difference for American families, the company should listen to its 1.3 million associates when they speak out for “$15 and full time” — an income a person can actually live on.
Wal-Mart is right about one thing. The company is so big that its choices move our economy. When it outsources, manufacturing jobs disappear. When it pays poverty-level wages, other employers follow suit. If it chooses to really support raising wages and rebuilding American manufacturing, it could make a real difference. 
As Obama moves forward in his efforts to rebuild American manufacturing and create good jobs, he and our country need something more than PR gestures and poverty wages from our nation’s largest importer and largest employer.  
Silvers is director of policy and special counsel for the AFL-CIO.

Amazonia: Buffdudes

For Tuesday 17th February 2015

For these exercise sets you'll need a pair of dumbells, some kettle bells or some house hold items that weigh 8-15#s. Note: using something unstable like a bag of potatoes actually make the exercise more effective - whenever you're forced to balance something you engage more muscle groups. Or, you can go to the gym and do it.

http://youtu.be/xRr7aGPuLzw

I was looking for a good triceps exercise video and I found this. The guy in the video is trying to bulk but the workout is great for toning the underarm and helping with push-ups. Just use a lighter weight.

Core for today: 7 sets of 21 half crunches. Target the upper abs.