Some Updates

It has been a while since my last post so I think it is time to give some updates:

• TV - I did not get a TV during the Black Friday sale on the various shops because none had the TV I was after on offer. Luckily, the week after christmas a large tech store chain did some early shopping - insane rebates activity - and even though they did not have the exact model I wanted they had a reasonably close one for a good 250€ below the average price - so I had to get it. Consequently I grabbed my father in the early morning hours and we drove to the store - waited in line with like 50 other people (remember, this is december 27th at 8am) - we got in relatively quickly and got the TV. It is a Samsung QLED (THIS ONE). I paid in cash since we had been saving up to it in our piggy bank and I am really satisfied with it. Great picture quality, good sound for built in speakers and all relevant features that I wanted (it even gets support for apple's air play in spring - so everything is golden there.
• Open Source Software governance - the scans of our software revealed some duplicate and outdated libraries - we updated what we could and got that out of the way - overall way less effort than anticipated.
• Basketball practice - I got back in the saddle really slowly. The orthopedist recommended not to play basketball like every again. But I love this sport and I need to do some kind of workout that I don't need to force myself to. I got a nice lower back bandage (prescription) and that makes it bearable even though it limits my flexibility and puts quite a bit of weight on my hip muscles - so I tire much quicker than before my back problems. But that should all sort itself out with more practice. I also started running (well, "running" - my pace isn't close to what it used to be) again to bring the weight down and get more fit. You can follow the results here. The first run was good and helped a lot with the back. Lazy as I am it lead to me reducing the back workout routine (because of reasons) and then the second run was not nice and set me back a bit - back wise. I have taken up the exercise part again and am looking forward to doing some running in todays lunch break. This is all part of my new years resolution (more on those later).
• In unrelated news - my oldest daughter turned 4 on Friday - what a party that was. We prepared for almost a week - she wanted an unicorn-themed party so we gave it our best:
  
  Decorated the house with unicorns, I even created some unicorn heads (made of plywood) - as part of the party entertainment the kids coloured those and I will finish them up with some varnish and glue sticks to them to create hobbyhorses. Here how they look in their raw form:
  

And hello again.

It has been a while since I wrote something here and wanted to give an update on all major things:

• Weight is a topic not to be talked about - I went up to around 105kgs beginning of August and started doing "interval fasting" - so I only eat (or consume calories for that matter) between 8am and 4pm. So far my weight has dropped to around 96kg - still too much but a bit better. With a bit more workout it should go down some more (needless to say I never reached the 82kg that I targeted an eternity ago)
• Basketball is also a bit of a sore point these past 2-3 months. My back has been in a really bad shape - hardly allowing me to walk fast - not to think about running and jumping. Went to see a doctor and he recommended not to play my most favorite sport any more. So, since my back has been much better this past week I am going to basketball practice tonight (because I love this sport and am a bit stupid) - updates to come on how this went.
• Marriage went great - never looked back. Even got two little offspring as well by now - but this is about me! And nothing else (besides basketball and technology).
• That brings me to the technology part: My love for JSF has died down quite a bit (as it has for most of the industry, I think). The new hype is Ansible and Docker (at least for me) - but I don't want to bore my 10s of readers with this now - more on this in a couple of days.

What else is there to say: Tomorrow is weekend which is great - this week felt a bit like two weeks with a lot of things going on work-wise and private-life-wise. I am a bit surprised that this blog still exists but I guess it is true: The internet never forgets.

Mission: Lose weight

Ok, so the new year has started and some warning signs have been recognized during the last 2 months in 2011...

• Pants look as if they were painted on my legs
  
• My belly jumps when I laugh (real Santa Clause style!) - especially embarassing after Basketball Practice in the locker room
• Haven't seen my feet since 2008

Ok, the last one might be a bit exaggerated but the other 2 are valid nonetheless.

I've got two starting points weight-wise:

1. Gym-Scale with clothes on around 10pm - 92.4kg
2. Home-Scale completely naked (oh yeah!) around 7am - 89.4kg

So far I have identified 2 Milestones - 85 by beginning of February - 82 by End of June (gotta get in shape for the Babamixed Basketball Tournament) - both on my home-scale.

The plan is to work out as much as I can and my aging body still supports and try to consume fewer than 4,000 calories per day.

So far I stick to the plan:

I went to the Gym yesterday - 35 minutes of usual workout (bench pressing etc.) and then 35 minutes of running with my new pulse watch (~4.5 km).

Today I only ate: 2 rolls for breakfast, a salad for lunch and now a protein shake for brinner ;) - and Basketball practice is so on tonight.

Planning to bring my running gear to work tomorrow...

Practice No. 4

So, we just had our fourth practice yesterday and things are starting to click:

Our level of fitness and stamina has improved consistently - you want evidence?
Some of the guys on our team have been on vacation the past two weeks. During yesterdays practice it was quite obvious who made the fastbreak drill for the first time - those were the guys panting heavily after 5 minutes. The rest of us were just fine and could complete the practice without collapsing ;-)

After having worked on fastbreak plays and 6 different options for our early offense we don't seem so confused anymore while on the court. We press the tempo on every possession and everybody knows his spot(s).

One personal downside for me were some more bruises on my forearms - I am playing in the post against the big guys (since I'm not shooting the ball too well) and they make me earn every inch.

Looking forward to monday's practice...

New Coach for our Team

Well, recently we got a new coach for our basketball team after having finished 5th in our league last season (some really stupid losses included).

So, new season, new coach.

Our target is to advance 3 leagues within the next 5 years (which means to finish 1st or 2nd every second season in the new league).
Some could say that this goal is quite ambitious - I thought the same before our first practice two weeks ago. Then we had the hardest workout in my basketball life so far - I was impressed.
I was even more impressed to find out on the next practice that it could get harder - and again harder in the next practice. After having run for 2 hours at nearly full speed I skipped my usual post-practice shootaround and headed straight to the showers - to make it there as log as I could still walk upright.

So, today is our fourth practice session and the tryout period for the team is nearly over - 30% of the players have already left and our team seems way fitter than through all of the last season.

The future looks promising...