Hiking and stuff

This past week I didn't work on Monday because of a holiday, so I went hiking on Sunday to El Cerro de la Silla. I had not gone there in a long time, even though it's close to my house. The last times I wanted to go it was either cloudy or I didn't want to wake up early. This time the day was perfect, the temperature was chilly and the sky was clear, so I went to take the bus that leaves me near the cerro.

The first part of the trip is through a colonia, and I think it's one of the hardest parts because it's very steep road. After that you get to the entrance or the starting point of the cerro, and contrary to the places we went on Portland, this one isn't as cool. There is a main road that workers used to take, so there are parts where they made concrete steps or a bunch of rocks. The rocks kinda suck because they can be slippery, but other than that, it's OK.

There are two main parts, you either go up to a tower (don't know if it's tv or radio broadcast) that is at the peak, or you go to a platform that is like around the middle of the trip(the Teleférico). This time I only went to the Teleférico since I was still a little sore from my race the week before.

It took me around 50 minutes to get up there and I took a few pictures, I felt short of breath and like I was doing some hard work, and it felt amazing. After resting a few minutes at the Teleférico and eating some fruit, I went back since I had some things to do at home.

That week I finally received a new PSU that I bought for my desktop, so after hiking I came back and took apart my computer, cleaned it thoroughly and changed the PSU. I changed it because the last one was making my computer crash when I tried to overclock both CPU and GPU, so after I put it back together, I tried to overclock both, and so far, it has been working perfectly.

5k Race report

This past Sunday I finally ran the race I was training for and it was amazing. But a little correction first, I posted a few weeks ago that I was going to try to do this in 20 minutes, I screwed, I was gonna write 25 minutes, one day I'll try run it at 20 minutes, but that's a little too fast for me right now.

Officially I was the 89th in the race and 11th in my category (30-39 years old) out of more than 2000 runners, and my official time was 24:16 minutes.

So, to be able to run at this speed and this time I trained since August, just after I came back from vacations, in which I finished another training program I had (10k in 55 minutes). For the 10k program I was running 5 or 6 times a week, it was hard and tiring, but it was easier than this other program.

I read that the key to be able to run faster is to do some strength training, not just running, so instead of running 6 times and between 40 and 55 km per week, I got a program to run 5 times per week and started lifting weights and doing strength training 3 times a week.

I was never interested in that kind of workout, but now I kinda like it, I felt the change quickly and I feel that it is amazing for my back, it hurts less when I have long runs and I feel like I have a better posture now. The only downside is that I felt the burnout just two weeks before the race, so I had to rest a little, and now that I finished, I decided to take a week to rest and start fresher my next goal... which I'm still not sure what it is.

Right now I feel like going easy until January, try to build more strength and run for fun. But knowing me, I'll might start a new program next week... and I know I can't just take it easy... not on this season... at least I need to balance all the food I'll eat next time I go to Juarez and the posada at work... and the tamales I ate last week... and... whatever I decided to cook for myself on new years eve...

Same race on November 2013 (10k)

Gaming and binge watching...

So, two weeks ago Destiny 2 got released for PC (it had already been released for consoles like a month or two ago). The game was made from the same studio that made Halo: CE, and as the former, it is a first person shooter, although this one it's more like a looter game, so it has some elements from games like Diablo and MMOs, which  means that it can have a lot of replayability, specially if you play with friends.

I have been playing it a lot... or at least what I would consider a lot, lol. Or I was until this past weekend when I started watching Stranger Things season 2... and I watched the whole season between Friday and Saturday. Really loved the show, although I do feel weird watching a whole season in just a few days.

I wasn't going to watch it yet, I wanted to play some more this weekend, but since on Friday I had to go and check a device (that's part of my job), and it was in a ceiling and I had to have one arm up for like more than half an hour, it died, it was tingling and numb, like when you have anesthesia. I got home and it was still all dumb and numb, so I wasn't able to play or work on something else, and that's why I started watching Stranger Things... and cliffhanger after cliffhanger, I watched the whole season.

The device was up there

New job and new opportunities

So, I started a new job almost 2 months ago. I started to look for one since I wasn't doing much in my last one. I started there as a software developer, and by the start of this year I was only doing tech support and after 4 years, I only got one salary rise just before my boss quit (I felt like it was his parting gift to me).

By last year someone convinced my boss to invest in a ERPI stayed there because there was the possibility of starting a new project, but after half a year I decided to look for a new job and started sending my resume. In one of the places that I sent my resume was a guy that knows my ex boss and asked him about me, and by the time it just happens that someone working with him quit, so he offered me a job.

At this job the pay wasn't that much higher, although it had better benefits and I would have the opportunity to learn a lot of new things. So far, I have been looking into proximity marketing, I'll need to learn to program in C and how WiFi and Bluetooth works, beacons, I'll need to learn how to modify routers and access points (through OpenWrt), I'll probably need to learn a few things of Android Development... and who knows what else. Those are only the things I have in mind right now.

When my boss told me about this opportunity, I didn't hesitate to say yes, it was either work on what I have been working for the past 4 years or the opportunity to learn new things. It was an easy choice. Although the pay on the other jobs I found was very attractive, but since I have no other responsibilities other than myself, I decided to learn instead of more money (which I hope learning all that will give me more money in the future, lol).

The only thing I don't like is that I need to take the bus and commute for like an hour, but I might look for another place soon.

Getting in shape

So, everyone knows me from before I started to run, how fat I used to be, and that I have been trying, succeeding and failing at dropping weight. At my highest I used to weight more than 125kg. That was more than 5 years ago, before I started running and stopped drinking coke regularly.

Between then and last May I have been dropping and gaining weight even though I haven't stopped running. Before May I never tracked my weight, as long as I was running it was OK... but last December I weighted myself and I was back at 100kg, I didn't like it... it made me feel like I wasn't doing anything even though I was able to run half a marathon (21km).

After a few months of running harder I weighted myself again... and I only dropped like 5kg, I was still at 95kg, so that day I decided to stop fooling myself and bought a scale, and started to track my food and weight myself daily. I also started to follow a running program, not just go out and run.

I put myself a few short and long term goals. Short term, I wanted to be able to run 10km in 55 minutes by August (my best time was around 60 minuts). I also needed to drop at least to 87kg by that time, and by the end of the year to 82kg. By August I was pretty much on track, but as it happens when one loses too much weight too quickly and doesn't work their muscles... I had a lot of loose skin...

After I came back from vacations on August, I put myself more goals, the first goal was that I want to run 5km in 20 minutes. That training ends in November, and so far I'm on track. The other goal is that I want to lose some of the loose skin, so I have been working out at home, doing some deadlifts, squats with weights, push ups, and some other exercises. It has been pretty hard, but after I started I have noted that I'm increasing my speed while running.

The bad part is that I barely have some free time for myself to either play video games or work on other projects, but I feel pretty good about my progress, and that I can eat a lot now and not feel guilty, these past weeks I have been eating chips and cookies almost daily since I started my new job.

Physically I still don't feel like I'm where I want to, but maybe in a few months I'll upload some before and after pics of my progress. Other than that, I feel pretty good, even if I hate myself every morning I wake up to run.

That's how much I have been running in the last months

I have been tracking my weight every week (at first it was daily) to motive myself.

The endless wait...

Since this past weeks I have been spending less money than I had planned, I bought some things through Amazon to be delivered to Monterrey, that and because the shipping was low and because I was planning on buying them anyway.

So... for the last few days I have been religiously refreshing my orders to see where they are according to the tracker... yesterday one got to Monterrey and now I'm just waiting for it to get delivered, and the wait is killing me :P

Almost there...

So yesterday after I went to run I was correcting my running app since it has a little problem when I adjust a record, sometimes it duplicates the record I correct, one with the original data and the other with the modified data.

I had been doing this for the last month or so, and not syncing it so it doesn't say that I have run more than I have done. Yesterday I was at 930km ran since I started using the app last year... but it wasn't counting all my runs... after I corrected all of them I synced the app again and restarted it so it would update my record...

This is it...

I'm 450 meters away from running 1000km... that's almost the distance from my house here in Monterrey to my parents house :P

Also... this week I got my passport, and I hope to get my visa soon, this is the comparison from 3 years ago :P

Toys...

So, I finally came back from Juárez and have been using my new toys, first of all the keyboard.

I have only been able to use it since this morning to type things (playing video games doesn't count :P), and I have been enjoying it, it feels different, lighter, quicker, more comfortable... except for the right alt, I use it as a modifier to put accents or make n as ñ and the space bar is a little wider... but everything else feels awesome, I would really recommend it if you type all day. Another thing... this keyboard is heavy, so not very friendly to be carried around... I'm even contemplating buying one for my workplace and leave this one at my house :P

The watch... I love it, I went to run with it two times already and love the accuracy, it feels a little heavy but comfortable, I just need to buy my bike to see how it performs there... and swimming :P
The heart rate monitor is cool too, it works like a charm and it doesn't feel uncomfortable at all. Also, the watch synchronizes with the PC and uploads all the data automatically to their web application and gives you graphics and statistics to work with. And many features that I haven't seen yet.

The backpack wasn't that good... it fits the laptop better than the other one I have... but it has less space for when I go to buy the groceries... so I will have to use the other one for that :P
Still, I like it, but I thought that it would have more space than the other one and it would replace it...

I also acquired a new keychain, I bought a key tester to feel the different type of switches from cherry, and since it doesn't have any other purpose now I started using it as a keychain XD

Update on... stuff....

Some time ago I wrote about some things that I wanted to buy, unfortunately lady luck didn't smile to me and the price on the watch that I wanted never dropped again, still, it was cheaper than I was expecting to pay, on the other hand, my keyboard is on it's way already, so I'll get it by the time I go to Juárez, same with a new backpack that is a little bigger than the one I have right now, and hopefully this one is big enough for my laptop, the one I have can hold it... but outside the padding, so I feel like it's a little exposed and it's already tearing from the straps... although I can mend it, I already did it once.

I bought a gaming mouse pad too... although I don't really know if there is much difference over a normal surface... luckily it wasn't expensive, the only thing I feel like I'm missing to complete my laptop/gaming set up is a good pair of headphones and a desk so I don't have to play on my bed, and obviously a chair, I'll probably buy the desk and chair when I get back from Juárez if I find something good here.

When I get my keyboard I'll try to write about it, I want to see if it's worth the investment or not, and if I would recommend it... I'm excited, I feel like Christmas is coming early this year... although... I don't know if I will be able to stuff my face with home made tamales -_-

Savings...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the problems I had with my bank and why even after that I stayed with them... well, a few weeks ago I bought flight tickets to go to Juárez in November and here are the different prices they had.

The cheapest form of payment is through the bank I'm with... but it has to be payed online... and since I intend to go at least 3 or 4 times a year to Juárez and maybe do another trip somewhere else it can save me some money. If it wasn't for that I obviously would have changed banks...

And speaking of savings... Steam just made something great and terrible at the same time... they decided to charge in pesos for mexican purchases... it sucks because... not only are the prices clearer... but they charge less for games... for example a game that costs 50 bucks wont be the equivalent of that... most of them are considerably cheaper, others are just barely cheaper... and one or two that I have seen are ridiculously overpriced... so... why did I say that that sucks? Well... I have problems restraining myself when I see cheap games... although now I only buy them if I have them on my wishlist... DAMN YOU STEAM...

Those games I have listed there are the prime example of what I say, the first one is like 20 or 25 dollars and now it is 226 pesos... that's like... 16 dollars more or less. The second game is 40... or it was 40 dollars last time I checked... it is now 356 pesos, and the last one... I don't remember if it was 15 or 20, but it is now 200 pesos... in times like this I can only say... Father give me strength :P

Another one bites the dust...

This past weeks I have been training pretty hard, I'm training to run my first 21k... unfortunately since I'm still a little overweight my feet tend to suffer. Since I started exercising a few years ago I have lost some toe nails, the first time was because I didn't use the appropriate running shoes, second time was because I went hiking with inappropriate shoes too... and after that I have lost one or two due to long runs.

Although it sounds awful, it really didn't hurt... that much, lol. One thing is clear... my feet... or rather my toe nails are not that prepared for long runs, most of the times when I run long distances is the main reason I stop, well, not because of pain... I try to not hurt myself, and other than those toe nails and random cramps I get, every thing has been pretty good.

This past Tuesday  I ran 8km in intervals and I didn't die, I felt pretty good actually, so I feel like it's working out... except for a toe nail that I had to cut just a few minutes ago... and...it looks that another one might fall off too... in a few days... lol... it sucks... but it doesn't hurt... and no pictures because it looks gross :P

Out of luck...

So, every time I go to visit Juárez I try to buy things I cant buy here or that are way too expensive. This time I want to buy a watch (Garmin 310xt), it offers the best bang for your buck if you want to train for a triathlon, unless you invest a freaking lot more.

Last week it was listed for 150 dollars, although the regular price is around 180 (down from 300). The day I was going to buy it was the last day it was at 150... in the morning... I was going to buy it later since it was pretty cheap... but by the time I was going to do it... it's price had already gone back to 180...

Still cheaper than what I had on my budget... but I want to buy a keyboard too... and the one that I want is more expensive than it should be right now... unless I wait for it to be restocked... so I decided to give it a chance... it says that it will be shipped between October 29th and November 19th, but... knowing my luck I might not get it on time... I'll go to Juárez between November 14th and 17th... maybe Sergio's luck might help here :P

If the keyboard is delivered on time I'll buy the watch at the price it is right now... if the watch goes down to 160/150 again... I might buy the more expensive keyboard...

Or I might buy the keyboard with noisier switches...

I was thinking on getting another keyboard like this one, the Das Keyoard Model S, which looks quite nice too... but it doesn't have media keys and backlit keys... although I might change my mind... who knows...

/*Geek mode engaged*/ :P
The keyboard I want to buy is a mechanical keyboard... they are classified by the type of switch they use, the one I want uses Cherry MX switches (German engineering :P), there are many types of switches divided in 2 categories.

The 2 categories are the tactile (and/or clicky) and linear switches. The tactile/clicky ones offer a physical feedback click when the switch actuates, while the linear does not, they offer a smooth travel. And contrary to rubber dome keyboards, you don't have to press them all the way down for them to actuate. So in a way they are better for your fingers because you reduce the shock of hitting the key all the way down... which might sound like an exaggeration... but when you work all day with a keyboard or game on it, it can make a difference, less stress on your hands.

The other difference in each switch is the pressure you need to apply for the switch to actuate, Cherry MX differentiates their switches by a color code. For example the blues and browns are tactile, they offer feedback when it actuates, but they require different amount of force, and the other difference between these two is that browns are less noisy, but offer the feedback that the linear type don't. Linear (like the red) are the preferred by gamers, while tactile are preferred by typists.

/*Geek mode disingaged*/ :P

Game ports...

Yesterday Final Fantasy XIII was released for PC, a game that came a long time ago... I never played that one because I didn't have a last generation console, but being a fan of Final Fantasy since I was little I wanted to play it. Though... I suspected it wouldn't be a good port... for some reason Japanese games don't tend to have good ports... and according to what I have read it's because there isn't a market of PC gaming like in the rest of the world. It is completely dominated by console and mobile gaming.

Even though I suspected that it was going to be a bad port, I didn't care, Dark Souls was a complete mess when it came out too and thanks to modders it turned ok...

Yesterday at launch, Final Fantasy XIII had some problems that as of 2014 shouldn't exist, at least not for big publishers/developers... but still they exist.

The first of those problems is the game being locked at certain resolution... in this case it is locked at 720p, luckily it can go up to 60fps (Dark Souls was capped at 30fps), but it doesn't offer any kind of configuration... and I'm no talking of things like anisotropic filtering, antialiasing, depth of field or things like that... it offers nothing... it doesn't have mouse support... keys aren't configurable and the worst thing I found... the game closes completely when you press escape... and I read that if you press alt+f4 it will ask you if  you want to close the game...

The cool part is that it didn't take long for some of these problems to get sorted out... like an hour after the release of the game one guy (the same that made the mods for Dark Souls) was able to unlock the resolution and the game is playable at higher resolutions (I think that up to 4k), and some other are being addressed.

This is one of the main reasons why I prefer PC gaming over console :P

....and things like this... watch at your own risk :P

Fartlek 2.0...

Yesterday I ran my second fartlek... it was only 8km... and it was devastating... It felt like a Dalek fart... for the first time since I started running I had to walk to recuperate myself when I was on the low speed course... in the end my average speed was the same as my average speed when I run normally... (5:30min/km)... and that was kinda cool, even if I walked a few times my average speed wasn't that bad... but I don't know what I'll do when I have to run like 16 or more km... I'm kinda scared... so if I stop writing I probably died while running :P

Old School ARPG

This Saturday I decided to try a game that I have had in my Steam Library for a long time, It's an Action RPG but it looks like a PS1 game... with good resolution, I read good things about that game and that's why I bought it... a long time ago... and just yesterday I tried it...and it was cool. The name of the game is Ys Origin.

I don't remember any game like this one... but it reminds me of other games. It has a top-down perspective with on screen enemies (like A Link to the Past ), and fast paced combat (like Tales of Phantasia), it has cool music too. It feels old school, but at the same time it feels refreshing after so many realistic games. It has videos and conversation boxes very anime like... like most Japanese Action RPGs.

Just as a final note, even if it reminds me of other games, it does feel unique, I enjoyed the game a lot, and it has it's difficulty, the boss I defeat in the video took me at least 3 or 4 tries, although I'm playing on hard.

P2P...

Ever since I had access to fast Internet I became accustomed to download everything instead of having them on physical media. One particular technology that I love using is, the often associated with pirating, P2P.

Whenever anything gets released now a days, it will probably be a pain in the ass to try and download something if they host the files on the same server or don't use other ways distribute files. Since yesterday I have been trying to download the preview of Windows 10 and it has been slooooooooooow, and it has failed already a few times, so after this problem with the official site I decided to look on a certain torrenting site to see if someone already was sharing the ISO file, and... there it was... I downloaded it from there and there hasn't been any problem.

Some companies like Blizzard have the option to use P2P to download/patch/update their games, normally you can download from their servers, and the speed is fine, but on patch/update day it can get slow unless you enable P2P. Same with Ubuntu, I cant remember the last time I finished a download from their site.

Anyway... great technology, hope more companies try to use it. Let's see what does Windows 10 offers :P

Fartlek...

Yesterday I learned a new word... Fartlek... and contrary to what it sounds it doesn't have anything to do with farts... unless they boost your speed while running :|
So this week I started to train rather than just go out and run, I'm following a training plan for beginners and yesterdays training was called a "Fartlek" which is the Swedish word for speed play or something like that...

This type of training requires constant changes of speed, for example you start at a normal pace (as a warm up) for a few minutes, then you speed up for a few more minutes and then you speed down to a slower pace (rapid walking), and speed up again for a few more minutes. It feels weird, but according to what I read it helps to boost endurance.

It is easy... but it can put a lot of stress in a short amount of time... when I got home I felt like I was going to die, that my legs where... pudding... and it's not like I ran a lot more than I usually do, but running faster than you normally do is very tiring.

Sick...

Yesterday I felt like shit... there... done :P
No, but seriously, I didn't write yesterday because I felt very bad and had lots of things to do.
I hadn't felt like that in ages, I had stomachache, headache, allergies and was a little tired because I went to run on Sunday...
I think something that I eat was making me sick, I even threw up... and after that I felt a lot better... the weird part is that the only different thing I ate was some beet and red cabbage...
Anyway... I feel better today.

Demo...

One thing I kinda miss about games is demos, being able to try a game before buying it. Now most of the times you either have to wait till a game is reviewed or hope for it to be good, or at least that it has most of the features that were promised, and that they don't have game breaking bugs. Most of the times games are enjoyable, but probably not worth paying up front 60 bucks, or 40, or even 30...
I won't lie, it has been ages since I bought a game at full price... the last one I remember was Diablo 3... and it came like 2 years ago... but it was in part because I didn't have a computer capable of playing most new games properly and I didn't have a job. Now that I have both, a good laptop and a job, I have been looking at new games again, one that I had in mind was TitanFall... it looked freaking awesome... but it didn't convince me because it is exclusively an online multiplayer game...

Yesterday I saw that it had a 48 hours trial and downloaded it to my PC, I have played it for a few hours and it was really good, I have been considering buying it... but I think I'll wait a little, I did enjoy playing it, but... I have some other games that I want to finish first...

Here is a little video I recorded today.

Pain...

So, for the past months I have had a mild pain in my hip muscles, they feel tight when I walk or stretch them more than I do when I run. At first it didn't bother me too much, but this past weeks I have been training a little harder and therefore I have been feeling more tired, sore and tight... so I started to read what was happening... apparently this kind of tightness is common among people that run long distances and have office jobs... but it's not a big problem, with some stretching exercises the tightness can be reduced, although I have been doing some myself this week for that same reason, but I just started doing them without reading or anything... it helps ease my mind knowing that I was doing them right, the last thing I want is to injure myself.

This week I'm resting and hoping this Sunday I can beat my record, and after that I want to start a real training program to run half a marathon.