new hardware; Adrian; gym
Because the perfect is the enemy of the good, I decided to stop fretting about what the perfect PDA-replacement for me would be, and have bought an iPod Touch. Because I have an old iPod I never use, the software went ahead and loaded music onto the new machine. It's possible that, if I have a reason to carry it anyway, I will find headphones that are a plausible combination of not hurting my ears, and not awkwardly huge* and use the thing as a music player. But for now, it's a PDA† that wants to hum to itself when I don't have it doing arithmetic or tracking appointments or shopping lists or people's addresses. I still need to hand it huge amounts of data; it currently contains one appointment, for Thursday evening. (And if I do solve the headphone problem, I might even start listening to music at the gym, on days I'm not working with Emilie.)
I spent last weekend in Boston with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle. We hadn't seen each other in longer than usual, and neither of us was feeling especially energetic, so mostly we stayed home, except for a walk around her neighborhood on Saturday and a trip to the supermarket Sunday morning. We'd been planning to go out for sushi Saturday evening, but the elevator broke at an inconvenient time, and rather than walk down five flights of stairs and risk having to walk up the same number, we looked in the cupboards, and had black beans (cooked with onions and a tofu-based chorizo), rice, and a cucumber for supper. (The elevator was fine Sunday morning, or we wouldn't have gone shopping then; I would have just walked down when it was time to leave.)
I saw the very beginnings of fall color in Arlington on Sunday afternoon from the bus, just a couple of branches of orange on the tree next to the Town Hall that's always early. (The tree that used to be the first to turn red and orange near my house was cut down about a year ago;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cattitude and I were not surprised, as it had been ailing for some time, but that doesn't mean we don't miss it.)
Yesterday after work, I went to the gym, as semi-usual.
Cardio, 14 minutes, top heart rate 126
Squats leaning against exercise ball, 2 sets of 15
Calf raises leaning on ball, 15, 9
Biceps curls (on ball), 10 pounds each hand, 2 sets of 20
The thing where I scoot into a bridge and back, 3; dropping down from there till my butt almost touches the floor, 5; scoots, 2 more
Half roll: just standing for a bit; the behind-my-back rotator cuff stretch, 8; balance lateral raise, 2.5 pounds each hand, 2 sets of 15; a few gentle squats
Foam roll: a bunch of the balance thing with two or three limbs in the air (went pretty well); rolled out IT band, 10 times on each side; the hard hamstring bridge, rolling back and forth, 7, 3
Crunches, 2 sets of 30
Back arch, 4 between those sets just for a quick break
Wrist curls, 25 pounds, 2 sets of 15
Stretches
*Most headphones, definitely including the basic Apple earbuds, are uncomfortable for me. I have a pair that sort of work, for a half hour or so at a time; they are very big, which both makes them a nuisance to carry around, and drains batteries quickly, which wouldn't be a problem at the gym but is for traveling. I am not currently looking for advice on headphones from anyone who isn't in a position to hand them to me and say "try these."
†On the other hand, I am looking for some apps, specifically a good calculator, and a shopping list; I'm open to other suggestions, but not looking for anything in the TV/video direction.
I spent last weekend in Boston with
adrian_turtle. We hadn't seen each other in longer than usual, and neither of us was feeling especially energetic, so mostly we stayed home, except for a walk around her neighborhood on Saturday and a trip to the supermarket Sunday morning. We'd been planning to go out for sushi Saturday evening, but the elevator broke at an inconvenient time, and rather than walk down five flights of stairs and risk having to walk up the same number, we looked in the cupboards, and had black beans (cooked with onions and a tofu-based chorizo), rice, and a cucumber for supper. (The elevator was fine Sunday morning, or we wouldn't have gone shopping then; I would have just walked down when it was time to leave.)I saw the very beginnings of fall color in Arlington on Sunday afternoon from the bus, just a couple of branches of orange on the tree next to the Town Hall that's always early. (The tree that used to be the first to turn red and orange near my house was cut down about a year ago;
cattitude and I were not surprised, as it had been ailing for some time, but that doesn't mean we don't miss it.)Yesterday after work, I went to the gym, as semi-usual.
Cardio, 14 minutes, top heart rate 126
Squats leaning against exercise ball, 2 sets of 15
Calf raises leaning on ball, 15, 9
Biceps curls (on ball), 10 pounds each hand, 2 sets of 20
The thing where I scoot into a bridge and back, 3; dropping down from there till my butt almost touches the floor, 5; scoots, 2 more
Half roll: just standing for a bit; the behind-my-back rotator cuff stretch, 8; balance lateral raise, 2.5 pounds each hand, 2 sets of 15; a few gentle squats
Foam roll: a bunch of the balance thing with two or three limbs in the air (went pretty well); rolled out IT band, 10 times on each side; the hard hamstring bridge, rolling back and forth, 7, 3
Crunches, 2 sets of 30
Back arch, 4 between those sets just for a quick break
Wrist curls, 25 pounds, 2 sets of 15
Stretches
*Most headphones, definitely including the basic Apple earbuds, are uncomfortable for me. I have a pair that sort of work, for a half hour or so at a time; they are very big, which both makes them a nuisance to carry around, and drains batteries quickly, which wouldn't be a problem at the gym but is for traveling. I am not currently looking for advice on headphones from anyone who isn't in a position to hand them to me and say "try these."
†On the other hand, I am looking for some apps, specifically a good calculator, and a shopping list; I'm open to other suggestions, but not looking for anything in the TV/video direction.
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Groceries (for shopping lists: it lets you split them up by store, and I keep contemplating a "Any store would carry" one - some stuff I can only get at Trader Joe's, some stuff I can only get at the co-op, some stuff I can get anywhere.)
aNote or AwesomeNote: a very very pretty but understated note program that lets you organise things by folder.
HomeRoutine: for housekeeping and very basic to-do stuff. I wrote up a review of it last week for the
Also YNAB (which goes with my on-computer budget program) and Things (task management, ditto).
Things I use less rarely, but still handy
Packing List : what it sounds like: helps you manage a packing list for a trip (has some pre-set defaults, but you can edit and copy them to future trips easily.)
Awaken: Alarm clock (I use the same program on my Mac)
CheckPlease: tip and check-splitting (there are snazzier ones out there, but this works fine.)
On headphones: I have the same problem, and mostly settle for the little ones that slide over my ears like glasses frames and cover the actual 'into the ear' part with a flat foam projection thing. However, they then interfere with my glasses, so if you come up with a great recommendation, I'd love to hear it.
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(The website was slightly slow to load for me, but did load.)
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This is what I use. Sorry if it's too ridiculously big.
Anyway, I use these. They kind of hang on the ear. Earbuds don't stay in my ears, period. They haven't ever. These work just as well as regular over-ear headphones, with the added benefit of being able to hook one to the shirt collar and hear what's going on around you. I don't remember where I got them. I do believe they were in the $5 range. In case you can't see it, they are Phillips SBC HS430. Maybe you could try googling (or bing-ing, or yahoo-ing) that and see some better pictures and an accurate pricing.
As for iPod apps... I have a new gen Nano, so I can't help there. I also have a PC, not a Mac.
Anywho. Good luck!
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There's some kind of free calculator that I downloaded but I haven't found a reason I might need it over the one that comes already installed with iOS...? What features are you looking for?
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Sooner or later, I'm going to want exponentiation, roots, trigonometric functions, and the ability to nest calculations using parentheses (just off the top of my head, things that proved useful on the Palm when I was using Parens Lite).
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Instead, I use Soulver, which I regard as the back of a magical envelope....
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May you find headphones that work even better for you.
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