Inside the Mind of Suz

No, I really am. And apparently my tool-like actions reach all the way back to last year!

I have been leading all of my faithful Couch to 5k devotees astray without even knowing it! And I would have continued to do so were it not for helpful commenter Mel, who pointed out that I cued up the Week 4 podcast incorrectly!

As you’ll recall, that is the podcast I labeled as “ghetto”. I was in a super hurry when making it and appears that I did so by adding in an extra 3 minute run and 90 second walk interval. So, not only are there no vocal cues, but I’m making us all do more work than we’re supposed to do that week! AHHHHHH!

Look, I always knew I sucked a little, but this just takes it to another level. I’m so, so, so sorry! And to make it up to you, I’m going to make a proper Week 4 podcast, complete with cueing, this week. And to honor the great Michael Jackson, the entire podcast will be my fave MJ songs.

So, again, I apologize! Look for the new podcast in a couple of days! Feel free to use the comment section to e-stone me. I deserve it!

Last month, Lisa Leslie gave us a late June return to the courts for Candace. We never really got confirmation of that time period from Candace. She usually said that she was hoping to return “soon”. Even though I miss watching her play, I initially though late-June was too soon for a first time mom. Looks like Candace thought so too.

Instead, she is hoping to make her comeback within a 6 week time frame, according to the LA Times. That would be right around the end of July. Additionally, she wants to start practicing with the Sparks again in 2 weeks.

Sounds good. Can’t wait to see CP3 back on the hardwood!

In other news, Candace was just nominated for an ESPY Awards in the “Female Athlete” category. Other nominees include tennis star Serena Williams, Olympic all-around gymnastics champion Nastia Liukin, Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin, and Connecticut basketball player Maya Moore.

The 17th annual ESPYs will be hosted by Samuel L. Jackson on Sunday, July 19. They will air live at 9PM (ET).

ETA: The full ESPYs nominee list is out and Candace picked up a second nod for Best WNBA Player. Also, her Q&A with Time Magazine is out. Read it here.

Last year I did Cool Running’s Couch to 5k running plan for the first time. I went right through without any struggles. I didn’t need to do any of the weeks twice in a row before being able to move on, and while doing runs I never felt like I was going to die.

This year is a different story. I couldn’t figure out why, until I started dissecting my workout routine from both years.

In 2008, I was doing a lot of Turbo Jam cardio coupled with The Firm’s combo workouts. At the time, I was more into cardio than I was strength training. When it came time to start running, I was really ready and picked it right up!

This year, I started c25k running right after completing 4 months of ChaLEAN Extreme. The first couple of weeks was great, but after the runs extended to 2+ minutes, I found myself struggling and I couldn’t understand why.

I thought about the kind of training I was doing in ChaLEAN Extreme, and the focus was not on cardio. The slogan of the program is “Muscle Burns Fat”, so that’s what you concentrate on. There are calorie blasting workouts like the Burn/Lean Intervals DVDs, as well as Burn It Off and Fat Burn Challenge. However, those intense cardio spurts for those tapes are 1 minute max. That explains why everything was great for the 1st two weeks where you run for 60 and 90 seconds before recovering with a walk. No wonder that was so easy! (more…)

The powers that be have been teasing us Ohioans with the promise of a passenger rail system, connecting the state’s 3 major cities (Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati) for a long time now. My mother talks about how the topic regularly came up 20 years ago!

I even blogged about this last year in one of my very first posts here. A little progress has been made, but not enough. I want more!

So what makes the recent discussions more plausible? Obama’s stimulus money that he has earmarked for transportation improvements. Governor Ted Strickland asked for $400 million of the $8 billion up for grabs, and I hope we get it!

There are always sporting events and/or concerts in Cincy or C-Town that I want to go to, but don’t always feel like driving too. No, it’s not a terrible drive; just 90 minutes to Cincy and 2 hours to Cleveland. But sometimes, you’d just like to ride and enjoy the trip instead of worrying about driving, getting gas, parking etc.

The proposed plan for Ohio means that once a rail system is in place, a one-way ticket to Cincinnati or Cleveland would cost me about $25. That’s what? Like half a tank of gas? Sounds good to me! And if all goes as planned, I could be headed to Cincy by train in early 2011.

So, I will try not to get my hopes up for this, but it seems like this could finally be happening for us. We need a passenger train here.

Links of interest? Ohio Rail Development Commision

There must be some weird stuff going on with my server, because y’all saw that I wrote a post titled “Candace Parker Tweets!” a day ago and now it’s gone and I haven’t logged into my WordPress backend since then; until now! The post is gone! Twitter Tools even sent the post announcement to Twitter for me! WTF!

Maybe it’s a conspiracy since I out-scooped the LA Times? JK,JK. I don’t know, but I’m writing it again. And hopefully my post will stay up!

I was just sharing with all my fellow CP3 fans that Candace is now on Twitter. There are 3 times as many followers now as there were when I started following her. Guess word did get out very quickly and now people are connecting with her. She seems to have picked it up very quickly, too!

I think it’s great, because without a MySpace or official website (she says it’s coming!) there was no easy way for fans to communicate with Candace. Now there is and it’s a beautiful thing!

I can’t tell you how many friends I have who still give me the “I don’t get it” comments when it comes to Twitter. It’s basically whatever you want it to be and you get out of it what you put in. So, give it a whirl!

Like all the other tech geeks out there, I was very interested in yesterday’s WWDC. Rumors had been swirling for a while that there would be a new iPhone unveiled and what do you know, it’s true!

The new iPhone 3GS (the S stands for Speed) looks great! It has an improved camera, video-recording capabilities, push notifications, stronger processor, and more RAM. That’s not all it has, but those are the things that I care most about.

I am part of the jailbreak nation, so I’ve been recording video for a while now. With the next version of the PixelPipe app (1.4.1) in beta testing, the gliches from the iPhone 3.0 should be sorted out and video upload to YouTube should resume. There are workarounds for nearly everything!

However, if I want the 3GS, I should be prepared to hand over my non-existent first born, because AT&T aint playin’ around. Last year, current iPhone users were allowed to upgrade, extend their contract and take advantage of the same price as new customers. That’s not the case this time around!

Apple has set up a page where you enter your information and tells you what it’ll cost you to upgrade. You input your phone number, zip, last 4 digits of SS, and email and voila! I don’t know about anyone else, but it aint pretty!

Now, granted, I’ve only had my 3G since December, but still! That’s insane! However, being jailbroken gives me a little more freedom than those who choose to play by the rules.

I will miss that 3MP camera, though. I take pictures on my iPhone like it’s my job. I also have about a million photo/multimedia apps. I will also miss the RAM, fast processor, and extended battery life. Since I can run apps in the background (Thanks, Backgrounder app), plus all the other stuff I have going on, those upgrades would be much needed as they drain my iPhone’s resources.

Alas, unless I come into a great deal of dough, the 3GS and I won’t end up together. And, I’ve noticed a pattern with Apple. Ever since the iPhone made its debut, there’s been a new version released each summer since. Chances are there will b another new iPhone in Summer 2010. And 2011. And 2012. And so on and so forth. I’ll hop on the bandwagon at a later date! And when I do, Apple better make Flash video viewable on the iPhone.

One thing’s for sure: I will stay an iPhone devotee. This sucka is too good to let go!

…is now dead, but not before attempting to crawl across my wall late last night! I thought I was going to have a panic attack, and I’m not even kidding. This sucka was HUGE! The largest one I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve seen some big boys; especially in my basement. This guy must have been as long as the palm of my hand!

So, before calming down and drowning the intruder with a can of RAID (that’s how I roll), I managed to take a picture. It’s kind of blurry because I was freaking out, but you get the picture.

Gross, right? I can hardly look at that picture without shuddering. Anyway, he’s gone now, and I hope this serves as a lesson to the rest of his kind. You may scare the crap outta me initially, but you’ll soon end up dead!

On the eve of her team’s season opening game against the defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock, Candace Parker gave an interview to the guys at PTI (ESPN) to talk about her transition to motherhood and upcoming return to basketball. Watch it below:

I bemoan these corporate sponsorships of individual teams in the league. Someone likened it to Nascar with all the sponsor companies plastered all over the cars. I want to see team names on the front of athlete jerseys, not “Farmers Insurance” or some other sponsor. I know the WNBA is bleeding money, but this sets a dangerous precedence that I’m not sure anyone’s going to like further down the line. But it is what it is. Good luck to the Los Angeles Sparks presented by Farmers Insurance!

Cute interview! Sparks vs. Shock on ABC at 2:30 PM (ET).

UPDATE: Candace’s daughter is named Lailaa

I don’t know about the rest of the iPhone Nation, but I have a crapload of apps. And by crapload, I mean I have an unhealthy amount. I’m not sure the number, because I have so many of them tucked away in folders (Thanks, Categories app!)

But as one accumulates a large amount of data on their phone, backup takes forever! And iTunes has a default setting where once you connect your iPhone, it not only syncs, but also backs up everything. And that takes forever! I wanted to sync some new apps the other day, and I swear it ended up taking close to an hour! Well, maybe not, but it was like 3 times longer than usual.

I thought, “this is ridiculous! I must turn off this auto-backup!” It’s not like I’m never going to backup, but I want to be able to do it when I want to! If I just want to sync a couple of newly downloaded songs or apps, I don’t want to have to sit around for an eternity while my iPhone backs up.

I found a lot of ways to disable backup for Apple computers and a few for PCs. I would be required to edit the iTunesPrefs.xml file manually, which could lead to me messing something up.

So, I looked for another method and found one that worked well, and didn’t require much work on my end. I did backup the iTunesPrefs.xml file beforehand, just in case, but that wasn’t really necessary. This method, put together into a nifty little program by Mark Wagner.

It’s called QuickDisable and you can get it here. Remember, this particular file is for PC users. Don’t use this if you have a Mac, because it will either not work or will screw your iTunes up.

Next step for me is making an entry in one of my GTD apps that reminds me to make a weekly backup in iTunes. (I’d simply run the program again and enable auto-backups.) Because, with my luck, something unfortunate will happen and I’ll need a recent backup to fix everything! Actually, with the new iPhone 3.0 software coming, I definitely think an up-to-date backup is required after I re-jailbreak.

It is done! I now have a nice collection of Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick now.

No, I didn’t go crazy and go buy 10 colors! I have 3 that are very practical for my skin color.

The first one I bought was Royal Raisin, which was a nice purpleish color. Next, I got the Superb Sangria, which may be the most “red” I’ve ever gone. It’s not bright red, by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes feels like it as I tend to lean towards berries and plums. Finally, I picked up a shade from the “brown” group, Top Tier Truffle. It’s a nice subtle color that I can see myself wearing everyday.

I still like Brilliant Bordeaux, and toyed with getting it. But I opted for the Sangria shade instead. I’m happy with my decision. I like having a red lip option. I’ve never really had one before. This could be fun!

I’m content…that is until there’s another BOGO!