Author: Joseph

First 5K Journey – Changing it up a bit

Changing it up a bit!

I’m taking a week off from the Couch to 5k training. I’m doing so because I want to get some pace numbers for myself. Basically each week I have been successfully completing the C25K challenges but I have been pretty conservative with my runs. Meaning I’ve been completing these challenges but at a very slow pace in my opinion.

According to 5k Pace Comparison the average pace for a 5K runner is around 11:47 minutes per mile (give or take) which comes in somewhere around 33 minutes to complete a 5K race. So if that’s average and considering I’ve never done this before I’m hoping to at least complete mine within the 35/45-minute range.

According to my calculations I’m currently running at a 20 minute a mile pace. So at my current pace it would probably take me a hour to complete a 5K. I need to do better and see if I can cut this in half.

So this week I ‘m going take a break from the C25K program and focus on seeing if I can get my numbers down to somewhere within 12/15 minutes per mile range.

2 Fruit Smoothie – Peach Banana

Peach Banana Smoothie

.. Okay as you can tell from the photo above I was too lazy to slice and bag the bananas and peaches this go around.

2 cups of Apple Juice
1 tablespoon of Greek Nonfat Yogurt
1 cup of sliced Peach
1 cup of sliced Banana

So I decided to continue with the banana theme because my previous blend was pretty dam good.

Buttttt I have to be honest this mixture did not come out as well as I anticipated.
Even though I added a cup of each fruit the taste of banana overpowered the peaches.

I’m gonna give this blend another try. I’m hoping if I reduce the amount of bananas then this blend could possibly come out a bit better.

 

2 Fruit Smoothie – Banana Pineapple

Banana Pineapple Smoothie

2 cups of Apple Juice
1 tablespoon of Greek Nonfat Yogurt
1 cup of sliced Banana
1 cup of sliced Pineapple

.. Okay this one was delicious. I really enjoyed this blend. I have a few things I need to point out regarding the photos above.

1.) My girlfriend bought this pink sandwich bags so you really can’t seen the diced pineapples. That’s way I’ve added the Doles original packaging in the photo.

2.) The  container of Greek Nonfat Yogurt is missing from the photo. It’s added to the blend I just forgot to add it to the photo.

2016 Goals – Hoping to run my 1st 5K

One of my goals for 2016 was to run and complete a 5K. For some I’m sure running a 5K is no big deal. But for me this is a bit of a challenge considering I have been sitting behind a desk for the past 4 years.

I officially started working towards this goal last week. What I mean by officially is that I’ve been  going to the gym pretty much ever day since the beginning of the month. It wasn’t until last week when I decided to draw  a line in the sand and said okay I’m doing this.

Based on a recommendation from my previous boss I downloaded the Couch to 5K app. A mobile app that helps beginner prepare for their 1st 5K. (I downloaded the free C25K app. I guess there are multiple versions in the app store)

So far and granted that I’ve only completed my first week I think this app is pretty awesome. In my opinion the app was like having a personal trainer with you during your runs. For me this is great. Most of the time my mind drifts off so the Run and Walk notifications helps a ton.

The Couch to 5K program goes on for 9 weeks. So hopefully if everything goes well I should be done somewhere around the middle of March. Which on another hand would be great because the cold weather should finally be coming to a end.

I’m starting week 2 today so wish me luck. I will post a status update next week around this time.

2 Fruit Smoothie – Mango Orange

Mango Orange Smoothie

mango orange smoothie ingredients

2 cups of Apple Juice
1 tablespoon of Greek Nonfat Yogurt
1 cup of sliced Mango
1 cup of sliced Oranges

mango orange smoothie

.. I have to be honest. This blend  was not one of my favorites. I think next time I will substitute the Apple Juice for Orange Juice.

2016 and nothing is really the same

As of today I am now 19 days unemployed. A contract that I have been working for the previous 4 years has finally come to a end.

I’m both sad and happy. Sad that I’m no longer around the people I considered friends but hella happy that I can now pursue the projects  and technologies that I’m most passionate about.

My goal is to take sometime away from corporate america (at least 5 month). so that I can reboot. Maybe do some volunteer work.. who knows. Afterwards, say the 6th month I’ll start a soft search. I’ve always wanted to work in Silicon Valley even if it’s for a short period of time. I have no idea how I would make the transition. You rarely hear about companies paying relocation packages nowadays.  I have some money saved but I know since things are sooo expensive over there that if I miss step I could blow through it all.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little bit scared of what the future holds.. but sometimes it’s good to shake it up, be uncomfortable.. and scared.

Hopefully when 2016 comes to a end I’m not somewhere regretting these decisions.

Things I would like to accomplish during my time away.

  • Get in shape. Sitting at a desk for 4 years, 8/9 hours a day can put a toll on you.
  • Conferences/Meetups. Technology moves fast and this is a great way to keep up with what’s current.
  • Web projects. I have a few half done projects that I previously didn’t have time to complete.

AngularJS Map Points

Hello Friend (mr robot quote)
Disclaimer.. So I’m new to AngularJ, but I’m really digging it so far.
I started putting this together late last night, I guess technically this would be considered a Single Page Application (SPA). I really don’t expect to be working on it past today. It was intended to be a simple project I could crush out quickly. It’s basically a application to help me get through my day to day at work.
Through out the work week I deal with a lot of  coordinates and Google maps questions. Having a tool that can help me investigate location points is incredibly helpful. Sure I can use Google maps… but this gives me a excuse to do something more about AngularJS.

For about 2 years now I’ve been using Itouchmap.com/latlong.html. It’s a great tool but it can be a bit aggravating at times. Meaning the site has ads strategically placed along the rails of the site so there are times when you find your self accidentally move your cursor across a ad which then triggers a pop up video. Those things are the worst!

As far as the domain. I use Dynadot.com sometimes to purchases domains because Godaddy is becoming a bit too gangster for me. I still had a few dollars in my account and they had .co on sale for $5.99. I danced around with the idea of purchasing a .co for a long time. Yes it’s cheap but the renewals price in most times end up being something crazy. With .coms you can kind of bet on the price being the same if not close to the purchasing price the following year.

yada, yada, yada.. I went with Latlon.co for right now.
Latlon.co Screenshot

Tools used include:
Bootstap of course
Google Maps API because I found a AngularJS directive. (I really wanted to use Mapbox they have a great set of API’s)
Ipinfo.io to give me a users roundabout Latitude and Longitude via IP address.

Learning Swift

Finally my swift skills are coming along. This is a app idea I built over the weekend.  There were a few things that I struggled with (i.e. setting the background color in the navigation bar) but for the most part I think I’m catching on. The idea is basically a demonstration on how to pull TV show listing using Swift and TVMaze’s APIs. I plan to post the source later tonight on GitHub.

TV Show Listing
TV Show Listing Thumbnail

TV Show Summary
TV Show Summary Thumbnail

Date Picker
Date Picker Thumbnail

I have a few more goals that I aiming to cross of my list.

  • How to submit to the App store
  • How to use the push notification feature
  • How to swipe and delete items from a list.

My First Youtube Video

For many years I’ve trolled Youtube, Stackoverflow.com and other sites stock piling information and code on how to do certain things.
So I figured it was time for me to do my part and pay it forward. I decided to so by cranking out some “How To” videos.
This was my first attempt at screen recording and what I found out is that it’s not as easy as it looks.

1st, my audio sucked so I went out and bought some fairly cheap Logitech USB Headsets from Office Depot. btw. Amazon is cheaper but I wanted and needed the headset ASAP.

2nd, Whenever I played back my video it was blurry. So it took me a few takes to figure out that I needed to change the resolutions to 1280×720

3rd, I’ve never used IMovie before so for me something as simple as trimming a clip took hours to figure out. Come to think of it I’ve owned my Mac for like 3 years now and I think this was the first time I’ve opened IMovie on purpose.

Overall it probably took me like 6/8 takes to get to a point where I thought I was done. I’m crossing my fingers hoping that as I do more it will get better.

Soooo my first video is a “How To” video explaining how to download and parse TV listing data using PHP and a very cool API made available by the people over at TVmaze.com.

The site and API’s are free and very easy to use. And like you’ll see from my video you can get something up and running within a few minutes.

So if you find your looking for this type of data, you should definitely see the set of API’s TVmaze.com has to offer.

f.y.i. I have no theme or structured plan in mind for the videos i create. I only plan to do videos on technology I like and use.

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