Soaking in Samsara

What about me?

I thought I would share this video by a famous Buddhist rap artist.  <G>  Not really.  The voice-over in the video is done by Sakyong Mipham, the leader of the spiritual practice I study and try hard to practice.  He also appears at the end of the video, wearing his ubiquitous running shoes.  He is an avid marathon runner.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDSAAlrqAHM

I am such a sap for musicals..

I revealed in an earlier post that I used to be heavily involved with performing arts in high school and college.  So, I am an absolute nut for musical theatre.  I was skeptical about the movie Dream Girls, but saw it this weekend and absolutely loved it.  It is not as good a film as Chicago, but it was a ton of fun and I was able to completely let thoughts of work leave me for over two hours on Saturday afternoon.  That is my definition of a successful movie outing.

Oh, and Jennifer Hudson is every bit as good as the critics are saying.  American Idol is now getting a reputation for introducing pretty darned good talent among the "also rans".  Anyone see Chris Daughtry's rendition of the national anthem at the New Orleans-Chicago game Sunday?  I was pleasantly surprised.

Drop and Give me Twenty!

On the first day back to the office after the holidays (January 2nd), we were all a bit giddy and trying to get back into the swing of things.  Here at NewsGator, we have multiple product development teams, each starting 2-week iterations on various schedules.  During the first 2007 iteration planning for our private label team, someone told an amusing story about a football player how had a 2007 goal of doing 100,000 push-ups.  For some sick and twisted reason, I thought that would be a fabulous goal for our 10-person team.

We started with gusto and then realized just how sore one's upper body could get...especially since snow shoveling has been required every weekend since December 23rd!  We are now starting to hit our stride and  have racked up 2560 push-ups since January 2nd.  It is only fair to mention that we have a rival team who thinks they can beat us just because they have an ex-marine on their team.  Ha!  They are trailing us by a very wide margin.

Our consumer product development and support teams also have a goal of walking 2500 miles in 2007, which is very cool!  I may switch teams by March...

As tongue-in-cheek as these types of competitions are, they are a great way to inspre some healthy habits for the year.  Give it a shot at your company...but stock up on the ibuprofen first.

NewsGator Today Launched!

On Tuesday, January 9th, we launched NewsGator Today which is our entry point for new users.  Visit NewsGator Online and click on Try Now.  You will be taken to a news page with lots of cool content already selected....no registration required.  You can continue to use all of this great content as is and you can also start adding feeds that you regularly enjoy.

Give it a try - I would love to hear your feedback.

Fitness and Nutrition Advice from a Software Exec??

The only thing more silly than reading advice about health and fitness from someone like me may be reading similar advice from a celebrity.  But, I was a personal trainer for 10-ish years and I am reasonably fit myself...so, here are some guidelines taken from my experience as a trainer and what has worked for me.  Come on...you know that many of you think about it this time of year.

1. Sitting on your behind for hours and hours doesn't do wonders for your, well, behind...you gotta move.  Even low intensity activity has signficant health benefits, but to improve your physique, you will need to actually break a sweat.
2. However, hours of cardio doesn't necessarily result in a great body composition.  There is such a thing as being "skinny fat".
3. And, closely related, women in particular don't do enough strength training.  I'm not talking about 20 bicep curls with 3-pound pink, neoprene dumbbells.  I'm talking real strength training that results in actual changes to body composition, i.e. can make you leaner.
4. Emotional eating, compulsive eating, neurotic eating.  Whatever you call it, it represents a signficiant root cause for weight management problems.  Again, I see this most often among women, but men are absolutely not immune to this problem.  While I can't vouch for it personally, I have heard and read great things about the book Intuitive Eating.  At a minimum, the website offers some basic principles that are useful.
5. Most people drastically under estimate how much or how "clean" they are eating.  Even modest caloric decreases (as little as 250-500 calories) per day can have a profound impact in the long-term.  Have no idea how to calculate your caloric requirements?  Here is a general starting guide, though there can be signficiant variability based on lifestyle, activity and body composition.
6. How's this for boring, boring advice?  You can eat well and not be hungry by focusing 80% of your diet on veggies, fruits, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats.  Not sure what those things are?  Here is a great article about clean eating and other good tips.
7. The overwhelming majority of restaurant and fast-food portions are criminal.  Seriously.