Join the Vaynernation

Here's the deal folks.  Have you had wine before?  Liked it?  Not liked it?  Wondered what the fuss is about with these folks that spend thousands of dollars and talk about odd things coming out of their glass of grape juice?  Leave the wine reviewer snobbery behind, and watch Winelibrary TV.  Gary Vaynerchuk is a funny dude with a lot to say about wine.  He's honest, open, an all around swell guy, and he brings wine tasting down for the rest of us.  Awesome program I can't recommend enough.

http://tv.winelibrary.com

crazy for the vino

I've been going a little wine crazy lately. I had about 20 bottles until a little around a week ago when I had a wine tasting with David Lawrason, Toronto Life's wine critic. I ordered some wines from Hidden Bench and Creekside immediately after, and grabbed some more from vintages, and now I'm up to 55. Check out my cellar here:

http://www.corkd.com/people/spirit77/cellar

Love the wine.

RSS feed links for my PSP

This post is almost entirely just to make it easy on myself putting podcasts into my new PSP.

http://revision3.com/systm/feed/quicktime-small
http://revision3.com/infected/feed/quicktime-small
http://www.cbcradio3.com/podcast/radio3/standard/
http://www.cbcradio3.com/podcast/r330/standard/
http://www.cbcradio3.com/podcast/trackoftheday/standard/
http://leoville.tv/podcasts/ww.xml
http://hbsp2.libsyn.com/rss
http://feeds.conversationsnetwork.org/gigavox/channel/itconversations
http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/feed/rss2
http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/podcasts/6/XPlay_Daily_Video_Podcast.xml
http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/podcasts/23/AOTS_Hardware.xml
http://www.ted.com/themes/rss/id/46
http://askaninja.com/ipod/rss
http://feeds.feedburner.com/webbalert

12.75 Steps

Lately I've been pondering the idea of getting from "should" to "must".  In the past this has been a mysterious process, but one that typically leads to success.  I just can't seem to wrap my head around exactly what it is that helps make that mental shift from "gosh I should really lose a few pounds" to "i must lose 10 pounds".  The fitness thing is an easy one to pick on, and one that most people seem to have issue with, so I'll keep on that track.  I know that I've been about 20lbs overweight for the past 2 or 3 years.  It's disturbing, really.  As I sit here now writing this, I can feel that spare tire around my waist, and it's not a happy feeling.  Ask me if I want a donut while I'm in this particular state.  Uh, no thanks.  Rewind to about 3 years ago, when I was in what I would consider the best shape of my life.  I was running 5k every morning, had martial arts workouts 3 to 4 times a week, visited a personal trainer once a week and I was eating obscenely healthy.  I'm trying to understand what made that a must for me then.  I do remember hitting a breaking point before I started that training regimen.  I had just got some new clothes for work, and I remember my wife looking at the label going "you wear a 38?" and my heart sank into my gut.  Something stirred inside me at that point.  I snapped.  Phrases like "enough" and "no more" and "never again" came into my mind.  Coincidentally (or not, the universe is an interesting place), I saw an infomercial for Tony Robbins's "Get the Edge" a couple of days later, and decided what the heck.  Once it arrived I devoured it, and many of the tools inside helped me to make those shifts from "should" to "must".  In the program he actually says we have to make our "shoulds" into our "musts".  It's a great program, I highly recommend it to anyone that's interested in making some real changes in their life.  Come to think of it, I should probably go through it again myself.

Just thinking about those days makes me feel more committed to treating my body right.  These days I find that I can very easily wake up in the morning and say "that's it today I'm going to drink 3L of water, drink some greens, no coffee, and lots of raw vegetables".  It's an easy statement to make, but then it seems like I get in these zombie like states where I'm on autopilot and I run downstairs from the office to get a muffin, scone, coffee or whatever.  I'd like to figure out where that state comes from.  I know it doesn't have much to do with hunger - most of these times I am sure I'm probably really just looking for water - but what is it that triggers these things?  Slightly lower blood sugar, a little tired from the day "oh I'll just treat myself for now" kind of thing?  I'm not sure even now.  I think the next step here is to actually catch myself in one of those modes and stop, assess what state I am in emotionally, physically, and why. 

Fun and games

Johhny C. said I should put a post up.  Here it is.  Lots of stuff going on, MTB season is back and lots of races on the go.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to update this blog more regularly.

Windows Live Writer

I have to say I've been impressed recently by Windows Live products.  It really seems like MS is slowly getting ahead of the game again.  I am not a MS fanboy, but using Vista, Local Live and now Live Writer, they're really great products.  I have a lengthy daily commute, I'm going to use live writer to post entries daily.  Look for more creative stuff to come!!

Testing Using Word 2007 as a blog entry tool

This is just a test. It'll be pretty darn cool if it works.