I have a lot of reading to do in the next few months.

Merci pour vos conseils. J’ai décidé d’apprendre à parler français. A cette époque, l’année prochaine, j’espère ne pas avoir à utiliser Google Translate pour écrire ce message. Souhaitez moi bonne chance!

So here’s my list of things I’d like to learn. I’d like your opinion: which one should I do first?

-Speak French
-Play the banjo
-Blacksmithing/iron working
-Charcoal painting
-Fencing
-Write a novel
-Create an app
-Wood carving
-Home brew beer
-Make a short film

Average body fat (2): 20%

–> 180 x 20% = 36 pounds of fat

Modern diesel car (Volkswagen Passat TDI) fuel efficiency (3): 35 MPG or 15 Km/L

Conversion of animal fat to bio-diesel (4): 7.6 pounds = 1 gallon/3.8 Liters of bio-diesel

–> 1 pound = 0.13 Gallons / 0.5 Liters

(36 pounds of fat) x (0.5 L/lb) = 18 Litres of fuel

(36 lbs) x (0.13 gal/lb) = 4.68 gallons

18 L x 15 Km/L = 270 Kilometers

4.68 gal x 35 MPG = 163.8 Miles

Conclusion: A 2012 VW Passat TDI gets about 270 Kilometers (or 160 Miles) per Zombie.

Something to keep in mind next time you’re shopping for a car.

Jalopnik

(PS: Please forgive a few rounding errors.)

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_weight
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage
3. http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/best-clean-diesel-cars-2012#fbIndex7
4. http://www.equityenergyresources.com/project/biodiesel.php

I used to sit at my desk with my belt, waist button, and fly wide open (just so I could sit), chair pulled up close to my desk so if someone walked in they wouldn’t see me doing my Al Bundy impression. Not exactly brimming with confidence and pride.

Three years of injuries. First a torn rotator cuff, then a slipped disk and torn back tissue. Inactivity, self-pity, total loss of discipline, all added up to a nice little death-spiral of sloth and expanding gut.

Fast-forward three months. As of yesterday, I am 202 pounds (lightest I’ve been since university!), and 24.1% body fat. That’s after a week-long vacation food bender in Fernie. Phase one of Operation: Rebuild the Mountain complete.

Big thanks to Tim Ferriss and his book “The 4-Hour Body“; the diet protocol of which I credit the majority of my success.

Now that I’ve lost the “dead weight” (so to speak), I plan to spend the next three months establishing a strong physical foundation to help make sure I never lose so much of my life to “recovery” again. I’ll be using Ferriss’ “Pre-Hab” training protocols, based off Gray Cook’s Functional Movement Systems program. My focus will be on flexibility (the genesis of nearly every physical problem I’ve ever had), symmetry (making sure both sides of my body are equally functional), and stability (building up my core muscles to handle the next phase).

I haven’t felt this physically good in a long time. It’s nice. It’s natural. I’m a big believer that we’re all meant to move, to work, to be active, it’s just life that gets in our way.

One other big side benefit: Since I’ve enjoyed so much success, and been quite openly proud of it, I’ve now got my girlfriend, my father, and at least one co-worker following the 4-Hour Body diet. I’m confident that if they stick to it, it’ll work just as well for them as it did for me.

—

(Wow, doesn’t matter how many times I re-write this, it comes off sounding like an infomercial. If it matters to you, I’m not making any referral money from Ferriss’ book or anything like that. I am just genuinely grateful for his help in achieving my goal. First time I’ve ever honestly tried to follow any kind of structured diet program, and fortunately I really like Tim’s methodologies.)

james.rajotte@parl.gc.ca, laurie.hawn@parl.gc.ca, Christian.paradis@parl.gc.ca,  James.Moore@parl.gc.ca,  Dean.delmastro@parl.gc.ca,  mike.lake@parl.gc.ca,  Phil.mccoleman@parl.gc.ca,  Peter.braid@parl.gc.ca,  Paul.calandra@parl.gc.ca,  Rob.moore@parl.gc.ca,  Scott.armstrong@parl.gc.ca,  Paul.calandra@parl.gc.ca,  Glenn.thibeault@parl.gc.ca,  Charlie.angus@parl.gc.ca,  Tyrone.Benskin@parl.gc.ca,  Pierre.Nantel@parl.gc.ca,  Pierre.DionneLabelle@parl.gc.ca,  Andrew.Cash@parl.gc.ca,  Geoff.regan@parl.gc.ca

Good day to you all.

My name is Michael Lawton. I am a 34 year old business owner (third-generation with our financial services company) living in Edmonton, Alberta. I vote consistently at all levels, and speak often and passionately about politics in our country.

A strong passion of mine is, and has been for a long time, communication technology. I.e., the Internet. I believe it is the most vital and influential invention since the printing press for education, entertainment, and entrepreneurship. As such, I am deeply troubled by the direction that the Canadian government has been attempting to take over the past few years. There is an obvious and powerful influence on Bill C-11 and its predecessors coming from sources that are not in the best interest of Canadian citizens, and actually serve cause immediate and significant harm on those you have been asked to represent.

I urge, beg, and, with all the power I hold as a voting citizen, demand the following three principles be introduced into Bill C-11 and any other future attempts to change our copyright, communications, and privacy legislation:

1. No SOPA-style amendments. That means no website blocking, no warrantless disclosure of subscriber information, no expanded enabler provision, no unlimited statutory damages, no iPod tax, and no content takedowns.
2. Maintain the fair dealing balance found in C-11 by expanding the provision to include education, parody, and satire and relying on the Supreme Court’s six-factor test to ensure that the dealing is fair.
3. Amend the digital lock rules by following the Canadian Library Association’s recommended change linking circumvention to actual copyright infringement.

This debate has been intentionally mislabelled as “suffering businesses versus thieving criminal” by a small but extremely wealthy and influential group with much to gain from limiting our abilities to create, innovate, and compete. Please recognize that this characterization is intentional, and serves to distract from the real damage these proposed changes would have on Canadian business and people. The list of groups, representing millions of fellow citizens, that are against unfair practices like the unlimited digital lock superiority include:

• Retail Council of Canada
• Canadian Bookseller Association
• Association of Canadian Publishers
• Writers Guild of Canada
• ACTRA
• Canadian Consumer Initiative
• Public Interest Advocacy Centre
• Canadian Teachers’ Federation
• Council of Ministers of Education Canada
• Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
• Canadian Council of Archives
• Canadian Library Association
• Canadian National Institute for the Blind
• Canadian Civil Liberties Association
• Canadian Bar Association
• Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• CIPPIC

Please side with Canadian citizens, our rights, and our entrepreneurial ambitions. Canada needs to foster freedom and creativity if we hope to continue our contributions to the greatest frontier of global opportunity ever seen by humankind. I urge you to not go down in history as the people who stood in the way of our future.

Sincerely and hopefully,

Michael Lawton

Oh well, can’t let my favourite night of the year go by without getting on my little cyber-soapbox. Here’s a little piece of flash fiction I wrote in 2009 that I was kinda proud of (even if I’m still not crazy about the ending).

Always wear comfortable shoes when driving at night

Run.

Keep running. Run faster.

Don’t stop. For anything.

Run.

RUN!

…

Turn right. Down that alley.

NO!!

BACK TO THE STREET!

Right. Go. Stay in the streetlights.

Why are all the houses dark? Why isn’t anybody home?

Where is everybody?

…

I don’t know where I am. I don’t recognize anything, no buildings or street names.

I don’t know where I left my truck. I don’t know what I hit. Hard enough to crush the steel bumper and snap off a wheel.

I know there wasn’t anything there when I got out to look.

…

I don’t know what’s chasing me.

…

Can’t scream anymore. Hard enough to breathe.

Tried calling for help. No answer.

Tried pounding on doors. No answer. Not a light or sound from any of these houses.

Haven’t seen a single other car drive by, or person out for a walk, or even a stray cat or squirrel.

Just row after row of the same three models of some developer’s idea of suburban paradise.

…

Have to keep running.

I can hear them. Chasing me. No idea how many.

Can’t see them, but I can hear them.

They’re getting closer.

Keep running.

…

Left. Wait. Haven’t I already been down there?

Every street here looks the same.

There has to be a way out. A way back to the main road. With other cars, other people.

Just keep running. Left. Go. GO!

…

Is that a light? Is that a light on in that house?? It is!

HEY! HEY!! HELP!!

THERE’S SOMETHING CHASING ME!

PLEASE! HELP!

…

…

The light’s out.

…

I can’t hear anything. They’re gone?

No.

They’re here. They’re h

I’M SORRY I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I DIDN’T SEE YOU I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCID

Happy hunting my little demons. May candies feed your bellies and fantasies feed your nightmares for weeks to come.

TL;DR – Tore up my back last year, MRI just came back clean, tracking my recovery here.

Forever ago I was born.

Decades ago I grew up tall and I grew up fast (not so quick or mean; wrong name). 6′ 4″ by 12 years old.

Something I was surprised to learn at that age: not everything in your body grows at the same time or rate. Things like your bones, muscles, tendons… when you go through a series of crazy rapid growth spurts they don’t all keep up with each other.

Flash forward through many wonderful years of high activity and bodily destruction. My doctor told me to think of it like an old elastic band, stretched to it’s maximum and held for years. It wasn’t that I did anything huge and dramatic, just lifting some decently heavy (for me) weights, and my form slipped a little. And like the proverbial camel’s back, those elastic bands snapped (metaphor inception FTW!). One of my vertebrae slipped, tearing ligaments in my lower back and impacting against some kind of important nerves.

(Could have been much worse. The nerves that got tweaked just caused some weird shooting pain down my leg. If the disc had slipped another direction and hit a different set of nerves I could have been dealing with really nasty problems like bowel control and impotence!)

This was September 2010. Not realizing the extent of the damage, I went home, threw on an ice pack, and proceeded to try and stretch it out. For the next week, I twisted and pulled and bent and did everything to try and work out what I thought was just a pulled muscle. Finally went to see a doctor (walk-in clinic), and without even examining me he said the same thing I thought: just a pulled muscle, suck it up. So for the next three months, I just kept working it, stretching hard, going to yoga, even seeing a chiropractor on a friend’s recommendation (never before and likely never again, but that’s a discussion for a different time). All this time I was making the injury even worse, re-tearing the tissues over and over again. Not sleeping, couldn’t sit at my desk, just feeling horrible.

It was actually the chrio who finally asked me what my x-rays said. “What x-rays?” He went white. He had been working on me under the assumption that the first doctor actually knew what the F$%& he was talking about when he told me it was “just a pulled muscle”. Stop everything, go see a real doctor, get your x-rays. This was December.

Saw doc, got x-rays. Doc said I had done so much damage in the last few months trying to “fix” things, that he couldn’t tell what the original injury was or if/how it was healing. So new orders: do nothing. Nothing. No lifting, no bending, don’t walk or stand for more than 20 minutes. No sexy fun-time. For a month.

January 2011, I’m back to see my doctor, and he confirms that I’ve torn the hell out of my lower back. The only thing I can do is rest and wait. “It’s like a broken bone, you can’t work through it or stretch it better, it just has to heal.” Timeline? “At least a year before you’re at 90%.” Can I get ANY exercise? “Walk. Best thing for your back, and pretty much the only thing that won’t strain the area and make your recovery even longer.”

Depressed, bored, weak, I sit and watch as my beloved Rocky Mountains break every snowfall record on the books and have their greatest ski/snowboard season in history. While I sit. Walk around the track at the YMCA in the mornings for 20 minutes. Weeks. Months. I actually start to feel a bit more normal, not in constant pain, able to sleep most of the night. And I forget just how vulnerable I am.

March, I borrowed my dad’s snowblower. Doesn’t weigh that much, I’ll just throw it in the back of my truck. Sure it’s a bit awkward, but it’s nothing…

Seven months since the original injury and I’m back at square one. Fuck. Me.

Since then I’ve been back doing nothing, going for the occasional walk. Eating and drinking like I didn’t give a crap, because I didn’t. Never felt worse in my life. Combine that with the total inactivity, and of course I’ve put on a bunch of fat, gained probably 4 inches around my gut, and lost what muscle I had.

Follow-up MRI in July, reviewed results with Doc yesterday. Good news: no permanent nerve damage, tears have healed (though still extremely weak). Got the official go-ahead to start exercising again.

Hence this.

I will be using this blog to track my progress, record stats, talk about the recovery process. Most of it will be pretty boring to anyone not me: what I ate, how long I rode my bike, etc. Like I say in the description, this blog’s for me. If it can help someone else, great, but really all I’m looking for is a place to review my work and use the shame of public failure as motivation. So on that note, thanks for reading and please feel free to send any advice or questions you have my way.

If he does what you ask (not open the envelope, throw it in the garbage), you’ll be a topic of conversation, an interesting story with a question-mark ending.

If he opens the envelope… he will freak the hell out, and probably come looking for you (which is why you used a fake name, location, hotel, and left the country. Also why you avoided fingerprints, in case he’s extra motivated). The mystery will only grow as everything you told him ends up being false. Every James Bond, spy or assassin movie he’s ever seen will resonate in his mind for days, weeks, years. And even though nothing will happen to him, and even though he’ll get a postcard saying everything’s “safe”, he’ll wonder for the rest of his life who you were and why you were interested in him.

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space–each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

The hover-text in Monday’s xkcd hit me just right.

Required something a touch more personal than a mention on Twitter or Facebook. I need to remember things like this.

Maybe that’s what this thing is now.