ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

The wall always wins.

Mondays are my official day to start over on Weight Watchers points and also to move on to the next week of the running training. This past week, I lost 3 pounds (definitely not typical for me - I usually just lose 1 pound a week) and went from dying during this training at the beginning of the week to finding it quite comfortable. This next week of training ends with running 2 miles straight - something I've never done in my life. I look forward to it. :)

There's a new technology on the Internet called tumblelogs which are kind of like pared down versions of blogs. They allow you to quickly post tidbits rather than worrying about the formatting and filling a big empty box (like I'm doing right now!). One website offering this is called tumblr.com.

You get a screen which asks what kind of content you want to add:


If you choose to post a quote, it will automatically format it to look quote-like.


Or if you choose conversation, it formats it for that too.


You get the idea.

Here's some things that some people might find helpful...

The plan itself - http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

Couch to 5k podcasts - http://www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/

Online community of fellow C25K runners - http://community.livejournal.com/couch_to_5k

Blogs discussing other people's experience w/C25K - http://wordpress.com/tag/couch-to-5k/

Jog mapping tool - http://www.mapmyrun.com/

Entertainment Weekly posted a review of Kanye's concert that pretty much agrees w/what I said. And he's furious of course...yikes. What a jerk.

I like live performances a lot especially if they are highly produced, theatrical type performances (Michael Jackson concert was my favorite of all time - not only was he very talented but the production was top notch) so I was really looking forward to the Kanye West concert w/Kami on 4/29. N.E.R.D. and Rihanna were openers for Kanye and I like them all so it was pretty much guaranteed to be good.

Before driving to Oklahoma City for the concert, I had read lots of reviews beforehand and expected it to be one of the best concerts I'd ever seen.

It was good but not that good.

First of all, N.E.R.D. was on and Pharrell Williams drove me nuts. He has aged a lot since I last saw him (he's only 35) and looked more like Russell Simmons than himself. He kept repeatedly yelling "OKLAHOMA CITY IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!" and "FORGET ABOUT MIAMI, LA, NEW YORK CITY...THIS IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WOOORLD!"

Dude, seriously, you don't have to try so hard. Frankly, we'd probably rather be in those cities than in OKC anyway. He was a good performer and the whole crew was full of energy and fun but he came off as a complete tool.


Rihanna was next. She's so young and beautiful and recently popular that I kind of thought she might be big enough to headline her own tour. Except she didn't sound that great. Kami commented that it's hard for pop stars who are heavily produced to sound good live and she's right. Rihanna looked good but seemed disconnected, tried too hard to be sexy and on most songs, didn't sound all that good. I was hoping she'd bring Chris Brown on stage because I'm SURE he would have been awesome.

Last but not least - Kanye. First of all, his set is pretty large and appears to have a lunar/sand dune type of surface to it. Along the back wall of the set, there's a huge screen that displays various spacey images and a smaller screen comes down in the middle where he stands. He's the only one on stage the whole time, the band is in the pit and Kanye never really took a break (except for a random spot where he sat down and drank some water and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" played while he sat...huh?).


The premise was that Kanye was on a spaceship that has crashed and he is trying to figure out how to get home. He talks to the smaller screen (which has an avionics type display on it) and calls his spaceship "Jane" and asks how to get home. He proceeds to go through most of his recent songs and performs very well. He had on a sweatshirt and also had a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He was pouring in sweat just a few songs in and I'm not sure why he had to wear 2 sweatshirts.


Throughout the concert he's talking to the spaceship ("Jane") and it's silly but his performances are very good. At the end of the concert, the spaceship finally is able to make it back because it's determined that Kanye is the biggest star in the universe and by his starpower, they are able to come back. Gag.


I'm all about entertainers having a little ego but I think he just went over the top with his cheesy scripted ego stroke. It's too bad though because he's such a good performer in between the cheese.

With all of the work craziness, I realized I had gained a lot of weight over the last 6 months and needed to change some things. About a month ago, we started working out again and I've decided to follow the Couch to 5K running program. Most of you know that I have had asthma my whole life but last fall discovered that I could actually RUN (or at least jog). This program has been really good for me because it increases gradually and I'm amazed that I can even do it. I'm currently on week 4 and have done 2 days of that. Week 4 is very hard for me so I'm going to repeat it again next week to make it a wee bit easier before continuing to week 5. The thought that I could run a 5k is mind boggling. I keep saying that it's like telling an amputee that they have limbs now....when you've lived your whole life one way and then it changes drastically, it takes a while to get used to but I'm not taking it for granted and hope to train to get better and better.

Along with the exercise, I've also been doing Weight Watchers Online. The thought of going to meetings didn't really appeal to me but the site has been great. Their online tools and info are right up my alley. I've already lost some weight after using it for just a short time and I really like it.

Incidentally, the running/Weight Watchers combo is what Kami started doing about 3 years ago and she's really stuck with it and looks great and continues to take part in various lengths of runs. She was originally inspired by my weight loss to get started and now I'm inspired right back!