I just finished my Day 3, Week 2 push-up workout. I did 79 push-ups in about 12 minutes. So I’m up 11 push-ups versus last week, which isn’t too bad. How are you doing?

We’re up in Vancouver for a few days. I’m working during the day, and we’re going out at night. I love this city. I’d move here if I could. Great people, great restaurants, great outdoors, all of it.

I wish everyone a great Fourth of July!

I just finished day 3 of week 1 of the push up regimen. I feel the burn:)

I just did 68 pushups in about 12 minutes. I didn’t do them all at once, but in five blocks, with 120 second breaks between. It may not sound like much, but that’s more pushups within 12 minutes than I’ve probably done all month outside of this program. My last group of pushups was 20. Which means that even after doing 48 pushups before that group, I was still able to do MORE pushups than I could from a fresh start at the beginning of the week. Huge fan.

On a side note, I’m going to see Wanted tonight! I’m totally looking forward to it.

Some friends and I are doing a six week push up regimen that in theory will have us able to do 100 consecutive push ups by the end of the six weeks. It’s only 3 times a week, for about 10 minutes.

Check out the program here: hundredpushups.com

It’s free.

So far I’m in week one, on my rest day between days 2 and 3. I’m trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, which is easy to remember.

Give it a try, and post your updates!

I did 17 pushups on my initial test, so we’ll see how my second test goes. Wish me luck!

On Saturday I took a break from working all the time and we drove up to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Northwest Washington. The day started out pretty rough. Traffic was stop and go, which caused my brakes to overhead (I suspect I have bubbles in the lines or the shop put too low a grade of fluid in) and lock up after about an hour. After they cooled, we fought our way north, and finally got off the interstate. The winter has hung on out here, so there were only a couple fields of tulips which were showing color so far, although there were some amazing fields of daffodils out there as well. We saw pretty flowers. We saw local cops making a mint ticketing cars parked on the side of the road. We saw a 15′ high trebuchet in a guy’s yard. We saw cows. I mooed at them. They mooed back.

We also picked up some super fresh live clams and oysters, fresh bread (a big loaf and a Parisian style baguette), fresh farm butter (which is amazing), 3 day old goat cheese, and some extra sharp cheddar. On the way home we hit out local organic-y, fresh, grocery store, and picked up some things, including some amazingly fresh (smells like tomatoes) beefsteak tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

For dinner we had raw oysters on the half-shell, caprese salad, clams steamed in a white wine/butter/garlic/onion sauce, and french bread with fresh butter. It was delicious and very European feeling.

You can see pictures from the trip here: 2008 Tulip Festival

This week has been pretty crazy, and the upcoming few weeks look at least as bad.  I’m working my regular full time job (and trying to figure out where that’s going), I’m working on another big development project after-hours, I’m working on a possible collaboration project, I’m developing a software project development methodology, and handling the usual other tasks on my schedule.  My wife has started working full time, but on an odd schedule.  She worked all weekend, but has today and tomorrow off.  So she’s been gone a lot, and tired a lot when she’s here.  This also means that more of the chores and errands fall to me, making me even busier:)

I’m flying to Ohio mid-week next week, to San Francisco that Friday, and to France the following week.  And I have to get my hair-cut, get my car serviced, return library books, and more.

On the upside, most, if not all, of the things keeping me busy are good things, and I feel productive.

I also just wrapped a week of a 1,000 calorie/day diet to recover from my New Mexico sopapilla gorging.  It totally worked.  I lost six pounds in 7 days.  But you really can’t do it for more than a week without messing up your metabolism and health, so now I’m back to normal, which feels great.  The diet makes me cranky.  It’s not as bad as the random rage that Atikins gave me, but I’m definitely easier to get frustrated and just cranky and stressed out when I’m limiting my food.  Which is no fun for my wife to be around.  I made it to the gym three times in that week, so that’s good.  Here are my nutritional averages for the past week:

But tonight, we’re getting Thai take-out for the first time in weeks:)  I can’t wait!