Grab-bag

Gym Notes

I added some push-ups to our walk on Sunday. I started with sets of ten but that was too many so I dropped it down to sets of seven every two laps and ended up with 93 push-ups for the session. The upper bands of my pectoralis muscles are still sore.

The "right number" for squats at this time seems to be four sets of four reps at 3/4 my body-weight. I am paranoid about not dropping down far enough.  According to Coach Belladonna, a proper squat involves slowly lowering my body until my thighs are parallel to the ground and then slowly rising to a full, upright position. 

This is one time when having a gym-buddy would be very helpful. Once I know what it feels like, I will only need an occasional recalibration check.

My goal for squats it to be able to perform four sets of ten squats at 100% of my body-weight.

The machine that simulates "pull-ups" increments in 20 pound jumps. The right number this week is sets of ten-reps at 110 or 55% of my body-weight. My pectoral muscles were still complaining from the push-ups two days ago.

My goal for pull-ups is to be able to do sets of ten repetitions at 100% of my body-weight.

Dead-lifts stayed at 4 sets of six reps at 100% body-weight.

Garden comments and mental sharpness

I have an annual physical coming up. The doc might give me a baseline dementia check. Having the personality that I do, I went on-line to see what questions I might encounter. There are many versions out there. They all have "the clock" test.

I was delighted to see one test-question where the patient was asked to name as many types of vegetables as they could in sixty-seconds. I should rock at that: French-fried, mashed, steamed, sauteed, julienned, fresh, canned, frozen, wilted, gumbo, au graten, baby, shredded, with bacon....

Aside:

 

One version of collapse in the constellation of TEOTWAWKI scenarios involves authorities delivering "staple foods" to cities like the Siege of Leningrad. That means 70% of calories from grain + 30% from vegetable oil. That 70:30 ratio also looks like many folk's emergency preps. The people living on Caribbean Islands survive on this diet by supplementing with "greens" which add fiber, protein and vitamins.

Bonus links to go with the video: African Diaspora seed collection, cold weather greens collection

Greens like Callaloo (Domesticated Amaranth, Link One, Link Two) have the advantage of being able to produce a harvest in relatively short times...40 days being realistic. They can also be picked on a continuous basis without having to replant as long as they get water and fertilizer. 

End Aside

Or, I could start with the Cajun Cooking Trinity; onions, celery, peppers, garlic which are sauteed for almost every soup and casserole at Casa ERJ, add tomatoes and potatoes. Then hit the vegetables that are over-wintering in the garden; turnips, rutabagas, radish, cabbage, kale. Include the wildings; chickweed, mustard greens, lambsquarters. Mrs ERJ loves sweetcorn, watermelon and cantaloupe.

Maybe that is why gardening is considered good for brain-health. It makes it easier to answer the questions on the test. 

I wonder if I should add Biden, Harris and Occasional-Cortex to the list of vegetables. Would I get marked down?

Word recall is pretty common. The patient is presented with a list or a picture with multiple items on it. They are asked to read the list and then it is flipped over and they are asked to repeat what was on it. A couple unrelated questions are asked and then the patient is asked five minutes later what was on the list to test long(er) term memory.

Another test is counting backwards, sometimes by multiples. Example: count backwards from 100 by sevens.

Bonus: Test your mental sharpness

1. What do you put in a toaster?
2. Say "Silk" ten times as rapidly as you can.
3. What do cows drink?
4. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black bricks, what is a green house made from? 
5. You are driving a bus from Waverly to the Community College. At MLK Ave, 17 people got on the bus. At Cesar Chavez Drive, 6 people get off the bus and 9 people get on. At Diag Alley, 2 people get off and 4 get on. At Deadon Street, 11 people get off and 16 people get on. And at Tuhell Road, 3 people get off and 5 people get on. You then arrive at the college. Without going back to review, how old is the bus driver ? 

 Answers below the fold. Hat-tip to CoyoteKen for the test.

Learning Spanish update

It feels like I am making some progress.

Learning a language is a set of three tasks. One is to be able to comprehend the spoken language. Two is to be able to speak the language. The third is to be able to read/write the language. There is some overlap and they are mutually supportive but they are very different skill sets.

I have been listening to this guy to tune my ear. I set the automatic subtitles (in Spanish) and just let him speak. He speaks slowly and enunciates clearly. Most of his homilies are in the eight-to-ten minute range and his topics are usually interesting to me. This exercise helps me parse out the stream of sounds into discrete words. Thanks to BillyBob in Arizona for suggesting this channel.

On the read/write standpoint, I printed out a list of the English "High Frequency" or "Dolch" words and have been hand-writing each word on the pre-Primer and Primer lists in English followed by its Spanish equivalent every day. Writing-by-hand activates a lot of mental paths which I believe is helpful for recall. The Dolch words are grouped by pre-primary, primary, 2nd, 3rd and so forth based on word frequency in common use and the word's complexity.

A few simple words like quein, que, como, donde, cuanto y por que (who, what, how, where, when, why) convey a huge amount of context for decoding other words.

Quicksilver update

Quicksilver's stay with her paternal grandparents has been extended another two weeks.

1. Most people put bread in a toaster although some use them to heat up pop-tarts or bagels.
2. S-I-L-K  Most people get this one
3. Cows drink water. Give yourself bonus points if you commented "Depends on the age of the cow" because calves drink milk.
4. Greenhouses are made of glass, plastic or other transparent/translucent materials.
5. Look at your driver's license. You are driving the bus. You should be able to figure out your own age based on that information