Author: Chris Minnick

Chris Minnick is an author, trainer, web developer and co-founder of WatzThis? (www.watzthis.com).

He has authored and co-authored books and articles on a wide range of Internet-related topics. His published books include: JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies, Coding All-in-One For Dummies, Mastodon For Dummies, Beginning ReactJS Foundations, Adventures in Coding, JavaScript For Kids For Dummies, Coding with JavaScript For Dummies, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies, Webkit For Dummies, CIW eCommerce Certification Bible, and XHTML.

In addition to his role with WatzThis?, Chris is a winemaker, painter, novelist, swimmer, cook, and musician.

interviewing, walkin’

steps yesterday: 10781 (gotta get back on track!)

Made quite a bit of progress in listening to A Walk in the Woods while recovering from the party. Unfortunately, I was asleep for much of it. So, this morning I rewound and relistened to a bunch. Bill goes off on how the Park Service doesn’t do anything, then talks about how americans don’t do anything. He says that the average american walks 1.4 miles per WEEK! WTF? I walk twice that distance before breakfast every day. How can you even go to the bathroom a normal number of times and only walk a few hundred yards a day?

We’re interviewing people this week, so I need to go and get ready!

ouch

status: hungover
steps yesterday: 19500

Party yesterday has me wiped out and afraid to weigh myself. I’m probably 6 pounds lighter just because I’m so dehydrated.

In Walk in the Woods, Bill and Katz manage to lose Mary Ellen, they keep walking over hill and dale, get stuck in a snow storm, but then move on. Bill talks about how the US govt. agencies that are supposed to protect the wildlife aren’t doing that. (Can’t remember the details this morning and I don’t have the energy to try to be coherent).

bread

steps: around 15000

everything was messed up this morning, because I didn’t get to weigh myself before breakfast and I erased the number of steps last night while I was trying to press the light button.

In Walk in the Woods, Bill talks about the history of the trail a bit, Bill and Katz pack, and they embarked upon their journey. Katz is a big mess. On the 5th day, they meet up with this even bigger mess, Mary Ellen, and she joins them.

They come to an inn that has food and soda for sale. Bill reflects on how the experience of the A.T. is one of deprevation, and how, even after only 5 days of deprevation, a slice of white bread can “bring you to the brink of orgasm”. whew!

walk in the woods

steps yesterday: around 15000
listening to: Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson moves back to the states after being in Europe for long time. He discovers that his New Hampshire (I think) home is near the Appalachian Trail, which winds along the east coast for about 2150 miles from Georgia to Maine. He decides to hike it.

Gets a lot of books and equipment. Reads about bear attacks. One particularly interesting bear fact is that they really like snickers bars. The whole bear and solitude thing causes him to rethink embarking on the journey alone.

His old friend calls him and wants to go along. Bill is happy about this. When the old friend arrives, however, he’s fat and need to eat every hour or he’ll go into seisures (as a result of some bad drugs he took at some point). The friend’s solution to the conumdrum of being in the woods and requiring regular sweets: he’s brought along a duffel bag full of snickers bars.

And that’s where I’m at right now. Looking forward to tomorrow’s walk. I’m already thinking about my next book/tapes: they have John Muir’s book on tape at the library. What if I become a real nature-lover? Scary thought.

books on tape

I’ve been walking and running a lot lately. I’ve also started listening to books on tape while I walk/run. I also have a pedometer (for measuring how far I walk). I hope to use my blog to track my progress physically and educationally.

Lately, I’ve been doing over 15,000 steps per day. I’ll try to post the exact number here every day along with what I’m listening to.

friends, politics

Been a while again. We have a few friends in Sacramento now. That’s nice. We were/are heavily involved in some political activities…but I don’t feel like it’s enough. I’m going on daily power walks with our neighbor Gary, during which we talk about politics (he’s a Libertarian) and Java (he’s basically mentoring me and forcing me to work through Bruce Eckel’s book). Things are pretty good. I’m nervous about the business still, and about how I’m not famous yet…but, it’s becoming more and more clear to me that I’m insane, so I don’t listen to these crazy demands that I make of myself as much anymore.

doing ok

The business now has two employees! Things are pretty good. My big complaint right now is that any sort of financial freedom is constantly elusive. oh well. Also, I’m feeling like everyone is conspiring to make me old before I’m ready. Also, I’m just in a funk because I still don’t know anything about anything. whatever. I don’t even know why I have this site. I’m afraid that people are reading it, but I write in it as if people are reading it. It’s interesting for me to go back and read old messages and I wish that I were posting to it more frequently, but at the same time, I don’t really want to post to it and when I do, it’s pretty much the same ol’ crap.

Here are my things to be happy about:
Margaret got her eyes fixed!
I’m still not smoking
I weigh less than I did when I was smoking (although I’m still not happy with that)
The business is growing

That’s about all I can think of right now. Not bad. I’ve got some work to do.