Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Apple Watch Helped Me Be More Active



Before the pandemic, I was a regular at the gym going a minimum of 3 days a week for more than half of my life. 
When the Apple Watch came out, my first thought was "meh I don't need this to motivate me" but what I found was how little I moved on the days that I didn't go the to gym and that, in my opinion, is worth having a watch that keep track of your movements.

The Apple Watch, for those that don't know, can keep track of exercises via something they call "Rings". There are three rings of different colors:
  • Blue - The Blue Ring is the easiest to close as you simply need to get up, for at least 1 min, every hours in order to progress.
  • Green - The Green Ring keeps tracks of your cardio progress during a 24h period.
  • Red - The Red Ring is keeping track of the calories you've burn during a 24h period.
The Green (Cardio) and Red (Calories) are not really precise and you sometime have to fight the device in order to close those rings but how precise the device is doesn't matter as much as whether or not it provides enough of a motivation to move.
Once you start closing out those rings, and start earning trophies, it becomes increasingly difficult not to close them. Sure, you can skip that cardio workout for one day but that means you will loose your progress towards this next, shiny, fictional trophy. I know it sounds crazy but on some days the thought of loosing that next trophy was enough of the slap in the face I needed to get on that exercise bike.

A few more days and I'll also have a trophy for having closed the Blue and Red rings once for the last 365 days and I don't really feel like stopping. Here's to another 365 days!

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

It's officially over - Goodbye Trump!



Trump is an enigma that managed to receive a crazy amount of support regardless of what he did which, perhaps, is a sign of a problem in America. 
He profited from his Presidency, he played golf at tax payer's expanse, he butchered the COVID response by himself creating events that further spread the disease, he pardoned convicted criminals, he almost destroyed America to its core etc... etc... etc... 
When confronted, all he had to do was say "Fake News" and all was well with his cult followers. After all, 50% of Americans attempted to vote him in for a second term going as far as storming a Capital building to make it happen: Only in America can you attempt to overthrow a Democratic Republic and call it "Patriotisms". 

Trump managed to escape the law his entire life and the fact that he became President just shows how well he's able to bend the laws in his favor. 
When I think of Trump, the first word that comes to mind is "Criminal" - not "President". I wish I had Trump's ability to bend reality and make everyone believe that the last 4 years never happened but I can't because it DID happened and it was one of the worse things to happen to America.

Today marks the end of a Presidency that really shouldn't of happened in the first place. America was left wounded by Trump's Presidency and everything now falls on Joe Biden. Whether or not he's able to fix the damage remains to be seen.

I wish you all the best.


Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Cut Your Own Hair



Way back in 2015, I decided that I was no longer going to spend 40$ a month on my hair and, instead, would use the money to invest in an RRSP (Canadian Equivalent to 401K). If we do the math, that's $40 (a month) * 12 months * 5 years = $2 400. 
Obviously, I'm not doing anything fancy to my hair - mostly just shaving it at different length depending on how I feel during a given week. 

The point is that I managed to find money at a time when I believed I didn't have any to invest. You may not want to stop going to a hairdresser for your hair but is there something you can do to save money every month? Given enough time, that small $10, $20, $30... you saved every month will make a big difference. Start now!

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

New Year New Health Goals



A new year, a new personal health resolution. It saddens me to see that, for most people, the desire to make a positive health change stops within the first few months of the year if not sooner.

"If you don't make time for your health today, you will have to make time for illness tomorrow!"
-Joseph Piscatella 

Personal health is the most important thing whether we consciously know about it or not. The reason is simple, good health means we get to enjoy more of life. Taking care of our health doesn't guarantee we won't have illnesses but it does help in giving our bodies a better fighting chance against them.
The most common excuse is "I have no time for it" and it's pretty silly considering that we all have 24 hours in a day and some people are busier while still making the time for it. 
If you agree that personal health is the most important thing in this life then it should be reflected in your schedule. Some people over estimate the time it takes; not knowing that an hour of exercises, with a few life style (or dietary) changes, is often all that is needed to improve the condition of the body.

You are what you eat and if you work with your body it will reward you.


Friday, January 1, 2021

Goal Achieved!

Happy New Year!

I started this blog in 2008 and been writing, on and off, since which helped me discover my passion for writing. In January 2020, I had set myself a goal to have 10K views during the year (for a total of 70K) and ended up with multiple times that amount (total, as of now, is 108212 pageviews). It's not a big milestone to some but it is to me and I'm confident that the views will keep increasing as I'm getting better at writing and sharing my content.

I've had more views this years than in the previous 4-5 years. There are a few key reasons for this. Those are:

  • My writing is consistently better.
  • More crawlers have found my site than ever before which, apparently, counts towards the blogger views (but not Google Analytics).
  • More people stumbled on my site during the lock-down.
  • More people have been sharing my content on social media.

Don't get me wrong, I know my monthly pages views are mostly due to crawlers and the true number is much less than what I got but if more crawlers can see my site then more of you will be able to as well.

2020 was a great year thanks to you but 2021 will be even better! Stay tuned! 


100K views for the year 2021!



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