Workout

Last night~

- With hands on a box, jump feet back and do a push-up. Jump feet forward, jump on box, and then jump up for a pull-up. (15x)
- With one leg propped up behind on the box, bend the other knee to touch the ground. (15x each side)
- One-legged inchworm push-ups. (5x each side)

Did each of these twice.

workout

Monday night~ balance balls

- With each forearm on a balance ball, and knees on the ground (i couldn't do these from my feet), roll the balls out sideways and then back together.
- Face down with belly on the ball, lift two 10 lb weights up and down with arms in the shape of: a Y, T, W, L, and I.
- With a balance ball between the back and the wall, and with one foot having only toes touching the ground, bend the knees to crouch all the way down and then back up.
- Lying with the ball under the upper back while the knees are bent and the back is straight, hold two 15lb dumbbells straight up and rotate them out from the head, around the body, and back together to bring them up again (without the weights going below the plane of the shoulders).
- With hands clasped together, rest forearms on a ball (had to do these on my knees too) keeping torso straight, and roll the ball forward then back.
- With one leg up behind you balanced on a ball, bend down with the other knee (i had to hold onto the wall or else i was falling over).

Last of the ABin5 dough

I finished off the last of the Artisan Bread in 5 min dough today. It was probably close to 1.5 lbs. I had to leave a little bit of dough that had dried out on the edge of one of the containers. This loaf I cut with a scallop pattern on top after I let it rest for at least an hour after taking it out of the fridge. While baking I used some tips I picked up from Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I let the oven (including my roasting pan) heat up to 450F while the dough rested.

After sliding the dough in onto the tile, I poured hot water into the roasting pan so it would generate steam. We actually picked up a mist sprayer from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, so I used that to mist the sides of the oven and generate more steam. 15 minutes in I flipped the tile around to help even out the bread's exposure to the heat in the oven.

I think I opened up the oven to mist toooo many times. Nearly 30 minutes in, I stuck in the thermometer and the internal temperature was at ~160F. I needed it to be at 200F, so I upped the heat to 480F and left the thermometer in the bread to monitor the temperature. The alarm feature is awesome. :) The crust turned out a nice color, and this time I definitely slashed it deep enough.

I just tasted it, and I think that I over-handled this dough again. The holes are not as big as I'd like. The crust, although crispy on the outside, is not as thick and flavorful as the first bread I baked with the ABin5 dough. I'll have to think about this a bit more to figure out what I did. Perhaps it was the changes in oven temperature from constantly opening the door?

Workout

Last night:

- 30x double handed swings with the 12kg kettlebell
- 30x right handed swings
- 30x left handed swings
- 20x two-handed cable exercise, pulling from down low on one side, up and across the body while keeping arms straight and twisting the torso
- 20x while holding a 10lb dumbbell in each hand, with both arms extended straight up the entire time, lean all the way back on a BOSU ball and then do a crunch into a sit up and then stand up

Repeated all of this twice.

I'm going to try to get a bike this weekend.

More bread

I baked my 4th loaf of bread today. I baked it at 470F for 35 minutes. This time I didn't cut into it deep enough on top before baking. It probably would have expanded more. I tried not to handle it too much while shaping so I wouldn't disrupt the air bubbles. I tried to keep the dough flatter and wider too so that it wouldn't be too thick in the middle. I think that may have been a factor in the middle of my bread loaves never being fully cooked.

Bread #1: Rosemary Bread (or what was left of it before I realized I should snap a photo)


Bread #2: Rosemary Bread


Bread #3: 5 minute Artisan Bread


Bread #4: 5 minute Artisan Bread


The color on those last 2 photos is a little darker than it's supposed to be because we had no natural lighting and no good camera lighting.

Parents

I had lunch with my parents on Sunday. I taught my dad HTML in the afternoon. It's interesting talking to them about various issues because most of our conversation for the past 5 years consisted of them complaining about me or trivial daily talk. We started talking about religion, and it only came up because I didn't know the name for Christianity in Mandarin. I brought up a bunch of other religions that I didn't know the Mandarin names for, and Lawrence brought up Scientology. It turns out my parents even know about Scientology! Haha, initially it was the religion that Tom Cruise is into, but my mom told us about how there were people she knew who got into Scientology. She had a middle school friend who used to be a devout Buddhist, vegetarian and all. Turns out she had a change of heart and turned to Scientology. My mom, and I love her for this, exclaimed at how she could drop one thing she devoutly believed in and pick out another devout belief. It didn't make sense to her that one could just pick and choose a religion, swapping for other religions whenever one felt like it. I agree. Go mom!

Workout + the unexpected

Yesterday was 3 sets of plyometric exercises.

1.) 15x Jumping left and right over an exercise bench with both feet together.
2.) 15x Plyometric Incline Push-ups (jump at the top).
3.) 15x each side Cable arm pull (ok, not the official term, but basically pull to the chest, using the shoulder).
4.) 15x each side Hop Steps (jump forward, back, left, right on one foot).

On my walk home, at the intersection of Colorado and Arroyo Pkwy, there were pro-Health Reform demonstrators on all four corners with big signs and banners. I couldn't help but wonder how it could compare to something similar up in SF or Berkeley.