I want one

Asus Eee PC. Sure, it's not for the poweruser tendencies I possess, but the form factor and durability are absolutely perfect for casual web surfing and the lack of harddrive is another plus. This little (7" screen) monster runs on flash memory and comes with a flavor of linux installed. When I get it, I'll keep linux on there and embrace all of the open source apps (open office, firefox and skype as a few examples) it comes with that I am familiar with anyway. You have the ability to install XP on it, but then performance takes a major hit and because this thing will be a true ultra portable, I can use my PC or Mac for other tasks.

I am hyped about getting this thing, but 8G is the top performer right now. I'm waiting for the first few months of 2008 before I get it. I am positive there will be storage, speed and other boosts and hopefully the price does not climb too high.

I'll post a detailed review once I get my hands on it.

The Arabic term for "cover"

I'm pretty sure we have all heard of this story about the Pakistani father who allegedly choked his daughter in Canada due her wearing Western dress to school and not opting for the Hijab that is customary for many Muslim women. At work today, I stopped in the breakroom and the TV was on and this story was being discussed by some talking heads. This is where my reality takes a turn for the ignorant. I was eating a great snack when a person from another department was in there consuming their lunch and heard the news story and said out loud, "That girl is in the US now and should dress like we dress and hijab is a silly name." I looked over at the person and said, "Wow, you are pretty tolerant of other cultures. That silly thing is an Arabic term for cover and it's a scarf that I am sure you have seen worn by Muslim women." This person then said, "So, you think what the father did was OK?" I said, "How do you draw THAT conclusion by me commenting on YOUR comment and saying nothing about the father in this story?" The person says, "Well, if he wants her to dress in that scarf, they should move back to where they came from!" I said, "Are you serious? It's amazing how this "LAND OF THE FREE" we live in only applies to Americans who speak one language and really believe the world is only about the US."

I know the father was 100% wrong for killing his daughter, but the real issue is that this father did not properly deal with a rebellious daughter and lost his mind and now his daughter is dead and he will sit in jail until he dies. My point was that the family in this story has customs that tunnel-visioned Americans think are "stupid" and just because many American kids can step all over their parents and many of the US laws give children WAY TOO MANY rights that the government has no business stepping into, immigrants are to not be judged by what one idiot did because their customs were not being followed.

I suggested this person get some Diversity Training and told them to remember that the US is not the only country in this world and holding on to cultural traditions is a major part of many people's identity when they move to another country for whatever reason. I shook my head and went back to work......

The Med Ball and This Morning....

Let me preface this post by saying that Dub may be the only one who can appreciate it, but I will throw it out to the blogosphere anyway.

Saturday mornings typically involve me going to a friend's house to work out in his basement and yesterday was no different. It's a finished basement with alot of room and since I do work out at home, but I cannot max out at for fear of pinning myself to my bench and having a screaming wife find me in that state. This friend and I are really close in strength levels and that is an important detail since we can spot each other with no issues and are right around plus/minus 5-10lbs for a max on various exercises.

Anyway, we like to mix up the workouts on occasion so we decided to use the 12lb medicine ball that I purchased a few weeks ago. At this point, it's important to mention that we worked shoulders first. We decided on the following 3 different med ball exercises: on knees facing each other about 8 ft from each other, standing about 8ft from each other w/two hand under-arm motion in throwing and seated tossing back/forth kind of rapidly. We did three sets of 30reps. It felt good AFTER, but was tough as we were going through each set since we worked shoulders pretty good. I felt like I had a really intense workout.

Fast-forward to this morning....I wake up and can barely lift my arms above my head. In conjunction with the deltoids work we did, man, the lactic acid was all over my muscle fibers and super-uncomfortable. It's mid-day now and it has somewhat dissipated, but my delts, bis, tris and forearms still feel pretty pumped.

Morale of the story: change up your workouts and do not fear the med ball! Who would have thought that 12lbs would have been the catalyst to a feeling of soreness and a reality of being pumped the next day?