This is my thinking aloud. It would probably be best kept internal, but it helps to put it down on paper so to speak. And this is where I put things down.
It was the same Friday one year ago when I came away from hospital…at this moment in time I’d sat in a chair waiting to be discharged after five days of the strangest period of my life. I’d had an unexpected heart attack and I hadn’t seen it coming.
Now a year on I know much more about the heart and healthy living, but from a personal point of view I’ve changed. I used to think I was a 20+ year old in a 40+ year old body with an energy and fitness level of a 30+. Now I feel more like a 50 year old in 40+ year old body with a 60 year old fitness level. They say you go through an period of denial. Well mine seems to have continued. On the outside I put on a brave face, but on the inside I’m still feeling shaken by the whole thing. I can be thankful I’m still here, and I now know that certain food and a more active lifestyle is necessary, but I haven’t exactly done anything drastic with my “wake up call”. Ok I’m eating more fruit, nuts, fish and less chocolate, cheese and cakes, but I seem to be wasting much more time, turning down more invites, avoiding more things. It’s a weird feeling, like I’m not in total control. That’s hard to accept from someone who likes to be in control.
I’m going to have to do something…I’m just not sure what yet.
If you like the humour of Monty Python, Mitchell and Webb, Reeves and Mortimer etc you may find the site of Australian David Thorne brings tears to your eyes…well it did mine. An incredible mix of mad/daft/silly pieces pulled together in a brilliant web site.
Follow this link: 27bslash6 and click the logo on the right to enter. Prepare to laugh out very loud!
For those who watched X-Factor tonight and managed to stick it through the ads each break you may have enjoyed the melodic track accompanying the new Häagen-Dazs advert. It happens to be from one of my favourite relaxing musicians Richard Hawley. The track titled Open Up Your Door can be heard on last fm. It’s not, in my opinion, his strongest track, but it suits the ad perfectly. Now if you want a really good Richard Hawley track try this one: The Sun Refused to Shine – shear genius!
Oh, and he’s from my home town of Sheffield…all the best people came from the Steel City
Find out more about Richard Hawley on his official web site richardhawley.co.uk
I recently over heard my cardiac nurse saying “she wants to be a model” and couldn’t help push my nose in. I soon found out she was referring to up-and-coming model, Chloe Bleackley, who’d done some catwork work, but never modelled before. So I offered to take some shots to kick start her portfolio.
I spent Friday evening in the Turbine Studio with Chloe. It’s the first studio shoot I’ve done since the heart attack last year.
Chloe turned out to be far better than I expected for a first shoot. In fact, she was much better than some models who’ve been doing it for years. She’s very alert to how models pose and has spent time watching TV etc to learn. So when she started moving I was gob-smacked at the ease of flow.
Happy as they come, but also capable of turning on a sultry pose. I’m sure she’ll go far.
My Cardiac Rehab exercise sessions are now over, I’ve been refereed to the local gym and I’m on my own. The sessions helped me understand my breathing. so I can now tell when I’m reaching a point that I shouldn’t go beyond. It’s far less strenuous levels than I’m used to, but means I can go swimming, cycling or longer distance walking with some degree of confidence. I’m looking forward to visiting the plane wrecks on Bleaklow Moor soon. I’ll be off swimming next weekend.
Next medical stage is a check up with my consultant in a couple of weeks.
I went to my first game in years… Sheffield Wednesday vs Nottingham Forest. An average game of, as they say, two halves…both with little action but a fair bit of drama from the Notts side who seemed to foul a lot and wasted about seven minutes of injury time.
The game started with a goal in 3 minutes to the away team, but Wednesday pulled back to make it one all in 39th minute. Those moments were about as interesting as it got.
I bought the Louder CD by tauchsieder a few weeks ago in a sale at Head (ex Zavvi) in Meadowhall. I’d never heard of them but it was one of those lucky stumble upons. If you like unusual slower music that’s verging on ambient you’ll find this a great album. What’s even better is having looked around I spotted it is now available for free download along with both tauchsieder’s other two CDs on Last.fm here: tauchsieder
Well it wasn’t pigeons that I heard squawking today in the garden. When I heard the loud shrieks I thought “oh no the kitten’s got another bird”, but this time it was quite the opposite. To my surprise I saw a very worried kitten running away while being dive bombed by a thrush.
The kitten, called Diesel, eventually froze in the centre of the garden and stared in amazement as the thrush began to hop closer in circular motions, shrieking all the time. In the background, in just about every bush, was a group of blackbirds, seemingly egging the thrush on to attack. It was a surreal moment that I’ve never seen before.
After some time Diesel plucked up courage to attack. The bird missed the leap and proceeded to taunt poor Diesel from a nearby bush before diving down like a Spitfire over the kitten’s head. I decided to get the camera and managed to take a few quick snaps before Diesel came to running to me all shook up.
I’m not sure how they situation had occurred but I think tonight maybe he will have nightmares.
The final stages of my rehab program have come in to play. I’m now attending a Cardiac Rehab Exercise class at the hospital.
It’s a series of 12 sessions aimed to teach you how to exercise correctly following a heart attack.
The process is like a circuit training session on sedation.
The first session was strange. A class of 12 or so middle to older aged people all shuffling about for the 15 minutes graded warm up.
The warm up, it’s explained, is to slowly get your body and heart ready for some moderate exercise that follows. The warm up is less strenuous than walking into the hospital, but it’s using each muscle and gradually building up to make you ready for the circuit that follows.
The circuit is a series of cardiovascular based exercises, that takes about 30mins to complete. While doing the circuit you push a little to begin to deepen your breathing, with an aim to reach a moderate breathing level. One where you can still hold a conversation without gasping. It’s all measured on the Borg scale. A scale introduced by Gunnar Borg that rates from 0 to 10 (o being nothing at all and 10 being extremely hard) We have to aim for 3 4 or 5 (moderate).
The circuit is followed by a 10 minute structured cool down. The warm up in reverse.
And then it’s tea and biscuits.
You have your blood pressure and heart rate read before and after the session.
Having been a fairly fit person all my life I’m finding it difficult to adjust to this very sedate process, but I’m doing as told.
Once the session is complete I can go off to a normal gym and start to build up my fitness program. My aim is to become fit enough to climb mountains again. I really want to revisit Striding Edge, but for now I’ll have to stick with places like Millstone Edge (that’s where the photo above was taken yesterday)
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab.
You simply enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize you by fitting you into to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data.
The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.
I tried it to see how the internet sees me.
Here’s the result – click on the photo to enlarge the detail.
This is my thinking aloud. It would probably be best kept internal, but it helps to put it down on paper so to speak. And this is where I put things down.
I recently over heard my cardiac nurse saying “she wants to be a model” and couldn’t help push my nose in. I soon found out she was referring to up-and-coming model, Chloe Bleackley, who’d done some catwork work, but never modelled before. So I offered to take some shots to kick start her portfolio.
The final stages of my rehab program have come in to play. I’m now attending a Cardiac Rehab Exercise class at the hospital.