Tag Archives: sauna

Phew It’s A Heatwave

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heatwave in south florida with record temperatures in fort lauderdaleThings almost went into a meltdown yesterday in South Florida where temperatures hit an all time high in Fort Lauderdale (see report from the Sun-Sentinel) where it reached 100 degrees at the airport, with a heat index of 111.

There wasn’t much breeze all day, it was really hot, sticky and uncomfortable.   When I left work and got into the car, the temperature showed 108!   Driving for a few miles it dropped to 98, but then as I headed south down I95 towards Fort Lauderdale it rose again to 100.   Since the air conditioning isn’t working in the car the fan was just blowing hot air and almost sand-blasting my face.

I got home and Tim, my landlord had left the sauna on, so being hot and sticky I headed down to the pool, had a good sauna, and did 30 lengths in the pool.  I felt much better after that, especially since some clouds came over and a light breeze got up, making it feel a lot more comfortable.  It really did feel good cooling off in the pool after an hour long drive home from work.

Later in the evening, Tim and I decided to take our evening walk around the golf course, as we do most evenings, and as soon as you opened the door to the condo the heat hit you, phew!   It seemed like the temperatures just weren’t going to drop, but fortunately as we headed out onto the fairways and away from the houses and trees, a nice breeze got up from the west, a sign of weather changes, and it did cool us down somewhat.  There was also some nice heat lightning out west, no clouds or rain, just bright flashes in the sky.

I woke up this morning and wondered why it was still dark.  One thing you learn about the tropics, is that when you get a spell of extremely hot weather, it usually causes the gods to get angry, and this morning they definitely got out of bed on the wrong side.  

It was pouring with rain just before I had to go out to the car, but I was lucky and it stopped for 10 minutes so I could get out and start my drive.  The car needed filling up before I headed up the highway to work,  and I didn’t want to do this last night in 100 degree temperatures, but this morning with the rain, the traffic was heavy, and then I found my local gas station was closed, so I had to drive to another one.   While there I could clearly see the skies over the coast to the east, and they were as black as ink.  I knew that my drive north up I95 was not going to be a pleasant one.

I got onto the highway, and it wasn’t more than a minute or two before the lighter rain turned into a monsoo0n, with traffic slowing down to 25 mph as the road soon started to flood and a lot of vehicles were having trouble staying on the road.   Fortunately my Toyota Avalon grips the road really well, and also has great visibility, so I get rather frustrated at all these people who can’t see a thing.

By the time I got to Boynton Beach, which is a few miles north of Boca Raton, the rain was so heavy that it was pounding on the roof of the car, it was just like a monsoon!   It definitely got a good power wash today!   The drive was so slow, but about 10 miles further on the skies brightened up a bit and I managed to escape the storm.

Amazingly enough, everyone actually had their lights on this morning, which is a miracle for South Florida!  Quite a few even had their hazard lights on to warn drivers behind them, which is also rare.  Maybe there were a lot of  ”out of state” drivers on the highway today…

But I got to work in one piece, only 5 minutes late, and it was a cool 75 degrees compared to the heat of yesterday, so quite comfortable by comparison.

My First Day Back At Work

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Today was my first day back at work after three months of being unemployed.

So naturally I was rather nervous, as most of us are when starting a new job, and as is typical for me, every new job I have takes me to somewhere I don’t know.  This one is no different, at Juno Beach, just north of West Palm Beach in South Florida.

It’s a 45 mile drive to work, and as I had to be there by 9:30am to meet my new boss, I thought I had better leave by 7:45am in case the traffic was heavy.   Well as it turns out, pretty much nobody went to work by the look of it, so the roads were fairly empty, and I got there by 8:50am!   I still had to wait until 9:45am for my boss to arrive, as he had to go to the other office first, so by the time introductions had been done in the department and I had got my security card etc, it was time for lunch.

My boss was busy, so I took a walk out, a chance to call Debbie, and also my Son, both in England.   The office is in a small strip mall, and across the road is a park.  The other side of the park is the Ocean Drive, and beyond that the beach!   There was a wooden walkway with steps leading down to the beach, so I stood there to make my phone calls and took advantage of the nice breeze that was blowing, it was great to not feel as sticky as I had just 1/4 mile inland.

The afternoon went well, with me getting into the systems and looking at a few programs, and then the drive home was fairly uneventful, getting home at 6:30pm.

I thought as I had been sticky, it would be a good idea to put the sauna on, and with luck someone had already used it, so it was still pretty warm.  Nice to only need 15 minutes to warm it up instead of almost an hour!   I had a good sauna, did 30 lengths in the pool and then back up my well trodden six flights of stairs to the condo, by which time it was close to 8pm.

I was ravenous by this time, having only had grapefruit juice and a banana before I left this morning, and just water and two cups of green tea all day.  I didn’t care to go out to eat, I preferred to explore a bit and make my phone calls instead.  Starving I was, but I didn’t want to overdo things as it was late, so I just made a cheese and tomato sandwich with some German Black Bread (Pepperidge Farm, really good) and peeled and sliced 3 carrots and had those with some ranch dressing.  Yumm…  Followed by a Raspberry Fat Free Yoghurt.  That hit the spot, and wasn’t too heavy either.   Now if I can do the same tomorrow, I ought to lose a couple of pounds for sure…

Watched a bit of tv, nothing much on though.  Caught up on my email, tried to print a couple of documents, but the ink was low on the printer, need to redo those at work tomorrow.  And now, last thing before bed, to catch up on Tagfoot.

So now I am winding down, and about ready for that trip to the Land Of Nod.   Catch you tomorrow… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

In A Word – Blisters

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Well it had to come I suppose, I have been pushing myself all week to exercise more, and have been doing a good 2 1/4 mile walk at a fast pace every morning, with the result that I now have blisters forming on the balls of my feet.

I decided to slow things down a bit yesterday morning, which helped, my feet weren’t too bad during the day, but then I went on another 4 mile hike yesterday evening which left them sore again.  I was determined not to miss my walk this morning, but knew it had to be done at an even slower pace.  I also wanted to try and take a swim after, to make the most of my workout routine.

I lost track of how long the walk took this morning, but it was a while longer than the 36 minutes of the previous days, helped along with some more good music from my trusty MP3 player, today being a fresh batch of random songs from the same selection.

The walk starts and ends with going down and back up 6 flights of steps from my 7th floor condo, and within 10 minutes of having got back from the walk, I was changed and back down for a dip in the pool.  I managed 20 lengths, then back upstairs again, by this time just after 10am.  It really is nice to be living in Florida where you can do this sort of thing most of the year.  If anything the summer time is hte worst, since it’s just too hot and humid, even in the early morning.

I was feeling nicely energised after the walk and swim, and not very hungry surprisingly, so I made do with an orange and a banana.  I then set to on the internet, catching up with messages and postings on various sites.

Before I knew it, 1:30pm had come around, so I legged it downstairs for a 3rd time to put the sauna on, then grabbed a light lunch of cheese and tomato sandwich, my favorite since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  I topped this off with a yoghurt.

An hour later I headed down to the sauna, then did 20 lengths in the pool, took a steam, and another 30 lengths, before heading up those steps for a 4th time.   That made a total of 70 lengths in the pool, my daily record, plus I think a record for going up and down stairs.

I was going to have some homemade chicken soup for dinner, but didn’t feel like something that heavy, so I made do with some sliced carrots and ranch dip, followed by an apple and orange.

My day of working out wasn’t over yet though, as I went out for another walk to check out the opening times for the local Farmers Market and for a couple of items to Target.  I hadn’t been to this Farmers Market before, but Tim, who I rent from went today and got some real bargains, all important if you are on a tight budget.  We also discovered a nice park around the corner from the market, with several walks and lots of ornamental shrubs and trees.  I guess we covered about 2 miles in total.

So here I am at almost midnight trying to get my daily post completed before the day ends.  I have spent the evening trying to catch up with comments on my Squidoo Lenses and also on Tagfoot.   And so it’s almost time for bed, catch you tomorrow.

Adjusting To Being Unemployed

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I have to admit that it was a huge shock when I found out that I had lost my job in mid February, not only because I needed to be employed to ensure I had enough money to cover my living expenses, but because this was without a doubt the worst time in my working career to be looking for a job.   The recession in the USA was starting to hit hard, few companies were (and still are) hiring new people in the IT field, and so for the first week or so I was pretty much in panic mode.

For those of you who are new to my blog, I hope that you enjoy the articles that Debbie and I write and will subscribe to them, either via RSS feed or email.  We are also both on Twitter (Tony / Debbie) and you can follow us there.   Our lives are complicated, with me living in South Florida while Debbie lives in the South of England.  I am divorced with 2 young girls who live 30 miles from me, and child support for them takes a good proportion of my income every month, so obviously losing my job came as a great shock.

For the first few weeks at least, despite my alarm having been turned off, I would still wake up at 6:30am automatically, which really frustrated me as I didn’t need to.  I also wasn’t sleeping too well, waking frequently during the night, and with working to update web sites, my resume and to get my affairs in order until late every night, I was exhausted.  Finally I managed to get into a better sleeping pattern as things settled down.

With the prospect of getting another job in the field that I work in (I am a Senior Analyst/Programmer specialising in JDE World Software – an integrated system now owned by Oracle that is used by larger corporations) being slim, I decided that one thing I ought to do while unemployed is to try and do my best to make a living online.   I figured that if I can earn more money online than I have been doing, and ideally earn enough to make a living, then the future would look a lot brighter.   IT used to be a great field to work in, but in the last 10-15 years the rate of pay has actually decreased, and most companies don’t offer good benefits and definitely no job security these days.  Anything I can do, especially as I am getting older, to get out of this dying field, is a good thing.

Well after a few weeks I managed to sleep better, and right now I can guarantee to more or less wake up between 7:30am and 8am most days, sometimes even later.  The problem now of course for me is how to be productive.  I am unemployed right!  So I have all day to do what I need to do.  Well it’s really not as easy as it sounds.   Let me give you a run down of a typical day for me…

7:30am-8am – Wake up.

8am – Check email, web stats, minor web updates, shower, breakfast.

9:30am – Get some work done.

11am – Debbie comes home from work (4pm in England).  Chat on webcam for a while, work on web tasks together.

12:30pm – Feeling peckish, grab a bite to eat.

1:30pm – Take a sauna/steam and have a swim.

2:30pm – Chat with Debbie.

3pm – Get some work done.

5pm: Goodnight chat with Debbie (10pm in England).

6pm – Grab dinner.

6:30pm – Get some work done.

8pm – Take a walk.

9pm – Watch tv / get work done.

11pm – Off to bed.

As you can see, I get some work done, but in short bursts, and in reality I barely have more than an hour for each burst before I am distracted by something else, like the phone ringing, or new emails coming in.   I am determined to try to get fit and lose weight, so my daily sauna/swim is very important to me, especially as I am living in a community in South Florida where we have a nice pool and sauna, plus the weather is on my side most of the time.  So I don’t want to give that up.  I also need to chat with Debbie, as it’s important to us both, and it’s really hard to be so far apart for months at a time.

The solution is to try and do something to reorganize my days so that I can make better use of them.  I started today, not too successfully, but this is my new plan…

7am – Get up early, quick look at email etc.

7:30am – Take a walk.  I live in a community built around a golf course with several lakes, and walking around the block is 2 1/4 miles.  I also live on the 7th floor of a condo block, and walking down the stairs, around the lake, back up the stairs took 36 minutes this morning, one of my fastest times.

8:30am – Shower and breakfast.  A nice cool shower to clean off, then a healthy breakfast, either something like Raisin Bran or Oatmeal with a Banana, and Orange or Grapefruit Juice.

9am – Get some work done.

12am – Chat with Debbie.  Both of us waiting until 5pm over there in England to chat, so we both get more done.

1:30pm – Lunch, Sauna and Swim.

2:30pm – Back to work.

5pm – Goodnight chat with Debbie.

The evening I can’t do much about, since I want to take my evening walk, and I go with Tim, who I rent from.  It’s a lot nicer walking with someone, and I time the walk to fit in with his schedule.  Fortunately we now have the ability to record television shows automatically, which is wonderful as it allows me to still watch my favorite shows, but frees me from having to worry about when they are on.

The best thing about getting up early and taking a walk is that I feel really energised afterwards.  Doing this early is best in Florida as it soon warms up down here, but it also means that I have worked out by 8:30am and an ready to go and get stuck into my tasks for the day, instead of feeling sluggish having just got up and not done anything.

As far as looking for a job, these days jobs in IT are mostly advertised on the internet, and so I have various searches activated on sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com which send me emails of any new jobs.  Also having my resume active on these sites, the headhunters come to me when they have any openings, but inlike other times when I have been looking for work, this time there are precious few jobs going for people with my qualifications.  In the last week I have found 3 jobs – one in Pennsylvania, one in Texas, and today one in Los Angeles, today’s being the only one that I would say I am well qualified for, and none in any location that I am happy to relocate to.   I don’t see things improving any time soon.

My working day consists of writing articles on here, The Laughline and Squidoo, plus promoting the same on Tagfoot and Stumbleupon, as well as other sites.   As well as posting links, I am actively researching for new ways to promote and cross link my sites, to improve traffic and also affiliate earnings.   Some days it’s good, but the last week traffic has really slowed down unfortunately, and I don’t know why.

If you have any comments on how to better organise my time, or on how you organise your time I would be pleased to hear from you.  Also if you have any suggestions for better marketing my blogs to get better traffic I would like to hear.  I am always open to cross linking to other related sites, and there are many other blogs out there that I would be pleased to swap links with.  Don’t forget that you can use the Share button at the end of this article to subscribe to our feed, and if you can Stumble, Digg or Twitter this I would be grateful.

From One Cold To Another

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Sad as it was to leave the freezing cold temperatures of England on Sunday and to head back to the warmth of South Florida, it was at the same time a sad departure from Debbie, since without her visa being approved, it might be July before we get to see each other again – not a pleasant prospect.

For weeks before I left Florida, many of the people in South Florida had colds and the flu.  I haven’t had a cold in over two years, my defence strategy involving drinking at least one large glass of Orange Juice a day, and it seems to work well.  Should I feel I am getting sick, I take another glass of Orange Juice, some Zinc tablets, and if I think I need it I pop an Airborne tablet.

Less than a week before I left Florida, I could feel a cold coming on.  I thought to myself  ”I knew it – something had to come along to ruin my Christmas”, and if you have ever been on a long flight at the height of a severe cold you know it’s not a pleasant experience.

Well, dosing up enough I managed to eradicate the cold before it took hold, and I successfully managed to stay cold free while in England – until the end of the trip!

I don’t know if it was 2 days before I left when I met up with my son, who wasn’t feeling 100%.  I don’t know if it was the following day when we went on a day out and also to the supermarket, which was really busy with people coughing and sneezing.  I don’t know if I caught something at the airport or on the plane.  But I do know that I caught something!

Monday I was a bit feverish, and didn’t have any juice to drink unfortunately.  I had a sauna/steam in the evening which helped a bit – maybe, but this morning I was no better.  All day I have had a sore throat and an increasing tickly cough.  This morning I got some Orange Juice, and have had about 5 glasses so far.  My head is a lot clearer than it was this morning, but the ticklish throat is still there.  The test is that if I pop an Airborne before going to bed, will I be able to sleep without being hot and feverish, and will I feel better in the morning?

I hate getting colds and flu – don’t we all!   As a child I used to have colds continually.  Not only did they last a while, I would end up so congested, it would take months to get rid of it.  Now I know how to help prevent them, I am determined to not let this take me down any more than I have to.

It’s ironic that having got back to Florida, my plans for working on this blog, promoting it, and working on other money making ideas, have not materialised.  Between t he cold and the need to adjust to Florida time, by the time I get back from work at night I am done in.  I find it hard to focus and concentrate, which is why tonight sees my first post since I got back.

Well hopefully tomorrow I will have better news to report.  Hopefully the cold will be on the retreat, and my energy will be returning.

See you on the flip side…