May 2007 ~ TRISTUPE.COM

Thursday, May 31, 2007

PowerBread!

Just a day after i posted the Dirty Dozen and gotten suggestion from the Pipot Gang, to be more specific, Dr. Azman, I too, decided to try something out.

How about mixing PowerBar with my bread?

Why not?

I have like 7 or 8 PowerBar in the freezer, some nearing expiry date, since i'm not going to eat it, i might as well use it.

The Bar

I also got some milk meant for breast feeding mother, which wifey did not finish because the vanilla smell was overwhelming for her when she was pregnant.

The Milk

I got loads of pysillium husk as well, so, this will be a bread high in fiber and high in energy.

The Husk

And this three will go in to create one of the most nutritious food one can ever find. Or so i think.

The other Ingredients

I'm replacing the sugar with Honey, skipping the oil and put in just a lil butter, skipping the salt as well to make it a healthy choice.

Set the breadmaker to Menu 1, crust to be lightest and weight to be 750gram (a tip by LL2 as she say the extra kneading and rising will make it softer) when i'm actually using only amount for a 500gram bread.

I cut the PowerBar with a kitchen scissor into slightly smaller than bite size. Added Raisins in and set the bread maker to start making the bread.

PowerBar getting jiggy with Raisin

3hours and 28 mintues later, this is what i got as the bread finished baking. The Kitchen was filled with Vanilla smell. The bread looked Great!

Nicely risen!

Left for the bread to cool overnight and we proceed to make Bread Number 14, which wifey put in what she wants in the pan.

This is how the PowerBread looked like when it's cut

Where is the Bar???

The heat must had melted all the PowerBar bits, as there isn't any which are clearly visible. I only found one which looked like what i would think is a bit of PowerBar, and it just might be the same one which was stuck with the raisin in the picture above.

See not???The brown brown in colour one...

The bread is definately softer than the usual one we made, perhaps because the extra kneading and rising did help. Bandit will be given some of the bread to try, lets see what he says after this.

Yummyliciously Powered!

Oh What Joy!!!

You know when you reach home, you see your son/daughter, you feel damn happy because they make you smile even without them trying.

I Can sit!

I feel blessed because Ryan is such that he will smile when he sees you. For him, which is now 6months and 2 weeks old, to react the way he did as if he know who you are, is such joy.

I know some friends which are married but do not plan to start a family as yet, citing economic and also personal preferences to delay the plan.

"Not ready la", most of them says.

What is READY and WHEN is ready? Even me and wifey can't answer that.

"You la, calculate wrongly", wifey lamented yesterday when we were talking about pregnancy.

"Why? got regret ah?", i asked.

We both know of course there isn't any regret.

Ryan is simply the best thing that ever happen to us at this point of time. We wouldn't trade this experience for anything else in the world. OK, maybe NOT everything, but close la. (You see, i still want to feel how it is like to be a champ in any Triathlon race).

Papa, want to smell and see if i Poo Poo?

Despite all the things that is happening around me and my life, there is always one thing i'm sure which will always be there; your own family. Just like how my friendship with my childhood buddies which stuck to me through thick, thicker and thinnest of experiences.

Just like how Ryan could make us all smile and chuckle over his antic. His brain is like a dry sponge, ready to absorb all the things given and taught to him.

No, we are not trying to teach him to streak, yet...

And what greater joy than to have your son sleeping with you in the afternoon?

Zzzzzzzz...

By the way, Dumpling festival is around the corner, mum brought along 30 of these delicious dumplings, home made, for me to keep and eat. You see your mouth got water or not? The dumpling was so fresh that when it arrived, it was still hot from the steaming process!!!

LIke this die la...lose weight and putting it back on soon!

So, you see, I've always believe that what goes around, comes around.

Today's good deed will be rewarded and paid forward by others.

Just like how Geoff would say "Make the world a greater place to be!"

Lets make this world a better place!

1:25:47

I wasn't really feeling up to it, maybe because the Kopi Peng i drank for lunch and the fishball noodle which i ate kinda make me feel rahter...fishy.

Head was a bit light, maybe because of the caffiene, as i seldom drink coffee to start with, i thought taking one mid afternoon would get me in some mood for some fast run.

Initial plan was to run to Gym and meet wifey there, but she couldn't go as she went to MNH at Curve with LL2. Market survey la, they say.

So, i am left with no choice but to run the full distance from Home to Gym and Back.

First time i ran this distance, i clocked in 1:36:40, second time around i did a 1:30:42. And yesterday, i did a 1:25:47!

Return Ticket - 14.57km

It seems that when i think i'm running out of juice, the juice keep coming. I must admit i pushed harder than i usually did as i started the run pretty late at almost 6:15pm. By the time i reached Hartamas, it was already gonna be 7pm.

And the best bit? i ran a fast 40:25 from Home to the U-Turn!!! That is just almost as good as my best 7.24km run timing!!!

One way :7.24km

It doesn't help when Tommy Page's A Shoulder To Cry On came on in the Shuffle when i was running in the tunnel towards Hartamas. Thank god for the traffic drowning out his singing and i just pretend it was Guns & Roses doing the cover version of Tommy Page's song.

Because the traffic was really heavy as it was circa the time when everyone goes back home after work, the tail wind from the incoming traffic inside the tunnel was really strong, i swore it felt like running between some valley where the wind could lift you up and throw you back.

Personal Best? or could it be better?

So, yes, i did a 1:25:47 yesterday. And i'm damn proud of it. Best thing was when i weight myself this morning, i'm down to 79.5kg. Can't be the water weight i lost through sweat as right after i reached home, i drank a full 1.5liter of water before dinner and then as me and wifey watched Miami Ink, i drank another 1.5liter.

Anohter plus point is that i burned up 1857 cal, which is good. More calorie deficit, more weight i shalt lose!

Dirty Dozen

Remember them the soldier boys which were famous back in the 1960's for the show?

Macho Macho Man...

I love war movies. Maybe because of my background. No, i'm not a sadist. And a few of my all time favourite is Lords Of Discipline and Full Metal Jacket, amongst other.

Your underwear got hole!

Me Luv You Long Time!

OK, only thing is, i'm not gonna talk about these movies today, instead, the Dirty Dozen i'm refering to was the bread that me and wifey made since we bought the breadmaker on about 2 weeks ago.

Yes, to date, we had made 12 breads.

First Dirty Fella

6 white with all the things dumped in.
2 garlic cheese
3 wholemeal and
the last one this morning;
which is a mix of white and wholemeal (lazy to open one more pack of white flour la)...

The 12th Dirty fella...yeah, really dirty looking...

Yummy inside!!!

We will make one more tonight, as the half of the 12th will be given to my mum. She likes her bread sweet and with raisins but minus the herbs, so, this 12th was filled with raisins and without the herbs, the way she likes it.

We've also scout around PJ area for shops which sell flour for bread making and we've sorta know where to get the stuff from and where is cheaper.

So, looks like the breadmaker is here to stay, contarary to what other tell us that "you will only make it twice, then the breadmaker will not see the sunlight again"

Current cost per bread : RM35! LOL!

HIIT Again

Every once in a while, i would do some HIIT.

Only this time, i decided to do 2 sets of 5km each.

First set:
1km - 9.0km/h
1km - 11.0km/h
800m - 9.5km/h
800m - 11.5km/h
400m - 11.0km/h
400m - 12.0km/h
200m - 11.5km/h
200m - 12.5km/h
100m - 12.0km/h
100m - 15.0km/h

Time taken was : 27min 33 Seconds

Then immediately after the first set, i went on to the second set without resting.

Set Two
100m - 9.5km/h
100m - 10.0km/h
200m - 9.5km/h
200m - 10.5km/h
400m - 10.0km/h
400m - 11.0km/h
800m - 10.5km/h
800m - 11.5km/h
1km - 12.0km/h
1km - 11.5km/h

Time taken was : 27 Mins 32 Seconds.

Total Cal burned: 918

Checked with LBS, bike won't be ready until Thursday. Itching to ride.

Read about Bacin's adventure in Kenyir here : Bacin's Report

Menu for today : ~~Run to Gym.~~ Wife not going to Gym, so it's long run for me today, Home to Gym and back Home. Yay!

Lets Get Lean

This is a sponsored review: MyFitnessPal.com

I now weight 80kg. That is 176lb. Yes, i sometimes weigh 82kg, but those are fluactuating water weights. 80kg is my weight when i first measure it in the morning when i wake up.

But as it may had seems that i lost 2kg without any effort and just by sleeping.

My target is to get lose 5kg or 11 pounds. So, i could get all the help i can get.

I've been exercising religiously and it doesn't seems that my weight is coming down. I guess I missed out in the other key component.

It's my diet, to be more specific, i need to start calorie counting !

I was given a chance to review a website that offers free calorie counter and i signed up for it straight. I keyed in some of my details and how much weight i want to lose, apart from other vitals and here is what it recommended.

You nuts? losiing 2lbs a week???

Yes, i'm getting desperate. I need to lose this much so my knee would not suffer from any injury when i run. I am also a firm believer that having a lightest bike won't help if you weigh 10 times more than the bike. While fat helps with swim, i guess i could do without some natural buoyancy and just swim for it.

1510 calorie is my net daily allowable intake. This is a figure after taking into account my daily exercise calorie burned. So, usually, i will burn about 1000cal/hour at moderate effort, this seems achieveable as i do make sure my caloric intake per day is less than 3000 cal.

After you've signed in, you got the option to track your workout, to track your diet and also to monitor your progress. I must say this is pretty comprehensive already and as the namesake goes, it has a calorie counter.

So, my first entry was to enter what i had for breakfast, which is Milo, which is also, in my opinion, classified as Hot Chocolate. As i like my Milo as it is (ie without milk and sugar), i put in 3 heapful of spoon into it. Each spoon gives about 33grams and 3 makes 99grams. According to the Calorie counter, i've consumed 54calorie...

Not too bad!

We all know that to lose weight (and keep it off), you need to be in a caloric deficit state, meaning eating just enough to maintain your body function and at the same time exercising to burn off the excess that we ate.

So, MyFitnessPal.com with it's monitoring system might just come in handy to help you with your weight management and overall help.

Just don't cheat on the caloric intake, will ya?

PayPerPost Direct - Getting Paid For Blogging, Only Better!

Bloggers everywhere knows just how little (and vunerable) Adsense could get. They clutter up your blog and makes it look like some classified site and pays you peanut. And when you thought you could smile knowing that you earned USD12.50, they would ban/bar you and give excuse that they detected fraud clicking on your site, eventhough it's not your doing.

The along came services like PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Blogvertise etc etc which gives blogger which blogs a purpose to keep blogging.

I must admit that i subscribe to all 3 of them but nothing beats PayPerPost when it comes to oppurtunities to review services/blogs/website.

Most of my blogging earning comes from PayPerPost and i have the freedom to review what i want.

I've written some reviews for Blogvertise as well, but they are not as flexible as i'm only allowed to write what they want me to write and it's kinda restricting because i do not want to write about online poker game or anything like that!

ReviewMe on the other hand has some different way of paying blogger. Bloggers has to BID to write reviews and they have to see if the advertisers wanted them to write it. I've YET to write anything for ReviewMe, let alone get paid.

Now, if you think that sounds fair, how about if i tell you that competitors like ReviewMe takes some of your earning? Say, for a USD10 write up, they might take up to USD4.50 and leave you with USD5.50 to pocket. High overheads!

No, that's daylight robbery. You do the hard work, they host the site, advertisers has to pay for BOTH your income and THEIR income.

Not fair at all.

PayPerPost will launch a new service, similiar to what Competitors like ReviewMe has. Only different is they will only take 10% off from what you will earn. So, for a USD10 posting, you will get USD9.00. Of which, part of the 10% will be used to offset the expensive transfer and creditcard charges.

This new service will be called PayPerPost Direct. Check them out here and here.

With such competitive packages being offered by PayPerPost, it's only a matter of time others will try to match each other. The winner at the end of the day would be us, the bloggers and the advertisers, as they could reach their targeted audience better!!!

Of Run, Pension, Wild Boar and Kenyir

With my bike at Local Bike Shop (LBS) for overhauling. Thanks to Geoff K as he gave me his loved parts from his De Rosa for my Colnago. Pictures will come soon when i ge the bike, pimped up with mixture fo Ultegra and Duraces parts. It do come as a morale booster, especially so after weeks of frustrating turns of events which kinda leave me with not much mood to blog.

Overhaulin' the Bike to look like this?

He did not ask for anything except to "help make the world a greater place", so, taking his cue, i will give away the parts which will be replaced by the parts that Geoff gave me to another person which i know will appreciate and love it. I hope he will make good use of it as well.

When you bike is out of service, what would you do to train?

I run.

On Saturday i ran from Home to Hartamas and back Home again. Covering a good 14km at least. Same route as i did before and instead of a 1Hour 36Min , i did a 1Hour 30Min, despite not feeling really good about the run (on the journey there, i kinda felt lethargic...). But i did pushed myself on the return journey. I clocked in at 46minutes on the journey there.

Aiya...what else, run la

Time: 1:30:46
Distance: +/-15km
Average HR : 154
Max HR: 175
Kcal : 1980

On Saturday, The paper too talked about Retirement and Pesnion. How many of us are ready for it? RM500K in 20 years time (that is about the time i would be retiring) would only be valued at RM125k at most. With 6% inflation and cost of living going higher, it seems that one need to strike it really big within the next 10 years if he/she do not want to worry about digging into the ground to look for money.

Already started...teh Tarik to cost 10 sen more...

The paper too says that on the average, a Malaysian, married, with 2 kids, a house and a car to finance would require RM5k to survive. How many in my age group are earning that kind of cash? OK, maybe not me, so, maybe that is why i could relate to it. But seriously, it's not a laughing matters and even at 55 years old, i might still have to work my ass off to send my kids to college/university.

That worries me. Does it worries you?

Talking about worries, remember the Toman which i say would gobble Bacin up at Kenyir? Turn out that we have bigger things to be worried about.

Some of you might had read the news yesterday in The Star and NST about how big a wild boar could get. I mean, come one, get real, wild boar bigger than a car? Is it a Hogzilla or a HOAX-zilla?

You all be the judge

Old Mac Donalds had a farm...

Apparently, the above image is not the only one which one could find when one search for Giant Wild Boar. It seems that in US of A, there is a lot of these running around. Could it be some GM food or US of A is experimenting with genetic engineering to custom build some kick ass War-Hog like Lord of the Ring?

And in his farm he had some pigs...

See what i meant? Only in US of A. Then again, World Series (baseball) is only played in US of A and Japan...hahahahahahah!

Malaysia, not to be missed out, also got la...as big as human somemore...

The MCPs - Mohd Said Yusof and Mokhtar Radin

See what i meant, Malaysia Boleh. Remember, it's you, voters, which voted for them in the first place. So, don't call them any other names as they reflects on you.

Lastly, yesterday was Kenyir Tri, which i did not go. Shazly finished the course in 3hours 15minutes. I might had done a bit slower. So, again, i consider myself not sub-3 hours as yet. Zabil was at Bintan to do Bintan Tri and he came out in the paper yesterday in The Star!

Tuan Kapitan!

Read more about the Kenyir Race at Jaja's blog. Bacin still have not update his yet. See if i had raced yesterday, rest assured there will be a report out by now. :)

I will be heading to gym with wifey today. Not gonna run on the highway today as i'm afraid it might rain. Furthermore, i still have about a year left of membership in the gym i go to, so, might as well make full use of it before it expire.

I'm still weighing about 82kg as of this morning. I'm still fat.

Kenyir Triathlon 2007

GOOD LUCK TO ALL YOU BRAVE TRIATHLETES WHICH WILL RACE IN THIS LAKE THIS WEEKEND.

Don't worry, if the Toman come a-visiting, just bite them before they bite you!

23/5/07
Distance: 7.24km
Time taken: 41:40

First time i ran starting at 7pm. By the time i reached Taman Tun turn off, the sky grew dark. By the time i exit the tunnel, it was dark! I never felt so vunerable while running before!

I've decided to run as fast as i could that day as i was running late to meet wife in Gym. Reached gym by 7:41pm and then went home straight as we need to go pack some food for my mum.

View from Run KM4-KM5, against traffic to Hartamas

24/5/07
Distance: 7.24km
Time: 40:16

Wow..same route the very next day and this time i pushed myself a bit more. Started running at 6.30pm because i was in Klang for some meeting. Shaved off a good one minute at least from the same distance compared to the previous day. Personal Best so far for the distance of 7.24km.

It started to rain a bit as i exited the tunnel and more reason to run faster. Furthermore, it's downhill from there until the final 800meters.

Felt good and headed to the weight room to do some weights, mostly shoulder and biceps workout.

It's raining as i'm writing this now. Might take a break from running today. But never know, if the weather permits, i will be running there, again!

MapMyRun/Bike/Tri

Yip gave me a link where it works a bit better than Google Earth as they will also show the elevation of the running, biking or Tri course.

All you need to do is sign up at MapMyRun and you have access to the MapMyBike and MapMyTri as well. Not too bad.

Only limitation i see is the Google Earth satelite image not being up to date. But as with all free software and services, who am i to complain???

MapMyRun allows me to save the route as training or even race route. Not too bad. it is like some online training/racing log book.

I've entered one entry into the MapMyRun using the to and fro route i took last Monday for the 14/15km run i did.

MapMyRun computed it to be 14.57km instead of 14.41km on Google Earth.

Not bad eh?

As most of you that read my blog know, the info above is not entirely accurate because i ran through the tunnel. As with Google Earth, the disparity will come at the portion where the tunnel is.

If you look at the elevation bar, you will see that i started at 59m above sea level, ran up and down 7 peak ranging from 70meters to 110meters. Which could i possibly consider this as hill workout?

The red line is the estimated elevation in the tunnel (between KM4-5 and KM 8.8-KM10.5) which also essentially shows that i might had ran a longer distance because i could not map the proper route inside the tunnel.

Thanks Yip, for the lead to this website!

Menu for today - ~~Run to gym and ...err...continue~~ running on the treadmill?

Edited: My subcon that is supposed to be here 2 hours ago is still not here but on his way. There goes my run to the gym.

Please visit Shazly's blog. He just started one today and it's aptly called tridaddy.blog.com because he is a proud father of 4 kids!

Of Kenyir, Cycling, Cats Whiskers,Toman, Barracuda and PayPal...

One more incoherent posting, which is actually pretty coherent, depending on which way you (and I) choose to look at it.

Firstly, i'm skipping this weekend's Kenyir International Triathlon 2007. Reason being, it's logistically too far and it takes a good 5 hours drive one way just to race a 3 hours race and then drive back another 5 hours with the body all feeling beat up and tired. Chances of falling asleep on the wheel is pretty high and just in case i ended up on the wrong side of the road (and secretly hoping that a certain blogger will the there to photograph MY accident, so i can be famous without trying).

One less race for me this year...

Furthermore, it will not be cheap when it comes to the full logistic aspect of it. RM200 minimum even with room sharing. I know Ishsal is giving F Everything (that's F for FREE la) as long as you are willing to drive back with him after the race. But as i've made promises to wifey and Ryan that i'll skip this race, i better keep my words la. Furthermore, my bike is still in state of disrepair.

"Eh, fix your bike and go Kiara with my Husband la this weekend", LL2 told me this morning as i was trying to wake up over a cup of Kopi Peng.

"Aiya, my road bike tire also haven't change, where got extra to change brake pad?", i reasoned out with her.

At least RM35 to replace per set, that is RM70 for the complete bike brake pads...

Another RM30+RM10=RM40 to replace, plus RM10 to replace the replacement tube

For one, i'm really kiam siap (that's hokkien for stingy). It doesn't help with me running short of funds and wonder if i will get paid next month for my last month and this month's wages. I know some of you will say that my wife is one of the partner in Cats Whiskers and what's the problem, but that's not the point, really. If i want to get involved in sports which benefit ONLY myself, then it's unfair for me to take money from her, ain't it?

So, go help out, go shop at Cats Whiskers. They give 10% off for 3 normal priced items purchased and i think they still have some good bargain in all the shops. Go to their blog, which i helped set up for details.

Cats latest newsletter

With the paper announcing that the Goverment has just raised the civil servants' pay by 7.5% to 35% and the stock market reaching it's all time high, it makes anyone on the streets wonder if Malaysians are really doing that well. Doesn't help with all the plans in store for 9MP which "benefits small time contractors" and i'm sure, the call for tender over the RM90 million repair work for our Parliment "bocor" issue, seriously, how come small timer like me, which should be on the recieving end of all these projects, aren't getting any?

No wonder i put on weight because of these stress. (Yes la, go and laugh, i'm 82kg now, instead of having to lose 5kg, now i need to lose 7kg!)

Mac says that my statement that i looked fat is like saying Paris Hilton is flabby.

But dude, if she is flabby, she can get that fixed in an hour under GA and anywhere in Beverly Hills. Ask our resident Dr.M about it! (ok, he administer the painkiller, but the lipo is done by others la)

See, i'm getting incoherent again. OK, back to being coherent again.

Apart from the logistic part of Kenyir race, the other reason why i've decided to give Kenyir a miss is because Lake Kenyir is filled with Toman.

Toman? Snakehead! Yes the very same species which one of the US agency claimed to had been introduced by Asians to their local water, gobbling up all the natural species in their lake.

But we love our Toman!

Hi, my name is Toman, My dad is larger than me

Toman and Barracuda can be considered as cousins. Toman's family name is Channidae and Barracuda is Sphyraenidae, but both belongs to the Order of Perciformes(which also meant most fishes are cousins anyway).

But my point, really, is this : Kenyir is a big lake. Infact, it is so big that everything inside the lake is big. Have you seen how big some of the Toman is? Do you even know how deep is the deepest part of the lake? It's 145meter!. OKla, i know some of you have diving watch which can go as deep as 200meters...but you are not going diving, are you?

Who woke me up?

Not all of us has seen what a toman looked like in real life. But here in this blog, i went to google for some of the biggest one you've ever seen, and trust me, those at Kenyir are tauted to be larger! The pic below was caught in Thailand, the Giant Snakehead variant, which we have in abundance in Kenyir lake.

Fuyoh...

And have you seen a barracuda? Barracuda are known to had attacked human (though not fatal). They are mightily territorial. I saw how they almost wanted to attack 2 divers in I Shouldn't Be Alive on Discovery channel 2 days ago. (Dive Into Danger : Episode 2, Season 3)

Because they were adrift for more than 24hours in the sea, getting through the night and hoping the hammerhead sharks do not attack them was their main priority. And as you know, it's no fun to be IN the sea at night. One scene shows how a barracuda almost biting off their limbs and they only have the camera to ward off the attack. Barracuda view flashy thingy as silvery fish, and with the divers swimming at night, stirring some photoluminous planktons in the water, causes streaks of lights in the water, they were viewed as ~~predator~~prey for these 3 footer fish.

Now, how about a complete guide to get bitten by a Barracuda? Yes, there is such thing in the internet!!! Click Here

Just how big a barracuda could get???

Christmas Island catch in 1992 -85lbs

So, you see, my decision to not go to Kenyir was partly due to these facts what fishes could/would do to you.

Now imagine if your family jewel did get bitten by either fish...

Yeah, no balls you would say. Like how Ah Pek wrote about it. So, maybe i need this thingy to get back my manliness. Real man are not scared of fish la! They eat the fish!

saw the tortoise head???

Wait a minute, i did not eat fish, my lunch today is chap fan with half rice and 3 vegetables. Have to cut cost la, but still have to run this evening, need to stock up on energy also mah...

Sengkuang, french beans and lotus root...with kicap...

And one last thing, i got USD 80++ in my Paypal which i can't take out and another USD20 which was paid to me but i can't transfer it to my account. Clock is ticking and my hard earned review money might just be lost in cyberspace. So, for now, i will refrain from writing any reviews for any product or services until PayPal sort the problem out. Not fair la.

Speaking of which also, i'm due to get my first payment cheque from Advertlets and with that money, i can go repair my bikes!!! Yay!!!