The Ninth Plague revisited

There have been rolling blackouts throughout the San Fernando Valley, at least from Hollywood to Encino (the pace of my 20 mile, 7.5 hour-long walk, round trip, yesterday). Actually over 100,000 homes were without electricity in a much greater area. From 8 PM last night to 3:45 AM this morning, Encino was in the dark (at least the north side of Ventura Blvd). It is pretty cool davening maariv by candlelight and kind of annoying going to the bathroom with a flashlight (I think the last time I did the latter was almost three years ago on a camping trip in Point Mugu; the former was during Bedikat Chametz 12 days ago. The blackouts occurred throughout the day yesterday. I know this because on my walk I noticed many of the traffic lights were out; one even went out while I was crossing. Everything by candlelight, how romantic!

So this was quite the walk I have been walking a lot over the past couple of months. I lost a significant amount of weight over the past 4.5 months, 70 lbs in the first 3.5 months. During Pesach, during a hiatus from the diet I gained 10 lbs but have since lost most of it just in the past couple of days. That's what I do with the little free time I have nowadays: I walk whenever I can.

I'm going to stop it here because I need to get ready for Shabbos. Shabbat Shalom.

Don't PASSOVER these great savings opportunities.

Actually, I don't think the title has anything to do with the article, except that there is the word "Passover" in it. It just sounds like a great way to advertise a seasonal sale. In fact, I probably saw a sale or two advertised as thus and it just got implanted into my head...

As for the sedarim, I was imposed with a time limit of one hour for the first half (ie: from Kadesh to Shulchan Orech). The Four Sons thing worked out great and led to great discussion. I took around 40 minutes to get through the entire first half to Motzi Matzah; By far the fastest I've ever gotten through part 1 (well, until the second night when we were eating in 25 minutes). I didn't want to go that quickly, but the idea was somehow implanted in certain seder participants that a quick seder was the way to go. Oh well... I was told it was the best seder ever. That's got to count for something. Right‽

On the diet side, though I have lost 70 lbs in 3.5 months, an amazing feat, this past month I have lost very little. I decided to take a hiatus from the diet for the duration of pesach. Dieting during Pesach would be tantamount to suicide. No soy, no electrolytes, no diet shakes, diet bars, soy/seitan/portobello jerky. However lifting it during passover is also suicide. You crash and burn pretty quickly unbridaled on the Festival of Freedom. Oh well, I guess diet's back on sorta...

A Gut Shabbos und a Zissen Pesach,
Matt

Chased by ducks

Nope, the title is not creative in any sense. Today I was chased by a flush of ducks ("flush" being a collective noun for the species). I don't know which species, but they were all black, with white bills, red eyes, yellow and black legs, and huge webbed blue-green feet. They look sort of similar to Black Scoters, but I'm not quite sure. Anyway on my 11.3 mile jog/powerwalk today (map shown below), I went around a number of ponds and lakes. At Lake Encino, as I was making a sharp turn on the pedestrian path. Suddenly a duck leaves the water and jumps up the 8 inches of concrete to right behind me. This reverse-Nachshon was followed by a couple hundred ducks. These things chased me maybe 1,000 feet. Then they found something more interesting to stalk. That's when I reached the largest goose (I'm not sure it was a goose, it may have been a roc) I have ever seen. Now this gi-normous white bird this started sizing me up, walking around me. It started quacking and soon I started walking away (I wanted to keep at least some pace to my jog) and sure enough the huge bird followed me into the parking lot.

It was a great jog today, as you can see on my mapmyrun jog. I am not so sure about the calories burned stuff, but I had one hell of a workout.



Ciao!

MapMyRun.com: Check it Out

Hello, Matt Rutta thinks that you should check out the workout he/she just plotted online: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/united-states/ca/encino/222795123 Matt Rutta says, "My walk/jog today. Burned 1600+ calories, apparently." MapMyRun.com provides people of all athletic ability easy-to-use, comprehensive web-based tools to get healthy and train more effectively as an individual or group. These fun, free, interactive tools include: Online graphical pedometer / route mapper in 2D and 3D (GoogleEarth!) Online elevation tool Workout calculators enabling users to calculate key statistics such as pace, calories burned, etc. Collaborate / Sharing features that allows users to share their workouts with friends and family Cobranding / Syndication tools to enable organizations like Team in Training to share this site with it's users (Learn More) Don't believe us? Read our recent press piece from the Greenville News: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006611140354 Come visit us soon! Cheers, The MapMyRun.com Team

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10 lbs in 6 days

My diet is going absolutely great in terms of weight loss. On my nutritionist's scale, I have lost 10 pounds in the first six days. The negative part is that it is all lean muscle that I have lost. Fat weight hasn't gone down, but actually up 0.2 lbs. I just need to drink more water. I'm feeling good and doing a lot of every day exercising, such as walking (many miles and two towns away) home from the doctor's office, running up and down many stairs, and playing an obsessive amount of DDR (see the article for details on weight loss).

So my main foci right now are getting into Rabbinical School and losing weight. A third focus would be to find a nice Jewish girl, but let's take this one step at a time here.

Matt is back (-pain prone)

Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed into a cockroach. Matt Rutta awoke one shabbat morning (okay this morning) to find himself unable to get out of bed without suffering large amounts of back pain. I assume the source of the pain is due to the number of really tough passes I went for playing football this past week, perhaps in conjunction with my increased physical activity on account of getting a new iPod. It also probably does not help that I'm carrying around this excess weight (hey, I'm trying to lose it... I wish I was losing weight, not, say, sweatshirts and siddurim) I however couldn't get out of bed without being in sheer pain. If anyone knows me, I always play through pain. I have a torture-tolerance level higher than most in terms of being obstinately present at everything I need to be at to my own deficit. I won the attendance award at my high school graduation. I am like a combination Hermione Granger (in terms of dedication) and Neville Longbottom (in terms of horrendous luck). The advil I took today did absolutely nothing and I might have to take Vicodin or a more liver-friendly alternative to help me on the road to recovery.

It's difficult to balance Shabbat observance with comfort. I didn't want to use the heating pads on shabbat. When I had a fever of 103.7 a couple of years ago with my URI, I WAS in fact checking my temperature constantly, even on shabbat, due to obvious pikuach nefesh necessities (If it reached 104, I would have called CAVA). But I don't think back-pain qualifies for breaking or bending the rules of shabbat. Plus, I didn't know what to do when I have back pain, so I put some pillows directly under my lower back where it hurts. Oops; not a good idea...

I did, by the way, end up going to teach my class and take my students to services, which is just as well as my co- was out sick. My biggest concern when I was Gabbai of Koach, Co-Chair of Koach, or a Seudah Shlishit Coordinator (or just leading services) is how to tell people I wouldn't be able to make it due to debilitating sickness. More often than not, I still went. When I had gastroenteritis a few years ago and unable to eat solid food without, well see this entry from my deadjournal about it. I still ended up leading Carlebach service the next day even though I couldn't even eat solid food. I'm a fighter. I'll end this now so I can have the blissful sleep before I realize that I am still in intense pain.

Refuah Shleyma Umheyra: me.