Thankfully, times have changed and while you can still pay as much money as you want for the high quality DSLR cameras there are affordable entry level options now, too. So what do I think is the best digital SLR for the money right now? On sale today (Not a refurbished DSLR)  is a Canon EOS Rebel T3 budget DSLR for the rather amazing price of $439.99. It even comes with a lens. I’m not a photography pro, so I don’t expect you to just take my word for it. Instead, watch this video and see what a professional has to say about this entry level DSLR.

Now that you are properly advised that this is not the camera of choice for professionals, but a solid entry level DSLR, it is up to you to decide if this is the best budget DSLR camera or not. I’ve looked around a lot recently and over the past several years and this is as good a price as I’ve seen on refurbished DSLR cameras, and refurbished DSLR cameras seem to be fairly difficult to come by.

If a budget DSLR isn’t what you are looking for, there are some other great deals on a variety of point and shoot cameras as well, with the lowest price reasonable for stuffing a stocking for only $49.99. From best budget DSLR camera to semi-professional DSLR and then back to very low priced point and shoot, there’s a camera to suit most budgets and needs here.

I immediately knew what needed to be done, and a good percentage of how to do it, but some amount I knew to be new territory to me. The sum of the work would be to have a query sent to a database that includes zip, city and state data to request the latter two portions when the former portion is filled out on the form and populate the city and state fields on the form based on that. Setting up the database and inserting the data has proved to be trivial. The unknown part is using AJAX to connect to a database and insert the appropriate values in the appropriate areas of the form.

I have had a hate/hate relationship with javascript for a very long time, for very good reasons. That time has past and those reasons no longer exist and it is up to me to step up and learn javascript/AJAX. This is where a book I received not too long ago, JQuery: Novice to Ninja, comes into the picture. If you are new to AJAX, as I am, and want to learn, I highly recommend starting out with this book.

Now it’s back to reading and working on getting this project together. If all goes well, I expect to write up a how-to document explaining everything that went into developing this project. I also plan to look into how best to make this available for Codeigniter. I am not sure if it is better suited as a plugin, helper, library or some other form, but I expect it would be a useful pursuit, regardless.

Thinking on this today, I started to consider why it is that my kung fu practice is suffering so when I have no difficulty keeping up with these other things that aren’t, honestly, quite as interesting to me. I quickly determined that two things I am lacking in my kung fu practice are the structure of regular practice and the expectations that go along with that and the social aspect of being a part of a group activity. In the case of the push ups, the social aspect is largely ‘virtual’. Chatting here and there online with others, some who are also following the same program, others who just note my mention of it and chat with me about it a bit. In the case of the walking, the social aspect is much more evident as the walks tend to be an hour or more outdoors with several other people. In both cases, the structure of a schedule somehow makes it easier to allocate the time, and with the push ups schedule being more loose, I can easily see how it is much more likely to start skipping or get busy.

With this in mind, and even before I had started to recognize my desire for this sort of structure consciously, (Perhaps simply before I was willing to acknowledge it.)  I decided to look into a nearby school, Clearwater Kung Fu, or Nick Scrima’s Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Center. I spent a good bit of time looking over the web site and was pleased to find that there is a good bit of similarity in some of the styles taught there to the style that I had been learning.

Wanting to know more about the school, I continued to poke around the internet. I know the best thing for me to do is to go to the school and find out more first hand, but I figured that would have to wait for another day as it was already past 10pm when I started thinking about it. I doubt that poking around a kung fu school in the middle of the night is wise. Looking around on google, a youtube video caught my eye and I followed the link to watch it. The sifu introduced himself, making mention of Clearwater Kung Fu Center and walked through a technique. From there I noted several videos by this same person and I spent some time watching a handful of them. I was not too certain what I thought of the technique, but I kept in mind that this may not be the school I am meaning to look at, that if it were I would still benefit from the structure and social aspect of joining, as well as the fitness.

After a good bit of clicking through from video to video, I did find a nice playlist of balance exercises that I will share here. After all, balance and structure are quite closely related. Of particular note, I liked the (repeated) mention of placing the weight on the inside of the foot in these exercises, something I do not recall noting from previous training. I know I will be watching these some more this weekend and working each of these as I continue to need work on my structure and balance. I hope others can also find value in them.

I could definitely talk about exercise, diet, what I am doing for my kung fu at the moment and such, but really, I’ve talked a lot about in the past handful of posts and I feel kind of silly rehashing it. Some of that comes with me quite simply not having done near enough as of late. So, instead I want to talk about PHP. If you don’t know what that is, that’s fine. You can probably move on at this point because that’s the more common acronym I’m going to toss out here, which is why I’m going with Technical Stuff as my category. Don’t worry, I won’t be offended.

As you may know, I am a web developer and I work primarily with PHP and MySQL databases, preferring a Linux OS and Apache web server environment. Even some of the people out there who don’t have a clue what that all means know that about me. I have been doing exactly this in a full time capacity for a variety of companies over the past ten years now. Prior to that I had some amount of web programming experience, mostly with Perl CGI scripts, much of which I honestly just took on faith to work as expected and knew little about. In all of this, my experience has been primarily Procedural Programming.

While job hunting, recently, I began to realize that though I may love and defend Procedural Programming, Object Oriented Programming has become the industry standard. This, along with a realization that my SQL experience leaned toward the elementary, certainly put a damper on my job search, and I genuinely do not wish to find myself in that difficult position again. Thankfully, I did secure employment, and I hope my job with this new company will prove to be one that I can continue to do well in for some time to come. Regardless, I have decided it is time to catch up. After all, even staying with this company, I should do what I can to be sure they are also current.

So, the items I have noted out there that seem to be desirable include the following:

• OOP PHP
• Familiarity with MVC
• Familiarity with PHP Frameworks
• AJAX

It just so happens, that often this list also includes mention of Codeigniter as a framework. Codeigniter happens to be a PHP framework that is based on the MVC model of application design, built with OOP PHP in mind. It is an Open Source project, so there is no cost to pick it up and work with it. Making use of this leaves only AJAX as the odd bit out, but let’s face it, AJAX is everywhere these days, so it’s not like I will lack any opportunities to use it. Really, I have picked up a little bit of JQuery anyway, and that seems to be one of the preferred libraries. I will just keep with that.

So the question then was what to do. How can I get to work on a reasonably difficult project that will allow me to use Codeigniter with JQuery both to be able to learn and show proficiency. The answer hit me tonight, after several ideas I really didn’t care for that I had mulled over for the past couple weeks. Some ten years ago I accepted my first full time web development/management job working for a fantastic company that sold stock and custom home plans and also offered consultation services with home plan designers to help choose the plan that is right for the customer and do modifications as necessary. They were a great company to work with and I owe a lot to them. I made great friends there, and at a later date, a new company was born and these people asked me about doing web design work for them. I did them the disservice of saying yes. I say this was a disservice because some years later, I have yet to actually give the web site the attention it needs and launch for them. As we are still at that starting point, I feel like this is the perfect time for me to make amends and build them the best home plans web site ever.

So, with Codeigniter at the ready, I’m stepping up to finally creating this site. I already know most of what will need to be done and this week my to do list is filled with various planning tasks to make sure I have a good road map for the weeks ahead of me. Hang on, Jack and Rik. It’s going to be a wild ride, but I will get us there!

When I first considered the prospect of moving away from Jackson, MS all the way to Tampa, FL I dreaded the thought of no longer being able to progress in the kung fu system I had grown to love. I knew there would be plenty of other kung fu families I could join in Tampa, but I had grown rather attached to what I had been learning and absolutely hated the thought of abandoning the goals I had set for myself of attaining my black belt in the Lung Shou Pai tradition and considering that as my new starting point.

Consistently able to help me in regards to my kung fu practice, Siheng Glover determined that there not only was someone I may be able to practice with in the Tampa area, but someone who was a master level black belt in the system. He made contact with Master Geoff and got us connected via email, which ultimately lead to us finally meeting up this evening for a good, if somewhat short, practice at a nearby state park. (Which I will certainly be exploring further in the near future as it seemed to be a very nice, large park.)

Today’s work out started with forms. We went through Yun Tung, Chen Ch’eng, Tiger, Combined Set and the little bit of Crane I had learned before moving, and then a few additional steps in that. We then jumped into some one-step drills that I had been previously unfamiliar with which each involved a single deflection along with a combination of hand strikes or kicks. We worked through five different one-steps to each side.

Showing up, I really did not know what to expect. I suppose this was, at least to some degree, mutual. I am very pleased with the practice we had and I am looking forward to the next opportunity to practice with Master Geoff again, which is tentatively scheduled for sometime next week, dependent on scheduling. Despite the workout that was approximately just over an hour being plenty to wear me down a good bit, I am hoping to spend a bit more time next week and push the endurance a little more. Tentatively, I am hoping to largely repeat what we did tonight, perhaps with more repetition, as I know my lack of practice, both this past few months and even months prior to that in some cases, has been hard on my ability to work through any of the forms beyond Yun Tung and perhaps Chen Ch’eng. Adding a little more to Crane would be excellent as well.

I think in the short term, what I would very much like to do is learn the rest of what I would have learned this previous session with Sifu Crake, along with new material like the one-steps we practiced tonight and then really become solid in this and the material I have learned to date. I suppose what I would like to manage is to reach a point where I feel very confident that I could pass the brown belt test I missed out on in the move, and add to that some amount of material that I might not have learned had I not moved, but that has been taught before at this level.

I do not know yet if I will seek to earn further belts in this system, or how I might do so. I do know that after I have reached this short term goal, I do wish to continue to grow as a practitioner of Lung Shou Pai and eventually be a black belt level student, whether I am awarded such or not. After all, the goal has never been to have the black belt, but to be capable of performing at the level of one who has earned their black belt.

With the weekend upon us, I am going to have to work really hard to keep myself from indulging in the foods I want, or the foods that are convenient. I am still trying to decide whether or not I will go to a chili cookoff Saturday, noting that most (if not all) of the chili will likely have some element that is not on my diet. At present, I think I am going to stick with trying to keep my diet as clean as possible and skip it. If I can keep away from chocolate, I can live without sampling chili.

The results have been good so far. I have been cutting back on foods that I don’t need for all of 5 days and already I have shed 2 pounds at the scale. I was well pleased to see 230 even this morning after my shower. – A number I had surpassed this past year and then creeped back up over to sit around 232-233 lbs.

This number definitely encourages me not only to stick to it this weekend, but to make sure to put in some good exercise time as well. I’m (not) looking forward to some burpees, air squats, push ups and breaking out the jump rope Saturday, followed by some good, moderate stretching.

So, on to the next beginning. Eating habits. I decided this week that it is time to go ahead and bite the bullet. Time to do away with my extremely poor eating habits and work on feeding myself in a way that is straight up good for me. To this end, I swore off sweet for 30 days. Not just sugar. Sweet. No sugar, no sweeteners, not even fruits. If it is at all sweet, it is subject to getting skipped entirely for the next 30 days. This isn’t a quick and dirty attempt to lose some weight over the course of the month, though. This is forcing myself to go without the sweet flavors that I can’t get enough of, and trying to break out of my habit of grabbing anything sweet and chowing down on it. Thirty days is only the beginning.

After a good bit of consideration, and a couple days of doing rather well with this, I decided that I was going to push this even further. So long grains. So long dairy. So long legumes. I am even considering saying so long to another group of vegetation that I have heard called nightshades. In short, I’m going all in for 30 days.

I am tired of being fat. I am tired of being tired. I want to see that I can make it through this, and then consider where I am going from there. I know it won’t be easy. Beyond the simple reality that I want things that I am not allowing myself to have, I have a wife and kids and that means there will be food in the house that doesn’t fit within my personal restrictions. It also means my time is that much more precious as I need to take some of it for them. As much as possible. More exercise and more food preparation means less time. I said it in the past about my kung fu, though. No excuses. Maybe I haven’t done as well as I could there, but so far I have done well. I can do this.

I have been talking for a little while with friends and family now about getting up earlier in the mornings and putting in a solid work out and getting together a more healthy breakfast to start my day off. Considering the recent time change, I have been really seriously thinking that this would be a great time to get right on that and, when I woke fully as my alarm went off yesterday morning instead of smacking the snooze button while still unconscious, I realized that I had best not put this off any longer.

So, with this in mind I set my alarm earlier so as to wake me at 5:55am (an absolutely unpleasant hour by my reckoning) and when that alarm sounded this morning, I got up. It took me a little bit to get my bearings, find clothes, get dressed, grab a glass of water, find our  cell phone (yes, we are a one cell phone family)  so I would have some means to track time and get out the door, then I was off and running! – Actually, I was off and walking. Exactly as planned, I went ahead and walked at something between a brisk and leisurely pace for thirty minutes. Glancing at the time every 5-10 minutes to be sure I was on track, I was able to plot out what turned out to be a perfect route from my door right back to my door that took me just under the thirty minutes I had decided on. Upon arriving home, I quickly set to some mild-to-moderate stretching, using the stretches I have learned in my kung fu practice that we do during our warm up. Once those were done, I was feeling fairly good and decided to go ahead and do the knee-to-chest sit ups and crunches that we do in our warm up as well. Fifteen knee-to-chest sit ups and nine crunches later, I was starting to seriously feel it. I knocked out another six crunches, rested a moment and decided to go ahead and do the push ups too. Ten dragon claw push ups were no trouble, followed by ten knuckle push ups that really had me hurting and I was done and ready to hit the showers.

Just under an hour, all told, and I feel pretty good about this as a starting point. The intention is to do this every week day, and possibly move up to jogging using the couch to 5k program. I also have some plans forming to put in an hour or two of kung fu each weekend, mostly working on forms, varying the emphasis between using the forms to stretch out and improve the endurance in my muscles as well as using them one after the other to build up my stamina all while ingraining them in me such that I can perform them when needed without fail. One portion of our belt tests is an endurance test, during which we are simply to perform kung fu at a strong pace for some number of minutes determined by belt level and from this experience I can say with certainty that just a few minutes of kung fu is a challenge. These forms practices will help me build up stamina both for this portion of the test and general purpose, as well as making it easier for me to do good, clean kung fu during the endurance test by improving my memory of the forms so that I can simply work through them during the test. – Often, in the past, I would get lost while trying to do this for the test at which point in time I would simply begin to perform kung fu freestyle.

These are my new beginnings, as they relate to exercise.