I burn about 400 less calories each day at my current workplace compared to where I worked before and my weight loss has ceased.  Standing at an Instron has been replaced by spreadsheets and walking across the building to bullshit has been replaced by yet more spreadsheets.  My solution was to build a  standing desk from the design I found here and I raided an Ikea to get the parts to assemble one.  Yesterday evening I assembled the stand and today I brought it onto the Regional Rail line to get it to work.  The day after Christmas saw light traffic and few people gave me guff about the snow plow/censor box that I had held around my waste to keep it from moving in the jangling train.  I then walked it through Suburban Station, past the clothespin, up an escalator, and into an elevator.  Placed upon my desk, here it is:

2012-12-26 10.55.31

The desk didn’t quite prove to be tall enough so I propped it up with reams of paper.  The laptop to the left is held up with a 10 ream paper box and things seemed pretty comfortable for the first three hours or so.

Then I made a critical miscalculation by putting on these:

2012-12-26 12.20.54-1

I had meant to try ice skating at the UPenn rink earlier, but this was the first day I had scheduled the time to do so.  I had stood for three hours then went ice skating for two.  The benches on the SEPTA car have never proven more comfortable.

The rest of the day passed without much pain but I was quite glad to again sit when I took the train home.

 

I went ice skating during my lunch break and listened to an audiobook for the 90 minutes I was there.  I attempted to do a few practice drills that Carl and Everett had showed me to mediocre success but otherwise worked up a sweat going around in circles.  When my time was done, I returned my skates and walked back to my car and smiled.  Ice skating will probably never be hard again.

Not to say that skating doesn’t hold legion challenges ahead for me.  It does, but the simple act of standing on skates and moving forward at a reasonable rate will never be a mystery box of physical coordination as it once was.  The difficulty will continually diminish barring injury or illness.  I like that.  I’ve been spending a lot of time with Objective-C and multi-variate calculus, two cases where there seems to be no permanence to retention as I am now remembering the rules of tabular integration for the fifth time.

Mike and I went ice skating and while waiting to return my skates started talking with the rental person.

Me: So is this an after school gig or something you do full time?
Her: After school, you were here the other day, weren’t you?
Me: Yeah, now that I’ve overcome my fear of sawing a child in half on the ice, I enjoy skating.
Her: It’s not that bad, I once accidentally ran over my best friend’s finger and took off the tip of her pointer finger.
Me: And you’re still friends?
Her: No… no we aren’t, in fact we haven’t talked in the five years since then.

Way to help my case.