An Insane swaga an Insane Je ne sais quoi

Im pretty sure most of you guys have already heard of Insanity. Insanity is a workout program that you can do at your own place without having to buy any special equipment or even have a huge saloon. All you have to do is buy the DVDs and follow the calendar of exercises for 60 days. I guarantee you, its mental but it does really work for anyone, providing you are a healthy responsible person who eats properly and rests adequately. A friend of mine passed me on the DVDs and I got so involved with Insanity that nowadays when I dont do it I feel something is missing in my life. 

I recently had my first child and the money to put my child in a good nursery in a few months time has got to be saved from "yesterday". UK charges body and soul when a child is in nursery age. I could not maintain a monthly gym payment and save for both my kid stem cell bank monthly direct debit, plus rent, plus car insurance, plus all the normal bills normal human beings are to pay "normally". So, without thinking twice, this DVD made me recognise that there was an option available for those who dont have much money available, but most of all, dont really have the time to spend on traffic jams and busy gyms. 

I tested it once before my kid was born and I loved it, but because of loads of work I had by then, I kind of left it aside. But Insanity kept coming to my head, and my friend enticed me to it once again when lending me the DVDs. Combined with Dietpower (see article here) I have been very fiercely destroying that fat gained over Christmas holidays with anxious munching of sweets and traditional festive food that bombed my weight from 85kg (already a little too much for the likes of me) to 88Kg. Well, I dont consider myself fat at all, nothing like that. I am just a vegetarian sporty dude who likes to be healthy, and entering my 35s makes me want to maintain a certain swaga, a certain enticing je ne sais quoi; I want to be fit to smile and feel good about myself. Ive always did, and thats why I stopped smoking in 2006 after 10 years puffing the nicotine dragon.

Supported by max interval training, working really hard for 3 to 4 minutes and then bringing it down to a 30 seconds cool down, I have been really happy with the results. 40 minutes a day keeps me fit and helps me get to my weight goal, 75Kg on the 01st of July. Then Ill hit the Portuguese beaches and show off my hard-gained body whilst watching the proud look on my wifes face. im already back to 85Kg three weeks after starting.

Insanity tests your limits but also your progression. Every two weeks theres a fit test that helps you understand how well or poorly (I doubt it) youre doing. Want to know my progression, take a look then:

Approximately 90% improvement on the Switch Kicks (build muscle quick), basically maintained the same level for Power Jacks, around 12% improvement on the Power Knees (working knee flexor and extensor muscles), 50% improvement on Power Jumps (working hip extension and knee extension) and Globe Jumps,  ~33% improvement on Suicide Jumps (great muscle builder) and push-up jacks (awesome for building pectoral muscle), and finally 25% improvement on low plank oblique (work internal and external obliques and transverse abdominis). Overall, a great improvement rate considering I only started three weeks ago.

Why dont you try it yourself and let me know how youre doing? If you dislike Insanity there are also several other training programs you can try, for example, P90X (see it here) or the Rock Hard program (find it here). Bare in mind that my first choice lays on Insanity because you need nothing but a bottle of water and a towel to get fit. In the meanwhile check the promotional video I found on the Internet and keep checking for more posts soon in The Toxicologist Todays blog. Cheers!

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I am hiring an Employer

I will be done with my 4 years PhD in Molecular Microbiology by September 2015. The submission of my thesis will mark the beginning of the end in yet another professional adventure in my life. I will be 36 years old by then, with a son of approximately year and a half and a strong background in science research; ready to start another grandiose stage in my life. I have huge dreams, I have many plans, I have skills and the drive to move forward under the toughest atmospheres. I know that there will be many projects to consider and evaluations to carry on with, but I also know that the job market is fierce, the job hunting can be quite unfair, however I am most certain that I do not want to spend even a single month unemployed with nursery and rent to pay, and the house I promised my wife being bid for! Nevertheless, I am not in shackles or desperate, hence I am going for the job of my dreams. By January 2015 I want to have an idea of where in the business spectrum I will be ending up, and in order to help my future employer know me better without having to waste time on introductory phone calls, emails or checking my credit history, I decided to give a hand and respond to the commonest questions employment agencies fire when interviewing us. I will also attempt to be as straightforward as possible.

Please go fetch yourself a nice hot beverage, relax in front of the computer screen and read the post thoroughly. By the end of it feel free to contact me at any time. If you cant find me thats because Im in the lab (I work really hard, you know?!), but I will contact you at my earliest convenience. Thanks for your time and patience. Shall we start?

I am keen...
on being involved and start a solid sound career in Biomedical Sciences. My specialties are Toxicology, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

I am versatile, very creative and have a strong work ethic (integrity, sense of responsibility and teamwork, emphasis on quality and discipline). Despotism and judgmental  personalities put me off.

What can you do for us that other candidates cant?

They are not me, they havent acquired the experiences I gained working in Portugal, England, Germany and India. I have learned  a lot under different cultural environments and very different professional approaches.

What would your colleagues and friends consider as your best qualities?

I took the liberty to ask the first person I found in my office and she wrote in a piece of paper the following words: hard working, innovative, confident, helpful, generous. Incredible, she is right about every single one!

Why should we hire you?
Why shouldnt you hire me? I have 10 years of experience in research, I have a strong science background, I speak four languages, I am professionally mature, I listen whilst enjoying the freedom to endorse my opinion. 

What are your goals?

I want to start a role that can get me to the top of the hierarchy, as an expert, in no more than 10 years. I want to excel and be the person people come to when they need to overcome complicated obstacles.

Where do you see yourself in five years time?

I want to be involved in exciting projects that demand knowledge, professionalism, team-spirit and integrity. Then, be asking potential candidates wanting to join my team the exact questions I am hereby responding to. 

Why did you leave your last job?

No one can be a PhD forever, theres a moment you know you can reach higher and you deserve better. My learning curve is now ascending to a put-it-to-practice momentum. Post-Doc instability is to be avoided.

Tell me about a typical day in your current/previous job:

Arrive at work. Check the to-do list prepared the day before. Order whats in absence. Collect what has arrived. Fetch the protocol. Down to the lab. Experiments in motion. Interpret results. Meet supervisors.

What have you learned with your PhD?

To never dismay. To listen to the most experienced. To try my idea, but accept other routes when mines havent worked. To believe in myself. To work really hard for that milestone. To accept that "I can".

What motivates you?

New ideas/projects, Freedom to Act, Trust, Friendship, Travelling and Communicating. Different environments and cultures. Complicated tasks that ultimately need to be made simpler and more effective.

Which tasks do you get the most satisfaction from?

Deconstructing complicated networks, regulatory ones and the like. I am passionate about going from the complex and abstract to single details and how these relate. These qualities have many practical applications.

List three laboratory areas of expertise:

Molecular Biology, Chromatography, Toxicology.

What makes a good team?

I cannot stress this enough, one should always compete with himself by improving constantly as an individual whilst trying to improve the teams rapport. Communicating, brainstorming and trusting the leader are crucial.

What makes a good team member?

Positive criticism, sincerity, honesty, reliability, energy, positive attitude, responsibility, versatility, problem-solving skills, good listener, assumes mistakes within and correct issues pronto.

What makes a good team leader?

Knows the job and the best way to reach success. Respects his team members as professionals and humans. Can referee conflicts with a firm hand but is aware of the extent of his responsibilities towards others. 

What was the last film you saw or the last book you read?

A PhD does not allow much time for cinema, but I am constantly reading books. The best way to answer is to say which one have really taught me something lately - "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell.

If you were a biscuit, what type of biscuit would you be?

Corintia Raisin biscuits from Triunfo.

If you were an animal, what type of animal would you be?

A wolf.

Great! Now youre in possession of a lot of good information to decide whether to contact me or hang me out to dry. I tried to make my answers two/three lines long and remove any unnecessary bits to save you precious time. My contact details can be found on my LinkedIn profile [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanlafayette]. No time is too soon, no job is inappropriate. It all depends on how well it fits my professional profile and the chances for me to grow in it. Cheers!

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1st Survival Summer Course Medical Emergencies Breathing problems

All right, so imagine youre out there in the wild, not London, thats too tacky for you; think of a place where you lose yourself for days. Youre surrounded by wild animals and feeling exhausted for walking miles without seeing a way out. Suddenly, you and your mate look ahead and a gay bear is in musth and cannot wait a second anymore. It invests against the two of you violently striking your mate down after a violent chest hit. You realize he has sustained an injury. "Ohhh, thats bad", you say to yourself, only to verify that hes going weaker and weaker with severe bleeding. In the meanwhile you start panicking and find yourself in shock. Its when you look around and see yourself alone in an immense flood of wild noises, rotten berries, a gay bear and dark green leaves that camouflage the thousand dangers you are to face. Scenario set, what would you do to correct your equilibrium once again?

Aforementioned Gay Bear 

Lets start with the breathing problems since your mate might as well be raped by this horny bear if you do not help him straightaway. To start with, stop panicking, its not going to help you in anyway. I remember a day when my wife (by then my girlfriend) decided that she neednt my help to reach that set of blankets high up on the closet and after falling she hit her chest against the bedside table. In less than two seconds she turned from golden-tan to sick purple as her residual air was expelled from the lungs when hitting the furniture. One of my mates, startled by the fusion of noise, color change and my girls incapacity to breath by herself; started panicking and caused more upset than the issue I already had in hands. My immediate idea was to tell her to go fetch some water, to just remove her from the scene so I could assess the magnitude of whatever was going on without having the third party causing even more entropy. After that initial assessment I proceeded the way I was taught.

1) Check if the victim has a partial or complete airway obstruction. If he/she can cough or speak, allow him/her to clear the obstruction in a normal natural way. Just hold hands and reassure the individual that you are there and nothing bad is going to happen. If the scenario seems a lot more serious then be prepared to clear the airway yourself and proceed with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (only if the individual is unconscious). With a completely obstructed airway you will have to give him/her abdominal thrusts until you clear the obstruction.

2) With your finger sweep through the subjects mouth and clear of any alien objects, broken teeth, soil particles, etc.

3) Apply the jaw thrust method, i.e., grasp the hands of the persons lower jaw and lift with both hands, one on each side, moving the jaw forward. Rest you elbows on the same surface the person is lying on if you need stability. Proceed with opening the persons lips if theyre closed by gently opening the lower lip with your thumb (see image below).

4) Once the airway is open, pinch the persons nose close with your thumb and forefinger and blow two complete breaths into his/her lungs. Mind that you need to allow the lungs to deflate after the second inflation; only them you can:

- "look for his/her chest to rise and fall,

- listen for escaping air during exhalation,

- feel for flow of air on your cheek."

5) If this forced stimulation hasnt worked then youll have to proceed to maintain the persons breathing by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

6) People can vomit during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, especially people who suffered drowning, so check the passages for vomit and clear it periodically.

7) Do never ever forget about your Red Cross Manual, ever again.

Now, that crazy bear from before is now pants down moving towards you once again... but thats only next week.

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An Early Harvest

Its looking like October around here.  We harvested some of the winter squash and have begun planting favas, potatoes, pole beans, lettuce, and all sorts of brassicas (we snuck in a little more corn too).  This being our first season of planting winter squash at this location, I started all the pumpkins, banana squash, kabocha, and butternut in early march.  Seeing that most were ready to harvest at the end of July, I think we could have even planted two consecutive crops. 

Our Gravenstein apple tree is laden with fruit and has started dropping apples.  We have just been collecting the fruit off of the ground but yesterday I gave her a couple of good shakes and this was the result. 

 

We are canning quart after quart of apple sauce and apple butter.  I dont add much to the apples just wash, cut, (I leave the skins on) and cook them down in a little water, my  favorite secret ingredient being organic brown rice syrup and maybe a bit of cinnamon.   I recently discovered Sorghum molasses which I find to be very tasty (and much cheaper than other natural sweeteners). 

Of course you can just process the apples plain, they are delicious that way too.  Another great tip that a friend taught me is when making an apple pie or crisp, pour a generous amount of homemade apple sauce or apple butter over the apple slices before adding the topping/crust.  The result is 100% yummier and very moist.

Much of the rest of the fruit here is still growing and ripening.  Here are some images of what we are looking forward to...?

...happy August!

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An heroic Comatose

I dont know if I have ever mentioned that I have always been a fervent fan of grunge, of the good real one, early 90s Seattle-based grunge; not the post-grunge MTV kind of pop-grunge as the likes of Silverchair, Bush and Puddle of Mud. Well, regarding Bush I must assume that "Machinehead" and "Greedy Fly" are just awesome songs, Ill giveem that, but Gavin Rossdale should have never been mentioned as a natural grunge singer because hes a fake!

Bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, The Melvins... and later on the Californians Stone Temple Pilots joined this close group of musical influences in my life. Yeah, I too had a band called "Salems Voice" back in the days where Id use to sing and play bass. But we were never grunge, or wannabees. I just love music and grunge was and still is my favorite, most emotionally honest music I have ever heard in my life.

It was with great contentment that I found a book written by Mark Yarm on the history of grunge. A first persons opinion of many participants in the grunge scene, people with all liberty, right and experience to comment on the grunge scene..., not Gavin Rossdale.

This book I have been reading is a 500 and something pages entitled "Everybody Loves our Town - A History of Grunge". For obvious reasons I am not going to review the book with this post. I am approaching it by a more pseudo-scientific and pre-weekend light: 1st) Grunge tablets should not be taken when youre down, 2nd) Grunge tablets should not be taken leniently if you havent been a punk-rock fan before, 3rd) It is better to overdose in Grunge than to overdose in drugs, thats a fact.

I remember back in 94 when Kurt Cobain died that it really demolished me inside, not because I was feeling his death tremendously like if he was a relative, but it was like my unexpected best friend had just vanished and suddenly all those deep words I could empathize with wouldnt be there anymore.

Kurt Cobain had many problems that drove him to his suicide, heroin was one of them. But many others in the grunge pot of artists died due to their heroin addiction. Humpfff :S, rock stars and drugs, quite proverbial!!! But in fairness, the early 90s brought what the world was not ready for, the nasty outcome of the 80s excesses. Great artists "ODying" with heroin, a drug that whatever might be said wasnt that known to parents and relatives in the 80s. Heroin killed Andy Wood, heroin killed Mike Starr, Heroin killed Lane Staley, etc etc etc. And very recently one of my favourite actors, Philippe Hoffman (an incredible irreplaceable actor I must say). 

The "heroic" comatose theyve all subjected themselves to, brought their structures to their knees and reduced the grunge movement to a hype. Death is never pretty, but an overdose is a very ugly way of perishing.

Do you understand how Heroin kills? Your brain forgets to breath, a process known as brain herniation, a state that occurs after a prolonged impaired consciousness.

Moreover, Heroin as a drug, simply lower ones physiological sensitiveness reducing ones heart rate to a level that, sometimes, is just fatal. Adrenaline is sometimes used to bring people back. Remember Pulp Fictions Uma Thurman rising from the death with an adrenaline syringe injected to her chest?

Now imagine these amazing artists I have just mentioned, who actually made my teenage-hood and influenced me emotionally and intellectually so much... imagine them shutting them bodies to the force of a needle without being brought back. It is indeed too sad.

If you want to read more about the subject visit this great PDF document on heroin overdose (accessing here).

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Building an Earthen Oven

Early in September we hosted a sustainable building workshop facilitated by our neighbor Sasha Rabin of vertical clay.  The weekend was an amazing introduction to natural building.  We spent all day Saturday and Sunday building an earthen oven which will be used to bake wood fired pizza, hand made bread, and much more.  Everyone who participated had a wonderful time.  Even the kids had a blast and ended up designing and creating their very own cob oven (kids and mud are a great combination). 

We cant wait to fire her up for the first time!

We did some prep for the workshop, building the base out of urbanite, bricks, gravel, and some cob.

For the base we wanted to use materials we had on the property.  We basically dry stacked urbanite (no mortar), then filled in the center with broken brick pieces and gravel.  Next was the insulation layer.  We used some kiln bricks we had been saving.  Then we filled it all in with sand and leveled off the top.  A batch of cob was mixed up to patch up the cracks around the base. 

There was also some prep to the site before beginning the base...(digging about? six inches down, filling in with gravel and some drainage tube/cloth.) 

The workshop started out with laying out the fire bricks, some measuring and sketching....

Not quite complete, she still needs a finish coat of plaster (were thinking red).  It really is amazing to learn what you can build with the ground under your feet.  We have been truly inspired.  Thanks to all who participated!?

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