I have been listening to the No Agenda Show, a podcast that has been dropping since 2010, since 2010. And I am in deep. I am in a cult, my friends tell me. You be the judge. Saint Adam Curry and Saint John C. Dvorak.  --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast

ChrisCast S2E15: Disciple of the Cult of No Agenda

 Your instructor is there to help you. If you're having a hard time with your clipless pedals or how to set up your bike or any other questions you have... this is an interactive fitness class and your instructor wants to be as helpful to you as a yoga instructor is or a personal instructor is. Be sure to get to class early because it's easier to get the help you need before and after class than during. Your ride is your own and you're never obligated to race, to compete, to follow all the commands of standing, sitting, pressing, and the upper body or weights workouts. If you workout is so hard that you leave your spin class hating it and never wanting to come back, you're doing it wrong. Rule number one is to have fun! Always aim to arrive 15-minutes early even if you've already booked a bike When it comes to attending class, 15 minutes early is on time; on time is late; and more than 5-minutes late forfeits your class. People are gross so it's OK to discretely blow your nose or spit into the towels that are provided at your bike as they're laundered immediately after class. Spin class might feel like crew practice (many Spin instructors are little and loud like coxswains) or Basic Training (other trainers can look and act like Drill Instructors) but you don't actually have to comply with any of their orders. Each ride is scientifically designed to exhaust you, at your level, and to motivate you to put as much energy and force into only 45-60 minutes as possible using something called HIIT (high-intensity interval training) which is why each workout is a series of intense sprints or climbs or heavy pedaling separated with lower-intensity rest periods and even some stead state pedaling and recovery time. While it feels like a night at the disco club, with all the music and lights, these classes are designed to challenge the limits of your fitness, endurance, and conditioning. The pop and disco music and the lights and challenges are fun distractions to keep you motivated and distracted from how hard you're working. I wore over-shorts and over-pants over my bike shorts for weeks until I realized that I should be focusing on my ride more than hiking up sweats that were either falling down or getting caught on the saddle. I drop trou right before I get on the bike and just ride with my stretchy Pearl iZUMi bib shorts with awesome chamois padding. I mean, I am still shy about it and put the sweats back on right after stretching, but life's too short to not get the most of the class. Besides, nobody has shunned me for showing my bottom in stretchy pants to my face, so I assume everyone in the class is in this together. I try to wear sound-reducing earplugs every time I ride for two reasons: one, the music can be very loud; and two, I find that the foam earplugs I use make it easier for me to understand what the instructor is saying over their mic. For whatever reason, the earplugs take out the biggest noise and make the instructor's instructions a lot more comprehensible to me as I ride as opposed to distorted and mixed up with the bass-heavy music. Finally, every spin class I have ever been to has been supportive and fun and friendly and as hard or as easy as I made it. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E14: An Introduction to Spin

I committed an unlimited month and aim to continue into the future. I just checked on the Cyclebar app and I haven't been a rider at Cyclebar Columbia Pike since Wed, May 1st, 2019—more than a year! Since I have been away for so long, I was offered a month of unlimited for only $119 so I jumped on board. I will continue to ride there after this discount month for retail because I really want to support Martina and the Cyclebar Columbia Pike family during these times of the Coronavirus Pandemic. I want to make sure I pay for my seat because there are so many fewer seats per-class, per-session, because of social distancing. So, starting tomorrow, I will be riding every day; however, I am going to try to follow the maffetone method while I am there and make sure I give myself the entire month to really train my aerobic and anaerobic system to become used to spin and indoor cycling, so I will aspire not to kill myself through mad, mad, mad, competitive, sprinty, Chris. Instead, I will just make sure I use the motivation of buying a seat in a class where I must not take a water break but must spend at least 45-minutes on the saddle in-a-row once-a-day. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E13: Spin Goddess

It looks like my ADHD and my Aphantasia might indicate that I am, in fact, a Neanderthal or a  Cro-Magnon. Isn't that interesting. I know I wasn't strictly Homo Sapien Sapien. Maybe just one Sapien in me, not two. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E12: Object and Image Impermanence, ADHD, Aphantasia, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, Oh My!

Calling conservative Americans—including people off all faiths, not just Evangelical Christians—ignorant deplorables for ten years behind their backs on front of their faces has so many ramifications, including losing in the fall, with a second term for the Trump Whitehouse. Sorry. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E11: Why America Will Vote for Trump in November (it was our fault all along)

I've always loved bopping around in a slow jog. My best one was all around Paris by myself. But it's an entire thing and I'm happy to say that I started the Reddit sub back in 2017. Now it lives. This isn't very well thought out but it's my first foray into the topic. Enjoy! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E10: Slow Jogging /r/slowjogging Niko Niko

This episode is just about how I PPE in a time of Coronavirus and COVID-19. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E9: Demibuff

Watch me indulge in all the controversy in all the world. Will a Biden presidency do way more long term harm than the short-term harm that Trump will have done? One thing that I never mentioned is important: conservative judges. We'll talk about that more later. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E8: Biden or Trump: a Sophie's Choice?

I just decided to see what my new Sony ICD-UX570 Digital Voice Recorder can handle:  can it handle the jostling of wearing it around my neck while recording? Can it handle a windy day? Can it handle passing traffics and so many diesel work trucks? Can it handle my droning on and on about nothing? You'll see. None of this goes through my Audacity at all (who needs the extra step?) If this is unlistenable, I will kill it.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E7 : Morning Walk with Me to Where I Work on a Park Bench from My Janky Apartment

 Facial Recognition: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) on YouTube --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E6: How Facial Recognition and the Panopticon Affect Protesting, Riots, and Defiance

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ChrisCast (Trailer)

If I had known how much of a game-changer and how much my life would be improved by integrating a CPAP/BiPAP into my life, and if I had known that all my fat, middle-aged buddies were already using them—both men and women (but mostly old fat men)—then I would have done this ten years ago to address my snoring, my interrupted sleep, and the extreme sleep apnea that was trying to kill me over 40-times every hour I slept.  --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E5: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BiPAP

(Are you a cop? You need to tell me if you're a cop if I ask, right?) I have carried my office on my back as I walk all about the surrounding exurbs since the pandemic started. No longer the denizen of cafe life, I subsist on hotspots, tethered phones, and park benches.  Ain't nowhere to GO. So, I've taken up the manly art of public urination without getting arrested or permanently marked as a sex offender said for public urination. All the park toilets are shuttered and so are the restaurants and the Malls and the stores and Macy's, etc, etc. So, I have just become really good at it. And here's my story. I mean, marathoners do it all the time, am I right? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E4: Urination in the Age of Corona

It's nothing much. An afterthought probably required by the Residence at Penrose Square. Even though there are no longer the Paris-inspired powder green cafe tables and chairs, I still love it! This is my love note, my love letter, my lovesong!   --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E3: An Ode to My Beloved Penrose Square Park

I didn't know that anything was different about me. OK, I have a formal diagnosis of ADHD but aside from that, at 50, I discovered that I am an Aphant and that I have a condition called Aphantasia, something I discovered by watching Season 1, Episode 7, of Space Force. Definition: the inability to form mental images of objects that are not present, "if counting sheep is an abstract concept, or you are unable to visualize the faces of loved ones, you could have aphantasia" "Aphantasia is a mental condition characterized by an inability to voluntarily visualize mental imagery. Many people with aphantasia also report an inability to recall sounds, smells, or sensations of touch. Some also report prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

ChrisCast S2E2: I'm an Aphant with Aphantasia, don't cha know⁠—I didn't!

The musings of Chris Abraham as he aspires to know the world and himself while getting healthy, losing weight, becoming fit, and running his small business while living in South Arlington, Virginia. Walk with him a while and see what's up. Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support