Well once again I fell behind on posts, not that it really matters as I doubt anyone reads this! LOL

Anyway, I have moved office and am working back in Stourbridge, as a result I no longer had my blog homepage and kept forgetting to update.  But here I am once again.  So what's new??

I have been attending two clubs recently, Parkour/Freerunning and Thai Boxing.  I love both!  I look forward to each new week so I can train more. 

Since starting Parkour training in the local Lakelands School sports hall, I can now backflip off a trampoline onto mats, almost land a wall backflip, forward somersault and land it well, kong long distances (greater than the length of a picnic table), double kong and do good distance precision cat leaps.

We are now looking to get outside more (not easy at this time of year!) to practise without the safety of a crash mat!  The difference is weird, I know I can kong a height and distance greater than a picnic bench, but when I went to put it in practice, it took a few attempts to convince myself that I could do it.

Ellesmere isn't exactly an urban freerunning hotspot, the choices are limited.  So we'll have to do some recon work to find a good spot.

The final thing to mention is that I hope to be entering into next years Tough Guy competition!

 

I've not been feeling great the last couple of days, and missed a workout the other day.  After a couple of days rest I am planning to get back to it today.  I still don't feel 100%, but I can't leave it any longer.

Francesca was out with Arthur and Ruby yesterday, Arthur forgot to take his medication..... whoa, suddenly we get a reminder of how things used to be, I don't think anyone can truly appreciate what its like to have a child with ADHD unless they spent a day trying to control one, the things he gets up to are unbelievable and almost evil.  If you didn't understand ADHD, or if there was no such diagnosis, then i could understand why other people would look at his behaviour and think he was just an awful child potentially with bad parents!

To get a vague idea of what it is like, imagine a toddler that can walk fast and run, that has full verbal communication, smart comments, and that cannot be put in a push chair, argues back all the time, and acts fully on impulse.  Heres a few of the behaviours witnessed yesterday:

Attempting to steal on numerous occasions
Lying about the attempts
Repeatedly doing things a security guard had told him not to
Hitting his mum's hand when having his hand held in an attempt to restrain him somewhat
Self admittedly causing extra reasons to hit his mum's hand because he was so frustrated
constantly arguing back
constantly ignoring commands
running off and looking at anything he chooses
climbing on/under anything in a store that he can

The relentlessness of his behaviours are so tiring, and when you throw a 4 month old baby in the mix it is NOT easy.  Arthur always regrets his behaviours and the end of the day, and often breaks down in tears crying "why do I do this, I am so stupid, I hate myself, I wish i could be reborn without ADHD".  We have to wipe the slate clean everyday, it would not be possible to dwell on his behaviours, if we did he would be constantly grounded and never have any food or something!

Now the really really hard part about all this is when you remind yourself that this is just a little boy, a 9 year old boy! he was born with his condition, and when you look back you can see it throughout his life.  The hard part about something like ADHD is that its not an obvious disability, he can walk, talk, he is very clever, and a very handsome boy.... people find it so hard to separate from that and see that what he has IS a disability.  No body would expect a blind child to read them a printed book, no one would expect a physically disabled child to do the 100m sprint, just because it is all in the brain with no immediately obvious outward sign, it is no different.  you cannot expect a child with ADHD to behave perfectly, nor can you punish him because of it.

BUT, here lies the difficultly, you shouldn't punish a child for doing something they really cannot help, but you must lead the way and teach them social rules.... if Arthur behaves the way he does when he is legally responsible for himself he will get in BIG trouble.  So we cannot simply ignore his behaviours, and he certainly doesn't take any notice of soft punishments or a good talking to!  The answer is to punish the major behaviours which must be curbed: stealing, hitting etc but the rest only need gentle guidance, and modification with an award system to reward positive behaviours. 


I'll come back to this at some point, and probably edit it a bit.

I have been thinking further about my bridge analogy, and there is more that can be added to it:

When friends argue, its like a storm has hit the bridge.  The bridge will suffer some damage depending upon the strength of the bridge and also depending upon the size of the storm.  Most importantly though, it can be fixed, and if both people work hard together it will be fixed sooner, and can even be made stronger in the process.

Secondly, you can have many bridges to many islands.... but with more bridges comes more time and maintenance.  Inevitably multiple bridges will not be as strong as a few good ones.

Anyway that's that.  I'm working from home today because I'm not feeling so hot, and twos hours of commuting is not appealing under that circumstance.  I am due a workout today and cannot decide what to do... if I do work out I know I will feel worse, but sometimes that's what is needed to get me through it faster.  Also I don't want to get lazy with it.

So my 9 year old stepson has ADHD, he was diagnosed about a year ago now and is now taking medication for it.  Since his diagnosis we have moved away from Liverpool where he has spent all of his school years.... he went through an enormous amount of difficulty, bullying and turmoil whilst undiagnosed and a fresh start was due.

Since taking his medication he has calmed down quite a lot, he is still very impulsive and clearly bears many an emotional scar from his previous years which has left him angry, short tempered and frustrated.  His biggest hurdle at the moment is socially.

A while ago now I decided to discuss with him how friendship works and I created the following analogy:

Imagine that you are an island, and all the people around you are other islands, there is a sea in between you. 
When you first meet someone you are starting the process of bridging the divide between you, the process is slow and requires some hard work. 
The first step is to throw a rope across, you must then begin to turn this into a rope bridge, this requires effort on both sides, some patience and cooperation.
Once the rope bridge is built, you have a link, the start of friendship.  the rope bridge isn't very strong, but over time you both work together to make it stronger. 
As you use the bridge more and spend more time on it, you can begin to upgrade the bridge into a wooden bridge, then a brick or even steel bridge. 
Bridges require maintenance however..... if you don't use the bridge it will rot, it needs frequent painting and repairing, the occasional storm might damage it but it can be fixed.
Some bridges you will like more than others, if both parties decorate the bridge in colours they both like, and you agree on how to decorate it then you will enjoy that bridge more.


This anaolgy seemed to work well, he understood it fine and even added his own extras to it.  Some days I would pick him up from school and he would be upset, he would then tell me that he had blown up a bridge by accident when he did something regrettable, and other days he would tell me of new bridges that he had made.

Yesterday he went to play with a local 'friend' and that 'friend' then told him how much he hated him, and how annoying he found him, great!  Unfortunately he still struggles with social rules and cannot get along easily with oither boys.  After a bit of thought I decided another talk was appropriate; it is so hard to sit there and essentially tell someone 'yes you do all these annoying things, heres how you need to try and behave'.  Its not his fault, and it must be so difficult for him.  I have watched how he plays, and his main issues stem from dominating the play, and being very selfish.... all the rules are his rules, all the games are his games.  So the talk went as follows:

What is more important.... having a bridge/friend, or playing a game by your rules only?  When you make a bridge you must remember that it is a shared link, you both use the bridge.  You will have to compromise on the bridge and perhaps paint parts of it a colour that you don't like, but is that so bad if you get to keep the bridge?  Also not only is the bridge for you to visit his island, but for him to visit yours.... if you don't share the bridge the the other person might just destroy it. 

He fully understood this and came back with "yer i suppose i could cope if he wanted to paint the bridge pink, even though I don't like pink, at least we have a bridge!"

The final point I needed to make to hime is that yes he does have ADHD, and he must remember that he is impulsive, often he will say something like "no lets do it my way" before he has even thought about it.... but he can always backtrack.... "sorry I didn't mean that, lets actually do it your way". 

I do hope some  of it sticks!

Ok, so I have decided to start using my blog again again!  I figure that I could fill in a post at work once a day.

A lot has happened since the last post, I am now a father to a very beautiful girl called Ruby, she is nearly 4 months old now!  I am working in Warrington for British Power International, and I weigh a stone more than I used to.... all muscle  ; )

I am still using the creatine but am also now taking L-Glutamine which should work as an anti-catabolic (stops damaged cells from breaking down).  I now own a Powerstation which enables me to perform dips, chinups, pullups and hanging leg raises.  I highly recommend this piece of equiptment to anyone keen on a home gym setup.

Today I have been learning AutoCAD 2008 as I await new work to come my way.... this credit crunch is slowing work down a lot.

Well I have not posted for a while... since the last post I have been to Europe for a few weeks on holiday and then ahve moved house temporarily into the in-laws!  Until we can fix a mortgage then we can't go anywhere.

I now have a job with British Power International (BPI - www.bpienergy.co.uk) where I will be working as a power engineer.

Hopefully I will be able to form some kind of routine soon and get back into working out, building robots and parkour.  In the meantime I am working on some core exercises and developing some basic parkour techniques.

Today I feel pretty good, my muscle ache is at a minimum.  I could probably cope with another workout tomorrow if it were possible.

Unfortunately due to time constraints I cannot workout again until next Monday, but that only means my muscles will get a really good rest and a chance to really repair themselves 100%.  Given the extent of my workout I would say that the creatine is helping, not only did I achieve a great workout, but I then went out and did some parkour which included some pullups, pressups, cat crawling and another exercise known as "Archimedes cock".... this is where you place your feet about a meter off the ground against a wall of some form and walk around the wall/object with your hands.  The name comes from the Manchester parkour crew who do this exercise around a statue of Archimedes.

The parkour (PK) last night was great, I learnt some good basics and got to see what obstacles were about and how to traverse them.  I also met a great bunch of lads who were more than happy for me to tag along.  Next time I do some PK though I won't go to the gym on the same day as this severely limited my ability to pull myself up walls!

I have just gotten back from the gym, I didn't feel ready for it yesterday as there was still a faint muscle ache and I believe in listening to my body.

I was up at about 8:00am, I got my stepson ready for school and took him to school for 8:55am, I then prepared my morning fuel.... 2 eggs scrambled on two pieces of toast.  I followed this with some red bull style drink.  I then took the dog for a walk to get me body awake and the energy moving... this also serves to get the digestion moving to provide energy.

Before leaving for the gym at around 10:30 I took my creatine with some more red bull energy drink.

Todays workout was great, I felt like I was really making some good progress, if anything needs changing its only the routine now.  The problem with the current routine is that a lot of the exercises hit the biceps as a secondary muscle, this makes them tire before the primary muscle groups which I want to work at, si the result is that I cannot complete full sets of some muscle groups.

During the workout it is important to get a lot of water into the system. Post workout I took the rest of the daily creatine advised. When I returned home I drank some more water and had a tuna sandwich followed by some pineapple to aid recovery.

Hopefully I will have a fast recovery time from this workout.... I'll post tomorrow details of how much I ache or not!


Tonight I am off to train with some local parkour lads, but I fear having already done a workout that I will not be much use.  It will be good to show my face and see what they are upto anyway, tonights training is a HELL night..... this means intense workouts designed for parkour in an urban setting.

I have been planing to get into Parkour for a while now, only problem being time and lack of friends who share the same desire.

Up until now I have been watching a lot of amazing videos and have been training in the small ways that I can.  I have been practising holding myself vertically on rails and performing vertical pushups.  I have also been attempting to learn to do flips forwards and backwards.  The thing I really need is some good parkour friends!  Its so annoying when I walk to pick my stepson up from school, and I see loads of great opportunities to jump on and off of things, but I would just look like a complete tit doing that on my own when other parents are about!

I plan to attend the Hub festival in Otterspool, Liverpool which takes place on the 14th and 15th of July, they will be hosting some example parkour so that should be cool.

For those not in the know about this sport, I advise searching youtube for some great videos.

Okay so today I am aching.  This for me is unusual as normally once I have broken in my muscles they do not ache for future workouts.

Having said this, I have read about people who train hard whose muscles regularly ache which makes me wonder.... did the creatine allow me to push my muscles that little bit harder to create this ache?  its possible, only time will tell, if this happens next time then it will confirm it for me as I know what is normal for my body.

I now need to research if I should be taking more creatine on the days that I am not working out.  According to the box for the CEE I don't take it unless working out because it does not need loading, but I want to know if taking it will speed up the recovery phase.

Pineapple here I come! (read previous muscle ache post about this)

Today I made my first use of CEE (Creatine Ethyl Ester).  Creatine in this form does not require a loading phase, simply four pills before an intense workout and 4 after.

The workout started well, I am not far enough into a gym routine to state any definite differences.  However the workout then went downhill.  This was not due to the creatine, but from either tiredness, lack of energy or the fact that I have not fully recovered from a recent chest infection.  In any case I didn't want to push it so I had to end early.

I shall return on Monday after a good rest and see how things go.  In the meantime I am interested to see if I have any aches tomorrow from the parts of the workout that I did complete.

I have started going to the gym again... and now I am aching a lot!  I have really pushed myself, which was probably not a good idea after a long break from th gym.  I am now trying to get my muscles back on track asap.  To aid my recovery I am trying a few things:

o Vitamin supplements (I take these anyway).  Your body needs a lot of different things to help repair muscle damage, especially
vitamin E.
o CEE, Creatine Ethyl Ester.  This stuff is supposed to speed up recovery, it helps out with the vital amino acids required to rebuild the protein in the muscle.  More at the bottom of the post on this stuff!
o Pineapple - there is an enzyme in the pineapple called bromelain which helps rid the muscles of the dead protein from the ripped muscle, the dead protein causes swelling and muscle pain while the body attempts to repair it.
o Plenty of water, muscles are 70-75 percent water or something ridiculous, so a good supply is needed!
o Tea, whilst tea is a diaphoretic it is also a good source of anti-oxidants.  These are needed to get rid of the crap bulding up in the used muscles
o Rest! pretty self explainatry
o Light working of affected muscles - this stimulates blood flow to the area which in turn brings vital nutrients and oxygen as well as supplying transport to remove the crap.  This is almost illogical to me as I usually am of the opinion that if my body aches it must want to rest it!  But then I consider what physio is all about and so I carry on.


How creatine works, taken from: here

Creatine is an amino acid found primarily in the skeletal muscles. The human body gets most of its supply from meat and fish in the diet; it is easily absorbed from the intestinal tract into the blood stream for transport to the skeletal muscles. When the dietary supply is inadequate the body can make a limited amount of creatine from a combination of the amino acids arginine, glycine and methionine.

Creatine plays an important role in muscle contraction. It helps replenish ATP, a chemical which is the immediate source of energy for all muscle contractions. In spite of its vital role, ATP is in short supply in the body; there is only enough available at any one time to provide energy for about ten seconds of explosive contractions. ATP, therefore, must be constantly replenished.

ATP provides energy to the muscles by releasing a phosphate molecule; it then becomes another compound called ADP. That's where creatine comes to the rescue. Creatine transfers phosphate to ADP, recreating ATP. The resynthesized ATP can then be used again to fuel more muscle contractions. Creatine, consequently, is a limiting factor in the resynthesis of ATP. The more creatine in the muscle, the more times ATP can be quickly regenerated.

The availability of creatine also delays the production of lactic acid, the substance which causes the famous "burn" and can eventually shut down the muscle. When creatine is present the muscles don't have to switch to a second energy system called glycolysis. But when glycolysis kicks in the muscles rely primarily on glycogen (muscle sugar) to generate more ATP. Lactic acid is a by-product of glycolysis. Lactic acid inhibits glycolysis and blocks the resynthesis of ATP through the combination of ADP and creatine. By delaying the accumulation of lactic acid, creatine allows the muscles to continue working with less pain and fatigue.

Admittedly, this is a bare-bones simplified explanation. The bottom line is that more creatine in your muscles allows them to contract harder and longer, especially in activities involving short bursts of explosive energy, such as weightlifting, bodybuilding and sprinting.

I am now officially Tom Elner Beng (Hons) with a 2:1 in Computer and Robotic Systems! well chuffed.

To me this means more than just a 2:1, I have achieved this whilst being married and with a stepson whom has ADHD.  My final year project was a first class project (see the main site for more info www.tombot.net).

My wife will be starting a blog in regards to Arthur and his ADHD if anyone is interested.  I shall post the link when it becomes available.

I am receiving some criticism in regards to getting an air rifle and teaching my stepson to shoot, but I do not understand the issue.

In terms of the issue of actually killing wild animals - we will eat any quarry killed, and we will only kill known pests such as rabbits and rooks.  I believe that it is important that if my stepson wishes to eat meat then he should be comfortable with killing and skinning it himself.  Pest control is perfectly normal, most people would happily kill rats or mice in their homes and they don't even eat them!

Ok so what about gun culture? - well as I see it, most boys want to shoot a gun that's why they buy army toys, plastic guns that shoot suckers and many other gun based toys and that is why things like laser quaser and paintball exist.  So really what I am doing is taking the opportunity to teach my stepson how to use a gun responsibly, and that it is not a toy.  Many games exist that are war based and involve killing people, these are far worse!

At the end of the day anything can be used as a weapon if someone wanted to hurt another human or animal, it is purely the individual that makes an item a weapon.

I read an article on BBC news website discussing the idea that overfeeding children is a form of abuse.  I would have to say that I agree 100%.  There are many reasons for this:

Children do not know for themselves what is good to eat and how to eat sensibly unless they are taught by their parents.  A child being fed badly sets them up for a difficult life.  We have a set number of fat cells in our bodies, these cells do not dissapear when a person looses weight, they merely empty.  The more fat cells a person has, the easier it is for them to put weight on as the body has somewhere to store the extra fat.

What many people do not know is that if we overeat, our bodies create MORE fat cells to store the extra fat if the current cells are all full.  These news cells will not go away and that means said person is prone to putting weight on for the rest of their life!

Obviously being overweight has many effects both mentally and physically.  Children get teased, are more prone to high blood pressure, heart problems, athsma and loads of other things..... now tell me its not abuse then!

I think it is very unfair on the child to become an adult with so many problems just because their parents didn't control their diet correctly.

Having been a member of Liverpool Universities rifle club, and having shot previously, I have always wanted to own an air rifle.

Recently I watched Gordon Ramsey's "F Word" in which he went shooting with his son Jack.  They were shooting Rooks which are a huge pest for farmers, they then ate the rooks.  Inspired by this I am going to buy an air file (or get one for my up and coming birthday), and I intend to take my stepson out in the fields to shoot some rooks and rabbits.

I must stress however that I do not want to teach him shooting purely for fun, so we shall be eating any quarry we kill.  I feel that this is important and the responsible thing to do.

So what gun?

I have chosen an under-lever air rifle.  Buying an under-lever means two things, firstly it is not powered by c02 cartridges so each shot is cheaper and more consistent.  Under-lever means that the barrel is rigid and therefore more accurate than a break barrel rifle.  The calibre I have chosen is .22 as I intend to be hunting with it.  The scope will be a 3-9 x 40! a good scope.

http://www.surplusstore.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/34_111/products_id/1393

I am just changing some tab settings in firefox and thought I would share the information to solve two of my previous annoyances:

1.  I know that the new IE allows multiple home page tabs, firefox 2 does also but it wasn't clear how to do this.  To do it you open the tabs you wish to use as home pages and then go into the tools, options and click the use current tabs!

2.  New tabs open blank! To fix this an extension is needed:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

Why use firefox??  Firefox is open source and allows other developers to create tonnes of useful add-ons, I highly recommend it.

Now that I have finished everything for my degree, I will have more time on my hands and plan to use this blog more.

So an update about my degree.... I completed my final year project, RADAR, a human seeking robot in horse and rider configuration.  The 'horse' is a BEAM robot and the 'rider' a PIC18 series microcontroller.   The microcontroller communicates with sensors using the Phillips I2C bus.  For more info see the RADAR pages ont he main site www.tombot.net

My thesis earnt me 80% (a first class thesis) which I am very happy about.  Overall I expect to achieve a 2:1 BEng.

I'll write more later

Hmmm well this comes free with my web package so I thought I'd use it!  but what to use it for??

I'm Tom Elner, a University of Liverpool student, studying Computers and Robotic Systems.  At the moment I am deep in designing my latest robot, RADAR, a six legged hexapod walking robot, http://www.tombot.net/beam/radar.html

I shall use this blog throughout my final degree year, keeping a record of how everything goes.  It will be the hardest year of my lie to date, so it could be interesting I guess ;)