Welcome to silencia.net, a personal blog and professional portfolio website. I am Ang, a 26 yr old web designer and kickboxer from northern Minnesota. I have a full-time job, a car, a house, 3 cats, and a moderate phobia of taxidermy. I enjoy stand-up comedy, movies, books, technology, genetic anomalies, history, Dave Attell, Dexter, money, and pizza. What more do you need to know?!

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I am a machine!

Last Saturday, I rode my bike 35 miles. On purpose. The most I had ever ridden before was 20 miles, and that was with a 9 hour break between the first and second ten miles.

I hadn’t exercised in 2-3 weeks. I was feeling ashamed of myself. How best to counteract shame? Overdoing the very activity you’re ashamed about not doing, of course!

I had set out on my bicycle with the intention of only doing 6-10 miles. But the more I rode, the more I was annoyed with myself for being so lazy for so long. After my first 15 miles, I realized I was 10 miles away from a neighboring town. A destination, if you will. I had never biked there before. I thought, “I wonder if I can do it”. And do it, I did.

It was a beautiful ride through the woods. Dense forest encasing the paved trail. I saw two deer, one was about to cross the trail but got spooked back into the woods, the other was a little distance into the woods, munching away on greenery. I discovered bridges over rapids and rocky cliffs on this trail. Lots of friendly people, also out on a long bicycle adventure.

There were some non-paved trails along the way that I am going to have to explore sometime. By the time I came across them, my bottom was already getting sore from having ridden way more than I should have. I didn’t want to risk a rocky bouncy trail at that point.

Speaking of my bottom, it has now been 5 days since my bike ride, and it’s finally becoming less sore. Ouchie bottom!

But yeah, man. 35 miles nonstop. And I’ll do it again!

Thursday, August 7th, 2008 | Categories: Health and Fitness | Permalink | 5 Comments

Bicycling around the neighborhood.

Awesome trail near my place Wow, make one post about bicycling, and my visitors double. (Although double 10 a day is like…) Apparently bicycling is a popular topic. Which is exciting for me, in a way, being a new interest and all.

I biked around my neighborhood a little today, for about 45 minutes. The new bike seat I ordered hasn’t arrived yet, so I didn’t want to push my luck. But I did want to get back out there. Get a little exercise, enjoy the weather, explore my neighborhood. I’ve lived here a year now and I haven’t really wandered around. So that was enjoyable to check it out. Lots of meandering roads and huge trees everywhere.

My neighborhood is somewhat interesting. It is almost its own little village. There are only 2 entry roads to get into this area. It was constructed about 100 years ago, a planned community for a steel company’s employees and their families. A couple gas stations, a small commercial building for different offices, a school, a community center. Most of the homes are townhouses made out of steel and cement blocks. There are a few different styles. I got a kick out of pedaling my bike around and seeing more of them. I saw where the nicer steel/cement single-family homes were, which housed management, I am guessing. I found a nice playground just a few blocks from my house, I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever have my niece over.

Lots and lots of trees. Sometimes I forget that I basically live in the forest. Most of my time is spent downtown in the office, or here at home, in my house. I see rabbits and deer almost daily, and think nothing of it. The two skunks I encountered on my previous bicycle excursion were frightening but not really surprising. And of course there was the time I hit a bear with my car in town, a few years ago…

Yeah, I guess I really do live in the forest.

Update on my bottom: no bruising this time! Hope that new bike seat arrives soon so that I may trek the 20 miles in a day to and from work again.

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | Categories: Health and Fitness, Observations | Permalink | No Comments

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike…

My bike, looking all moody with backlight. At the start of summer, I had intended to try riding my bicycle from where I live to where I work. Which, according to Google Maps, is about 10 miles. Mind you, I haven’t even ridden my bicycle in about three years, and I haven’t really worked out in a couple months. By, by golly, I was going to ride my bike 10 miles one way in a single morning!

Of course, part of me didn’t want to and was finding excuses not to do it. I needed a rack of some sort on my bike so that I could carry a change of clothes and other stuff with me, without having a heavy bag on my back, making me sweatier than I already undoubtedly would be. And I needed a new holder for a water bottle, as the one that came standard on my bike didn’t really hold a bottle well, and it would just fall out at the first bump.

So, after weeks of not riding my bike because I needed a rack and water bottle holder, I finally broke down and got them. My first attempt at a rack was disastrous as it didn’t fit and both my father and I tried to make it work. Wasn’t having’ it. But the water bottle holder was a snap. Safe, secure water was within my grasp (while riding!). For the rack, I had to go to a bicycle shop and buy a rack at their recommendation and pay some guy to put it on my bike for me.

NO MORE EXCUSES NOT TO RIDE NOW, ANG!

So the day after my rack was installed, I woke up an hour early, packed up a bag, tethered it to my new rack, and away I went.

A couple blocks away, I had a few thoughts like “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…” and “perhaps I should have started with shorter, more leisurely rides to build up to this…” But no. I am Ang, and when I want to do something, I go balls-to-the-wall and facking DO IT.

It didn’t take long for my rear end to start to not feel right. At every mild incline (and thankfully, there are not many hills on my route) I hopped off my bike and walked it. Somewhere around the halfway point to work, my rear was really killing me, so I walked my bike for several blocks until I felt the crunch of time before I was suppose to be at my desk at work. So I toughed out riding some more. And then…

I made it to work! Hooray for me! Excitement, the feeling of victory. I had biked 10 miles (most likely for the first time in my entire life), survived, and made it to work on time. Besides jelly legs, I wasn’t really feeling much worse for the wear.

Then after sitting on my bottom for 9 hours at work, my bottom REALLY started to hurt. And I still had to bike home.

What was funny was how often this conversation happened with people all day:
Me: “Yeah I rode my bike to work today! 10 miles!”
Them: “You’re crazy! I can drive you home if you want.”

No, I do NOT want, thank you! I rode my bike because I wanted to ride my bike, not because I was destitute and had no other option. I appreciate your generosity, but I want to ride my bike.

Cut to going-home time. A part of me realized my rear end was not handling all this very well, and maybe being driven home would be a smart idea, this being my first day riding my bike so far and all… But then I thought, I will feel SO proud of myself if I can not only ride the 10 miles to work, but also the 10 miles back home that day. I knew it would be a long and painful journey, but I was determined to finish what I started.

First time I sat on my bike that evening, it was clear to me this was a bad idea. My bottom hurt the second it touched my seat. But I was going to do this! So I pedaled away. My morning ride had taken an hour. My evening ride took an hour and a half, as I needed to hop off and walk my bike quite a bit more often. I realized quickly that there’s no way to really change your position to get more comfortable on a bicycle seat (like you can with a chair). There are only 2 ways to sit on a bike: sitting up as straight as you can while still reaching the handlebars, and leaning as far forward as possible. And the part of my rear that was hurting so badly was still feeling all the pressure in either position.

And it’s not like a general rear end pain. Not much of your butt is on a bicycle seat, and the part that is, is very concentrated and centrally located. I like to call this “verybadplaces”.

Effing scary. By the time I made it home (an hour and a half, and 2 close calls with skunks later) I was experiencing monumental pain in “verybadplaces”.

But you know what? I MADE IT HOME. Twenty miles in a single day. And that feeling of victory outshone the pain radiating from verybadplaces.

Epilogue: I just ordered a new squishy bicycle seat with rave reviews on amazon.com. I will ride again, and soon! When the new seat arrives, and when my seat no longer screams every time I sit down or walk (there was even visible bruising!), I will be riding my bike 10 miles to work and 10 miles home!*

*Perhaps not every day…

Saturday, July 5th, 2008 | Categories: Health and Fitness | Permalink | No Comments

Hi, my life went from zero to sixty.

This isn't me, but you get the idea. Before this week, every day of my life was pretty fucking lame. Weekdays, I get up and go to work, then go home at 5pm and watch movies or TV by myself until it was bedtime. Wake up, repeat. Weekends I would typically do not much more than watch more movies at home. Sounds relaxing, right? Mostly it was just boring.

This week I started kickboxing again. I kickboxed for a little more than a year, then stopped in May of 2007, to try to save some money to buy a house. Thirty pounds gained and much strength lost later (I used to be able to do 43 pushups in a minute - now I can do 17), I decided it was high time to get my jiggly fatass back to the gym.

I also started a business planning workshop. This is only once a week for the next month, and there’s also homework (writing the business plan, doing research).

And while I was living my lame sedentary life of doing mindless stuff alone, I started laying the groundwork for being more social. Which consisted of watching wrestling on Monday nights with a group of friends. I don’t like wrestling, it’s just an excuse to get together with people. And I started a game night with another group of friends, where we play Scrabble and make fun of each other.

So. This past Sunday night was the start of the kickboxing fitness program. Monday after work I kickboxed for an hour and then attended the wrestling gathering. Tuesday night was 2 hours of working out. Wednesday was an hour of kickboxing and an hour or so of helping my mom’s friend figure out how to make the iPod she just bought work. Tonight I had a 3 hour business planning workshop session. Friday night I will be playing Scrabble and making fun of my friends. Saturday I will work out for 2 hours, go to some medical fair thing with my mom and her friend, visit my 1 year old niece for awhile, and then go to a birthday party in the evening at a casino/hotel. Sunday I will do my laundry, wash my dishes, clean up my house, and basically take care of everything else I’ve had no time for this week. And try to put in some time on starting my business plan and figure out what I need to research for it.

Makes me kinda miss just watching movies and TV. But it’s a good thing I guess.

Thursday, January 17th, 2008 | Categories: General, Health and Fitness | Permalink | 3 Comments

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