Food for Thought

Foot massage at Thepprasit Night Market in Pattaya, Thailand

While the kids are having their shopping bonanza getting their stuff, we opted for a foot massage instead. An hour for just 180Bht, just cheap and simple.

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snack time

Had to pick up vouchers and passed along a new Korean food outlet. Since I had to wait why not grab a bite.:)

Korean outlet shop, MGM Mall Saket main entrance (next to Select City Walk).

Veggie roll costs 200Rs, freshly made and taste good:), shot taken with N82.

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Purpose of fitness exercises for Golf

I've been ordered to lay-off playing Golf for a month at least and if my Osteopath could tie me up he would extend this period even longer.

Many golfers have a L4/L5 lower back disc problem, apart from excessive play or earlier sustained injuries (like yours truly)it's often aggravated due to an in-correct swing position.

The swing drive position is by pushing your behind (almost exaggerating) out with your lower back straight, hips slightly flexed and upper back in neutral position (upright). Put feet shoulder wide apart and balanced with the knees lightly flexed etc. We golfers do know the drill but in practice each one of us forgets and as result will sustain injuries because of wrong posture development.

When we were posted in Singapore I had the good fortune to have fantastic Personal Trainers who understand sports training, Nelson Chong & Karen Goh. I approached Nelson after recommendation of a friend to help strengthen my Body core and increase flexibility because I already had lower back issues from accidents years back. He was the first trainer to also teach me the exact stretching exercises to relieve me of excessive lactic acid build up in my thighs, before I always dreaded the built-up but now I hardly had any discomfort and that was a first no soreness experience for me during training over the years.

During in-take they gathered information and learned about my regular golf and incorporated a work-out for me with exercises demanding agility, which truly paid off in due time by becoming more flexible and stronger. My work-out training plan consist of; Cardio & resistance machines, Pilatus including the exercise ball and stretching. Karen specialized in Pilatus and helped me stretching my body and back every time at the end of my session, I really felt relaxed, invigorated and most importantly painless.

A golfing buddy also ended up in terrible pain and discomfort during a drive swing, a bit more severe than mine. While making the shot of the day, a full swing with the longest drive his back locked up unable to turnaround he was carried off the course. Both of us and many, many other golf players lack having, a regular golf work-out training to their age, strength and body condition. 

If you browse the internet there are a lot of stretch exercises, but stretching alone is not enough, you need to build up endurance as well maintaining flexibility to maintain an injury free body and enjoy playing golf till the end as long as you like and want to play. I stumbled across the Golf stretching routine by Greg Norman, I also liked the web article "Strengthen your hip abductor muscles for a better weight shift".

I never thought that I would miss these training sessions so much, maybe it’s because New Delhi hasn’t has yet qualified trainers specialized in golf training exercises for junior and senior players. However my Osteopath recommended me to do Pilates sessions and/or find Powerplate with instructor and train no more than 45min twice weekly to begin with as to exercise the muscle groups, luckily there’s a branch down the road where I live and they have one of these machines at DLF’s Golf Club gym.

Ovi Suite versus WidSets widgets

Finally after days being a couch potato I can finally sit upright again and went behind the PC to install Nseries PC Suite/Ovi Suite, after downloading I browsed for widgets again, because at some point in the past all my apps from Widsets were disabled because the company was taken over by Nokia and gutted "evolved" was the announcement into Ovi Store.

At the time I was mad as hell I had downloaded some fantastic freeware widgets from Widsets and even pleasantly surprised to come across Chinese widgets for e.g. aiding my Chinese reading. It worked and had exactly what I liked and wanted to have on my mobile phone. Their website had a great collection, was easy to browse, just choose, click and immediately download it straight to your mobile.

Ovi Store is downsized in widgets, all my previous choices were unavailable and instead of user-friendly downloading it's rather a time consuming process compared to its predecessor.

It starts with logging into Ovi-Store on the PC, find your phone model (N82) and make your choice, send it to your mobile phone. Then after receiving sms message you had to click on the link and log in again. The file would be transferred and depending on the type of application it happens directly or to follow additional instructions to finalize steps. All and all it took some time to receive the separate sms messages, downloading and retrieving files it was 2hrs later.

I've chosen the following freeware applications for my N82;

    * Nokia Magnifier (when the small print is important)

    * News Pro (on and off line access to the latest news)

    * Tweets 60 (great app and quicker than browser log-in!!)

    * Ovi Mail

    * Bambuser (stream live video using 3G or WiFi, this apps might come in handy with my blogs sharing views and places!)

    * Comeks (a micro blogging tool, make and send funny cartoon-like messages where you combine your photo's with background add-on sticker and text bubbles. Look see trial whether it will be useful and fun)

    * I'm looking for a barcode widget still

I'm absolutely glad with the direct access to my Twitter account with Tweets 60 and I'm already experimenting with Bambuser to see whether live stream video works, will be fast as promised and connects with other blogs and micro-blogging.

Since I'm not overly thrilled what Ovi Store has in offer I've been browsing around and found another nifty website, with very interesting Symbian application for 3rd & 5th editions have a look at their freeware apps it's very interesting at Symbian-freak I've made my pick and will download shortly.

I-connect disrupted

I was just about to finish my blog post and send when all of a sudden you’re without internet connection here in South Delhi. For more than a day coincidently our neighbours, are facing the same problem so we assumed it’s more than just a local connection disruption. Our network is down and our provider Airtel hasn’t figured out what caused the problem, a quick repair or other solving solution can’t be provided fast enough to our satisfaction to get back on-line. In the meantime we figured out that our router suddenly had become defective too. Our son was facing a deadline and went bezerk, no choice but to wait for repair.

Calling Customer Service 121, you’ve got to file a complaint first to be serviced with a number #30693742 – 20/03/2010 with the promise that within 4hrs you’ll receive a call first followed up with a visit by a technician to your house. The call came to check the address details when the line broke off and no return call for affirmation or other info is that a good sign or just bad phone protocol?

Almost an hour past when the doorbell rings, incredibly the Airtel technician stands in front of me and turns out to be a knowledgeable guy with a bag of tools and IT-parts (we’ve learned by now that most repairman carry a big bag with just a screwdriver or un-useful tools). He introduced himself as Praveen.

He made the same observation that the router was faulty, so we pointed out that The Beetle ADSL-2 modem wasn’t functioning either since we had tested the night before with a laptop and showed him again. Praveen immediately started typing and checking it worked but when he informed that he would upgrade the modem the connection was disrupted again. The Beetle modem got replaced by a different model now all that’s left is to buy a new Linksys router which is easier said than done since you’ve got to go to Nehru Place to find a shop who can really deliver and sell this item to us.

However over the weekend the connection had shown not to be stable, it drops and after 8pm in the evening it’s even worse. Now we not only have to replace the router but most likely the modem has to be switched again too. It’s happening IT India but not in our house yet.

Just to illustrate how things work or eventually will work as in our rented house in South Delhi, it’s considered a very modern built home where all cables are built in the wall ready to plug in our TV, phone and internet.

The owner, construction company, with the electrical builder were reluctant to do their part, because all parties involved were pointing at each other whose responsibility it was to finish what already was installed in plain sight. Even the phone company technicians were trying to convince us to install new cables from room to room and that’s a nuisance when your already have moved in not to say costly matter.

My husband got so fed-up, he checked all the wall sockets and figured out which one were the internet cables and did the in-house connection by him alone saving nuisance of a sabotage job. Later we couldn’t help to rub this under their nose that if just one of the builders had just offered to assist us we would have willingly paid a tip for the" service".

Plainly just one of money attempts to squeeze out Rupees from ignorant tenants especially when they are foreign newcomers. All kinds of feeble excuses even small bribes are used only when you firmly hold your ground,  as soon as they figured that you understand how to use "Rupee King" things will start to move around.

So far in Europe and even countries here in Asia tip is considered an extra for a job well done, but here in India it is customary to give Rupees beforehand as an incentive which resembles bribe money. And even than not a guarantee that the job will be done fast and correctly. Communication does not happen automatically on many levels and various situations it remains an on-going quest in India but we'll battle through to make the connection.

spine problem after all

So I did the MRI together with the bone density scans, the result confirms I have a "posterior bulging disc" with normal bones to my age group. Years back home in the Netherlands I was informed by my physiotherapist that I had a hip more than a back problem, the followed treatments relieved pain or taken the pressure away. Later on during our stay in Taiwan I visited regularly the Hot Springs and had massage treatments, no recurrences of pain or other related issues. I suppose the natural help of sulphur Hot Springs visits on a very regular base did the trick and the fact that I lived close by made it all very comfortable and the more enjoyable because you came home totally relaxed.

However just a few years ago while living in Singapore, during a workout at the gym with my personal trainer I felt a pang in my lower back. Few hours later I was in terrible pain and the GP confirmed a spine muscle pull which had aggravated the disc, he prescribed inflammatory tablets, muscle relaxants, painkillers and rest, had to stop all activities. My luck factor then was that I had approached my personal trainer to focus on my body core strengthening & flexibility as main objective rather than just loose weight. Just bad luck that I overworked during my training session.

I do give credit to these trainings of improving my fitness while playing golf, I won the Club tournament in 2004 and that for a person who never won a sport thing in her life!

My attention was to strengthen my back and abdominal muscles since I was aware of the weakness in that area. After all I had given birth to 4 children of which the first two by cesarean and the youngest two by natural birth add to that a history of twice fallen from staircases and tail bone accident during rafting holiday. Well the body nor the spine has forgotten these injuries, according to the Osteopath it's all related to my present condition. Great! doesn't make me feel any better now. I've been flat on my back for the last 5 days.

As soon as we moved to New Delhi, I've been looking around for Pilates classes and a personal trainer, however it didn't match my expectation or even near previous experience of professionalism in The Netherlands, Taiwan or Singapore. So due to circumstances I gave up my search. Coincidence or not a couple days ago just before it happened I made up my mind to start by myself and took out all my Pilates DVD's. Untouched yet but sure to be used combined with the exercises the Osteopath is going to recommend as soon as this wave of pain has passed as treatment for recovery.

I'm 80kg/1.67m and considered overweight but I've always been happy with my body and can modestly say carried myself fashionably well. But to avoid future spinal problems it will be wise to shed at least 10kg and a bit more, my last weight before pregnancies was 58-60kg and I have no desire to regain a body which is in the past. However making sure that I'll be lighter with more flexibility and stronger around the core will be my top priority for the coming months. Your support and healthy suggestions will be very much appreciated and anybody out there for whatever reason needs to become fit too like to have a buddy along the road, you can count on me:-)!