Happy Halloween!

You might not be aware but for October, I continued my consistency challenge. I paid homage to the great Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu by consistently NOT posting on my blog for a whole month.

Sometimes the best action is to not take action and I must say, a break was nice, after a month of posting every day for my pushup challenge and posting as frequently as I could for a biking challenge.

Some pumpkins I carved with my kids. and some pictures of them moving in a slow shutter speed shot to look like “Ghosts.” Fun stuff as we prepare for Halloween!

I will say that I have not shaved for the end of October and I will continue that for no shave in November. So I will be consistently NOT shaving the hair off my face for November. I want to share my inspiration. (Please read my response to this initial FaceBook post.

So you can see below that I have gotten a bit of a head start. My social media is not flattering. I am very transparent about how amazing my life is not. Here I have tagged myself #iswalking. I walk a lot and it is my most frequent tag on Facebook:

Here I am at the checkout at the local “Schnucks- the friendliest stores in town” They are inexpensive and their produce is sometimes OK. I am back on not drinking alcohol, so this is a very special #iswalking selfie.

I think I should be consistent in this #iswalking. I did not do that when I started, but I think I might. Well, I should, just to be consistent.

So, as you might have guessed, October was the month of consistently not doing. I will continue to not do something in November by not shaving, but I will continue to start writing again. I am thinking about how I did 16 days of learning to design in 3D and then I completed the training modules and worked on an art piece, had trouble exporting to other Adobe applications, and then just stopped. Well, I was feeling tapped out. I was feeling very vulnerable for not knowing how to export and I didn’t want to force any creative ideas. However, now I have some ideas I would like to pursue in that space so I plan to return to that 30-day challenge and even though it is not 30 days back to back I can at least still follow through and be consistent in completing the challenge.

I love you!

Lau Tzu [Tao Te Ching chapter 48]

Exercise is a Good Way to Generate Creative Ideas

Cycling through the woods is relaxing and enjoyable

So even though this was on October 10th, and my Cycling More Consistently in September Oddesy is over, I still recorded some video footage. In this episode, I make a recording while riding and then nearly flip my bike into a hole in the ground. I comment on how I need to get a better setup if I want to keep recording rides.

Then I turn onto the street, drive down a hill flip my bike and bust open my lip. I was holding the camera with my right hand so the sun would be on my face, and my left hand was on the bike and controlling only the front brakes. I noticed I was going a bit too fast down a hill and so I squeezed the brakes on my new bike. I have disc brakes now, not the old caliper brakes with the pads. These disc brakes are way, more responsive, and I knew that, but I wasn’t aware I was just slamming the front brake.

At any rate, this was a good lesson to learn. I need to focus on my safety and I am glad I only busted open my lip out in an open space and didn’t break a bone somewhere in the woods.

There is a biking school that has been marketing to me on Facebook and the advertisements are good. I have looked into attending classes but I can’t justify spending money on learning this when I am a learning and development professional. I plan to locate some good learning content on YouTube and double-check my LMS at work. As a long-term goal, I plan to volunteer at NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association). This program offers me an opportunity to become a coach in training in a local team of student learners, then when I graduate I can lead a pack of cyclist students and perhaps include my kids in the team if they are game.

Check out the video to see me bust open my lip and make video footage in a state of shock! LOL!

This was easy. The bootlegger’s trail is a quick 5-minute ride from my house. Easily the second-ranked off-road trail in the Saint Louis area and is right next to my house. That’s lucky!

The Bootlegger’s Run is a 4.7-mile trail through the woods of the upper level of Creve Coeur Park. All Trails has a lot of comments that it is not the best trail for hiking because there are a lot of Mountain Bikers. When I ran there the bikes didn’t bother me but I guess I am a walker and a rider.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/missouri/bootleggers-run

One thing I have liked about these solo rides is they give my subconscious mind time to speak up. I have gotten several ideas while on these rides. Many of them are about the Blog or my day job as an Instructional Designer. One that popped up during this ride is especially interesting. It pulls on my background as an actor and an English as a Second Language teacher. I did a lot of theater in high school and received my BA in Theater Arts. While getting that degree I also studied Japanese using a curriculum called Japanese, the Spoken Language (Authors: Eleanor Jorden, Mari Noda) developed by the US government for spies and the like. It was a great language learning platform because it systematically used simple dialogues to reinforce crucial grammatical structures. You relearned how to think and build thoughts according to the Japanese grammar system. (*I used this concept a lot when I worked in Thailand for 7 lucky years teaching English as a Second language ESL.)

In this JSL curriculum, the learner looks a small clumps of very useful conversations and memorizes them one line at a time. These are backed up with well-written explanations of the grammar being introduced. Then you listen to recordings of native speakers saying these lines. After that you work in class and the teacher sets up given circumstances that support the same language (notice the teacher term I used there?) Once the scene is set the students take turns acting out the dialogue with the teacher. The benefit is you get to hear the dialogue multiple times in class and you get to participate. My basic conversational Japanese is not bad to this day, if I had pursued it I would have been set up for success. Instead, I decided to start over and learn Thai from scratch while living and working in Thailand.

So, my idea would work at this point in the curriculum. I came up with the concept to call “Play Right”. At this point in the language learning the students would take the simple sentences that we learned in class and each week, create a video of them speaking the dialogue with themselves or other students in a real setting. Throughout the class, the students could build a video scene of their achievements. This could even become an online resume of sorts the showcase their language skills. Very useful in a country like Thailand where tourism is a large part of the national income. With English being the universal language, That is one of the most useful languages to support tourists.

Another thought that I had that brought more of the theater into the idea was using simple plays as the dialogue. Like a fun play by David Ives. This part may maybe more of a useless pipe dream, but I think it could open the door to more creative results. The Tourist application would be more useful for a resume, but using actual plays would be more valuable for artistic or aesthetic reasons, which is what I am more interested in.

Polo & Pan – Ani Kuni (CC)

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

The Best Day Ever – Writing Prompt

Hello, this is improvement Dave, and I am David Kolmer. I used and continue to use the WordPress platform to build this blog. There was a prompt on my WordPress dashboard of an idea for a blog post which was “Describe your best week “, or maybe “Describe your perfect week”… something like that. I didn’t click on it, but then realized last night that I had started one of the best days ever.

At any rate, I am going to use this prompt even though I didn’t click on it and submit it to the WordPress Metaverse officially. I will alter it a bit and narrow the scope to 24 hours.

My perfect day involves me :

  • Supporting my kids
  • Supporting my wife
  • Supporting myself

Initially, in that order of importance.

I had a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to purchase myself a new bicycle for my September biking challenge until I purchased a new bike for my wife. My wife has gone through a few bikes, and they were all gifts or someone else’s bike, and none of them fit her. She’s not an avid biker, but I can tell that our lives would be better if we all had decent bikes.

I should state that I have purchased two balance bikes for my kids since before they could walk. These are bikes that do not have pedals so they can get used to riding without worrying about pedals. Let me see if I can dig up a retro photo…

Look at that handsome dude rocking that balance bike! Proud as a pig in mud!

So, when the kids did get pedals they learned to ride in about 24 to 48 hours. If that doesn’t sell you on a balance bike then you hate children!

Last month, I bought my son a brand-new bicycle. It was a trek pre-caliber at the TREK store. It was what he wanted for his birthday. He shared that his perspective is that I always get him something secondhand and that Grandma and Grandpa put down real money for the big ticket items. (Well, this is my extrapolation. What was said is that my mom bought me a Game Gear portable Sega gaming system for $130+, and he stated, “You never bought me something that expensive.”) So when the grandparents offered to buy this bike I said, “I am buying this one.”

A picture of my son with his brand new TREK Pre-Caliber

The TREK store on Manchester Road was very well-equipped and very clean. The service charges for tune-ups and the price for components seemed expensive. Or at least they cost more money than I want to pay. Anyway, purchasing my son a new bike provided my daughter with a very nice silver hand-me-down bike.

We bought her a Unicorn bell that she got at my son’s birthday party to make it more of a “her” bike…

She also got some nice flashing lights.

She wasn’t getting the hang of the pedals so I hooked up the Co-pilot by Wee-Ride and she felt better about pedaling. Just watch her RAWK that for the first time.

SO BOOM MY KIDS ARE TAKEN CARE OF. I HAVE SUPPORTED THEM IN THE MISSION OF HAVING QUALITY BIKES.

While I was at the TREK store shopping for my son’s bike, I noticed the Marlin. Now this is a bike that I have read about, and I know that the marlin is a quality bike at a good price. However, I also discovered that Roscoe, which is a higher-level mountain bike with a Hardtail, costs significantly more money. I ordered one of those in the view and then the TREK store never called me back. Exit Trek store stage left.

I ALREADY DISCUSSED BUYING A NEW BIKE WITH MY WIFE FOR MY BIRTHDAY AND WE HAD AGREED THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA HOWEVER, SOMETHING DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT ABOUT IT. LATER, I REALIZED THAT I SHOULD BE GETTING HER A BIKE FIRST. OK SO THAT’S ALL OF THE PRE-LOG OR EPILOGUE AND NOW WE’RE GONNA GET INTO THE PERFECT 24-HOUR PERIOD WHICH I STARTED LAST NIGHT.

Last night I drove with my whole family to pick up some sandwiches at Potbelly. We had some gift cards, so essentially, I paid no money for them, which is pretty awesome. We eat the sandwiches in the car, which is something my family loves to do because it’s somehow wrong but then so right.

We drove to Billy Goat Bicycle Co. down on Manchester Road in St. Louis Missouri. This bike Shop had been recommended by one of my daughter’s friends’ fathers at my son’s birthday party as the most awesome bike shop in St. Louis to go to. I guess it pretty much qualified as that because when I walked in, they had the marlin eight that I was interested in in the dark blue to dark gray fade in my size. They also had a Marline that was very small, which also had incredibly nice coloring from more of a blue to yellow fade which fit my wife perfectly. We did some test drives in the front parking lot. I was wearing sandals, but I didn’t let that hold me back from curving and carving some banks covered with grass on the apartment complex behind the bike shop.

After some amazing discussions with a man called Ben, who was wearing a T-shirt that had bandit from the show, Bluey and the word “DAD” on it, I found I had learned a lot about bikes, gotten some very quality advice on the downfalls or potential pitfalls of tubeless tires, and essentially purchased my wife’s bike moments before I purchased my bike.

So now we both have brand new bikes, and we can fulfill our destiny of taking family bike rides together. Now, that was just yesterday evening.

As I’m writing this, it is only 5:30 a.m. It is raining outside, and I have a window open. Rain is a big part of the perfect day for me.

So far, I have woken up at 4:30 and finessed the water I had in the 32-ounce mason jar next to my bed. I brewed a cup of coffee while I was filling the jacuzzi hot tub in the new basement bathroom with hot water and Epson salts. I noticed that all these push-ups and all these bike rides have made my body very stiff, and my muscles seem to be filled with lactic acid and they’re sticking themselves. Now after exiting the hot tub and dictating this blog post into my phone in the basement to play some of my favorite video games on the PlayStation 3 which I never give myself time to do. It is called PixelJunk shooter, and it is the best game ever in the history of everything.

After that, I plan to do 30 minutes of yoga. After that, I will help put my daughter in the car and give her a Dum Dum sucker and kiss her goodbye kiss my wife goodbye. Then I’ll hang out with my son for about 30 minutes, and brew some more coffee. He’ll probably watch some Minecraft on YouTube kids, that is, he will watch someone else play Minecraft, instead of playing a game himself, (which is normal these days), I think.

While driving to school I saw they were tearing down that old house on our street that was an eyesore!

Then I will go to work in my basement. I recently put together a spare bedroom with an egress window that doubles as a study and a bathroom in the basement and this is my home office.

Today I have finished adding audio to the four modules of EPEC BRONZE for the National Association of Electric Distributors. Next, I will look at the script and enter all of the new script into the notes section of the Articulate Storyline file. This way I can easily print out a user guide PDF because the screens will be updated, and the notes will match. I’ve already aligned all the screen animations with the audio, so the last step is going to be pretty easy. I plan to break my fast at 12 but will probably wait until 2 or 3 because I drank whey protein powder last night at 8 p.m.

This evening I will pick up my son from school, then pick up my daughter and we will ride home in the Honda Odyssey. Then I will pull some fresh vegetables out of the fridge and some eggs and stir fry that all up in the Thai style I’ll probably fry some tofu as well and heat some of those smoked ribs that I have in the air fryer. Then I will drive to the YMCA with my son, or he will take a level five swimming course while my wife and my daughter ride bikes after that I will ride home in the Honda Odyssey with my son where he and I will probably ride bikes, then we will probably eat some ice cream. (Well, I might not have any ice cream because I am back on my ketogenic and intermittent fasting diet.) The kids will take a bath and we will take our showers. We will read some dog man turn on some colored, moving lights and the kids will go to bed. Now on some days, I would turn on some TV but for the perfect day, I would choose to not do that, instead, I would go to bed early at around 9 PM after drinking some chamomile and mint tea or some decaf coffee.

That will take us to about a full 24-hour period for the perfect day. What was interesting to me is my perfect day started last night and I’m not even halfway through it, It is not yet written, but maybe that’s the most important part of my perfect day. Much of the day is still in the future. It is unwritten, it has potential.

You know what? On second thought I don’t think I’m going to play that video game after writing this post I feel like it’s time to do my first 25 push-ups (of 50) do some yoga and Brew, and some more coffee.


After I wrote the above content, I did some YOGA, My daughter woke up and then we walked outside in the twilight and enjoyed the rain.

We went back inside, I made her some hot chocolate and made a pinky promise that I would do some My Little Pony Cosmic Kids Yoga with her, but we did 15 minutes of the Frozen Yoga by Cosmic Kids featuring none other than Queen Elsa of Arendale.

My daughter said,

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

Day 37 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

My goal WAS to do 50 pushups every day for August 2023. It has been one week since I completed this challenge. I have done at least 50 pushups a day past the 31-day challenge. On day 36 (yesterday) I did 100 pushups! Then I took a hot bath and had to ice up my arm.

Comparing Day 1 to Day 31

Today I compare what my 1st day of pushups looked like up against my 31st day.

Here are the main points I make in this video:

(I am sorry they are not composed as learning objectives! HAHA!)

What I learned by Improvement Dave

Think ahead - be proactive
Vlogging Takes Time
Consistency Hold you Accountable

In the video, I fail to mention that this 50 pushups a day challenge not only made me commit to holding myself accountable but I was also motivated me to build other skills.

For example, I wanted a logo for my blog but have not been very active in developing it. The energy generated from this project motivated me to sketch out my logo, scan it in, and then design a PNG file in Adobe Illustrator with a transparent background. I actually recorded my screen while designing my logo and plan to release that video next week. Once I got the ball rolling on the pushups, other projects didn’t seem as daunting as they did before. The first step is the most difficult.

Not Too Late to Give to the Children!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Day 30 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

I am feeling better today than I did yesterday. It got down to 65 degrees here in Saint Louis, MO so I decided to do the pushups outside. I am trying to trim the videos down shorter now so there is less dead time and less talking time.

My goal is to do 50 pushups every day for August 2023. My stretch goal is to do 50 quality pushups in a single set. Today I did two higher-quality sets of 25 pushups, for only 50 quality pushups in total! I think this is the best approach overall to do an actual set of 50 by the end of August.

I did a 5-minute breath work session between the two sets, which is available to view after the two sets of pushups. In this video, I do the basic 4-count in, 4-count hold, and 4-count exhale. Then when that feels comfortable I up it to 8-counts for all three. Normally I would do a 4 or 8-count hold after the exhale but having just done pushups and preparing to do more pushups I do not tend to hold on the exhale.

I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

Music by Khruangbin Live at Boulder Theater on 2019-05-08
https://archive.org/details/Khruangbin20190508017/Khruangbin2019-05-08-008.flac

Day 28 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

It was especially nice outside so I decided to do my daily 50 pushups on the deck behind our house. It was windy and I got a lot of pops and clicks on my microphone. I had the foam wind guard on my mic so I am wondering if it was the wind that caused that. I have never had that issue before.

My goal is to do 50 pushups every day for August 2023. My stretch goal is to do 50 quality pushups in a single set. Today I did two higher-quality sets of 25 pushups, for only 50 quality pushups in total! I think this is the best approach overall to do an actual set of 50 by the end of August.

I did a 5-minute breathwork session between the two sets, which is available to view after the two sets of pushups. In this video, I do the basic 4-count in, 4-count hold, and 4-count exhale. Then when that feels comfortable I up it to 8-counts for all three. Normally I would do a 4 or 8-count hold after the exhale but having just done pushups and preparing to do more pushups I do not tend to hold on to the exhale.

In this video, I brought my small digital kitchen timer to help time the breathwork. I have been using my laptops for timers but that is cumbersome and a few times I have left the computer in random spots in the house and then not known where it was. I recall my time at Wat Chom Thong, in Thailand’s Chiang Mai province where I did a 10-day Vippisana Meditation retreat. We used timers like these at that meditation center. More information about that center here: https://northernvipassana.org/en/

After the breathwork, I place my hands together and raise them to my forehead, and as I do that the church across the pasture rang its bell for 2 PM. I was not anticipating that but for some reason it tickled me. I went on a tangent about how small moments of coincidence or magic like that should be allowed to make us happy. All things are connected in ways we can not understand. I go on to claim that the world is a single organism and we are like the microbes living in that organism. I then made a statement that there are more bacteria in the human body than human cells, but I edited that part out because I looked it up and technically it is not true. If you take into account the red blood cells, the human body is 50% bacteria and 50% human cells. If you think about that, that’s still incredible. The mass of the bacteria is smaller than human cells, so the mass is not 50/50 but the number of human cells to bacteria is estimated to be about half half.

Scientists bust the myth that our bodies have more bacteria than human cells


https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19136

I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

Music by Khruangbin Live at Boulder Theater on 2019-05-08
https://archive.org/details/Khruangbin20190508017/Khruangbin2019-05-08-008.flac

How to Generate Solutions Easily

Yesterday I mentioned in my blog that as I am creating videos to post on my Vlog of my doing my 50 pushups a day for St. Jude, my camera on my phone keeps crashing or shutting down. Sometimes this happens when an alarm goes off, but other times I’m not sure if it crashed or if I failed to hit record.

Last night I went to bed asking myself, “How can I solve this issue without buying a stand-alone camera or a new phone that I only use for making these videos?” … I really like how my phone connects with iCloud and then later the videos are just on my computer or easily available for download on the cloud web page. (That reminds me I need to delete all that raw video that I have processed and posted on YouTube.com)

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

I have spoken about this book before and I will speak about it again.

The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind by Joseph Murphy

The method of this book is asking yourself a question a few times before you go to bed. Then, have a good long night’s sleep, (or not, I mean that is not as good but you do you.) […On the side, hey you should really prioritize your sleep. No, seriously, sleep cures stress and stress kills you.] While you sleep your subconscious mind works through the details and provides you with the best possible solution or solutions based on what you know and remember. Really you are tapping deep into your subconscious, so you really are using the power of things you don’t know that you know. The book gets even deeper still and basically labels this as an unlimited resource not dissimilar from getting messages from “The God”. Honestly, if you adhere to the research and proof of the Collective-Subconscious then this really isn’t that far-fetched.

Ask yourself a question a few times before you go to bed. Ask your subconscious to solve the problem. You will have solutions when you wake up.

The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind by Joseph Murphy

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68984.The_Power_of_Your_Subconscious_Mind

https://soundcloud.com/kexp/under-the-needle-episode-154-khruangbin?si=2f971492e69c4cc08c3ede6e4efb0fd3&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

The Solution Provided

So, when I woke up I was staggering around my bathroom in the dark. I hadn’t had any coffee yet and I was going to brew a cup. Then I realized I had an idea. When I record I could simply put the phone in airplane mode. That would disable all the phone calls, text messages, and alerts. I am not completely convinced it will disable the alarms set, (which really do cause the biggest problem), but there is only one way to try it out and that is to test it. Today was Saturday so Science failed for today… HA! but Monday isn’t that far away.

Also, I could not do my fucking pushups when it is time to take my son to school … …so there is that. [Com’on Improvement Dave. Get it together… Seriously! Improve, make a better plan…that’s like your thing. When it is time to take your kid to school don’t do pushups and record them with your phone, and post them to YouTube.com]

So, there you have it. It is not complicated, but it works every time if you take it seriously. Right before you sleep ask yourself the same question over and over. Meditate on what it is and what you know about it. Then fall asleep.

It Will Work

Enjoy!

Day 25 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

I made the mistake of looking at YouTube on my phone right before recording this. The YouTube Channel for Improvement Dave was reporting zero traffic on my phone. So, I recorded my video with the sub-context of “nobody watches any of my videos. This is futile. I have to be consistent anyway.” Now that I have had a moment, I logged in on my laptop I see that people are watching the videos and..

SHAT! I got a few likes. Not the reason I am doing any of this, this is mostly practice for me. This is about me being consistent. I am posting for the sake of consistintly posting. However, the main point of this is to hold myself accountable for doing the work. If I was not posting these videos I would have stopped doint the 50 pushups a day, and that is the point. Still, I was hoping that someone had at least watched a single video! Funny how our minds react so quickly on such a visceral level to people paying any attention to our work. I know that I am insignificant in the universe especially when you add the 4th dimension of time… but it still burned like hell.

Burned like hellfire.

Knocked Me Off My Game

What is especially interesting to me is on this day when I felt creating was futile my production was absolute garbage. I failed to record the preparation. I also failed to record Set 1. and Set 2 was cut in half. Was this a user error or were these alarms that popped up on my iPhone? Or was it both? I do not know. I do know that I should stop using my phone, which I also use in my life, to generate this content.

What is all this, Anyway?

I am doing 50 pushups a day for August 2023. My goal is to do 50 pushups every day for August 2023. My stretch goal is to do 50 quality pushups in a single set. Today I did two higher-quality sets of 25 pushups, for only 50 quality pushups in total! I think this is the best approach overall to do an actual set of 50 by the end of August.

I did a 5-minute breath work session between the two sets, which my iPhone filed to capture. In this breathework session, I did the basic 4-count in, 4-count hold, and 4-count exhale. Then when that feels comfortable I up it to 8-counts for all three. Normally I would do a 4 or 8-count hold after the exhale but having just done pushups and preparing to do more pushups I do not tend to hold on the exhale.

I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

Day 23 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

I am doing 50 pushups a day for August 2023. My goal is to do 50 pushups in a single set. Today I did two higher-quality sets of 25 pushups, for only 50 quality pushups in total! I think this is the best approach overall to do an actual set of 50 by the end of August.

In this video, I share that we had a recent death in the family. This caused some truncated schedules, so I got straight to work. I do not waste the opportunity to remind us that we should all be grateful for the lives and loved ones that we have. Give your loved ones an extra hug or phone call, tell them you love them all the time, and don’t forget to be thankful for what you have.

I did a 5-minute breath work session between the two sets, which is available to view after the two sets of pushups. In this video, I do the basic 4-count in, 4-count hold, and 4-count exhale. Then when that feels comfortable I up it to 8-counts for all three. Normally I would do a 4 or 8-count hold after the exhale but having just done pushups and preparing to do more pushups I do not tend to hold on the exhale. You will notice that in this video the breathwork is cut short. An alarm actually goes off on my phone turning off the video recording. I would say this is both bad and good because the alarm is to remind me to take my son to school, which is a top priority. However, on this specific day, he asked to attend the funeral we had for a family member, so the alarm was not critical. It still reminded me I have things to do today so start PUSHING UP DAVE!

I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Video Transcript

his is David Kolmer for Improvement Dave Hello you’re watching Improvement Dave This is David Kolmer with Improvement Dave this is day 23 from my understanding I do have my new microphone working so you might notice a difference in sound quality if you’re watching these back to back I have a feeling maybe people aren’t watching them back to back but just so you know I got a new mic so that’s cool I’m gonna go ahead and do 25 push-ups for the first set if I can do a little bit more that’s great if not well I’ll still get up to 50 in one day and all of us will get to heaven on time set one

thank you [Music]

okay

n=Not terrible right had a few pauses not too bad pretty good form As I said I have a lot to do today I had a lot going on today so fresh breakfast and added carbs back into my diet I was only eating ketogenic just fat and vegetables and fruits so I added carbohydrates back in because of these push-ups and I just ate like two pretty good sized waffles about 30 minutes ago and ideally I would have waited an hour or two but you know my privilege has been diminished today because I have a funeral to go to so rid of passing in the family

so it’s kind of a sad day

Okay so the breath work was diminished because I had another alarm go off it’s time to take my son to school so I need to knock these 25 push-ups out as fast as I can and then get things moving

whatever [Music]

oh that was the end of the set too it was 50 push-ups total thanks so much for tuning in this is Improvement Dave and today I’m just reflecting on the fragility for agility of life and being thankful that we still have life cherishing the moments that we do have together and just making sure that we’re making the most of it and being thankful for what we have awesome thank you so much. see you down the line [Music]

thank you

Okay I just finished set one I’m gonna set a timer for five minutes and do some simple breath work here just to calm myself down and put some oxygen back into my system I said Almost electrolytes we should drink some water I mean it’s a sign right

This is just water

systems telling me telling me that I’m thirsty

Freudian slips speaking very well today

Music

Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep

Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)

Day 5 – Push-Ups for St. Jude

Day 5 of my 50 pushups a day challenge fundraiser for St. Jude was Rough after 3 beers last night.

I accidentally call it Faint Jude in this video, probably a Freudian slip because I am feeling faint. On Friday night I start my cheat day and last night I had 3 beers. A Heineken and two Micilob Ultras. I am really feeling that today and it really reinforces why I don’t drink much alcohol, if any, anymore.

I’m Doing 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url