Many years later, when my guitar passion had mysteriously faded away (probably disillusionment, but that’s a topic for a separate post), bicycling took over. I was completely in love with the idea of bicycles and bicycle touring. I rode my bike EVERYWHERE, rain or shine. (I lived in Sweden at the time, so it was mostly rain, very little shine.) I ended up riding solo from southern Sweden to northern Norway and back, camping in my tent along the way. I did that two summers in a row, on a bike whose wheels I had built myself. I’ve always liked cycling, but it was reading Josie Dew’s first book that turned it into a passion. My lifestyle doesn’t permit me to indulge my bike touring passion anymore, but to this day I have a hard time throwing away plastic bags (a touring cyclist’s BEST FRIEND) and my heart jumps a little when I see touring cyclists on the road.

In the 46 years I’ve been on this planet, interests have come and gone, which is what I meant the self-indulgent babbling above to illustrate. What I REALLY want to talk about is my latest obsession. It’s dogs. Lately I’m all about dogs. Seriously. Dogs and dog training are pretty much all I can think about. Why dogs? I’m not really sure. I’ve always liked dogs (and most animals) but not like THIS.

To back up a bit, I spent the better part of this past autumn in yet another bout of depression. I won’t overshare with the gory details, all you need to know is that one of the fun things that come along with depression is something called anhedonia: basically, even the things you normally enjoy give you no pleasure. Nothing is interesting, nothing is fun.

Through the years I’ve learned that one sure sign that a depressive episode is passing is that when I least expect it, something becomes INTERESTING again. There is nothing like an all-consuming new interest to get your thoughts off yourself (and everything that is WRONG with you) and onto something else.

This time, it was the video below that did it.

And it wasn’t just that it’s the cutest thing ever…I was immediately struck by the amount of time and effort that must have gone into training Jesse to perform all of those behaviors, and how willingly he seemed to approach his tasks. This couldn’t be a dog being trained with choke chains and the other aversive methods I remember reading about back in the 1980s.

Reading the information on Jesse’s Youtube channel introduced me to the idea of training based on “positive reinforcement.” Before I knew it I was ravenous to learn more about it. That led me to two amazing Youtube channels run by positive-based dog trainers who freely share their knowledge with the public via their videos. I don’t often get girl-crushes, but I’m totally SMITTEN If you have a dog and are interested in positive methods, trust me: you want to get to know the women I’m about to show you below.

Here is my favorite clip of dog trainer Emily Larlham (known as kikopup on Youtube) having fun with her border collie Splash:

Emily had hundreds of instructional videos on her channel, covering everything from tricks to basic doggy manners to “how to’s” for solving common behavior problems using positive methods. Here’s a particularly useful one in which she demonstrates how to use positive methods to encourage dogs learn loose leash walking:

As it turns out, Emily is friends with another trainer in her area – Pamela Johnson, who goes by Pamelamarxsen on Youtube. Like Emily, Pamela also has hundreds of instructional videos on her channel demonstrating positive-based training solutions to common dog behavior problems, as well as tutorials about how to teach agility, tricks, frisbee, and other fun things you can do with your dog. The video below, which covers teaching your dog how to be calm and quiet when the doorbell rings instead of going crazy and barking its head off, is a stand out:

To sum up, I have to thank whomever originally sent my partner the video of “useful dog tricks.” It was my partner who showed it to me and (unintentionally) sparked this new interest. It’s been many years since I had an interest that did not involve needing to spend hours on end in solitary practice (like guitar) or involved staring at glowing rectangles. I don’t have a dog of my own (yet, haha!) but have realized that co-operative interaction with other living creatures, out in the fresh air, can only be a good thing! Additionally, seeing how Emily and Pamela generously make use of their Youtube channels to educate others was inspiring. I hope they can inspire you as well

[Edit: Other awesome trainers who share their knowledge: Katie Buvala of 3LostDogs.com, she’s 3LostDogs in Youtube — she’s awesome! Another one I’ve found notable is the guy from Trainingpositive.com, who goes by Tab289 on Youtube (I couldn’t find his real name anywhere). These are just a few — I’m discovering new ones every day!

I’ve trained at home for the past few months (for reasons that deserve their own post), but not by choice: the best place to strength train is at a properly equipped gym. However, when you are a woman training at a commercial gym full of typical man-type creatures, you need to have laser focus on why you’re there and what you’re doing. Otherwise the desire to pour hot lead in your eyes to avoid seeing the man things loudly engaging in UTTER STUPIDITY can be an unwelcome distraction from your own workout.

The video below makes my Best Of list for this year because a perfect illustration of what I’ve observed so many times in the gym. Watch and RELISH Christine’s hundred-percent unbridled girl power OWNAGE. Note: Both she and the guy are squatting THE SAME WEIGHT:

It wouldn’t surprise me if the group of man creatures subsequently came over to the squat rack and asked Christine if they could work in with her for a few sets of lame-ass biceps curls. At least they didn’t come over to OFFER HER UNSOLICITED ADVICE (another topic worth its own entire post) and tell her that she’s going to HURT HER KNEES if she keeps squatting like that.

Yes, I’m totally generalizing. Not all men in the gym are hapless fucktards who are there to “really blast those bis and tris” and flex in the mirrors. But my empirical experience gathered from training in gyms around the world suggests that the average woman — once she’s had some qualified guidance and realized that getting off the elliptical and into the squat rack is where the magic happens — tends to work out much smarter and with vastly better form than the average guy.

It’s New Year’s resolution time and I’m aware that many people’s resolutions involve vowing to get more exercise. So for any female readers out there with fitness-related resolutions — whether you’re starting from square one or are already exercising but want to venture away from the cardio equipment and into the weight room — Christine’s site is a nice place to start. She also plays guitar and likes metal — what a shame we’re not neighbors!

This video is about a year old, but as of today it’s had fewer than 10 000 views (It SO deserves more), thus I’m betting that many readers here haven’t seen it yet. It’s not safe for work, though, so unless you have a cool boss (i.e., one who understands the difference between using profanity because you’re too lazy to think up a better word and using it you think it’s the best way to make your point) you’d better wait until you get home:

When times have gotten hard over the past year, when I’ve been faced with scary or odious tasks that — even though I TOTALLY don’t feel like it — still have to be done, I think of Colleen’s boulder song and it helps me. Seriously. Then I just set my timer for a 10-20 minute “get started” interval and hop to it, rather than expending valuable mental energy worrying endlessly about how the heck I’m EVER going to manage. I have a permanent entry on my Astrid to-do list, just to remind me if I forget.

The boulder is always on my to-do list

The Boulder song was my gateway into Colleen’s world. Her newsletter and RSS feed are two of the few things that have survived the Great Media Cleanout of 2010. Two strategies I’ve learned from her have been part of my regular self-motivational repertoire over the past few months:

Annual goals daily

Colleen’s not-so-stupid Stupid Reading Hack

Now that I “get” the concept of just pushing the confounded boulder, one of the most important questions I’ve been trying to answer for myself recently is this: out of the universe of possible boulders, which ones are ACTUALLY WORTH PUSHING? Admittedly, I don’t really find the concept of “New Year’s Resolutions” particularly useful. But even so, at this time of year it feels natural to review and assess the past year, and look forward to the year to come.

In the next “best of” post I’ll be presenting one of my totally-not-guitar-related boulders for 2011.

I started writing on the web about my passion for guitar 2003, and moved from a static website to this blog in 2006. In 2007 I went through a major depressive episode (or burnout or nervous breakdown or whatever you want to call it). Bouts of depression have dogged me pretty much as long as I can remember, but the Great Darkness of 2007 was worse than anything I could imagine. It was truly life-changing. I won’t bore you with the details: the important thing is that I got better.

Even so, three years later it is finally sinking in that I crawled out from the darkness a very different person. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse. Some things are either better or worse depending on how you look at it.

One of the things that changed is that playing guitar no longer gives me pleasure. I’ve fought against this fact for three years and it’s brought me nothing but stress and guilt — I KNOW what I should be doing to “rekindle the flame.” But I don’t WANT to do it. And because I can count the times I’ve played guitar this year on one hand (with fingers left over) I no longer identify as a “guitarist.”

How can you write on a “guitar blog” when you no longer consider myself a “guitarist?”

The truth is, I can’t. And I won’t. And that’s the real reason I’ve not written more the past couple of years.

Fortunately there are still plenty of things that interest me, and plenty of things I want to write about and share. But because of the guitar focus of my blog, I’ve not felt “entitled” to write about them here. I’m sure most would agree that it’s a crappy situation when someone feels that they can’t be themselves on their own f’n blog! So I’ll be reworking this one as a personal blog, and it will no longer be guitar centered.

I still HAVE my guitars, and who knows, I may become passionate about guitar again one day and write about it again. My last “guitar sabbatical” was 10 years long, and when I started playing again a few years ago I was keener than I’d ever been before. But until that happens, I’ll be focusing on other things.

So go on then, unsubscribe. I will understand, really!

What is the Astrid Mascot, anyway?

But one thing is totally bugging me: WHAT THE HECK IS THE ASTRID MASCOT SUPPOSED TO BE?

Yes, I typed that in all caps because the question is SCREAMING in my head.

Is she a little octopus? A melted eraser? A character from Gumby who ended up on the cutting room floor?

I suppose life is pretty cushy when it’s questions like these that are your main source of anxiety.

EDIT: I audaciously tweeted the folks who created Astrid and they got back to me with the definitive answer: Astrid is a SQUID: “Astrid is an adorable little squid. We thought with all those tentacles Astrid would have some major multi-tasking skills!”

Whew! Mystery solved! And kudos to the folks at Todoroo for taking the time to answer even silly questions like mine!

The Gymboss 2009 dual timer is my most recent source of consumer joy. It’s designed for use in the gym (duh), to help you keep track of intervals, rest periods, metabolic circuits, or whatever special timing your workout involves. But the dual timer function is also useful for reminding you to do other repetitive tasks. Even with the best of intentions, it can be tough to remember to do certain things regularly throughout the day. Here are some off-the-top-of-my-head examples:

Avoiding desk fatigue with scheduled mini breaks (this is a big one for me):
Timer 1: 45 minutes (work time)
Timer 2: 2-5 minutes (get up, stretch, rehab exercises)
Repeats: 2-3 (then take a proper break)

Tracking billable freelance hours:
Timer 1: 15 minutes (time spent doing billable work)
Timer 2: 15-30 seconds (short break to note down billable period on time sheet)
Repeats: 3-4 (then take a proper break before you get back to your billable work)

Guitar Practice:
Timer 1: 2 minutes (practicing a particular exercise)
Timer 2: 60 seconds (rest, stretch, setup next exercise).
Repeats: Say, 10 for a 30-minute practice session.

Kicking procrastination’s ass a la Merlin Mann’s 10+2*5 method
Timer 1: 10 minutes (doing productive work)
Timer 2: 2 minutes (dicking around as a reward for doing productive work)
Repeats: 5. Congratulations, you’ve just worked a productive 50 minutes!

The Gymboss is easy to learn to use, and offers the following useful options:

- 1 or 2 timers
- Manual or automatic repeats (either infinite or a set number of repeats)
- Alarms: High beep, Low beep, Vibrate, High beep + Vibrate, Low beep + vibrate

I bought my Gymboss solely for use in the gym a couple of months ago, and by now I don’t know how I ever managed without it. What I didn’t expect is that this clever little timer would make it so satisfying (in a geeky kind of way) to program my “intervals” for other everyday activities. When something is more fun and satisfying as opposed to just “good for you,” you’re more likely to actually do it.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, it comes in PINK.

Gymboss on Amazon (aff link)

http://www.globaldomination.se/reviews/guilt-machine-on-this-perfect-day

Just a quick public service announcement on behalf of my friend Pia Nyström (co-founder of the kickass all-female Swedish band Ice Age).

Pia has informed me that Ice Age’s former (like, waaaay former) manager is illegally selling vintage Ice Age demos in an attempt to make a few quick bucks. The illegal demos are being released on the label “Nemesis International.” According to Pia, Ice Age never signed a record contract with Nemesis or any other label, and thus nobody has the right to sell the demos except Ice Age themselves.

Pia and the rest of Ice Age don’t want to see people turning over over any hard-earned cash to this crook, so they have made their entire demo collection available for FREE DOWNLOAD on Vuze.com. Just search for the keywords ICE AGE DEMO COLLECTION, or click this handy [and updated] link here.

This is an example of the kind of slimy music management trick that I really hate hearing about.

I’ve not finalized the design yet, because I’ve had to set it up in a few spare minutes here and there while on the road for the Promo tour. It will be prettier later.

The idea of being any kind of “manager” is massively daunting, to say the least, and because I rate Arjen so highly as a person I’ll be under a lot of self-imposed pressure not to screw up! But luckily I thrive on learning new things, so I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Arjen’s previous manager, the unquenchable and extremely talented Yvette Boertje, was effectively the manager of Stream of Passion when I was in the band, so I know about the high standards people have come to expect from Arjen’s management. Here is her official statement from the Ayreon website:

“After working for Arjen for as a manager for nearly five years, I decided it was time to move on and, among other things, pursue my screenwriting career.

We’ve looked for a replacement and are happy to announce that Lori Linstruth will be taking over my tasks. She recently moved from Sweden to the Netherlands and, after a short transitional period, is now ready to take on the job! Please welcome Lori as the new personal manager, webmaster, messageboard administrator, and shopkeeper for Arjen!”

I wish Yvette the best of luck with her new adventures!

Because everything is so new for me and there is so much to do leading up to the release of 01011001, we’ll actually be making the transition gradually throughout December. But after Jan 1, 2008, the training wheels come off and I’ll have to balance on my own. EEK!

Of course all of this anxiety will (hopefully!) blow over soon. Before you know it I’ll probably be running around in cheap lounge suits, smoking a big cigar…