First let’s tackle the argument about vitamins as to whether you really need to take them or not.

“If you eat right you don’t need supplements.” ~ thousands of people

“I don’t eat right. I’m not going to eat right.” ~ me

So I am looking at the vitamins I take and I figure I’ll pop them all into a wiki cause I forget what I’m takin’ and not takin’ over time.  While I was looking at the actual contents of the vitamins I realized a number of them had things in them I hadn’t consciously realized before. So I added a table to the simple list I had previously entered into the wiki and pounded in all the contents with their dosages.

What I realized is that I’ve been ODing on Folic Acid. Now it’s not like I have been doing it for long – I just added 400mcg a day a month or so ago.  What I didn’t realize was Folic Acid is another name for B-9.  Why the hell “they” can’t either call them all B-9 or give them all (and stick to) other names I’ll never know. So I was taking a B-100 complex (400 mcg Folic Acid), a Folic Acid (400 mcg Folic Acid) and a Men’s Daily (400 mcg Folic Acid). Added all together that’s 1200mcg or 1.2 mg Folic Acid.

Like I said from what I’ve read (I’m not a nutritionist nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night) it’s not a big deal. Wikipedia has an “OD” section on each of it’s pages about supplements. Here is the one on Folic Acid I know, I know, it’s Wikipedia – not an oracle of truth – but it’s not that far off based on other medically related sites I looked into.

What I took away from this was not that I should know what I am putting in my body, I already knew that. I did this same effort before – but narrowly focused – I was looking at what the combined total of Zinc I was taking (since an OD on Zinc can be no bueno). What I learned is that I need to broaden my understanding to every component and that I needed to periodically review it. Particularly if I am changing brands. I’d prefer to stick with the stuff out of Vitamin Shoppe or Puritan’s Pride but time and money often prevent that.

Not sure how I ended up there – but I found this site tonight and it was quite interesting.

It appears that there is a growing industry in internet based, workout at home training.

A coworker introduced me to Scooby’s Workshop last year. Besides the workout and nutrition information the guys take on the “fitness industry” is freakin’ great.

A googling (is that a word, I don’t know, do you know what I meant, well then, it’s a word (if you said no you are lying or shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer)) of “home fitness routines” turned up a bunch of sites. Some of them were obviously focused on selling you something (like a treadmill) but there were a few that seemed interested in merely providing an avenue for education.

One of the more interesting looking sites was TopEndSports. While I am no authority on the validity of the content it was organized in a way that I am going to return there for instruction on exercise opportunities I can do at home.

Toying with the idea of breaking out my wife’s yoda tapes (yea tapes, VHS, ancient technology) and giving one of them a go. Flexibility sounds like a real neat idea  =)

As I continue reading I found a couple more interesting sites. I really need to stop and sort out the issue I have with links in WordPress.

Health & Fitness Calculators

Calories Per Hour

I’ve been a volunteer on the board of a parent co-op preschool for the last five years. It’s been a real interesting activity getting to work with all sorts of people and interacting with a large number of people who have come and gone. The average “attendance” of a preschooler is between two and three years since most of them head off into the world to face the challenges of kindergarten.

Along the way I’ve had the need to leverage my IT skills as we attempt to modernize the processes and procedures at the school.  One of the first things we accomplished after I joined was moving the member’s handbook online.  Printing a 40+ page book for each family member was not only environmentally unfriendly, it cost a lot.  We moved the primary form of communication with the membership from printed form to email and upgraded the website from static HTML to a content management system (CMS).

We’ve also used a number of online or open source services to manage certain endeavors.  We’ve used survey monkey a couple of times to get the members feelings for the school, director and board members.  We used an open source auction tool for managing a silent auction. Today I discovered a website that offers a scheduling calendar system. This is specifically targeted to trying to arrange staffing for events – such as a fireworks booth.  It was scary how easy the registration and setup was, not to mention the actual act of laying out the timeslots and number of volunteers needed per slot.  I think I spent a whopping 15 minutes on the site before I was done =)  VolunterSpot was the name of the site.

I’ve wanted to create a website to help other co-ops achieve automation, I would even like to create a ‘membership management’ application specifically targeted to the co-op preschools of the country. Unfortunately I realize that I will never stop long enough to actually do the work it would require to write, let alone maintain, such an application.