Category: move ro Music ekkarnnet

My Yoga and Walking Challenges Lead to a Month of Runs…

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A few weeks after I started my 21-day Yoga Challenge I realize that wanted to add some more to my exercise regime. I thought back and remembered how I started to gain weight, when I stopped babysitting Oliver two plus years ago. While I was babysitting I would take him for two or three 30 minute walks during the day.

Once those walks stopped on came the weight! Anyway I thought even though you won’t be pushing a stroller you can walk twice a day numb nuts! So I created the 30-day Oliver Walking Challenge. The aim of the challenge was to use walking to help me get back into shape with the idea that I would then be able to start and run again.

Well the Walking Challenge worked so well that within two weeks or so, I was running again.

.The Run: 3.1 Miles….

Yesterday I ran for the third time this week. It’s the fourth week in a row that I have done such! The first week I ran 3.1 miles on Sunday and then did the same on Tuesday and Thursday. On the following three Sundays, including this past Sunday, I ran four miles and 3.1 miles on the following Tuesday and Thursday.

The end result is that I ran 11 days in May and have run 3 days so far in June. Yesterday’s  run was my fourteenth since May 1st and one of my fastest. I completed the 3.1 mile course in 33:53 about two minutes faster than the first 3.1 mile run I ran on May 6th.  One of the better things is that I am running faster with a lower average heart rate.

Yesterday’s  run was over the 5K (3.1 miles) course that I have run the majority of May and June. I completed the course in 33:53 as mentioned above. That calculates to an average pace of  approximately 10:53 minutes/mile. Here are the mile splits…

Mile 1 – 10:49 Mile 2 – 10;56  Mile 3 – 10:46  0.13 Miles – 10:00

I think this may be the first time that the pace for all three  Miles was under 11 minutes per mile. And it certainly was one of the few times that my last mile was faster than the first mile!

I don’t think that I have ran three days a week for four weeks in,well,  probably,  more than four years. But hopefully like my yoga routine I hope I can keep this up!

The Soundtrack: Brighter Days – Grand Marquis

The soundtrack from yesterday’s run was provided by a band that I am unfamiliar with, Grand Marquis. I listened to their latest release Brighter Days. Grand Marquis is a blues and Americana roots band hailing from Kansas City. The band formed in 1998. Since then they have become a mainstay of the Kansas City music scene. They have also released eight albums and performed coast to coast.Their music is their own brand of Americana Roots, Blues and Prohibition-Era Jazz

Grand MarquisMembers of the Band include:

Ben Ruth: upright bass, sousaphone, backing vocals;
Chad Boydston: trumpet, backing vocals;
Ryan Wurtz: electric and acoustic guitars;
Trevor Turla: trombone, backing vocals;
Fritz Hutchison: drums, backing vocals;
Bryan Redmond: lead vocals; soprano, alto, tenor & baritone saxophones

Currently, Brighter Days is No. 8 on the Roots Music Report’s Blues Charts.

I never get a true listen to an album on a run, but I did like what I heard. So Brighter Days will go into my music rotation and I’ll let you know in a bit what I think!

You can check out Grand Marquis’ website here. Or visit them on Facebook

Here’s the band performing  “Brighter  Days”……..

 

Something New an HIIT Bike Workout

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Ok so yesterday in the morning it was raining again, so I didn’t go for a walk. But I also didn’t do a hard workout. By the afternoon I had very few steps, so I knew I had to do some kind of indoor workout.

I stared at the stationary bike and thought should I?  One of the reasons that I don’t really workout on the bike is that I have never really done an organized workout. I would get on the bike and pedal for 20 to 30 minutes maybe changing the tension every now and then. Overall, I used to think it was too easy!
 
The Bike Workout
You noticed I said used to think it was too easy? See yesterday I found a 20 minute Bike  HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) video on YouTube. Oh, there’s another reason I haven’t worked out on the bike a lot. I used to need to move my laptop around so I watch any YouTube videos to workout with. But now YouTube is on  Xfinity so I can watch it on the TV.
But back to the workout. The workout started out easy 6 – 15 second hard burst followed by 15 seconds of easy riding.  However,  when the burst of hard pedaling went up to 30 seconds and then 45 seconds, my heart rate started to climb and the sweat started to pour from my pores.

The Results

By the end of the workout I had burnt 225 calories, and had an average heart rate of 115 beats per minute (bpm). My maximum heart rate was 142. Not bad!
The end result was that it was a good cross -raining workout. Here is the breakdown of my time in each heart rate zone, during the workout:
peak – 1 minute
cardio – 16 minutes
fat burn – 8 minutes
 A New Workout Schedule??
So all in all it was an unexpectedly good workout. So now maybe I have a new workout schedule (remember Work at Target serves as my workout on Mondays and Fridays).
Tuesday – run
Wednesday – indoor cardio
Thursday – run
Saturday – cross train bike ( stationary or outdoor)
Sunday – run
In  addition to the above I will still be doing my daily Hatha or other Yoga. And if I can keep this up maybe by July I can run a 5K! Wish me luck!

Here is the workout. Give it a try!

Featured Image from : Amazon

A Valentine’s Day Surprise Leads to Karn Genealogical Discoveries

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My wife posted the above photo from Ancestry.com on my Facebook time line yesterday and described my status as being genealogical heaven. She was correct and her Valentine’s Day gift to me was the reason.

Probably a year or more ago through Ancestry, we found the marriage of my great-grandfather Henry Karn. He married Pauline Hechler in Brooklyn New York in May  of 1886. We never got around to ordering the certificate from the city though. The hope was that his parents names would be listed on the certificate. The only thing I knew was his father’s name on his death certificate was listed as Andrew.

As far as I knew Henry came to the US  from Hesse Germany in 1882 by himself. In the 1890s he was in the Philadelphia area and by 1895 he was living in Bridgeboro NJ. I have never found any Andrew Karn in any Federal Census  in either the Philadelphia or New York areas.

A Valentines Day’s Gift leads to Karn Genealogy Discoveries

Anyway, for Valentine’s Day, my wife contacted a researcher in New York and he went to the City Archives and got the certificate. To our surprise,his parents were listed. His father’s was not Andrew, it was Kaspar! His mother’s name was Katherine Sohl.

Edward Researches on Ancetry.com

On Thursday I was busy because we were picking up Oliver and then taking him and Zoe to play bingo at our elementary school. Sometime later that evening, I discovered a birth certificate on Ancestry among the Hesse Lutheran Church records. It was for a Peter Karn born in 1872. His parents were listed as Kasper and Katerina Elisabeth Sohls Karn. He was Henry’s brother!

A few more minutes of searching revealed a second brother named Andreas. Andreas was born in 1875 . Both of the brothers were born in Oberaula, in Hesse.  Next I found the children of Peter and Andreas. Peter had three girls Katherina Elizabeth, Anna Barbara and Martha Pauline.

Andreas had only one child listed in the database. A daughter Anna was born in 1906. Sadly, she died in 1907. Andreas died a year later in 1908.

The database, which had all this information, only covers births until 1901. I haven’t been able to find any of the children of Barbara who married Heinrich Moller or Katherina who married Johannes Braun in 1919 and then William Seiple in 1924.

The Research Leads to Ancestors in Oberaula Hesse in the Early 1800s

The final find was the death certificate of mother Katherina Elisabeth, Kasper’s wife. Katherina was born in 1838 and her parents were Johannes Sohl and Anna Maria Roth. While I have not found any death certificates for Johannes or Anna, based on Katherina’s birth year, they would have been born in the early 1800s.

So thanks to my wife and Ancestry.com in two days I went from knowing only my great grandfather came from Hesse Germany to knowing who his parents and at least two of his siblings were and where they lived in Hesse!  Now that I know that my roots go into the early 1800s in Oberaula, I can do some more online searching using German websites. Wish me luck!

Here is a link to Oberaula with some interesting pictures of my ancestors homeland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Into the Morning” with Kenny Barron and Dave Holland Part 1 – “Billie’s Bounce”

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Kenny Barron Dave Holland

So over the last few days, I have listened to the new album from Kenny Barron and Dave Holland The Art of Conversation and I will try to write about it tomorrow. But for now let’s go “into the morning” with a video of Kenny and Dave performing “Billie’s Bounce” and for folks like me, here’s a little about the song… from Wikipedia…

“Billie’s Bounce” (also known as “Bill’s Bounce”) is a jazz composition written in 1945 by Charlie Parker in the form of a 12 bar F blues. It was dedicated to Billy Shaw by the Yardbird. The original recording by Charlie Parker and His Re-Boppers was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.[1] Copyright 1945 by Atlantic Music Corp. Copyright renewed and assigned 1973 to Atlantic Music Corp.

The players on the original 1945 recording

Charlie Parker – Eb alto saxophone
Miles Davis – Bb trumpet
Dizzy Gillespie – piano (Gillespie also plays trumpet in other recordings from the same session)
Curley Russell – bass
Max Roach – drums

Read More

Enjoy!!

“Into the Morning” with blues from Kara Grainger!

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kARA gRAINGERAs I surfed around the Internet yesterday, I came across this great female blues artist!

A native of Australia, Kara Grainger draws inspiration from the blues of America. On Shiver & Sigh, her third solo album, the guitarist and singer/songwriter also incorporates elements of rhythm and blues and soul music in the mix.

I think Kara will have a place in my blues library! Let’s go “into the morning” watching her perform live!

“Into the Morning” with Blues from The Suitcase Brothers!

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So finishing second at the International Blues Challenge in the Solo/Duo Category were brothers Pere and Victor Puertas who together form The Suitcase Brothers. They represented the Barcelona Blues Society and boy can they play the blues. I listened tonight to their first album Living with the Blues and I am in awe of Victor’s harp playing! Here’s some information about the brothers from their Myspace page:

THE SUITCASE BROTHERS is a dynamic country blues duo formed by two brothers: Pere Puertas, guitar and vocals, and Victor Puertas, harmonica, piano and vocals.

Pere was born on W.C Handy’s birthday (November 16th) and Victor was born on Sonny Terry’s birthday (October 24th), so it looks as if these two brothers have been predestined to dedicate their talent to the blues.

PERE PUERTAS, the elder brother, got his first guitar at the age of 12 although he didn’t pay much attention to it until high school. He formed his first band in the mid 90’s, and soon invited his 14 years old brother to play harmonica with his band. Two years later Victor was playing all Gary Primich songs and solos on harmonica.

Pere has a powerful and soulful voice, and a deep knowledge of fingerpicking guitar techniques, particularly the Pre-War and Piedmont Blues styles. His main inspiration comes basically from recordings by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Paul Rishell and Annie Raines and John Cephas with Phil Wiggins.

VÍCTOR PUERTAS, is a powerful harmonica player, who also plays piano, Hammond organ and guitar. Nevertheless, harmonicas are his love at the first feel, and he plays them with deep emotion and sensibility. He is one of the top five favourites in Jerry Portnoy’s, Annie Raines and Joe Filisko’s list.

“Thick resonant tone, perfect attack, lovely vibrato and a beautiful flow of ideas that are just right for the song you’re playing. You’ve really got it and, by the way, your brother plays great guitar too.” Jerry Portnoy

So let’s go “Into the Morning” with The Suitcase Brothers and the classic – “Walk On”

I was right to be amazed wasn’t I!