Eighty Years (or so) To The Big Zero

I totally think muscle memory exists. Without it I probably wouldn’t be in the shape I am now.

I remember back in ‘93 a Marine buddy of mine said, “Man, you know you can overwork your abs.” and I’m like, “Really?” as I continued to grate the cheese onto the frozen pizza using my chiseled abs. My friend responded, “Yes.” as he feed curls to his two massive pythons while preheating the oven to 350 in the community lounge. Ptyhons prefer rats or mice but this guy was a little strange so we let him feed whatever he wanted to his pythons. (Have you ever used pythons in a paragraph as many times as I just did? I think not!)

Then when I went to college in Dallas there wasn’t a whole lot of space to go for a run, or walk, or drive for that matter. Driving in Dallas always took an hour. And my rock hard abs began to soften into pebbles smoothed over by rivers of beer, dew and dorritos.

When I finally arrived in Maryland and entered my years of fog and living (and working behind a computer) in a basement my pebbles had congealed into a large boulder suitable for spraypainting by overpass lovers wanting to express their forever love to random strangers on the highway. (Only to break up two weeks later because she decided he wasn’t mature enough for her, but he didn’t mind because he found out she was sleeping with his buddy Mike and was about to dump her sorry ass anyway right after some angry sex.)

But I could still feel the foundation of former structure and glory during particularly difficult moments on the throne. The power of strenous taunt muscles screaming to rip out from behind the drapes of the Ice House and sink beneath the seat of velvet Crown Mansion, to slide off the slopes of Mt. Dew and bitch slap the Red Barron and his cheap (not inexpensive) pizza.  Wait. What were we talking about? Oh yeah.

Muscle memory.

So I totally think muscle memory is going to help me reclaim some of my former status as a God of Mount Olympus. And if I’m not able to move in at the top, perhaps I could make camp at the foothills? My memory ain’t what it use to be.

I’m still fairly strong in the upper body even with the winter coat I’ve been wearing for the last decade. If I were to reduce my entire persona into a d20 attribute system it would be this:
(Note 10 is where everyone starts out and is average human skills/abilities before training or experience, max is 20 and you are basically the best in the entire universe.)

Str - 12 (I’m not an ox but I’ve consistantly been stronger than most people. It’s hidden under my winter coat but I can lift and work pretty hard when needed.)
Con - 13 (I rarely get sick and when I do it’s bad but I emerge better and with a glossier skin tone.)
Dex - 11 (Perhaps this should be 12 as I’m fairly athletic when I put my mind to it.)
Int - 12 (Me’sa so smart. I understand why 2+2=5)
Wis - 12 (Me’sa occasionally have insights.)
Cha - 8-11 (depending on the situation and audience. I once dropped a baby on its head. That didn’t go over very well but since I wasn’t sued and was invited to my own going away party a couple months later, I think it worked out all right. This is the reason I don’t pick up children/babies. They make me nervous and lower my dexerity and strength stats.)

My ideal woman’s stats would be as follows:

Str - 8-15 (If she’s stronger than I that’s great. She can help move trees. I like tall woman anyway and they are usually stronger than most men. Although I’m not saying she needs to be able to plow fields using her fingernails, lifting a fifty pound bag of cat food (or grass) would come in handy. )
Con - 10-17 (This is dependant on which of us is doing the cooking.)  
Dex - 12-16 (Nimble is good.)
Int - 11-13 (you can’t be too much smarter than your significant other, or else one would start to resent the slowness of conversation. Unless the sex was above 15 then that can modify other stats.)
Wis - 7 (Any one with a stat higher than that would see through my Charisma stats and realize they could do much better, then stop returning my calls. This would make me sad.)
Cha - 13 (I like to laugh and being able to tell a joke/story or cover up for my awkward pauses at social parties would come in very handy.)
 

How did we get onto this topic? Oh yeah, muscle memory.

So I’m hoping you are right and my previous conditions will help with this current routine. I can already feel it in the abs. Tonight I did twenty sit ups to make up somewhat for the fact I didn’t get to walk tonight. They weren’t super easy but I could definitely feel them around 18. I also did 15 dips and those only winded me a bit. I think I’ll take it back down to 10 and 10 tomorrow. I’m only in week two of a six month program.

My shins and ankles were tearing me up from Sunday to Tuesday so I took Wednesday off. On Thursday they felt much better. I’m thinking I’ll take a single day off from walking each week until my legs start feeling like they aren’t on fire with each step. When I was in the service running was the worse part of PT (physical training). It was only when I started running on my own (during that three month period where I started doing the sit-ups and crunches etc) that I was able to slowly build up my stamina and was running 4 miles in under 30 minutes. It felt so good doing those runs. It wasn’t exercise it was joy. The body was toned and racing with energy each time I went out. You feel so good you just want to keep running and running. I suppose that’s why prisoners enjoy running in circles in the yard?

Then some huge high school kid named Lewis broke my collar bone when I was on leave during a “touch” football game and I couldn’t exercise anymore for nearly six months. Then I moved to Camp LeJeune and it was so freaking hot and the bugs were terrible and they kept us doing such menial tasks, I just didn’t have the drive to get back into it. Then of course college was all about the happy hour, and after college was all about the in house bar and computer work in the basement and one thing lead to another and here we are today. Man this is depressing. jI sound like a slug and hapless loser. Who writes this crap?

But not anymore. I’m back on the train baby! and it’s going straight to the top.

“But first I’m gonna go buy some donuts.” - W.A.

A Whole New You

I posted my first official set of records for 2008 in “The Daily Commute” page on the upper right hand navigation panel.

If these formulas don’t make sense please let me know. I’d hate to be living under the assumption that something was true when it really wasn’t. Wouldn’t you want to know?
PS(Oh, I went by Wal-Mart to get gas - it’s the cheapest in town - and didn’t go in for a stroll. I probably just saved $30 dollars. 8^)

The Daily Commute

So I went for a walk today even though I didn’t feel like it. It was 5:30 and getting late. I had been at work all day in very uncomfortable shoes, I drove home in traffic and I was feeling blah.

But I put myself into a mindset and changed cloths and headed out. I went too fast and my ankles and shins were killing me half-way through the walk so I slowed it down. The sun was barely shining light and the traffic on the road was getting busier. I kept on walking.

At one point an old 1970’s white Ford pickup truck came barrelling down the road. I had just stepped to the side of the curb when it came whizzing by and barely missed me. What if I hadn’t moved? That’s a little concerning.

Anywho… I’m finally getting home and my feet are feeling better.

I go into the house, go to the sit-up bench and begin my sit ups. I’m on auto pilot and start doing them and begin counting. I was thinking of something when suddenly I realized I had done ten situps without even trying.

That felt really good.

When I first started the sit-up routine last Tuesday I felt some serious pain in my upper abs and it hurt to lay on my stomach when I slept. I had considered rotating the sit-ups to every other day until I got better but by Friday I was feeling much better.

Now I’m doing sit-ups without even trying. Granted it’s only 10 but 7 put me in mild pain not a week before. That’s how it started when I was in the service in 93. I started out with 7 sit-ups a night and in three months I was doing one hundred situps, one hundred crunches and one hundred leg lifts all in one sitting - no pun intended.

I’m not sure I’ll get to that again but it is a goal. As the father in Contact said, “Small moves. Small moves.”

PS(The Hawking My Wares page is now up. Buy my stuff. You won’t regret it.) 8^)

A Whole New You

I mowed the yard on Saturday and as in the words of a friend of mine I “jocked out.”

I spent from 9am to 1:20 pm working outside and then came inside took a shower and sleep til 6pm. I was very tired.

To help you prepare for working in your yard I have compiled a list of tools you may need:

Bolt Cutters

Pliers

Loopers

String Trimmer

Lots of String Coils for trimmer

Ear Protection

Safety Glassses

A man  or woman

Chapstick

and a sleepy cat

After a couple hours of hard labor you to may have a beige (but trim) winter lawn like this:

(Before)(After)

(Before)(After)

(Before)(After) (This is a good picture.)

(Before)(After)

This Land

I quick note - I added the cookie jar graphic to the website.

The Credit Trap, Thinking out loud

On the 28th of December 2007 I got it into my head early one morning to mow the yard before the new year officially hit. It was a brilliant plan.

1) - take before pictures of yard.

2) - step outside and take pictures

3) - replace step 1. with step 4. then proceed to step 5.

4) - get dressed

5) - do step 2. then proceed to step 6.

6) - mow yard

Easy. As most brilliant plans are.

I took a couple shots of the back yard which is too brown and dead to put on an uplifting happy site like this and I took some pictures of the front yard. Green winter grass springs eternal.

That strip of dead brown in the lower left corner of the image is Zoyza growing like only bought by mail zorya can. Isn’t it beautiful? (see the process below on how you too can get a yard like this. 8^)

So I pull the string trimmer mower out of the barn (see lower right image below) and fire it up. (I nearly broke it a couple weeks ago. I couldn’t tell if it needed oil in the engine or not (the stick is crystal clear and there is oil covering the entire stick so I figured it was fine, but since I hadn’t put any oil in it in 1 maybe 2 years I figured it definitely would need some soon. But the stick was covered in oil I tell you, so I didn’t put any in.) and when it stopped working suddenly with a lurch, as I was going into a thick brush and white clouds of burnt oil smoke came from the sides I figured it was telling me it needed oil. I checked the stick. It was dry. Finally! So I put oil in it until the stick said stop. It never did. I put an entire quart in the engine. The stick didn’t say when I tell you, it was the stick’s fault.)

So when I fire it up on that cold December morning and white pillowy smoke starts coming out the side and it’s jerking from side to side like a $25 dollar a hour mattress I figure it’s getting the gunk out. That’s cool. Work that gunk out. Yeah. Work it.

Then it stops. No gas. Ah, ok.

So I drive ten minutes to the store, get gas, come back and fill the tank of the string trimmer. It’s a 6 hp string trimmer by the way and of the push variety. You put twenty inch long strings folded in half on the rotary and use them as blades. It’s a better machine than a regular lawn mower because when you wrap buried barb wire around the shaft it bounces back much easier, and when you hit a stump three inches off the ground hidden in tall grass your machines doesn’t go flying out of your hands. It’s for taming the lawn before you can starting working with it. 8^)

Gas tank full, stick still says full, start the engine. Nope. Start the engine. Nope. Won’t start. I didn’t want to have to do this.

I get the instruction manual and read it. Hmm… 20 ounces of oil max. 1 quart > 20 oz. Damm. I think I fucked up.

I drain the oil. I clean the chrome. I polish the fire engine red paint and gently talk to it reading Emily, and Whitman poetry as I try to get it back to working order. This takes thirty minutes.

It broke.

A week later I get it back from the lawn maintanance people a friend of mine knows.

“Yer git oil everywhur. Why it dint start. Carborator git oil in it. Filter soaked wit oil.”

“Ok. So it can be fixed though right?”

“Sures. Git me aday.”

3 arces of land you can call your own (after 30 years) = $12.5k
6 hp gas string trimmer from Lowes = $450 dollars.
Learning that less is more when it comes to oil = $52.68

And here is the process on how to prepare land for growing grass.

This Land

Just a quick note before bed.

Perhaps it’s just me but I like the ads showing up from google. I was able to select a 15 topic sets and they will run ads from those sets and so far they seem to be hitting certain themes inside my posts. Politics, gas, cars, foods, etc. Amazing how they can be so targetted.

Well I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier these days and it’s just not working out. I’ll get started on that this weekend to get back on schedule. School starts on Monday.

8^(

PS(What do you think of my exercise icons?)

Thinking out loud