opinions are like assholes...

there are many things that are wonderful about the internet and there are some that are not. one of the downsides of the internet is that it allows people the opportunity to say pretty much whatever they feel like anonymously. some of it can be very hurtful and not accidentally hurtful but hurtful by intent.

i frequently talk about my lady vol basketball team. the lady vol nation, the fan base is an interesting animal. we the fans have our favourite players and many fans feel better qualified to coach the team than the four people who are being paid by the university of tennessee. the lady vol nation loves their lady vols to death  and yet they can viciously tear into these young women.

as a sport fan you have to be able to recognize that on any given sunday a team that shouldn't be beat can be beat. a player that usually hits shots can suddenly have trouble hitting the broad side of a barn. when the wheels fall of the proverbial bus the lady vol nation is almost collectively suicidal. the critique of players, their game, the coaches and coaching decisions can often be brutal. but you know what is most unusual? when the team still manages to secure the win and the critique is no less brutal.

we have a message board that we post on. what i think many people forget is that not only do the fans have access to the message board but so too do the friends and families of the players. two weeks ago a poster appeared on the message board. from the language in her posts two things were quite clear; one was that she was quite young and desperately trying not to sound young and two that she was quite close to meighan simmons the lady vol shooting guard.

for reasons that i have never been able to understand meighan, who is and always has been one of our more consistant players has been decimated on the boards. she is unfairly accused of being a ball hog and when she isn't having a good shooting night they tear her apart for not having a shot. there are many of us on the board who defend the player who, on many nights, is one of the only things keeping our team in the game. but as it often happens the squeaky wheel makes the most noise and sadly that seems to be the voice heard the loudest.

during the post game interview after meighan had been named player of the game for the sixth time this season, she said that she wanted to prove that she was a team player. she said that not once by twice. so clearly the message, as undeserved as it was, had made it's way to the player's ears.

this supposed ball hog is third on the team for assists sitting behind the two players who's primary role is point guard. for those unfamiliar with the game of basketball the point guard is the floor general who is most often responsible for dishing the ball off to those in position to score. it is usually the point guards with the highest number of assists.

meighan if fast, she it talented and she is a very passionate player. she is a freaking joy to watch. i mean she literally disappears she moves so fast with the ball. i am thrilled that she plays for my favourite team. i just wish people would remember if you can't say anything nice, shut your festering gob.

in case there is any doubt meighan simmons is my favourite player.

go meighan simmons, go lady vols!!!

what the hell did i just watch?

it was just another dull saturday and i thought i would entertain myself by checking out some of the on-demand offerings from the movie network. i struggled with my selections as my options really embodied the concept of slim pickings.

the first movie i am almost ashamed to say i sat through. it was 'goon' staring seann william scott. i generally enjoy sports movies and figured that even i would like a hockey movie. i was very, very wrong.

determined to salvage the night i thought i would try a movie starting stephen dorff, a very talented actor who's work i frequently enjoy. this picture was called 'somewhere'. after 98 minutes, i would really like to be able to tell you what the movie was about. and you would think after 98 minutes i would have some sort of an idea.

i think the problem was that i wandered too far off the reservation. i typically enjoy movies in the action genre. the kind of movie that would pit the hero or heroine against a battalion of terrorists. the hero or heroine would be armed with the equivalent of a starter's pistol while the terrorists would be armed to the teeth with every form of automatic weaponry known to man.

armed only with the starter's pistol, their cunning and an almost completely unrealistic amount of luck the hero or heroine would begin to systematically dispatch the terrorists one by one. the hero or heroine should only sustain minor injuries no matter how violent the scene. there should be hand-to-hand combat, explosions, fire fights and car chases.

the kind of movie that i enjoy is not likely to debut at a film festival nor is it likely to win a motion picture award. well unless it was for special effects.

so with that regard it does make sense that i didn't enjoy the stephen dorff movie. somewhere debuted at the venice international film festival and it won the golden lion award for best picture. all i can tell you about that movie is that it shot right over my head.

in other news 'a good day to die hard', starring bruce willis, opens thursday night!

snowmageddon 2013

they said it would come and i for one did not believe them. at least once every winter they predict a crippling snowstorm. one that is supposed to tie the handcuff the city. they would promise hip-high snow drifts, traffic snarls, freezing rain, locusts, skurvy and pestilence.

what usually happens is a flake or two and a half an inch of snow in lieu of the predicted twelve. so yesterday when the news of the storm to end all storms came down, my reaction was simply... yeah, whatev's.

it did start to snow last night and it kept at it all through the night. i woke up this morning and they reported white-out driving conditions. they recommended people stay home and stay off the roadways as there had already been accidents and several vehicles stuck in the ditch.

i sat at home and i tried to decide whether i'd brave the elements or going back to bed. suddenly i heard a cacophony of sirens. it didn't sound like a single vehicle, it sounded like it was a fleet. it was at that moment i decided to become one with my sealy posturepedic.

two hours later i once again toyed with the idea of going to work. one look out my bedroom window cured me of that thought. the street in front of my house had not been cleared and there was a substantial amount of snow piled onto it. my car with its low profile tires was buried in the driveway. it my dad and i two hours to clear the snow and free our vehicles. my father armed with his trusty snow thrower and me with a shovel.

there is something about large quantities of snow that increases the idiot factor. allow me to cite some examples from today:

as i mentioned my dad and i were trying to clear the snow from our driveway. the woman next door jumped into her suv and backed out onto the roadway and promptly got stuck. by the power of 'rock and roll' she was able to make her way back into her driveway. my father and i went over to provide neighbourly back-up. she was determined to leave and i was perplexed. if she couldn't get her car out onto the street how was she going drive on it? i asked her if she had four-wheel drive. apparently it did and i suggested she put the vehicle into four-wheel low. she asked me to show her how to do that. what is the point of having four-wheel drive in your suv if you don't know how to engage it? i pointed out the switch marked all-wheel drive. she started the vehicle pressed the button and slid out of the driveway like a greased pig. last i saw she was happily motoring up the street.

my dad got it into his head that he absolutely had to go shopping. my dad's vehicle does not have awd or 4wd and the street in front of the house had yet to be plowed. my dad was out of the house for three minutes when my mother called me. i looked out the window and my dad's car is on a 45 degree angle in front of the house. he isn't going anywhere. i got back into my wet snow clothes and i went out onto the street to give my dad a push. no dice.

i grabbed a shovel and i was out there shoveling the street in my effort to dig my dad's car out. i alternated between pushing the car, shoveling the snow and i may have said some unpleasant things about the car's mother. i definitely remembered making the suggestion that my father's car was a female dog.

eventually we got the car back into the driveway. the entire vehicle and all its windows were completely snow covered again. my dad couldn't see shit in any direction. once we had the car in the driveway i wanted him to turn off the engine and call it a day. my father in his infinite wisdom wanted to try to blindly back his car around mine. the experience ended when i stood in front of his car screaming and gesturing wildly with the shovel. suddenly he saw the light, parked the car and got out.

there is a rule on the iternet "pics or it didn't happen." so to that end:

contemplating the navel

sometimes while i sit at the lights i look around and check out the businesses in the area. if there are signs and i have the time i might peruse them. earlier this week i was looking at the sign that detailed all the services provided by a north york wellness centre. of all the signs i was most perplexed by the one that said "navel therapy." as i continued on my drive to work i couldn't help but wonder exactly what navel therapy might entail.

since i have a rather warped sense of humour i amused myself with the thought of a defeated sunkist orange on a couch telling a therapist all about its tree issues. "with 40 brothers and sisters i never felt like i had my mother's attention and then before i was truly mature i was yanked right out of her arms."

i eventually got curious and googled navel therapy. it turns out it has to do with mixing herbal medicine's into a paste. the paste is then wedged into the client's navel. another option is a navel massage which is supposed to increase circulation and fix a battalion of other issues.

if anyone of you has ever tried navel therapy you gotta tell me all about it.

free-range miche

well my work day started out a far more exciting than i would have liked. i drove to work just as i have been every day this week. i paid for parking and made my way inside the building. my first hint that something was amiss should have been that i could not get into the building. the front door was locked. what was amusing was the woman who walked up to the door with me who felt there was something wrong with my door opening techniques. after my attempts proved unsuccessful she attempted to push and pull at the doors in practically an identical sequence. i can't say that i was surprised that her attempts proved to be just as unsuccessful. she reached into her bag and produced a pass card that she placed in front of a card reader and the door miraculously slid open.

i entered the elevator with two other people. the door closed and the elevator rose two floors. it made a strange shudder and then nothing. i looked up at the other woman in the elevator who said, "well that's not good." have i ever mentioned how claustrophobic i am?

i closed my eyes put my hand up to my face and focused on not losing my shit. the other two seemed to stand there calmly although every so often i could hear the woman pushing the elevator buttons. i did not help, i was busy. keeping 170 lbs of miche calm took every available resource i had.

the elevator probably wasn't stalled out for long. i will admit that i did not time the experience and i am also willing to accept that the experience likely didn't last as long as i thought it did. but i will also admit that it lasted longer than i would have liked it to.

eventually the doors opened on the second floor and the woman and i stepped out. i asked her to direct me to the stairwell, my new very best friend, for the rest of the week i will be taking the stairs.

paging dr. miche

my dermatologist writes me a prescription for a moisturizer with a 20% glycerin solution. usually she gives me the prescription with several repeats and usually for a 450 g jar. for what ever reason last time she wrote 250 g in error. since i use the moisturizer at least a couple times a day the 250 g jar does not go very far. further if one suffers from eczema, as i do, you get flare ups from time to time. during a flare ups it is not uncommon for me to apply it more frequently.

i only mention that because of an interesting exchange i had while attempting to call my prescription into my local pharmacy. the young woman who answered the phone checked my r.x. number was alarmed that the prescription had been filled two weeks prior. i assured her that it had and that i still needed a refill. she was still very concerned by the two week time span.

now who am i to tell the woman how to do her job but as god is my witness i had never heard of anyone o.d.-ing on lotion. but i am not a member of the medical community so i could be wrong. i had a follow-up appointment with my doctor today and i got her to write a new prescription for the larger amount. i did share my experience with her and even the doctor replied with a baffled, "but it's just moisturizer!"

so perhaps i could have gone to med school after all.

and if for a second you believe that... could i interest you in a title to the peace bridge* that i just happen to have handy here in my back pocket?

*the peace bridge

me and my family

as i drove to work today i listened to the y108. the two radio hosts had been discussing the super bowl. one of the things that they mentioned was the exchange that occurred between the brothers harbaugh, the opposing coaches, after the game. the hosts were convinced that the older coach, the winning coach, told his brother that he loved him. the younger brother's response was supposedly an awkward congratulations.

you know i wonder sometimes what it might be like to be that much in the public eye. where people are watching and recording your every conversation.

i can tell you right now that if someone were ever to pay that kind of attention to me with my family, i would not come across well. not only am i generally non-demonstrative by nature but i am also reserved and not a fan of the p.d.a. my behaviour is not likely to be any different after a loss. but if the rest of the world doesn't know that about me then i can see where they might think that my reaction had to do with the outcome of the game.

i am reminded of a time when i was in the mall with a friend. i saw my brother and he and i spoke briefly. we arranged to meet outside of a store because i had offered to drive him home. we split and went our separate ways. my friend wanted to know who that 'man' was. she was shocked to learn that he was my brother. she felt that we should have interacted differently as family and that we almost appeared to be strangers. our reaction is how we are, the interaction would have been the same had it been either of my brothers.

my point and i do have one is that sometimes you shouldn't read too much into what you see.

back day fail

i had higher hopes for today's back workout. i really did. i think i realized early in this back training cycle that i wasn't training properly to get what i needed done. the fault is all mine, i own it. i will have to do a better job next back cycle. the sad part of it all is that it will be three months before i am back to... back.

the next cycle is chest and it starts on tuesday. what i haven't decided yet is flat bench, incline bench, incline db's? one of those three exercises has to be my strength goal. i need to figure it out by tomorrow night. before i step on the floor tuesday otherwise i am going to end up with another disappointment.

it is time to start lifting with my damn head.

it's so hard to say good-bye to yesterday... again

i am happy to report that you can once again navigate safely from the bedroom door to my desk without negotiating around the mountain that was my pre-purge staging area.

unfortunately that also means that my stuff is gone. earlier today i loaded up the car. the last time i went to the dump my father went along with me. this time had he been moved to accompany me his sole option would have been to jog alongside the car. sadly i am not lying the car was that full. it does boggle the mind how much stuff one can acquire through the years. stuff that is just so painful to get rid of yet i rarely, if ever, looked at or used them.

after i returned i was discussing this very phenomenon with the poor boy... hmm it has been years since he has used that moniker i wonder if he even acknowledges it? oh well i am sure he will let me know after he peruses this post. but alas i digress.

poor boy asked me how i felt after having completed the purge. i told him that on the one hand i was relieved that it was over, the staging pile was approaching dizzying heights and i seriously considered setting up scaffolds for safety. but there was still a side of me that was saddened by the loss of my things and another that fears i will wake up with a face full of regret.

anyway storm1 had asked that i share a memory with the class but unfortunately the skating magazines had long since been sent onto their final rest. however i still had my x-games credentials so perhaps that will be an acceptable substitute?

back to the grind?

seconds before the clock struck 9 a.m. i received a call from my freelance agency. they told me that my services were required, for the day, at a studio in east york. i was to report as soon as i could get there. at the time of the call leaving the house was the furthest thing from my mind but since i need the cash i plugged in the after burners and got ready for a day of work.

it was a nice friendly studio and the requirement was something that i haven't done before. that is one of the benefits of working as a freelance artist. you get to experience different studios, work on different accounts and learn new techniques. i am unsure how long this assignment will last and i suppose that is one of the disadvantages of working contractually. sometimes you get a long gig, sometimes a short one, sometimes your working steady and sometimes your sitting at home for extended periods watching your bank balance dip to dangerous levels.

i will be going back there on monday and with any luck i will be there for the balance of the week.

so keep your fingers crossed people!

thanks in advance.

wrestling with some words

perhaps i was inspired by thursday's lady vol win. they played the lady bulldogs of mississipi state and the lady vols beat them handily to maintain a perfect record in the south eastern conference.

i was able to add another 675 words to my basketball story. i could have easily kept writing this evening but i realized that i still needed to write this post and update my facebook account.

at this point in the story my challenge is to write an action sequence. when i finish it i plan to share it with a friend of mine who is my basketball 'expert.' i need to know that what i have written makes sense to someone who has actually played the game.

every now and then i get really excited about how well this little project of mine seems to be coming together. when i first started i was both excited to tackle this project and intimidated by it as well. i think i settled down a bit when the words started to come. i get my attacks of doubt and insecurity when i experience writers' block. maybe that is what writers' block is, not a loss of the ability to write but rather the loss of confidence that you can write.

without confidence your creativity suffers. the challenge then is to figure out how to regain your confidence so you can write, paint, sing, etc., sometimes writing through the block works for me and sometimes it works best to take a strategic retreat. i suspect there is no hard and fast answer.

rising to the challenge... not so much

operation purge hit a major snafu today. in other words i didn't really get very much accomplished. i guess i just didn't realize how difficult this process might be. i just wasn't in the mood and frankly i felt a tad overwhelmed by the task.

i am very thankful to all the people who posted supportive comments and those who could commiserate with the challenge i face. it has helped even though my production today would suggest otherwise.

tomorrow is another day and it is possible that i'll be more productive.

time will tell.

so hard to say good-bye to yesterday

today was the start of a very difficult series of day's. there comes a time when you realize that you can no longer hold onto the physical manifestations of your memories. sadly, that time has come for me.

i have put it off for far too long, over the years i have accumulated too much stuff and frankly i don't have the space to keep it. so today, as much as it hurt and it hurt a lot i started to purge my life of my memories.

i took a trip to the goodwill donation centre where i left behind my barely skated in rollerblades, the skiis from when i was racing, my two snowboards, my burton snowboard boots and my first video camera.

i went back to the house and packed up the car again, this time with my ski boots, my well worn rollerblades, all of my skate pads, the large duffle and rolling duffles that i got as swag when i was rollerblading on both the NiSS and ASA skating tours. also in the car on that trip was my college portfolio pieces and a couple portfolio's containing my earliest professional work. this trip sadly ended at the local dump.

even with all of that stuff gone there is still much more to go. i am going to have to also rid myself of all the video tapes that i had saved of all my television appearances and the highlight video tapes from several stops on the ASA pro tour as well assorted press clippings and souvenir magazines.

there is also going to be a serious quantity of clothing heading slated for donation. which also includes my leather joe rocket motorcycle jacket. alas after years of bodybuilding my large jacket is not nearly large enough. imagine if you will a leather sausage casing with kevlar patches and body armor. that is what i look like when i try to squeeze back into that jacket.

day one of the memory purge was not fun at all. i know without a doubt that the rest of this project will suck as well. i can only hope that the years of falling out of the sky has not affected my ability to keep the memories in my head.

sometimes it sucks to be an adult.

a heartbreaker

tonight the lady vols snapped their nine game win streak when the fell 77-67 to the fighting irish of notre dame.

it was an orange-out in thompson boling arena. what that means is, the home team wore their orange away uniforms and they asked all of their fans to come to the game wearing orange as well. the stands were packed this evening not just to watch the number 9 lady vols face the number 2 fighting irish but also because tonight a banner ceremony was to be performed.

a banner celebrating the career of head coach emeritus pat summitt was raised to the rafters prior to the start of the game. the banner noted the years she served as lady vol head coach as well as showing her career  and conference wins as well as her eight national championships.

coach summitt had an amazing career and she truly touched the lives of many people. i thought it was amazing that four former players made their way to knoxville to attend the presentation. candace parker interrupted her season overseas in russia to fly in to attend. she is probably already sprinting for the airport to get back overseas. tamika catchings, chamique holdsclaw and michelle marciniak were also in attendance but those former players were already on u.s. soil.

so in light of the presentation it would have been one hell of a coup if the lady vols had pulled off the upset today. alas it was not to be and my little orange heart is heavy.

the lady vols fought a valiant fight against a hell of an opponent. no matter how far down they got, the lady vols kept fighting. you have to love that.

go big orange!!!

the new years set strikes again!!

someone left six 45 lb plates on the leg press. from across the gym i watched as two 18 year old women attempt to tag-team one of the plates. it took the two of them to pull the plate to the end of the bar, it took the two of them to lift it off the bar and they did this side-by-side shuffle thing to carry it across the room.

i decided that if they were left to their own devices it would likely turn out all kinds of bad. so i walked over to them and asked if they needed help, they said they did and i started to take the plates off. the two women turned to each other in horror at the ease in which i seemed to be able to move the plates off the machine. i suppose if i was a guy i would have been flattered but i was actually kind of embarrassed. almost to the point of wishing i had stayed where i was.

as i left they put a single ten pound plate on each side of the leg press. you know i looked all over the gym but i couldn't spot their walkers anywhere.

gym-newbies... heaven help us!!

seeing that which you can not un-see

i swear that i am going to start stomping my feet and whistling every time i walk into the women's locker room. if there is ever anything going on in there that i won't want to see. dollar's to donuts i am totally going to walk in on it.

take this evening for example. there were two younger black women in there. one of them was holding a bra up to her chest, please note that she was fully dressed at the time. it is also important to note that she was holding a bra belonging to a woman far more endowed than she was. and to complete the picture in you mind, imagine the woman patting the bra cup almost as though she was trying to burp a baby.

if your like me you are probably wondering why?

but i am also wondering... why me?

sometimes you just shouldn't multi-task

i think i would like to file today's blog post under the banner of 'really people, really?'

after finishing the balance of my workout on the gym floor i headed into the woman's locker room to use the facilities. as i walked towards an empty stall i overheard a conversation coming from another stall. i paused for a second and was somewhat relieved to realize that i was only hearing one side of a conversation. whoever was in the stall beside me based on the audibles was not in there doing her hair and talking on her cell phone while she was doing it.

okay so i can get that some people don't have the same boundaries that i do. and because i have the boundaries that i do, i think some things are acceptable and some things are not. i found it difficult to do what it was that i went in there to do. i guess you could say that i was suffering from a form of performance anxiety.

can someone tell me why it is okay to talk on the phone while your going potty?

is it too much to ask to take the three to five minutes to take care of business before you place or take calls?

is it just me?

stayin' perfect

my lady vols are 7-0 in south eastern conference play and currently sitting in first place. this is a huge deal since the squad was picked to finish fourth or fifth in the conference.

why? because of the major personnel changes. head coach pat summitt had to step down to continue her fight with early onset dementia, a precursor to alzheimer's. she was replaced by first year head coach holly warlick. coach warlick is not unaware of the lady vol system, she had been coach summitt's assistant coach for 27 years. all of that plus the fact that five senior's graduated and left the program last season, the tennessee lady vols have been overlooked all season long.

but what have the detractors forgotten? that. we. are. still. tennessee. some really talented freshmen were recruited into the program. so talented in fact that they were able to step in from the very first games and make valuable contributions. hell freshman post player bashaara 'beastshaara' graves has had, if memory serves, seven double-double games already this season.

last year's squad on paper had more skill but this season's team plays like a team and more importantly they fight till the end of the game. last year's squad seemed to get down and then just give up. there have been many a gut check game for the '12-'13 lady vols and almost every time they have stepped up to the challenge.

there are still a ton of games before march but god i love this team!!

creative mojo

i was at a sticking point with my story. likely because the story had deviated so far away from my outline. there were a couple other ideas i had developed that i had that felt like major story plot points but i couldn't seem to make them fit chronologically. i couldn't shelve the ideas, it felt like they were vital somehow. so i set them aside and hoped that at some point in time i could figure out how to fit them into the story.

still unsure whether or not the story i was writing was any good, i decided to share a couple pages with a friend to get reader feedback. well i was pleasantly surprised by the review and the suggestions she was also kind enough to include really got me thinking. suddenly i had an idea on how to insert one of the aforementioned plot points into the story.

and suddenly i am hit with a deluge of words.

idle thoughts

it has been more than a few days since my last contract ended and unfortunately i haven't started back to work yet. i do know that the economy is still in recovery mode and sadly that does have an effect on my employ.

the meeting that i had, almost two weeks ago, was for a year-long contract position. they were interested in filling the position quickly and since so much time has past since my meeting i am going forward with the impression that they gave the contract to another artist.

i have noticed over the years is that in any sort of interview setting i do not shine. i am not sure exactly what it is that i do 'wrong' i can only imagine that it to do with my lack of self-confidence and my inability to 'sell' myself. i do so much better in situations where i can go in knowing that i have a definitive time frame be it a couple days, a few weeks or a few months. in those situations i just go in and do the work and the client usually ends up being very pleased. that is why i generally end up staying past the expected end date.

the down side is that the more time that passes between contracts the less likely i am to 'wow' anyone during an future interview type settings.

while i do believe everything happens for a reason and while i am confident that my last contract ended because there was something better on the horizon i will admit to being more than a little nervous about exactly when the horizon will get here.

patience has never been my strong suit.

stickin' my head in the sand

i don't frequently read the newspaper but while for the microwave i flipped one open. the first headline i read was something about the biebs showing his ass. how is this news? the little #@%$ is so pale and scrawny how can you even tell if he's ass-out?

we live in a society that is full of  'apps,' some that will locate your favourite coffee establishments, some that track local traffic, some that connect directly to social media sites and take the challenge out of stalking... frankly the list is endless. well i have proposed the development of an app before and i am convinced now more than ever that there needs to be an app through which one could edit their news feeds.

i would happily exist in a world where i would not hear news of: either justin, gaga, any jersey shore cast mate, chris brown, rihanna, kanye and tiger woods and that is just a quick few off the top of my head. i am sure you have a list of your own. now i understand that although i think anything those people do or say is of no value whatsoever, i do recognize that there are people out there who do not share my opinion. they might even be glued to the news media in order to learn such vital bits of information as what ply t.p. the biebs likes to use to wipe his ass. in order to gather the answers to these and other questions of 'interest' the need for mercenary paparazzi remains. those 'wonderful' group of individuals willing to dive into the roadway in order to grab that all important shot of yet another hollywood starlet who can neither keep their knees together nor their underwear on.

i just think the world would be a better place if we could direct 'news' to the people who'd most appreciate it. so in my world the t.p. ply news story, for example, would hit the news wire and immediately be shared worldwide but before being displayed on my computer any 'news' dealing with the biebs would instantly be deleted. thus my new experience is far more pleasant one. as well i can perhaps hang on to a few more i.q. points. trust me when i tell you i am not in the position to risk losing anymore.

will somebody write the ostrich app please?

nice instead of naughty

most times i will post on facebook or the blog about some of the more dangerous or ugly training practices in the gym. i am sure it comes across like i am always inclined to point and laugh. i suspect there are those among you who wonder why i don't try to help. well i do... sometimes.

today i happened to see a guy who trying to teach his buddy how to perform the stiff leg dead lift. however he was teaching him the exercise in a manner that was nothing but a recipe for disaster. incorrect bar travel which put far too much stress on the mid-back. from there things could easily have gone terribly, horribly wrong.

i was hesitant to intervene, not because i wanted to see them injure themselves but rather because it has been my experience that younger males are rarely willing to take my advice. i can only imagine that those guys were receptive because they had earlier watched me dead lift 315lbs for reps.

anyway i did my good dead for the day and although their form was still a bit suspect they weren't likely to blow their backs out. well not today at least.

see, i can be nice.

a whole lotta nothing

there are some days when i just don't have anything to say, oddly enough it is not like there is a big empty vacuum inside my head. in fact it can be quite the opposite. imagine if you will, that the inside of my head is like a squash court. picture a handful of subjects, each subject represented by a super ball. wind up like a major league picture and fire the super balls at the nearest wall and then get the hell out of the way. that my friends is the best way to describe what is currently going on betwixt my ears.

i am going to give myself extra cool points for working the word 'betwixt' into today's post. i think it takes a special kind of insanity to go from super ball imagery to a word like 'betwixt' without losing a beat or pulling a muscle.

further who would have thought i could have go on for three whole paragraphs about nothing. hopefully you didn't invest too much time reading this post since i have no way of giving you your four and a half minutes back. perhaps you could put it on my tab and i will owe you all a real blog at a later date?

after all people, they can't all be winners.

why do i always see the weird stuff?

after my workout i went into the area where the women's washroom stalls are. now you need to understand that to get to the stalls you actually have to walk through the locker room. the locker room is equipped with benches, lockers, mirrors and even chairs. so perhaps you can understand my surprise when i walk into the washroom and there is a woman standing there in a bra and workout pants. all of her clothing is spread out on the counter and she had more stuff littered in the handicap stall.

it was obvious to me that she was using the handicap stall to change. okay i get that, some women are not comfortable changing in front of others. yet why she was half dressed in the middle of the washroom area is a mystery to me.

i went into a stall to take care of business and when i came back out she was fully dressed, she had most of her belongings packed away and she was using the counter like a ballet barre to stretch on.

gym noobies are some weird ass folk, i won't lie.

love will keep us together

i frequently use my blog as a platform to share all of the high's and low's in my life. sometimes i am hesitant to share something online for fear that it might somehow jinx it. that is the only reason why i haven't shared this important piece of news.

i am in love. i know i am almost as shocked to say it as you are to read it but i guess as mom always said "every pot has its lid, every hoe has it's stick of bush." first of all i have only ever heard that said with a jamaican patois and somehow that makes it sound like it makes a bit more sense. also that sentence refers to the garden implement and not the woman of questionable moral character but i digress.

his name is casper. actually because it is important i get this right i am going to break form with my usual disregard for capitalization. his name is Casper DeLusion. we have been together for a couple of months and so far it is the best relationship i have ever had. he fits into my world so seamlessly it is almost like he isn't even there.

we met in the gym and i have to be honest it wasn't those tired, 'see each other from across a crowded squat rack' type hallmark moment. he was polite and well mannered, hell i honestly thought he wanted to know how many sets i had left.

he has such a wonderful sense of humour and a kind soul. i can tell you that i knew that, from that very first day we met, in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. oh you know that old story, two people intent on grabbing groceries and they both simultaneously reach for the exact same package of oatmeal.

he is devoted to his family, he is such a fine and upstanding man. it also doesn't hurt that he is hot as hell. i am ashamed to admit that one of the first things i noticed about casper. that first day we met, at the local gas station, i was stunned by how freaking fine he looked when he climbed off that gixxer and peeled of his shoei helmet. i took one look at the man and i said 'damn!'

anyway it has been a year and a half that casper and i have been together. i tell you folks i really don't want to jinx this relationship but i am sure it is only a matter of time before we get married. i can totally see a destination wedding in my future. i would really love to marry him on the same carnival cruise ship where we met six months ago.

Casper DeLusion, the only man ever who could really share my life.

love you baby

manti te'o hoax

day thirty

once again i have challenged myself to thirty days of writing and once again i have come out the victor. i wasn't always proud of what i wrote but i am proud that i wrote every day. the challenge now will be to keep on developing this story at what i hope is a far more realistic pace. since my current off-days at the gym are mondays and thursdays those will be the nights that i will attempt to write. i hope that i will stick to my new timetable without the necessity of a challenge.

i finished the challenge with an addition of 200 words.

day twenty-nine

well i have yet to hear anything with regard to the meeting i had on friday. the agency seemed to think that we would have heard something today. so is no news good news? or has the client opted to go with another production artist? i don't know and i won't know anytime soon.

in the mean time i do have a couple days work so tomorrow morning i will be heading downtown. so at the very least i am thankful for that.

i was not anticipating a very productive writing day due to my concerns with my employment situation but i surprised myself with an addition of 225 words.

day twenty-eight

i gave it the old college try but the words refused to come today. a bit of a let down since the words were coming faster than i could get them down yesterday. but i have to assume that days like today are going to happen. who knows maybe tomorrow will be better.

i gotta get me some real sleep. my sleep pattern has been for sh!t the past few nights. getting up 'early' to listen to the lady vols basketball game didn't help either.

the workout today was pretty good. i think i am in a pretty good position to attempt to rep out 315 lbs next week. the following week i will step back the intensity, i still want to get at least 315 off the floor but for only about five reps. the week after that i will lift everything for three reps and see how high i can go. here's hoping i hit a p.r.

btw i am changing my training week. i've come to the realization that i need to change my off days. the x-rep protocol was designed around five concurrent training days. i should have modified my training days when i abandoned the protocol but i forgot. i am making the switch now and to that end i will be back at the gym after a single days rest. i will train tuesday, wednesday, rest again and then back to the gym on friday, saturday and sunday.

125 words.

day twenty-seven

time really does fly when your having fun. it is hard for me to realize that i have been at this for twenty-seven days. the other thing that is interesting is how some days i struggle to find words and other days i am like a word faucet that some one forgot to turn off. i am happy to report that today i was more like the faucet spewing out about 500 words. yeah you heard me correctly 500 of those bad boys.

today was a fairly busy saturday and i am impressed that i got everything done. i was sure that i was going to end up curled in the fetal position sleeping in a corner somewhere. but i made it through the day like a champ without need for a coffee i.v.

it was my leg day today too. i can tell you i was worried going in to train feeling the way i did. i was terrified that i'd nod off mid-squat and get buried by the weights. or worse because i was so tired that i'd have the raw strength of a colicky toddler. now while i didn't set any personal bests i did get it done.

so perhaps for today that is enough.

day twenty-six

cross your proverbial fingers. the meeting that i had today, the one that required the recent fury of portfolio activity, i feel as though the meeting went well. with any luck there will be a short respite between gigs. lord knows my finances would appreciate that greatly.

have i told you lately that my mother, the woman who gave me life, makes me infinitely crazy at times? i think i mentioned before that my mother's hearing has become compromised in her advanced years. or more succinctly she is as deaf as a stump in her right ear. she was told that she needs a hearing aid in that ear and she bought one several years ago. i am sure i've shared this story. she stopped wearing it because she said that it didn't fit properly and it would often slip out of her ear. rather than see someone to get the fitting issue corrected she opted to store the hearing aid in a box in her drawer. she chose that option because she was afraid of losing the aid and it had been a very expensive purchase.

flash forward to the latter part of 2012. my mother gets another hearing test and she is told in no uncertain terms she needs to wear an aid. there is another fitting and this time she is told there is something unusual about her ear canal and the units that fit within the canal are never going to work for her. she buys  unit that hooks over the top of her ear with a very thin clear plastic hook, the rest of the unit slips unobtrusively into the ear canal. for a hot minute my mother wore the device and suddenly the television volume no longer needed to be set to decibel level akin to a fighter plane during a fly-by.

little by little i've noticed that i have been repeating myself again. and that i can follow along with the program shown on the television in the living room, from the other side of the house. yep, you guessed it, mom has decided to stop wearing her aid again. the first time i called her on it, she explained to me that she didn't need it because she was in the house and she wasn't going anywhere. this of course was after i had to repeat myself several times.

rather than succumb to the urge to turn her over my knee, i have come up with another option. if we are talking and she can't hear me i will happily to repeat myself if her aid in. however if she isn't wearing it i have not intention of repeating myself. i figure if she wants to hear me, she needs to wear the unit, if she chooses not to wear it then clearly she doesn't want to hear me.

we have had a couple stand-offs since then. i've said something and she has asked me to repeat myself. i gave her a hard look and then she giggled like a school girl and admitted to not wearing her aid. she asked me to repeat myself again and i just shook my head and walked away.

*sigh

oh and 150 words

day twenty-five

wow look at that five more days and my challenge is complete.

if there was a downside to this challenge it would be that the story veered completely away from my outline. almost as though the story had a mind of its own. is that necessarily a bad thing? that would depend on my ability to corral this stubborn tale and get it back in line. the main purpose of this challenge was to ensure that i wrote every day so it may turn out that i end up with the story and its prequel. which might not necessarily be a bad thing.

it was a pretty busy day today. i did not go to work and i spent almost the entire day at home in front of my computer. i had to update my resume and try to pull my portfolio back together. one of the downsides of going from one extended contract to another is you tend to let the portfolio slide. suddenly you have an immediate need for one and you practically have to stand on your head to get it done in time.

250 words. the lady vols are not 12-3 for the season and 3-0 in SEC play. go lady vols!!!

i'd love to stay and chat but i am still working on my gabby douglas impression.

day twenty-four

today's blog is brought to you by the word 'awkward.' there is really not other way to describe my last two days at work.

yesterday i was informed of the change in my contract status at noon. an hour later there was a team meeting about who felt they required further training of the new proprietary software. the senior staff member who chaired the meeting, called me up in front of everyone to ask if i felt i required further training. as you can imagine i was taken aback. i mean who spends time training some one who is leaving the next day? i really wasn't sure how to answer him and to make matters worse he started giving me attitude since i was hesitant to commit. i asked to speak to him privately, turns out he had yet to be informed of my employment status.

fast forward to today. the next employee down in that command chain is responsible for distributing assignments. after an hour and a half into my shift i hadn't nothing left to work on. i knew that if she hadn't been informed she is going to encourage me to start a new page. as the low 'man' on the totem pole i am the first artist interrupted to work on last minute rush projects. the new work flow does not easily lend itself to passing incomplete assignments between artists.

long story short, she had yet to be informed of my status. they were busy putting out other fires to tell her and they wanted me to sit tight until they could. i was surfing the internet while ever one around me was tearing their hair out from the workload. a good thirty minutes had later and she notices that i idle she tells me that she, "needs to find me a page to work on." an hour into my surf-athon she came up to offer an apology as she has just been told.

i spent close to an hour and a half pounding the pooch before i got something to do. after i finished it i had another two hours of idle time before i packed up my lamp and left.

gad-freaking-zoooks!!!

on the word front i banged out 275 words tonight. i killed it!!

day twenty-three

well i knew the day would come. as a contract employee it is inevitable although usually there is a little notice. either there is extended periods of idle time or you physically reach the end of the project.

curiously we have been extremely busy. the work flow was recently redesigned a new programs was introduced that runs in conjunction with a proprietary application. the learning curve both on our side and the end clients side impacted the production and things were decidedly behind schedule. which is why i was so caught off guard today. my placement agency called to tell me that their client was done with my services, as of end of day tomorrow.

it is either an unfortunate turn of events or an opportunity not yet discovered, only time will tell. all that i know is that i was told to expect the assignment to last between 1-5 months. i would have been two years if i had lasted another four months.

the company changed during that time period and i wasn't as happy as i was before the buy out. and i definitely will not miss the games their payroll department like to play with my pay.

even though my overall mood is positive i find i am still pretty distracted. so i was really only good for about 75 words today.

perhaps tomorrow will be a better day?

day twenty-two

well i am amazed how well it went at the gym this evening. there was heavy traffic, which i expected and there was a sea of new faces which i also expected. i didn't have to wait for a single piece of equipment which was all kinds of awesome. so wasn't a whole lot of time left over to play, 'what in the sam hell is he/she doin?'

today was back day which meant it was my day to dead lift. you may remember that i was constantly tearing the crap out of my right leg? well i am happy to report that in the past two weeks i have managed to keep from re-opening that spot. it may actually have the opportunity to heal. my left leg however was not as fortuitous. as i blog i am sitting here sporting a brand new band-aid. since i left the phone in the locker today there are no new bloody shin pics to add to my collection.

guys dig scars i tell ya!!!

and before i forget i added 200 words today.

day twenty-one

i was distracted today. i am not sure why. i planned my day out pretty well and left myself plenty of time to right. i just couldn't seem to get into much of a flow this evening. so although i added another 150 words they really weren't some of my best. perhaps it is time to focus on another part of the story??

there is a woman at the gym who makes me crazy. one of the complaints most often heard by gym staff, of which i used to be, is that the machines are frequently loaded down with the big plates and a lot of female members are unable to de-load the machines to use them.

i think we can all agree that the imbeciles who load up the machines and walk away and leave them fully loaded are total ass hats. i believe doing that is as ignorant as the aforementioned female member who takes a stability ball and a mat into the change room. she lays out on the mat in the middle of the room and she flails the stability ball over head. now don't try to tell me that she is 'doing abs', i've been in the change room. yes she is passing the ball from between her feet to her hands and back. but the way she does it... it is all flail and no ab.

she gets up. has her shower. empties her locker and leaves the ball and mat on the floor in the middle of the locker room. every. freaking. time.

if you ask me, there is no difference between her doing that and the jugheads who leave the equipment loaded.

/end of rant.

day twenty

i guess you could say that i am into the home stretch now.

i was feeling out of sorts around 5:00 p.m. and i laid down for a quick nap, several hours later i was struggling to regain coherence. i was up, i was moving but i was not awake. after a couple of hours had passed and i was still vertical but just barely. with my head full of cotton and my eyelids held up by a handful of toothpicks the last thing i expected to be able to do was punch out another 275 words. but that is waht i did.

what i didn't do today was go to the gym. today ends up being an off day. there is no way i could train legs today without killing myself. tomorrow will be leg day and i will just have to go in monday for back.

monday night in the gym in january... ack! when the club is full of new year's resolutioners... Ack! clearly i am punishing myself. i do not take slacking off lightly.

day nineteen

i'd love to tell you about the dude at the gym who spontaneously started salsa dancing. i always have my mp3 player playing, with the volume as loud as i can get it, so i don't know if there was any latin music playing. it is highly possible that there wasn't as it is that time of year when the crazy just happens.

it is 11:40 p.m. and i had to stop writing for the night. i was on a roll so stopping mid-flow was kind of difficult but i was in danger of missing my deadline.

i added 300 words today and i am very pleased with what i accomplished.

day eighteen

well the next couple of thursday's are going to be quite the challenge, pun intended.

i need to get out of work as close to on time as humanly possible and as busy as we are that won't be easy. i will need to go straight to the gym to get through my hamstring workout so that i can be at home before the lady vols 9:00 p.m. tip-off.

it takes two hours to play a basketball assuming that the game does not go into extra time. which mean that i need to write while i am listening to the games. there isn't much time after the game ends to work on my story, write a blog post and then update my facebook before the midnight deadline

anyway the lady vols won and i managed a scant 75 words.

day seventeen

there was a smattering of words added to the story today. merely 100 of them. mostly because of  a lack of time. i had to work late which meant i got to the gym late which ensured that i got back home late and there wasn't a lot of time to write before 'chicago fire'. i really only watch about one or two shows a season. i felt season seven of dexter was a big let down but this new show has me hooked.

if you were on my facebook page today you would know that i went off on a tear about chris brown and rihanna.

here is what i don't understand. he beat the sh!t out of her, it was reported she had bite marks on her face. he left her injured and bleeding at the side of the road. when that news story broke, when the pictures of her injuries leaked over the internet i was disgusted and i was angry. i wanted to beat on chris brown like he stole something from me. perhaps my reaction, since i don't even know rihanna, was a tad excessive but for as long as i can remember, i get really hot when i hear about abused women.

i was never a huge chris brown fan but after that story broke i avoided his music, movies and televised appearances. the more money he makes for his handlers the more of his sh!t they'll sweep under the carpet.

but then it came out that she went back to him. i know it happens but i can't fathom it. it didn't happen to me and i am still angry... years later. well i wasn't a big rhianna fan but when they started showing pics of the happy couple i tried my best to ignore all of the coverage. then to my shock and surprise my social media time lines are flooded with people swooning over the fact that love has survived. love? really?

and god forbid anyone bring up the assault. those people were demanding that the rest of us 'stay out of' the lovebirds business. i am really not sure how those people justify gleaming over the assault and the horror of the attack. i can only assume that it is because they think he's 'cute'. i understand that jeffrey dahmer was considered to be an attractive man, so clearly evil doesn't necessarily have to be wrapped in an ugly sandwich.

so what brought on today's melt-down? this morning on my yahoo news feed the lead 'story' was that chris brown and rihanna had tweeted pics, that showed they spent new year's together in bed.

i ask you, is it just me?

day sixteen

i got a very respectable 350 words up today. i did something a little different though. at times i find that i get ideas for other parts of this story, that of course occur to be out of chronological order. today i decided to start a new document to flesh out one of those ideas. since i am feeling a tad blocked this might be a good game plan.

no additional rib complaints so for that i am thankful. i did however spend one of the laziest days on record. i was dragged kicking and screaming from my bed around 11 am. although i remained in my pj's up until my brother's son stopped by in the early afternoon and five hours later, i am back in them again.

i am the sloth. koo, koo, kah chew*

* a thousand and one apologies to the lads from liverpool

day fifteen

i was fairly uncomfortable for most of the day. there are many positions that are difficult with a misplaced rib. getting in and out of bed, turning over, hell even trying to dress yourself can be a challenge as well. there is also pressure in your back when you take a deep breath. so i spent most of the day in bed with an ice pack on my back.

after a lot of deliberation and mental coin-tossing i decided that i would go to the gym. i figured back day would either be the hair of the dog or it would be the proverbial camel's straw. i have been home for about an hour now and i am moving comfortable so at this point it was the hair of the dog.

attempting to get out of bed tomorrow morning could be another matter quite entirely.

all in all i am quite pleased with the last workout of 2012. here is to better, stronger workouts in 2013 with pounds of personal growth.

happy new year and all the best to those of you who take the time to stop by and read my ramblings. may you and your families experience nothing but health, joy and happiness in 2013.

p.s.: 225 words were added and we are officially at the half-way point of the challenge.

day fourteen

the struggles continue. i am adding words but i am not confident in them. hopefully all can be fixed in the second edit. but good words or bad there was another 150 added in today's effort.

trapper john was back at the gym today but he wisely left his furry hat at home. i wonder if he reads my blog?

in other gym news there is a very real chance that i squirted out another rib today. i either did it during front squats or when i was in the power squat machine. the padding on the yolk is fubared and i was distracted by what felt like a bolt head digging into my shoulder. i may have tried to shift away from the bolt head and likely made sh!t a whole lot worse.

in the insult to injury department: it turns out that the sports medicine clinic is open for business tomorrow, however my athletic therapist is at home with a busted ankle!! it's either going to be a case of miche heal thyself or suck it up and hope she heals quickly.

tomorrow i am supposed to dead lift and the focus of this six week training cycle is to either meet or best my previous record lift. it might be tricky with an errant rib.

day thirteen

arrgh!!

there is a word, a phrase that i am struggling to find. for reasons unknown my ability to find the words i need escape me. after i stalled out at the 200 word mark i gave up. actually giving up is really not a fair assessment, i consider it more of a strategic retreat.

i did manage to make it in to train today but it was not a very impressive performance. i struggled with the weights that i had planned to use. i hope that it was merely fatigue from my cold bug and not any real loss of strength. a loss of strength would really piss me off right now.

since i stayed missed yesterday's workout i will be hitting the gym on holiday monday to stay somewhat on schedule.

sadly it is that time of year again when the gym if filled with knobs and noobs who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. while some of it is entertaining some of it is also quite frightening. i am sure some of you think i should go out of my way to save them from themselves but since i no longer work there i just prefer to point and laugh. well i point on the inside i just snicker on the outside.

hey... i never said i was a nice person.

day twelve

i was struggling to write this evening. partially because i have a bug that i can't shake and partially because i have written myself into a corner. i need to do some more research before i can move ahead. hopefully i can be more productive tomorrow. tonight's 75 words was not impressive by any means but they are still words in the plus column. beggars can't be choosers.

no chest workout this evening just be more cold med's and then bed.

this post is short... but sadly not very sweet. maybe next time kids!

day eleven

since i was quickly running out of day, i had to be brief but i did add another 100 words. tomorrow i plan on moving one of my earlier chapters. i know i said that i would write 'forward's but as i mentioned yesterday the part of the story that i am currently working on has three distinct scenes that occur simultaneously. in hindsight i realize that i have the aforementioned paragraph out of order.

while at the gym earlier i had to marvel at the way a guy was training. he was doing seated rows and lat pull downs with a full back extension. extended to the point where his head was frighteningly close to the floor. i never thought i would see the day where cranial protection would become required gym wear. i should also add that i was not surprised to see him holding onto his back as he walked away from the machines.

gadzooks!!

day ten

525 words today. i am trying to tie together three separate scenes that happen almost simultaneously. i think that the method i have chosen is working pretty well, so all in all i am pleased.

yesterday i watched resident evil retribution. i am not sure what it is but for some reason i have recently become such a fan of the paranormal. milla jovovich's character alice is a bad ass and the fight sequences are so freaking awesome. i was literally cheering aloud as she dispatched her brand of justice. there was this scene where she broke a guys neck. she was standing over his prone body, she looked up and realized it was time to go and she just did this leg twist thing and you heard his neck break. it gave me shivers... the good kind.

anyway watching alice destroying zombies reminded me of something i had meant to show you. a while back StormOne offered to turn any of her readers into a zombie. well that was an opportunity i couldn't pass up. i sent her a pic from my recent trip to florida and like that i was zombiefied. i love this pic.

day nine

first of all i added 275 words today. in case you are curious my gift haul included some money, some gift cards, a new tennessee hoody and a dri-fit zippered jacket.

more importantly so far all of my gifts were well received. my brother was very pleased with the gift of golf balls. seems that was exactly what he planned to purchase for himself after christmas. score!! my mother was practically squealing when she opened her present. so i did well there as well. the gift i was most concerned about was my father's but when i saw him playing with it in his room several hours later i was pleased. my dad isn't one to show a lot of emotion and he has a tendency to save his gifts and you generally never see him use them. so walking past him pouring over the instructions and trying out the player on his own was very satisfying.

anyway i should go. pizza and cake beckon.

day eight

luckily it turned out to be a short work day. to be honest i wasn't sure i would have been able to last the entire work day. i was really noticing a draft as the day went on. the additional benefit to the abbreviated day was more time to work on the story.

i was able to add another 200 words. i named the two characters that i recently added, although technically i renamed one of them. i have to admit that naming characters is by far my favourite thing to do. i also created a photoshop file to help me keep track of who my characters are and their relationships to one another. and more importantly i did some research about a health concern that is going to factor into the story.

all that and i got a nap too. i slipped into a nyquil coma for almost three hours during the latter hours of the afternoon. yeah for me!

i guess i have put it off as long as possible, it is time to wrap the gifts i bought and stuff 'em around the christmas tree.

oh joy, oh bliss... who am i trying to kid? bah and humbug to you and yours ;-)

day seven

i ran into the bloke at the gym today and we discussed the writing challenge and the story. i told him about my need to cast more characters and my concern that there would not be enough time add to the story before the end of day. his felt that casting should count as writing as it is an important part of the process. i can see his point but since i didn't consider challenges like casting when i set the rules for my writing challenge i feel like changing things now is kind of cheating.

so to that end i focused on casting the characters i needed before i added a little more to the story. it was only about 75 words but more importantly i feel like i wasn't breaking my own rules.

i think that my blog is the only place that i haven't included post dead lifting pictures. so enjoy

day six

today was a big day. first of all i want to mention the 400 words that i added to my story. lucky for me it was not my only accomplishment for the day.

my intention was to get out of the house by 9:00 a.m to hit the stores. i needed to start and complete my christmas shopping before 3:30 p.m. i woke up feeling crappy and it was closer to half past ten before i was really up and quasi at 'em. it was 11:30 a.m before i really got the shopping thing underway.

my mother likes to wear sweat suits in the winter months and she likes them with holiday motifs. as the years pass it becomes harder and harder to track those sweat suits down. i was able to find some sweatshirts in one mall but had to go to another to locate coordinating bottoms.

my brothers and the sister-in-law were easy as they are all a bunch of golf nuts. a game that for the life of me i can't fathom but so be it. i will admit to basically mailing in the gift for my brothers kid but for reasons unknown the little sh*t does seem to have an issue with the words thank and you. my father was truly difficult. i thought maybe i'd get him a tablet since he is all about the computer game but without a wireless connection a tablet is somewhat useless. i am sorry but i am not comfortable with my parents having unlimited access to the interwebs. so after spinning my wheels in about three or four different electronics stores i finally settled on a portable dvd player. my dad is kind of gadgety so he should enjoy the new toy.

i was finished shopping by 2:30 pm so i was home with plenty of time to listen to the basketball game. sadly the lady vols lost but in their defence they lost to the number one team in the country. i will admit my team could have and should have played better but it has been a tough schedule of games with the last two games have been against the top ranked teams in the country. here's hoping they come off the christmas break playing with renewed fire and determination.

after the game i went to the gym. i have been focusing on my squat of late. my goal was to increase my squat poundage, to hopefully get it back to where it used to be pre-injury. it looks like i added 10 lbs to my 1RM, so that shows an improvement. it is likely not a true representation as i am still not 'better' and i somewhat congested. squatting heavy is hard on a good day... it is even harder when you aren't getting your full wind.

starting next week i plan to run a six week focus on dead lifts. the best i have ever done was 405lbs for one rep. i would really like to get at least get back to that weight. but i really want to surpass it.

after six weeks of deads my next focus will be on chest before i repeat the cycle again.

wow... i was wordy here tonight too.

day five

okay i broke the rules. i looked at the bit i wrote last night and i looked back at the scene as i wrote it in my journal. the journal version worked better. so i deleted 150 of yesterday's words but added 300 more. i still haven't cast the new characters that i mentioned needing yesterday. but then i was off work sick again today. three hours ago in fact was the first time that i got out of my bed today.

it is doubtful that i get a chance to do any casting tomorrow either. since the mayans were wrong, tomorrow no matter how i feel, i will have got to go out and start xmas shopping. i believe the stores open at 9:00 a.m. and the lady vols tip off at 4:00 p.m. So I have a good 6 hours to shop. I am curious to see how much shopping actually happens. I really don't like shopping at the best of times, so there is a very good chance tomorrow sees me grabbing a handful of gift cards and heading back to bed.

bag and humbug!!

day four

225 words were added today. it is almost time to introduce some new characters to my story. but before i do that i think i have to do some casting. when i started this story i had planned it around nine characters but the more i get into it, the more i realize that i need more characters. characters that i hadn't initially planned for. at this point i think i only need another two or three characters but as i move further along i may need to add a few more. the thought of trying to keep track of a dozen or more characters is really starting to freak me out.

should i talk about the deluge of treats that were laid out at work today? someone brought in an entire wheel of brie. and when i say an entire wheel, i am talking about the wheel that is the size of a small pizza. there were at least two platters full of baked goods, roasted pecans, two boxes of crackers that accompanied the brie. i think i even saw a platter full of gingerbread people. every time i went over to the laser printer there was another platter of food out. the people i work with really know how to lay waste to some food. and i am pretty sure there wasn't a lot of left overs. (read: none)

i've had to take another couple days off from the gym. i was home sick yesterday and obviously it wasn't a good idea to try to hit the gym. i have been feeling congested, like i am not getting my full wind with each breath. today should have been hamstrings but i believe you really need to be able to breathe for that. here's hoping all these sick days aren't working against me in the long run.

day three

there is something making it's way through the department at work. if i remember correctly three people were off sick on monday. i believe one person went home ill early tuesday morning and i was in no shape to make it in today.

my lady vols got spanked last night in waco. their opponent was ranked third in the polls so it was highly unlikely that my tenth ranked team would get the win. even still i was still very disappointed for the team and there is no way i would have been in a position to do any creative writing at the conclusion of the game.

today i added another 250 words to the story. it probably should have been a better writing day but it was a little difficult to concentrate today. with my last story attempt the most consistent criticism was my lack of description. i wrote without giving my reader enough physical clues to be able to imagine what the characters looked like. i am trying to do a better job of that with this story, it could be part of what has made this attempt far more challenging. sometimes i feel like i am so busy describing things that it is impeding my ability to move the story forward.

but it is still early going in the first draft. which means anything that doesn't work or needs to be fleshed out can be in later drafts. i have to remember above all my mission is to write forward!!

day two

today's attempt went better than yesterday. my favourite basketball team players the lady bears of baylor in about four minutes. i knew that i had to write before the start of the game. baylor is a tough opponent, we are down to eight players due to injury and we really could have used those injured players. either way the lady vols have been playing a hell of a lot better basketball than people expected them to this year.

i am happy to report that i added another 375 words to my story. i am also pleased that i seem to be getting back on track, as far as following along with the story notes that i have in my journal. sometimes when you write the story takes off almost as though it has a mind of it its own. you have to let the story develop and you really can't force it to follow along with your initial plan. or at least that is what i believe.

i will have to edit this later... it is almost time for tip off.

go lady vols!!!!

day one

man i sure hope this gets easier.

i have been told to get through a writers block is just to have to write. you try not to concern yourself with the quality of words but just keep trying to move your story forward. hopefully at some point you regain your mojo and overcome your block.

well i sat here this evening and i struggled to move my story forward. oddly enough, i know exactly what i want to write. i have pages of handwritten notes in my journal. but i just can't seem to transfer the words from on medium to the other.

i suppose the important thing was that i did it. a grand whopping total of 130 words. words that i would just as soon replace with a might stroke of the delete key. actually truth be told, i wrote a lot more than 130 words but suffice it to say that tongiht the delete key was going down more often that a new york
hook– umm.... never mind.

yesterday was back day and was doing the deficit deadlift. it is an excellent way to improve your dead lift particularly if you are 'slow off the floor.' the lifter pulls from atop a slight platform which helps you generate more power in the 'hole.'

i generally do this variation while standing on a reebok step which means the barbell is approximately 4 inches below me. i am pleased to report that yesterday i was pulling 225lbs for 6-10 reps, which is a new personal best. i am also pleased to report that i still cannot dead lift without cutting my shins open on the bar and i should also add that i am sick enough to take cell phone pics of my bloody shins.

clearly i need help... but it is all part of my charm.

30 days hath december???

no not quite... but i did want to make it official. starting tomorrow a post a day on the blog.

i plan to write every day for the next thirty days. i hope to use this push to get through my writer's block with my basketball story. i plan to post a quick recap of the days successes or failures here so you can follow along at home.

sorry to be brief but i am trying not to let the water overflow in the bath.

sometimes multitasking can be dangerous

do they know it's christmas?

i am forever amused by the people i work with and more importantly i have an excellent idea on how to tackle the world's hunger problem... well at least through the month of december.

on almost a daily basis there is scads of food laying around. i propose that some of the starving be brought by. now while i understand that cookies, cakes, chips, donuts and the like are not exactly the kind of fare that would be best for someone starving but in comparison to having nothing at all... it has got to be the better option.

what i also find amusing is most of my work mates claim to be dieting or watching what they eat. as near as i can tell they are just watching as they eat.

i know... i am going to burn in hell.

on a personal note i have been thinking i need to do another 30-day writing challenge. i have writer's block and rather than push through it, i haven't even been trying to write. i generally like to start new things on monday's so it is very likely that i will start on the seventeenth.

and finally this regarding this anne hathaway thing. apparently her 'personal business' has been 'splayed*' all over the internet. it seems the paparazzi caught her getting out of a limo. ms hathaway had opted to go commando rather than face the horrors of the panty line. gasp!!!

well i gotta tell you that i am a fan of the panty line... know why? 'cuz it means that i got my draws on!!! and do you know what it means when one has their draws on? it means slimy paparazzi can't take pictures of your business and spread it over the internet. they could still distribute pictures of your draws but i for one would rather that then the alternative. yikes!!

* pun intended

a brand new day?

once again i have let a lot of time pass between blog posts. the reality is that i have been doing some pretty heavy thinking. as i shared last time i had taken some pictures in florida. pictures that showed a result that i really wasn't hoping to see. it was my opinion and the opinion of a fellow bodybuilder that i have been losing size. losing size is a big deal to a bodybuilder it is the antithesis of what we are trying to do.

during the last two trips to florida natalie kept referring to a time when i used to be 'bigger'. and frankly those comments really stung. i couldn't imagine how i could consistently be in the gym and still be losing size. well i guess a picture is worth a thousand words. because clearly that is what has been happening.

earlier this year i learned of another training protocol called x-reps. the x-rep protocol was supposed to allow the lifter to train for size while utilizing weights that aren't as 'heavy'. which should allow the lifter to go easier on their joints. i was excited about a possibility where i could gain much needed size without risking further injury. it was the protocol i followed since the start of the year and it would appear that when push comes to shove, it really didn't work for me.

i am back to thinking that the only way to re-build the muscle mass that i lost is the same way i built it in the first place. so the x-rep experiment is behind me and i am now trying to move more weight. hopefully the next set of pictures will show a real improvement all round.

as i have said before... miles to go before i sleep.

fun in the sun

it has been almost three weeks since i returned from florida i guess i am more than a little late with my 'what i did on my summer vacation' essay.

ultimately it was a quiet vacation. i spent a lot of time relaxing at my aunt's house while my cousin was at work. however i did spend almost every day at the local l.a fitness.

i would have to say as far as travel gyms go, it wasn't too bad. it was more of a 'health club' than i would like but i made it work. it was generally quiet and for the most part other than the usual odd looks the locals left me alone.

we attempted to return to the keys for 'fantasy fest,' which is a week long festival that is highlighted by a parade down key west's main street.

fantasy fest is a tad hedonistic and as long as your covered in body paint, clothing for the most part remains optional. now while people tend to imagine tanned, firm bodies covered in paint the reality is entirely different. the bodies the should have remained covered were the ones most frequently on display. i suppose on one hand the fact that grandma was comfortable enough to wander around topless was admirable. however, it has been well over a year and i still can't get the image of her aged, saggy, leopard painted breasts out of my mind. or grandpa who was naked save the tiny neon green sack that hung from his waist. a sack that contained his grandpa junk.

last year we were down in the keys for the saturday but this year we weren't able to get there until sunday morning. turns out it is all said and done by then. so instead of live bands, dancing in the streets and costumed revelers it was just a quiet sunday in the keys.

as i had planned, i did take progress pictures while i was in south beach. since i've been back i have taken a really good look at them and to be honest i am not pleased by what i see. i had hoped that my legs would look balanced. i had hoped to have regained the size i lost after the injury. sadly they don't and i haven't.

what i can see is a bit more thickness in the middle of my back, which is a good thing. i can see a bit more mass in my delts, which is also a good thing. and finally i think there might even be a shade more pectoral mass as well. but i feel that the discrepancy between the two quads is still to great to be ignored. so right now i am thinking that i will still be on the injured reserve list during the 2013 competitive bodybuilding season.




today i sent a copy of the pics to a fellow bodybuilder for what i hope is a brutally honest opinion. people around me want me to compete and i don't think they understand that i'd rather not step on stage looking any less than my absolute best.

i seem to have failed

as i have shared previously i have been dieting for my trip down south. my goal was to take progress pictures and i had hoped to diet myself down to 160 lbs.

when i start a diet things appear to be go along swimmingly and suddenly i'd hit a plateau. the first time i stalled, i made a slight dietary adjustment and increased my cardio by five minutes and that worked. the second time my weight loss stalled i added yet another five minutes to my cardio and again i was successful.

i started my quest at 170 lbs and i was pretty damn pleased to be weighing 161 lbs. last week from thursday through to sunday. there was no cheat meal, there was no variance in diet but my weight did go back up to 163 lbs. is the sudden weight 'gain' a reflection of my stress levels? it could be because yesterday morning i was able to don a pair of jeans that i can't wear any other time of the year. basically i keep them in my closet to have something to wear when i get lean.

basically, i've lost a couple of inches of my mid-section, i can see a lot more definition when i train and i have lost anywhere from seven to nine pounds.

on to other news. in late july i went for a ride out in the country on my bike and to my shock and horror the bike stalled. luckily i was able to get her going and what should have been a 2 hour ride turned into a 5 hour trip as the bike stalled several more times. when i was able to get the bike into the shop they told me that the tank lining was breaking down, getting into the fuel line and plugging the jets. since the tank had be coated or lined twice previously they suggested that it was time to replace the tank. i attempted to take the bike out on short trips while i waited for the replacement tank but she was just too unreliable.

by late september it was time to start thinking about winter storage and as much as i love jade, i just couldn't fathom going through the expense of storing what was essentially a 400 lb paperweight. so after a lot of deliberation, soul-searching and bouts of guilt i realized i was bike shopping. i found an 2006 ninja 500, essentially the same bike just several years younger. jade is a 1993 ex-500. if i remember my kawasaki history correctly the ex-500 was renamed the ninja 500 a couple model years later.

i am purchasing the '06 from a bike dealership and unfortunately they had no trade interest in my '93. everyone suggested i try to sell the jade on kiijiji but as i don't have a winter storage options at home, private sale is not a viable option. consignment sale at my bike shop would cost me $250 plus 10% of the sale price. no sale? i would still owe them $250 for winter storage. so i looked into bike salvage.

the guy at the bike salvage place started talking about possibly buying jade, fixing her tank issues and re-selling her to someone else. i was excited by that plan, the knowledge that the old girl could bring some joy to someone else really eased my mind. they just needed to bench my bike to assess her value, to see all that they needed to 'fix' and what kind of shape she was really in.

the call came last night it seems that the v.i.n stamped into the bike frame was altered to match the v.i.n on record. what does that mean? it means that someone who owned the bike before me made the switch. since i am the fourth owner of that bike it could have been done at any time in the bike's history. was the bike stolen? i don't know and i guess i will never know. clearly buying used bikes off of other riders is not the way to go and from now on it will be dealerships for me. sure i will pay a bit more than i would with private sale but at least i would not find out something like this.

so there has been a little bit of drama in my life of late but then who among us doesn't have a little drama from time to time.

i will see you when i get back!

some suprises are nasty

payday is friday and i leave for my vacation next week thursday. you can imagine my displeasure at learning that work intends on holding on all payables until after the end of their fiscal year. which basically means i won't see a pay cheque until november. i am willing to bet those fawkers hold off until the second pay period in november.

when i got the email appraising me of this situation i was so angry i went out to the parking lot to cool off for a while. since it was not the first time they've screwed me over like this there nothing was 'cooled'.

and to add insult to injury i got to sit there while they handed out payroll statements to the full-time employees.

it is probably not much of a suprise that i did not finish out the day. i spent so much time internalizing my anger and frustration that i gave myself a headache.

i was at the gym a earlier this evening and even that hasn't been able to calm me down.

tomorrow is gonna suck.

body by slinky??

It's Slinky
It's Slinky
For fun it's a wonderful toy
It's fun for a girl or a boy
It's fun for a girl or a boy

it was back day and i was at the gym loading my bar between sets of deadlifts when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye i saw a female gym member. the woman in question appeared to be crawling along the gym floor.

the crawl to the locker room is something you would expect to see from someone who have done one hell of a leg workout. someone who has left it all on the gym floor and has no other method of forward momentum than by dragging their lifeless carcass along the floor.

this woman however was crawling on purpose. she started off in a plank with her socked feet hooked behind the lip of a 35 lb. plate. she would then drag the plate under her hips, from there she would walk forward until she was back in a plank position before repeating the drag. she covered a fair bit of the gym this way and i have to admit i had to stop what i was doing to watch in disbelief.

i do understand that a lot of folks have lost interest in traditional training methods and are drawn to crossfit and boot camp training styles. i would like to respectfully mention that they do have gyms that specialize in and are set up for those training styles. dragging yourself along the floor in a traditional gym turns you into a hazard. if i had stepped back for any reason i would have tripped over her. which more than likely would have had me knocking myself out on the sled press machine behind me.

the slinky lady comes to the gym with her gear-head boyfriend who is responsible for things she does on the gym floor. he sometimes comes to our gym wearing a t-shirt with personal trainer emblazoned on the back. i have to tell you nothing scares me more than watching him train when he has that shirt on.

i am convinced the boyfriend is a few fries short of a happy meal. that or mommy didn't play with him enough. he isn't happy unless he is training in the most obnoxious manner of all. we are talking about needlessly slamming the weights and screaming as if he was being castrated sans anesthetic on the gym floor. i know that he does it all simply for the attention because if you watch him you will see him toss himself to the floor lay there for a few seconds then pop his head up to see if anyone is looking before crumpling back onto the floor. almost as though he is suffering from an attack of the vapours the likes of which any plantation era southern belle would envy.

later while i was attempting to pick up a 45 lb. plate that some jug head had left on the floor not even six scant inches away from the hook it should have been hung from. 45's can be tricky to pick up if the plate doesn't have a natural lip, you sort of need to use your feet to nudge the plate up enough to get your fingers under it, preferably without crushing your fingers. which can happen as sometimes the damn plate will slip before you have established a firm hold.

there wasn't a lot of space between the plate loaded machine i was using and the delt machine beside it. if i am between the two machines struggling with a full plate that takes up a good portion of available space. suddenly there is sara slinky and she is powering her way through the tiny gap. just then a little pink thing goes sailing through the air. it seems her headphone wire caught on the handle of the machine and was ripped from her head.

i had to laugh.

now i can't say for certain that girlfriend was trying to intimidate me but if she was... somebody should tell little precious that i am the last person she mess around with.

it took quite a bit of searching but i finally found a youtube video of the exercise. notice the lack of people, equipment, weights and the like in the area where the exercise is performed.

ring the alarm

a couple weeks ago, on the radio, they started talking about one of the world's hottest peppers. this pepper, they said was rated 1,000,000 units on the scoville scale of pepper hotness. two of the d.j's ate six hot wings live on air. they were coated in a sauce made with the bhut jolokia or ghost pepper. suffice it to say they were quite uncomfortable and one of the dj's had difficulty speaking after he was done.

according to one of the dj's while working with this pepper you need to wear gloves and eye protection! at first i really couldn't understand the appeal of eating something that was so dangerous. at first!

my father came home with some peppers that he got from his friend. lo' and behold among them was the famed ghost pepper. i'd like to tell you that i recoiled in horror and ran screaming from the room but that was not the case. i managed to ignore the gleaming bottle of hot peppers on the kitchen countertop for a day or two. i was kind of holding out for a hot sauce made with the lone uncut pepper that my father.

it was a monday afternoon when i gave in and cracked the seal on the bottle. i dug out a pepper and added it to my lunch. the bottle holds a mixture of the jamaican scotch bonnet pepper and the bhut jolokia. the scotch bonnet it is worth noting comes in at paltry 350,000 units on the scoville scale. so needless to say, my meal was hot but it was still no big deal. i guess i picked added another scotch bonnet pepper to my dinner that night and in hindsight i supposed that allowed me to get somewhat cocky.

when i prepared my lunch for work on tuesday i grabbed a larger pepper slice out of the bottle. the pepper had been cut in half along its length. i did remember noting that it looked a bit different than the pepper slices i'd chosen previously but otherwise i thought nothing of it.

my first indication that i may have miscalculated came when i noticed that i could smell pepper while i was still a good 3 feet away from the microwave. the first bite of my meal taught me in no uncertain terms that this was not my mother's hot pepper.

i think i got about half of my meal down before i started hitting the water bottle. i remember sitting there in the midst of an intense stare down with the ghost pepper. you see, you can't let the pepper see you sweat. you can't let it beat you.

like the trooper i am i did eat the whole thing but i did have to wait until the plate got down to about room temperature before i could finish. it is kind of funny thing but as i waited for my meal to cool down i noticed that one by one my work mates started sneezing. oops... my bad!

because i generally try to keep my blog classy, i won't tell you about the ghost pepper's revenge that occurred later that evening. i will only say this about that... it was rough!!!

from light to dark

i am happy to report that the loss of carbs and the additional five minutes of cardio seem to be doing the trick. the scale has finally started to nudge its way to the left and further i needed almost a 1/2 inch less tape to make it around my mid-section.

if things continue as they are i probably won't need to make any further adjustments. it is still early so i am not ruling out a last week 'kick'. nothing too crazy, maybe something as simple as adding another five minutes of cardio. again, i should reiterate that i am still off-season but just want to drop enough bodyfat to 'see' the muscles that i have been trying to build. there is no need nor is it particularily healthy to aim for stage definition.

there have been no further developments of note on the writing front... much to my immediate displeasure. i should have nothing but opportunity during my upcoming vacation. it is likely that natalie will be working while i am there and i will have to fill my days somehow. last i heard she had yet to replace her computer after the break-in.

the thought of being away from the internet for eleven days does actually fill me with a sense of abject terror. dear god i might actually be forced to speak to someone!!!

now onto the dark.

a little over a week ago i spent the morning in a church saying good-bye to uncle noel. after a long and difficult battle with alzheimers we laid him to rest.

i have mentioned in here time and time again that i am not known for making a lot of family events but this is one that i did not miss. in fact during the post-service gathering my father was moved to remark how he was amazed that i was still there.

the reason i mentioned my uncle's passing is to discuss the funeral service. i have never recognized organized religion to be anything more than a cash grab and i honestly fail to see the validity of the funeral service. i sat there and listened to the pastor speak, the soloist warble and i watched the alter boys fight to stay awake when they weren't 'leaping' into action. as near as i could tell, nothing that was said or done that day seemed to make my aunt and cousin's grief any less.

at one point with all the standing and sitting, i sort of wished i had some weights to take advantage of the squatting opportunity. blaspheme much? well yeah... burn baby, burn.

the longer the service lasted the more convinced i was that i don't want a service held to celebrate my passing. although i could easily see how some folks might be moved to party on such an occasion. just toss my carcass into the furnace and call it a day.

what would make me happy, assuming i would still give a damn since i will probably be twisting in a sea of flames; i'd rather everyone just spend a couple hours doing something that brought them joy. hell... they don't even need to do it together. my brothers both enjoy golfing. i have no use for the game but i'd rather instead of spending a couple hours in a church trying to look sullen and miserable that they hit the links.

on one hand i find it kind of odd that i am contemplating my passing already but as time goes by i really only getting closer to the finish line and further and further away from the starting blocks.

as they say in la belle province... c'est la vie.