what was that?

when i got home from work today i picked up the recycle bins and took them to the back of the house where they are kept.

a couple steps away from where we store them and something moved. i glanced over and i saw a long dingy grey and white coat. skunk!

i wasted no time getting the hell out of the backyard. in fact i am not sure that the recycle bins have landed yet. i launched the bins and shot out of the backyard with a speed that would make usain bolt jealous. in fact i didn't stop running until i was on the street in front of my house.

so the question is, is pepe le pew still out there? and who is going to go out there to clean up those bins? not this kid that's for damn sure!!!

ma nature:1 miche: 0

decisions... decisions...

i am the conclusion of another 6 week rotation of the x-rep training protocol. i started training with this style at the start of the year. i am still really happy with how things are progressing but it is definitely time to make some further plans.

my weight seems to hover around 167 lbs. i think that is likely the lowest that i am going to be without further dietary adjustments. there is a delt vein that is visible in my left shoulder most training days. that vein comes out when i am lean. the point of the diet was to get leaner clearly i have done that.

i can't see an advantage of being any leaner than i am now. to get leaner i would have to adjust my caloric intake and that would likely affect the strength gains i have made so far. also, i am not currently ready to do a show, so there is no advantage to getting leaner now.

one change i am considering is the frequency of my cheat meal. i would like to move it to one meal every four weeks. one meal every six weeks fits in nicely with the six week rotation of the x-rep protocol but i am curious if i could still maintain my current weight with a more regular cheat meal. earlier in the year my body weight would fluctuate more during the six weeks and the longer period gave me the opportunity to make more improvements to my condition.

i didn't bother to take any progress pictures at the end of this cycle. i also didn't take my measurements. since my weight has been as steady as it has it is likely that my measures will remain steady as well.

but what i am considering is filming some of the workouts again and posting more training videos.

why? for one it has been quite some time since i have done it and it is well past time to do a form check. when you train alone no one has an eye on your form. technique ensures you get the most out of the exercise and it generally minimizes risk. proper form is something i am always concerned with but when your going for one more rep sometimes things can go terribly, horribly wrong.

as well a lot of the exercises that i am currently doing are relatively new to my routine and i simply haven't had a chance to watch myself perform them.

i have a lot of decisions to consider during the coming de-load week.

it probably seems like i am going to a lot of trouble or even over thinking this but i believe that physique sports are a marriage between change and consistancy. you want to change enough to make improvements but not too frequently. you have to give your plan time to work.

rome after all, was not built in a day.

i regret nothing!!

first of all the movie was all kinds of awesome. consider that i waited patiently for nine months for the release of the avengers. that was a long time and the potential for disappointment after such a long wait was a legitimate risk. but then you have to factor in, the whedon factor. joss whedon owns this genre; action/adventure with a healthy dose of make believe and that should be enough but mr whedon also brings the funny!!

so how good would i say this movie was? this was; bring it home to meet the parents because you finally found 'the one' good.

i am sure that inquiring minds would like to know what time the movie finished and/or what time i got to bed. i left the theatre at 2:50 a.m. and it was about 4:00 a.m. before i hit the rack. it is likely that i actually did get forty winks as the alarm went off an hour and a half later.

today is clearly going to suck. i can feel that already. today i will be powered by nescafe.

my plan is to get through the day. drink my body weight in coffee if need be. have a power nap after work before heading to the gym to get my chest workout done. i briefly thought about going straight from work to the gym but i'll likely nod off under the bar and get pinned.

but ultimately i regret nothing!!

y.o.l.o!!

did i mention that saturday is my cheat day? yet another 6 weeks is behind me and i am looking forward to pizza and a deep N delicious chocolate cake.

but first i've got to get through today.

avengers assemble!!

okay this could turn out to be one of my worst ever decisions... but sometimes you just gotta say what the #$@*.

the avengers movie starts this weekend and for the truly twisted there is the midnight showing tonight. now clearly a midnight movie would not be a wise decision for someone who is required to get up at 5:30 am for work.

clearly i am not wise. i am going.

tomorrow i am going to be basically comatose but so be it. there has not been a movie released in forever that i have had any desire to see and i have been waiting for this one since they released captain america last year.

i can't wait!!!

job titles i could never have...

during last night's basketball game i caught a bit of the on-camera interview with the coach.

it got me thinking that they essentially ask the coach and players the same questions time and time again. surely it must get tiring delivering the same stock answers: we've got to cut off their dribble penetration. we need to better guard against the 3-ball. we got to stop giving them open looks. we need to shut down the lane. to list a few.

just once i would love it if a coach answered the questions like i would:

reporter: coach you had the game well in hand but towards the end of the half you seemed to let them back into it. what do you attribute that too?
coach miche: they started scoring more than we were.
reporter: (visibly taken aback) i see and how do you plan to turn that trend around in the second half?
coach miche: i was kinda counting on us scoring more than them.
reporter: (stunned) ah... thanks coach... and ahhh... good luck in the second half.
coach miche: thank you

there are a lot of occupations out there, that i am pretty sure i am poorly suited. it might be fun, from time to time to take a look at them.

or maybe just fun for me.

and i rant

there are some people who train at my gym who i am not fond of.

damn it this is my blog i can call a spade a spade. if certain gym members where to be sucked off the planet i would not miss them.

these people i dislike, i do so because of their behaviour on the gym floor.

i do not for one second believe that i am perfect. and if i had any interest in making this post any longer i would list out for you all my shortcomings.

i do believe that i am respectful of the other gym members and the staff. to that end i try to behave in a manner that is not obnoxious and i also make a point to return weights, benches and the like to the position in which i found them. unless of course i found them haphazardly strewn about the gym floor.

today we were entertained by captain sinew. he struts around in shorts and sleeveless tees, he is really lean. but truth is, he is not as muscular as he thinks he is.

timmy tendon needs to leave weights and bars on the floor. and any bar he uses he leaves loaded with the weight he used.

there were 6-8 dumbbells on the floor today weighing anywhere from seventy to ninety-five pounds. there was one lone female working at the club at that time and if she out-weighed the heaviest dumbbell it wasn't by much.

the next time i see slim shady he has a barbell wedged into the corner and he is doing t-bar rows. i think he had at least 200 lbs on that barbell. he just put it down after his last set and walked away. he had another barbell loaded with full plates for shrugs and he left that too.

now i could easily have included luthor lean-ass with today's earlier post but he is such a enormous POS i felt he deserved his own blog.

hey gilbert gristle!! learn to put your effin' weights away!!!

point to ponder

during our 30-day challenge the bloke suggested i post something about the sense of entitlement among today's youth. and although i did post about his chosen subject i have had cause of late to consider that blog was far too narrow and specific.

i am still friends with a gentleman i used to work with many years ago. approximately 4 years ago during the economic downturn we both ran into financial difficulties and we were unable to find work in our field.

it is important to note that my friend is a husband, a father with children he needs to put through university and a home-owner.

what i so admire about this man is that he took a job that he was grossly over-qualified for, but it was an honest living and if he was extremely careful he could still care for his family. as time went by he started to rebuild his business by offering his graphic services to the companies on his delivery route.

four years later and he is practically working round the clock. but he has built up a steady client base. he created something from nothing, if you will. and the best part is, it is now a lot easier for him to provide for his family.

let's compare that with yet another man i know who's life fell apart around the same time period.

now the second man is the father of toddler.

he wasn't able to find a job opportunity in his chosen field. and this man was quite content to sit at home waiting for that 'perfect' job.

the toddler's mother suggested that he go out and get a job. would you believe that he was incensed? he was convinced that he couldn't just hold a job. i guess he felt that he was destined for so much more. and anything else was simply beneath him.

in retrospect i wonder if our youth have a false sense of entitlement because their elders do? is it not a learned behaviour.

but the question is, how do we make sure that we have more people in our society like the first man?

they like me... they really like me

i was sitting at my desk at work last week wednesday and i was doing a whole lot of nothing. the studio manager came up to ask me it i had a moment. not only did i have a moment i had several. at that point i think i'd been idle for about an hour.

it turns out that they wanted to send me to calgary for two weeks to work on another flyer program. she explained that they would take care of all airfare and hotel costs. the kicker was, i was to fly out the sunday... a mere three days later.

i was rocked by the offer to be honest. i knew that they were happy with the work i had been doing for them... but to send me across the country! well that was just something i never expected. i will add that in my years of working in this field i had never before been sent on a business trip. hell, i didn't even think it was a possibility.

nevertheless i went home that night and set about rearranging my familial obligations so that i could go and i went to work thursday prepared to accept the offer.

it would seem the trip was not meant to be as they had located an artist in another part of the province to send in my stead. it made sense financially. they would still have to put the person up in a hotel but they would not also have to eat the $500 airfare.

was i disappointed? yes.

i have a friend who lives in edmonton who i haven't seen in a few years. we had planned to meet up during my stay. as well i have never been to calgary. besides it would have been an opportunity to expand my professional experience and work on a different account.

but clearly it was not meant to be.

regardless of how it all played out there is still one undeniable truth and it makes me feel really good. they asked me!! that will never change.

and who knows, maybe there will be other opportunities??

reflections

the other day i took a moment to go back to the start of this blog and read it through.

my first thought was that i am a truly sick individual and i firmly believe i require the help of a team of therapists working round the clock.

but that said. it was kind of interesting to go through the journey again. to remember some of the joys and of course relieve some of the lows.

i am hopeful that i have grown as a person in the six years i have been doing this. but it truly is hard to notice your growths, particularly when you are distracted by your short comings.

one of the things i couldn't help but notice was the people who were there in the beginning who aren't here now. some by their choice, some by mine and some by circumstance.

i can't really say what i believe, or if i believe in any official religious deity. but i am a firm believer that there is a plan, that certain people enter and exit your life to teach you things or to put you on the path you are supposed to travel.

with that thought i can't be heartbroken about those who are gone. i can only hope that i made the most of the lessons they were here to teach me.

its official

frequently through the work day, when i have down time, i will log onto the boards to see what is up in the world of women's basketball. i did so today at 2:30 p.m. and there front and center on the summitt forum was a post i never really ever wanted to see... but knew that one day i was going to.

at 1:30 p.m. a post was announced that coach pat summitt was stepping down as the head coach of the lady vols. she had been in that position for 38 years. imagine, she took over the head coaching duties back in 1974!!

she is going to continue on as coach emeritus. which means she can still be part of the recruiting process and attend practices as her health allows, everything right now is dictated by her illness. she was diagnosed with early onset dementia eight months ago. pat summitt had hoped to coach for another few seasons but i guess this past season proved to too difficult for everyone concerned.

pat summitt is tennessee lady vol basketball.

hell pat summitt is women's basketball! she influenced the game at the college level. pat summitt was involved in the inaugural years of the wnba so she influenced the game at the pro level. finally she had many years of service with the national team as both player and coach so she had influenced the international game as well.

when i logged onto twitter today the reactions were as inspiring as the woman herself. athletes from all over were tweeting in response to the news. from those who worked with her directly to those who know that the sport would not be where it is today without her influence.

so as sad as today is and it is sad. it is also a positive time as well.

one other thing i want to add. since i've had many a person point out to me so far that i had to know this day would come. yes i knew it was coming but just because i knew it was coming doesn't make it any easier to take.

party of one

You are still feeling pretty thoughtful, so hunker down and record some of the deeper stuff that bubbles up from down below. You may hit on a huge idea that helps you find new ways to deal with life.
~~ daily horoscope by astrology.com ~~

my mother for reasons of her own needs to see all of her children romantically paired. there is a problem with that need. her two youngest children are terminally single.

my mother and her friend were recently discussing my life, what i have done with it and the non-existent state of my love life. because my mother and her friends are from a different time they don't understand that it might be difficult to find someone to date. it is as if they think i simply need to wander into my local men 'R' us, where i can pick out someone suitable from the strong and muscular aisle.

what frightens me most is the knowledge that my mother still hopes that i will someday marry. i was in my late teens when i first announced that i would never marry. around that time my parents marriage was the most rocky.

it is also very important to note that i have never had an adult relationship that lasted any longer than six weeks. i simply can't see how i could marry anyone. i haven't learned how to be in a relationship to be part of a couple. a lesson most people figure out as early as high school.

a successful relationship is a balance. it is a give and take between two people. when you have spent your entire life alone you don't have that balance. you are either inclined to take as that is all that you know or you give unconditionally to ensure that the other person doesn't leave you.

i suspect that at this point i am a bad bet. i am probably too set in my ways and far too unyielding to make anyone a decent partner.

i honestly believe that we don't all get to fall in love. i firmly believe that we want it and that we look for it and some of the lucky ones even find it. perhaps if everyone experienced it then it wouldn't be as special? maybe some of us are supposed to go through life without ever experiencing romantic love. maybe as long as we experience some form of love; the love of family, friends, pets or food, we can still live a happy and balanced life.

my horoscope suggested that i had something to say and that i should say it. so that is where this blog post comes from. a thought that has been rattling around in my head for sometime. a thought that i kept refusing to blog about but the longer you ignore an idea the more noise it makes inside your head.

the signs of spring

have you ever noticed the sudden surge in people running and jogging along our city streets as soon as it gets warmer out?

i can't help but notice that 90% of those people move like they haven't run since they were in grade school. their stride looks awkward, their gait is off, their body posture looks counter productive.

i saw this black woman running this morning and i have never seen anyone move like that. she didn't run all crazy like the television character from 'friends' but i am sure if she had, it would have been less traumatic for me.

do you know how some men and women walk with some extra backseat undulation? well try to imagine someone jogging along the roadway with that kind of extraneous movement. for the life of me i can't understand how she was able to continue to move in a forward direction. surely that booty flailing should have shaken her off course some how.

you know sometimes i think maybe i shouldn't allow folks to experience the madness that happens betwixt my ears.

the plus one

after the challenge was complete it felt really weird to end the day without a post. so i guess that is what has me posting when i should be getting ready for work.'

but it wasn't as though there wasn't any writing yesterday. i shared my eve dallas story with another fan-fiction writer and it was well received. so i am currently working on making it longer, or at least long enough to come to an acceptable climax.

as well my mother is going to be making a speech in the coming weeks and i spent last night, reorganizing her thoughts for her. my mother writes with a very formal style and tone, which can make for a rather awkward sounding speech delivered to family and friends.

there was a change i felt compelled to make. my mother her, bless her heart, was recounting the good old days and used the phrase 'we partied together'. a simple enough comment and back when my mother and her friends we attending parties that phrase simply meant that they went to the same parties. however as soon as i read that line, do to the popular connotation of that phrase i instantly had the mental image of my mother and aunt dancing around a beer bong and smokin' weed. needless to say that was an image that was horrifically uncomfortable for me and HAD to be changed.

and on the 30th day she wrote...

well it is with both pride and a bit of a heavy heart that i submit this post. this being the official last post of the 30-day challenge. i am quite proud of the bloke and i, we got a lot of things accomplished.

mostly what i got out of this challenge, besides the opportunity to have some fun abusing the english language, was learning that there are still some uncharted writing skills that i have yet to develop. but mostly what i have learned was that my high school english teachers didn't know sh#t and they all just can suck it!!

i really didn't want to limp to the finish line with this post, i really wanted to finish strong. sort of the written equivalent of usain bolt. but for that i would need a really awesome topic and unfortunately i don't have one. so instead i will tell you a true story.

i used to entertain myself in online chat rooms and through that media i virtually met a lot of people throughout the u.s and canada. i didn't however always meet the smartest of people.

some americans, for whatever reason, have really unrealistic impressions of the canadian climate. and in these chat rooms i found myself frequently correcting the belief that i lived in an igloo and travelled by husky.

as you may have gathered from reading my blog, i am a bit of a smart ass by nature, i have a pretty vivid imagination, a quick wit and can spin a believable yarn. it now occurs to me that i may have missed my true calling... a life of crime, anyway i digress.

i was having a virtual conversation with a women who claimed to be a grade school teacher. if memory serves it wasn't even winter and she was convinced that we were completely snow bound. since i was in a mood i went with it.

i recall telling the woman there was a basically a four foot wall of snow that you hit as soon as you crossed the 49th parallel. i admitted to owning and exclusively driving a snowmobile.

but the piece de resistance and to this date i couldn't tell you where this pile of bull came from, i told her that there was a law in canada that you could only dress your children in a snowsuit that was neon yellow. she demanded to know why and was aghast to learn that the government held that kind of control. until i reminded her that with 4 ft. snow drifts it was far too easy to loose one's children unless they were appropriately dressed.

and you guessed it... she freakin' bought it!!!

more upheaval

it is very uncomfortable at work these days.

the new parent company made more of its plans known in a meeting today. that only full-time employees were invited to. another three people lost their jobs today and the parent company intends to cut another 15 jobs!

they held their meeting at 2:30 p.m. afterwards people wandered in a zombie-like state back to their desks. most gamely tried to work but the rest sat there, in stunned silence or talked in hushed tones with others.

these next few weeks are going to be really trying and i do not envy the full-time employees.

civility lost

the bloke and i had a brief chat the other day. the chat was inspired by a rather unfortunate set of experiences, he had while tending to the grocery shopping during the holiday weekend. the bloke was sorely amazed at how rude we have become as a society. for the most part, social niceties and good manners seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird.

i listened to his rant and i sympathized with his experiences but i cannot admit to having been alarmed. i had an interesting experience with someone who, at the time, i considered a friend. you'll notice i used the past tense, as the entire exchange really coloured my opinion of her. which might not be fair, as it is likely that my behaviour contributed to the mess that ensued.

i got an invite to a wedding shower. i am not 'wedding shower' people and those who truly know me, know this. in fact i opted not to attend wedding shower of my sister-in-law and i had the misfortune of being in her wedding party!

anyway i arrived 2 hours late to the bridal shower. the event was hosted by one of her cousins. not counting the bride i only knew one other guest. there were 4 small children racing around on those little push toys. at least one other guest and i almost had our toes run over by these micro-hooligans. i lasted an hour before i escaped.

when i walked into the house, 2 hours late, i gave the bride a card that contained a $50 gift certificate. she did not open my gift and i understood that, as the gifts were opened before i arrived.

several weeks passed and i had yet to hear anything from the bride. she said thank you when i passed her the sealed envelope at her cousins door. but i expected a separate thank you for the gift within, or at the very least, the acknowledgement of the picture of the bride and groom i had super-imposed onto the gift certificate.

during a blackberry text exchange i asked how many weeks had passed since her bridal shower. the answer was six. i then asked her how long i should expect to wait before she thanked me for the present.

i heard that she was sorry, i heard about how much she had to drink that night, i heard about how many days straight she had been working for weeks on end, i heard that she had thought she thanked me.

she did text the hugging smiley to me through the phone to say thank you.

she honestly thought that was an acceptable way to thank someone for a gift. but for me that was unacceptable. if she had remembered on her own and had sent me a text i would have been receptive. but she didn't and to do so after she realized her error, lacked sincerity.

she however could not understand why that wasn't acceptable. and i can't understand why she thinks it should have been.

so how could i expect strangers, john and/or jane q. public to say please and thank you when i can't even count social graces from people i considered friends?

we live in a microwave society where we have, in the interest of time, shortened a lot of processes and cut out a lot of unnecessary steps. unfortunately along with that we have also lost some of our more civilized behaviours.

tis a shame that.

who's that guy?

grant jeffries was 28 years old. he knew that he had, baring injury or a sudden health issue, lived for less than half his life expectancy. he was aware he still had many good years to come. unfortunately he was also convinced his best years were long behind him.

perhaps they were, when he was in grade school, when he first started to show an affinity for the sport of hockey. the teams he played on, the games they won, the tournaments there was a lot of attention paid to little grant and he soaked it all up like a sponge.

maybe grant’s happiest years were when he was in junior high school. when it became apparent that he was a half a stride faster than everyone else, that his stick-handling ability was just a bit better and his passes were just a bit crisper. coupled with his ability to be in the right place at the right time, he was hands down the star player in the league.

that was the time when grant’s hockey future was set. every break from school and he was in a skills camp. he began to move through the midget hockey league ranks as his parents sought a more competitive environment. grant couldn’t have been happier... or so he thought.

by the time high school rolled around grant had truly hit his stride. he had a strapping 6 foot frame, he was strong and he explosive speed. by now grant had a good stride and a half on the competition. he just seemed to ‘know’ exactly where the puck was going to be when it came off the boards. grant could fake any goalie right out of his skates. then the university scouts started coming around, offering grant his pick of some of the best hockey playing schools in ontario. but probably best of all, was the women. as a hockey player, no as a star hockey player grant had his pick of the girls in his school. at the party, just about anywhere he happened to be. yes, grant’s life was that good.

things changed when grant got to nipissing. for the first time in his life he wasn’t the fastest on the ice, in fact he was one of the slowest. he was no longer the best stick handler on the team and he still ‘knew’ exactly where the puck would be but only because there was another player ‘there’ waiting for it.

in a very short time grant went from being the man to the nobody. he didn’t just roll over and die. he hit the ice every chance he could, he worked with the coaches, he worked out in the weight room. nothing seemed to make much of a difference. he just kept sliding further and further down the rotation until he was basically in danger of falling right off the end of the bench.

nothing was going along with the plan grant had. he had planned on at least one invite to join the canadian junior hockey team. either after his first or definitely after his second season of national team play, the nhl was supposed to come calling. he’d even had several scenarios in his head where he scored the game winning goal to seal the stanley cup victory.

grant had no clue what went wrong. all he knew was he was 28, strong and healthy. he still plays hockey but it was just for an adult recreation hockey team. he still had all his moves but he was still a nobody.

once again another blog post inspired by a member in my gym. it is not that i think that every one on the gym floor has a tale of woe. but the real life 'grant', much like the real life, 'frankie' strut around the gym. they appear both cocky and incredibly self-conscious at the same time. it is that juxtaposition that stands out to me and usually inspires me to 'write' their story.

a question posed by the bloke

"do you know any truly happy people?"

thankfully i say that i do not. why would i be thankful about that? because i believe that being truly happy would make you lethargic. i am convinced that because we are not truly happy, we push ourselves to make improvements and changes that will hopefully lead to true happiness.

it is my belief that technological advancements and societal improvements happen when people try to make things better... try to make themselves happier. consider that someone might realize that they would be happier if they had more time to spend with their loved ones. that desire might inspire him/her to improve current technology, invent a new machine or application that saves time.

i would say that i know people who a happier than i.

i have a friend who is a constant source of inspiration to me. she is the kind of person who always seems to be making lemonade, no matter how many lemons life throws at her. she lives her life knowing that you can't make yourself miserable, worrying over the things you cannot change. she approaches any problem by first getting as much information as she can. and with that information she devises the best plan of how to 'fix' it.

i know people who are secure in the knowledge that they are in the career they are meant to be in. or if they are not already in it, the are well aware of what that career is and are taking the necessary steps to get there.

i have both friends and acquaintances who have love in their lives. granted relationships can be rocky to negotiate at times but in most cases, the love is still there.

as i suggested earlier i am not as happy as i could be. there are still too many things that are uncertain or unsettled in my life. but i want to be happy. so i continue to strive for that goal. that unachievable goal- true happiness.

everyday i get that much closer and yet everyday it moves that much further away.

good friday eve

tomorrow is good friday. generally people will be spending time with their families this long weekend. i however will not be with mine. my oldest brother and his wife have invited everyone up to their house for dinner. i imagine there will be quite a number of people there as my sister-in-law has 3 sisters and 2 brothers and among the lot of them, there are a number of children.

i stopped going to family dinners quite some time ago. it just got to the point where the dinners weren't fun or even interesting anymore. i found myself forcing conversation, feigning interest and counting the minutes until it was time to leave.

i eventually began to wonder if there was even a point of putting myself through that and i really couldn't find any compelling reasons why i should. how did it go over with the family? not well. they were visibly hurt, offended and finally resigned to the fact that i wasn't going to show. every now and then my mother likes to try to play the guilt card. just like she tried last night.

i succumbed to the guilt and i went to dinner. it was good friday several years ago. as my sister-in-law was getting ready to plate the meal she asked if i eat fish. i do not, in fact i never have. all they had was fish. i was not motivated to try to make a meal out of side dishes and dessert so i left.

when my mother started suggesting i go to tomorrow night's dinner i mentioned that i would have nothing to eat. she suggested that i bring my own dinner.

yeah... i think i'll pass.

gym follies

tonight i was in one of the power racks at the gym. i had just stepped under a 95 lb barbell and was in the process of lifting said weight overhead. suddenly this mensa giant, who had been quasi-training a woman beside me, decided that my rack had the only 2.5 lb plates in the entire freaking gym.

he suddenly grabs for a plate and my eye immediately tracks to him. i drop the barbell back down onto the pins and stepped out of the rack. i did not hide my displeasure although i didn't say anything. goober walks to the other side of the rack to get another 2.5 lb plate. at this point he stops and asks if it is okay. i was ignoring him and i may have been frowning in the general vicinity of my barbell.

you are going to risk injurying me for 5 freaking pounds??? i still can't believe that he intended to increase the woman's rack deadlift by 5 lbs??? that made about as much sense as adding a second set of clips to increase the resistance. a 5 lb increment is better for smaller muscle groups; delts, bi's, tri's. chest pressing with free weight falls under the same guideline because delts and tri's are a very real weak link in pressing movements.

a rack deadlift targets the legs and the back. the delts and bi's aren't a real factor in this lift. if you miss the lift, the bar harmlessly slips out of your hands. you are not likely to damage your shoulders or biceps. a lift like that you should be increasing by 10 lb increments. and before you say that she isn't a bodybuilder or powerlifter, that guideline rings true regardless of the person's fitness goals. as long as there isn't a predetermined health issue a 10 lb increment makes sense. i know there was no such health issue as she had been pulling in excess of 135 lbs.

i was in a tank top for the first time this year and there were a couple of young guys training to my right. one of the two started hanging out in my periphery, he kept looking over at me. he seemed to be spreading out his arms and puffing out his chest. he had to have been all of 125 lbs soaking wet. i weigh significantly more than that, so yes i was bigger than he was and i didn't need to stand beside him to figure that out.

after i finished my set, i put my weights away and i put the bench in an empty smith rack. that smith rack had the same weight that i had been using. i watched that kid adjust the bench under the bar. i guess he was going to crawl under that bar and try to do the same exercise that i was doing, with the same weight i finished with! part of me wanted to watch how it would have turned out for him. most smith racks are counter-balanced to 10-15 lbs. which means if you have 95 lbs on the machine, you are actually only lifting about 80 lbs.

i was doing a reverse bench press which is a difficult lift, the weight of the bar would have been about 40 lbs less than his body weight. yeah that would have ended all kinds of bad.

brought to you by the letters c-o-f-f-e-e

today was a rough one. i went to bed at a reasonable hour last night and i can only assume that i didn't sleep all that well, because i was not in good shape when i woke up this morning.

and when i say not in good shape i am not kidding. i drank a ridiculous amount of coffee today. between 6:30 am to 3:30 p.m i ingested about 68 oz. of coffee. and that is a lot. even for me.

now here is the kicker, after all of that i was still barely able to keep my face off my desk and my eyelids were well past half-mast. i left work as early as i could and i was home a little after 6:00 pm. where i promptly executed a perfect swan-dive into my bed and i was not seen or heard from for 2 solid hours.

you would think with all that coffee running through my system i would have been able to attend med school. nope! i slept like a baby. in fact it took everything i had to drag myself out of bed at 8:30 pm. i really don't forsee any problems sleeping tonight either.

go team coffee!!!

in other news tonight is the last official game of the NCAA women's basketball season and i couldn't be any less disengaged. i am not being a sore sport because my team got ousted in the elite eight. this year was just boring.

the elite 8 came down to all the teams ranked 1st and 2nd. then the 1's promptly dispatched the 2's. last year was exciting. 11th seed gonzaga came seemingly out of nowhere and made it all the way to the elite 8! texas a&m a team ranked 2nd took care of the number 1 seed baylor!

the most exciting thing about this season is the 40-0 win streak of baylor's. and frankly it isn't exciting at this point that team is just so dominant, a perfect season is a given. as they best more and more teams in these final games they have a swagger, a confidence... and that is a huge part in taking care of business.

either way i still don't like 'em. so there!

slow and steady...

it is the 1st week of april, 3 months after i started and i currently am sitting at a 15 lb loss. now it wasn't that long ago that i was telling you all of my 12 lb loss.

the human body always regulates itself. it is always trying to achieve homeostasis. it will allow you make more significant losses in body fat when you have more body fat to lose. however, as you get closer to where your body 'thinks' it should be, which is rarely where you want to or need to be, your ability to make significant loses becomes more difficult.

what many people do at this point is assume that they can't possibly lose any more and break their diet. your body wins and it is happy. significant losses can set your body into panic mode and it resists your dieting efforts, since it doesn't know what the hell is going on. for all your body knows there is a famine going on. and if it doesn't slow the weight loss down you might soon resemble one of sally or alex's kids. if you were to continue to stick to the diet you would find that you would start to make losses again. not huge changes because your body is still a little unsure, but there will be changes.

when i first started this diet i was aiming for 170 lbs, i used to have a decent amount of muscular detail at that weight. but since i have lost muscle mass from my knee issues i need to keep dieting past that weight, to hit that same level of definition.

i initially predicted my target weight to be 165 lbs. i am now 2 lbs away from that goal and i am no longer confident that is my true goal weight. i may end up having to get closer to 160 lbs and i can't begin to tell you how that does not sit well with me.

i knew i was going to lose muscle mass when my knees first started to affect my training. but i was completely unprepared for how much muscle i was going to lose. i honestly did not expect that it would take well over 2 years to get that regain the lost muscle. for that matter, i also did not anticipate the difficulties with my other knee.

so although i am happy to have lost the 15 lbs, i am not happy to realize how small i have become.

bollocks!!

that said, may 5th i am having pizza and chocolate cake till i explode.

up on a soap box

you would think since i have my own blog and i have only released the URL to a select few, i would be more comfortable talking about, whatever the hell i wanted to talk about. that however, is not the case. i have on more than one occasion had a subject demands to be discussed. so far every time it has bounced into my head, i have bounced it right back out again. today however, it wins.

it is not uncommon for people to develop an interest in the physique sports, specifically in the competitive end. there is nothing wrong with that, in fact i am all for it. my concern however is what frequently happens next. as soon as someone decides to compete they format a plan in which they become the sport's newest phenom. the plan usually involves a ridiculous number of shows their rookie season with them either placing top three or winning outright. confidence is not the issue, confidence is sport is a good thing. realism is also good.

for everyone doing their first show there are a ton of other athletes who have been at it longer, have been training longer, been dieting longer, have a better physique or just have more show experience.

not long after starting on their plan the rookie will also decide that not only will they take the local bodybuilding world by storm but they will also achieve pro status in record time. overnight the athlete seemingly morphs into someone else. they will likely go from someone quite pleasant to someone quite cocky. the skin of the paler athlete will then start to sport a almost cherry red hue. these kind of changes can suggest a change in what the athlete might be taking.

now i am a firm believer that it is your body to do what you want. i only hope that you make the best decisions you can and that you research the hell out of anything you might choose to take. but what i truly wish, particularly for the female competitors, is that people make it a habit to do a few shows first... before moving onto the high octane supplementation.

the male can 'try it' and change his mind with little or no change to his general physique. he can come off and his body will go back to the way it was. women just can't 'try it' but for some reason a lot of women believe they can.

so let us go back to what inspired today's post. a young woman did her first show last year and her behaviour changed in the manner which i mentioned earlier. as i understand it, she did well at the show(s) she entered. today she was asked about her future competitive plans. it turns out she realized that she just didn't like the competitive aspect.

she has crossed a line she can't uncross and she did it without even bothering to find out if she even liked doing shows. that is such a common mistake and it so ridiculously stupid. sadly it is almost an insult to be thought of as an natural competitor and few people are willing to go that route. regardless your final physique aspirations, you would do yourself a greater service by putting your muscle on naturally first.

the best bodies in the sport had years of lifting under their belts before they crossed the line. the drug what took and already impressive physique to the next level. let's compare it to a meal from a 5-star restaurant served on fine exquisite china. but you can't take a plateful of shit and put in on fine china and have anything other than a plate of shit.

finally i would like to add that i am not pro-use nor am i exactly anti-use. as a fan of professional bodybuilding i can't actually be anti-use. right or wrong those athletes are by no means unassisted and there is no way to convince yourself that they are.

it is not for me and maybe you feel it is for you. that is your right. but for goodness sake be smart. you really only get the one go-around.

writer's high

i had a lot of fun writing that post yesterday. i had never tried to do anything like that before and to be honest i wasn't sure i could even pull it off. the bloke and i have had many a conversation about writing and we both have conflicting opinions of my abilities.

those who truly know me, will not be surprised to hear that the bloke has a higher opinion of my writing than i do. he was the reason why i even gave the fan fiction style a shot. i will admit that i was pretty proud of how it turned out. it felt to me like it fit... like it could have been between the covers of a j.d. robb novel.

now i know that there were mistakes, grammar, spelling and punctuation. so i took another shot editing it today. i hope that i fixed where i erred but i fear i might have fixed the parts that weren't broken.

there is a school of thought that fan fiction isn't really writing, since you are essentially borrowing established characters. fan fiction likely exists due to the long wait time between novels. as i understand it, most authors are aware of the fandoms and for the most part are flattered. but there are others who are not amused and have the stories taken down.

my older brother is also a fan of the series and i hope to get my tale to a point where it is a lot closer to perfect. i then want to get him to read it and see how close he thinks it is... after i get his opinion then i will cop to having written it.

guess that means i am poking my head even further out of my writing shell

the bloke's choice

disclaimer: i do not own any of the characters from j.d. robb's in death series. i just borrowed lt. eve dallas, det. delia peabody, capt. ryan feeney and the 'in death' universe for a little while. i promise to return the lot essentially unharmed. stevens and all original unnamed characters are mine.

lieutenant eve dallas had a tactical team assembled in an alley way in spanish harlem. she also had another team covering the front of the building and a third in position on the roof. she had stevens penned in. all his exit routes were covered, unless stevens could fly he was hers. all she needed was word from the cyber-geeks of the EDD division. confirmation that stevens was actually inside. as soon as she had that she'd give her teams the go signal.

the problem was eve dallas has never been a patient woman, especially now as she waits in the alley. she could barely breathe, the stench in that alley was over-powering and she was almost ankle deep in some kind of swill. the question is why? it was the mid-21st century, there were recyclers everywhere. why was she standing in food waste?

"dammit feeney", eve whispers over her comm-link, "is the rabbit in the hole or not?" seconds later a frustrated captain ryan feeney replies, "dallas give us minute, we are peeling through all his privacy screens as quickly as we can. you want it quick or do you to risk setting off an alarm? i'll let you know as soon as we've got something!" knowing that she couldn't afford to push the tech squad any more that she had, she fell silent and glowered.

she was just about to stride over to her partner, detective delia peabody, when a door to her left burst open. "what the..?" was all eve got out. bent in the door way was a cook or a kitchen worker and he reached down without looking out into the alley. he scooped up the bucket that was at his feet and let the contents fly. a second later the door once slammed shut.

to her shock and horror eve dallas was covered from head to foot in the same type of food waste that she had been standing in for the past 15 minutes. as she reached up to scrape, soy chips and congealed gravy from her face she heard peabody choke back a laugh. a few of the cops in the alley had to good sense to become very engrossed in a weapons check. dallas' temper was legendary and no one really wanted to test her.

"okay we got a solid image dallas", came feeney's voice through her comm-link, "we are only showing one mixed-race female in an upstairs room. we've got her heart rate and respiratory data. so i'm afraid we've got no legal reason to crack that door".

dammit where was stevens? this was definitely his type of hidey-hole. either way with the EDD confirm there was nothing dallas could do. it was time to get her teams to stand down and return to cop central. she took a few steps forward and that same door burst open again. with one quick glance dallas saw the restaurant worker crouching over another bucket of filth. well she may not get stevens but dallas was going to nail somebody today.

she kicked out hard and fast at the door. which slammed inwards even faster than it had popped open. there was the sickening thud of heavy steel door meeting cranium. the door slowly swung back open and the unfortunate kitchen aid was out cold. his head dipped dangerously low in the bucket of waste. "peabody!!!" dallas shouts, "get dispatch to send a couple of beat droids out here to pick up this piece of crap. they can charge him with assaulting an officer".

peabody already had her link out and was almost engaged with cop central. she raised an eyebrow at her superior officer. "assault dallas? really?" eve took one menacing step towards peabody, "right... assault... i'm on it lieutenant".

last week for fun i offered the bloke the opportunity to provide the subject for the blog. it was an interesting twist to our challenge so i asked him for another. the theme was people who litter and ways to stop them. as an avid reader of j.d robb's in death series i was well aware of the fan fiction that surrounds the series. i was curious to see if i could actually write a piece of fan fiction so i married the two.

thar' she blows....

i was on my way out of the ladies room when one of my work mates passed me. it was the purposeful walk or the shirt collar that was pulled up over her chin. but something felt off.

seconds later she was motoring the other way. debbie, the production manager, said that what was happening was not a good sign. the woman in question, uttered a muffled sound of agreement and dove into the ladies room. debbie said, "it is never a good sign when a pregnant woman races for the bathroom".

she seemed to be in the bathroom for a long time and when she finally emerged someone offered to give her chocolate. i get most of my pregnancy knowledge from television but i always thought it was dry crackers to settle a stomach? either way i believe her work day ended soon after.

i just couldn't bring myself to use that bathroom for the rest of the day. there are three stalls in that rest room and it was possible i could have picked a stall she wasn't ill in. i am one of those people who will throw up if they see someone else vomit. the mere knowledge that she was sick in another room had me all kinds of queasy. the fact that i couldn't see or hear anything did not matter.

finally, today's post is likely very disorganized and i apologize. i am distracted by a couple of things. first while blogging, i am trying to participate in a lady vol fan chat room. secondly, very early tomorrow morning i am due to get another MRI. since i wanted to adhere to the 'rules' of the challenge. it was of the utmost importance i get something posted

after my MRI is completed i will try and translate this mess into something intelligible.

edited 30/03/12 14:00 hours

which way to the rack?!!

i am very tired. it was another really long work day. it started at 8 a.m. and ended after 8 p.m. additionally it is wednesday, which means it is my delt day. it is also the first day of my third 6 week cycle of the x-rep training protocol.

it was 9:15 p.m. before i got out on the gym floor. there were a couple people there that i knew but today i was not going out of my way to talk to anybody. it was closing in on 10:30 p.m. by the time i headed out the door. i only really got out of the gym as quickly as i did because i opted to skip cardio.

hopefully everything i did today passes quickly and easily through the approval process. i would hate to have another day like today. on one hand it shows a confidence in my abilities, as they have been giving me uglier pages to work on. by ugly, i don't mean aesthetically, although sometimes that too is the case. i refer specifically to the type of changes, the number of changes and the complexity of the changes. case in point, i spent 3.5 hours working on a single page today. mind you that page has a multitude of zones and exists in 3 separate language versions. yet, when you are staring at the same page for 3.5 hours it is awfully hard to feel productive.

well that was exciting. when you live with elderly parents you really can't hear strange noises and not investigate. i was just getting set to hit the publish post button when i heard a pretty loud, yet solid thud. my mother's room is next door. it seems she lost her balance and bounced her head on a shelf. she is now icing what is likely going to be one hell of a coconut.

hopefully that will be all the drama for today.

where my dog's at?

at the plaza i came upon a full-size pickup. i could see a couple sitting in the cab but what caught my eye was the dog resting his head on the window sill. animals are always a great source of amusement to me, i think it is because we are limited in our ability to communicate with them, but still they so readily get their point across. i did not need to know how to speak 'dog' to know that pooch was bored out of his freakin' mind.

the way the dog was draped over the window and the way that he didn't even as much as scent the air as i passed screamed, "can't we just goooooooo". in my head that dog sounds like an exasperated pre-teen.

that dog got me thinking about tasha, the collie-terrier mix i had growing up. i have so many wonderful memories of our time together, tasha and i basically grew up together. but i thought i would share with you one of my favourite 'tasha stories'.

it was hallowe'en and i was back from trick or treating. it was still early, back then your door bell rang as late as 10:00 pm. tasha and i were hanging out in the basement and when the door bell rang she would take off running for the front door. as she charged up the stairs she would pepper the air with her little puppy barks, 'yap... yap... yap... yap'. we would answer the door together, i would dole out the candy and then we would return to the basement.

once again the door bell rang and tasha tore out of the basement and i was hot pursuit. we are on our way up the stairs and tasha is in the lead 'yap... yap... yap... RWORF!!!'. tasha hit the brakes. her paws spread outwards and she whipped her head around to look at me. the look on her face was, 'what the fawk was that?!!' i have to admit i was pretty taken aback as well and i told her, "don't look at me... that came outta you".

she never yapped again.

manic monday

well it looks like the first soldier fell onto their sword today. just about lunch time the rumour mill was a buzz with the first casualty of the merger. the company is pretty large so although i have been working there for almost a year i still have yet to meet everyone. what i do know is that she was an employee with 12 years of service.

suffice it to say it put quite a mood on the place for the rest of the day.

the new head office had said that every employees, contract staff included, would know his/her fate by the 2nd week of april. it looks like they have started early.

what i find interesting is people are working with a guillotine poised above their head. yet they sent out a department wide email requesting overtime hours. it also asked people to volunteer to work through the long weekend to keep the flyer program on schedule.

twisted sister

this post is inspired by a conversation i had today. i was speaking with someone who was able to tell me one of their life's goals. i have to admit that i was a tad jealous. not of the goal per se but that he had one.

it continues to bother me that at this point in my life i still have no idea what i want to do, 'when i grow up'. year after year passes and i still am no closer to figuring it out.

people close to me have made career suggestions. i've been told i would make a great cop. suggested by those unaware of my hair-trigger temper. i imagine i would regularly be called in front of the internal affairs division to defend myself against charges of excessive force. tazing a jay-walker, firing a warning shot into a tire after a routine traffic stop, tossing a smart-mouthed teen into the back of my cruiser and taking him or her to ponderosa*.

family members often suggest that i consider stand-up comedy. i will admit to having a quick wit and hopefully with this blog i have demonstrated that i do have a sense of humour. there are a lot of other funny people who go hit the stage for open mic night. generally they bomb and the reason being is that most of us are funny in a limited capacity.

i can have my family in stitches around the dinner table. why? because i can do a spot on imitation of my uncle noel dancing. everyone in my family knows my uncle noel and they have seen him dance. when i imitate the 'walking up a hill' shuffle he does on the dance floor broccoli, rice and other food stuffs are spray through the air. but i couldn't for example. stand on stage in a comedy club and imitate my uncle. well i could... if i wanted to be heckled mercilessly.

i have tried to make a living in areas that interest me. i do remember my high school guidance counselors recommended that i pick a career that would make me happy. yet i was unable to make a living as a roller-blade instructor abd i was also unable to make a living as a personal trainer.

so until i figure it out, i continue to make pretty garbage. the weekly flyers that i work on are the kind that show up in your weekly newspapers. the one's you may glance at quickly before putting it out with the recycled trash. pretty garbage.

so until i figure it out, i will continue to admire those, like the person i was speaking to today, who knows exactly what they want out of life.

* i am not sure if they still call it that but basically a perp is cuffed and tossed in the back of the cruiser. for added punishment the driver alternates between speeding up and slowing down. the unrestrained perp bounces between the back of the seat and slams into the grill that is behind the front seat. if done correctly the perp's face will have a grill pattern on it, much like a steak on the grill at ponderosa.

extra style points given to those who get the reference behind today's blog's title

technology 1 - family 0

there was some discussion today about all of the remotes hanging around the living room television. my parents decided that there was a remote left over from VCR we didn't have anymore. mom was in the process of stripping out the batteries when i decided to take a peak at it.

it would seem that i managed to stop my parents from tossing out the remote for their DVD player. they don't watch DVDs as frequently as they watch VCR tapes so it is likely that they just didn't recognize it.

i told you that story to tell you this one. my mother wants me to figure out why the VCR isn't taping the right shows. i ran into trouble negotiating the menu and i decided to consult the users manual. what can i say? consulting the manual is usually a last step for me.

i have the manual and i still can't figure things out. in fact it is even more confusing that it was before i opened it. upon closer inspection i realized that i was looking at the owners manual for a JVC VCR. however, i was not looking at the manual for the JVC VCR that was in front of me. so we are currently in the process of turning the house upside down in the hopes of finding the correct manual.

i should also add that every and all internet searches for a manual in a PDF format has been unsuccessful. even going to the JVC website hasn't helped. that particular model has long since been discontinued and they clearly no longer have any web presence for it.

some people might suggest that i have given up... i prefer to think of this as a strategic retreat. perhaps tomorrow i will have better luck because i think it is a pretty safe bet that the manual long gone.

one for the bloke

i work with tammi*. tammi and jason* have a 16 year old daughter named nora*. nora has an unusual habit, she likes to collect coach purses. she has a number of these $100+ designer label handbags. tammi and jason insist that nora pay for the purses using the money she earns at her part-time job at whatta-burger*.

based on tammi's description, nora the quiet homebody type. she doesn't attend a lot of parties and is home most nights. her world seems to rotate between home and work. if that is the case, one kind of has to wonder why several high-end purses are necessary. does she carry her whatta-burger name tag to work in a coach purse?

late last year, tammi chipped in on a coach purse that nora, just had to have. barely a week later, nora announced she needed money to purchase a new outfit for the winter formal. as you can well imagine her parents were unwilling to give it to her and nora lost her everloving mind. she threw a tantrum, the likes of which she hadn't thrown in 14 years. then she gave her mother the silent treatment.

tammi and jason discussed not allowing any more purchases. they considered having her return the last purse to fund the new outfit. they settled on allowing nora to spend an additional $100 on something for the formal. they adjusted the figure to be $100 excluding taxes and finally agreed that the price before tax, could not exceed $125. to ensure nora didn't try to pull a fast one, she would be required to present the outfit with sales tags attached and the bill of sale.

now i have no interest in being a parent, it seems to be a pretty thankless job. i know that parents are motivated by the desire to ensure that their children have a better quality of life than they did. but sometimes things get a little skewed. it seems as though kids are coming to expect every and anything as their due. i fear what will happen to our society as more and more of these self-absorbed, self-indulgent individuals grow into adulthood.

this is tournament time in college basketball. division one basketball is big business in the united states. so earning a tournament berth is an even bigger deal. this year the university of miami was predicted to do well. partly do to the strength of one of their senior players. the tournament is set-up in a 'one and done' format, which basically means, as long as you keep winning you keep playing.

this particular player has a history of breaking team rules. based on how important she was to the team, her behaviour was often overlooked. this year however, her coach had enough. she was left behind when the team headed to spokane for the first round of the tournament. i suspect that the coach counted on the rest of the roster getting them through to the second round. as a third seed they would be facing a lesser ranked team, a team they should best handily. well as they say in the world of sport, 'on any given sunday'. through the selfish behaviour of a single player and truly inspired play by the eleventh seed, the miami hurricanes were sent packing after a single game.

this player was expected to go in the first round of the wnba draft. since she doesn't have any tournament exposure this year, the wnba coaches don't get one last look at her. she let's down her school, the program and the boosters who support it.

it will be interesting to see if she learns her lesson and makes some serious changes or will she spiral out of control. only time will tell.

* the names have been changed to protect privacy

today i opted for a different type of challenge and i asked the bloke to supply me with today's subject. hopefully my treatment falls within the parameters of his suggestion.

dear hollywood, you suck

i have over 1000 points. once you amass 1000 points on your cineplex scene card you can see a movie for free. i have had the ability to see a movie for free since before christmas. so why, 4 months later do i still have over 1000 points? because hollywood is releasing nothing but crap!!

i haven't seen a trailer for anything that interests me. so it looks like i am waiting for the avengers to come out in may. may!!! i remember a time when i could go to the movies every week, not just to get out of the house, but because there were movies playing that i wanted to see.

i love action adventure movies. the kind of movie where reality doesn't necessarily play a role. bruce willis armed with a hand gun, with a seemingly never-ending supply of bullets. and he takes on a barrage of terrorists equipped with the latest high-tech gadgetry and automatic assault weapons. bruce finally gets down to his last bullet. which he fires into the forehead of the last remaining terrorist, who's assault rifle conveniently jams and i am on the edge of my seat.

jason statham, in a tricked out audi leaps off a bridge. he soars 30 feet through the air and comes to a pin-point landing on top of a moving train. it of course goes without mention that the brakes will finally engage seconds before he runs out of room. "pass the freakin' popcorn!!!"

matt damon notices the closet full of C4 and has just enough time to start to dive onto the fire escape. the explosive blows and the blast launches him the rest of the way out of the building and into the river located conveniently below. he suffers no burns and he isn't hit by any glass shards or building shrapnel. the blast does not deafen him or incapacitate him in anyway and he is able to calmly swim away. "when are they filming the sequel??!!!"

the chick flick, the buddy fart-humour comedy, vampire 90210, the slasher flick, the disaster movie, or anything inspired by real events. "sorry... not interested". in fact i was all set to see a jason statham movie not too long ago, until i saw the tag line 'inspired by real-life events'.

life is real, i go to the movies to escape. if i wanted to watch real life i sure as hell don't need to spend $13 on admission and another $10 bucks at the concession stand. real life is all around you and that sh!t is free.

office drama... a dish best served cold

the company where i am currently employed, on a contractual basis, has recently been bought out by a much larger company. the interesting thing is the new parent company does essentially the same work but services a different client base.

where i am currently working is in markham, the new parent company is in mississauga. just a couple exits shy of milton, along highway 401. the building in markham is coming up on the end of it's lease and the parent company is moving the business west.

there are a lot of people where i work, who are beyond concerned and not without good reason. some of them already have pretty gnarly commutes to work, one guy lives somewhere called port perry and another woman comes in from curtis. there may also be a whitby contingent.

adding fuel to the fire they were also told that there will a lot of duplicate positions, once both companies are housed within a single building. sometime around the 2nd week of april they will receive notice whether or not their postion is secure.

it is times like these i am very happy with my contractual status. i know my projected end date and i know that i am not promised tomorrow. as unnerving as such a situation can be, it can also be very freeing especially in times like these.

say WHAT?!!!

i spent quite a bit of time thinking about a blog entry for today, to somehow make up for the drivel that was posted yesterday. i was minutes from my home, this evening, when the fates intervened. there at the side of the road... inspiration!

now i have many a fault and had you the time i would list them for you. but in the interest of brevity i will refer to a single, specific fault. i can procrastinate, i can turn procrastination into an art form... well at least so i thought.

tonight i was forced to come home, encase my crown in bubble wrap and deliver it to the new heir apparent. today is tuesday, march 20, 2012. it is the first day of spring. it is also the day that someone in my neighbourhood finally put their christmas tree out on the curb for garbage collection.

go ahead, wrap your head around that one... i'll wait.

oh and in case you were wondering, it was not a recently expired christmas tree. truth be told i should probably have reported them to PETCT but i didn't want to come off like a hater.

thirty two or one minutes to 8

i am going to admit right from the jump that this is a blog without subject, point and also i fear substance. the truth of the matter is that i am distracted by the 2nd round of the march madness tournament.

the game starts at 9:30 p.m and frankly by the time it is over i will not have enough time to blog before the EOD and since staying the course is the most important detail of this challenge, i give this. hopefully you won't hold it against me.

the lady vols played the depaul blue demons earlier in the season and were victorious. but there has been a lot of basketball since the teams last faced each other and both teams have made improvements.

how much of a hold do the lady vols have over me? i tried to book a massage treatment and was unsuccessful. the only time available was too close to game time for my comfort. i am tired and i thought about a nap after dinner but who am i kidding? i am either going to be too worried about sleeping through the game or far too excited to rest.

twenty minutes to 8. just an hour and a half to go.

go lady vols!!! survive and advance

who's that girl

francesca dilorenzo had recently started exercising again. it wasn't her fault that she had taken a break, but it may have been her fault how long of a break it turned out to be. it was really only supposed to be a couple weeks to get over the slight of rejection. how ever did 30 years pass seemingly overnight?

francesca found a gym in the g.t.a that was fairly large and always open. for the most part the people at the gym seemed nice enough. when they weren't looking at her strangely, judging her for the things she did on the gym floor.

it was the early 80's and the aerobics craze was front and center. there was going to be a regular aerobic program on citytv and after many an audition it was down to two women. it really could have gone either way. and really what made bess motta so special? nothing. it could easily have been frankie dee hosting the 20 minute workout. she could have been, hell she should have ended up being the household name. she should have been the one to end up with a bit role in the terminator.

so did she really care about the sidelong looks she got while as she worked out? she'd start off innocently enough doing bicep curls or tricep extensions but then in her head she could hear the theme music start. she could feel the platform spin and she would begin to just move... to lead her television viewing public through a program that would make her the fitness legend. she was the one pouting sensually at the camera as she begged the home viewer to do 'just one more'. it was frankie, not bess, who was bent over at the waist and looking all doe-eye through her legs into the camera lens.

don't these people know who i am?!!!

i people watch when i am at the gym. sometimes by accident and sometimes out of a sense of self-preservation. there is a new member and the way she carries herself and the things she does... well it is obvious that she has a story to tell. for grins i took a stab at what that story might be. and since the 20 minute workout, with bess motta was a very local thing. i found a clip that was someone saved to youtube.

cheat meals rock!!!

lately, i have been implementing a x-rep training protocol. this program is supposed to allow you to build lean muscle without using extremely heavy weights. you have to give your joints and ligaments a break as the years of heavy lifting eventually takes its toll. since i started having issues with my knee i realized that i just couldn't squat that heavy anymore. i was in the market to try something new and this program was recommended by someone in the industry that i respect.

the first couple weeks i tried the program i noticed a difference but i wasn't eating as well as i could have been. so i obviously wasn't going to see any lean muscle gains, so it was time to really give this program a test. the x-rep program runs in 6 week cycles with an off-week. the off-week allows the lifters central nervous system (CNS) time to reset itself.

what i am doing is eating 1750 clean calories a day for 6 weeks. then i allow myself a single, no holds barred cheat meal. i can't really stay completely out of the gym for a week, so i do what is known as de-load training. when you de-load, you train only to keep the blood moving and you keep your training poundages fairly light.

today was my cheat meal. i went for a burger and sweet potato fries at jack astor's and i came home and laid ruin to mccain's deep 'n delicious chocolate cake. chocolate cake frequently appears in my cheat meals. what can i say? i am a woman who loves her chocolate cake.

the program is working out pretty well i have to say. i am down 12 lbs from the start of the year. i also know that i dropped 2" off my mid-section in the past 6 weeks alone. i am pretty pleased with my bicep measurements but my calves are still lagging. bicep and calf measurements should be the same to have a balanced looking physique. so clearly i still have plenty of hard work to do.

luckily i am not afraid of hard work.

the magical law of murphy

my mother is of island heritage and although she has been here for quite some time, she still finds it cold during the fall and winter months. many years ago i happened upon holiday theme sweat suits and i would purchased them for her christmas gifts. over the years it has become harder to find these suits. so for the past couple of years i have taken to purchasing coordinating separates, (the holiday themed sweat shirt with a matching sweat pant).

last christmas i bought my mother 2 new sets. although she was very pleased christmas morning i noticed that she only ever wore one of them. it turns out she was hesitant to wear the second set because the sweat shirt was white. it has a snow family motiif complete with faux diamond eyes. i know what your thinking, but sadly my mother loves that crap; the faux stones, the sparkly bits, embroidery, glitter and sprinkles.

i proceeded to give her the business for not wearing the other outfit. she claimed that it was, 'too nice to wear around the house' and she worried she would get it dirty. i reminded her that i bought the outfit for her to wear. i did not buy it for her to adorn the hangers in the closet and that if it got dirty it could always be washed.

so a couple weeks later i notice that my mother was finally wearing the white sweat shirt. she decided to put it on after she got home from church. i made sure she knew that i noticed she had it on and she seemed pleased that i had. upon closer inspection i noticed a orange smudge on her chest.

i have to tell you that i was undecided as to how to handle it. eventually i grabbed the bull by the horns and said "by the way mom...". which was about all i got out before she snapped that, 'she knew she had already soiled her new top. and how it was exactly the reason why she didn't want to wear it in the first place'. i learned that i MADE her put it on and it was my fault that she had smeared her make-up onto it. furthermore if any of the faux diamonds came off while she was washing it, i was going to be choked out.

so flash forward a couple months and only the second time my mother had put the set on. she had invited my brother and his wife over to the house for dinner. i was in my room when i heard this commotion coming from the dining room. my father and my brother were desperately trying to get my attention. it seems that whilst enjoying her dinner, a piece of gravy covered chicken launched itself from my mothers fork. and, you guessed it, landed smack dab in the middle of her shirt.

i went out to take a look and my mother was sitting at the table fuming. she had this giant brown smear on her stomach. i looked at her, she glared at me and i backed away slowly.

things that make ya go hmmmm....

one of my co-workers is dieting and she is following one of the fad diets. the interesting thing about fad diets, is that they tell you what to do, but they don't really teach you why your doing it. the why, is very key. when you don't understand the why it is likely that you will make mistakes. the problem with making mistakes when dieting is that it generally means the diet doesn't work.

the other day i walked into the kitchen and my co-worker was muttering to herself as she perused the packaging of her protein powder. it seems she wasn't able to figure out the carbohydrate content of the product, as it wasn't listed among the nutritional information. she knew enough to know, that there likely was some carb in the protein powder. but she also needed to be able to calculate how many points the shake would be worth.

i took a look at the label and i did the math for her. if you know me at all, you know that math and i don't get along. also there was the added insult of attempting to do math at 8:30 a.m. it turns out that there was approximately 3 grams of carbs per serving.

she then upended a bag of frozen fruit into her shaker cup. i knew i shouldn't ask but frankly i couldn't help myself. i asked her how she measured her fruit. she told me that she, "just sort of poured about this much into the cup". i bit my tongue, the inside of my cheek and i pressed my lips firmly together and left the kitchen.

her 'diet' program has her freaking out about the 3 grams of carbs in her protein powder. but it doesn't teach her to measure, or include the 30 grams of carbs from the 1.5 cups of frozen fruit that she added. since she also made a milk based shake, you can best believe she doesn't calculate the carb content of that either. so where she may be thinking she is only having 3 grams of carb. she was probably putting in closer to 45 grams in a single meal. that doesn't sound too bad until you realize that means the carbohydrates alone count for 180 calories.

and that my friends, is why fad diets tend to fail. either they don't teach you how to do anything beyond blindly following along a set plan. or they don't teach you how to survive at your goal weight, should you even be lucky enough to achieve it.

but sometimes it is just fun to sit back and watch.

workin' 9 to 5...

i have just finished reading a couple of books. technically i tore through them. you know the book that you just can't put down, that you just can't seem to read fast enough? 'reach for the summitt' and 'raise the roof', where two such books for me. they are the story of legendary lady vols basketball coach, pat summitt and her experiences with a couple of her teams.

there are many lessons you could take away from her books. basically things you could do, within your own life, which could guarantee you more favourable results. beyond that you could read how she had to grow as a coach, in order to learn how best to guide the different personalities that came to her each year.

there were a couple of messages that were prevalent in the books that i found a little unusual. unusual but brilliant. the first thing that really shook me, was that failing was actually a good thing. i am terrified of failure, even the times that i hang my sh!t out there, i do so in a very controlled or safe manner.

pat summitt suggests that by failing we learn how to succeed. she also said that failure teaches you what kind of person you are, the truly successful will suffer their failure. he or she will move heaven and earth to recover from it and hopefully have a more positive experience the next time.

the other interesting message for me, was that everybody has a role to play. that we can't all be the 'star player'. some of us have to come off the bench and do the best we can while we are in the game.

that really struck a chord with me. i am a contract, computer production artist and in my current position i am part of a team working on producing flyers. flyers that appear in newspapers weekly all across canada. my part of the process is to do the changes to the files that other people have created. i do not design the flyer, i do not make the flyer pages and i do not subsequently create the variations of said pages that are delivered to different regions of the country. all that is done by other members of the team.

i recently mentioned to my parents my exact role in the process and they were both pretty disappointed. it was as though, the fact that i was not a major player in the process, or the 'star player' makes me a failure.

the reality is, as 'un-sexy' as my role is, it is necessary one. while i am cleaning up the mistakes or making the minor revisions the client requires, others are moving forward and building the pages for future flyers. since the client supplies us with very little turn-around time, what i do is still of value.

i earn an honest living. i do the best job i can and the reality is there is no shame it what i do. i am not the 'star player', i come off the bench... but i still contribute to the team and in the end we all win.

the method behind my madness

i think that what i really want to talk about today is why i am doing this challenge. i know that in yesterday's post i mentioned how much i enjoy blogging but what i don't think i explained is why i made it into a 30-day challenge.

i believe that there are things that we all enjoy doing, that are good for our soul if you will. but i also believe that for many of us there are too many other responsibilities that must be handled on a daily basis. usually it means that there are things that get pushed to the side. we plan to do them later but later never happens.

for me, this 30-day challenge gives the activity that i enjoy an importance, something that can rival any of my other responsibilities. i don't need to write a tome, nor do i need to create a classic like 'war and peace' or 'huckleberry finn'. i really just need to take a few minutes out of my day and do something for me.

i have made the commitment to make it to the gym 5 times a week to train the muscles in my body from my neck down. this 30-day challenge allows me to exercise the big lump of jello between my ears.

so until tomorrow...

back to life...

... beep... beep... beep... beep...
~ lets move... it's CODING!!!!
~ i'm taking over compressions... it's in v-fib
~ push an amp of epi and charge the paddles to 360
~ good charge
~ is it loaded?
~ yup... we're doin' it
~ CLEAR!!!!!
kah-chUNNN
... beep... beep... beep... beep...
~ it's hemorrhaging... it's probably in D.I.C
~ charge again
~ go
~ hang some ephi-epi and factor 7
~ CLEAR!!!!!
kah-chUNNN
bawp...... bawp........ bawp........ bawp........
~ normal sinus rhythm... good work people!!!***

after 2 years of silence, guess who is back?

well if you think this means, that i am on my way back to the stage you would be sorely mistaken. i am embarking on a 30-day challenge with one of my 'mates' from the gym. although referring to him as a bloke might be more appropriate. regardless he and i have challenged each other to write, for ourselves, daily for the next 30 days.

the truth is i do enjoy blogging, which seems hard to believe since i spent so much time NOT blogging. but i really wasn't in the best place and i felt like my posts were too negative. i think that the lay-off was a good decision and i do believe i am in a better place now.

that doesn't mean that i am out of the woods or that my knee issue is behind me. it is much, MUCH improved and i am happy to report that i have even been noticing real muscle growth in my left quad. now before folks start wondering when my next show date is, i should note that my right knee was only able to bear the brunt of the weight for so long. i am currently experiencing, what could be, a like problem in my formerly 'good' knee. the MRI to discover the actual nature of the issue is scheduled for the end of the month. after the problem is correctly diagnosed and a treatment plan is in place i should have a better idea when i can start plotting my come back.

i have said it before, so very long ago, but it bears repeating. i ain't done yet!!!



*** edited to add: credit the defibrillator sequence gray's anatomy 8.14 via youtube. i have no idea if the crashing patient survived

take yourself to higher places

there is a lot to catch you up on. i think i will begin with the knee issue as it is number one with a bullet, on my list of things to focus on in 2010.

by now i have had all three orthovisc shots, the last one geing january 27th. so i am a few weeks post treatment and i am cautiously getting back into direct quad training. i have returned to my previous split of 3 training days on, one day off. although i have switched the order around a hair.

prior to the shots my quad training day was fairly limited. the only exercise i was capable of performing was a quarter squat, but i had to keep my ROM limited to 40 degrees. i would do somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten sets of partial squats and that would really be all that i could do.

post treatment the world has opened up a bit. i am still squatting high, as we call it, well above the 'hole'. i am also squatting ridiculously light for me i can handle a plate aside for 5 reps. this is a far cry from the 3 plates+ that i was doing before it all went to hell. but i have to continue to remind myself that i am still rehabbing and that rome was not built in a day. i am not limited by the weight of the bar, but rather my pain tolerance. anything more than 5 reps seems to really aggravate the knee and doing that intentionally just doesn't seem smart.

along with the high squats, i can use the hack squat machine and the horizontal sled press without pain. so far i am going the heaviest on the sled press. i suspect that i can use the leg press as well, but that was the first machine that i had difficulty using after my 'injury', so i have sort of been holding off on getting back to it.

which brings us to the next subject, my work situation. well i did have more than a handful of days on a freelance assignment with one of the most disorganized studio's that i have ever been in. as a contract artist it is not uncommon to spend much of your first day waiting, waiting for access to the equipment, waiting for your assignment, waiting for the assets for your assignment... but really this place... wow i have no words. they would book me for four concurrent days but then actually have me work every other day. they would give me a start time and then leave me idle for several hours, then next thing i know it is crunch time and i'm there till after 6 pm. anyway it was good to be working again, but my time there is done and i am continuing my search for regular, full-time employ. cross your fingers.

all in all my mood has still remained quite positive. sure i am battling a strange bug right now but other than that all is well with my world. i have friends with real problems and listening to what they are going through has helped me realize that as bad as it sometimes feels like it gets, it really could be a lot worse.

lets finish with good news. i already have my first 'client' for the 2010 bodybuilding season. the same guy who's routine i choreographed last year, he is the first one doing a show this coming year and has already confirmed that he will be doing a routine of my design. there are two more people at my gym potentially doing bodybuilding shows this season, so there could be another routine or two to do. again keep those digits crossed.

i am still trying to definitively see changes in my delts. i took another post shoulder workout shot on my cell phone and am trying to compare it with the post workout shot taken a month previous. it is really, really hard to shoot yourself post workout and it is even harder to shoot yourself exactly like you did the time before. so it is hard to see for sure if i am improving. when i look at myself in the mirror, in that narcissistic way that bodybuilders are reputed to have, i am confident that i am on the right track. yet when i compare the photos i am less sure. you be the judge. note: the january image is the one on the left.

it ain't easy but that's ok, cuz we hopeful

i am several days past my first treatment. i suppose the most important detail of note was that it actually didn't hurt. this was probably the greatest surprise of all. i mean when you imagine a hypodermic needle being inserted behind your knee cap, don't you just automatically think ouch? i know i did. if anything i would say that after a while the pressure of the orthovisc entering the cavity didn't feel the greatest but even that wasn't that big of a deal.

immediately post-injection walking was a challenge. i spent the evening with my knee elevated and on ice as per my medical recommendation. by thursday evening i was noticing how much easier it was to negotiate stairs and the commode. but beyond that i didn't try to test it.

i did my first workout friday evening and i went so far as to walk on the treadmill for about 20 mins. my knee didn't bother me at all throughout the workout but it didn't much care for the cardio. maybe i shouldn't have gone as long as 20 mins. because i required a lot of ice friday night and saturday a.m.

my 2nd post treatment workout was saturday afternoon. i didn't bother doing any cardio at all. i just got home from yet another cardio free workout. but today i actually trained legs. for quads all i did was hack squat for 10 reps. i just used the 'weight' of the empty machine and increased my ROM slightly. there were twinges but no real pain.

all and all i would say that i am pleased with the progress so far. and i expect this means it is only going to get better from here on in. hoowah!!!!!

hit me with your best shot!!!

well tomorrow is the big day. wednesday january 13, 2010 at 2:00 pm is the appointed time for my first orthovisc treatment. i will not lie, i did not sleep very well, if any at all last night. i don't imagine tonight will be any more restful.

the upside is after tomorrow i will know what the treatment is like and i am sure that the remaining shots in this series will be approached with a lot less terror. but it is the fear of the unknown. i know that it is a gel-like substance which means it has to be a fairly large gauged needle. i know that the needle is inserted behind me knee cap and this is where i start to get the proverbial heebie jeebies.

i haven't watched this, but this is what is going to happen to me tomorrow. i thought about watching it, i started to watch it... and then i decided against it. i guess i am a puppy. anyway here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAJ-JrmYCSc"

knows changes aren't permanent, but change is

i was supposed to pay attention to the lyrics of rush's tom sawyer today. well that is, if you believe in fate and i do. first the song featured predominately in a movie i was watching today and then when i was driving to the gym to train it played again. the boys of rush are a little cerebral for me, so i don't get all the symbolism in the song but what i do get... speaks to me.

things have been going a lot better for me of late. i don't know if it is because i am days out from finally starting my knee treatment, or perhaps it is because i have been working. not regularly but i have been working. to top it off training has been going really well also even my shoulder training day. shoulder day and i don't usually get along but as i said things have been much better even considering my schedule of late. the contract i've been on hasn't exactly subscribed to the typical 9-5 work day and i am getting to the gym at all kinds of hours.

i think that we are ruled by the fates. i think that situations, challenges and people come into our lives to direct us and steer us along the path we are to tread. sometimes the journey is easy and sometimes it is anything but, but no matter the road you hoe, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

i have no idea what comes next on this crazy rollercoaster called life. but i take comfort in the fact that through it all, i'm still standing.

everyday de bucket go a well, one day de bottom a go drop out

happy new year!!!! this is the time of year when we should all take stock of our win/loss columns from the previous year and figure out how to get more in the win column.

i am coming of off a couple of challenging years and i think my loss column far exceeds my win. which by my own definition means i have much to fix or focus on for 2010. off the top of my head my employment situation, my knee injury, all the friends i have lost, my feelings self worth and my relationship with my family.

you would think that i'd be moved to focus on them all but i don't think having that many balls in the air is prudent. yes, we are by nature social animals and not having decent relations with friends and family is no way to live. however there is someone i miss, someone i want desperately to get back. i want the miche i used to be, the one who started this blog. the one who fell in love with the sport of competitive bb, who wanted to get bigger and stronger her way.

somewhere along the way i lost that miche. perhaps it was the struggle i've had with money and regular employ, maybe it was the scare from this injury, maybe it was because i've always been so damned focused on having everyone like me that i often feel i can't be myself. either way she is a little lost right now and only through focusing on the things i can change, can i get her back.

in 12 days the treatment starts for my knee, which should eventually allow me to begin to train again with a full ROM. allowing me to regain some of the lost size and strength in my legs. i was pretty freaking close to a 405 lb deadlift and i would really like to make that pull a reality.

there is the feeling that the joblessness will make a recovery in 2010 and i could find myself working regularly again. frankly i think i disagree with puffy, it has been my experience that it is less money, mo' problems.

my goals for 2010, i wouldn't even call them resolutions because they aren't, it's not like i am quitting smoking or resolving to lose weight. i am simply going to get back to training as i used to and find regular employ. those two things alone should greatly improve my feelings of self worth.

if my friend pool fills out or if i find people i can be myself around, then that is great. people who understand that i use a lot of humour, some of which is self-deprecating but i feel that if you can't laugh at yourself then you have no business laughing at anyone else. if you feel that you shouldn't be laughing at anyone, then realize you have just put the entire comedy industry on the unemployment line. remember that through humour, through looking at ourselves change for the better is often made. and sometimes... sh!t is just funny.

i wish happiness, health, love and success to everyone. may 2010 be your best year yet. it is going to be mine!!!!