an update on where things stand in the land of miche

today was the first workout done by yours truly in about two weeks. now if you don't know me very well you are probably thinking that two weeks off from the gym is no big deal. but if you do know me you are probably well aware that such a long layoff has had me completely out of sorts. messed up to the point where i have been making a lot of errors at work. luckily the errors have been caught by either the marketing manager or myself before anything was printed but since i am generally not unreliable at work this turn of events has frustrated me greatly.

the other thing that i have not mentioned in a while is my basketball story. first i had interviewed a woman who played collegiate ball, who played travel ball in the u.s. and who coached and refereed basketball games. i felt that she was an excellent source to help me with the details that would add necessary realism to the tale i was trying to tell. after our interview, i completed the section of the story that involved the in-game action. my 'expert' had offered to read through the chapter and give me some honest feedback. the story was delivered and i received confirmation from her that she had indeed received my email. unfortunately that was the last i had heard from her and subsequent contact was ignored.

my first assumption was that the story was so horrible that she couldn't comment and chose to ignore me rather than try to set me straight. i understand and appreciate difficult it is to give constructive criticism especially if one struggles to find something positive to say.

those who are supportive of my writing endeavour's recommend that i not read too much into the lack of response. my brother who is a basketball coach of a boy's team gave me the contact information of a woman who coaches a women's collegiate basketball team. as the head coach i feared she would be too busy to help me herself but i thought perhaps she might be able to direct me to someone who had the time and necessary experience to help me out.

as luck would have it the coach offered to read it herself and she also offered to answer any questions i might have. i happily sent the chapter off to her after a re-write and i waited. and i waited. and still i waited. as more time went by i was convinced that the story was just that bad. i toyed with the idea of giving up. i considered shelving the story with the intention to attend the 2014 SEC tournament in atlanta. i thought perhaps if i saw the game live i might be able to see where i went wrong.

once again my support unit assured me that i could not and should not give up. my brother and 'the bloke' both felt it was imperative that i try again to reach out to the head coach. i was fortunate to have a couple people offer to read the story for me. although i appreciated the offers and subsequent show of support i am convinced that i need to run the story past someone with experience with the collegiate women's game.

i am not concerned about the validity of the conflicts in my story and am fairly confident of the entertainment value of what i have written. my concern is if the player contact during the 'game' is accurate to how the women's game is played. the basic difference's between the sexes means that the men's game of basketball in may ways is vastly different from the women's game. what men are able to do on the court differs greatly from what the women do. a fact that is further illustrated by the difference in their respective audience bases. simply put the men's game is far more popular.

there is also a huge difference in the women's game when it is played at the high school level versus how it is played at the collegiate level and differs further between the collegiate divisions. in the u.s there are three basic programs: division one, the level of play with the most skilled player who likely move on to pro careers in the WNBA or overseas. division two consists of players who aren't as skilled as their division one counterparts and. if a division two athlete goes overseas to play professionally they play exclusively in division two leagues. finally there are the division three athletes and i will be honest i have no clue what becomes of those players upon graduation.

anyway after exactly four weeks without a response from the head coach i sent her a follow-up email, to date five days have past since i sent the email and sadly i am still without a response.

so where does that leave me? that is one hell of a question and frankly i am conflicted on how i am going to handle it. do i give up? do i shelve the project and get my ass to atlanta for the SEC tournament? do i finish the story and keep it to myself or do i finish it and let anyone who reads it know that it has not been 'blessed' by a beta reader?

decisions, decisions

setbacks suck

i know that i things have been all kinds of quiet here on the blog front but once again i've had a setback to contend with. a few weeks back i felt something peculiar deep in the back of my left leg while in the leg press. it was either an injury of the hamstring or in my glute-ham tie-in.

i took days off. i trained through the pain. i soaked in a hot tub. i applied ice. i massaged the injury with a tennis ball. all of my efforts were, as they say, for nought.

when i worked out in the east end of the city i used a massage therapist who was very good. he was always able to get into the muscle fascia and dig out any and all knots. unfortunately work moved from the east end to the west end and try as i might the commute was next to impossible to make. no matter how much time i allowed for the trip it would take at least 30 mins longer. so i would frequently arrive with 15-30 minutes left in my appointment.

it was harder than it should have been to find a massage therapist out in the west end. especially since i didn't have any contacts out in the west end. when the injury became too acute to ignore i tried the online equivalent to opening the phone book and picking a name. which led me to 'european massage' and based on their website all of their massage therapists were well versed in deep tissue massage. i called and booked an appointment with olga. how could i go wrong?

well i wasn't on the table five minutes when olga mentioned that i probably needed a therapist who did deep tissue massage. i was confused because her online bio listed deep tissue massage among her specialties. i asked her about that and she said that all of the therapists had areas that they specialized in. i asked what she specialized in but never did get an answer.

my other complaint was she seemed disturbed by the fact that i had not removed my bra. it was only a 45 minute appointment and i went for treatment of a specific injury. i was pretty sure treatment would take the entire 45 minutes.

olga stuck her elbow into my glute/ham tie-in for a little while and i was able to put on my pants without pain. i booked an hour long follow-up appointment with elizabeth. again based on her online biography she was well versed in deep tissue massage. elizabeth she spent the balance of the hour treating my neck, my triceps, my calves and my back and she kept running in and out of the room with hot packs. she barely spent any time at all working on my injury. needless to say that was my final experience with 'european massage'.

thankfully the guy out in the east end started doing saturday appointments. i went and saw him yesterday. he spent the entire hour working on my injury stopping only briefly to wipe the sweat from his brow. he used his knuckles, his elbows, his thumbs and this zany looking implement called 'the thumper' that reminds me of my dad's belt sander. after he was finished i was able to move my leg with far less discomfort.

it has been two weeks since i have last trained i hope that i will be back in the saddle come tuesday.

courtesy of my buddy the poorboi, i am now the proud new owner of a nikon. i have been trying to figure out the wonders of digital photography and have gone out on a couple of occasions with the camera. instead of a trip to the gym i went to a marina out along the lakeshore and shot the above pic. enjoy!

too much information?

i tend to engage the sales staff in conversation when i visit stores i frequently shop at. i am not trying to be too intrusive, i simply ask, "how are you doing today?" based on a recent experience i think i want to engage anyone else in the future.

generally the sales associate will assure me that they are 'fine', whether they are actually fine or not. so i was quite unprepared to hear of the parent who was in the hospital fighting cancer. i suddenly found myself face to face with a very angry, very frightened sales associate. please don't get me wrong i do understand the anger and the fear but frankly i had just stopped in to pick up a few things. it is somewhat comforting to note that the other customer in the store looked as befuddled as i felt.
it was truly sad to note her disgust at the medical staff who had mentioned the advancements in cancer research and that knowledge had led to more cases of successful treatment. the associate felt the doctor's were lying and trying to fill their head with false hope.

in this day and age we have all been touched by at least one person who has fought cancer to some degree. of the people that i know, i can't help but believe that their spirit had a direct effect on their prognosis. i am talking about the kind of person who's attitude was 'ok what do i need to do because this thing isn't beating me.'

i am by no means suggesting that the advances in medicine did not play a significant part and i am well aware that i simply don't know the extent or the gravity of this particular situation but i am of the belief that along with early detection, regular check ups and clean living... positivity and tenacity have an equally important role in the fight.

hopefully there will be good news delivered to that sales associates family.

pour some jesus on me

not that long ago i was driving home from work and due to uncooperative traffic i was forced to find an alternate route home. this route had me passing an area of town that i had not been in a while. it would appear that some businesses had changed during my absence. the change that i found most shocking was to the old strip club. it is now a seventh day adventist church!

as i continued on my way home i was felled by an attack of the giggles. i also wondered exactly what was involved in converting a peeler bar into a church. it can't be as simple as a fresh coat of paint, adding rows of pews, taking poor some sugar on me out of the sound system and replacing it with holy, holy, holy.

i figure there has to be some sort of exorcist who is responsible for turning the player's club into the prayer's club.

and once again i have guarantted that i am gonna burn in hell but it has been a while since i blogged and i figured i owed you a good one.

the promised video

it took a lot longer to get it finished than i expected. new camera, new software, unexpected snafu's but it is finally up. so enjoy and see if you can find mr ab. shot.

a little help for my friends

sometimes i read over my posts and i think wow, if someone who didn't know me read my blog they would likely think i am part narcissist, part uber-bitch. but i think much like shrek tried to explain to donkey in the movie shrek i am like an onion because i have layers.

you may have noticed, if you check my blog regularly, that i have been posting daily. there is a reason behind my posting frequency, it was not because i felt i had that much to say but rather i posted to support a friend. who was working through a 30 day challenge.

i am proud to say that he knocked his challenge out of the park. i think that he was pleasantly surprised with his ability to finish his challenge, by calibre of work he was able to produce and mostly by the public reaction to his photographs.

i have known this man for years, i guess in some ways we have grown as adults together. i know that i have always thought he was talented. even as far back as when i was able to watch him progress as a bmx rider and later in life when he shared his painted works with me and finally most recently when his started to express himself in photographs. there is a big difference between being aware of how you are perceived by others and seeing what they see for yourself. i know this because i constantly struggle with that challenge.

if i could be granted one wish for him it would be the hope that he would soon master what i cannot.

today i took my camera to the gym and i recorded my workout. i did that for a couple of reasons. one because i really want to make sure that my technique is solid. the other reason was my main objective. the internet can be a wonderful place. one of the things it has afforded me is the ability to communicate with people who share my passion for the lady vols. one of the women that i know now is the journalist who covers the team.

she shared not too long ago that she has breast cancer and was facing surgery. well as you can imagine our little community was floored and we were moved to do something to show our support during this challenging time. a t-shirt was designed and many of us purchased the shirt. the proceeds from the sale went to her to help offset her costs. the plan was to wear the shirts during the last lady vol home game. those of us who were unable to be at the game were supposed to wear our shirts as well. my shirt was in transit and i did not receive it until the week after the game.

i still needed to show my support and since today was the day of her surgeries i wore my shirt to the gym. my plan is to edit my training video and i share it with her. i want her to know that even though i am far away i still have her back.

she successfully made it through both of her surgical procedures today which is the best possible news.

singles awareness day

last night while on twitter a fellow lady vol fan coined the greeting 'happy singles awareness' day. it was his response to the nonsense that is the 14th of february. now as someone who has only ever celebrated singles awareness day on february 14th i will go him one better.

i do not think that it is soley this day in february that is designed to remind people exactly how single they are. i think that the february observance signals the end of the season of singles awareness. the singles awareness season begins around the 25th of december. the 31st of december is another of the season's noted days then the month of january rolls around. by then you are reeling from the excesses of december and i think it lulls you into a false sense of security.

then suddenly february 14th hits you like a louisville slugger right across the bridge of your nose. suddenly everyone and their dog wants to wish you a happy valentine's day. my favourite valentine sentiments are from those coupled folks who don't want to alienate their single friends. they usually proceed to add footnotes to their valentine greetings.

"i want to wish all of my friends a happy valentine's day. even the single people who clearly are too stupid to find love, lust or even another sonofabitch willing to buy them a $5 hallmark card"*

*it is possible that my single's awareness day hostility has caused me to paraphrase the footnote somewhat. but for the record i emphatically state that i am not bitter... much.

i'm ready for my close-up mr demille

it is time, i think, to start taking a camera to the gym. it has been far too long since i've done a form check and without a training partner, a camera is necessary to ensure that i am not setting myself up for injury.

there are a couple concerns that come along with bringing a camera to the gym. for example i frequently end up with some one walking through the shot. the other is the strange looks i get while i'm filming my workouts. although i generally don't think that i intentionally do things that attract attention to myself. the fact is that i am a female who is generally lifting a lot more than people expect me to, so the reality is that i know that i generally have a lot more attention than i am comfortable with. busting out a camera is not going to make that change for the better.

the upside, i guess is for those who are interested, there soon will be new videos up on my youtube channel.

shorty shake that thang like a pro mann*

sometimes while doing cardio i glance around the gym and note some of the other training styles. for fun i sometimes even try to figure out what their training goals might be. as you can know some folks are at the gym specifically to gain basic health benefits and others clearly have sport specific or career specific goals.

which bring us to what i saw today. i think i shall nickname this woman 'nightclub neda'. this particular woman's training style suggests she has physique goals in mind. in fact i am fairly confident that she is a competitor however of late i have noticed a fairly peculiar behavioural pattern.

from time to time 'nightclub neda' positions herself in front of a mirror. she raises up onto the balls of her feet as though she were wearing heels and she proceeds to do a slow, hip-rolling, shoulder swaying two-step. if she were just dancing in front of the mirror i don't think i would find it as peculiar but she watches herself intently as she dances. it looks like she is trying to figure out what works best.

now before you accuse me of being mean i should add, in my defence, that i am giving the woman a hell of a lot of credit. truth be told she is a mere pelvic undulation away from earning the title of 'stripper stacey.'

you would think after thirteen years i'd stop being amazed by what i see on the gym floor.

*my apologies to 50 cent but his lyric really kinda fit this post... knawmean?

patience... i have none

you may have noticed that i haven't shared any updates on the basketball story that i had been working on. there is a reason for that. i wrote a game sequence as i felt that a basketball story without a scene on the courts would not be much of a basketball story. the problem is that i never played the game. so i relied heavily on my imagination and flavoured it with things that happened in games that i had watched.

'getting it right' is important to me and i felt it prudent to share that chapter with someone who played collegiate basketball competitively. sadly my story still seems to be loitering somewhere in her in-box. i have yet to hear her thoughts. if you know me well you know that i have pretty much convinced myself that she thinks that it is all garbage and she struggling to fine a polite way to suggest i take up knitting.

yes i confirmed she received the document. on one had it has been a little over a week. i am trying like hell to remain positive and to remain patient... but it is a struggle.

opinions are like assholes...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

go meighan simmons, go lady vols!!!

what the hell did i just watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

snowmageddon 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

contemplating the navel

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

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

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

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

free-range miche

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

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

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

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

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

paging dr. miche

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

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

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

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

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

*the peace bridge

me and my family

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

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

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

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

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

back day fail

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

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

it is time to start lifting with my damn head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

back to the grind?

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

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

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

so keep your fingers crossed people!

thanks in advance.

wrestling with some words

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

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

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

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

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

rising to the challenge... not so much

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

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

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

time will tell.

so hard to say good-bye to yesterday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sometimes it sucks to be an adult.

a heartbreaker

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

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

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

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

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

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

go big orange!!!

the new years set strikes again!!

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

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

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

gym-newbies... heaven help us!!

seeing that which you can not un-see

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

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

if your like me you are probably wondering why?

but i am also wondering... why me?

sometimes you just shouldn't multi-task

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

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

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

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

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

is it just me?

stayin' perfect

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

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

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

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

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

creative mojo

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

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

and suddenly i am hit with a deluge of words.

idle thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

patience has never been my strong suit.

stickin' my head in the sand

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

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

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

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

will somebody write the ostrich app please?

nice instead of naughty

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

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

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

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

see, i can be nice.

a whole lotta nothing

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

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

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

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

why do i always see the weird stuff?

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

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

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

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

love will keep us together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

love you baby

manti te'o hoax

day thirty

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

i finished the challenge with an addition of 200 words.

day twenty-nine

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

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

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

day twenty-eight

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

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

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

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

125 words.

day twenty-seven

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

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

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

so perhaps for today that is enough.

day twenty-six

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

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

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

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

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

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

*sigh

oh and 150 words

day twenty-five

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

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

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

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

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

day twenty-four

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

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

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

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

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

gad-freaking-zoooks!!!

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

day twenty-three

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

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

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

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

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

perhaps tomorrow will be a better day?

day twenty-two

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

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

guys dig scars i tell ya!!!

and before i forget i added 200 words today.

day twenty-one

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

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

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

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

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

/end of rant.

day twenty

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

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

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

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

day nineteen

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

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

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

day eighteen

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

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

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

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

day seventeen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i ask you, is it just me?

day sixteen

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

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

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

* a thousand and one apologies to the lads from liverpool

day fifteen

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

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

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

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

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

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

day fourteen

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

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

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

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

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

day thirteen

arrgh!!

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

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

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

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

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

day twelve

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

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

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

day eleven

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

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

gadzooks!!

day ten

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

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

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

day nine

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

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

anyway i should go. pizza and cake beckon.

day eight

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

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

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

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

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

day seven

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

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

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

day six

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wow... i was wordy here tonight too.

day five

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

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

bag and humbug!!

day four

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

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

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

day three

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

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

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

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

day two

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

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

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

go lady vols!!!!

day one

man i sure hope this gets easier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 days hath december???

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

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

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

sometimes multitasking can be dangerous

do they know it's christmas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* pun intended

a brand new day?

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

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

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

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

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