Archives April 2007

Today was 300 workout day.  When I got there I hopped on the recline bike to do my 5 minute warm up routine.  As I did I noticed in the back room where I do my thing, there was a younger guy doing jump rope.  I thought to myself that it would be rather annoying to have someone jump roping while I am going through my self inflicted torture but I was sure by the time I got back there and had everything set up, he would have surely moved on to something else.  I was wrong.

I got back there and started to get set up and Ahmad (I found out his name after he answered his cell phone with hip hop ring tone) was still jumping rope, poorly.  The gym has several jump ropes, one of them is the conventional type, the other two are rope with little plastic cylinders covering the rope.  I don’t understand the point of it.  I suppose the thought is the plastic would protect the rope and keep it from wearing out?  The reality is the plastic makes the rope bounce off the floor more making a racket at the same time as making the user trip.

  Well Ahmad didn’t get it and he kept jumping rope badly.  He would normally get less than 10 reps in before he got the rope stuck on his feet.  Many times he only got 2 or 3 reps in before failure.  I am not sure if his goal was to do like 1000 reps but the kid was jumping rope well into my routine, only stopping when I was maybe two thirds done.  When I am exerting myself hard physically, my temper is on a feather light switch.  I felt the urge in my throat to say to the kid “What the F are you jumping rope for if you can’t jump rope??!! Christ!”  I mean I am straining to crank out the last of my double digit reps and I gotta hear the f’in plastic rope banging off the hard rubber floor non-stop.  I was really getting annoyed.  When he did finally stop and went to doing some sort of ab exercise with equally bad form I thought I was finally freed from his rope jumping antics.  I’ll be damned if he didn’t come back as I was cleaning up the weights and start up again.  It was like someone told the kid if you jump rope incessantly it will make your penis grow.

Anyway I had some good results in my workout.  I decided to stick with my one arm at a time Clean and Presses.  I have seen conflicting info about what is the preferred way to do it.  Although pressing 36 pounds with your legs is definitely easier than 72 pounds, lifting weight only one side at a time creates an imbalance that requires you to use your core to compensate for which is a good thing in my book.  Plus it is f’ing hard enough as is.

I went up in every single exercise as you can see in the log.  I was most proud of upping my box jumps to twenty (even though I took a few second breather between a couple reps at the end) and upping my last set of pull ups.  I am so tired by that point that doing more than 10 is just an incredible chore.  I hung on the bar until I could squeak out number 11. 

I was very surprised that after last Friday’s workout I had minimal soreness the day after.  It will be interesting to see how I feel tomorrow.

I was doing more reading on it, I was doing the dumbbell clean and presses wrong.  You are supposed to do both arms at once, not individually, for 50 reps instead of 25 per side.  This means your legs are pushing 70 pounds instead of 36 each time.  This also means my total rep total will probably decrease once again today, damn it.

Pathetic…

First off, the weather this weekend was awesome.  Highs in the low to mid 70’s with tons of sunshine.  I snickered when on Friday my Vista weather widget showed 37 degrees and snow in Reading.

After work on Friday I went to Home Depot and loaded the truck up with 30 bags of mulch and 4 bags of stone.  It used to be easy to get big amounts of mulch at HD.  You would pay the cashier and then drive around to the big palettes they had outside and load up.  However they have abandoned that practice because of tons of scumbags taking advantage of Home Depot’s policy and ripping them off left and right.  So now you pay and then have to wait for someone to unlock a gate and then bring out a skid of mulch for you to unload from.

When I got home I parked the truck in the back and initially planned to dump the mulch early Saturday.  Well Ali pointed out that the sprinklers were going to fire off Saturday morning so I reconsidered and we wound up dumping the mulch Friday night.  I figured the 30 bags I got would be enough to do most of the mulched areas around the house.  Instead, it was just enough to finish the border around the pool, that’s it.  The area took a lot of mulch.  I hadn’t mulched in probably two years.  We already had planned to go back to Home Depot on Saturday to get other stuff and now we had to add a whole bunch more mulch to the list.

After we got done mulching, Ali made our Friday night frozen pizza and then we watched The Apprentice and Workout.  I am a closet Workout fan,  It is a reality show about an ultra-high end gym in Hollywood run by a very in shape lesbian.  A reality show all about people getting in shape is right up my alley.  Hell it may rank as my number two or three favorite show right now only trailing The Ultimate Fighter and Pros vs Joes.  Survivor, Apprentice, American Idol and ER are all looking up to these three in my book.

So once Ali got up Saturday morning we headed to Home Depot and loaded up.  25 more bags of mulch, three huge bags of potting soil, 3 more bags of rock, a floodlight for the side of the house, pool shock, a shower rod and about a dozen different flowers/plants.  The bed of the truck was barfing full and all of the plants were jammed behind the seats in the cab of the truck.  We stopped at a Subway on the way home for lunch so we could dig right into things when we got back. 

Dig into we did, we worked pretty much non-stop outside until around 5 o’clock.  Even with a total of 55 bags of mulch, I was still a bit short and need maybe a half dozen bags.  We threw down the stone, filled up the two big pots that we used to have little palm trees in, with flowers instead and planted everything.  I hooked up the spotlight in the corner of the garden so it lit up the side yard that Nicki uses for nighttime bathroom walks.  It all turned out very well.  I walked around and took a bunch of pictures which you can see here.

After our bust ass day we had to quickly prepare for our next door neighbors coming over for dinner.  I did a whirlwind vacuuming job of the whole house while Ali took a shower and prepared other stuff.  Rick’s Mom and sister are down visiting so they came along as well.  They had a nice visit that wrapped up relatively early.  Ali and I were both tired.

Easter Sunday arrived.  This was not going to be a regular Easter.  Ali had the dubious pleasure of having to be manager on duty at work on Sunday.   Our Easter was not very text book.  Although I took the time to color Easter eggs on Saturday, they were clinically stored in the refrigerator instead of populating a festive Easter basket.  Nothing was hidden about the house.  I had Easter roses sent to Ali on Friday so besides the exchange of cards before she left for work, that wrapped up our personal celebration.

Once she left for work I did a few chores and played WoW until I had to get ready to pick up Mom for our non-traditional Easter dinner at Carraba’s.  During the morning I got a call from my Dad and then got to talk to my sister who was at my Dad’s place as well.  Dad told me he finally got all the arrangements nailed down on the new place they are buying, albeit it sounded like a very bitter process.  Dad had a bunch of issues he wanted addressed by the seller or if they weren’t addressed he wanted a significant price reduction as compensation.  Well it sounds like the end result was the issues remain and my Dad only got a small discount.  It sounds like the sellers played hardball and Dad as a result was not happy with them at all.  He did a lot of grumbling about it.  He doesn’t like have things dictated to him, although as sellers, they certainly have the right to play hardball if they are willing to risk losing the sale.  It seems like that is what happened.

My chat with my sister was very brief.  She had just handed my niece Emily off to someone and shortly after she got on the phone with me she started to act up so after a couple minutes Torrin had to go, no big deal.

I left to get mom a little after 2.  When I got there she showed me the Easter plant I ordered for her.  It was a cool lily with purple rimmed flowers and leaves that are splashed with color.  Ali went directly from work to Carrabas to meet us.  I was surprised to see a parking lot that was hardly populated.  Inside it was maybe half full.  We got there a little ahead of Ali so mom and I sat down and got a drink.  The bartender there tried a little bit too hard to be personable, repeatedly interrupting conversation dropping in his one liners.  Ali showed up and we sat down immediately.  In true Carrabbas style we had an incredibly polite waitress although she was rather old compared to what you normally see there.  We all enjoyed our meals and were out of there in just under an hour.  We paid for the meal with gift cards mom and I both had so we got off very cheap. 

Our non-traditional Easter continued from there.  Instead of going home, Ali was now going to meet a friend of hers to go see some play.  I took Mom back home.  Ali is off from work today and her and mom are going shopping so I suggested to mom on the way home that it would make sense for her to just come back with me to our house and sleep over and then her and Ali could shove off together today to shop.  I suggested this already knowing what Mom’s answer would be.  For whatever reason she really has issues with coming out to our place, especially with no prior warning.  When I asked her about it she said how she would have to pack all sorts of junk and it would just be a pain.  When I asked again she said something about how she couldn’t watch her normal tv stuff.  I jokingly told her she could watch what she wanted, I could just play WoW and ignore her if she preferred. 🙂  I gave up knowing it was not a going to be a winning battle.  Mom just doesn’t like spur of the moment stuff.  I think she feels like when she is out at our place it is a big inconvenience for us which it never is.

So anyway, back home I went after picking up some baby trees and extra grapefruit Mom loaded me up with.  I had no big plans for what was left for the rest of Easter besides finishing up some laundry and playing WoW.  As I was playing WoW I was having internal discussions about calling my grandmother.  I have always tried to talk to her on the major holidays.  However my last call to her on Christmas was just brutal for me.  She basically didn’t seem to know who I was and the majority of the conversation was me asking her questions that she either asked me to repeat because she couldn’t hear me or just awkward pauses because she didn’t know the answer.

Well I knew earlier in the day my brother was there visiting her with my niece and my mom had called her as well.  Mom told me that grandma said something about breaking her leg and how a cast was just removed.  It made no sense since mom would be notified if something like that happened.  Well anyway after much back and forth inner dialogue I decided I would call her and use the things listed above as topics of conversation. 

If it is possible, this conversation was worse than the Christmas one.  I identify myself at the start of the call, I can tell she isn’t quite sure who I am.  I ask her if anybody visited her today. Nope.  I ask her if anyone called her today. Nope.  She has no recollection of anything.  Evidently she has zero short term memory anymore.  Then I try to ask her the standard questions like how is the cat that lives in the nursing home.  She asks me to repeat myself time and again even though I feel like I am speaking as loudly and clearly as I can without yelling.   I ask her about the broken leg thing and again she is confused and says something about she fell and broke it and had a cast on for a week. (which makes no sense)  Mom said that was how she wound up on the home originally and that she is maybe recalling that.  Anyway the conversation was basically three or four minutes of me repeating myself and scrambling for anything to say that would illicit more than a one or two word reply.  It was horrible.  I hung up, feeling very sad for Grandma.  What a terrible fate to be robbed of the knowledge of something as basic as who your family is.  I transport myself through time and can clearly see myself in such a state given some of the mental/memory issues I already struggle with.  I just don’t ever want to be there.

When I was playing WoW I also came up with another good idea since Ali wasn’t home.  I would watch 300 again!  This time I would watch it like it was meant to be watched, with the lights out and the surround sound system turned on and loud!  I don’t think I have ever watched a movie a second time so shortly after seeing it initially.  Ali asked me if I had man love for King Leonus.  Eh I don’t care, it was cool a second time and definitely enhanced by changes.  Ali actually got home a bit earlier than expected and got to see me in my element for the last 10 minutes of the flick.  It gave me some extra motivation for my next installment of the 300 workout today.

Well my second go round with the 300 workout was tougher than the first.  This time I made a few changes.  First off I got all the equipment set up before starting so I wouldn’t be taking 5 minutes in between certain exercises for set up.  I also noticed I messed up the order of things last time.  It is supposed to go pull ups, dead lifts, push ups, box jumps, floor wipers, one arm clean and presses and then pull ups.  On Monday I had the pull ups and push ups back to back, plus I threw in an extra set of 25 push ups.  This time I did one bigger set of 40 push ups. 

My total reps this time worked out to 2 less than Monday, 154 reps.  However I did this in around 18 minutes, much less time than I took on Monday and as a result it felt much more intense.  I felt closer to barfing.  I increased my first round of pull ups by one, my dead lifts by 1, my box jumps by 1 and my one arm C&P’s by a total of 4. 

When I did my last box jump my legs felt like they were locking up from the lactic acid.  When I was doing my last few floor wipers the nauseus feeling was the worst.  After I was done I spent a bunch of time in front of one of the big floor fans letting fresh air blow on my face to help settle things down.

 Damn this shit is hard but you really get a sense of accomplishment when you are done. 

 I threw together a little spreadsheet of my progress which you can view here. Nothing fancy, just the bare bones, just like the workout.

I have deemed myself physically able to go for round 2 of the “300” workout.  I am hoping to increase my reps/reduce my total time a bit each time.  Watching that video clip I posted of the 300 workout yesterday was interesting.  Unfortunately my gym doesn’t have a truck tire to flip and jump in and out of or a big ass bungee tied to a wall for me to run against.  I was reading more about the workout, evidently only one of the actors took the 300 challenge at the end of their fitness routine where you try to do the entire circuit as fast as possible.  The guy that did it completed the 300 reps in 18 minutes.  That is FLYING.    I’ll have to start more accurately timing how long I am taking.

Like I mentioned before, Easter weekend is no big deal to me.  When I was growing up my mom would do the traditional stuff like color eggs and make baskets.  I remember for a brief period Easter also was a JV version of Christmas with us getting some presents too. We did a couple Easter egg hunts around the house in Gouglersville.  Easter also meant eating.

For a long time we would go to my grandmother’s for Easter and then as she got older it turned into people coming to my mom’s place to eat instead.  I really don’t have a lot of big Easter memories.  For me it has always been a ho-hum holiday.

This Easter almost turned into the least memorable ever.  Since  Mom moved here we get together with her for Easter, sometimes she cooks, sometimes we go out.  When we approached Mom about it earlier in the week to set up what we were going to do, she said she would be ok if we just skipped it because she wasn’t feeling up to it.  Well of course I couldn’t let that slide so we convinced her into going out to Carraba’s. 

 Several years ago she was diagnosed with some sort of ailment that causes dizziness.  It had been better for quite awhile but in the last few months it has come back and is not going away.

  Mom is annoyed with it all which I can understand.  Not feeling 100% for a long period of time sucks.  I remember when I had the flu thing from hell last year that screwed me up for a month, I was miserable.  Well anyway I’m glad mom reconsidered and is going out with us.  We don’t get to see her a ton so we didn’t want to miss out on a visit.

Last night was an interesting evening in my household.  On the way home, we stopped at Publix to pick up some flowers for our neighbor’s mom who was down visiting.  She had a procedure done and we wanted to grab her get well flowers.  So we get home and Ali preps the flowers and has them ready to go.  She was going to just run them over, say Hi and then scoot back over so we could watch Survivor.  She went over around 8:30.

Well the quick trip obviously wasn’t so quick when it was just before 9 and there was no sign of her.  While I was out walking Nicki, she left a message on the answering machine saying that she was just hanging out, having fun and would be back soon.  Well I wrote her off for watching Survivor and knew what was probably going to happen so I also fed the pets and filled out the grocery list. 

9:30 came and I was annoyed.  Not all that annoyed that she was there, more annoyed by the call saying she would be back soon, yet she was still not back after more than an hour.  I transferred Survivor to the bedroom Tivo and jumped in the shower.  I hopped in my pajamas and started watching Survivor solo in bed, disgruntled.  If you want to annoy me, tell me you are going to do something and then don’t do it.  Ali is not very good at excusing herself from a social situation.  For some reason it is a very awkward thing for her to do.

Well anyway, 9:45 came and the phone rings.  Of course I know who it is.  She is having a great time, she says I should come over and bring Nicki.  I mask my annoyance in my voice and remind Ali that I had to work on Friday (unlike her) and that I was currently in bed, watching Survivor.  She once again says she will be home “shortly” and I hang up.

Well I got through Survivor and an episode of The Ultimate Fighter on the Tivo and she still was not home, it was after 11pm at this point.  I was tired but had a very difficult time settling down to fall asleep, surely because of my simmering anger about the situation.  If I would have gotten one call that said “Hey I am having fun and am going to stay here awhile since I don’t have to work tomorrow” that would have been fine by me.  The parameters would be laid and expectations would be set.  But by telling me twice she was going to be home soon and not doing that it kept poking my grumpy muscle and prevented me from falling asleep for a long time.

Oh well, it’s water under the bridge, just annoying.

I got a new computer chair for home that arrived yesterday.  For the last 5 or 6 years my computer chair has been a black “pleather” chair that had few adjustments and rock hard plastic armrests.  I bought a more modern chair, similar to what I have at work.  It has independent height, seat, back and arm rest adjustments.  Putting it together took me maybe 20 minutes.  The chair is definitely much more supportive and the soft armrests makes WoW sessions much more comfortable.  My only complaint is the cushioning is very firm compared to what I am used to.  I think I will get used to it and it will soften up a bit as I break it in.  For 100 bucks, I am pleased.  Ali was pleased with me for not getting a leather chair.

 Thrilling entry huh?  Oh well they can’t all be homeruns.

Yep the snowbirds should be going home this month.  Actually a lot should be pulling out this week before Easter with another big load creeping up our northern roadways right after the holiday.  It is always a pleasure to see them go. 

Don’t get me wrong, even out of season, Naples is jammed full of old people driving slow in the fast lane and  clogging roadways at 5pm when working folk get out so they can hit the early bird specials.  But during season this situation swells to gigantic proportions.  Trying to go out to eat or to the movies during season is routinely miserable with huge crowds at every turn.  Much of the year round population simply curtails much of this activity from January to April. 

However there is no getting around the fact that all these codgers bring their wallets with them and many businesses down here rely on the annual flock of old people from the north.  I know, I know, before I know it I will be among the old farts myself, cursing the young whippersnappers that have no patience and no courtesy.  Somehow, I hold out hope that that will never become a reality for me. 

Another beauty pageant winner got voted off of Dancing with the Stars.  I think they had another girl like that last year that didn’t do well.  Sure this girl was good looking but she was about as likable as wallpaper.  Her professional partner, even though he was from Philly was creepy looking and constantly wore a smile that looked like he was hiding something behind it.  Good riddance.