New guests, new computer, slow without the ugly, easy way to drop your bench numbers by 33%

So Ali’s friend and daughter arrived safely mid-morning yesterday. Unfortunately we just happened to have a very unusual streak of December weather as they arrived, rain.  They did get to go hang at the beach for a bit before the rain moved in at least.

Last night we headed to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, neither Sue or Kaitlyn had ever eaten at one before.  They both seemed to like the place.

Sadie of course immediately welcomed our new guests with open paws and spent much of their time at the house by Sue and Kaitlyn’s side.  She even laid with them as they took naps.  Nicki is warming up to them as well.  This morning when I left she was laying on the floor next to Sue getting a rub down.

They had hopes of going to the water park during their visit but it seems a cold front is going to be around for the next few days which would make water activities not all that much fun.  I think they will be hitting the zoo today.

After we got back from dinner last night I fired up the Xbox and Kinect for Kaitlyn (she is 12).  She kicked some ass in Kinect soccer and beat me as well when I took her on for one game.  We played some tandem Kinect Adventures as well.  She seemed to really like the Kinect.

Yesterday at lunch I pulled off my best slow muscle ups ever.  You may recall a slow muscle up was the first variation I ever pulled off but it was sort of with an asterisk.  Yes I was able to get from under the bar to on top of it but I did so by using my one forearm as a lever once I got to the high transition point.

Well I was watching a video from one of the kids that helped me get my original muscle up, his YouTube name is “TheFortress” if you want to look him up.  Anyway he was talking about doing the slow muscle up and said that an important part of it is keeping your legs extended in front of you during the movement to help counter balance your body position. In all of my previous slow muscle ups I did so with dead legs.

When I got to the gym I started off with something new.  I want to try to do the middle part of the BBR’s (Bar-barian requirements) before each work out officially begins.  What this entails is doing a max rep continuous set of dips, pull ups and push ups back to back.

So I cranked out 33 dips followed by 16 pull ups and ended with 37 hard fought push ups.  It is a pretty ass busting workout for a 4-5 minute session.  Anyway, after doing that I started my normal workout which was supposed to be chest and back.  Well I laid down on the bench press and felt totally spent.  Gassing the triceps and chest before benching is a surefire way to kill your normal strength numbers.  I struggled mightily to do much less weight than normal on my reps.

Although it is a bit of an ego kick in the groin to push less iron I know in the big picture if I keep this up it is only going to benefit me overall.

So later in the workout I decide to go try some slow muscle ups.  On my first two attempts I tried it on one of the two smith machine cross supports that is shaped like a squashed upright oval.  I got right to the transition point but because of the shape of the support I couldn’t use my hands/forearms to help pull my shoulders the last few inches over the top, damn.

So after a brief rest I came back and grabbed the second support on the smith machine which is a like a squashed horizontal oval.  With this configuration my fingers were able to wrap around the leading edge.  As I pulled high with my legs in front I was able to just barely squeeze myself up and over the bar without doing the forearm lever trick.  I was exerting myself to the point where I felt lightheaded as I locked out above the smith machine.

Just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke I did the movement again a few minutes later successfully.  My next step will be to try to replicate the movement on a conventional bar.  I am thinking my parallel bars at home would be the best choice.  The fatter pipe will give me more gripping area to provide the rotational torque necessary.

So yesterday my new computer was scheduled to be delivered.  I had told Ali I hoped she was home when the UPS delivery guy showed up, not knowing if the box would come with the “signature required” option.  Well during the afternoon I checked the updated tracking on the package and saw delivery was attempted at 2 but no one was available and it was rescheduled for the next day, F!

I was annoyed. I wanted the puter in my hands that day.  So I call up UPS and talk to a woman about the package.  I asked her if it required a signature.  She said it did not.  Now I was aggravated.

I asked her why it wasn’t left then?  She said it could be a number of reasons and is at the driver’s discretion.  It could be because it was a computer, it could be because with the rainy weather he didn’t want the box to get soaked or any other reason.  Ok fine.

So I asked her if there was a way I could pick the box up at their local Naples office after work.  She checked and said this was an option that was not allowed per the shipper’s instructions.  WTF?

I told her that it seemed ridiculous that my only option was to make sure that someone was home all day Wednesday to receive the package.  I repeated a request I made early in the phone call to have the driver simply redeliver the package if he is close to our area, a request she initially said was not possible.

Well this time she said she could contact the local branch and see if a redelivery was possible.  She made no promises but said I would receive a call from the branch within an hour letting me know either way. Ok fair enough, I thanked her for making the extra effort to at least try to get me the box .

As promised I got the call back from the local branch.  They said they talked to the driver, he said he didn’t leave the box because it was pouring out and even under our front door overhang it could have gotten wet.  I was surprised to hear that they would indeed redeliver the box sometime before 7pm, sweet!

I hung up quite pleased that I managed to secure an unexpected outcome with a little phone persistence.

I didn’t have much time to screw with the new system last night but I at least got started with the migration progress.  Aesthetically I like the design of the tower, I especially like the white LED accent lights that can be turned off and on as I desire.  The I7 processor seemed appropriately fast.  I look forward to seeing how it chews threw my first video processing task, it should do so significantly faster than I have been accustomed to.

The migration process will be doubled up this time around because once I migrate the Lenovo to the Gateway I will be migrating Ali to the Lenovo.  It will be a decent amount of work but I hope to have everything totally done by the end of this upcoming weekend.