lairpie

If you live anywhere remotely rural, often a great idea is to contact local farmers and buy bigger quantities frozen. I live in a city, but there's a group here that has contracted with a farm a couple hours to the north and once a month they bring down a truck full of meat for the group. We get much, much higher quality meat, slightly cheaper than the grocery store. Another thought, certain cuts of meat are a lot cheaper than other cuts so that's something to look for.

Go Ellen!

I work from home and my wife is doing the mommy thing, so jobs in the cities mostly only affect us indirectly. So far the trip has been beautiful and even with unusually high temps, not too icky sticky.

Took video of a set of empty bar bench presses and a set at 150 lbs, which is my current working weight. I'll get those uploaded into the form section later in the week once some work projects are done. Made our second purchase today: Rings, for helping to workout while we're travelling (2.5 weeks leaving Thursday, then again for 2.5 weeks in july, then 5 weeks around CNF) when we're not sure whether we'll checking out gyms in various cities or what.

How 'bout those pain killers...

Went up to 255 on my DL today. I had previously been feeling pretty shaky about my grip strength and was planning on doing 1 set double overhand, then mixed grip for my last 2 sets. My first pull with a mixed grip was laughable, as in that made the lift so much easier i would need to add a considerable amount more weight. I finished out my sets all double overhand other than that 1 mixed pull. I think for now I'm going to just keep going up 10 lbs each time, maybe 15 or 20 if I'm feeling chipper and see how long my double overhand grip can keep up. Torn though, i could do 1 set double overhand as like a grip strength working set, then add more weight and do 2 sets mixed grip. Hmm... I have basically been a focus pro for the last few days, which is good because I have a ton of work to get done between now and next thursday when I leave for a trip. Some has to be done before I leave and some will just make my trip vastly more relaxing if it is done before I leave. I did take a break and whip up a quick stand up desk. Working sitting down for 12-15 hours a day is just terrible, and my chair's padding is wearing out. If we weren't moving soon, I'd get a new chair, since I am still going to sit at times, but seems dumb before the move. Along the lines of both our focus goal and our not spending goal, my wife and I have been doing some reading and some action on the raw amount of stuff in our house. We've sorted books/movies into get rid of, keep, read/watch then get rid of, and wait and see how far we're moving piles. She especially has started cleaning out her closet a bit and we've been gathering up useless things that aren't hugely sentimental, aren't especially pretty, and take up space. While the move is still pretty far off, there's a lot of travelling between then and now, so need to get a start so we don't just end up moving all the same crap to a new house. We bought our first non-food thing yesterday: a dog cable thing so that our friend's without a fence tight enough or tall enough to restrain watch our dog can watch her while we're away. 0 regrets on that purchase: it was considered, useful, and only $20 when the alternative was paying $150 to take her with us on our scouting trip. Up to 68% in Starting Strength. My attempts to do a few power cleans today at the end of my workout were pretty terrible. I don't seem to be able to get my elbows up high enough. Need to work on a bit of flexibility and a wider grip. Doing power cleans after deadlifts isn't making it easier either, but it was just to try and do the form a bit with it fresh in my mind. Next 2 workouts I'm going to record and post up in the form check section. Conveniently, we just ran into some stuff with work where I needed photoshop and decided there was enough value in the rest of the Creative Cloud to get the whole thing, so I have premier to edit up the videos so they're not mad long. I doubt I'll get time to do that before we leave, but can edit them while we're travelling and post them when I get a chance.

So, I finally got fed up with sitting at my desk, but now we're going to move in a few months, so not going to put a lot of time into making a sweet desk setup until we move. Instead, I grabbed a random cabinet door and 2 wine boxes and set them on my desk. Then I put my monitors up by the TV. I can move the keyboard stand and put the monitors back down on the desk if I want to work sitting down for a while. If I like this height, I'll probably do something slightly less ghetto, but this should work for now to try it out.

I'd think restrained and outside was about even on the mommy-value scale with inside but free, maybe higher on exceptionally nice days.

Currently I'm just doing the bar for squats and without much weight and a rack have been having trouble getting even that into a good low back position. That was my intent mostly just based on the fact that most of my knowledge comes from reading Starting Strength and that's what he recommends. May give high bar squats a try for the athletic benefits.

Shannon's pretty big into crochet and knitting, as are a few friends we're meeting there as part of our ~7000 mile fall road trip. They were describing it last year when we visited a while after, and then when it lined up with our passing through that part of the country on our trip, figured why not. The gentlemen are planning to sip whiskey and do a scavenger hunt picking out things like someone wearing more than 3 home made woolen items, or a group of more then 2 men without women. And probably carry bags of purchased yarn. "Spezzi and I are the only "full time" warriors, I think, but we may convince Lairpie to stay with us after this challenge. Rah! And yes, it is obviously the right choice! Haha" I'm doing a challenge as each class with goals sort of themed for the class and sort of building on what I learn from each. After I've done one of each, we'll see how things play out. Druid is definitely next with a yoga goal, a meditation goal, and a flexibility goal. Part of me wants to try and do some sort of vegetarian type goal to sort of complete the theme, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it. Now, this doesn't mean I'll stop doing warrior-ish workouts, just, build on them each challenge with new skills from different fitness angles.

Yeah, she's basically 1/2 of the HR department as I see it, if we had departments. Depending on where we move, I'm probably going to take it and reuse most of it, even if some parts need to be redone. We're probably not moving till the fall or winter though, so we decided we didn't want to wait that long. If anything though, we've spent far too much time researching potential cities rather than actually building this rack. Who knows though, some of the places we're looking at are cheap and small enough where paying for a gym might be cheaper than building one again, especially if it's one of the scenarios where we are likely to move again within a couple years. Went up to 245 for my dead lifts yesterday, and felt like my legs and back could do a lot more, but my hands can't hold onto it. After some reading and discussion, going to try doing 1 working set double overhand, 1 with a turned left, and 1 with a turned right, and see how that goes. Once I build my platform, I'll be a lot less afraid of dropping the bar (currently it would drop onto my nice garage floor and probably break it) and may try to do 2 or even 3 of the sets double overhand. My grip strength is pretty decent from doing ~2500 pullups last challenge (PLP60 plus some extras early on to help me stay awake while working on projects) so may be able to go heavier once i'm less afraid. If I can keep doing 10lbs more each time, I'll be getting another 2 45s as a reward for this challenge too since I only have another 85 lbs of weight. I was pretty sore in the hamstrings and glutes today, something that hasn't been true so far before today. Did 14 miles on the bike today in the process of visiting the DMV. The DMV also provided me with ample opportunity to get up to 60% in Starting Strength. Definitely excited to work Power Cleans into my workout at some point, as it seems they'll be directly helping with jumping and accelerating while playing Ultimate once I feel my ACL is up to it (up to playing Ultimate, have felt 0 twinges from it while lifting).

Eating vegetables within any sane sense is almost never a bad idea. Eating the other things that made you feel like you weren't sure if you should eat vegetables is a bad idea.

depending on your genetics and diet, going from 0 pullups to 20 pullups in 8 weeks is somewhere between impressive and impossible. It was pretty rough for me going from 4 to 10 in 6 weeks and i put on muscle faster than most. Also, you'll need some recovery time in there to actually build strength.

You should come to http://www.sheepandwool.com/festival with us. Going with some friends unless we end up moving right then, it's apparently a pretty grand time. It's 2 weekends after camp so it could be like a present for Kelly to make up for you being gone for camp.

Oh yeah, and haven't bought anything other than food. Oh, i guess we bought new rubber dish washing gloves for my wife, but necessary cleaning supplies are definitely not what we're avoiding buying here.

That's because they're pure sugar and gross.

Your smallest fan is cheering for you:

Oh, my upcoming trip has a thread, in case anyone want to contribute info on a few of the Appalachian cities we're considering for our move. http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/64506-road-trip-through-the-appalachians/

If we only had an HR department to complain to... Anyway, things are going well on the challenge. No missed workouts, though until I actually get the rack built, can't really get the bar onto my back correctly with much of any weight safely. Shannon and I have been watching each other and working on form mostly so far. Without the rack built, I'm going super conservative on weight (my spotter can almost bench the bar, so need to make sure I'm pretty careful to stay within what I can do. So far we've been doing the Academy barbell lvl 1 workout. 3x5 Deadlifts at 225 were pretty easy, so going to go up 10lbs each time from there for a while see how that goes. 5x5 Squats I don't trust myself enough with much weight, a sketchy knee, and no rack, so just doing the bar for now until i can count on a rack catching the bar. 5x5 Benching 140. I could do a bit more, but as my spotter can't quite bench the bar, have to be a little conservative. Aiming to go up 5lbs each time on that. 5x5 Push presses with 95lbs (i think), can probably go up 5lbs each time with that for a while. I have a lot of good eating days, then one day I'll get a little carried away. Need to improve keeping my rest day calories down a little. Down a pound or two, but could be doing more without causing any problems. Need to try and bust through a good chunk of Starting Strength this weekend. If I'm not done by time I do my "visiting cities where I might move" trip in a few weeks, should crank through it on that. Focus was a lot better before the topic of moving came up again, and I definitely spent too much time this week looking at houses and city info online. Next 2 weeks need to be some serious focus time.

My wife, baby, and I are going to be doing a bit of a road trip in 2.5 weeks, scouting out a few Appalachian cities where we are considering moving later this year. We're hoping to find somewhere far enough south to not be too cold in the winter, but far enough north and high enough in the mountains to not be too muggy. We live in Las Vegas and are quite active outdoors here, but aren't big fans of humidity. We're flying into Cleveland, seeing some freinds and getting picked up by my parents who live in Ohio so we can borrow one of their cars. Our actual cities up for consideration are: Roanoke, VA Johnson City, TN Asheville, NC Greenville, SC Athens, GA Chattanooga, TN We'd be interested in any feedback you have on those, if anyone wants to show us around a bit, workout, or let us know we missed a great city to check out, hit me up. Rough itinerary. May move through cities slower or faster, depending how we like them. https://roadtrippers.com/trips/spring-move-scouting-trip/7524506

Into the deadlift section in Starting Strength. Haven't bought anything other than food. Focus has been so/so. Good at times, probably better than average, but definitely a lot of room for improvement still. I start tomorrow with barbell training. Mostly trying to establish roughly how much weight I'll be starting with in each lift by working my way up progressively from the bar, but trying to get up to something reasonable this week, rather than doing 5lbs a week. Can't really do squats with any real weight until i get the rack built so hoping to actually get that built this weekend. Hoping to get a couple form videos out of that.

the @ is subjective effort. Like he looks back next workout and sees 3x10x55@5, probably can try a little more weight next time. if it's 3x10x55@9, just try and repeat.

Hey, we got like 4 inches last year. Broke a record for august or something.

Huh, I'll have to finish reading it later, but that seems like an awesome link and may help me prevent another ACL injury in the future.

4/15 glorious nothing the closest thing i'm doing to exercise today is lifting the dutch oven to make http://thenourishedcaveman.com/moroccan-heart-stew/. Not even the yoga/stretching knee rehab. if shannon could lift our dutch oven and would bring me food, i might not get out of bed! 4/14 69! 10,10,10,10,10,10,9 Done! Taking a walk when the baby wakes up 4/13 68 PLPSL 15,15,15,13,10 4/12 67 my body is pretty exhausted. 2 more days after this 12,11x5 4/11 66 11x6 4 mile casual hike around calico basin with some mild scrambling 4/10 65 PLPSL 15,15,12,12,11 4/9 64 plp 8x8 then hiking ridgeway route (3.5 miles with tier 4 scrambling, basically rock climbing but only in chunks. quite a lot of work) 4/8 63 PLP 10,10,10,10,10, 4/7 62 PLP+ pullups, lunges, decline block pushups, air squats, lat dumbbell raises, bridges, child's pose (2x the number as time) 16,16,15,15 4/6 61 11,10,10,10,10,10 4/5 60 plp+ pullups, lunges, decline block pushups, air squats, lat dumbbell raises 15,15,10,10,10 (pretty fast other than between set 2 and 3) 4/4 59plp 10,10,10,10,10,9 4/3 handstands 58 plp+ pullups, lunges, clap pushups, air squats, lat dumbbell raises 20!,15,13,10 beer festival 4/2 57 plp 10,10,10,10,10,7 hand stands - i do these more than it looks from my battle log cause i forget to add them, but not enough :-(