WhiteGhost Sticks to the Plan

[raptron]

13 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Second, while the ladies were in the other room trying on gowns, Ghostlet and I had our inaugural D&D session.  DMing is way harder than it looks and it took forever to do anything.  We did have fun, though, and we are looking forward to future sessions

Aw, yay!

 

[Red1263]

Glad to hear that the photo shoot and the F-S DnD session went great!

[WhiteGhost]

20 hours ago, analoggirl said:

 

Maybe if you had to hang at least one picture up on the wall in a place you see often, whatever the results Wedding pictures are meant to be looked at often, show your friends and family etc. so it makes sense they motivate differently 😄

haha, yeah, Speedo pics are not going up on any walls  

 

18 hours ago, @mu said:

 

ha ha awesome! that's a great motivator

We also had a very low key wedding. Sometime afterwards we had a few pictures taken at Golestan's palace in traditional Kajar attire. We did not mean to make those wedding pictures as such but everybody think they are And I'm the one holding the sabre on those, which puzzled the photographer a lot because it's not how it supposed to be but I'm an Assassin dammit Enjoy!

An Assassin in Kajir attire with a sabre?  Sounds like the perfect picture   

 

17 hours ago, deftona said:

So people are just bored of social distancing now? Also I think it would be a long time before I trust a buffet again. I'd be the one standing there with a stabby fork shouting IF ANYONE BREATHES ON MY PRAWNS IMMA GET YOU.

I don't think it is boredom.  There are so few cases here (zero symptomatic cases for more than a month) and everyone that comes in has to show their health app so people are phasing out social distancing.  When you have really strong contact tracing and robust quarantine protocols for at risk individuals, there really isn't much need for social distancing.

 

8 hours ago, raptron said:

Aw, yay!

 

All the D&D  

 

5 hours ago, Red1263 said:

Glad to hear that the photo shoot and the F-S DnD session went great!

I wouldn't say the D&D session was great, but at least it wasn't a disaster  

 

 

Yesterday was my first day back in Normal-land so I was thrown off my plan a bit.  After doing my workout/NF catch up in the morning, I still had a lot of time before my afternoon run, so I just sat down and played some Skyrim.  That turned into a lot of Skyrim and I pretty much didn't get anything else done all day  

 

I did at least get my duolingo in, that habit seems to be sticking.

[KB Girl]

Its very encouraging that it’s all so under control that you can do post apocalyptic things like get wedding pictures taken and rub shoulders with a bunch of strangers

 

the gender swap things is brilliant. No wonder you married her  

 

[starsapart]

I want post-apocalyptic life, but it feels further away than ever.

 

On the bright side, the photo session sounds amazing. I can't WAIT to see the results.

[WhiteGhost]

14 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Its very encouraging that it’s all so under control that you can do post apocalyptic things like get wedding pictures taken and rub shoulders with a bunch of strangers

 

the gender swap things is brilliant. No wonder you married her  

 

It is nice but still feels weird to do thing "the old way"  

 

Among a myriad of other reasons, yes  

 

8 hours ago, starsapart said:

I want post-apocalyptic life, but it feels further away than ever.

 

On the bright side, the photo session sounds amazing. I can't WAIT to see the results.

It will come, eventually.

 

I am really excited for it  

 

 

Yesterday started out with a straddle module for MyFlex.  That one is by far the hardest for me so I rarely do it, and yesterday was another reminder of this.  I really need to strengthen my side butt.  After that I did a bunch of hand stands trying to work on free standing HSPUs.  Mostly it was just a bunch of negatives.

 

When I was about to get on the treadmill, a worker came by to fix our stationary bike.  When we bought it, they assembled it wrong and one of cranks broke soon after.  We hadn't bothered with fixing it during the quaratine to reduce the amount of traffic in or house but we felt it was probably pretty safe now.  With that fixed I decided to use the bike instead of the treadmill and Holy Hanna that was hard.  I only got about 2km in before my quads gave out and I didn't even have it in uphill mode.  I gave up and did the rest of my time on the treadmill.  I don't know how people like Sloth can do that for hours on end.

 

I made hamburgers for dinner and they were really great.  I have been aggressively cutting, having only 3 eggs for breakfast, a protein shake for lunch and a single entree (meat & vegetable, very little starchy carbs) for dinner.  I have now reached 75.4 KGs this morning and a BF% of 21.5%.  This is territory I haven't seen in years.  I will loosen up after the pictures, but it felt good to get out my old army dress uniform and find I could get the pants on again.  I am going to bring it with me for the photo shoot  

 

  

[PaulG]

Biking is a close second to running for me on the list of things I LEAST want to do for exercise...

 

Nice job on the cut! I’m not sure where you started out but it sounds like fast progress. Are you going to end it after the shoot, or just taper down and keep going?

[WhiteGhost]

2 hours ago, PaulG said:

Biking is a close second to running for me on the list of things I LEAST want to do for exercise...

I think following @Sloth the Enduring and @raptron has had a corrupting influence on me  

 

2 hours ago, PaulG said:

Nice job on the cut! I’m not sure where you started out but it sounds like fast progress. Are you going to end it after the shoot, or just taper down and keep going?

I started out in early March at 81.3KGs and just over 26% BF.  I don't have any target weight, but I would like to get below 20% BF so depending on where I am in 2 weeks I will probably either keep it going for a bit or just start maintenance. 

[starpuck]

Omg!  Biking is like in my top 3!  (Just below Beat Saber and Hockey for cardio exercises, lol.)   Granted, it is a bajillion times better out on a trail than on a stationary.  I'd probably not like that one as much... Hmm.

 

Nice job on the BF and cutting.  That's some serious progress!!!

[Renate]

Oh that's cool that you kept your uniform And fit in it! Always a good feeling.

 

13 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Among a myriad of other reasons, yes

 

I will never, ever get tired of spouses talking about each other in this way. Reality is so much better than books or movies. 

[WhiteGhost]

9 hours ago, Starpuck said:

Omg!  Biking is like in my top 3!  (Just below Beat Saber and Hockey for cardio exercises, lol.)   Granted, it is a bajillion times better out on a trail than on a stationary.  I'd probably not like that one as much... Hmm.

 

Nice job on the BF and cutting.  That's some serious progress!!!

I love biking on single tracks through the forest.  Using a bike as transportation is no problem.  Sitting on one without going anywhere is really hard and I think I have figured out why - regular bikes will tilt side to side as I pedal which feels like a natural motion.  The trainer is fixed in place so the pedaling action feels just off enough to uncomfortable. 

 

Thanks!

 

9 hours ago, analoggirl said:

Oh that's cool that you kept your uniform And fit in it! Always a good feeling.

 

 

I will never, ever get tired of spouses talking about each other in this way. Reality is so much better than books or movies. 

I didn't intend to keep it and just left it at my parents house when I moved overseas.  I happened to come across it when we were cleaning up after my mom died and almost threw it out because there was no way I was going to ever fit in it, and even less likely I would ever have the opportunity.  Luckily I decided to bring it back with me instead of tossing it.  

 

It helps when you have a really awesome partner  

 

 

Yesterday started off with a MyFlex Hip module, after which I did a leg workout.  I managed to stretch the workout across the entire morning and into early afternoon by also getting caught up on NF and my D&D stuff between sets.  After Ghostlet got home from school I did a run on the treadmill, managing to get another sub-30 5K.   

 

While Ghostlet was doing his homework I was looking for books on race relations to read after getting inspired  by @deftona.  I couldn't find much and even got booted out of the Amazon system for searching the phrase "white supremacy" (I was looking for a book called "Me and White Supremacy").  After further discussion with Deffy I decided to google to see if any of these books were available in PDF and managed to find the one I was looking for called Chokehold: Policing Black Men and read a bit of that in the evening instead of getting on Skrim.

[Scaly Freak]

26 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

While Ghostlet was doing his homework I was looking for books on race relations to read after getting inspired  by @deftona.  I couldn't find much and even got booted out of the Amazon system for searching the phrase "white supremacy" (I was looking for a book called "Me and White Supremacy").  After further discussion with Deffy I decided to google to see if any of these books were available in PDF and managed to find the one I was looking for called Chokehold: Policing Black Men and read a bit of that in the evening instead of getting on Skrim.

 

You might be interested in this then: Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? - Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. Details on what it's about in the spoiler below. Site requires you to sign up, but the book is free in Kindle or ePub format until June 5.

 

 

Spoiler

 

What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness?

This collection of reports and essays (the first collaboration between Truthout and Haymarket Books) explores police violence against black, brown, indigenous and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures. It also makes a compelling and provocative argument against calling the police.

Contributions cover a broad range of issues including the killing by police of black men and women, police violence against Latino and indigenous communities, law enforcement's treatment of pregnant people and those with mental illness, and the impact of racist police violence on parenting, as well as specific stories such as a Detroit police conspiracy to slap murder convictions on young black men using police informant and the failure of Chicago's much-touted Independent Police Review Authority, the body supposedly responsible for investigating police misconduct. The title Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? is no mere provocation: the book also explores alternatives for keeping communities safe.

Contributors include William C. Anderson, Candice Bernd, Aaron Cantú, Thandi Chimurenga, Ejeris Dixon, Adam Hudson, Victoria Law, Mike Ludwig, Sarah Macaraeg, and Roberto Rodriguez.

 

 

[WhiteGhost]

9 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

You might be interested in this then: Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? - Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. Details on what it's about in the spoiler below. Site requires you to sign up, but the book is free in Kindle or ePub format until June 5.

 

 

  Hide contents

 

What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness?

This collection of reports and essays (the first collaboration between Truthout and Haymarket Books) explores police violence against black, brown, indigenous and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures. It also makes a compelling and provocative argument against calling the police.

Contributions cover a broad range of issues including the killing by police of black men and women, police violence against Latino and indigenous communities, law enforcement's treatment of pregnant people and those with mental illness, and the impact of racist police violence on parenting, as well as specific stories such as a Detroit police conspiracy to slap murder convictions on young black men using police informant and the failure of Chicago's much-touted Independent Police Review Authority, the body supposedly responsible for investigating police misconduct. The title Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? is no mere provocation: the book also explores alternatives for keeping communities safe.

Contributors include William C. Anderson, Candice Bernd, Aaron Cantú, Thandi Chimurenga, Ejeris Dixon, Adam Hudson, Victoria Law, Mike Ludwig, Sarah Macaraeg, and Roberto Rodriguez.

 

 

Thanks for the recommendation.  I can only get ebooks from Amazon.cn so unfortunately I can't get it on Kindle, but I will look into ePub

 

I forgot to mention in my update that during my leg workout I was working on GHRs but the setup is not 100% ideal because even after putting my heaviest dumbbells on my heaviest barbell, it still isn't heavy enough to hold me at the bottom end of the range.  To compensate, I combined this move with a plyometric pushup into a new total body exercise I call GHR Pushups

 

Looking at the video I can see my form isn't great, lots of hinging going on at the waist, but I guess that just means I have room to improve   

[starsapart]

The video is still pretty cool. ☺️

 

Thanks for the good conversation yesterday, by the way. I appreciate you.

[Mad Hatter]

Looking swole indeed, great job!

[Scaly Freak]

7 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Thanks for the recommendation.  I can only get ebooks from Amazon.cn so unfortunately I can't get it on Kindle, but I will look into ePub

 

You may be able to email the book to your Kindle. They can read ePub now, finally, unless you have an older model. But ePub is the standard for all e-reading apps and devices that are not Kindle, so you should be able to read that format on a free app on a computer if necessary. If you are interested in a free app for either computer or smartphone, just say the word.  

[PaulG]

1 hour ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

You may be able to email the book to your Kindle. They can read ePub now, finally, unless you have an older model. But ePub is the standard for all e-reading apps and devices that are not Kindle, so you should be able to read that format on a free app on a computer if necessary. If you are interested in a free app for either computer or smartphone, just say the word.  

True story. I just downloaded it and managed to get it into iBooks with no problems. @deftona, thank you for the suggestion, it’s really good. I just have to finish my challenge book before I really dig into this one...

 

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I forgot to mention in my update that during my leg workout I was working on GHRs but the setup is not 100% ideal because even after putting my heaviest dumbbells on my heaviest barbell, it still isn't heavy enough to hold me at the bottom end of the range.

You are looking beastly with the GHRs, nice job.

 

I’ve been thinking about GHR setups too, because ultimately I need them in my workout routine, but they’re not easy to improvise a setup for. I’ve seen a few DIY things with huge amounts of weight plates or big 8-foot plywood boards, but I don’t have room for that in a studio apartment.

 

Your video made me realize though, we don’t actually need a setup that’s longer than the space between our ankles and our kneecaps. Even a couple of 2x4s bolted into a rough square, with a length of pipe to loop your ankles under, would work.

 

Googling hasn’t been kind to me because so few people do this exercise outside of gyms, but I finally found this a few minutes ago:

 

Not a bad setup, right? I think I’m going to build a smaller, pared-down version. I don’t think it would need to project very far out past the knees...

[WhiteGhost]

9 hours ago, starsapart said:

The video is still pretty cool. ☺️

 

Thanks for the good conversation yesterday, by the way. I appreciate you.

It was a nice convo, always good to chat and the appreciation is mutual  

 

8 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Looking swole indeed, great job!

Thanks, it seems I am on track for the Speedo challenge  

 

5 hours ago, Scalyfreak said:

 

You may be able to email the book to your Kindle. They can read ePub now, finally, unless you have an older model. But ePub is the standard for all e-reading apps and devices that are not Kindle, so you should be able to read that format on a free app on a computer if necessary. If you are interested in a free app for either computer or smartphone, just say the word.  

I have a really old Kindle so I don't have much hope for getting anything there.  I can usually find most stuff for my computer as long as I have access to Google, though, so I should be ok.

 

3 hours ago, PaulG said:

Your video made me realize though, we don’t actually need a setup that’s longer than the space between our ankles and our kneecaps. Even a couple of 2x4s bolted into a rough square, with a length of pipe to loop your ankles under, would work.

Yeah, the most important parts don't take up much room at all.  When I was doing these at the park, I found a place where a fence ran along the edge of a short ledge, and I would just stuck a towel under my knees and slip my feet under the fence.  

 

The setup you found seems like it would actualy work great, and I agree that you probably wouldn't need so much sticking out in the front past the knees.

 

  

 

Yesterday was pretty nice, I did lots of strength work in the morning, focusing mostly on back levers and straddle->straight handstands.  handstands were pretty crap, but at least I got a lot of them done.  As per usual, I got caught up on NF and all of my D&D stuff while doing that so it used up my whole morning.  Ghostess was working from home yesterday and she cooked up a huge lunch, which was a nice change from my usual lunch of just a protein shake.

 

After lunch I spent some time learning a bit of stuff about how to DM, because it looks really hard but apparently is may not be as hard as I was imagining, especially for just a casual game among friends with low expectations

 

Once I had digested my lunch a bit, I did a run on the treadmill doing 5K in the first half hour and then slowing down and doing 3k in the second half hour.  After my run I went out and ran a few errands then came back, did some reading.

 

I got my Duolingo in before bed, but I am really starting to struggle on the Arabic.  I have now gotten through the alphabet and can kind of sound out words now, but now it has moved on to teaching actual vocabulary and I am not doing very well at remembering anything.  It's different from the other languages I am doing where it is mostly just remembering things I already knew but forgot or Spanish where I can kind of just guess the meaning if I don't know it.  I had forgotten how hard it is to learn a new language from scratch.

[juliebarkley]

25 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

I have a really old Kindle so I don't have much hope for getting anything there.  I can usually find most stuff for my computer as long as I have access to Google, though, so I should be ok.

You can convert ePub to Kindle (ie. MOBI) with Calibre. Ask me about ebooks anytime. It's kind of literally my job.

 

25 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

I got my Duolingo in before bed, but I am really starting to struggle on the Arabic.  I have now gotten through the alphabet and can kind of sound out words now, but now it has moved on to teaching actual vocabulary and I am not doing very well at remembering anything.  It's different from the other languages I am doing where it is mostly just remembering things I already knew but forgot or Spanish where I can kind of just guess the meaning if I don't know it.  I had forgotten how hard it is to learn a new language from scratch.

How did you manage with when you learned the Asian languages you know? You must have face similar challenges.

 

I'm using a different program to learn Arabic (Arabic with Husna, through Bayyinah). They have a completely different approach, in that we have been learning only grammar, with any vocabulary happening incidentally. Of course, they've also completely redone their Arabic learning, and I haven't looked at the new one yet, but I think it's still heavily grammar-focused. I like having the framework to put the words I learn into, plus it helps me recognize words "in the wild" when they've been conjugated. Now, the end goal is a bit different. But maybe just throwing vocabulary at you and hoping it will stick isn't the way that your brain is going to pick up this language best?

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

You can convert ePub to Kindle (ie. MOBI) with Calibre. Ask me about ebooks anytime. It's kind of literally my job.

 

And the Kindle app for computers reads ePub files  

[raptron]

I am a big fan of Calibre for ebook management in general.

[WhiteGhost]

On 6/5/2020 at 8:59 AM, juliebarkley said:

You can convert ePub to Kindle (ie. MOBI) with Calibre. Ask me about ebooks anytime. It's kind of literally my job.

 

How did you manage with when you learned the Asian languages you know? You must have face similar challenges.

 

I'm using a different program to learn Arabic (Arabic with Husna, through Bayyinah). They have a completely different approach, in that we have been learning only grammar, with any vocabulary happening incidentally. Of course, they've also completely redone their Arabic learning, and I haven't looked at the new one yet, but I think it's still heavily grammar-focused. I like having the framework to put the words I learn into, plus it helps me recognize words "in the wild" when they've been conjugated. Now, the end goal is a bit different. But maybe just throwing vocabulary at you and hoping it will stick isn't the way that your brain is going to pick up this language best?

Well I will certainly keep you in mind for all my ebook questions

 

Chinese and Japanese I learned by living in country for extended periods of time so I had a vested interest in learning the vocabulary and had immediately available opportunities for using any vocabulary I picked up.  Korean and Russian were through structured and very intensive courses (full time 8-5 classwork, plus homework) because learning those languages was literally my job (military translator).  This is the first time I have been trying to casually pick up a language just for kicks and having no idea if I will ever use it and no immediate prospects for using anything I learn adds to the challenge. 

 

I really prefer having good explanations of grammar because trying to just guess sentence structure, conjugations, and cases through random example sentences is tough.  

 

On 6/5/2020 at 11:12 AM, Scalyfreak said:

 

And the Kindle app for computers reads ePub files  

Good to know

 

12 hours ago, raptron said:

I am a big fan of Calibre for ebook management in general.

I will check it out

 

 

Yesterday I was super low energy.  I got suited up for a workout and then proceeded to exactly NOT work out.  I have been feeling sore from workouts earlier in the week and just struggled to get any energy and I am pretty sure it is directly correlated to half-starving myself.  Weight and BF% are coming down, but the cost is high.  After the photo shoot next week I am definitely going back to maintenance because I need my energy levels back.  As I was pretending I was thinking about working out, I read in @@mu's thread that she was working on HS->Crow and I really wanted to try some of those but just did not have the energy.  

 

Around lunch time did a short walk on the treadmill and then just gave up on even pretending.  In the afternoon, we had our water delivered, so I did get an impromptu workout in hauling 40 cases of water into our basement.

 

Also around lunch time, one of our neighbors was cooking something that smelled really good, and Wraith was super interested in whatever it was.  She somehow got it into her mind that the smell was coming from her snack box on top of the A/C and she spent a long time begging for snacks until I finally gave in.  She appreciated the snacks very much

 

 

For dinner I had some chicken thighs in the fridge that I needed to use so I decided to try my hand at Chicken Tikka Marsala.  The whole time I was making it, I would taste test but it just seemed off so I thought it was going to be a flop. But then, once the cream was added in, it all came together and was way better than could have imagined.  I paired it with some ready to bake onion bread that we had and it was perfection.  I think I am going to have the leftovers for lunch today  

 

 

 

Ghostlet was not even slightly interested and really, really wanted pizza so I had my amazing Indian food by myself and ordered him a pizza.  His loss.

 

After dinner I played skyrim until midnight which was D&D time.  We had another fun adventure with our Sunless Citadel crew and shenanigans were had.  Deets in the spoiler

 

D&D update

Spoiler

 

We left off last time stumbling into a room with 2 goblins and 2 bugbears gambling at a table.  When they pressed us on why we were there, I tried to convince them that I was a famous wizard and that we were there to see his boss.  They didn't buy it, but since one of the bugbears was losing at gambling anyway, he agreed to take us to the boss.  When we get there we are in the throne room with like 30+ goblins and the leader is a hobgoblin who is wearing the armour and signet rings that we were sent in to collect (our original mission was to collect signet rings of some dead adventuring brothers for her grieving mother, but I never told this to the rest of the party when they signed up).   I tried to convince the hobgoblin that the items he picked up from the adventurers were cursed and that his God had commanded me to come and warn him, and also remove those cursed items from his citadel so he wouldn't be endlessly harassed by Kobolds.  The king didn't buy this story either but saw immediately that we were just there for the stuff and made a deal with us that if we went into the tunnels beneath the citadel and cleared out the kobolds he would give s the stuff in exchange.

 

By this time the rest of the party was all over me asking what the deal was with the signet rings so I explained to them that some lady had hired us to come in and collect them... and that if we got all of them together we would be granted great powers. (I had to add in the last part because I was really uncomfortable with that level of honesty  )

 

The hobgoblin sent along a gnome that he had been holding prisoner to be our guide, but he was hella suspicious, saying that he was just a trader and that he used to supply food & stuff* to the kobolds and now he would be supplying to the goblins instead.  

 

 * stuff included random magical creatures like the dragon we killed in the first episode.  He was not happy that we had killed that dragon.

 

While in the caves, we discovered some magical rocks that we suspected were a trap so we all got far away and shot them with a bow.  Sure enough, the rocks exploded revealing a room behind them.  Our curious bard (@Kestrel Grey) ran in to inspect the newly discovered room only to discover that the room was occupied by a gelatinous cube.  She immediate got stuck inside of it so we all sprang into action to rescue her.  Our bumbling wizard Brian (@Mr_Willes) tried to put it to sleep but ended up just putting the bard to sleep along with the skeleton zombie our warlock @Jarric has raised with his necromancer whistle, who was rushing in to pull her out.   I rushed in and cast a healing spell to keep the bard alive and the barbarian (@deftona) rushed in and yanked her out of the cube, getting her to safety.  

 

I ended up getting too close to the cube and lost 150% of my hit points in one hit and was down for the count.   Luckily the bard was back on her feet and rushed in to give me a healing potion just in time for me to reach up and cast Inflict Wounds on the cube which was still in reach even though I was still prone at this point.  I managed to roll a natural 1 on my attack, but by some miracle it still connected because my modifiers were enough to get me up to the cubes ridiculously low AC  I was very grateful that the DM (@jonfirestar) was not using the "Nat 1 = automatic failure" rule.  I scrambled out of the way while our rogue (@Red1263) managed to finish it off.

 

We took a short rest and then proceeded a little bit further into the caves until we stumbled into a kobold ambush.  We were out of time by this point so we finished up and will start next time with the ambush 

 

 

[Kestrel Grey]

So just another routine day for us then.  

 

That dinner looks delicious, I love indian curries.  Feel free to invite me over to eat Ghostlet's share.

[starpuck]

Those days are the ones I end up doing rest days on and feel so much better for it.  I had never even factored in that I am still eating at deficit, but maintaining the heightened activity!  Duh Starpuck, duh!!

 

Tomorrow or next week, our DM says we will wrap up the Sunless Citadel, so I am trying to oh so very carefully skim your posts.   It'll be neat when we are both done to see how it all shakes out! 

 

 

[Red1263]

You forgot to mention that the cube had 80+ hit points!