[TimovieMan]

Last challenge was about getting out of my winter blues and into my summer bod.

 

The intermittent fasting, and watching my calorie intake, had started up again, and I went on plenty of walks, so the step count is good as well.

But I really need to get more workouts in. I've started doing the DailyDare exercises again, but that's really not enough. I should be doing *more*. And return to more reasonable sleeping habits - although that's difficult with the World Championship Snooker that's going on at the moment and the entire "Summer of Sports" that's coming up (Roland Garros, Wimbledon, European Football Championship, Tour de France, the Olympics, etc.).

 

For actually *getting* that summer bod, those workouts are going to be very important, so this challenge is primarily about actually doing some, and making a *real* effort this time...

 

 

Because if it's not broken, there's no reason to fix it, I'm pretty much repeating the log from last challenge:

	Bad	Poor	Ok	Good	Excellent	Frequency	Notes
Intermittent fasting	< 14 hours	≥ 14 hours	≥ 16 hours	≥ 17 hours	≥ 20 hours	Daily
Calorie intake	> 4000 cal	> 3000 cal	≤ 3000 cal	≤ 2400 cal	≤ 2000 cal	Daily	Ballpark figures are good enough
Calories spent	< 2750 cal	≥ 2750 cal	≥ 3000 cal	≥ 3500 cal	≥ 4000 cal	Daily	Fitbit numbers
Calories in/out deficit	< 500 cal	< 0 cal	≥ 0 cal	≥ 500 cal	≥ 1000 cal	Daily
Curfew	≥ 1.30 am	≥ 1.00 am	< 1.00 am	< 0.30 am	< 0.00 am	Daily	Add 2 hours before non-working days
Sleep	< 5h 30m	< 6 hours	≥ 6 hours	≥ 6h 30m	≥ 7 hours	Daily	Fitbit numbers - naps count for half
Avg. sleep	< 6 hours	≥ 6 hours	≥ 6h 15m	≥ 6h 30m	≥ 6h 45m	Weekly	Fitbit numbers - naps count for half
Steps	< 6.000	≥ 6.000	≥ 8.000	≥ 10.000	≥ 12.000	Daily	Fitbit numbers
Avg. steps	< 9.000	≥ 9.000	≥ 10.000	≥ 11.000	≥ 12.000	Weekly	Fitbit numbers
Distance	< 15 km	≥ 15 km	≥ 20 km	≥ 25 km	≥ 30 km	Weekly	Walk to Mordor distance
Workouts	< 0.8	≥ 0.8	≥ 1.6	≥ 2.4	≥ 3.2	Weekly	Mini-workouts: 1/10 per exercise
Days with (mini)-workouts	< 3	3	4	5	≥ 6	Weekly

 

 

I did make some minor changes to the workouts and days with (mini)-workouts, to give me a bit more leeway. And maybe to motivate me to actually do more...

 

 

 

I'm going to the Alcatraz metal festival this summer, and my prep work is in full swing, so most of the songs I'll be posting in this challenge are probably going to be on the harder end of my scale.

 

I'm reposting the last song of the previous challenge, because it's an absolute banger, and I'll be revisiting it regularly.

It's literally a banger, as well, because the drummer is so aggressive in hitting those drums, he'd make John Bonham proud!

Architects are headlining the festival on Sunday, and I'll happily see their entire set just for this one song... 🤘

 

Architects - Animals

 

[TimovieMan]

I'll be cross-posting from the previous challenge a little, because I hadn't been paying attention and didn't notice the new challenges were already up.

Can I blame it on a lack of sleep because I disappeared down a YouTube rabbit-hole last Friday and haven't been able to catch up on sleep? 😇

 

 

I worked from home yesterday.

Part of my job consists of "waiting for the computer to finish", and I had a *large* task to do, so I knew I would be idling for a while so I went on an extended lunch break walk... 😇

 

^ I'm not a programmer, but the principle applies... 😁

 

The DailyDare yesterday was impossible for me. Shrimp squats are a no-go because of balancing issues. Can't possibly do them without falling on my ass, so I did a set of 10 burpees instead.

 

No extra exercises in the evening because I was too tired. Fell asleep on the couch. Awoke in time to see the final frame between Mark Allen and John Higgins, though. But went to bed straight after.

Something similar happened on Sunday, but I had a far better night then. This time the cats were *really* annoying at night. We have four cats, two older toms and a younger tom and molly (all spayed, of course). Two of them - the molly and an older tom - started in-fighting at around 5 am, making enough noise to wake up the missus and me. And when they finally stopped fighting, the molly kept scratching TimovieDaughter's bedroom door. Something she often does at night, and which is super-annoying as well.

 

I don't want to generalize, but out of personal experience: spayed tomcats are the nicest, most docile cats imaginable, whereas mollies are vicious creatures from hell that use their innate cuteness to get away with everything... 😅

 

 

This is week zero so far:

	Week 0
	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
Intermittent fasting
Calorie intake
Calories spent
Calories in/out deficit
Curfew
Sleep
Avg. sleep	6h35
Steps
Avg. steps	14.78K
Distance	9.06 km
Workouts	0.1
Days with (mini-)workouts	1

 

 

 

And for good measure, here's another song.

I'm a fan of folk metal - In Extremo is one of my favourite bands after all - so Feuerschwanz being at the Alcatraz festival means that I will *definitely* see their gig. I suspect they're going to be bundles of fun. How can they not be when this is featured on pretty much every one of their sets?

 

Feuerschwanz - Dragostea Din Tei

 

I love playing this at home just for the "WTF?" looks on my kids' faces... 😁

[Qnobi]

Following!

[sarakingdom]

39 minutes ago, TimovieMan said:

Can I blame it on a lack of sleep because I disappeared down a YouTube rabbit-hole last Friday and haven't been able to catch up on sleep? 😇

 

[Whisper]

Following 

[Shello]

👀

[Sovalis]

[TimovieMan]

Taking back my evenings (from chess):

- the number of vote chess matches I'm in is now 47. Used to be 107. Also, they all have a voting window of at least 48 hours

- the number of regular daily chess matches I'm in is still 104. But it used to be 152. And they all have a move window of at least 48 hours

 

While that's still a lot, it has significantly lessened my workload, and I can take most of every other evening back now.

 

 

Tomorrow's a holiday here, and so no work, and the kids don't have school. That means the kids get to stay up longer.

TimovieSon has won the battle with Mrs. Movieman, so the TV will be tuned to Champions League football for the semi-final between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

 

No points for guessing which team TimovieSon (and me!) are rooting for:

 

 

Mrs. Movieman is going on a city trip to Kraków tomorrow, together with one of her friends (who's also a neighbour). She'll be back on Saturday.

That means that I'll have the kids to myself for three and a half days. But above all: three full days without nagging! 😁😇

Mrs. Movieman should return home quite happy and chipper, especially since she'll also be visiting Auschwitz... 😱

 

 

And in completely random news:

Depending on which channel is broadcasting the snooker, I tend to alternate between Eurosport and BBC 2. While Eurosport has Jimmy White as one of their "big name" pundits, his commentary is rather generic, but they also have Alan McManus, and his commentary is a bit of a breath of fresh air.

I've mostly watched snooker on the BBC, and frankly, after about three decades, it's nice to have an alternative to Dennis Taylor, John Virgo, Steve Davis and John Parrott. I mean, I love them all, but come on, it's time for some fresh blood already! 😅

[Laghail]

following for new metal bands!

[Scaly Freak]

16 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

most of the songs I'll be posting in this challenge are probably going to be on the harder end of my scale

 

[Sea-to-sky]

Metal and errant science comics? Im in 😄
 

[Mad Hatter]

Here!

 

2 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Metal and errant science comics? Im in 😄

xkcd, not errant science, classic - in case you need a new rabbithole of web comics. 😄

[TimovieMan]

3 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Metal and errant science comics? Im in 😄

39 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

xkcd, not errant science, classic - in case you need a new rabbithole of web comics. 😄

^ This. It's xkcd, not errant science.

 

But beware: there's a trope for this! 😅

[Sea-to-sky]

1 hour ago, TimovieMan said:

This. It's xkcd, not errant science.

Oh no, so it is 😅 oops. Both awesome though so i am very happy either way. 
 

i had this one laying around in my photo folder. One of my favourites
 

[TimovieMan]

On Tuesday I biked to work and back, and went for a walk during my lunch break.
Did the DailyDare in the evening but not much else.

 

Went to the library with TimovieSon. TimovieDaughter didn't come, so that basically means I had free rein on which books to pick for her. So I saddled her up with a number of classics from when I was a young teen.

A couple of books by Dutch author Jan Terlouw (who I will happily call my favourite children's book author), Otfried Preussler's "Krabat", and Thea Beckman's "Crusade in Jeans", and I added Tolkien's "The Hobbit" for good measure.

Let's see how she fares with some of my favourite books from when I was her age... Or with "one of the best books of all time" in the case of "The Hobbit". 😇

 

 

Mrs. Movieman left for the airport in the early morning on Wednesday, so I got to sleep in a little. Had stayed up rather late, but nothing totally extravagant. I had the day off too, after all.

 

The plan was to go swimming with the kids in the afternoon, but a class mate asked if TimovieDaughter would go play at her house, so the swimming got scrapped. TimovieSon spent most of the afternoon playing with a few of the neighbour's kids.
I went for an extended walk after I brought TimovieDaughter to her friend's house. TimovieDaughter wanted to go by bike (it's less than 1 km away), but since I wanted to go on a walk immediately after (and the house was halfway to the park where I wanted to go walking), I decided to run beside her instead of getting my own bike. Only managed half the route - I hate running and lack the stamina - but I did it, and I'm totally counting it as an exercise.

Even did it twice, because I did it as well when I went to pick her up (again, only ran half the route).

 

 

 

The missus wanted me to mow the lawn yesterday. I got two thirds of the job done, and then our mower died.

It was an old one that we had gotten from a friend (after she redid her yard with artificial grass). But that means I have to get a new one. Preferably as soon as possible, because there's an odd strip with long grass amid freshly-mown patches in our back yard. It looks silly.

But... yay, unexpected costs! 😒

 

 

Watched a bunch of snooker as well. If anyone had put money on David Gilbert, Kyren Wilson, Jak Jones and Stuart Bingham being the World Championship semi-finalists, then that's now a rich man, I think. 😅

I think it's a testament to the fact that the level of play for the entire top-50 has gotten so good and so close that anyone can really beat anyone.

 

TimovieSon is a tad disappointed, though. One of his favourite football teams (the local Zulte-Waregem) relegated to the second division last year, and yesterday they lost in the promotion play-offs, so they'll be stuck in second division for at least another year.

On the bright side: tickets to go see them will be cheaper next season. 🤣

(that last remark left TimovieSon unamused 😈)

 

 

 

Been doing my best on all fronts. Well, maybe not the workouts, but I've been doing something every day. And there's still time this week... 😇

	Week 0
	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
Intermittent fasting
Calorie intake
Calories spent
Calories in/out deficit
Curfew
Sleep
Avg. sleep	6h20
Steps
Avg. steps	14.58K
Distance	20.32 km
Workouts	0.4
Days with (mini-)workouts	3

 

 

 

Here's another band that'll be at the Alcatraz festival: Clutch.

My first reaction to them was "ooh, my dad would probably love these guys!". He's very much into blues-rock, so they seem right up his alley.

I'm very much into the "ooh, they sound like fun!" camp and will check them out.

The time table for Alcatraz hasn't been released yet, but based on what day and stage the bands are playing, how high they are featured on the poster, and last year's time table, it definitely looks like some decisions will have to be made on Sunday evening. Chances are there will be overlap between the Architects' gig, and either this one or Danko Jones'...

 

Clutch - Electric Worry

[TimovieMan]

Random observation:

I'm going to see Bløf with the missus in a few weeks. (I got her into them in the first place.)

They're pretty much the biggest band in the Netherlands, but apart from *one* massive hit here (together with a Flemish singer), they're largely unknown in our parts. Which is odd, because they should definitely have their audience here too.

 

Anyway, in the Netherlands they usually perform in the biggest venues, selling out easily.

Now they're going on a "theatre tour", playing in smaller venues. 19 concerts, 17 on their home turf, and 2 in Belgium.

Guess which 2 gigs are the only ones that aren't sold out yet? 🤣

 

I just put together their likely setlist for preparation. It's made me realize that I haven't been looking at their discography very closely these last 15-20 years... I mainly know their older stuff... 😅

Should provide some variety in the coming weeks to all the metal music I'm listening to... 😁

[Mad Hatter]

5 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

It was an old one that we had gotten from a friend (after she redid her yard with artificial grass). But that means I have to get a new one. Preferably as soon as possible, because there's an odd strip with long grass amid freshly-mown patches in our back yard. It looks silly.

Mohawk lawn!

 

5 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

On the bright side: tickets to go see them will be cheaper next season. 🤣

(that last remark left TimovieSon unamused 😈)

LOL. 

[TimovieMan]

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Mohawk lawn!

 

That metal thing is a hammock, but the cloth hasn't been taken out of the garage yet on account of all the rain... 😋

 

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

LOL. 

It's a good indication of what type of humour I aim for at home... 😇

[Whisper]

Embrace the hawk!

[TimovieMan]

Yikes, no update since Thursday...

Okay, I had an *extremely* busy weekend, but still...

 

 

*I'll explain anyway... prepare for a tl;dr post*

 

 

Thursday:

 

The kids should really have gone to bed sooner, but TimovieSon was too excited to sleep with the Fiorentina vs. Club Brugge Conference League semi final match being played. He watched most of the first half, and came downstairs twice during the second half because he had heard me shout and wanted to know if Club Brugge had scored or not...

We lost 3-2, btw, but spent over 30 minutes with 10 men because of a dumb second yellow for Onyedika - who wasn't paying attention and didn't realize he'd already gotten himself booked five minutes before. Should be an exciting - if stressful - return match next week.

 

 

Friday:

 

With the missus out of the house, this was the perfect opportunity for a movie night with the kids, with me steering them towards something that I have been wanting to show them for a while now - and that I really wanted to rewatch myself.

So... we finally watched The Princess Bride!!!!

 

And the kids have been quoting Inigo Montoya a few times already!

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

 

As an aside, 1987 Robin Wright and Cary Elwes were both *ridiculously* good-looking! 😵

 

 

I completely shot myself in the foot on Friday evening, though.

I had already eaten a bar of chocolate during the day, but I *seriously* overindulged on crisps during the movie. Really. Massive quantities. I ate crisps like a gremlin after midnight...

And then I stayed up FAR too late. After the kids had gone to bed, I played some darts while the World Championship Snooker was playing in the background. And I watched the snooker highlights after. And then the movie that played after that on the BBC (Kursk: The Last Mission by Thomas Vinterberg). And then I went down an internet rabbit hole under the guise of "darts checkout theory"...

I'm in Belgium. We're in a +1 timezone from Great Britain. That movie had finished *late*. And then I added another two hours. 😱

 

It's Tuesday today, I'm *still* tired... 🙃

 

 

Meanwhile, in Poland...

 

Mrs. Movieman had an *extreme* case of "mood whiplash" on Friday. She'd gone to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau in the morning / early afternoon. But when she got back to Kraków, she arrived smack in the middle of the city-wide celebration of Wisła Kraków winning the Polish football cup...

Made for a surreal experience...

 

 

Saturday:

 

Went to pick up Mrs. Movieman and our neighbour at the airport. The rest of the day basically consisted of household chores, as well as the final preparation of TimovieSon's school trip luggage. He's leaving on a 3-day school trip to the coast on Monday, and TimovieDaughter is leaving on a school trip to Durbuy in the Ardennes. TimovieDaughter's luggage was already dropped off at school on Friday. TimovieSon's trip is by bus, but TimovieDaughter is going by train and to make the logistics easier, the kids' luggage is being sent ahead to Durbuy.

 

We had fries for dinner to "celebrate" Mrs. Movieman's return. So calorie intake was on the high side again, though nowhere near as extravagant as the crisps shenanigans on Friday.

 

 

Sunday:

 

TimovieSon had to get up early for a football tournament. And his team won! TimovieSon only conceded one goal the entire tournament.

There'd been a tournament on Saturday as well - which our team won as well. We even had two teams in that particular tournament. They played each other in the final. 😎
For a club that's in the second-lowest regional tier, we've got a very talented U9 group... 😅

 

After the tournament we had to rush to my mother-in-law's. It was her birthday and she was treating us (and brother-in-law) to fries at her local friterie. She does so every year.

The friterie has changed its formula, however, and now includes an all-you-can eat appetiser buffet and dessert buffet... So not only was there *planned* food shenanigans, there was a lot of *unplanned* overeaty nonsense as well.

I have zero willpower if it's all-you-can-eat... 😔

 

After lunch we visited the local fair, and then had to rush to the KV Kortrijk stadium for their relegation showdown vs KAS Eupen in the Belgian First Division. TimovieSon's U9 group was picked to walk out with the players, so there were a bunch of free tickets for the parents as well. TimovieDaughter wasn't interested, though, so it was just me and TimovieSon at the match. And 60 others from his football club. 😇

TimovieSon is a huge fan of SV Zulte-Waregem, another local team that relegated to the second division last year. They're the fierce rivals of KV Kortrijk, so while he was walking out with the players, wearing a KV Kortrijk shirt, he was actually going to support the other team during the match. He had hoped to walk out with the opposing keeper beforehand - and he got his wish!

The pre-match line-up was televised, so TimovieSon was on TV!

He even made the highlights broadcast later in the evening, which included images of the players and the youngsters walking on.

During the match, TimovieSon quickly took off his KV Kortrijk shirt. This proved to be a great idea, since he was wearing his team's yellow shirt underneath. That meant that, whenever the stand was filmed, we could quickly point out TimovieSon on TV. He was the one in yellow amid a sea of red. 😅

 

That principle is the exact reason why Samuel L. Jackson wanted Mace Windu to have a purple light saber. So that in the big arena fight with hundreds of Jedi, he'd be able to point out "*there* I am", even in long shots of a crowd... 😁

 

 

Monday:

 

Had to get up really early to drop TimovieDaughter off at the train station. And when TimovieSon had to go to school, we waited a bit to wave him off on the bus. And then I worked from home. Got a lunch break walk in, so my step count was ok for the day.

I had the afternoon session of the snooker final on in the background while working.

Watched "The Zone of Interest" with the missus in the evening. Because of course she wanted to see that after having visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. And then I watched the last couple of frames of the evening session to see Kyren Wilson win his first Snooker World Championship title.

Didn't do a (mini-)workout after that because I was too tired. I still blame Friday night, but really, Saturday and Sunday night weren't all that good either.

 

 

Tuesday:

 

Office day today. And I won't have to leave early to pick up the kids for once. They're on their school trips until tomorrow evening. Which makes the morning and evening routines far less stressful at home. No rushing whatsoever.

That's why I'll be having dinner out with Mrs. Movieman this evening. A restaurant on our local market square that I've never been to. 😋

 

 

Weekly weigh-in

 

Weight: 94.00 kg (-0.05)

Body fat: 22.7 % (-0.4)

 

Given last weekend's food shenanigans, I should be glad to be down, but it's still disappointing that I just can't seem to get below the 94 kg mark...

And with this weekend's food shenanigans, I don't expect to be down on Friday. Oh well. No rush.

 

 

Week zero

	Week 0
	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
Intermittent fasting
Calorie intake
Calories spent
Calories in/out deficit
Curfew
Sleep
Avg. sleep	5h57
Steps
Avg. steps	12.16K
Distance	30.94 km
Workouts	0.7
Days with (mini-)workouts	5

 

Did well with everything for most of the work week, but ate like I was preparing for hibernation during the weekend, and wrecked my sleep average on Friday (and haven't recovered yet).

Steps were mostly good, as well as 5 days of doing something in terms of exercise. Too many loose exercises, which don't really add up to much, though. *Still* no full workout.

 

Basically the same as the previous weeks: doing well during the work week, and then destroying everything during the weekend. Need to break out of that pattern and do better on Friday/Saturday/Sunday...

 

 

Walk to Mordor

 

Distance walked this week: 30.94 km (19.22 miles)
Road to Mordor: total 1012.9 miles - Lothlórien to Rauros - Feb. 18 - Day 3 since Lothlórien - Drifting on the river. Trees on sides are thin. No enemies. Gray and overcast.

 

 

 

Here's a band that I got to know through TimovieSon, back when he was 4 years old. He had stumbled upon them while watching YouTube videos at my parents' house. I had never heard of the band, and TimovieSon probably liked it mainly because of the cowboys and guns in the video. The song was fantastic, though. It was Gunman by Orden Ogan.

Despite liking that song *a lot*, I still didn't really look closely at other stuff by Orden Ogan. Don't know why.

But I'm seeing them at the Alcatraz festival this summer, so it was time to delve into their discography a little. The first song I played from them (other than Gunman) was this. I immediately marked Orden Ogan as "must see" this summer. My kind of power metal! 🤘

 

Orden Ogan - The Things We Believe In

 

[Qnobi]

Sounds like a heck of a week!

 

When I plow through a bag of Doritos like a goat on cocaine, I like to remind myself that all that chewing burns at least 5 calories. So it's not a total loss. 

 

In all seriousness, I have a similar pattern; good nutrition discipline during the week (when I pack my lunch and we have a planned menu) giving way to borderline gluttony on the weekend (when we eat out for both lunch and dinner). The family is well-established in that pattern, so I just try to make good menu choices and plan on a big salt/water gain. And I time my weigh-ins for Friday before the onslaught begins. There's probably a better way.

 

[Laghail]

Just going to leave this here:

 

 

[Sea-to-sky]

Excellent use of gifs 😆. Goad your getting the kids hooked on the classics. 

[TimovieMan]

58 minutes ago, Qnobi said:

And I time my weigh-ins for Friday before the onslaught begins. There's probably a better way.

Why do you think my weigh-ins are on Friday morning as well??? 😅

 

 

23 minutes ago, Laghail said:

Just going to leave this here:

I'd totally watch that. And force it upon the kids!

Although I've already made them fans of The Muppets and now of The Princess Bride, so there'd be little forcing. 😁

😇🤣

 

15 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Excellent use of gifs 😆. Goad your getting the kids hooked on the classics. 

😎

[TimovieMan]

And again I'm slacking with the updates.

 

Which turns this thing into a massive post again...

 

 

 

Tuesday

 

With the kids still on their school trips, Mrs. Movieman and me had some quality time alone for a change. We went out for dinner on Tuesday, to a local restaurant.

We had a table across from another couple whose kids are classmates of our kids'. We obviously weren't the only ones who had the "no kids - dinner out" idea. 😅

Food was delicious!

Had a rum-and-coke, and we shared a plate of tapas as appetisers. Main course was tuna with grilled vegetables and bell pepper coulis. Mrs. Movieman ordered the same, but had some left over which I also ate. I drank an Ice Tea during the main course, and I had affogato as dessert (which is basically a double espresso with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some caramelised hazel nut).

I have no idea how many calories this was. Mrs. Movieman's reply of "a lot" wasn't exactly helpful either. So I'm just ballparking it all at 3500 calories and be done with it.

 

 

Wednesday

 

Worked from home. Went to pick up a parcel at the post office - on foot - during my lunch break, to get my walk in.

It kind of annoyed me that I had specifically requested the item to be delivered on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, but they delivered it on Tuesday anyway, noticed I wasn't home and then brought it to the post office for pick-up. If they had done as I asked, I would have been home to collect and wouldn't have had to go to the post office myself, and could have done my walk around the park lake instead.

But Belgium's post offices are dysmal. We posted a letter to both kids so they would receive mail during their school trip. They also wrote each other a letter. We put all four letters in the post last Tuesday. Together. The post offices guarantee delivery in 3 working days for mail. TimovieSon got both his letters on Tuesday (so 5 working days later). TimovieDaughter only received one of her letters. On Wednesday, so 6 workdays later. And then they wonder why people hardly use the post offices any more...

 

I also finally did a mini-workout. Basically all the DailyDare exercises I had missed on the previous days, so 5 exercises in total. Which makes this pretty much the longest workout I've done in a while. I *really* need to step up my game in this.

 

Kids got home in the evening. TimovieSon's bus arrived at 3 in the afternoon, TimovieDaughter's train at 5.30 in the afternoon. TimovieDaughter's class had missed a connection somewhere and arrived half an hour later than expected.

Apparently they had a lot of fun on their trips, but TimovieDaughter was a bit overwhelmed on arrival, so she was in tears for a while before we got her to open up on the events of past days.

 

The kids' homecoming was "celebrated" with pizza. I didn't order any, because "the leftovers will suffice". Unfortunately, Mrs. Movieman and the kids weren't as hungry as they had let on, so I wound up eating more than them...

Damnit! EVERY. TIME! 🤯

If I deliberately don't order anything to limit how much I eat, the others leave so much food over that the one who didn't plan on eating winds up eating the most. And if I dare to think that there will be plenty left over, so there's no need to order "extra", I wind up getting nothing. I never win. 🤣

 

TimovieSon wanted to watch Club Brugge's Conference League semi final match. Our team lost. Well, they drew but since they lost last week, they lost on aggregate. A pity, but frankly, the better team advanced.

He then watched the Real Madrid - Bayern Munich Champion's League match. Which ended in disaster as well with Real Madrid equalising late in the match, and then scoring the winning goal, and Bayern's equaliser being disallowed because the linesman had (wrongly) waved the offside flag too soon and the ref had whistled instead of letting it play out and have the VAR decide.

 

I also found a decent app for darts practice, so spent some time playing darts when the kids were off to bed, and I tried out a number of different training exercises. That took quite a while, so I got into bed at ridiculous o'clock again.

 

 

Thursday

 

Ascension Day so no work, and no school for the kids. TimovieSon went to play with a classmate in the afternoon, TimovieDaughter spent most of the afternoon at our next door neighbour's, and Mrs. Movieman had her best friend over to go for a walk (and a mid-walk ice cream).

It was "chores" day for me, though. The large sliding door that's our access from the living room to our garden has been really hard to slide open for years now, and I finally replaced the rollers on the bottom. One of the wheels had been worn out so much it had flattened completely... 😅

I also replaced the toilet seat in the upstairs bathroom. That has a wall-hung toilet. Non-standard, of course, so a replacement seat was about triple the price of a regular one. 🙄

And because god-forbid that anyone should look at the back of a toilet seat and see bolts there, the bolts that fasten the toilet seat were hidden inside the framework of the seat. Which should not be a bad thing, unless the plugs that the bolts go into have worn and become stripped. I could only half-remove the old seat and would need more drastic measures to get the old seat off entirely. Which I wasn't going to do without replacement plugs first, which means that a job that I should have done three weeks ago got postponed until now. (The replacement plugs were the parcel I picked up on Wednesday, btw)

Anyway, the toilet seat has now been replaced.

And I assembled our new lawn mower, and did our lawn for its trial run. That also means that the grass "mohawk" that was left uncut by our previous mower's demise is now gone.

 

Doing these chores and fixing the stuff that need replacing does make me feel rather "alpha male", though.

 

Although I probably more closely resembled Tim the Tool Man...

 

Brother-in-law visited in the evening. Mrs. Movieman prepared an oven dish with mashed potato, leek and minced meat (and grated cheese). I overindulged because of course I did.

TV evening was an odd mix of TimovieSon watching the Premier League darts on his tablet, and the rest of us watching the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final and interrupting that for an episode of a sitcom we follow, and finishing with ESC again. The kids got into bed really late. But they have a long weekend, so meh.

It was also late when brother-in-law left.

Which should not be a big deal. But sadly I was the only one in the house that didn't have a bridge day on Friday, so I had to get up to work in the morning.

 

But I had also neglected my chess games for a day, so I had to make a move in a number of matches to make sure I didn't time out. I got into bed at 2 am. Before a workday.

I don't get why I'm not *more* tired than I am...

Side effect: no DailyDare exercise again.

 

 

Friday

 

Worked from home, but went on a lunch break walk.

The missus had made an elaborate breakfast - after sleeping in with the kids, so for me it was closer to brunch. Eggs and bacon, and a pancake.

That meant no intermittent fasting again.

But I did the DailyDare exercise (as well as Thursday's), so there's that at least...

 

 

 

With all the food shenanigans last weekend, dinner out on Tuesday, pizza on Wednesday, and the large meal on Thursday, I was certain that my weigh-in was going to be a disaster...

 

Weekly weigh-in

 

Weight: 94.35 kg (+0.35)

Body fat: 22.7 % (-)

 

Well, that's surprisingly reasonable... 😮

 

 

Week 1 so far:

	Week 1
	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
Intermittent fasting
Calorie intake
Calories spent
Calories in/out deficit
Curfew
Sleep
Avg. sleep	5h22
Steps
Avg. steps	11.34K
Distance	14.35 km
Workouts	0.7
Days with (mini-)workouts	2

 

 

 

Here's a band that was already at Alcatraz last year. They're a pretty new band, formed just two years ago. Local too, most band members live 20-30 km from me. But they aren't newcomers. They're closer to my age. And they grew up on Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Slipknot, Drowning Pool and other nu-metal bands from 20 years ago.

In fact, describing them as sounding like a mix between Linkin Park and Korn isn't too far off the mark. And they're pretty good live too.

I caught them in the small tent last year, which meant that I only watched from behind the PA system - as that was the only place where the sound was reasonable in that tent. I wouldn't have been able to understand (or even hear) any lyrics if I were close to the stage.

They'll be in the bigger tent this year. Which means that I'll get to see them from up closer this time. 🤘

 

Mantah - Abstain