My introduction

[coffeeandbacon]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been a long time reader on NF and finally decided to get involved on the forum.  Anyways, here is a bit about me. 

 

Fitness Stuff

In high school, I played football and wrestled.  I became a master at jumping rope in the boiler room to cut my football weight down so I could make weight (171) at the beginning of the wrestling season.  In football I was around 190ish and played a variety of D and O line positions.  My senior year, we made it to semi-state in football, so I only had a week to lose around 18 lbs before my first meet, it was awesome.      I had planned on wrestling in college, but I tore my ACL in the middle of my wrestling season my senior year and ended up choosing not to participate in college sports.  Over the next 10 years or so, I stayed heathy by some casual weight lifting and and running. I did a few triathlons (2 70.3 races) but I got bored on long distance runs and bikes so I haven't really pursed that too much.  The last few years or so I decided start building some strength back up and have been doing Starting Strength using a periodization recommended in one of Tim Ferris' 4HB blog post. It's been going pretty well, my bench 5rm max is 195 x5 (220 1rm), my deadlift is at 295 x 5 (330 1rm), squat 265x5 (300 1rm), and press is at 135x5 (150 1rm).  I'm trying to get up to the advanced level in all my lifts according to the table in starting strength and http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.html  I've been progressing pretty well and I hope to get there within the next year. Other than that, I've been putting a lot of focus on increasing my flexibility in order to start working on some olympic lifting, and getting a little more cardio in.  I was currently at 0 days per week of cardio for a long time  I did some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for around 3 months (about 7 years ago) and would like to get back into that soon as well.  I'm also trying to get my weight down a bit, I'm around 220 right now and ~25% body fat.  I would like to get to around 190 ish or so and see where I'm at and decide where to go from there.

 

Nerd Stuff

When I was younger, I filled my days with Magic the Gathering, Final Fantasy1,2,3, lots of dragon warrior, and x-men comics and cartoons.  I had always played a variety of video games, but RPGs were always my favorite. As I got older, I played a variety of console games.  My roommates and I would play a ton of Hit man, taking turns trying to get the best scores on the levels.  Another house favorite was Warcraft 3.  We had a "Warcraft Wednesday" night and all four of us would LAN it up and play for 4-5 hours and eat a ton of pizza.  I got into World of Warcraft around the end of Vanilla and played that a ton for around 3-4 years.  I think it was around when Ulduar came out I stopped playing.  My Protection Paladin was a shining beacon of light, protecting everyone on my server from the evil demons of the burning legion and the undead armies of the Lich King.  I occasionally sub for a month or two and play for a while, just to catch up on the new stuff, but then I find I'm bored after a week or two, and just stop playing.   Right now, I'm not really playing video games, but reading a lot of comics.  I still read x-men although my favorite comic is Thor.  On a side note, I've really enjoyed the recent Journey in Mystery issues and I am really sad they are being discontinued.

 

Other stuff

I'm am currently in the process of writing my dissertation.  I'm a grad student, studying organic and organometallic chemistry, with some focus on biochemistry.  I hope to be done by this December, but as anyone in grad school will tell you, I'm still not quite sure.  I am also teaching a 230 person General Chemistry lecture this fall, which I'm really excited for.  I can't wait to include Thor in my lectures on electrons 

 

Anyways, that's all for now.  Adios!

 

 

[deepdarkgreen]

Good luck, Coffeeandbacon (not together, I hope?). You have a really impressive background - someone who has accomplished so much is sure to reach their goals. Your students are very lucky to have a teacher who incorporates Thor into their lectures I look forward to following your journey.

[coffeeandbacon]

Good luck, Coffeeandbacon (not together, I hope?). You have a really impressive background - someone who has accomplished so much is sure to reach their goals. Your students are very lucky to have a teacher who incorporates Thor into their lectures I look forward to following your journey.

Of course together  Good luck with your goals too, if there is anything I can help you with, let me know.  I love the quotes in your signature btw, Those are some of my favorite scientist.