[The Most Loathed] learns....slowly

[LouCarJo]

I'm clearly tired as it took me a good minute to do the maths to figure out how things there added up to 40...

[tcw295]

I'm ashamed this is my first time reading your log. Super cool that meetups are happening, do you know any of these folks IRL or just from this forum?

Looks like a nice relaxing holiday yesterday, was at work in an overheated high-rise myself, but it was decent. Relating to weigh-ins and stuff, do you use any particular app? I personally like the hacker diet website, as it has a nice weekly trend. And hey whys that spreadsheet in your sig, if it hasnt been updated since january 

[The Most Loathed]

56 minutes ago, tcw295 said:

I'm ashamed this is my first time reading your log. Super cool that meetups are happening, do you know any of these folks IRL or just from this forum?

Looks like a nice relaxing holiday yesterday, was at work in an overheated high-rise myself, but it was decent. Relating to weigh-ins and stuff, do you use any particular app? I personally like the hacker diet website, as it has a nice weekly trend. And hey whys that spreadsheet in your sig, if it hasnt been updated since january 

welcome!

 

The couple that Rooks asked about are from my normal life. I had a few folks who canceled at the last minute are former coworkers with whom I used to play games over lunch.

 

I have a Fitbit Aria scale so my weight is automatically uploaded to Fitbit as soon as it's measured. I was using MyFitnessPal for about two months to track my macros but I stopped a couple weeks ago.

 

Yeah, I was just thinking about that spreadsheet this morning. It'll be coming out of my sig soon. i just can't justify the extra step of documenting things there. 

[The Most Loathed]

02/21/2017

weight 211

Workout was pretty meh. I've gotten use to the really high intensity of my kettlebell workouts and trying to do a straight strength workout just feels boring.

press 24 kg 5/5 x 6

squat 28 kg 10/10 x 3

row 24 kg 5/5 x 6

suitcase deadlift 36 kg x 2 10 x 3 - too easy but I didn't really have a way to make these heavier

 

 

[The Most Loathed]

02/22/2017

212.3

row 45:00

I was really not feeling anything but especially a workout. I've been a little congested, grumpy and tired for a couple days. So the row wasn't super intense. I don't recall the exact distance, just that I rowed.

I was surprised to see my weigh bounce this high, it's the highest I've seen since Saturday. Part of me was a little grumpy about it and part of me kept trying to remind myself that just last week I wasn't sure if I'd be able to say sub 215 and here I was hanging out around 210.

 

02/23/2017

211.4

off

I think I had it written that I was supposed to try and find a way to do a workout this day but I've done way too many days in a row and was still feeling the blahs. So I enjoyed taking a night off. I even doubted at the time that it was the right call but the day after, it feels right.

 

02/24/2017

not listing my weight because it's early. My one way in so far was sub 210.

We were supposed to have a big snow storm today so everyone in my office decided to work from home. Well, it didn't snow but I'm working from home. I had a huge lunch, a tiny sweet potato, some pulled pork and two poached eggs. I got my bonus from work today so we're going out for sushi to celebrate. I also bought some new shoes and some audiobooks. I told Laura she can spend a few hundred bucks of it too.

I had designs on a particularly grueling workout but apparently I'm still not 100%. The plan was to repeat my workout from last week of 1 minute of snatch per hand then a minute of burpees. Last time I did this for the full 30 minutes. It was challenging but not undoable. Today I was unable to complete. After my 6th round I was getting a little woozy. I settled for finishing out 3 more rounds with a minute break between exercise. I had planned on hopping on the row for an extended cooldown/ light workout . no dice. Ah well.

 

Laura says she wants to do yoga tomorrow morning so I'll do some workout then. I'll then take Sunday off before I start the week's workouts.

[peelout]

So are you doing the multiple weigh in at random times each day method now?

3 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

02/24/2017

not listing my weight because it's early. My one way in so far was sub 210.

Don't weigh in anymore today.  Stick with that one.

[The Most Loathed]

On 2/24/2017 at 4:00 PM, peelout said:

So are you doing the multiple weigh in at random times each day method now?

Don't weigh in anymore today.  Stick with that one.

I did do an additional weigh in. High for the day was 209.2

 

It's been several days since my last update and it kind of feels like weeks. This will be a long one I suspect

02/24

209.2

Friday, I talked about my substellar workout that day already.

The wrapped just fine. My annual bonus came through, I knew what it would be but it still felt ridiculous to get my paycheck plus, basically two additional paychecks.. I ordered two new pairs of shoes because I didn't have any more "walkin' around" shoes. Both were New Balance Minimus. I ordered $100 in RPG books to read through, I ordered a couple hundred bucks in audiobooks to tide me over for the next year. 

Laura decided she wanted to have her spending spree be at the mall. So we went out to celebrate what we're calling Ridiculous Day. We bought our nieces and nephew LEGOs, we even bought Laura a cool box of LEGOs. I don't really think of her a a LEGO person. We had sushi, she got some clothes and a several hundred dollars of cosmetics, we each got a small cookie then called Ridiculous Day over. We're thinking that next year we'll celebrate by logging onto a travel site and just spending the whole check booking a random trip.

 

02/25

210.6

Workout was deliberately scaled back based on the poor performance on Friday

row 20 minutes

circuit - 1 minute sets, no rest, all TRX

squat

press

row

tricep extension

curl

x 6

 

I expected some muscle soreness but had none

 

02/26

No weight taken

The plan was to not workout since I had had worked out several days in a row and was going to start another series of workouts

 

We ended up having a stupidly big argument. It started because I forgot to keep some chicken thighs out of the freezer for Laura to prep for lunch, which was easy enough to fix but in stupid argument style it just escalated until it encompassed the whole universe. No one did the right thing. It ate up what should have otherwise been a pleasant and quiet afternoon and evening. And then some. I can't claim to be in the right, it was just stupid. 

 

02/27

211.7

No workout

As often happens when we have a big fight, we then need to have some clean up time where we iron out some things that were said without context or where we talk through some of the friction points we found. So I cancelled open gym so that we could do that. It's never a great time but it's important. 

 

We did try a new recipe that I want to fully endorse. The premise is that you can crank out a bunch of chicken fajitas in 30 minutes. 

• Start a day ahead by throwing a little marinade on your chicken thighs, olive oil, chili powder, garlic (I skipped the lime in the recipe because that can make the chicken tough)
• Day of, pull the chicken out to warm, start the oven and crank it up to 500 degrees, throw your cooking vessel in there as it warms up (empty), The recipe really want you to used a cookie sheet with low walls, I don't have that so I used a pyrex dish that's not quite 9X12.
• Let the oven preheat and then some, pull the super hot cooking vessel out and throw your room temp chicken in, throw that back in the oven and set a time for ten minutes
• While the chicken cooks slice up a couple bell peppers and a couple onions.
• When the ten minutes are up, double check your chicken temp (mine was done), throw the chicken on a plate to chill out and put you veggies in the cooking vessel, toss them a bit in the delicious fat in the bottom, throw that back in the oven. Set a timer for ten minutes. The big trick here is to try and spread them out as much as possible. Mine weren't spread out as much as they should have been.
• While the veggies cook, make your guac, set the table, get drinks, then slice the chicken across the grain. Oh, also I prefer to warm my tortillas in the microwave than the oven.
• When the timer chimes, check your veggies, they should be starting to crisp on the ends, pull them out and serve. In my case, since they were crowded in the pan, I tossed them and put them in for five more minutes.

We ended up with some really tasty fajitas. Depending on how many rounds you want to cook and how big your cooking vessels are, you can do a ton of good food. I did a pound of chicken, 1 onion, 2 bell peppers in under 45 minutes. I could imagine doing two rounds and having leftovers for the week. 

 

The rest of the week.

• Tuesday - soup and sandwiches for supper, kettlebell workout
• Wednesday - a different, new oven chicken recipe, strength or cardio, not sure
• Thursday - off night. planning to go out for dinner, no exact plan
• Friday - workout right after work. Depending on how it feels, it'll be at about my floor temp for jogging but I may try
• Saturday - workout. house chores. We're talking about going to see LEGO Batman
• Sunday - I should take the day off but my brain is saying "light workout" so we'll just see

Bodyweight wise - most days my light weight has been sub 210 and my heavy weight is 210.5 - 211 ish. Considering that I've not been pushing myself on diet or even workout, this is great. I imagine that next week pretty much everything will be sub 210. I don't really plan to change anything right now.

 

I have been doing less drawing and writing the last week. I've just not been very motivated to do it. I think the cold or whatever I was dealing with last week was largely responsible. I wasn't sick but I just had less motivation to do extras.

 

I've generally struggled to find time to paint minis but I did get a couple hours in on my orc last week. He's coming together. I hope to wrap him up by the weekend and get on with the knight. With the Orc I found myself fussing over details that we frankly, too detailed, for my level right now. so I backed up a a bit and tried to focus on basics. Things like getting the skin tone on the top of his head lighter was dominating the painting and it was quickly becoming dissatisfying as most of him sat unpainted. It felt good this weekend to just get a couple coats on the armor and weapons and worry less about zenith-lighting effects. So, I will try to remember that going forward, especially since I have more minis than I can paint in a year at my current pace. 

 

My book has been going a little slowly right now too. I'm enjoying it I just haven't put a ton of time into reading. It's pretty clear at this point that I will not make my Memorial Day deadline, which is ok, it was arbitrary to begin with. I just want to keep plugging away and make it through. I'm on book 6 of 10 but I believe these last four are all in the 1200 page ballpark. 

 

I have been leaning on audiobooks to give me variety in stories. A chunk on my Ridiculous Day spending went to an audible sale where a bunch of books that are the first of a series were all marked down to $5. I have books for days. I just finished Red Rising which I had heard a ton of positve press on. I shouldn't have liked it. It was tropes on tropes. The Expanse and The Hunger Games, more or less. However, I liked it. I felt the feels I was supposed and I want to read the trilogy.

Now I'm listening the Leviathan Wakes AKA The Expanse. I'm enjoying the book more than I did the couple episodes of the TV show I saw. 

 

We're trying to plan travel for the year. In a couple weeks w'll take a long weekend up to the Duluth area. It'll be real quiet and real chill. We're talking about going to Great Basin National Park around my birthday.We're discussion leaving the country for Thanksgiving but don't have a specific plan.

One of the challenges in planning our travel is accounting for days we have to give up to travel to see family. I know that for many of you, family is super important. I'm very glad that you have that and none of the following is a reflection on your familial relationships.

For me, blood relations are unimportant. Laura and I have been family for not quite 2 decades, legally just of 1.5 decades. I've known her longer than I lived with my parents. For many of those years, we didn't feel like we could tap into blood relations meaningfully so we have supported, carried, leaned on one another for that time. A side effect of that is a growing distance from other people who can't lean on. 

If I had a really serious problem today, that Laura and I couldn't handle ourselves, I'd call on a lot of the same people who came to my last game day well before I'd call on my family. I see them more often and I believe they'd be there. There are few other folks around town who weren't at that specific event, my lifting partners and so on, who I feel I could call on.

So, it makes it weird to spend our time and holidays with "the ones we love" when they aren't the ones we love most. Last year, we did spend our holidays with the ones we love, our Twin Cities family for Thanksgiving and each other for Christmas. We know our blood families will riot if we try to do that every year. It creates tension.

So, when we think about that and especially think about how that also sucks up our free time. It can bother both of us.

Why did  I share that, two reasons. First, just because it's been a topic for us of late. Second, because I hope that as people's kids grow up and move away, you won't treat them as a foregone conclusion. They are people and should be treated at least as well as your friends. If you want a connection with them, put in the effort, don't just assume that they will be there forever because they are family. If you don't make a point to know them and be a friend, they will grow away from you and you don't really have any reason to expect anything of them then.

 

too much jabbering for now.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Ridiculous Day sounds like the best holiday ever. My bonus last year was $2, I couldn't even afford a mini-fig.

 

Interesting take on family versus friends. I can't say I disagree with you. I almost called you on Sunday to see if you'd help move the stupidly heavy floor sander down the stairs, but it ended up being a whole lot easier to get down the stairs than up. Gravity FTW.

[Rooks]

6 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

We're thinking that next year we'll celebrate by logging onto a travel site and just spending the whole check booking a random trip.

 

That's a pretty rad idea.  My wife and I are pretty boring these days and just keep dumping an extra money we come by into our mortgage payment.  

 

6 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

We ended up having a stupidly big argument. It started because I forgot to keep some chicken thighs out of the freezer for Laura to prep for lunch, which was easy enough to fix but in stupid argument style it just escalated until it encompassed the whole universe. No one did the right thing. It ate up what should have otherwise been a pleasant and quiet afternoon and evening. And then some. I can't claim to be in the right, it was just stupid. 

 

I hate those.  Just sucks.  Seems like you and wife have it figured out though, knowing that this stuff happens and it needs to get resolved.  

 

6 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

Why did  I share that, two reasons. First, just because it's been a topic for us of late. Second, because I hope that as people's kids grow up and move away, you won't treat them as a foregone conclusion. They are people and should be treated at least as well as your friends. If you want a connection with them, put in the effort, don't just assume that they will be there forever because they are family. If you don't make a point to know them and be a friend, they will grow away from you and you don't really have any reason to expect anything of them then.

 

Very much agree.  This is a small tangent, but I feel the point is the much same.

 

My wife and I have had discussions over the past year with how to approach our parents on the subject of just buying our daughter stuff versus being part of her life.  It came about after we both reflected on our relationship with our grandparents.  The things that stuck out were the interactions!  The time my grandpa taught me how to play cribbage.  The time my other grandpa took me around the farm and let me ride in the tractor with him.  It wasn't the gifts or things.

 

We want them to be part of her life.  Take her to the zoo.  Take her out to buy an ice cream sundae the size of head.  Take her on a hot air ballon.  Whatever.  

 

But yeah, that was much more in the vein of grandparents, I totally see where you are coming from with other family.  Oddly, I've grown much closer with my family since our daughter was diagnosed simply because we are seeing each other so much more.  My sister visits us regularly.  Both my wife's parents and my parents come over regularly to see what they can do to help and oddly enough our relationships have grown because of it.  It's strange to think that there has been some positive side effects from the terrible news, but there has.  

 

My final note I don't know if was included in that "list of people from game day" you'd call on, but I will extend myself regardless.  I know we don't know each super well, but I'm happy to help out with things that I can help out with.

[Sylvaa]

6 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

Why did  I share that, two reasons. First, just because it's been a topic for us of late. Second, because I hope that as people's kids grow up and move away, you won't treat them as a foregone conclusion. They are people and should be treated at least as well as your friends. If you want a connection with them, put in the effort, don't just assume that they will be there forever because they are family. If you don't make a point to know them and be a friend, they will grow away from you and you don't really have any reason to expect anything of them then.

 

I just had this conversation with my little brother today. I don't see my parents regularly because they aren't willing to invest the time in nurturing a relationship. My brother lives with them and will not see them after he moves out for the same reason. It is a shame, but it is what it is. 

 

On the plus side for me, I think that not having that connection has made it easier to work towards a better relationship with my children. 

[LouCarJo]

The most ridiculous part of Ridiculous Day is how you make Lego plural ;-) ;-)

 

Sorry about your argument but glad you took time to fix it.

 

Families are hard.  I wish mine were closer (in space as well as emotionally) but there you go.  At least we don't have thanksgiving to worry about ;-)

[The Most Loathed]

16 hours ago, Rooks said:

 

That's a pretty rad idea.  My wife and I are pretty boring these days and just keep dumping an extra money we come by into our mortgage payment.  

...

My final note I don't know if was included in that "list of people from game day" you'd call on, but I will extend myself regardless.  I know we don't know each super well, but I'm happy to help out with things that I can help out with.

I don't recommend Ridiculous Day as a rgular occurrance but we've settled all of our debt save house, car and one credit card that I continue to push Laura to stop using an payoff but it's quite manageable at this point. If we didn't already have regular monthly withdrawals for retirement as well, I would never do a thing like Ridiculous Day.

 

You are on that list. You, Jitters, Sloth, Nathan and Deyhdra and about five more people I can think of. Honestly, a network of 10 people I feel like I can trust and call upon is a real boon to me. It's more than I've ever had. 

 

15 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

 

I just had this conversation with my little brother today. I don't see my parents regularly because they aren't willing to invest the time in nurturing a relationship. My brother lives with them and will not see them after he moves out for the same reason. It is a shame, but it is what it is. 

 

On the plus side for me, I think that not having that connection has made it easier to work towards a better relationship with my children. 

you've had some tough stories with regard to family, from what I've read in your logs. I don't know how I'd feel if I had kids. In truth, part of our choice to not have kids was that until very recently, we didn't feel like we had any reliable social network we could call upon, including family. Kid raising (to this totally ignorant guy) seems like it works best as a team sport. If your team mates are playing though, it's just tough. 

 

14 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

The most ridiculous part of Ridiculous Day is how you make Lego plural ;-) ;-)

 

Sorry about your argument but glad you took time to fix it.

 

Families are hard.  I wish mine were closer (in space as well as emotionally) but there you go.  At least we don't have thanksgiving to worry about ;-)

Ah, but Thanksgiving has always been my favorite, especially since we started doing it with friends. I am finding my love for holidays again, when I get to use them as an excuse to be around the ones I truly love. 

 

02/28/2017

211

No workout. Laura asked for one more night of just peace and quiet as a part of recovery from the weekend fight. So we did.

 

I've long advocated that we find some kind of counselor to talk to, even if temporarily. She's starting to be on board with the idea. Neither of us think that we're broken or anything. We've just been together forever and have years of subtext and old arguments and so forth, neither of us have any confidant type people in our life except for each other. So, I think it'd be wise to just try talking with someone where there are no stakes. I figure too, they might give us some tools to stop fights before they start. I think we both know when they're starting but just go down well worn paths. I'm just hoping someone can help break the rut. So, we need to figure out how to find someone. We're both on board but neither is urgent. 

 

I've been hungry the last couple days. I've been hungry and I've had this growing craving for a big chocolate chip cookie. I have no idea why I am specifically craving a cookie but I am. My lunches are still delicious and filling but I've got from being sated until 11am to 10am which means an hour of trying to not be hungry. I've also started to be pretty hungry from about 3:30-5:30 (when I usually eat supper). I haven't been working out the last three days and my weight has held steady so I can't really complain too much about the situation. 

 

I mentioned travel plans yesterday, so I looked into those a little bit yesterday and I think we're revising out July trip. Laura had wanted to go to Great Basin National Park for an event that they were doing. I looked up Great Basin and it looks like there's not a whole lot of places to stay in style. I'm down for camping but Laura is not. So, I'm not quite sure if we're going to nuke our plans for a July-ish vacation and just cycle the money and effort into our potential Thanksgiving trip or what. 

[The Most Loathed]

This song has been in my Amazon playlist a lot lately so it's been pretty stuck in my head

 

[Sylvaa]

2 minutes ago, The Most Loathed said:

you've had some tough stories with regard to family, from what I've read in your logs. I don't know how I'd feel if I had kids. In truth, part of our choice to not have kids was that until very recently, we didn't feel like we had any reliable social network we could call upon, including family. Kid raising (to this totally ignorant guy) seems like it works best as a team sport. If your team mates are playing though, it's just tough. 

 

To be fair, neither my husband nor I put that much thought into the whole process.  Kid raising is hard, regardless of how much support you do or do not have. 

 

9 minutes ago, The Most Loathed said:

I've long advocated that we find some kind of counselor to talk to, even if temporarily. She's starting to be on board with the idea. Neither of us think that we're broken or anything. We've just been together forever and have years of subtext and old arguments and so forth, neither of us have any confidant type people in our life except for each other. So, I think it'd be wise to just try talking with someone where there are no stakes. I figure too, they might give us some tools to stop fights before they start. I think we both know when they're starting but just go down well worn paths. I'm just hoping someone can help break the rut. So, we need to figure out how to find someone. We're both on board but neither is urgent. 

 

When my husband and I were having some issues, this book was recommended to us. We'd read chapter separately and discuss. It was actually a very nice exercise in talking about things when not in an argument. 

[The Most Loathed]

32 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

When my husband and I were having some issues, this book was recommended to us. We'd read chapter separately and discuss. It was actually a very nice exercise in talking about things when not in an argument. 

This seems like exactly the kinds of exercise I suspect we'll get. I'll definitely mention it to her. I still think it might be worthwhile to find someone to talk to, just to see if either or both of us see any benefit but this might be a good thing to start with. 

[The Most Loathed]

03/01/2017

210.6

Laura was doing another round of "did you want to work out tonight?" which is Minnesotan for, "I'd like it if you didn't workout tonight". So I said, "how about we just call this a rest week." She was totally on board with that. 

 

Dinner was roasted chicken thighs in fennel and wine. I liked it more than Laura did but we both liked it enough to try it again but not as much as the fajitas from a couple days ago. The best thing from both experiments was just learning that I can throw thighs in the oven at that high of a temp, with some veg and they'll be done in 30 minutes, no

problem. I expect we'll expand on that super basic prep method.

 

Last night we started talking a bit more about travel plans for the the year. Great Basin was officially nuked once Laura learned that she'd have to camp. So, the current plan is to possibly head back to Colorado in August-ish. Specifically, back to the town where we took our honeymoon, Glenwood Springs. We really enjoyed it nearly 14 years ago and haven't been back since. I spent a little time looking at AirBnB options and found about 5 that are quite distinct from one another and each is good in its own way. We also discussed Thanksgiving versus Super Bowl trips (the Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis in February 2018 and we don't feel like being here for it). It sounds like we're backing off of our Thanksgiving travel plans.The latest iteration of Super Bowl plans though is to fly to Seattle, kick around a few days then catch the train up to Vancouver and kick around there for a few days. So I need to start doing my research on that. 

 

Tonight there is a community meeting about the proposal to run a streetcar or lightrail down the major artery in my neighborhood (If you watch the video, the guy they interview really briefly is the RKC guy who has come by my house a couple times). Pretty much the whole neighborhood is going to turn up to say a collective "WTF?" Tonight was planned as an off night so we'll be hitting up Birchwood then the community meeting.

 

Tomorrow is now shifted to off as a part of the rest week concept.  We're talking about doing grocery shopping early so we can kick ass all weekend on other things. 

 

This weekend I will lift and run, exactly in what combination I don't know. Call it Saturday lift and Sunday run. I'll probably push my run up to 8 km, up to Lake Street and back for my local homies. We're going to try and do a little more planning on the year and get to work clearing out an extra rug and possibly a china cabinet. It'll be good. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

You're smarter than me. Every time Mrs. Sloth says, "Did you want to..." I say of course and then wonder why I'm in trouble. And Minnesotan is my native language. I also get wrong, "You don't want to eat there do you?" and, "Do you mind if my mother stays with us for a while?" I don't know why she even asks me anything.

 

Super Bowl trip is a great idea. It seems like most folks who can are leaving.

 

As someone who uses your corridor a lot, a street car is a neat idea, but it would likely wreck the charm of your neighborhood. I don't blame y'all for getting up in arms.

 

8k is a serious run.

[The Most Loathed]

On 3/2/2017 at 10:39 AM, Sloth the Enduring said:

You're smarter than me. Every time Mrs. Sloth says, "Did you want to..." I say of course and then wonder why I'm in trouble. And Minnesotan is my native language. I also get wrong, "You don't want to eat there do you?" and, "Do you mind if my mother stays with us for a while?" I don't know why she even asks me anything.

I don't always get it right.

 

Yesterday was off.

 

We went to the neighborhood meeting. I hated it. I didn't expect to enjoy it but I really, viscerally hated it. 

The project manager guy gave a good presentation, it was dumbed down from the material I've read on their website. Then people were allowed to speak. My neighbor who has largely been at the head of the charge gave a 5 minute, prepared speech that I had given him a couple edits for ahead of time. He ignored my edits and it really screwed up the delivery. Then every dumb MF in the place thought that they should have a turn. Half of them didn't seem to know why they were talking, the other half were airing grievances, only half of which were tangentially related to the topic. These are the moments when I think I hate people. Laura said a thing too, it was above the mean level of intelligence for the room but she's been kicking herself ever since for not doing better. 

Town halls are dumb. Everyone has to puke out their feels. They all get so emotional at the idea of getting to say their feels that they feel to actually communicate their point. They also think their point/feels are going to spin the direction of the entire room and are surprised when they don't.

 

Today has been a drag but it's the weekend now so I'm trying to focus on that. Tomorrow will be better.

[Rooks]

It's funny how emotions can get the better of us, especially when on stage in a "pressure" situation.  I think one of the biggest keys to getting better at public speaking for me has been to practice at least once out loud.  Sure, it sounds so stupid, but just saying crap out loud, you suddenly hear the words and see so many ways to improve it (other random side note related to talking out loud, you ever hear of rubber duck debugging?  It's a thing and it works for me.  It's crazy).  No surprise that in places where emotions are already running hot that suddenly speeches become random diatribes with no real meaning.  Sorry to hear it sucked.  

 

 

[The Most Loathed]

On 3/3/2017 at 10:35 PM, Rooks said:

It's funny how emotions can get the better of us, especially when on stage in a "pressure" situation.  I think one of the biggest keys to getting better at public speaking for me has been to practice at least once out loud.  Sure, it sounds so stupid, but just saying crap out loud, you suddenly hear the words and see so many ways to improve it (other random side note related to talking out loud, you ever hear of rubber duck debugging?  It's a thing and it works for me.  It's crazy).  No surprise that in places where emotions are already running hot that suddenly speeches become random diatribes with no real meaning.  Sorry to hear it sucked.  

Practice is the only cure. I enjoy public speaking. I was in debate in high school and have the first year of the Toastmaster's program. I'm a little out of practice right not but generally, public speaking is something I do well. It's really hard for me to listen to public speakers who don't have a basic idea of how to do it. 

 

03/03/2017

211.3

No workout. Laura was super freaked out after the community meeting that we need to move, to not be there when the tracks go in. I'm less inclined to assume it's a foregone conclusion but we at least talked about how to deal with it. We're going to proceed with a plan that we have to move in two years. It should be enough time to understand how realistic the potential is but not so long that it's locked in and no one wants to buy a house. As such, I think we're going to curtail some other plans for the year, including possibly no major trips. We'll see though

 

03/04/2017

211.5

Laura wanted to go for a walk so we had a nice 3 mile round trip to a coffee shop we like. While there we each got coffee and split a Nordic Waffle (a thin waffle wrapped around fillings, in our case prosciutto and spinach) which was delicious. That was my workout time so no workout. We ran errands.

 

03/05/2017

211.1

We had a lazy morning, going back to bed after the dogs got me up then not getting up again until 9. We had pancakes that I made a couple weeks ago and froze. Lunch was a sliced turkey sandwich. 

At 1:30 Kristjian and I got together for a little kettlebell juggling in the park. It was a good time but she was done in 30 minutes so not super tough. She really wants to make a training plan for the coming weeks and I just don't. So we planned out to get together on Sundays for juggling and Tuesdays for Snatch sessions. that will leave me Wednesday and Saturday to do my own stuff. Hopefully I can run on Fridays too. 

 

 

this is where I owe a recap for last week and planning for this week but I'm just not feeling it right this second so let me get back to you all.

 

[The Most Loathed]

So, the recap of last week is that it blew up. I got 0 training done. The good news is that I'm eating few enough calories that I saw no weight gain but I also didn't feel abused by my diet. 

 

Planning for this week

Monday - off, Laura says she wants to work out tonight which makes me want to work out too but I just have too many chores to do so I doubt I will

Tuesday - Snatch training. Kristjian wants to work up to a 5 minute set with the 16. I can already do 5 minutes with the 24 so I guess I'll try the 28. I don't know what to expect

Wednesday - Rowing and maybe some conditioning

Thursday - off

Friday - run

Saturday - kettlebells

Sunday - juggle, assuming Kristjian doesn't beg off for weather. also, @Sloth the Enduring and I are supposed to run. If he's still up, I'll do this too. 

 

I'm really itching to get back at it this week. A whole week off is never my favorite. I spent all my reserve energy dealing with Laura's concerns which was probably a blessing in disguise as it kept me from getting twitchy with no training. Still, I can tell I have some of the restlessness that comes to me when I'm inactive.

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Yay, running! Wouldn't miss it.

*starts thinking of excuses*

[The Most Loathed]

13 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Yay, running! Wouldn't miss it.

*starts thinking of excuses*

a high of 34 and a 70% chance of snow is probably your best excuse.

 

03/06/2017

213.6

 

As I type this, I am eating candy. I don't do it a lot but yesterday I had to go to the store to get some odds and ends and without thinking I grabbed a bunch of candy. I came back to my desk and ate some then thought "what am I doing?" So, this morning I offloaded all but a couple servings of peanut butter M&Ms which are objectively the best bulk made candy in the US. I'll polish these off and not eat candy again for a few months.

 

no workout last night. I wanted to but I really needed to do dishes, clean the stove and put away laundry from the weekend. yay for adulting, I guess.

Tonight is a snatch workout. The big thing I'm trying to prepare myself for is that Kristjian will be ready to be done in 30 minutes which usually means I pack up too. I need to use the time I have.

 

I did learn yesterday that they are shutting down the downtown Minneapolis YMCA and moving it into multiple floors of a building two blocks from my office. Who has two thumbs and will likely get a membership for some daytime workouts:

It's not opening for a full year but I can't help but be excited about getting some mid-day cardio.

 

Not much else to report right now. It got cold outside but I have a house so that's not a huge deal  There actually was a pretty insane reversal, last night at 7 is was 58, this and windy. 

We're still talking about the implications of the train on our housing prospects. The housing market in Minneapolis is hot right now and my neck of the woods is getting stupid. We've lived in our house for 5.5 years and current online estimators show a 10% value increase. A house two blocks over that was sold right after we moved in just sold again and with no improvements, that we could see, it sold for 20% more than it sold for 5 years ago. 

 

[The Most Loathed]

I've felt bad because I haven't had anything to talk about beyond just getting through the week but I thought of something!

Lego, erm, Legos, uh, Lego Brand construction blocks. shit

It turns out that what to call those things is actually a topic of conversation. Many people say Lego for singular and plural so people say "this is a Lego, those are Legoes (Legos? I don't know). Per the company, "This is a Lego brick", "Those are Lego bricks." I'm much to lazy for that so I'll say Lego/Legos because that's what I grew up with.

 

I mentioned that we went to the Lego store and Laura got a cool VW bug set. I think I also mentioned that I I realized that building with Legos might be a fun shared time activity so I ordered a Mini Cooper set that is pretty analogous to the VW set. Now that I have that on the way, I think that I'm more excited to get started than Laura is. She says she wants the VW microbus. I told her that I'll happily buy it for her for her birthday or our anniversary. 

One of my favorite things these days is to learn about a new hobby, even if I'm not going to get into it myself and this has been no exception. I knew that there were plenty of adult nerds out in the world who enjoy Legos but oh boy have they been busy! There are some really complex websites devoted to logging your collection, building and documenting your own creations and even verifying if you have the right things in your collection to duplicate someone else's custom build. There are style guides for every topic, contests, forums, you name it. 

I don't think I'll be going all the way down the rabbit hole on this one. I would imagine that we'll do our builds, I'll want to take them apart and recombine them, Laura will want to leave hers. I'll mostly just screw around with my Legos while the TV is on (so a couple hours a week at most). I do want the big architecture set. I think all the bricks are white but it comes with a book with a bunch of different buildings you can do. Also, if the D&D set that everyone is asking them to build ever gets off the ground, you know I'm in like Flynn.

 

anyway, that's my fun distraction of late. It kind of makes me want to pick another random activity just to see how deep the internet goes on it, something like building card houses or oragami or who knows. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Someone needs to recruit you to help coach their Lego League team.