[The Most Loathed] learns....slowly

[The Most Loathed]

On 10/16/2017 at 8:33 AM, KB Girl said:

Very exciting

It's hard to find a dutch person under 50 who doesn't speak English anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it. 

Hooray, I get to be a lazy American!

On 10/16/2017 at 10:33 AM, LadyShello said:

I think I'd prefer Amsterdam over Hawaii too.  Good choice. 

Being on the beach doesn't hold much allure for me. I'd feel like I have to get in shape for that. Although now that I may get to be KG Girl, her guy (I Mirrodin was his hand when he was on NF) , and KB Baby, I kind of feel like I need to do that anyway.

On 10/16/2017 at 11:33 AM, Rooks said:

I did the Big Island when I went to Hawaii back in 2008. It was solid, but I had a "local" (high school friend that was teaching out there at the time) showing me around. Big island was much less touristy and was pretty fun. Went to a bunch of beaches (Green Sand in the south and Black Sand in the north were the coolest IMO) and going to the top of Mauna Kea to see the Keck Observatory was pretty cool. But anyway... you aren't going there so I'll stop rambling.

 

Amsterdam sounds awesome. I should really chat with Danika about us figuring something out that week. Getting to work is going to be crazy that week I imagine. 

 for us, the Super Bowl would have been inescapable if we had stayed. If nothing else, work from home that week.

20 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

Ooh Amsterdam, that’ll be fun!  How long for?

only a few days unfortunately. We fly out on Wednesday, arrive on Thursday, have Friday - Monday there and fly back on Tuesday. Probably just enough to whet the appetite.

[Sloth the Enduring]

The last Super Bowl here was a mess, this one will be worse. We're going to load up on supplies and hunker down as if it were a natural disaster.

[KB Girl]

15 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

Hooray, I get to be a lazy American!

Being on the beach doesn't hold much allure for me. I'd feel like I have to get in shape for that. Although now that I may get to be KG Girl, her guy (I Mirrodin was his hand when he was on NF) , and KB Baby, I kind of feel like I need to do that anyway.

Hah! I was going to say 'don't be silly' but you might like the motivation? I wouldn't want to ruin a good thing anyway, you'll have plenty of clothes on here in February, so ehh.. just make sure you have a strong handshake?  

[The Most Loathed]

5 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Hah! I was going to say 'don't be silly' but you might like the motivation? I wouldn't want to ruin a good thing anyway, you'll have plenty of clothes on here in February, so ehh.. just make sure you have a strong handshake?  

You know, I had to shake some people's hands recently and was really blown away by how..not even weak but ethereal they were. There was no grip, no weight and they felt like that had fragile little bird bones in their hands. I'm not a crusher when I shake hands so it's not like anyone took there hand back in pain but I was just left thinking, how do you not just randomly break things in day to day living?

[The Most Loathed]

Wednesday was deadlift but I had overstretch my lower back sitting in a crapy chair so I wasn't feeling 100% so I didn't push

deadlift 325 5 x5

band assisted pull up 4 x 6

barbell row 135 5 x 5

straight leg dead lift 185 5 x 5

 

then I did Elements, repeating workout 1 from week 3, bent arm bear

bent arm bear 10 minutes including rest. This ended up being 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off x 2

then 1 minute on, 1 minute off for two rounds of bear, monkey and frogger.

Went home tired

 

Tonight was game night so instead of working out I had nachos, two beers and played for rounds of code names. 

 

I have work stuff to talk about (all good) but it's late so I'll try to get to it in the coming days. 

[KB Girl]

Hehehe, I can only imagine how a hand shake must be from your perspective. I'm not that ridiculously strong  but really weak handshakes do give me the ickies.

Why band assisted pull ups? do you hate negatives too? 

[The Most Loathed]

4 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

Hehehe, I can only imagine how a hand shake must be from your perspective. I'm not that ridiculously strong  but really weak handshakes do give me the ickies.

Why band assisted pull ups? do you hate negatives too? 

Handshakes are a weird hold over from a time long gone. I try to make sure I don't crush but I have had a couple times where I've seen the person do the little wave after getting a hand shake that tells me I went to hard. I had a farm boy once challenge me to crush hands. We hit an absolute stalemate. We stood there for a minute, both trying to crush, neither feeling crushed before we just called it. I'll take a draw with a farm boy as validation. Anyone who work with their hands everyday will beat someone like me usually. I've actually just always wondered how it is for other people. I have short but thick hands and my kettlebell calluses (which are diminishing under the current training regimen), I've always wondered if other people notice them. 

 

Honestly, I hadn't really considered negatives. Considering they only have one strength of band at the gym, that I have been able to find, these will be a nice addition. Thank you.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Now I'll be self-conscious next time we meet. I'll have to give you a French-style kiss on the cheeks instead.


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[The Most Loathed]

2 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Now I'll be self-conscious next time we meet. I'll have to give you a French-style kiss on the cheeks instead.

[LouCarJo]

On 20/10/2017 at 9:32 PM, The Most Loathed said:

Handshakes are a weird hold over from a time long gone. I try to make sure I don't crush but I have had a couple times where I've seen the person do the little wave after getting a hand shake that tells me I went to hard. I had a farm boy once challenge me to crush hands. We hit an absolute stalemate. We stood there for a minute, both trying to crush, neither feeling crushed before we just called it. I'll take a draw with a farm boy as validation. Anyone who work with their hands everyday will beat someone like me usually. I've actually just always wondered how it is for other people. I have short but thick hands and my kettlebell calluses (which are diminishing under the current training regimen), I've always wondered if other people notice them. 

 

Honestly, I hadn't really considered negatives. Considering they only have one strength of band at the gym, that I have been able to find, these will be a nice addition. Thank you.

I sat through a meeting once between two very senior people (I was there as scribe), who spent the beginning talking about how fathers of good families teach their children (sons...) how to shake hands properly and how one of them was doing some outreach programme teaching the less well-off how to shake hands so they could try for a prestigious career...  I obviously went to tell my dad that he’d failed me ;-)

 

For pull ups, doing isometric holds at the top, then at regular intervals on the way down have been quite instructive for me, showing that my weakest point by far is the step the one before the bottom.  That’s also where I get stuck on the way up.  So the isometric holds allow me to isolate that weak point and work on it.  Though I’m also doing banded pull ups too - attacking from all angles I guess!

[The Most Loathed]

7 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

For pull ups, doing isometric holds at the top, then at regular intervals on the way down have been quite instructive for me, showing that my weakest point by far is the step the one before the bottom.  That’s also where I get stuck on the way up.  So the isometric holds allow me to isolate that weak point and work on it.  Though I’m also doing banded pull ups too - attacking from all angles I guess!

For me the weakest point is the top 25%. I can go from 0-50% easily and often, getting past the midpoint is more likely to miss but that last bit, the bit of getting my chin over the bar, that is was keeps me in the low single digits.

 

Saturday workout - I decided to do olympic lifts Saturday since I can't do them Monday (because they are still having the Oly class). 

Clean, Clean and Jerk x 5 185 lbs

Clean Pulls 3 x 3 225

Snatch x 10 115 lbs

forgot to do snatch pulls

Front Squat 185 3 x 3

Overhead Squat 95 3 x 3

 

I adapted this workout from Catalyst Athletics. I really enjoyed the heavy pulls. I came in for what I thought would be a pretty mild workout and pretty quickly found that my nervous system had turns things up to an 11. I was pulling especially hard but I was just excited, wanted to do more work than anticipated. It felt really good.

 

 

[The Most Loathed]

No kettlebell juggling today. Instead, I ate a waffles... more on waffles if I remember.

 

We didn't make it to the Y. I was going to do Elements. 

I did make myself go down to the apartment gym. In hindsight it would have been a workout better skipped but I did it anyway

 

1 arm clean 28 kg 1:00 L, 1:00 R, 1:00 rest x 5

2 arm long cycle 20 kg 1:00 on, 1:00 off x 5

I started a snatch set but my hands were feeling a little beat up

I was trying to stay away from squat, lunges and jerks because I'd still like to squat heavy tomorrow. So I got a good sweat worked up but don't feel like it was a great workout. 

 

waffles. I have a strange relationship with waffles. They always sound good to me except when I actually sit down somewhere that has waffles and look at the rest of the menu and decide, no, I think I'll have the omelet or skillet or whatever has a ton of eggs and veggies. My waffle craving was at an all time high last year on the Colorado trip. I got it in my head that nothing would be better than coming back from hours of hiking to a waffle feast. We had a waffle maker in the house. I had people ask me what I wanted. I said waffle. No one made me waffles. It kind of annoyed me because I rarely ask for anything but when I did, it got blown off.

So since then Laura remembers me asking for waffles and mentions them whenever we go places that have waffles. The thing is, I don't love a waffle. I like one, but I don't love it. Today, I decided, was a day for a waffle, at least once Laura asked me to go out for breakfast. We went over to Eggy's and I reviewed the menu. Man, the omelet looked good. No! I was here for waffle. 

I reviewed the waffles. There was a waffle with powdered sugar, maybe. A waffle with chocolate chip, nope, A waffle with banana, double nope. A caramel apple waffle, oh that could be good. In the end I decided that the caramel apple waffle might be more sugar than I was down for and went with a plain waffle and a side of sausage. It was disappointing. It'll be a bit before I request a waffle again.

 

I mentioned work stuff a couple posts back. Let's see if I can do that justice before I get tired of typing and decide to head to bed. 

I started my new gig something like a month ago. I don't recall the exact date. I'm still with the same company but I shifted into the IT department. In my old job a big part of my job was waiting to get permission to access data. I found out about the ELZ which basically has a copy of all the data and tried to get in but it never happened. 

Fast forward about six months, I saw that the ELZ was hiring. After a year of struggling to get access to data and knowing it was all in the ELZ I decided to apply. I knew right away that I was not going to get the gig. It was a degree of technical acumen that I didn't/don't have. I decided to embrace that. I went in telling them that I knew I didn't know but that I could learn. More, I told them that I think what they are doing is important for the company and I really believed it. They decided to hire me based on a belief that I could learn and, I think, the knowledge that I had tried to be a customer and seemed to still strongly believe in the project.

As a part of my negotiations to get the job I asked for one thing, that I not have to drive down to their office. I got the go ahead to work from downtown with the understanding that sometimes I would have to make the drive. Since then I've been driving two days a week. I have downtown office too but I haven't used it. I work from home most days and I love it. We don't have our office set up yet so I sit at the dining room table and work. It's not ideal but I love it. 

On days that I work from home I get to make myself a hot breakfast and a hot lunch. They're even typically pretty healthy. I also take the dogs out for an extra walk at noon which I really enjoy. On days that I work from the office I typically buy a sandwich for lunch and end up working longer than I intend. Not ideal but definitely tolerable, especially since I only intend to be in the office one day a week in the longer run.

In my new job I am busy every day. I've never had a job where I feel like I'm constantly busy. I'm totally not minding it. I go in with a list of things I want to do. I start working on them, new things come up, I reprioritize and keep going. It's not to the point where I feel like I can never make headway. I feel like I make some progress everyday. 

I haven't yet learned the technical aspects of my job. I have training booked in a couple weeks to wrap that up. I'm not intimidated by the technical aspects. It all makes sense to me I just need to learn the bits and pieces. The intimidating aspect of my job is the business help that they need. 

My boss has acknowledged that he sucks at meeting customer needs. He was hired to run this database and he does a pretty good job of it. But making the process of getting in and getting out, communicating to customers, dealing with request for enhancements or complaints, none of those are his wheelhouse. So he's kind of pushing those off on me. 

Even though I didn't really sign up to fix their business process I'm enjoying it. I'm optimistic that I can help out a lot. They need the help, they know it, their customers know it. Everyone is really cool though. We have a couple customers that are a little more grumpy than they have rights to but overall everyone is fun to talk to and open to talking and just excited to see improvements happening 

So I'm really happy with my new job. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

I'm glad you're happy brother.

The thing is, since you never ask for much and you (I assume) never complain, people get used to your not ever needing anything. So when you finally do make the ask, it's low priority.

[Bearlee]

Awesome about the job. And too bad about the waffles, but doesn't that seem to be the way with things we crave, the expectation never lives up to the hype. Or maybe since you've been hanging around Lady Shello that you are now a pancake fan (her doodlie group) instead of a waffle fan (her doodlie arch-nemesis).

[LouCarJo]

I think German waffles are really good.  We had a German waffle maker growing up, and it was always the Christmas morning breakfast. If you’re close enough to the border on your Netherlands trip you might get lucky.  The Dutch do nice caramel waffle biscuit things (or at least I liked them as a child!).

[The Most Loathed]

On 10/22/2017 at 10:11 PM, Sloth the Enduring said:

I'm glad you're happy brother.

The thing is, since you never ask for much and you (I assume) never complain, people get used to your not ever needing anything. So when you finally do make the ask, it's low priority.

I certainly try not to complain. I try to first ask myself what I can do to fix it and do that. I also try to ask myself what the person I'm about to complain to is dealing with. I guess I always imagine that when the guy who never complains, complains, you react. It doesn't seem to work that way.

 

On 10/23/2017 at 8:35 AM, Bearlee said:

Awesome about the job. And too bad about the waffles, but doesn't that seem to be the way with things we crave, the expectation never lives up to the hype. Or maybe since you've been hanging around Lady Shello that you are now a pancake fan (her doodlie group) instead of a waffle fan (her doodlie arch-nemesis).

I don't even feel bad about the waffles, it's just  weird cognitive dissonance. It's always weird to see and know one of those.

 

15 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

I think German waffles are really good.  We had a German waffle maker growing up, and it was always the Christmas morning breakfast. If you’re close enough to the border on your Netherlands trip you might get lucky.  The Dutch do nice caramel waffle biscuit things (or at least I liked them as a child!).

Any idea what makes them special? I now want to try this Dutch caramel waffle biscuit.

 

 

Went to the gym last night. It was the night that the Oly class takes over my space downstairs so I was banished upstairs. I had organized my week leading up to this to make it Squat night. 

The upstairs area is where the body builders and body builder wannabes hang out. I forgot that although they don't squat, they use the squat racks. I walked in to see what I assume is a high school kid who might weight 110 lbs starting his standing press set in the squat rack. He was pressing the bar. He eventually worked up to 65 lbs. Total. To be fair, percentage of bodyweight, he and I are about on par but I don't use the squat rack for my presses and neither should he. I confess that when I saw him start stripping the bar I all but kicked him out of the rack.

 

Back Squat 315 3 x 3

Standing Press 135 5, 5, 4, 3, 3

Hip Sled 360 3 x 10

uneven push up 3 x 10

 

So, I lived up to the annoying stereo type that some of the trainers have of me. I discovered that in 45 lb plates they only have about 900 lbs upstairs spread out over 5 pieces of equipment, 4 plates per item. Predictably the benches were in use. So I used all the plates on the squat rack then stole the ones off the Smith Machine. To use the leg press I had to clear the Smith Machine and steal from the squat rack. 

Next week I'll try to deadlift on Monday. They have about 600 lbs of bumper plates up there that no one ever uses. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

See, that's your problem. Past performance predicts future performance. If you don't complain, you won't complain. When you do complain, it doesn't fit their concept and they can ignore it figuring it'll stop. You gotta be a little more dramatic.

You probably wouldn't have to stare at that kid long before he'd move off.

When I was lifting at the Y there was one guy who could move real weight. He was an old guy, built like you, a firefighter. The trainers, who were built more like me (without my belly) seemed to have the same stereotypes toward him, but I think it was more an appreciative awe. He was also the only one there who I trusted enough to ask questions of; real nice guy, he taught me a lot.

[LouCarJo]

1 hour ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

See, that's your problem. Past performance predicts future performance. If you don't complain, you won't complain. When you do complain, it doesn't fit their concept and they can ignore it figuring it'll stop. You gotta be a little more dramatic.

Yeah, this.  In my old job I was told off for getting cross, on the basis that I was “nice”.  My line manager did in fact say in my defence that at least when it was occasional, it had more impact, but overall you suffer more for being cross/speaking up/asserting yourself etc if it’s out of character than if you’re a pain all the time...

[Rooks]

On 10/22/2017 at 9:51 PM, The Most Loathed said:

waffles. I have a strange relationship with waffles. They always sound good to me except when I actually sit down somewhere that has waffles and look at the rest of the menu and decide, no, I think I'll have the omelet or skillet or whatever has a ton of eggs and veggies. My waffle craving was at an all time high last year on the Colorado trip. I got it in my head that nothing would be better than coming back from hours of hiking to a waffle feast. We had a waffle maker in the house. I had people ask me what I wanted. I said waffle. No one made me waffles. It kind of annoyed me because I rarely ask for anything but when I did, it got blown off.

So since then Laura remembers me asking for waffles and mentions them whenever we go places that have waffles. The thing is, I don't love a waffle. I like one, but I don't love it. Today, I decided, was a day for a waffle, at least once Laura asked me to go out for breakfast. We went over to Eggy's and I reviewed the menu. Man, the omelet looked good. No! I was here for waffle. 

I reviewed the waffles. There was a waffle with powdered sugar, maybe. A waffle with chocolate chip, nope, A waffle with banana, double nope. A caramel apple waffle, oh that could be good. In the end I decided that the caramel apple waffle might be more sugar than I was down for and went with a plain waffle and a side of sausage. It was disappointing. It'll be a bit before I request a waffle again.

 

Just stating for the record, I'm a huge fan of waffles, but I usually make my own. I found this recipe to be thoroughly tasty. It's almost got a hint of sourdough since you leave the dough out over night.  

 

https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/05/essential-raised-waffles/

 

I went on a waffle making binge a few years back and tried a different recipes every Saturday for like 4 months. Haha...

 

Glad to hear the job is going well and it seems you are crushing the weights quite well as well. Good stuff. Gives me a bit of shame at my lack of activity, but maybe that's a good thing.  

[KB Girl]

13 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

Any idea what makes them special? I now want to try this Dutch caramel waffle biscuit.

Stroopwafels, they're really a type of cookie. Delicious though. You'll find them at any tourist shop probably, but just go to the Albert Heijn. (supermarket)

 

You don't need to go to Germany for proper waffles either... there are quite a few breakfast places that will do "Belgium" waffles with whipped cream and cherries/strawberries. Quite nice if it's your thing. 

We also do savoury pancakes very well, those might be more up your alley? 

 

Very good to hear you're enjoying your job! It does sound like good circumstances. I'm impressed by how you managed to get yourself hired! 

 

[LouCarJo]

The ones we used to make looked exactly like these: https://www.gutekueche.at/einfache-waffeln-rezept-3854

We tended to have them plain or just with jam or chocolate spread on top.  We later got a recipe book with lots of different ideas of how to jazz up the mixture, but it never really beat plain!

[LouCarJo]

3 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Stroopwafels, they're really a type of cookie. Delicious though. You'll find them at any tourist shop probably, but just go to the Albert Heijn. (supermarket)

 

 

They were the technical challenge on Great British Bake Off this series, caramel week.  I was surprised no one seemed to have heard of them before!

[The Most Loathed]

7 hours ago, KB Girl said:

We also do savoury pancakes very well, those might be more up your alley? 

Totally up my alley. I need to find these. There used to be a place here that I could get savory donuts. It closed and I have missed them.

4 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

The ones we used to make looked exactly like these: https://www.gutekueche.at/einfache-waffeln-rezept-3854

We tended to have them plain or just with jam or chocolate spread on top.  We later got a recipe book with lots of different ideas of how to jazz up the mixture, but it never really beat plain!

Nothing too shocking there but could be delicious. I wonder if that fact that they aren't 2" monstrosities has anything to do with it.

[The Most Loathed]

I've been pretty quiet on workouts this week because there haven't been a ton. Laura had a "I hate my job" week which invariably translates to missed workout, a couple delivery meals and at least one night of little sleep. I finally got back to the gym on Saturday (yesterday_

 

Clean + Jerk 190 lbs 3 x 3

front squat 190 lbs 3 x 3

Snatch 120 lbs 3 x 3 - from memory so I may be off on the weight

overhead squat 95 lbs 3 x 3

 

EDIT: I forgot, I also did some one arm barbell snatches with 95 lbs and some 2 hands anyhow with 65 lbs and a 20 kg KB. I did the two hands anyhow because I knew the the yoga class was doing some warrior poses where they were all forced to look my way so I thought it would be fun to be weird. 

 

The area that like to use for my Oly lifts is downstairs, right outside of a yoga studio. They had a class start not long after I had warmed up. I'm certain that they can feel me dropping the weights. It makes me a little self conscious. I chose not to stop lifting but I skipped high pulls because they might be viewed as a little antagonistic to the class. 

 

Laura texted that she was back from brunch as I was wrapping up. She indicated that she had wanted to come over (somewhat expected) so I told her to come on over and bring me some different shoes

Row ~2:15/500 x 30 minutes - a nice easy aerobic feeling pace. I didn't check my HR but this felt like work but not like I had to huff and puff

I tried hoping on a treadmill but a couple minutes it I somehow managed to reboot it and the screen that runs it woldn't come back on. I longed for simpler times.

I hopped on a stair mill for 10 minutes at level 13 (muahahaha) and it was fine. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. 

 

today (Sunday) Kristjian came over but it's getting a little chilly to juggle so we worked out in the apartment gym. Because we both have baby soft hands after months of not seriously doing kettlebells we kept the sets short at 45 seconds

Jerk 20 kg x 2 3 sets

Snatch 20 kg 3 sets

Long Cycle 20 kg x 2 3 sets

 

I don't have any serious plans today so I think I'm going to play a card game by myself. I have some friends who want to start meetng to play Arkham Horror the card game.Our first session is in just under two weeks so I'd like to get a couple practice runs in. 

[Rooks]

Damn. That's some pretty impressive Oly lifting you have sir. Beastly stuff as always.