Jothra Conquers the Space Between Spaces!

[Jothra]

I will absolutely continue with the story element here, because I enjoy it. I will, however, save it for the beginning of the challenge on Monday. In the meantime, here are my goals and whatnot!

 

1.) Main Fitness Quest

My three goal-achieving-type-little-goals-that-add-up-to-a-bigger-goal-goals: All scoring assumes

 

i.) Mine, shovel, chop, and hoe except on S Days (Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Days). Shovelglove! I will shug for at least 14 minutes per weekday. I feel so much stronger since I started doing this three months ago that I have trouble believing it. I poke my traps a lot. I'm not sure when I had traps installed. Easy scoring: __/20. [+2 STR | +2 STA]

 

ii.) Bicycling Through Time and Space is the name of a trilogy of really goofy but particularly fun books about a guy from California who can travel through time and space using an alien-implanted 22nd gear on his Nishiki mountain bike. Ride a bicycle for 30 minutes except, as above, on S Days. Unless I want to. No rule about intensity, and no upward time limit. All that running stuff last challenge cut into my bicycle time pretty hard. It's winter here, so I'll probably be either on my winterized Kuwahara Eclipse MTB, or on my heavily modified Body Break kludge-o-cycle with the cadence meter made with a $10 cyclometer and free math. If I'm lucky, I'll get to sneak the Trek 1.2 out here and there. If I really can't snag a bicycle for some reason, I'll find something else to do. __/20. [+2 STA | +2 DEX | +1 CHA]

 

iii.) This is my first directly weight-related goal on this site. Ever. Eat at a calorie deficit as if to lose 1 lb. per week. This is a deficit of 500 calories a day. It really shouldn't be hard to stay away from junk food (most of the time, anyway) and stuffing myself to the gills. Besides, my other goals will add at least a handful of calories back in each day; in theory, that's what this Fitbit HR is for.  __/28. [+2 CON | +2 WIS]

 

2.) LIFE SIDE QUEST

Draw every day. I have a sketchbook. I am playing with brush pens, but that part could change. I love cartooning. Why am I not drawing more often? For the purposes of this challenge, I will ink without doing pencils first. I'll illustrate my update each day. The pictures will be black and white, because colouring takes ages, and isn't what I feel like I need to mess with right now. I will share said drawings here. __/42. [+2 CHA]

 

As per normal, I'm going to determine scores based on percentage ranges, more or less like on my childhood report cards.

A = 86-100% | B = 73-85% | C = 66-72% | D = 51-65% | F = 0-50%

3) MOTIVATION

 

This:

[Sloth the Enduring]

Woop woop! Shovelglove and biking! I'll be following along.

[Jothra]

Fantasticats!

[Jothra]

Playin' with felts.

[Lara]

Very nice challenge. I like all the hoe mess. I was raised in the country and used to do a lot of work there. I've never been more fit than then.

It surprises me how much you enjoy cycling. I've been trying to choose my bike instead of my feet sometimes but I find it hard, because biking truly destroys me. I'll try to be inspired by you

 

Waiting for those cartoons to come!

[Jothra]

Very nice challenge. I like all the hoe mess. I was raised in the country and used to do a lot of work there. I've never been more fit than then.

I love how much it reminds me of the workier parts of my childhood. Not to mention my now-over construction career.

 

It surprises me how much you enjoy cycling. I've been trying to choose my bike instead of my feet sometimes but I find it hard, because biking truly destroys me. I'll try to be inspired by you

Bicycles have made me feel absolutely free since I was eight years old, so I've had 26 years to get used to them. Now it's kind of like cheating.

 

Waiting for those cartoons to come!

I'm pretty excited for that part myself. At some point I'm sure I'll have to draw a bicycle, and I find those hard.

Also, it's nice to see you challenging again! Yay!

[Hazard]

In

 

[RittenRemedy]

I'm not sure when I had traps installed.

Same time as the 22nd gear? Possibly during the instructions you didn't read with your flat pack shovelglove? Also another book I need to add to my ever expanding list to read. Good luck with the challenge!

[Jothra]

Also another book I need to add to my ever expanding list to read. Good luck with the challenge!

Sadly, they are very out of print.

[Jothra]

Day 1:

     After a surprisingly long wait on an unsurprisingly uncomfortable bench, Jothra finally got called into an office.
     A space wait, space bench, space called, and space office, though. He was definitely on a space station, so he couldn't help but add "space" in front of basically everything.
     Opening a space door at the end of a space hallway, he entered a space room. At a space desk sat a space...
     ...space...
     ...space ugly guy? Space disgusting hunchbacked hobo? Space unwashed dirtbag? It was hard to tell. The man looked like one of the Old Men of the Rebellion married another, uglier Old Man of the Rebellion, then adopted a really ugly baby.

Ugly. Blecccccch.

 
     "You have been away too long," sneered Ugly Old Man Adopted Love Baby Quasimodo.
     "I've never been here before."
     "Not from here. From your training."
     "It's really hard to understand you. You sound like Peter Lorre after a night of binge drinking."
     "I don't think you--"
     "Sorry, what?"
     "I said--"
     "Fisherman's Friend. Halls. Something."
     The Dirty Old Filth Man Hobo Child stopped, and glared. Jothra cringed. Even the man's eyeballs looked dirty. Finally, the man continued.
     "You have been away from your formal assassin training for too long. You accidentally managed to travel through space and time on a bicycle once. Now you must train to do the same, only in a controlled manner. I have taken the liberty of--"
     This is when he realized that Jothra was gone. The Dirty Filthy Old Man Hunchback Hobo Adoption Love Child scrabbled for his console's radio.
     "Jothra is loose on the station! Find him before he finds...the bicycles!"

 

i.) Shovelglove: 20min. 01/20.
     22 lbs. Real life hammer is red.
ii.) Bicycle: Stationary. 01/20.
     Both of my real bicycles are blue. The stationary one isn't, but the colour choice still seems appropriate.
iii.) Füd: Some. 01/28.
     Some food is green. Broccoli is green. I like broccoli. Sadly, kale and brussels sprouts are also green.
iv.) Draw: Did. 01/28.
     Brush pens. No pencils. There's usually no yellow involved, but it's probably symbolic of pencils, or in honour of The Yellow Kid, the first comic strip known to have used yellow, or more likely I needed another colour and went with yellow because it wasn't taken. Seriously, though, it was that last one.
 
     Rock on, day one. Rock on forever.

[Sloth the Enduring]

22 speed bike & a 22# hammer?

[Jothra]

Day 2:

     Most of the doors were locked, but to Jothra's surprise, they had bathroom stall-style locks — the kind easily opened with an old-fashioned slot screwdriver. Or, as it happens, a Swiss Army Knife, like the one Jothra always carried.
     Quickly unlocking an ordinary-looking door, Jothra ducked out of sight. He listened at the door, and heard steps running past. He sat back against the door, relieved. He had no real problem with the Old Men of the Rebellion, but he didn't particularly like being kidnapped.
     It was while he sat there, back against the door, that he realized that he was in some kind of hangar...a hanger filled with...
.

I need to practice more, because this was stupidly hard to draw.

 
     ...bicycles?
     Not just any bicycles, but bicycles with a strange, vibratory quality to them, as if they were itching to fly. Their wheels seemed to shoot with energy. Jothra felt...he felt...at ease.
     Then he noticed that two of the bicycles were his own road and mountain bikes.
     "Well, so much for ease," Jothra mumbled to himself.

 

 

i.) Shovelglove: 16min. 02/20.
     22 lbs. As some may know, my current Shovelglove routine is (per side) 25 shovels, 25 spear thrusts, 25 butter churns, 10 lever flips, 10 fireman swings, 10 wood chops, and 25 sack hoists. The next circuit is halved, as is the next, etc., until I get to 1-1-1-1-1-1-1. If a number of reps is not divisible by two, I round up to the nearest whole number. This usually takes a bit longer than the 14 minute recommended shugging time, but I still set my timer to 14 minutes; that way, if I'm really not feeling it, I can always call it at the timer beeping. If I do all my circuits, it works out to 52 shovels, 52 spear thrusts, 52 butter churns, 22 lever flips, 22 fireman chops, 22 wood chops, and 52 sack hoists, per side.
ii.) Bicycle: Stationary. 02/20.
     I'm not home, so I used a friend's 1970s CCM Slim Gym exercise bike. This thing is coloured like an old-school tent trailer. It's hilarious.
iii.) Füd: In me. 02/28.
     Pizza! A small one, though, on Boston Pizza's thin crust. Good times.
iv.) Draw: Did. 02/28.
     Brush pens. No pencils. Took the picture at a funny angle for added weirdness.
 
     Actual bicycle tomorrow? If I get up early enough, yes.

[Jothra]

22 speed bike & a 22# hammer?

 

Well, my actual MTB is a 24 speed, and the road bike is a 27 speed; I ain'nt ready for a hammer at either of those weights.

[Artemis]

Hammers, bikes, and mayhem! This is going to be fun! Drawings = added bonus

[RittenRemedy]

It's late, and yes space stuff.

[Jothra]

Day 3:

     "There's nowhere to go!" shouted an angry voice on the other side of the door. "There's no other way out of the storage hangar, and we'll figure out what you did to the lock eventually!"

     "I'll save you some time! It's superglue!" Jothra shouted back.

     "What? Why did you? Aww, jeez! Do we have any, I dunno, acetone or something?"

     Jothra looked around, He was trying to act casual, but he was starting to worry. Maybe running had been a bad idea, after all.

     "Ha! Now we...what? This isn't acetone!"

     "Yuh it is!"

     "It's grape juice!"

     Running was looking better and better. Jothra spotted a window near the ceiling. He could see stars on the other side.

     He remembered that he had never actually cleared his mining equipment out of his bag after his time in the Far Lands. He reached into his improbable satchel, and pulled out a large sledgehammer.

     "Here we go," he mumbled. He swung the hammer, and let it fly for the window.
 

Smashy smashy!

 
     "Did I hear a smash?" said the door-voice. "That was a smash! Give me that-- applesauce? Oh, come on!"

     With a whoosh, the airstarted flooding through the smashed window and into the emptiness of space, pulling Jothra and a large number of bicycles with it.

     "Oh, yeah," Jothra said with what he was sure would be his last living breath. "I guess I should have seen this coming."

 

 

i.) Shovelglove: 22min. 03/20.
ii.) Bicycle: Kuwahara. 03/20.
iii.) Füd: Transiently. 03/28.

iv.) Draw: Did. 03/28.
     Four shades of brush pen. Spot the mistake!
 

     I've been pit-of-stomach sick since early afternoon. I biked back to camp (friend's place), threw up, bailed on a commitment that I was really looking forward to, struggled to finish some important work, then sat around watching The Librarians until I could handle moving around. Then I shugged. I still feel like butt, but at least I feel like butt on my own terms.

     The ride to work was short, but cold. The way back was also short, but was also cold. It was the highlight of my day.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Ugh. Get well soon Bro.

[Hazard]

On the plus side, The Librarians!

[Lara]

Take care, hun!

[Jothra]

Looking back at my post, I realize it looks like I'm being facetious about the bike ride. It was cold, but I loved every second of it.

[Jothra]

Day 4:

     Jothra took a deep breath. He had read somewhere that you can last about 30 seconds in space. He wasn't sure what his end game had been, but he certainly hadn't thought things through.

     Then he saw it: his mountain bike, floating nearby, giving off a strange glow.
 

A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an aluminum frame.

 
     Jothra shrugged. If he was doomed anyway, he may a well figure out what the heck his bike was doing here...

 

 

i.) Shovelglove: 15min. 04/20.
ii.) Bicycle: Stationary. 04/20.
iii.) Füd: Some. 04/28.
iv.) Draw: Yeah. 04/28.
 
     I'm not at a hundred percent, but at least I've been a functional human being today. I was pretty bloody tired when I got home, but I still got things done. Thanks well-wishers!

     The weird handlebar layout on my stationary bike will safely hold my laptop, so I biked through the season finale of The Librarians. I enjoyed it.

[RittenRemedy]

Hope you feel better (and Jothra survives the space!)

[Jothra]

Day 5:

     The second he grabbed and mounted his mountain bike, Jothra found himself out of the frying pan and into the fire. There was a flash of light, and he was suddenly plummeting downward, quite some distance from his bicycle, which was also plummeting, and also his hair was on fire.

 

This isn't 100% as fictional as one might expect.

 
     With a splash, most of his problems were solved in a watery fashion. Fortunately, Jothra could swim. He grabbed his bike, and made for the nearest shore.

     What the hell was going on?

 

 

i.) Shovelglove: 19min. 05/20.
ii.) Bicycle: Stationary. 05/20.
iii.) Füd: Some. 05/28.
iv.) Draw: Yeah. 05/28.
 
     Not gonna lie — I am very glad I left my weekends workout-optional. I'm feeling slightly better again, but ug.

     In case you were wondering, I have never been on fire and plummeting to my probable death and crashing a bicycle at the same time.

[Jothra]

Day 6:

     After a few peaceful moments of gasping and flolloping around the shore, Jothra spotted a small cave entrance nearby. Normally, he would avoid anything so likely to have a wild animal living within, but for some reason he felt it urgent that he try. He crawled over the to the opening, ducked his head inside, and raised an eyebrow.
 

Remember, kids: small caves are full of bitey things!.

 
     The cave was much larger than he had expected, and in the middle was...what was that? An Apple IIe? With an Old Man sitting in front of it?

     "Well, whatever," Jothra mumbled. "Here we go."

     Leaving his bicycle, he crawled the rest of the way inside.

 

 

i.) Shovelglove: Off. 05/20.
ii.) Bicycle: Off. 05/20.
iii.) Füd: Etc. 06/28.
iv.) Draw: Dunned. 06/28.
 
     Day off from life! Much nice. Read a book. Walked in the cold.

[Lara]

Walking in the cold is always great. And so badass