Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Urgan]

 

5-11-2016

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Lifting

Mind the knees; mind the back

Rest day...I had the interview at 10AM, back home at 11:30, face-planted on couch after getting out of uncomfortable interview clothes. Felt like a zombie until 3:30 or so, when I forced myself to get up and heat up “lunch” and coffee, the latter of which allowed me to salvage this train wreck of a day. Two loads of laundry done, cycled dishes, cooked a poor quality dinner before flying out the door to find disaster elsewhere...I dunno, it was just that kind of day.

 

Ukemi

Roll 5x per side

Aikido night. My elbow is still a little tetchy, but not unless I’m testing extreme ROM + force production. It would have been really, really easy to have just not gone tonight, but that would have just compounded yet another failure on the mountain of fails throughout the day. So, I went, elbows wrapped, and took it easy. Right side only ukemi. Tapped out for randori, too many variables and not enough control. Hilarious to watch, though. A bunch of people with fake guns sticking people up and getting kotegaeshi’d. Jokes re:the dojo being a really crap part of town, robberies everywhere. That sort of thing.

 

Oh, and I can do the warm-up rolls correctly in class (ukemi undo??). This is a notable improvement from prior efforts as I could inevitably get out of sync or generally fail midway.

 

Food

Protein: 8/20 - 115g

Strawberry shake, get. I needed it. I’m pretty sure I needed it. It’s amazing what a cup of coffee can do, because wow all the zombie all the day long. Dinner was a fail, too-cooked zucchini in a sea of shrimp water. Couldn't be helped if I was to make it to the dojo in time. Sigh.

 

Sleep

Lights out: 11:05PM -- 8/10

Wake up: 8:00AM -- 6/10

Got in bed “early” for the interview, lol…..

Woke up at 5AM instead of 4 because my body likes flipping me the bird. Ah well, progress. 8 came quickly, not my finest hour.

 

Mobility

No slouching

Days since last tension headache: 7

Stretch and mobilize: 9/28

My knees are a little bit annoyed, I need to work that ASAP...succeeded with help from Mike cuz weird elbow angles don't work when pressure is applied. Quad, adductor, and neck day.

 

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

I hope you get an offer out of the interview, that your elbow recovers quickly and that you figure out what is irritating your skin.

 

We shall see on the interview! My elbow is coming along, by Saturday we should be good, barring random acts of stupidity. Skin's less itchy than baseline before vitamins? Maybe?

 

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

Maybe the sesame body oil? In my experience, epsom salts are neutral in the bath. My skin gets less wrinkly when I use epsom salts, but it doesn't feel drier or more moisturized. I usually just rinse off with water after soaking - no soap or body oil is involved.

 

It might be, it also might be the air drying, because just standing around with wet skin, it will wick away moisture from your skin as it dries. Best to get rid of the water ASAP in my case. I got by for a long time (months) on that and moisturizing like my life depended on it. I'm kinda done with that, lol. 

 

3 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

 

If not, then it is their business.  They interviewed a perfect replacement (one of my buddies who lives on the West Coast) about a year and a half ago, but did not pull the trigger.  Their business.

 

No idea what MM's work is like for comparison or any of the other NF engineers.  Here is an analogy:

 

Going back to Tuesday evening, one of my work sets might take 30 seconds and I might rest for three minutes in between.  So if you pop by momentarily, there is an 86% probability you see me just standing around and talking to the cute girl and you might get the impression that's all you ever do at the gym.

 

My job involves a lot of thinking.

 

I don't know.  Let me think about it.

 

I think it's funny how people who aren't in charge of evaluating your work or using the data/analysis/report you generate decide to self-deputize. Humans.

[ixaera]

Now look who's winning despite adversity! Good job not skipping Aikido!

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, ixaera said:

Now look who's winning despite adversity! Good job not skipping Aikido!

 

But I got help up by gunpoint! Like more than a dozen times! 

[ixaera]

4 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

But I got help up by gunpoint! Like more than a dozen times! 

 

Robbery victim skills +1!

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, ixaera said:

 

Robbery victim skills +1!

 

And gun-handling skills +1, we trained with the fake guns like they were real and that kind of made me feel more secure in its own right, if that makes sense? 

[ixaera]

Just now, Urgan said:

 

And gun-handling skills +1, we trained with the fake guns like they were real and that kind of made me feel more secure in its own right, if that makes sense? 

 

It does. The short time I spent at the Krav gym, every time we worked on gun disarms, there was proper gun handling skills being taught as well (though they had some tension among the instructors because some wanted you to drop the plastic gun for your partner to pick up when trading turns, as opposed to handing it over--some believed you'd somehow learn the habit of handing a gun to an actual assailant? maybe, seems weird to me, but maybe that's actually happened??)

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, ixaera said:

 

It does. The short time I spent at the Krav gym, every time we worked on gun disarms, there was proper gun handling skills being taught as well (though they had some tension among the instructors because some wanted you to drop the plastic gun for your partner to pick up when trading turns, as opposed to handing it over--some believed you'd somehow learn the habit of handing a gun to an actual assailant? maybe, seems weird to me, but maybe that's actually happened??)

 

I have a hard time believing that is a common thing...a bigger problem would be not knowing how to fire a weapon with accuracy should the assailant lunge at you after you get hold of the gun, yes? 

[ixaera]

Just now, Urgan said:

 

I have a hard time believing that is a common thing...a bigger problem would be not knowing how to fire a weapon with accuracy should the assailant lunge at you after you get hold of the gun, yes? 

 

Yeah I can't for the life of me imagine a scenario in which I'm so out of my own head that I hand someone trying to hurt me a gun, but eh, their class, whatever! I learned a lot anyway.

 

They focused a lot less on firing the taken gun and a lot more on how not to accidentally shoot yourself lol

Probably appropriate for white belts.

[Urgan]

3 minutes ago, ixaera said:

Yeah I can't for the life of me imagine a scenario in which I'm so out of my own head that I hand someone trying to hurt me a gun, but eh, their class, whatever! I learned a lot anyway.

 

When we take the gun, we back up several feet and aim the thing at our partners. I think that takes care of the muscle memory to just hand the thing over like a dog playing fetch. I'm with you on presence of mind, though. 

 

4 minutes ago, ixaera said:

They focused a lot less on firing the taken gun and a lot more on how not to accidentally shoot yourself lol

Probably appropriate for white belts.

 

Gun safety is srs bzns, no complaints there! 

[Mistr]

Interesting that you practiced kotegaishi with fake guns. We frequently practice with fake knives. The weapons certainly increase the adrenaline level in the room. That alone is a good reason to practice with them.

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, Mistr said:

Interesting that you practiced kotegaishi with fake guns. We frequently practice with fake knives. The weapons certainly increase the adrenaline level in the room. That alone is a good reason to practice with them.

 

It really puts a...fine point on it, doesn't it? (HARR.)

[Urgan]

 

5-12-2016

Me trying to get a asdjfoedsjf job

 

Lifting

Mind the knees; mind the back

Squat - 45 1x5

            70 1x3

            95 1x2

            115 1x1

            138 4x3 - belted

BP -     NA

OHP -  NA

DL -    NA

PC -   NA

Let me tell you a story. I left my zippered side pocket half open and I lost my iPod sleeve. Someone turned it into the desk at the Y. I has the overjoyed, because I cannot do anything without my music. The end. Only squats because being cautious re: the elbow.

 

Knees and elbow chewed me out all the way home--they were fine before and hence, but the drive home it was all the whining. At least I wasn’t one of the two poor people ~2 miles down the road who died in a car crash in front of a Walmart intersection because someone probably just had to swerve in ahead of oncoming traffic well after the light changed. SIGH.

 

Ukemi

Roll 5x per side

I rolled all the rolls, it didn’t hurt my elbow at all.

 

Food

Protein: 9/20 - 121g

Kicking ass on this quest, can’t wait to see my average for the week~ Dinner was generic beef ‘n pork meatballs + fried zucchini (recipe: zucchini + salt + frying in olive oil. Om nom). It were good, we each downed 10oz of meat at dinnertime, lol. Hungries.

 

Sleep

Lights out: 11:45PM -- 8/10

Wake up: 8:50AM -- 10/10

So, I’m detecting another pattern. The past two days I curtailed my I’m-bored-let’s-drink-water thing around 6:30, went to the bathroom like three times between 9 and 11:00~ and both times woke up around 5AM but did not have to get out of bed. I got some semi-quality sleep and actually got out of bed at 9:15, so this counts as an improvement in returning to normal. Baby steps.

 

Also, no need for naps or massive energy crashes!

 

Mobility

No slouching

Days since last tension headache: 8 *

Stretch and mobilize: 10/28

Neck, quads, hams, calves, and ankles got the Treatment.

 

I was having a good day until about 3 or 4 when I got the call that someone “with more experience and who can start right away” got the job I interviewed for yesterday. This sent me into a spitting rage--WTF are you telling me THAT for?? How does that help me? And  how the holy flaming Hell do I get “enough experience” if nobody hires me??

 

Day ruined.

 

Applied to about half a billion jobs after I got done crying. Not sure why this stupid job of all things got to me, but there it is.

 

 

*Full disclosure, I got a headache while upset and right before turning out the light for bed. The latter was the slow kind of pain I didn't notice 'til I was borderline sick, but closing my eyes helped where massage didn't. Not sure how to categorize that.

[ixaera]

55 minutes ago, Urgan said:

At least I wasn’t one of the two poor people ~2 miles down the road who died in a car crash in front of a Walmart intersection

 

D: FFFFFFffffffffff

 

56 minutes ago, Urgan said:

I was having a good day until about 3 or 4 when I got the call that someone “with more experience and who can start right away” got the job I interviewed for yesterday. This sent me into a spitting rage--WTF are you telling me THAT for?? How does that help me? And  how the holy flaming Hell do I get “enough experience” if nobody hires me??

 

This is an example of really shitty interpersonal policy. All they had to say was "we're sorry, we filled the position with someone else" case closed. If it's not something you can change, then fuck off with your explanations, people!

 

Furious on your behalf and I hope the migraine is better today

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, ixaera said:

D: FFFFFFffffffffff

 

Unhappy but trying to have some perspective here...

 

2 minutes ago, ixaera said:

This is an example of really shitty interpersonal policy. All they had to say was "we're sorry, we filled the position with someone else" case closed. If it's not something you can change, then fuck off with your explanations, people!

 

Furious on your behalf and I hope the migraine is better today

 

Poor dumb recruiter is new at her job (6~ months when I first talked to her), so...yeah, skillz she needs to get some. 

 

Migraine is down and so is morale...sigh. 

[Urgan]

Reason for morale being down:

 

Nothing says “welcome to a new day” like an email from a guy who says he can’t find my QA experience on my resume (And that’s all. Single sentence.).

…

Let me get this straight. You can’t read my resume, but you can fire off an email insulting me before my butt is even out of bed? Even though everyone else has been able to find it? …’kay, thanks for making that one easy. And maybe I’m still smarting from yesterday, which doesn’t help anything about life right now.

 

I was wide awake by the time my alarm went off, though! On the plus side, I was awake in time for a call from another recruiter. Appointment on Monday.

 

 

 

 

Was gonna put this on my day's report, but I just kinda want to get it off my chest. Sheesh, this has been an awful week.

[Sam Ashen]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

I was having a good day until about 3 or 4 when I got the call that someone “with more experience and who can start right away” got the job I interviewed for yesterday. This sent me into a spitting rage--WTF are you telling me THAT for?? How does that help me? And  how the holy flaming Hell do I get “enough experience” if nobody hires me??

 

I hate to say it this way:  Now you know the full story and can move on to the next one.  It is better than being fed nonsense like they are still interested (Really?  Four months and counting and she thinks they are still interested?) and having to dig for the real story.  (The real story is a discrepancy in $$$$.)

 

Sorry about your situation.

 

Meanwhile in my industry I wonder where all the kids are.

[ixaera]

I am not great at cheering people up, so I googled "the cutest thing on planet earth" and I swear, some people have really off definitions of cute. Anyway

 

[Urgan]

Just now, Sam Ashen said:

 

I hate to say it this way:  Now you know the full story and can move on to the next one.  It is better than being fed nonsense like they are still interested (Really?  Four months and counting and she thinks they are still interested?) and having to dig for the real story.  (The real story is a discrepancy in $$$$.)

 

Sorry about your situation.

 

Meanwhile in my industry I wonder where all the kids are.

 

I typically just never find out where a job went and assume after 3 days I got rejected. In this case I was working with a recruiter and they are GOING to find out the final result, because it's their job.

 

 

HIRE ME I IS SMRAT AND STUFFS.  

 

1 minute ago, ixaera said:

I am not great at cheering people up, so I googled "the cutest thing on planet earth" and I swear, some people have really off definitions of cute. Anyway

 

 

I am a fan of fluffy tails...

[Urgan]

5-13-2016

Well ain’t that a...well.

 

Lifting

Mind the knees; mind the back

Rest day

 

Ukemi

Roll 5x per side

Rest day!

 

Food

Protein: 10/20 - 121g

Leftovers and chicken strips gets me clear of yet another protein quota. So far I've made it every day this week, which is kind of a miracle? My weekly average is SO over my baseline, yass.

 

Sleep

Lights out: 12:10AM -- 9/10

Wake up: 7:50AM -- 6/10

More or less the same as yesterday, except yesterday I didn’t get that lovely emotional gut punch. I did get a recruiter interview out of it, so there's that. I have been in a bit of a funk the last few days, between job failure and elbow failure circa Monday it's been hard to really give this my all this week. Pardon my funk. I hope it'll be well clear and gone soon-ish. The one thing I have to look forward to is next Wednesday's massage appointment. That is gonna be SO interesting, given it is my first one since starting mag supplementation...

 

Mobility

No slouching

Days since last tension headache: 9

Stretch and mobilize: 11/28

Neck and upper arm mobility is all I could manage, with some bonus calf stretching. Honestly it was because I had the Friday Tireds (yeah, I know, right?) and we both had the sniffly and the drippy and the sneezy from it being really warm outside and too cool inside and it jacked me up from around 6~PM on, which contributed to the tireds, no doubt. Will do better, I swear.

[ixaera]

I'm a firm believer in the ceiling that is "your all" being dynamic and dependent on things like emotional hard places and the tireds

 

Here's an EXTREMELY fluffy tail

 

[Urgan]

19 minutes ago, ixaera said:

I'm a firm believer in the ceiling that is "your all" being dynamic and dependent on things like emotional hard places and the tireds

 

And dripping while rolling is no. Just...no.

 

19 minutes ago, ixaera said:

Here's an EXTREMELY fluffy tail

 

 

MAINE COOOOOOOOOOOOOOON~ 

 

Here is a photo of my dumb baby who somehow did NOT get hit for this:

 

 

One of my all-time favorite poses, thank you Pinterest:

 

[Urgan]

 

5-14-2016

Back to benching

 

Lifting

Mind the knees; mind the back

Squat - 45 1x5

            75 1x3

            100 1x2

            130 1x1

            155 2x3 - belted

BP -     45 1x5 - belted

           50 1x3 - belted

           60 1x1 - belted

           76 2x3 - belted

OHP -  NA

DL -    NA

PC -   NA

Stair-stepping back into normal...my elbow did not appreciate the bench press while in the middle of a set, but after it, it seemed fine.

 

Ukemi

Roll 5x per side

Did the rolls, kicked myself in the right elbow with an unshod foot. Good job, Urgan. Good job.

 

Food

Protein: 11/20 - 115g

I am pretty well convinced that my body is taking some time flushing out excess “toxins” (aka calcium). If you will recall, I was pretty heavy on the vitamin D some time ago. Vitamin D promotes increased calcium absorption from what you eat, so yup, calling it now. I did this shit to myself. I will take this bottle of mag and then reduce the dosage to 1 pill (vs the 2 recommended on the bottle), keeping up with the multi for balanced intake of vitamins. The only reason to not stop taking the dedicated mag supp is because there is none in the multi--no multi that isn’t a horse pill has EVERY vitamin ever. Too much mag promotes muscle weaknes, the opposite of too much calcium, ‘natch. Consider this a cautionary tale: do not take random vitamins in isolation, at least not without taking the complementary vitamin as well, unless you have a damn good reason~

 

Speaking of taking in calcium, I have been taking in a LOT of dairy this week, on purpose. I normally couldn’t go 3 or so days without GI Armageddon visiting me, especially while lying down on the couch. I will have you know there was much couch time and only the teeniest of gut back-talk. I will do this another week and see what happens, but I suspect I have indeed figured out the voodoo alchemy that is at least partially the cause of my dairy pain. Stupidity. Stupidity is always at the root of it all.

 

Edit: incremented protein counter because I totally didn't give myself the credit for it!

 

Sleep

Lights out: 11:30PM -- 5/10

Wake up: 10:35 AM -- 8/10 LOLOLOL

I think the explanation for this is...I really was tired. I didn’t intend to sleep in this long, but my body didn’t really consult me beforehand. I did have to get up at 3~AM but I ain’t even mad. I drank a lot of sweet green tea late-ish at night, I knew what I was in for.

 

Mobility

No slouching

Days since last tension headache: 10

Stretch and mobilize: 12/28

It’s been tough going to avoid tension of any sort in my neck (playing on the Wii U gamepad, watching all the youtube videos…), but I have to say I felt great in the gym. I have some weird arm tension on my left side, I think it’s primarily in my forearm, because my wrist is involved. At any rate, neck and leg ROM stretches happened, I rolled quads, hams, and calves again. Rolled back and forth to massage my back. Pec knots directly below the collarbone were attacked.

[Urgan]

 

5-15-2016

Got milk?

 

Lifting

Mind the knees; mind the back

Rest day

 

Ukemi

Roll 5x per side

Rest day

 

Food

Protein: 12/20 - 118g

Tuna, steak, and milk formed the bulk of my protein for today. Quota GET.

 

Sleep

Lights out: 12:55AM -- 6/10

Wake up: 9:25 AM -- 8/10

Late getting to bed, itchiness, spotty at staying asleep...all in all, not my best night lol.

 

Mobility

No slouching

Days since last tension headache: 11

Stretch and mobilize: 13/28

Hips and glutes got rolled today, and I am both surprised and unsurprised that they really weren’t hurting for the attention. There was some minor knotting, sure, but basically the job my massage therapist did on them has held. This might also be partly due to the armbar nerfing my lifting sessions. Still have pec knots, I investigated hand and forearm knots, and my neck needed some ROM stretches. All in all, a better day for self-care than average.

[Urgan]

MAY WEEK 2 DEBRIEF

The verdict?

 

Lifting

Despite my armbar experience, I felt a little stronger this Saturday vs last week. My recovery has been slowly stabilizing, so we should see some kind of results in Week 3.

 

Ukemi

Got armbar'd in Aikido and made life more interesting. Kicked myself in the OTHER elbow during ukemi practice. Clearly I have something against that particular body part. Oh well, killed it on ukemi this week.

 

Food

Avg Protein: 125g! 

 

My average is up from around 100g for the better part of this year so far. I have decided the multi is helping me at least somewhat. Time will tell~ Also: do not take vitamin supplements at random. It is not smart.

 

Sleep

Learned that the nocturnal bathroom trips were a product of the process of getting rid of who knows what from my system. Wake up times migrated from 4AM to 5, and even didn't have to get up a couple of times. PROGRESS. I anticipate this will decrease further into the next week.

 

Mobility

11 days of no tension migraines. I can do things without worrying about TENSION anymore. Rolling wasn't as much of a priority as a result, just moderate maintenance work. This is as it should be, yes? I am still having to mind my neck a wee bit, but nothing like before.

[sarakingdom]

7 hours ago, Urgan said:

Days since last tension headache: 11

 

WOOT.