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I have to say, looking at how I viewed myself, others, and the world; up until my early twenties, I was such a twerp.

 

 

After Amy and I get back from the gym, and I get my shoes and socks off, Knox goes absolutely loco over my feet. I’ll be honest, it’s a little creepy.

 

 

Of the trinity of standard tableware, the spoon is the most comedic.

Zombie Blog: Back from the Dead

Wow! It’s been quite a while since I posted here. My apologies to the 3 or 4 people reading this. How’ve you been? Really? Oh my. To shreds you say?

Well an awful lot has happened. Married, honeymooned, starting married life. All a rich tapestry. Truly though, I’m really enjoying it, getting to wake up next to and come home to Amy everyday is awesome.

We’ve settled into a good routine, I work long days 4 days a week, which are usually made longer by weight training in the evening. But I’ve completely caught the iron bug, and lifting really helps me stay happy and relaxed. Amy’s started lifting too! She’s really good at it, and has great hip mobility. I’m thinking about maybe becoming certified as a personal trainer at some point for kicks.

Hmmmmm, what else . . . oh yeah, I had a very strange dream a few nights ago. I dreamed about how the universe began. But it felt like it was being told to me, not something I was dreaming.

 

“First, light and darkness were together and there was no difference between them. Then light gained distinction. This is when information became important. The first Turing machine then began to run.”

 

Unfortunately that’s when my alarm went off and I woke up. In my half-awake state as I got dressed there was a sense of importance in writing the dream down. It was accompanied by visuals that looked like really old CGI. We’re talking mid-90s sci-fi CGI.

My research work is starting to pick up speed, I’m meeting new people and hope to make solid progress towards establishing the experiment regime that’s going to be needed.

Interesting things are happening!

I’m moving to Tennessee, marrying muh Amy, and starting what should hopefully be my last leg of grad school.

But I’m not going to talk about any of that.

Instead, let’s discuss the fact that over the past two days I’ve managed to cut my tongue on an envelope, my foot on a tiny shard of glass, and my finger on . . . an ice cube. I really don’t understand it either.

Additionally, my TMJ has learned a new trick. Instead of locking up and painfully popping, I now get to enjoy a kind of crackling noise in my right ear when I yawn or sneeze. ‘Tis strange.

Finally, I received this morning an email to a Mr. C. Van der Heijden. Mr. Van der Heijden had apparently mistakenly thought that he owned the email address cvanderh@gmail.com. He does not however; it is mine. The missive was in Dutch, which I unfortunately do not read or speak; however I can comment that the Google Translate service has made impressive strides in the past few years.

Hope all is well, beware of ice cubes.

Breakfast of Champions

Proatmeal and diet A&W root beer.

Last Friday I deadlifted 400 lbs, my first 400 lb lift. It felt awesome.

Additionally, just out of curiosity, I looked into what sort of weight I’d need to be at to be a competitive Olympic lifter. That was not so awesome. The ideal Olympic weightlifting body tends to be a good deal shorter and heavier set than the average person. Meaning that lifters of my height, 5′ 11″ or so, actually tend to be the unrestricted super heavyweights. Their body weights start at about 230 lbs, but go up to 300+ lbs.

I was recently very happy to reach 170 lbs after years of bouncing around 145 – 150. I don’t think I could conceivably gain another 60 lbs. Oh well, my Olympic dreams will have to be put aside.

“When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, then silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol.”

From here: http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm

Movin’ on Up.

I am officially ex-shrimpy.

Under appreciated Actors

Stanley Tucci.

Dwayne Johnson.

To some extent, Gary Oldman.

Danny Huston

And the most under rated of them all: Michael Keaton.

Let Me Tell You About My Cat

When I’m working at my computer he likes to climb into my lap and fall asleep. Every once in awhile he’ll take a deep breath and then let out a sleepy groan, occasionally readjusting himself as he naps.

Today he wound up looking like this:

He was not amused by my photography.

Nuh uh, nuh uh, I do wut I wan’.

So I just had a totally shitty work out. I can make excuses, but it boils down to me not being 100% there mentally. And that pisses me off most of all. I went for a deadlift PR of 385 lbs, was able to break it off the floor, but my grip started to fail before I could lock it out. Disappointing. I’d been looking forward to it all week.

Oh well. I’m really looking forward to working out in the gym at me and Amy’s new place in Knoxville, it seemed much less crowded and d-bag filled than the gyms here.

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Since I’ve already started into a weight lifting post, I’m going to just keep on rolling with the topic. My favorite lift is the deadlift, and my favorite “deadlifter” is Konstantin Konstantinov. Not only is his name awesome, he picks up insane amounts of weight, and then often takes time to chat with the camera guy while holding the weight.

Here he picks up 815 lbs while standing on a box to worsen his lever angle, then tells the camera man a joke:

The reason I’m telling you about this guy though is an interview I found earlier today. In it, he talks about his lifting and his training, but he also talks about it being hard for him to gain weight. That he has to fight for every kilo and that it’s a real struggle to bulk up.

This guy is worried about being too small. That thought made me laugh. Of course he is about 30 kilos lighter than the other super heavy weights that he competes against, but still, the guy is enormous!

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QUICK ADDITIONAL THOUGHT

 

I remember a conversation I had a couple years ago with Miriah. She asked me if I was going to be getting into triathlons. She noted that a lot of the guys she knew from high school and college who stayed physically active suddenly decided in their mid-20s that they wanted to be extreme endurance athletes and notch their triathlon belt.

Well, I think I can say with some confidence that I won’t be doing that any time soon. Or doing any marathon running. Long distance stuff just doesn’t do it for me. If forced I could probably run 10 miles, but I wouldn’t really enjoy it or get any satisfaction from it. The only time I’ve enjoyed running like that was when I’d go running with my mom back home, and then just because I got a chance to talk with her as she would unwind. Running is her thing. That’s what does it for her.

What does it for me is weightlifting. If I can get a lifetime 3-lift total of 300/405/500, I’d be happy.