• 9 min jump rope… still getting better.
• Tabata Ab stuff
• Reviewed 8 animal pakua…
• Started Tai Chi Broadsword…

… word …

Why in the hell is the theme from “Cheers” playing over and over again in my head? Please submit theories… thank you…

This weekend has been very nice so far.

Yesterday morning, Ben called me to tell me that Sifu Don is starting to teach a Brazilian Jiujutsu class at the Cedar Park school. He thought the class started at 930am. When I got there at 930am, they were already 30 minutes into it, but no big deal. They had just covered terminology that I already knew like “guard”, “mount”, “open guard”, etc…

Apparently, that is going to be a weekly class. I am very much down to do that every week. I hope also, that we can get a class together on some week night to practice.

When I got home, I took care of a lot of stuff in the house… laundry, cleaning, etc. It really needed it. I wanted to work out yesterday, but I was very, very sore from the workouts that happened on Thursday and Friday.

After vegging around for a bit, I went out for dinner with Nik, Sarah, and Dave. After that we went to see “Sweeney Todd“. It was pretty good… very graphic. So much so, that it’s desensitizing. Much like Kill Bill.

This morning, I got up late, ate some breakfast, stayed in bed some more, then got up and went to Target. Now, I am not normally a Starbuck’s fan. In fact, they make me very angry b/c they charge for wireless internet. WTF? $3 for coffee and $7 for internet. Fuck that. Anyway.. what I do like from time to time is a coffee type drink. I have been very wary lately about getting them though, with the whole wanting to lose 5lbs (4x) goals. But check this out… you can now get “skinny” drinks. This gets your the sugar free version of the drink made with skim milk. Nice…

Sorry for the tangent. I got the food that I needed at target and went home. I did a small workout today. I am still sore, but needed to move around. I ended up doing:

• 9 min of jump rope. 9 – 1 minute intervals with 25 seconds rest in between. I am getting better at this. I can now do one jump per rope revolution. Previously, I jumped rope like an 8 year old school girl having to do a mini jump in between the real jump. The rope moved… real… s…l…o…w…..
• Tabata Interval
• Crunches/Bicycles
• Barbell Side to Side thing

For the rest of the day, I don’t have much else planned at home. I am going out for sushi with a friend tonight, then, not sure.

Hopefully I will get the “give your job notice” phone call very soon…

This article is taken from t-nation.com. It centers around why we train. I love the dig at the end…

ATOMIC DOG
Vision Quest
by TC

The workout’s over. Chalk up another one.

I’m a little too shaky to walk to my car so I stop at the coffee shop to sit down and let my nervous system regain its composure. I’ve left my wrist straps on because, well, it makes the uninitiated think I just broke out of my restraints and I kinda’ like that.

I’ve also got this giant Rorschach-test of a sweat stain on my green shirt that looks like two poodles doing the Heisman Trophy stance. So the sweaty shirt, combined with my wrist straps, is a pretty fair indicator that I’ve been working out (or, like I said, just broke out of the psychiatric ward).

As I sip my coffee and pore over my training journal, I note with satisfaction that I just batted a thousand, training wise. In other words, I hit at least one more rep or used at least one more pound on everything.

Oy, oy, oy! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

That’s when I notice Luigi sitting in the corner looking at me. The pudgeball has this quizzical look on his face. He puts down the textbook he’s reading and after exchanging the usual bullshit pleasantries, he asks me if I’m writing down how much weight I lifted.

Warily I say, “Sure,” without offering any more of an explanation.

Then he hits me with the question.

“Why do you care how much weight you lifted?”

I’m dumbfounded. My mouth’s open and I must look like a pole-axed sheep. Insects fly in to leisurely nibble on a piece of egg salad lodged between my molars.

Then Luigi comes back at me with another:

“Why don’t you just train to stay in shape?”

My senses are reeling.

Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

But I recover. Barely. It wasn’t my most articulate moment, but I think I said something like, “Well, for the same reason you’re presumably reading that book. I want to better myself. I want to improve.”

He gives a smug little smile and returns to his book and his soymilk double-frappe-fuckalatte.

Weasel.

But I’ve been turning Luigi’s question around in my head ever since.

Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I think this is what I’d say — or what I’d want to say — if asked the same questions again:

“Luigi, when you were a kid, didn’t you dream about going off to slay dragons? Didn’t you dream about being some kind of hero?

“And as you grew up and realized that you probably wouldn’t be slaying any dragons, real or metaphorical, didn’t you get tired of just watching others do physical things? Didn’t you get tired of only being involved in surrogate achievement, you know, living vicariously through the basketball players, the soccer players, the Italian bocce ball players, or whoever it is you admire?

“Maybe you actually were involved in some organized sport, but if you’re like most conventional athletes, you only used weight training as a means to an end. You wanted to be a better tight end or a better power forward, but once you stopped competing in your sport, you stopped weight lifting.

“But you gotta’ understand, people like me never stop lifting weights. The part of us that wanted to slay the dragon? It didn’t die. It won’t.

“We seek to constantly get better, to get the perfect body or set a personal record or just be prepared for all the physical challenges — the what ifs the cosmos dumps on us.

“But we know deep down that the perfect body or ultimate personal record can never really be achieved, because our imagination always sets the goal a step or two or three ahead of what we’ve accomplished. And we also know that the universe is merciless enough to give us a few physical challenges that we won’t be, can’t be, prepared for.

“So it’s not the goal that’s important, it’s the journey. The journey’s the thing. The journey’s the reward.

“There aren’t a lot of us in the demographic, Luigi, but goddam we’ve got a powerful lobby.

“People like me are painfully aware of living in a world drained of spiritual values; who feel alienated; who feel impotent. So we try to be a type of hero. Again, we probably won’t slay any dragons, but we train just in case.

“We not only want to look badass, we want to be badass so we can smite evil. And evil has a lot of faces nowadays.

“So we undertake what’s much like the classic journey of the hero that Joseph Campbell wrote about: separation from society where we practice denial, endure hardship, experience pain, and ultimately get — or get a part of — what we were seeking.

“The whole training experience is almost like the Vision Quest that was part of the Lakota Indian’s life. When the Lakota needed guidance, he’d purify himself in a sweat lodge and forgo food or shelter until he received spiritual guidance — that or a nasty case of heat rash.

“Well, the gym is our sweat lodge and if you don’t think a good squat or deadlift workout is purifying, then there are no suitable words to convince you otherwise; you have to experience it yourself. And I tell you, a good workout — no, a great workout, one where you have nothing left and you’re sweating and you haven’t held back on one rep of one set — is spiritual.

“The Hindu speak of the Kundalini, the Mother Goddess, the divine power that’s asleep at the base of the spine. If you arouse it, the phenomena associated with its awakening range from bizarre physical sensations to pain, visions, brilliant light, ecstasy, bliss, and even transcendence of self.

“This may be hard for you to swallow, but when I do a set of heavy overhead barbell presses and feel that peculiar tension in the base of my spine, I think I know what the Hindu are talking about. At the very least, I’ve had the pain, the visions, and the brilliant light!

“Sure, this all sounds like I’m comparing weight training to religion, but what is it if it isn’t a religion?  My best thoughts come to me during a workout, and whatever demons I had plaguing me prior to walking into the gym have been exorcised by my exercise. And what’s the gym but a temple and what’s the clanging of the weights but the peal of the bells?

“I know it’s hard for you to understand Luigi, but the people like me practice denial to the point of sometimes being almost monastic. We often avoid people, social events, and rich food, all in the single-minded pursuit of a kind of perfection.

“Yeah, it’s sometimes painful, but that’s how we achieve heroic status. The more challenging the situation we overcome, the greater our stature. The demon you swallow gives you its power.

“We may never get to fight our dragon, but that’s okay. As Joseph Campbell said, the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.

“And beyond the metaphysical component there’s the esthetic component. Sure, most of us want to not only be better, but also look better. We’re every bit the sculptors of ancient Greece, only our medium is flesh instead of clay or marble. And if we look better, we might just be worthy of the love of Aphrodite and the pursuit of beauty is a fine and worthy thing.

“But hey, it looks like I’ve come back the metaphysical, because what’s beauty other than the reflection of the divinity of the universe?

“I help maintain this website called T-Nation, Luigi, but don’t bother looking at it because I don’t think you’d get it. On the surface, it looks like just another site that talks about weights, but it’s a lot more than that.

“It’s a blend of cerebral pursuits, lusty hedonism, and the pursuit of physical perfection and performance. It’s the voice of a type of man that’s a hell of a lot more alive than you, but I don’t expect you to understand that.

“Have you ever heard of the myth of Theseus and Ariadne? Theseus was a Greek boy who volunteered to kill the half-man, half-bull creature known as the Minotaur. To do so, he had to descend into a labyrinth from which escape was nearly impossible. However, the maiden Ariadne gave him a ball of thread to fasten to the door so that after descending into the labyrinth and killing the Minotaur, he could make his way back.

“That’s T-Nation’s job, to help people like us find their Ariadne thread, to help guide them through this journey we’ve all chosen. Oh yeah, it’s also T-Nation’s job to help you defeat that dragon, or Minotaur, as the case may be.

“So Luigi, that’s why I write down what I lifted and that’s why I want to get better. I want to be my own hero, be the protagonist in the book of my life and not just some third-rate character whose life is notable only for his total lack of conviction or purpose.

“So have another soy latte, you uncomprehending, weak kneed, pot-bellied, slack jawed, pseudo intellectual waste of flesh.”

That’s what I should have said to Luigi, but in retrospect, he isn’t really deserving of an answer. Heroes-in-training shouldn’t have to answer questions about their convictions. They just do what they have to do.

Today was a pretty good day. I am really liking the whole “to-do” list thing (in case you have not seen this, there is a FireFox plugin for RememberTheMilk that can show your ToDo list inside of your GMail) inside of my GMail account.

I felt that it was particularly good b/c I had many an email conversation with someone that I had been wanting to talk to for a while now. Thank you… my heart feels a little better.

Anyway… I got all of my bills paid, I worked from home in the morning, then got dressed and went to Academy where I got a medicine ball and a jump rope (see earlier post). I worked for a bit at the actual office, then went over to Borders. They did not have what I wanted.

When I got home, I chilled out for a little bit, then did a 5 exercise Tabata workout consisting of the following:

1) Mountain Climbers (I hate them, but I do them anyway to show them that they don’t own me)

2) Medicine Ball Crunches/Side To Sides

3) Pushups / Planks

4) Lunges w Medicine Ball

5) Standing side to side with a barbell (don’t know what else to call this.

After that, I ate dinner, showered, and then came here to the coffee shop. That’s pretty much it. I am going home and going to sleep b/c tomorrow is… guess what… back to that bastard (and I mean that in the most endearing way possible) Ryon’s class.

On my way into the office, I was able to pick up a 10lb medicine ball and a new jope rope that hopefully wont suck like the last one that I bought. This is good. My at home Tabata workouts will thank me. Thanks to my grandmother for the $25. It was actually $25.96. Nice.

I am heading to Borders after work to see if there are any of the books there that I want. I’ve got a $50 gift card there.

I will be hitting it as soon as I get home.

Also, I have finally finished the 101 list. I have actually printed it and put it up on my refrigerator and have started knocking things off. I am in the process of getting the list coded so that it can be blogged and you “fucking assholes” (inside joke) can then hold me accountable.

Ok… so, my neighbor Vinny, his girlfriend Amanda, and myself tied one on like no one’s business last night. Well… I did… I’m not too sure about them = ).

So, Amanda’s friend drove us to the ferry terminal. How nice! We will have a ride back, right? NO. Not right.

Let’s back up for a second. Vinny and Amanda have a flight to make at 7am. Yes, that’s right, 7am. They wanted to leave the bar around 1am. Reasonable. Sleep on the plane sorta thing. The driving friend knows this.

Around, oh, 2am, this girl decides she doesn’t want to leave. Nice. How considerate. Personally, I don’t care. I don’t have to be up at any particular time today. I don’t care. I DO however, think that is messed up and that you shouldn’t do that to your friends. I wouldn’t ever do that to someone.

Vinny, Amanda, Anthony, and I go to get a slice at the pi33aria on the corner (yes, it was leet… that was actually on the awning… the bar was on 33rd and 3rd). Anthony offered to drive us to the ferry. Very nice guy. If not for him, we would have missed the 230am ferry and would have had to sit there until 330am.

Yes, it’s the tiny boat. The venerable “John A. Noble“. I don’t know who John A. Noble was, nor do I really care. He must have been some kind of horrible person b/c they named this shitty little tugboat ferry after him. I am generally pretty good at handling my liquor, but after a ride in a standard mustang and a rocking ferry boat, I am not so sure.

We get off the ferry and walk to the “taxi” ramp. They are not taxi’s at all. The are guys who drive normal cars and call themselves “car service”. Whatever.. just take my home. We get into the minivan cab and there is already a guy waiting there. We are the 2nd fare. Fantastic.

Mr. 2nd fare has no idea where he is going. He is on the phone with his stupid inner city friend who also does not know how to guide him to where he needs to go. I am ready to kill someone.

I am generally pretty good at handling my liquor, but after a ride in a standard mustang, a rocking ferry boat, and a jerky minivan in the rain, I am definitely not so sure… at all. I ask the driver to pull over. I need to give some back. Picture Jackie Chan in “The Legend of Drunken Master”. I want to continue fighting, but, my levels aren’t right. I feel better, but not by much.

Finally, Mr. 2nd fare figures out where he is going and gets dropped the hell off. The driver proceeds to our area. We guide him using the most direct route. It’s like 345am. I want to die.

He misses this turn and pulls a U. He missed that turn and pulls a U. Is this some sort of cosmic joke? Are you for real guy? Lemme see your license! So he gets to our block. I say to him “3/4 of the way down, on the left”. He proceeds to jerk stop at every house as if to say “this one? this one? this one? this one? this one?” thus straining even further my estomachal fortitude. He finally jerk stops close enough to my house.

I roll in like a tornado and go to sleep. I hope Vinny and Amanda had a decent flight.

And… to the girl that “didn’t want to leave” b/c she was “having too much fun”. Fuck you, bitch. I hope I never see you again. You are messed up and mostly what is wrong with people today. I wish you all the trouble and frustration that you caused us.

… met the perfect person, but the timing and circumstances are just not right? Sigh…

It looks like things may be starting to turn around and this rut that I have been in may be coming to a screeching halt.

As I was packing and getting ready to leave for home, I got a call from my friend. I have been talking with this friend about joining his company, but up until a few months ago, it didn’t seem stable enough. I have been talking with him over the past few weeks regarding his business and how it’s going. Turns out they are having fulfillment problems, i.e. not enough people to do the work that they are bringing in.

They are using cool technologies (none IBM, thank god) and doing very cool work. So, he tells me that he has agreed on a deal that will be funding my salary.

Anyway, an offer is being drafted and should be ready by the time I am in NYC. If all goes well, meaning, I look at it on Thursday and I like it, I will sign it. When I get back to Austin, I will give my current employer notice… and that will be that.

Fucking awesome. Small company, cool technology, shifting responsibilities. Everything I do matters. I am not a cog in a giant machine. I’m like.. uh.. a big part of the machine… sorry… I couldn’t think of anything witty.

In other good news, I got to talk to 2 old friends yesterday. One really, really old, like from when I was in grade school and one from high school. I very much hope that I will get to see them both while I am home.