Silent Night

I finally broke down and ordered a new bed frame. The old one was a standard futon frame that folded into a couch. I figured it was time to upgrade since this was the last remnant of college-type furniture I had (futon pad excluded). Also the old frame was definitely showing (or should I say "sounding") its age. The wood was cracking to the point that there was a definite sag in the middle and the creaking when a friend and I are in the middle of mad, passionate... uh... I mean when I get out of bed in the morning... was getting annoying.

Well, the new frame (pictured here) was finally delivered tonight. It's a pretty cool platform bed. I tend to like clean lines and try to keep things simple.

And Then There Were Three

What a difference a week makes. Well, not that much difference; I got my lazy arse to the gym one additional day. It’s definitely like starting over. Though, my muscles are a bit bigger and I’m not as fat as when I first started working out.

Today was kinda fun working my chest and arms. It turns out that the shirt I was wearing had tight sleeves so my biceps seemed to show themselves off. On top of that, I’m seeing much more vascularity in my forearms while I lift. If only my stomach could be so good.

Anyway, the crud I had last week is almost all gone so I hope to do even better next week on the gym schedule.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Last week my body decided it'd rather repair itself after a cold than repair (read "build") muscles after a workout. Anything it can do to avoid the gym; bastard!

Wednesday of last week it started out with a sore throat and quickly moved into the sinuses. I stayed home sick on Thursday but tried work on Friday. The entire weekend was spent at home, though I fell asleep Saturday night around 8:30 and didn't wake up until 10:00 Sunday morning; guess I needed the sleep.

To make a long story short, today was the first time back to the gym. I figured I needed to get back sooner than later; actually did legs for the first time in a long time (since doing the stairs in the summer was such an awesome leg workout I didn’t work them in the gym much).

Also, I had originally set my body weight goal to be around 205 lbs. When I passed that, I reset the goal to 200 lbs. However, now that I’ve been hovering around 199 lbs for a couple of weeks I think my new goal is going to be 195 lbs. I am not sure I’ll maintain that since I want to build more muscle; I'll just have to make sure I loose more fat to offset the muscle weight gain.

Call me Nostradamus (or Wacko)

Choose your own adventure:

Option 1:
The next president, Hillary Clinton, will be blamed for the massive unrest in the Middle East that will erupt soon after our troops are drawn down. Iraq will be broken up into smaller countries and countless thousands will be slaughtered. Turkey and Iran will annex parts of old Iraq.

August 23, 2009: the US will be hit by another major terrorist attack; this time a liquefied natural gas ship in Boston Harbor will be the target. The attack and decimation of Boston will be blamed on the Democrats. As a result, come the 2012 elections, control of what is left of the government will be given to an Imperialistic Party (most likely the Christian Republicans will offshoot from the main party and take control).

April 12, 2014: a nuclear bomb will be used on a populated area and World War III will start. Western Nations vs. Middle Eastern Nations (plus N Korea).


Option 2:
The next president, Fred Thompson, will continue the war and expand it into Iran. Soon thereafter, Iran will hold elections and a government friendly to the US will be put into power. The Middle East will be at peace for the first time in history after the US liberates them.

August 23, 2009: global warming will be officially debunked. Science will also determine that Ozone is not required to protect the planet.

April 12, 2014: The lord will return.


Option 3:
Somewhere between the extremes of the first two options.

The Political Games We Play

So the disaster known as the Iraq war is to be continued past the current Idiot-In-Chief’s presidency. What a shrewd bunch of fellows these Republicans are. They’ve done a masterful bit of manipulation so that this failed war will be blamed on the Democrats who will most likely control the government after the presidential election. Never mind that the Republican controlled government got us to this point of failure.

It’s amazing that even when the Republicans controlled everything they were still able to successfully blame the Democrats on the failure. What is scary is that many of the American public fell for the smoke and mirrors.

Starting Over

Ah, Friday brings yet another twist. As can be seen by the workout calendar in the right sidebar, I only hit the gym twice this week. Where is that 5-day workout streak I was supposed to have? Bah!

It seems like starting over on getting into the habit of working out. The same problems of getting up in the morning from last year have crept into the mix. I am going to reserve judgment for another week to see if I can get back onto the proper path to fitness.

The good thing is that I scheduled an appointment at 10am Saturday so that should help train my body to get up earlier; usually I love to sleep in on the weekends.

Enrique Iglesias

This link was forwarded to me by a friend. How nice is this? Enrique is so comfortable in his own skin that he has no problem singing to a gay fan. If everyone was like this, we'd have no war.

Get me some cake!

I once had a discussion with a friend about how setting goals for myself does not work. I claimed that if I set a goal and reach it, what happens after that? Reaching said goal was usually anticlimactic and more often than not, a letdown since the excitement was in the road taken and not the final destination.

Well, it turns out that I had set a goal to be in decent enough shape for my trip to Vancouver, BC so that I could feel relatively confident to hit the clubs. Since that trip has come and gone, I have found that my devotion to fitness is now lacking. That fact is getting depressing.

Some people turn to comfort food when they get down, others turn into introverts; I have found that it is both for me. Recently, I find that I crave the comfort foods even more, don’t care to go out into the great sun and rain we have been having lately, and have avoided the gym like the plague.

Of course these things have a tendency to snowball into really big problems. I eat some cake because I’m depressed. I get fat because I eat cake. I get more depressed because I’m fat. I eat more cake because I’m depressed. See the trend?

For me, I eat cake and feel guilty about it (thankfully, my metabolism is still high enough so the cake does not turn directly into fat). I feel guilty about eating cake so I get depressed and become an introvert. I don’t go to the gym so I get even more depressed so I eat more cake. Welcome to hell.

The hard part about all of this is that there are definitely two personalities in my head (most likely more but the rest are quiet at the moment). The first one is depressed as all hell, the second one is angry that the first one is depressed and not keeping up with the fitness thing.

So, in an effort to kick start the first into feeling better about himself as well as calm the anger of the second one, I am trying my best to build up the energy to do five gym days next week. If that does not happen, the second will have to have even stronger words with the first.

Just call me Sybil.

Two Core or Not Two Core

This year I’ve been pretty good about staying on budget. No new electronics have been purchased so I’m quite happy about that (and so is my pocketbook). Unfortunately, the temptations are back.

At work, I tend to multitask so my computer performance suffers. As a result, I finally requested a newer machine so it wouldn’t take so long to do anything. Well, the IT department finally set me up and that is where the problem has started.

The new computer has a dual core processor and 2Gb of RAM. My home machine is a single core with only 1Gb of RAM. See the problem? I was fine having my home machine better than my work machine (good excuse to “take work home since I can do it faster on my own computer”). But I have real issues with my personal computer being slower than the one I use all day at work.

Oh, the temptation to build a new system. I keep telling myself to wait until prices of quad cores come down but it is so hard to wait.

In my best “Comic Book Guy” impersonation, “Worst. Wait. Ever.”

Hurricane Ridge 2007

So yesterday, my mom and I did our annual Hurricane Ridge trip. Each year, we take a day and head over to the Peninsula and hang out at the ridge for a picnic and some easy hiking. Ever since we started this annual trip, the weather has always been hot and sunny. This time, it was a bit different.

I tend to like all forms of weather (as long as I’m dressed for it) so having it rainy and cold up there was no problem. We ended up eating in the car and talked the entire time.

As with every year, our conversation covered religion, homosexuality (and its treatment by religion), and politics. Yup, that’s right, all the topics you’re sposta avoid. We tend to have differing approaches to said topics but usually agree to disagree if we come to an impasse. We both had a good time.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took.

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From ferry ride over to the Peninsula.

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At Hurricane Ridge.