Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sports update

The week started off well since Brees and Graham got it done against the Giants.  I ended up crushing my brother and my dad to win fantasy football this week.  Hell yeah.

This morning marked the first time in about ten days that I did some serious exercise.  I sucked ass and was dragging throughout the entire workout.  Hopefully I'll get back into it so I can keep up the good progress I've made.

Tonight was a bowling night.  I started off with a 145, then a 141, but finished with a pathetic 94.  We tied the first game, won the second, but lost the third and total pins.  We're still in first place, but I'm not happy that I crapped out during the third game.  I haven't been bowling in two weeks and my hand swelled up, but that's not a good excuse.  Oh well.  Next week is another week.

My night's average was 127 which bumps my seasonal average up slightly to 124.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Fitness update

I missed the fourth Saturday this month due to my vacation, but that's alright.  This month wasn't that kind to me, but I didn't go backwards too much over my ten day break.  I ate a lot of gluten products and didn't exercise much, but I don't think I overate even on Thanksgiving.


I need to be more diligent this month to get the trends headed in the downward direction again.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

I've been in Portland since Saturday and we'll go over to Lincoln City for the weekend today.  It should be fun though the weather sucks.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Poor physical discipline

I ate four cookies today at work and I'm not happy about it.  Some dude was celebrating 25 years with IBM and there were cookies in his honor.  I'm not sure why I had any, let alone four, but I guess I was hungry and hungry for sugar.  A sugar addiction is just like any other so I guess I had a relapse.

I felt sick almost immediately so I guess I had done a pretty good job of weaning myself off wheat/gluten.  I got a headache almost immediately and I feel pretty cruddy now.

I had been doing a pretty good job, but apparently not good enough.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sports update

Aaron Rodgers continues to roll and with him goes my brother.  He jacked us, but I managed to squeak past my dad for second place.  It's still just the first loser though.  I left a decent amount of points on the bench, but it wouldn't have affected the outcome.

I bowled pretty poorly tonight.  My initial 112 was one pin worse than the fat high school chick who doesn't stop yapping.  I picked it up during the second game with a 130, but I still failed to pick up a lot of spares.  The third game was a little worse with a 123.  My nightly average was a 122 which dropped my average just slightly to 123.

I had a hard time concentrating tonight and I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's because we were bowling in the middle lanes.

Monday, November 14, 2011

No more muttonchops

Until this evening, I was rockin' some muttonchops:
My facial hair is coarse so it starts to itch after a while so I shaved it off:
After the holidays, I'll shave my head bare again.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Quack attack

For the second straight season, Oregon has ruined Stanford's perfect record.  Kick ass.  I didn't go to Oregon, but my parents both did and I was born and raised in Portland so I root for all things Oregon, especially against all things California.

I only caught the first half last night which is too bad since they really poured it on in the second half.  My housemate went to Stanford for grad school so I was able to razz her this morning though it didn't faze her much.

Andrew Luck also had a pedestrian game so his Heisman hopes took a hit, but he doesn't play in the SEC so he was unlikely to win anyhow.

Oregon has a great chance to go to the Rose Bowl, but they need to jack up a pretty solid USC team.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Saturday morning ramblings

Jerry Sandusky is a sick bastard and I hope he rots in hell.  I'd like to hurry his ass there, but it's up to the courts to deal with him.  The dudes rioting to support him and Paterno are even sicker.  It's bad enough that this dude was molesting kids on the campus and in the athletic facilities, but now we find out that many people knew about it and hoped it would just go away.  Sports are fun and are a nice diversion, but they are not more important than anyone's well-being.  The grand indictment was linked on fark.com and I could only get part way through the description of victim 1 before I got physically sick.  That mess just ain't right.

In lighter news, here is an interesting article on the future of consumer electronics.  The author makes some good arguments about how touch screens are not responsive enough and that we're used to using touch subconsciously.  I use Swype on my Droid so I have to look at the screen, but I don't like tablets because the keys are unresponsive.  It'll be interesting to see what the future brings.

In case you were thinking of giving up on life, read this dude's RageComic.  Despite my cynicism, I found his story pretty uplifting and inspiring.  I hope I can pwn some noobs when I'm in my 80's though I'm a little worried that the US will be a fourth world backwater at that point.  Anyhow, it's important to keep the bigger picture in perspective and to not dwell too much on the low points.  "This too will pass."

Sugar and einkorn

This morning I was sad to see that my waist chunk grew by 0.5 inches over the past week.  I had been pretty stable at 36", but not this morning.  This week was a recovery week in P90X, I ate a lot of sugar (ice cream, gluten free banana bread, einkorn cookies) and I had some gluten (einkorn pasta, einkorn cookies).  Any of those could increase the chunk, but I'm thinking it was the excessive sugar.  I've been eating vegetarian this week, but I haven't been eating enough so I've been snackin' on the sweet stuff.  The more of it I eat, the hungrier I get.  Weak sauce.

The einkorn wheat flour worked well in the cookies.  They taste just like they should except they're a little chewier and a little denser than with hybridized wheat.  I'm not sure if my blood sugar spiked because of the wheat or the sugar.  My housemate got some einkorn pasta and I tried some Thursday night.  It tastes just like regular wheat, but is a little denser.  It's definitely a transparent substitute though I'm not sure if the gluten is going to undo the progress I've made since going mostly gluten free.

I'm going to make pizza dough with the einkorn flour tomorrow so I'll get a better sense of what happens since I'm going to cut way back on the sugar.  The rest of the banana bread went into the freezer and I'll limit myself to just one cookie per day.

The cool thing is the man boobs have greatly reduced by going gluten-free and that's always a good thing.  I'm pretty ripped outside of my spare tire and that fat will be the last to go.  Unfortunately, visceral fat is the worst for you.  The good news is I know what I can do to get into shape so I just need to have discipline.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Sports update

My brother beat us again in fantasy football so he's definitely up on the season.  He has Aaron Rodgers who is having a pimp daddy season.  Forte played poorly so I held my dad off for second place.  There aren't any better dudes that I could pick up so I stood pat this week.  Hopefully my guys can get it done so I can win again.

I started off bowling tonight with a nice 158 and then followed it up with a 162.  I'm rollin' now and then I bowled a... frickin' 96 in the third game for a nightly average of 139.  My season average moves up a little bit to 124.  Strikes turned into 9's and spares turned into 9's.  It's amazing what a difference a mark makes.  Fortunately, we won two out of the three games and won overall points so we increased our lead over second place.  I'm bowling for fun, but I'm competitive so I want to win.

I'm also currently the worst dude so I'd like to keep bowling well over my average so I can pass someone.


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Lack of mental discipline

I banged off a few items from my to-do list last night, but woke up lethargic this morning.  Even though it's later than the clock says, I wanted to stay in bed.  I stumbled down to do my P90X workout, but I wasn't really into it so I gave up after about 30 minutes.  I'm in the recovery week and today's workout was the enigmatic Core Synergistics.  I don't think Tony really understands kinesiology since he keeps referring to "stomach muscles" and talks about how his workouts target the whole core.  Maybe, but a lot of the these workouts put you into an awkward position with strain on your spine and that's not how I roll.

I think part of the problem is I'm ready to be done with P90X.  It's lost a lot of its appeal because you come to realize it's quantity over quality and it's pretty much the same three movements slightly repackaged.  Those three movements are effective, but you don't want to overdo it or mental fatigue will creep in.  Tony also can be really grating after a while.  For instance, one of the workouts in Core Synergistics is superman/banana.  Both of those are excellent core workouts and it's good to switch off between them.  However, he has you switch every few seconds so you don't have time to get set.  He also seems to get off on watching the crew struggle to quickly switch between them which makes him a grade A jerkoff.

Anyhow, I better stow this bad attitude or today is going to be a long day.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Salvation through discipline

I think a lack of discipline is what is causing many of the problems facing the US and its citizenry.  Since I'm not yet Lord of the Universe, I'm going to need to lead by example.

I've broken discipline down into four categories:
  • mental - I will find alternatives to TV watching and I will not give up on something because it's too hard or challenging.  I will also focus on wanting less.  I have plenty and need to be satisfied with what I have.
  • physical - I will continue to exercise daily and I will stay away from sugar, gluten/wheat and processed foods.
  • emotional - I will keep my temper in check and be more forgiving of the mistakes of others.  I can still desire perfection, but I should do a better job of handling failure.
  • financial - I will buy only what I need and will focus on getting and staying out of debt.  I will need to make some hard choices given my limited resources.
I put some of these categories into action yesterday, which was one of my most productive days in a long time. I woke up, did my P90X workout, checked on work, started a load of laundry, went over to Lowe's to get supplies, rehung the curtain rods in my bedroom, went to the grocery store, went to another hardware store to get rope caulk, caulked up some of my bedroom windows, did my German lesson, made red lentil curry for dinner, checked on work, etc.  Maybe I just described your typical Saturday, but I didn't stop moving until dinner.  I then made some banana bread without wheat (I used almond flour and brown rice flour) and watched the first half of the terminally boring LSU-Alabama game.

I had been putting off fixing the curtain rods so I had good mental discipline in getting some things around the house done.  I had financial discipline at Lowe's and only got what I came for.  It's like a candy store for me and I was seriously tempted to get a new electric drill and rotary saw, but I got the drill bit set instead since my current drill is good enough for the drilling I do.

This morning, I got up early, did my P90X workout, checked on work and then brushed the driveway and deck.  I also collected some kindling since it's starting to get cold.  Before lunch, I'll start getting some of the ash out of the fireplace.  None of this stuff is all that exciting, but I need to work hard at being active at home.  I work pretty long hours at work, but that doesn't mean I should laze away the weekend.  Some of the stuff I did was actually pretty relaxing.

I think having this kind of structure, the discipline of discipline if you will, will be good for me.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Sports recap

My dudes didn't really come through for me this weekend so my brother won by 20 points or so.  My dad played a lot of the wrong people so I did manage to score second place, but I was just the first loser.  A lot of my main homies had a bye so I didn't have much to choose from.

I bowled a crappy 101 to start tonight, but then picked it up with a 143 and a 158.  The 158 was actually the high game that game for the 7 of us and two of the dudes we were bowling against have really high averages.  They both bowled over 210 the game before.  We managed to scrounge up three out of four points which should keep us no worse than second in the league.

I'm working on being more consistent, but it's tough.