I seem to be on my work laptop a lot at night. I’ll remember I have to do something or I’ll just check my email. There’s the old “work smarter, not harder” adage that would only work for me if I dealt with people in a particular time zone. The sad part is that it’s not that big a stretch for me because I don’t really have that much going on. I suppose I could pick another hobby or get back to reading some of the books I have stacked up, but work will be there tomorrow and it won’t be any less. It’s almost like I got a job with the postal service.

Besides, I need to keep my job so I pay for exciting things. While the yoots at the gym are drinking or going to Mexico or buying motorcycles, I’m doing much flashier things like asbestos abatement, drain plumbing, and dry-rot containment. Life in the fast lane, baby.

I bought a wireless mouse back in May, I think, and it’s great. No cable to get in the way and so it’s much nicer to use than the one I had before. My buddy bought one and his co-worker hasn’t had to replace his batteries in the year he had his. Unfortunately for me, I guess I’m a much bigger geek. My batteries are dead already.

I’ve been tired at the gym all week, and everything just looks hard to me. I’m guessing it’s mental fatigue after the hard weekend. Usually I’m way too distracted by thinking about work and the remodel and the huge crowds that are attracted to the hill pretending to watch the birds but who are really just here to hang out in a big crowd to be very worried about the workouts at the gym. But this week I’m just plain tired. It could just be the weather, too.

(This is just me holding myself off the ground for 45 seconds. Don’t think I was in that position the whole time.)

I’m still toying with the idea of going back to Japan this fall and I’m still not sure if I’m going to do it. My boss suggested that if I didn’t, then I should take a “staycation” and just stay away from work for a while. Just sitting around sounds a little boring, but it could also be an awful lot of fun for a lazy guy like me.

The people who owned this house before us were incredibly cheap, or so we think. They were a Catholic family with a bunch of kids and made some odd choices when they added the second story to the house. The bathroom is a narrow dormer that looks quite funny outside. Tearing out the sheetrock and the floors shows some fairly shoddy workmanship. Today my contractor called me because the drain line for the toilet was going uphill instead of downhill. Seriously. Getting rid of the poo in the toilet is probably one of the more important things my bathroom can do for me, so downhill is the way to go with it. I’m not sure why he even thought he had to call me about this.

Today at the gym the workout was hard enough that I was babbling. Not that I don’t babble in general, but I came up with another formula. I’m twice as old as some of the women there, so I thought, what if I had the mojo to go out with two women that are half my age? Does that mean I also have to follow the conservation of mass and go out with two 22-year-olds that weigh 82.5 pounds each? Maybe they’d have to only be 45″ tall. I’m not real comfortable with these calculations.

Fortunately, I’m much more theoretical about these social situations than my engineering background would suggest. I’m not about to put any of this into practice. It’s kind of like buying my yearly lottery ticket and thinking about what I’d do with the money. Pay a lot of tax is the only thing I know for certain about what I’d do.

I was tired at work today and it didn’t help that my laptop was dead. They fixed it first thing in the morning, but they found “oddities” in the IT backdoors. They kept trying to fix it and they told me it would take half-an-hour at 10:30AM but I didn’t get it back until about 4PM. They never thought it would take that long so I didn’t get a loaner laptop until just before I got my real laptop back. What a mess.

I had a mixtape (which is no longer on a tape) from a friend with mystery songs on it. I finally figured out I could use Shazam on my iPhone to figure out what some of the songs were. After I was through, I bought 2 more CDs (Rasa: Exotica and Rasa: Exotica II), a DVD (Comfort and Joy) and a wallet. Not that I can afford any of this after deciding on remodeling, but whatever. I think I’ve bought a dozen CDs since I got my iPhone. Funny how that works.

I’m still trying to decide whether to go to Japan this fall. I’m feeling broke, but that never stopped me. The only question is whether the contractors will be around while I’m screwing around in another country. My sister doesn’t think she can make it (too much work, probably) so I’m really on the fence. I’ll probably end up flipping a coin in the end.

OK, so it’s not all Qwest’s fault, but they’re adding charges from other companies to the bill now. My phone bill has a new monthly $14.95 charge from a voicemail company, “Voicemail Direct USA”, my mom’s has a $8.43 monthly charge from some random telecom company, “Info Billing”. I was only able to get in touch with the voicemail company and they told me the charge had be approved by a Mr. Bai-tem-ee. My conversation with the company was odd:

The charge was approved on August XX by Mr. James Bai-tem-ee. Do you know Mr. Bai-tem-ee?

I’ve never heard of a James Bai-tem-ee. How do you spell that? I may be mishearing you.

B-Y-T-E-M-E.

Mr. BITE ME? Is this some kind of a joke?

So my guess is that there’s some sort of scam, just like spam, where a scammer is adding these small charges to a lot of people’s bills and is just figuring that a few people won’t notice.

I was sore the last half of last week because of Cindy and now I’m expecting to be sore from the workouts from the past two days. I attended the Mountain Athlete seminar and if I actually had my CSCS from the NCSA I would have 1.6CEU. What does this really mean? Well, I figure that if THMFIC and the Brains Behind the Gym win the lottery, I’ll have some more idea of how to structure my own workouts without having to immediately find a new trainer. Or, if I won the lottery and wanted to lose it all quickly, I could open my own gym. I understand the money would diminish at a rapid rate, approaching but not reaching the rate that I’d lose money if I opened a restaurant.

Mountain Athlete Seminar Day 1, 9/13

Warmup:

KB complex, don’t set the kb down the entire time, 35#

• 1 minute around the world
• 1 minute right arm one hand swing
• 1 minute between the legs
• 1 minute left arm one hand swing
• 1 minute clean and press right hand
• 1 minute between the legs other way
• 1 minute clean and press left hand
• 1 minute lunge right leg
• 1 minute slasher into halo
• 1 minute lunge left leg

Training:

• Find One Rep Max (1RM) front squat: 133#
• 4 rounds:
  • 3 front squat 85% of 1RM
  • 7 Ankles to Bar (A2B)
  • 10 elevated pushups
• 4 rounds:
  • 6 goblet squats (45# kb)
  • 6 jumping squat
  • tire drag forward down; backwards back
• 4 rounds:
  • 3 Curtis P (65#)
  • 1 rope climb
  • 10 slashers (45#)
• 4 rounds:
  • Jingle-jangles 30 sec on/30 sec off

Mountain Athlete Seminar Day 2, 9/14

Warmup:

• 5 rounds
  • Row 250 (faster than the time before)
  • 3 TGU per side

Training:

• 4 rounds:
  • 10x Mr Spectacular, 2x 35# KB
  • 10x Russian Twists per side,55#
  • 10 Weighted Situps 35#
  • 6 60# ball squats, carry down and back
• 2 rounds:
  • 1 minute 2 hand swings (35# KB)
  • dumbbell crawl (20#)
  • 10 A2B
  • 10 slashers per side (35# KB)

The effing birds are going into the effing chimney at the effing school now and it’s attracting all sorts of effing people to the effing hill across from our effing house. They block the effing street and they leave all their effing trash and its an effing pain in the effing ass. I mean, this isn’t even the peak of the people and look at them all.

The city won’t pave the street in front of our houses because they say it’s a “private street”. I wish we could just block outside people from parking on the “private street”. That would solve most of the problems. The trash they leave on the hill can be someone else’s problem. I wish the stupid Audubon Society would quit promoting this as an “event” if they’re not willing to help us out with the trash and the parking. Fortunately, it’s only for a few weeks out of the year.

Today I attended the first day of a Mountain Athlete seminar. I really enjoyed it. The guy explained his methods for training after a slightly toned down version of his workout. Most of his clients are mountain climbing guides, so they’re pretty darn fit and each one of his workouts is like a week of workouts at my gym. Plus, the seminar started at 7:30AM and I’m usually not even up that early on most Saturdays. But the exercises were unique and some, like the tire drag, were pretty fun and my front squats are looking better.

When was it that I complained about my work laptop dying? The hard drive died and they had to get me a new one. Well, now I’ve had it a week and IT’S DEAD. Well, not completely dead, but when I try to log in it tells me that there aren’t any passwords set and it turns itself off. I’m guessing it’s not a hard drive problem, but then again what do I know?

One of the gym old-timers (she started last year when the gym first opened) moved to San Diego and was back in town today. We all went out to dinner and she looked great. She’s on the 5-workouts-a-week schedule like me and I think she’s lost more weight than I have.

Thing is, she’s doing the Zone diet and I’m still eating fairly awful cheeseburgers like the one I had today at the Twin Oaks Bar & Grill for lunch. It was almost good but certainly not worth breaking my month and 10 day streak for. There was no menu there, just three specials on the board:

• cheeseburger, fries, and clam chowder,
• bacon cheeseburger, fries, and clam chowder, and
• fish and chips and clam chowder.

On the plus side, the clam chowder was great. The burger was OK, as were the fries. The Diet Coke, however, tasted like detergent and hair tonic and, being a bar, the place smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. It wasn’t quite worth the 8 mi drive but it is Hillsboro after all. The really good hamburgers are all back in Portland.

OK, so to recap, 18 rounds of Cindy. Just pullups, pushups, and squats with no weight. I’m incredibly sore today as is everyone except for one of the women at the gym who is built like a fireplug and is probably lying. Who makes it through Cindy without some residual pain?

I’m signed up for a “Mountain Athlete” seminar this weekend where the guy talks about training for climbing. I signed up just because it sounds interesting, not because I’m a climber. We’re probably doing a grueling workout to begin with, but I figure I can always play the age card (I’ll probably be the oldest guy there).

My brother-in-law just turned 45 yesterday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER) and he was telling me that he feels old. I know old. I was talking to one of the women at the gym and her mom is my age. Of course her mom is an ultramarathoner and runs more in one weekend than I do in a month or maybe even a year but that’s beside the point. Maybe I’ll just show up to the seminar eating a corn dog and spend the day brushing doughnut crumbs off of my workout clothes.

So my sister thinks I’m overdoing a little in the bathroom and the contractor’s wife (my sister’s friend Wendy) was looking through the pland and was wondering why I was getting such a nice shower. Tile? Fancy faucets? She thought I should go for the fiberglass unit with the cheap motel fixtures. But it’s my bathroom and I doubt I’m moving out soon. Sure there’s plenty of other things I can spend my money on, but why not splurge?

Today at the gym we did the “Cindy” workout. I’m pretty good at pullups, pushups, and unweighted squats, but who wants to string together 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats for TWENTY MINUTES? The last time I did it, according to the big board, I did 13 rounds. This time I did something like 18. I say, “Something like 18,” because I’m so tired that I can’t remember what I did exactly. I know the fastest guy at the gym did 28, but he’s a nutbag. I think I was able to do it because of my diet: I had a salad at lunch on Monday and Tuesday but today I had a taquitos plate. I had a hard time staying awake in meetings after that and I had a lot of meetings this afternoon.

Oh, and just to make things interesting we decided to bet on the outcome of one of the couples in the gym. They’re a new couple and much more fun to tease because of it. We spotted the woman 4 rounds because she’s only been coming in a month or two and the guy has been in since I started back in January some time. So I bet on the woman. THMFIC bet on the guy. If I won I got a ride home (which I always get anyway) and if he won I had to mop the floor (which I always do anyway). I WON. So, the woman is now my favorite nurse. I’m sure this will get me the stink-eye from the other nurses in the gym, my neighbors the nurses, and probably even my ex-girlfriend, but none of them ever won me a ride home (which I always get anyway).

Somehow I started looking for things on YouTube. Stupid, stupid, things. First I started with, “Lazy Sunday,” and for that I blame the person who is always giving me the stink-eye at the gym. Then I looked up, “More Cowbell,” because we’re always using kettlebells at the gym and I keep thinking of cowbell when I hear that. And finally, I got stuck watching, “Celebrity Jeopardy.” Now my stomach hurts from laughing.

I got to work late today because I had to meet with contractors today. A tile guy, the furnace guy, and the main general contractor. Later on in the week we’re going to have guys come in to look at demolishing the chimney and getting rid of the asbestos in the basement. I also played telephone tag with the gas company because we need a new gas line to the house for the new heater. Even if everything goes well, we’re going to be without heat for the first week of October.

I also heard from the contractors that the chimney demolition is going to be messy. Contractors are messy to begin with, so this has got to be similar to taking all the dirt from outside and just shoveling it into the basement. But I suppose that’s the cost of progress.

I could sort of blame the gym for my level of tiredness, but really I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept waking up and feeling quite awake. I knew sooner or later I’d be feeling it and today it was sometime during the workout. We’ve only been doing sprints on the rowers of 250m or so but today we did 500m, 3 times. My sister laughs at how short we row, but she was just a coxswain, so what does she know?

Even worse, I had a “special” salad in the cafeteria which meant it was smaller and more expensive than the usual chicken caesar I have. The caesar tastes like they use collard greens or something equally bitter and I’m just hoping it’s good for me because it surely doesn’t taste very good. In any case, I was hungry for the rest of the day.

Since it’s Monday, I’m still up watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives of course. Mmmm, hamburger.