Out Of Thin Air

Twitter Tools is a plug-in for wordpress that automagically reposts my tweets here on this blog. Well, that is until a few days ago, when the plug-in stopped working. Apparently many others have the same problem. So if you want my tweets, it could be a while, or you could actually, you know, follow me on Twitter.

Here’s an article in the WSJ about a trend toward slight, or no, exercise equipment. It mentions p90x. One of the attractions for me in p90x was modesty in the equipment needed – one $400 set of adjustable barbells (this is not essential, but very convenient in the long run), a pullup bar, and maybe some pushup stands. They are basics in exercise; not, in the words of Tony, “fancy gidgets and gadgets that don’t work!!!” Other things – chairs and towels – you already have. p90x makes use of exercises you can do that use gravity as your “free” free weight – pushups, pull-ups, squats, lunges. And you don’t need the added waste – in cost, gas, transit and time – of joining a gym.

A highlight from the article:

“A part of me died not being able to get out on the street,” says 57-year-old Linda Copp, a former marathoner who ran 75 miles weekly until she tore her knee joint’s cartilage.

I feel sorry for her! But a couple things: 1. Recent studies have shown running to be good for your knees, contrary to popular opinion, and extreme stories like this might not be as common as people think; 2. However, like anything else, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I have read, confirming my own understanding, that human beings are better suited for short, intensive bursts. That is p90x to a T. In the wild, we would be called on to do intense physical tasks in relatively short periods – not long, drawn out, exhausting ones like running countless miles without pause. Thus I prefer running programs in the 15 to 30 mile range. In the utmost I can see topping out at 60 miles a week for 1-2 weeks in training for a marathon (a somewhat unhealthy race, IMHO, but one I might do again sometime), but I fail to see the benefit in moving from 60 miles to 75. The marginal benefit of extra miles must begin to decline dramatically in that range, while the risk of injury from overtraining goes up.

There are psychological benefits of longer runs – who isn’t impressed by a 75 mile per week regimen – but they have to be weighed against such downsides as never being able to run again!

I heard payback’s a motherfucking nigga

…

Kicking shit called street knowledge
Why more niggas in the pen than in college?
Now cause of that line I might be your cellmate
That’s from the nigga ya love to hate

…

Soul Train done lost they soul
Just call it train cause the bitches look like hoes
I see a lotta others damn
It almost look like the Bandstand
You ask me did I like Arsenio
About as much as the bicentennial
I don’t give a fuck about dissing these fools cause they all scared of
the Ice Cube

Last two weeks at track have seen, as Borat would say, “great success.” I am near the limits of my ability which means about every other workout is a disappointment. To clarify, I go into every workout expecting to achieve a personal best, because that is a motivating thought to get me through it. But given that I’m  at the track almost every other day, it’s not feasible. The big accomplishment was getting a 6:58 mile time, below the 7 minute barrier. But today I had to make do with 7.75 miles – I could not progress up to 8.5 miles the way I wanted to – I was just too broken at the end of 7 miles and my body could not maintain the eight minute pace. A few laps later, it was done. I expect the letdowns are still valuable training without which I couldn’t advance as fast.

I finally ate at Tulum’s, EP’s equivalent of Chipotle’s, the restaurant which according to South Park makes one shit blood. I don’t know if that’s the case – I’ll let you know – but the food at Tulum’s was good. It was a burrito with rice, beans, chorizo pork, lettuce and salsa, done in a buffet style where I told the guy what I wanted on it. I also got the chips and salsa, which weren’t great. I considered that OK, since I only ate half of them instead of the whole basket. The young Mexican who prepared my dinner was very polite.

In Civilization land (expansion pack Beyond the Sword), I have graduated up the difficulty scale from Monarch to Emperor. There are five levels of difficulty easier than Monarch, so I’m better than six out of nine levels. I thought Monarch ridiculously hard for a long time, but now I get how to beat it. Emperor is really hard. Incredibly, there are still two levels beyond it: Immortal, then Deity. At Emperor level the biggest changes seem to be how quickly the opponents get cities up that border mine; I run into problems keeping my citizens happy much sooner; and finally, a barbarian onslaught that means a much larger early military and workers being accompanied by military men to protect their safety as they work.

Civilization 5 comes out on Sept. 21. I’m so excited.

In Jack Bauer land, I’m mostly through Season 4. Spoilers now – It’s still as good as ever. This season has lacked one thing – President Palmer decided not to seek reelection at the end of season three; therefore his sleazy replacement Vice President Keeler who tried to oust him at the end of Season 2 is President. Palmer, both the actor and the character, brought huge emotional presence to the show. This season it was almost weird how they didn’t develop the President very much, but then it became clearer – the terrorists in season 4 are finally successful; they cause a nuclear reactor to meltdown, and then they steal a stealth bomber and blow up Air Force One with President Asshole (Keeler) on board. Sadly, he survives because the blow is an “indirect hit” that causes the plane to crash land with few survivors. Keeler survives impact, though his son does not.

On the tomato plant front, disaster struck last night – a frost. This morning the plant looks dead, with something like 75 green tomatoes on it. I’ve eaten about 10 tomatoes off it that ripened over the past two weeks, but it’s amazing and disappointing how long they’ve taken to ripen. And, September in the mountains can be brutal. Mom is going to make fried green tomatoes. Maybe next year we can improve. If they’re not ripe by September 2, the game is over.

Now that it is fall, I have been feeling the pull of Cabin Fever – soon I will watch it like I do every fall. Also other horror movies are coming in: tomorrow The Crazies is going to arrive and I can’t wait.

I have in my studies of men and women come to understand a possible reason for my love of horror movies other than I’m a psychopath – it’s that they titillate my flight or fight response, which is one of the core components of the male psyche. Also, they’re just fucking funny, and finally, most of the people I’ve met over the years deserve to be mashed up in a grinder of some sort anyway.

When you vote in a modern election, you’re picking between two people, usually: someone with a head on his shoulders, and a lunatic, or at least, somebody just kind of dumb. The former is called a Democrat, and the latter a Republican.

Smart v. dumb.

But the rest of what you get is not so clear. Government is now giant. It has momentum of its own that no party, no matter how committed to restraint, seems to be able to stop. It has many problematic policies – for example, it subsidizes corn, fast food and anything with high fructose corn syrup in it (which is most processed food), and is probably the single biggest contributor to America’s obesity (fat) problem. Without our government subsidizing big oil, problems like the BP oil spill likely wouldn’t happen. In the last thirty years, government has abandoned much of its role in distributing wealth fairly and protecting the environment from excessive exploitation; instead, it allows a few to get outsized gains disproportionate to their contribution while wreaking whatever havoc they please. The very wealthiest usually maneuver to escape taxation, further adding to the problem.

There are other problems corresponding with this trend which I may go more into later, but have to do with the dumbing down of society, the mass entertainment phenomenon, and the relationship among the sexes (“feminism” has led to the emasculation and hatred of men, perhaps epitomized in a recent article entitled “The End of Men.” At any rate, it has become anathema in my mind to feel good about a movement that results in my career annihilation and lack of reproduction). And there’s part of me that sees none of this as a problem, so hopefully I’ll remember to go into that, too.

One of the strange things I learned growing up was that although Lincoln was a Republican, his party at the time held positions similar to the Democratic party of the 20th century: siding with laborers against business, interested in such abstractions as human rights, making reasonable decisions based upon evidence and facts instead of virulent ideology, etc. But since that time, the Republican party became the party of the criminal ultra-wealthy and their working class and yuppie dupes, while the Democratic party took on the cause of the outsiders.

I was thinking of this because I read the following:

Huffington Post’s Sam Stein notes the increasing number of conservatives who now advocate same-sex marriage; how that places them to the left on this human rights issue of Barack Obama, who continues to explicitly oppose marriage equality; and how Democratic operatives are worrying that the Party, as a result, risks losing the devotion of gay activists and, especially, their money.

So the party of Strom Thurmond might end up representing the interests of fags.

Why might this be? One theory I have is, over time, no party can represent the issues it purports to represent. That’s because if your party is “biased” on a certain issue, its opponents will criticize it mercilessly for that bias. But if that party acts on an issue that a substantial portion of the public does not see it as biased on, it encounters little resistance. In the Democratic party, we’re afraid of being seen as liberal pussies, so when our guys get in office, they slight the cornhole lovers but keep open Guantanamo, escalate Afghanistan, etc. With Republicans, because they know people criticize them for being hateful, intolerant, greedy, etc., they try to counter that image by being more inclusive, appealing to the populace and its disgust with their declining share of the economic pie; in the process, both parties lose their original raison d’etre.

The world is mine nigga get back
Don’t fuck with my stack my gage is racked

…

Fuck hidin’ it I am gang related simple and plain
Which means I could give a fuck about you niggas in this rap game

A little while ago, the New York Times ran an article with a title, something to the effect of: “Tai Chi found to ease fibromyalgia.”

Highly educated idiots place extreme value on naming things. If fat people get sick and feel diffuse pain because of stuffing their fat asses with processed foods all day and seldom exercising, they have “fibromyalgia.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times and its readership tend to be a bit on the worldly side, but mostly indifferent or gullible with respect to phys ed, so they’re likely to learn about eastern traditions at some point. The Chinese make some pretty bold claims about tai chi. It seemed inevitable that one day, tai chi would be called upon to help fat people muddle through their self-induced condition. Tai chi amuses me additionally because in its pure form, it’s not a physical art; it’s all about thinking certain thoughts and feeling certain energies in the body. You know, bullshit.*

This made me think of a South Park episode from Season 3, “Starvin Marvin’ in Space,” in which Marvin and the gang meet the Marklars from planet Marklar. It seems the Marklars don’t have nouns – all nouns are replaced by the word Marklar. So a sentence might read: “I’m going to the Marklar to get some Marklar to put in my Marklar.” Surprisingly, most of what they mean is easily determined by context, thereby proving that the entire educated world is a fraudulent distraction created by our obsession with intellectual oneupmanship.

So, rewriting the Times article: “Marklar found to ease marklar.” Ah, now I understand.

*Still, all our ideas are bullshit, too. Just a different kind.

After a luxurious two days of recovery and development* for my legs, today was Plyo x 1.5 plus track workout. I felt better on plyo today, probably a combination of benefits from last week’s trials, as well as the extra day off. The “.5″ is because I do the five knee bend exercises, as well as two jump exercises, again. While that’s not really half the plyo workout, those seven exercises are the hardest ones, so they feel like at least half the workout, and I’m trying to develop an immunity to them.

At the track I did one mile at eight minutes, then 8 fast laps with 6 half-lap rests in between and 2 full lap rests, and finishing off with another mile at eight minutes. Total mileage 5.25. Target time per fast lap was 1:45, the 7 minute mile. Usually I was under, with laps at 1:36, 1:37, 1:38 (I like those numbers because they are 6:30 mile numbers), and the rest in the forties, with one (number 7) at 1:46. Often the second to last lap is the “slowest.” I started with a 1:36 and finished with a 1:37. These numbers are probably a bit higher than what I can do if I wasn’t also doing a p90x in addition.

I drank recovery drink after both workouts because both were so intense. It felt great after the first workout, but the second one made me slightly ill at my stomach. Though now I’m feeling revived. I felt slightly nauseated on a couple of laps at the track. I try not to overdo that because I want the workouts to be fun, too.

Had a light dinner at Ftauntie’s pub prior to the workout, which might have contributed to the nausea, and thanks to Mom for bringing me a very small serving of dessert so that I didn’t have to face the intimidatingly hard to resist lemon cake with chocolate drizzle Deb made for Cath’s birthday party. Cath’s bday is Aug. 3, not Aug. 22; I joked that she holds the record in our family for the most “off-site” birthdays, since she’s usually out-of-town, somewhere interesting, in August. This year she was in Scotland for two weeks with a hiking group, because she became inspired my Backroads/REI/KE Adventures adventures.

*One of the tricks of muscle growth is that the building of muscle occurs not during the workout, but in the time your body repairs and heals itself in the aftermath of it. Results require rest; the trick is getting not too much nor too little.

I achieved a summer milestone: 7.5 miles at an 8 minute per mile pace. The final time was 59:51.

A while back I thought it would be fun to attain this. A calorie burning chart I found on the net lists different activities and how much estimated caloric burn there is per hour of activity. Topping the chart? One hour of running at a “fast pace.” That’s 1000 calories burned. A pound contains 3500 calories. Sometime it would be fun to try and burn a pound running; around 3.5 hours of running at a fast pace.

I ran about five of the miles around the Estes Park High soccer team. I had heard from contact with the Athletic Director that they were done practicing by 6 p.m., and I started at 6:30, and they came along a little before 7. I’m not sure why, but there was a big rainstorm during their alleged practice time, so maybe they waited it out and came for practice late. A few times I had to dodge soccer balls and self-absorbed teenagers while I achieved the goal.

After these track workouts, I drink the p90x recovery drink with surprising results. It really works. Usually runs like this leave me feeling wiped out for hours. I drink this drink and I feel nearly whole again after thirty minutes or less. I used to think it was just marketing hype and crap, but now I’m a believer.