Vanity sizing….

The world has gone INSANE with vanity sizing.

Now I’ll admit, when I was 280lbs the thought of buying XXL clothing was not very comforting. In a way, the fact that I could buy XL shirts most the time and have them fit over my frame made me feel a little bit more normal. XL wasn’t really that much bigger than a large was it? I guess I was just a little overweight, not a whole whole bunch. That’s sort of how vanity sizing worked as a big guy. The clothes weren’t labeled that big really, so I thought I must be somewhat normal.

What buying new clothes really should have done was make me feel like an overweight slob, a freak of nature. If I had had to buy XXXL+ shirts and pants I might have gotten on the whole weight loss thing a lot sooner. "Elephant sized" under wear that could double as a car cover and was labeled as such might have been a wake up call. I can actually still remember the day I broke the size 40-waist barrier with my jeans and how much it bothered me.

Well, now that I’m "normal sized" I still have a real problem with the whole vanity-sizing thing. I mean, I’m 6’ and 195lbs and I’m a medium size most the time now? I’m a pretty damn big guy and I’m medium? I picked up a sport knee brace this morning, a large of course, because I’m 6’ and 195lbs and have pretty damn big legs. The thing just slid down my leg like a fireman down a pole. They should have labeled it, "Large-- meaning you are totally overweight and have knees the size of most people’s waists or no visible knees at all." Underwear, t-shirts, socks, workout clothes and sweaters… I’ve bought them all in medium more than once lately. It’s kind of cool to get something from overseas now, cause most the time I’m a large, and don’t feel like the incredible shrinking man like I do when buying North American clothes.

I would love to find a pair of 1985 Levi’s and compare them to today’s "same" model. I’m sure a pair of 501’s has got to be cut wider and looser these days. I can’t even imagine how a medium or large shirt from 50-60 years ago would compare today. Although I wasn’t thinking of it at the time, I’m sure I’ve heard older folks going through old clothes in the attic and saying, "Look how much this shirt has shrunk." Maybe it hadn’t shrunk, maybe it was only their perception because of how much size labeling has changed?

It’s no wonder so many North Americans (like 60%) are overweight. Instead of noticing that you don’t fit in a large T-shirt anymore, and that maybe you should slow down on the garbage, corporate America has simply made the T-shirt bigger so you can keep eating and most importantly CONSUMING and not thinking about your growing waist line.

If things keep going the way they are I’ll be wearing a size small before I’m dead and slightly smaller people at a healthy weight will be buying most of their clothes in the children’s section… On the other side, 350lbs men will be sporting "large" shirts, maybe some are now? What a joke.

I should add that I'm not a woman, and I've gotten a lot of email on this post from other sites I've posted it on saying it's quite the opposite with woman's clothing... I have no idea. I only get to live life as a guy.

Brazilian WHAT?

Last night was my first real brush with Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ). Sure I've seen TONS of it being around the club and being a fan of the UFC, but it's one thing to watch this stuff, and it's another to actually be in there on the mat. Last night was my first class and I found that out quick.

We started with ½ hour of rolls and drills. My head certainly wasn't used to the amount of rolling we where doing, I think I'm still trying to find my true equilibrium again today. After tons of rolls, falls and all kinds strange and new forms of movement to me, the drills ended in the most insane exercise I've done for a long time, 75 Turkish getups with a 35lbs dumbbell. It was one of the hardest things physically I've done in a long long time.

We moved from there to a demonstration of a few of the moves we would be practicing this night, and then we paired up and started working on the moves and breaking them down, learning the techniques involved. I must have great luck because suddenly, on my first night there I ended up being partnered with "the guy" in the club. The guy belt ranked the highest in the club who's a professional MMA fighter and even has a national title shot coming up shortly. He really is a nice, great guy, but it was a little intimidating at first, having seen him fight at the Forum in front of thousands and break his opponent's jaw in less than 35 seconds. He showed me so much and really helped a lot both with my technique and my comfort level on my first night as a beginner. He made sure I survived my first class.

After ½ hour of that we started to "roll" for real a little bit. Two guys (this is a simplified explanation) competed on the mat, the winner stayed and the loser was replaced by the next guy in line. What I found so much fun about this, is that in Muay Thai you always have to hold back just a little, if not a lot, so that no one ends up in the hospital while you are practicing. In BJJ you can go full out and as hard as you can. If it gets too rough or you are about to get hurt you just "tap out" and you're safe. Suddenly, I'm wrestling with another 200lbs guy for control, with absolutely everything I have physically. In a lot of ways it was like being 10 years old and wrestling in the backyard again, only with bigger guys and much more serious.

If I had to quickly find analogies for Muay Thai and BJJ that really showed how different they are on the body… Muay Thai is like running, running hard and for endurance. BJJ is more like lifting weights, HEAVY weights for endurance. Both are very physical and taxing, but both work the body in such different ways, no wonder they compliment each other so well in so many ways.

Needless to say, I hurt in all new ways today… I think I'd addicted!

I'm INSANE

WOW…

You know when you have an idea, a plan in your head, then as it comes to pass you start shitting your pants?

6 months ago I started Muay Thai. Partly because I was looking for some new challenge, in part because it was combat orientated and VERY physical, and I’ll admit it, my interest in MMA played a huge role in my decision as well. Right from the get go my goals were very realistic. At my age I knew I’d never fight professionally and probably would never fight as an amateur either because anyone they would put my up against would have at least 20 or more years of training on me. So my goals were to simply make it into the advance class someday and start some Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in time as well. When I start a new hobby I really want to do it, not some watered down version of it. So in starting my Muay Thai I wanted to end up honestly training MMA like a real fighter eventually. Of course 8 hours a day isn’t realistic because I have a real life, but for those few hours at the gym I wanted it to be the real deal.

Just to explain, the advanced class isn’t just people who have been doing this for a long time. It’s not like you’ve done your year so you get to move up. Some folks spend years in the beginner’s class trying to get the right combination of speed, technique and conditioning to be able to move up. Others never even aim to move on and simply enjoy the cardio and self-defense aspects of the beginner’s class. The advance class is guys who take this deadly seriously. Their technique, speed and conditioning are way beyond the average student and they are there to fight. Seemed like a great long-term goal.

To re-iterate… You know when you have an idea, a plan in your head, then as it comes to pass you start shitting your pants?

Before I know it, it’s here. Monday I start training with the professional fighters in the club (and the jiu-jitsu starts even sooner). Not to name names, but these are guys who are nationally ranked, guys with real title shots upcoming in the next few months, guys who held national championship titles in other countries. This ain’t playing around anymore, this IS the real deal. Holy crap, what did I get myself into. 6 months ago all I was was a guy who used to get into the odd street fight, and that hasn’t happened in YEARS, now I’m gonna be sparring and training with top competitors daily. Not only that, but in filling out the medical forms I find out that I AM the oldest guy in there by far. By far. I’ll be sparring with guys who technically could be my own son.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m stoked! I’m itching to go toe to toe with some of these cats. Man, my face is hurting just thinking about it.

Brush With Celebrity #7239642652

In 36 years you run into a lot of celebrities and famous people. Some you hunt down with a pen when you are 16 years old looking for an autograph. Others you see daily for years and years in the same coffee shop every morning. Some you meet through business dealings or work, and of course some you just bump into in public.

So last night I walk into the club and who is siting there trying to catch a nap but Jorge Gurgel.
Jorge is well known in MMA (mixed martial arts) circles for his own 12-1-0 record, his Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and also for being Rich Franklin’s (former UFC middleweight champion) head coach and best friend. Add to that the ½ a dozen MMA gyms he runs in the USA and his appearance throughout the second season of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV, it’s hard not to know who he is if you follow MMA in any way, shape or form. Love him or hate him people in the fight game know him.

Now honestly, Dartmouth Nova Scotia is really kind of an out of the way place on the world scene. We don’t even really have our own name anymore. (Halifax sort of took over everything and renamed it all the "Halifax Regional Municipality"). Well, we might be out of the way, but we have great connections in the MMA world. Our club actually has close ties to and is affiliated with Jorge and his jiu-jitsu schools.

So last night I walk into the club and who is siting there trying to catch a nap but Jorge himself. I notice his eyes half open as I passed, so I take the opportunity to introduce myself, say hi and that I’m a big fan.

Like I said, in 36 years you run into a lot of "celebrities" and I have to say Jorge was one of the nicest celebs I have ever run into. He instantly popped up from his attempt to catch some shut eye, and in his thick Brazilian accent explained he had been up since 4am that morning in order to catch his flight, hence the nap. A warm handshake, a big smile and he seemed genuinely interested in who I was and somehow before I knew it we were talking guitars. (Strange how us guitar players always seem to find each other and end up talking about it no matter where we meet.) And it wasn’t just me, all night he was super friendly to everyone.

I don’t think I’ve met a more approachable, open, friendly and down to earth celeb in a LONG time. Hey Jorge, next time you are up here how about we trade some guitar lessons for some jiu-jitsu lessons?

When they come for us we will have PS controllers in our hands

So I’m watching this show the other night called “Gamers Revolution” while I’m trying to wind down before bed. It was all about the new “world” of video games. Now, I’ve played my share of video games in the past and spent hours and even days living in virtual worlds (and I wish I could have every minute I wasted back) but the stuff on this show just blew my mind. I was like a deer caught in headlights. I just couldn’t look away for fear of missing something even more insane or unbelievable.

It started innocently and normal enough with profiling a HUGE computer gamers convention. Some 6000 people sitting in a huge Olympic arena in the Norway playing online games. Kind of creepy that these guys who play together online everyday for hours and hours traveled thousands of miles, from all over the world and spent god knows how much change to get there. To actually see each together and to be in the same room together… and then they just sit and play the same game they always play at home and don’t even talk to each other. I would have thought a drink, a pub-crawl, a party would be more appropriate, but whatever. Obviously people skills or real world living had NO priority over the game.

Then the documentary switched to a suburban stay at home mom who plays online games with her husband. That’s kinda normal I guess. She had decided to “send” her game character off to a very specialized company, one that levels up your characters for you for a price. Basically you pay someone hundreds of dollars to sit around, play your game character and kill monsters for you, gain you a shit load of experience points and level your character up. In 10 days she was back playing her game at level 40, whatever that means. Both her and her husband were very excited. (and very excited to send their kids off to bed to play her “new improved” video character) Well, that sounded pretty weird to me. 2 small kids and the best thing you can spend your money on is “leveling up” a computer game character? But it gets better.

The company that does all this leveling or playing for you started as one guy with one computer simply doing it in his spare time which is pretty easy to imagine. Must have started out much like paying someone a few bucks to do your homework overnight. Today though it’s a huge company and it outsources all its “work” to third world and developing countries. They showed one setup where men in poor parts of Romania sit around and play these games 24 hours a day. One guy had 40 “stations” set up in his home and groups of 35 or so men would work shifts all around the clock. Middle aged, poor, Romanians leveling up online computer characters for folks with just too much spare time and money to know what to do with it.

Does this seem really twisted to you at all? Middle class suburban soccer moms, with their 2.3 kids, 2 cars, nice home is the burbs, PTA meetings and church on Sunday, paying poor men in developing countries to make their online computer characters cooler? And people wonder why developing countries hate Americans. They are struggling everyday just to feed their families and they see American women spending hundreds of dollars to improve their computer game character.

But wait…

The documentary then moved on to a guy who had re-mortgaged his house, had basically gambled it all. He had paid a software developer $100,000.00 to “build” him a space resort in his favorite online game. His plan was to sell, for real money, the apartments and retail space in his resort. The Apartments started at $100 and went up to $1,000. Sounds insane… but people are so into these games they were buying these “space resort condos” for their computer characters to make them (i.e. the computer character) cooler and more liked socially. He figured, and figured correctly, that if folks were buying $15 and $20 T-shirts in this game just to make their character look better, why wouldn’t they buy a home for them?

There’s a point where you start asking yourself where people’s real priorities lie today. A huge percentage of the population in North America is overweight, unhealthy, have horrible social skills, don’t know how to set an example, let alone raise their own children and we wonder why. The average Westerner spends more time watching TV or playing video games than talking to their own family.

In 1000 years the fall of our society won’t be blamed on barbarian hordes, mis-management, natural disaster, or conquest… but on the fact that our society slowly enslaved it’s self to the unreality and fantasy worlds of TV and video games in order to escape the reality of our day to day lives we found depressing but refused to take any action to change.

Long rant I know… Point is…

Turn off the fuckin TV or computer and spend some time with your family before the time is gone.

(I do realize the irony that you are reading this on a computer, that I wrote this on a computer and about a TV show… BUT… I know where I come from. I know the hours and days I once spent on both and I also know how well controlled, scheduled and timed my own TV and computer time is... but thanks for caring)

Coffee Demons Part 2

OK OK OK...

You know if I'm writing about something, then it must be really on my mind, and coffee was VERY much on my mind back on Feb 8th when I wrote about the coffee demons chasing me. The fact that I even posted about it shows how much it was on my mind, and from that point on it just kept growing. The seed had been planted once again. 2 weeks later and the demons have totally captured me.

It started innocently enough with the odd RedBull to help me at the gym while I was going through a bit of strep throat, just to give me that energy boost. Then it turned into a couple. Then on Sunday the levee broke.

I hit Tim Horton's every Sunday for my cheat day. 1/2 dozen doughnuts and a coffee. For the last 5 months it's been a decaf. Decaf is crap by the way. It just tastes like crap in a cup. It's bothered and irritated me every Sunday. Screw it I want some cheap caffeine... extra large black. (and a cruller, a coconut, maybe a maple dip, how about a old fashioned glazed, oh and a Canadian maple. Maybe one more cruller)

So now it's 3 days later, the coffee machine has been dusted off and I'm back to 10+ cups a day. There's worst things I could be back at, and I did male it 5 months on sheer will power...

I'd love to keep talking here, but I hear it brewing and I've got to go put my feet up and enjoy the nectar of the gods... a warm coffee.

Stripping… Wallpaper … Music

I posted a pic of myself on Myspace a few weeks ago and was SO embarrassed by the wallpaper in the background I had to take the pic down. I had just never gotten around to stripping the wallpaper off and the picture slapped me in the face, it was really bad. I seemed cursed in that everywhere I’ve lived the walls have been plastered with really bad wallpaper. I don’t even like nice wallpaper, but it just seems I’m always removing really ugly thick wallpaper all the time. I’ve gotten pretty good at taking it off actually.

So I’m working in the den which is where my computer is so I just set it to randomly play mp3 tracks all day while I’m at it. No word of a lie, within a ½ hour I had listened to Rage Against The Machine, Bach, Peggy Lee, Kylie Minogue, Judas Priest, AC/DC and Madonna. People always tell me I have weird tastes or at least a weird mix of stuff I like, and as the day worn on it really struck me how varied (and sometimes weird) my musical taste is. And it’s really not like I’m a casual listener, I’m very passionate about my music. Blondie, The Clash, Iron Maiden, Fiest, Janet Jackson, Prince, Sting, Queen, the Ramones, Placebo, INXS, Cake, Rammstein, Nine inch Nails, Violent Femmes, Beethoven and the list of what I listed to could go on and on and would seem stranger and stranger.

As I’m listening and working I came to a couple of revelations.

-I think I could build a house for almost anyone if left alone to do it on my own and if I had good music to keep me going. Once the music starts I can work till I’m actually dehydrating. Quick drink and I’m back at it. I could redo a house with probably a 20 Gig ipod full of cool tunes. I’ll paint your apartment for a 2G ipod, just preload it with stuff that will keep me moving and motivated.

-I’m not much of a dancer. Actually I don’t dance and am jealous of those that do. It’s such a free, open, expressive thing to do. I’m just to protected to allow myself to do it I think. Well… That is till some old AC/DC comes on. I’m not talking about the Brian Scott bullshit AC/DC. I’m talking about the Bon Scott, grooving, rock and roll AC/DC. "Girls Got Rhythm", "Walk All Over You" or "If You Want Blood You Got It" Bon was the best rock singer that ever lived. When he sings "Live Wire" you believe every word this ex-con misfit is singing… and you can’t help but start dancing.

-I have A LOT of dance music on my machine. Madonna, Kylie, Bjork, Daft Punk, Gwen Stefani, Pink, the Spice Girls, Lisa Scott Lee, a lot of one offs and a lot of dance remixes. If you know me you’ll know how weird this is. (And no I’m not in the closet) Some of them just "rock" so hard. Madonna’s "Sorry" has such an insane groove and attitude there has been more than once I’ve considered pulling the car over and breaking into a Fame type dance routine. (Honestly I’m not in the closet)

-Van Hagar has a lot of embarrassingly bad lyrics. Van Halen with Dave had so much more attitude.

-Old Aerosmith, though just a memory, rocked insanely hard. "Toys in the Attic"

-Musicianship drastically went down hill when grunge hit and has never come back up. Even bad or average bands in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s could play circles around most guys today.

-Jimi Hendrix was a genius

-Rage Against the Machine makes me want to fight right NOW ("How I Could Just Kill A Man")

Note to self- Start making shorter posts!

New Car --- Toyota Canada Rocks

So it was time to get rid of our piece of crap Kia and get into something new. I can’t tell you how much I have hated this Kia for the 5 long years we’ve been stuck with it. Anyone can ask my son what type of car daddy has and he answers "Crappy car" instantly. Yes, it is a crappy car.

I’m also not a fan of the way car dealers work. 200 years ago there was a certain class of folks preying on innocent, unknowing people, taking them for any dollar they could get. They were known as snake oil salesmen, today they live on as car salesmen. I honestly think the Internet has helped the consumer against blatant fraud, add-ons and tricks when buying a car, but there is still a lot of ways they hide hidden fees and hidden commissions. A car advertised with a $280 monthly lease payment can EASILY turn into a $400+ real world payment per month + several thousand dollars down..

So I don’t really have a good feeling knowing my piece of crap has to be returned and that I have to set myself up to not get screwed too bad. Buying cars is just not something I enjoy in any way shape or form. Every 4 or 5 years I’d love to just come home and there suddenly be a new vehicle sitting in the driveway for me, all done and dealt with.

I‘ve been checking every car company's web site just to get rough ideas of prices. Every second page on the Toyota Canada site had message after message about no hidden costs, etc. So I thought I’d take them up on their good product name and this new "no hidden costs" agenda they are promoting.

First thing I did was "build" the Toyota I wanted and got an exact price. Taxes, shipping, duty, everything included. Then I got them to break it down to compare lease payments and car payments. All this happening in real time in their site. I print all this info off and then apply for pre-approved credit for the car I’m looking at. I then get an email from them stating all I had to do at this point to buy or lease the vehicle I’m interested in is take all this info to the closest dealership. This just seems like a huge set up to get me in the door and let the ass raping begin.

It wasn’t.

We got the car, at the exact same price the web site had quoted us, with the same interest rate… everything was the same. We didn’t even have to fill in a credit app because we had been approved online. I played with my son while the dealership did the paper work they had to do, signed in a couple of places and had a new car. 1,2,3 easy. For the first time I’m enjoying the new car right away and not still steaming about the salesman or the pressure put on me, or the scams they tried to pull over on me.

THE NEW RIDE

Unless service after the fact sucks in the next few years… Well, so far Toyota Canada has blown ANYONE I’ve had to deal with in the industry out of the water for ease, no hidden costs and how friendly they were.

Oh, the car it’s self…. AWESOME. Lots of room, storage, room to lug guitar amps, strollers, plywood, 2x4’s, you name it, it can move it… I’m so happy… actually I think I’m gonna go out for yet ANOTHER drive tonight… See ya when the sun rises.

Coffee Demons

My life is full of demons. Not the kind you're thinking of right off the bat. The other kind. I've bottled so many of them it's hard to keep track most of the time. I'd never have the audacity to say I've "beat them" because I still think (more honestly "crave") all of them at different points through the day, week, month etc. If there is a picture of addictive personality in the dictionary, it's me. (I do realize there is no real "addictive personality disorder" and that it is really psychological and emotional needs for certain individuals to mood alter through "addictions". That's me, or ore accurately, that was me and I'm OK admitting that.)

Coffee/caffeine was the latest (and most innocent) addiction I've been trying to put down. I've been using the cost of Muay Thai as a pretty legitimate excuse to stop. A tin of coffee a week + the cost of 4 or 5 extra large black Tim Horton's coffees a week (which always ends up around $2 each after tip) and I was well over $50 a month for coffee, that's roughly the cost of the gym.

I LOVED my coffee. Black. Strong. Steaming. Crap, I'm salivating. Coffee in the morning, coffee at night, coffee at every meal. I could down 15-20 cups a day and still sleep like a baby. I could drink Red Bull after Red Bull back to back like pop. The caffeine just didn't have any effect on me anymore.

Speaking of Red Bull... I was doing really well, if I was truly in a bind and chewing off my arm for a coffee, decaf was starting to give me some relief. It's been 4 months without a single one. I even made it through Christmas without one. So the other day I'm running late, just beat tired and haven't eaten enough all day. I know there is just no way I'm going to survive Muay Thai, so I grab (which coincidentally has strong ties to Muay Thai) a Red Bull. First caffeine in 4 months.

And God said let there be light...

OK, so I've still yet to have that first real coffee. But I've had a few different energy drinks and it's close. There's probably only one or two key stones left in this defence. One side of me just says to give in, it'll happen eventually anyway, you LOVE coffee, just do it. The other side hates to admit defeat, is the fighter in me and can't bare to fail, and to have people know I've failed at something is even worse.

So place your bets now... I'll let you know how it goes.

Hand wraps (AKA Morning Meditation)

Without even thinking about it, I often develop rituals around simple tasks I do all the time.

Lately one of the first things I do in the morning (after getting off the scale… which is an insane ritual I have to break) is to roll my hand-wraps back up. I always leave them out to air overnight and just re-roll them in the morning. It’s such a simple thing to roll up 2, 170" lengths of fabric, but at the same time, because it is so simple, it becomes very relaxing and meditative. It’s not like you can really do anything else when you roll them without having them unrolling on you or you rolling them up with creases and folds. You "kind of" have to pay attention. Not intently or not with a lot of focus, but you have to be aware of what you are doing.

As weird as it sounds, it’s become a ritual I actually look forward to each day. It’s 5-10 minutes in the morning that I stand in the back window and simply watch my hands work, rolling up these lengths of fabric, glancing ever so often at the sunrise, feeling the sun on my face. It’s almost like my own strange zen sand garden. (Without all the mess my cat would make of it)

It’s kind of like coloring. Yeah, you read that right, (here’s where the stay-at-home dad really comes out), coloring is unbelievably relaxing and mind cleansing. I’m sure most of you haven’t done it since you where 6 or 7 years old, but when your biggest decision is what color the rocket ship or the fish’s hat should be and your biggest worry is going out of the lines… life is pretty good. It’s hard to think about your bank statement and do a good coloring job.

I don’t know if I’m suggesting you take up boxing, or buying a coloring book. Kind of opposite ends of the spectrum eh? I guess I’m suggesting we all should have something, as simple as it may be, that slows the world down for a few minutes once in a while. Things are such a hectic pace these days and our minds race with worry, sometimes you have to shut everything down and slow down. So find some little simple thing that YOU can use, and get your sanity back….

I’m trying hard to get mine back.

Plastic, tape and a hairdryer for what????

One of my good friends now lives in Japan and every time we trade emails there are always little cultural things that pop up that surprise me. Things that are just taken as the way it is and never really talked about. Like that fact that ALL the doors in his school are left open all winter long. It’s just the custom. Apparently the teacher’s lounge with it’s closed door and kerosene heater is a really popular place on cold days. Most homes in his area are not insulated, only have maybe one thin pane of window glass and are heated by small kerosene heaters in the middle of living rooms. And yes, they get quite a bit of snow sometimes. Brr.

Well, here’s something I thought I’d share with folks in warmer climates that they might have no clue about.

If you are from anywhere in Canada I’m guessing you know exactly what these three items are used for this time of year. A couple of rolls of double sided tape, a sheet of thin plastic and a hairdryer. If you’re from some place a little warmer I can only image the confusion. Well, up here it’s our cheap white trash window insulation when the weather gets really cold and our windows are crappy and drafty. Honestly.

It’s almost like a ritual on the first day it hits lower than –20 degrees, folk’s up and down the street get out the hairdryer and go to work. First you put the double-sided tape all around the window casing. This is usually the easy part. Then you remove the second side of the sticky tape. If you have kids or animals it starts getting a little tricky keeping them from the now sticky tape that wants to stick every hair, fur-ball and shirt sleeve it can.

Next you unroll and prepare the plastic. It’s kind of like the most unfriendly saran wrap you’ve ever tried to use. It sticks to itself, it doesn’t want to unfold, it doesn’t want to unroll, it wants to pick up ever piece of dust, it wants to stick to you, it wants to try to kill you. Then you TRY to get this to stick to the tape with as few wrinkles as possible. Of course the plastic has quite a mind of it's own and sticks in random spots on the tape, folds over on it's self and comes undone in vital key sticking points. Once you get it up and fairly flat and unwrinkled the easy part starts. You take you hairdryer, hold it about ¼ of an inch away from the plastic and slowly heat it so it stretches to a tight film. Leave it in one spot too long and you get a hole (and have to start all over again with a new sheet of plastic) and if you don’t heat it enough and it won’t tighten up and is pretty much useless as insulation. (And looks bad too)

Once it’s up it actually doesn’t look that bad if you’ve done an OK job of installing it, (most people don’t) and it does stop drafts and does keep in the heat a little better. Just a little piece of Canada for you guys from other, and slightly warmer climates.

FUNK! Part 2 (Part 1 must have been last year)

I'm looking through my old blog entries and have to chuckle at myself that it was almost a year to the day that I was in this same state of mind last year, and even, (if I look back even farther) the year before that it was the same thing.

Yes, I've officially hit that mid-winter slump, that shitty late January FUNK... aka, "the winter blues".

Everything has become a great effort. Getting up, getting dressed, shaving, preparing meals... Don't even talk about stuff like getting groceries, the concept is like climbing the Himalayas to me right now. I'm sleeping more and spending way too much time on this machine, not really doing anything, but just randomly surfing around.

I know it's only temporary and will go away as time goes on. In part it's being trapped inside most the time. The shorter days and less sunlight has an effect on me as well. Then there's the cold, that always fucks up my thyroid disease and then my body and mind just doesn't work right.

It's time to officially switch to auto-pilot and just put my head down and keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going to the gym. Keep eating right. Keep taking care of myself so I can take care of others. Keep going.

In a month or 2 I'll be back to that annoying guy who thinks he can do anything (and thinks everyone else can, if they apply themselves) and I take comfort in knowing that. More than ever my son is the reason for doing everything, he's my sunlight, my joy... He's the light at the end of this tunnel.

Happy New Year, A Little Help With Those Resolutions

I stand by what I said before..

…”Even a failed resolution is at least an attempt for someone to become a better person in some way.”

Without some type of resolution you aren’t even trying to be a little better than you currently are and then what’s the point of even getting up in the morning? To do worse than the day before? Anyway, I strongly believe in resolutions now but I still haven’t quite figured out what ALL my own resolutions are this year. I have a few, but I’m working out the details in my own head and making deals with myself for the rest. I know that sounds a little crazy.

Anyway, here’s an update of an OLD old blog of mine reviewing a website that might just help you keep all those resolutions this year. 43Things is a place you list or choose things you’d like to do and your “future self” sends you an email every week (or 2 weeks, or month, or whatever you choose) to remind you of these things you’d like to accomplish. I joined Dec 29th of 2005 to give it a try, a year later here's my thought on it.

For the first 2 or maybe even 3 months the weekly emails just pissed me off and I almost cancelled my account more than once, but the guilt of seeing “myself” email those things I wanted to do kept me from closing the account and giving up on those goals. I learned to love the delete button when they showed up in my in box. After 6 months I was actually glad to get those weekly kicks in the ass when I had all but forgotten about some of the things I wanted to get done last year. After almost a year I was surprised at how many of them I had accomplished and really appreciated the reminder of the last few thing I wanted to do.

There were times when I would quite literally be sitting at the computer wasting time and get an email about my goal to do 100 consecutive push ups and get on the floor and start doing a set of them right then and there. I might have only gotten 40 or 50 done that time, but at least I was working towards that goal. I was only wasting time anyway and it only took 2 minutes to at least try. Without the quick email I wouldn’t have done them.

There were other times I was going to just loaf in front of the TV and watch reruns of things I’d seen 100 times, but I had to check my email first. Hey, there’s an email from myself telling me I want to run a 10K race by the end of the year. Next thing I knew I was out the door running instead of wasting time watching Homer get mad for the millionth time.

So if you have some resolutions you truly believe in and truly want to accomplish this year, 43Things is a great place to put them and continually remind yourself. After a year of use I believe it can be a great website to keep you on track and remembering what your goals are and what you REALLY want to do with your time. People always ask “How do you stay so motivated?” There’s a million little ways, and 43Things is one of them that helps just a little bit.

2006 Christmas Tree

Last year we had the best Christmas in history and we're working towards topping that again this year. For the scoop on last year's Christmas and the 2 full days of opening gifts, check out last year's blog entry, Christmas Can Take A LONG Time. (Just to clarify, it wasn't that there was tons of gifts, it was the opening method that took 2 days)

Our son now being almost 3 he realizes what is happening and is much more involved. We decided to TOTALLY involve him in the biggest decoration for Christmas, The Tree. As a matter of fact, the tree was totally his job. He made all the ornaments himself, save a handful that he begged to buy to put on his tree (a HUGE disco ball was one) and did 99% of the placement of the decorations.

I have to admit we both knew it would be a lot of fun for him, and there would be just incalculable amounts of love put into the tree, but I honestly feared the final outcome, but really... I think it turned out GREAT.

The pictures really don't do it justice at all. Sure it's not ready for a store window on Park Avenue, but Christmas is supposed to be about the kids, and this is a kid's tree through and through, with lots of love and hard work put into it by one little guy... all for Santa.

Here's a few of the hand made ornaments... and the disco ball...

A Post For Or Against Vegetarianism? ( AKA Cows Are Killing The Planet)

Ask most vegetarians why they eat a vegetarian diet and they will quickly answer it's for moral reasons. Yes, I know there are a million other reasons, but most will answer "moral issues" first. But what if I told you that all that livestock you don't eat was destroying our environment and planet? Global warming, land degradation, water pollution... it's the cows man! If I told you that you'd think I was nuts. Well...

A recent United Nations report found just that. Livestock is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gasses, creating 18% MORE greenhouse gasses than transport (cars, trucks, buses, planes, ships etc) and was one of the most significant contributors to land and water degradation.

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said. “Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

This all sounds CRAZY till you start reading how HUGE the whole livestock industry really is. About 1/6 of the world's population work in the industry. Livestock currently uses almost 1/3rd of the of the earth’s entire land surface. Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all animal biomass on the planet. These are crazy figures I never could have imagined.

So what is it really doing that's so bad?

Well, all these animals are creating 37% of all anthropogenic methane. Stuff that is 23 times more warming that CO2, that standard by which global warming emissions are measured. They also produce 64% of all ammonia. (Can you say acid rain?)

They are devastating on the earth's water as well. It takes 990 liters of water to produce 1 liter of milk. All the waste water, animal waste, pesticides, hormones, feed etc flow in to the smaller water systems and end up in the world's major water ways. In the Gulf of Mexico there is a dead zone of more than 20,000 square KM where waste from US cattle production ends up dumping out at the end of the Mississippi. The ecosystem in the South Chine Sea is quickly dying off with livestock waste being the # 1 contributor.

There's a lot more interesting facts at the UN site as well as their ideas for cleaning the industry all up.

Personally, I don't end up eating a lot of red meat and I'm FAR from a vegetarian, I LOVE my milk and do have a steak occasionally, but maybe I'll start eating beef a little more often to get ride of all these creatures that are killing our planet right from under us.

Hey, That sounds like a great excuse to head to MacDonald's! Two beef patties....

Power Ranger Taekwondo?

So... You've always wanted to be a Power Ranger eh? Well, I've found just the school for you.

This is a REAL AD, and I just can't decide if it's the funniest thing ever or the most pathetically stupid and misleading ad I've seen in a while. Either way I'm sure your 6 year old will want to sign up immediately. It's stuff like this that gives so many martial arts a bad reputation. Enjoy...

10 Minute Workout

We usually end our Muay Thai classes with 10-15 minutes of basic calisthenics. Crazy numbers of sit ups, push ups, body squats and every type of body weight exercise you can imagine, and for the most part everyone completes the required number of reps in the time allotted without too much trouble. (IE "Too much trouble"= No one gives up, quits or throws up)

The routine we did to fill the last 10 minutes of class last Friday was a little different in that it really separated the "men from the boys" so to speak. It was so simple, but just brutal, and a lot of the class just gave up, slowed down or tried to look busy. By the end of 10 minutes everyone was soaked in sweat. It was such a great, hard, quick workout I had to share it.

So what was the workout? Deceptively simple actually...

Set A)-5 push-ups, 10 squats and then 10 sit-ups for 5 minutes
and then...
Set B)-3 push-ups, 5 sit-ups and then 5 lunges for 5 minutes

Sounds easy eh? It ain't. You do set A and repeat it as hard and as fast as you can for 5 minutes straight... at the 5 minute mark, you switch to set B, and do that as hard and as fast as you can for another 5 minutes. What makes this so hard (and such a great workout) is that your body is always in motion. You do your push-ups and then you pick yourself up, do your squats, get down on the floor, do your sit-ups, spin around to do your push-ups and repeat. You are always moving. Set B with it's lower rep numbers ended up being even harder because you hard to switch position so many times.

Give it a try and see how hard you can honestly push yourself for the 10 minutes it takes to do this routine... I think you'll be surprised... I was.

Daily Motivation... Part Five

I see great quotes all the time and pick them up from conversations, books, the Internet, message forums etc... I thought I'd start to share and spread the wisdom in a lot of these...

Life's problems wouldn't be called "hurdles" if there wasn't a way to get over them.

Christmas Ideas?

I've been busy as always, but with Christmas just a little over a month away I thought I'd share some valuable gift giving advice I recently came across...

Yes, it's helpful Ninja advice at Ask A NINJA.com.. and there is also helpful Ninja advice for all your questions on a variety of subjects; mini golf, summer jobs, dogs, Santa (who is a Ninja himself apparently), food and even standing in lines. Check it out at the official site or even go through YouTube.com for tons of episodes. (YouTube is easier navigation than the askaninja.com site if you ask me)

Have a laugh... and skip crap like Nacho Libre, which I'm bitter I spent money to rent

The TRUTH about Santa

I'm Still Alive

I never think anyone is reading this blog... I get sick, do a post on feeling sick, mysterious headaches, stop posting for a while and in the time I'm away I have over 1,000 people drop in and A LOT of people email me wishing me their best etc. (Sorry if I didn't get back to your email, I tried to answer them all, as I normally do) Thanks to you all! I'm back for awhile. (I think)

Amazing how something as "simple" as a headache can be so hard to diagnose, so hard to cure and how much it can effect your life. In the 2 weeks my headache was the worst, I went from the most active, healthy and physical guy I knew, to someone who was spending 90% of his day on his back. It was totally depressing. The worst pain of it all was the pain after the spinal tap. Crazy pounding, vise-grip headaches every time I stood or sat up and no pain killer (including pseudo-narcotics) helped at all.

So what was it? It "seems" it was a sinus infection gone horribly wrong. My doctor could still send me to a neurologist yet to answer questions about the intensity of the headaches, but after a 2 week course of antibiotics I feel a lot better. I'm still not 100%... which is VERY frustrating, but I'm able to go back to my Muay Thai (which I love more and more each time I go) and do the odd jog. So at least I'm getting out and doing things again! I still feel pretty run down, almost like I've been getting over the flu for the past 2 weeks, and I've developed an annoying post-nasal drip. (And "annoying" is the right term for it.) I'm not back to a full workout routine yet, but I have hope for next week! (I just have to start feeling 2.6% better and I know I could fight through it.)

So I'm doing great. Thanks again to everyone who dropped me a line or had a concern. Hopefully things will be back to 100% normal sooner rather than later.