Body and Soul

Here's something I mentioned in passing in the last post that makes me happy.

I can do a pull-up.

Granted, this is not a big achievement in the wide world of sports, but, it is a big deal to me.

Most everyone in my life now didn't know me in college or doesn't remember what I looked like. Six feet tall and 129 pounds is not pretty for a guy of my frame.

To quote DJ Qualls, I was a walking sight gag. And no matter how much time has passed, my inner view of myself will always be that guy.

Try this. Make a circle with you thumb and middle finger. My arms were skinnier than that.

But I'm slowly creeping up on average. And when I reach that day, I'll be proud.

Now, from the same stats, the average guy can do a rep at 93% his own weight, which, for me, would be about 170 lb. This works out to about 8 reps at 135 lb. When I get there, that will also be a great day. So, I need to up the bench 35 lb so I can reach average.

Super Secret Plan: progress update

Super Secret Plan: progress update

Okay, it was early March when I announced the super-secret plan and the 12 things I needed to accomplish to get there. Here is an update on my progress.

1. Bike 56 miles at pace -- I ride to work almost every day, about 20 miles. I'm definitely more fit on the bike than last spring. Still, I haven't done any longer rides lately for score. Longest fast ride is 35 miles, or 63% complete.

2. Run 13.1 miles at pace -- My hip has been bothering me, so I've laid off the running. I should probably get back to the long walks, which helped a lot. Longest fast run is 2.6 miles, or 20% complete. Someday I've got to find a doctor who can figure this one out.

3. Swim 1.2 miles at pace -- Even though I keep plugging away at the swimming, and even though my stroke gets better and stronger, I have a tough time putting on distance. Longest swim ever was the half-mile at the triathlon, but, that wasn't the constant steady swim I was going for. It was more of a panicked floundering. My longest steady swim is still four laps: 200m. I think I may need some coaching to help me figure out what is wrong with my stroke and breathing to get some distance. 10% complete.

4. Bench press 150 lb. -- Baseline was 3x8@95. Now I'm doing 3x8@100. 5% complete.

5. 10 pull ups -- Baseline was 0. Now I'm doing 1. 10% complete.

6. Learn some Arabic -- I'd dropped out of Arabic 1 because it was too time consuming, but, I'm going to re-enroll in the same class in January. 1% complete.

7. Learn some Chinese -- No progress. 0% complete.

8. Learn to box -- No progress
9. Get wicked tattoos -- No progress
10. Practice rock climbing -- No progress

11. Save $25,000 -- $4,400 so far. Negative progress. Return of little brother, furnace replacement, property taxes, car problems, and loss of cash-paying psycho roommates has been bad for wallet. 17% complete.

12. Have sex with someone hot -- Bagged a pretty good one this weekend past. A solid eight. 80% complete.

Total completion percentage: 17%.

Positives: I've been working the cardio pretty hard, getting about two hours in most days. I'm in the gym about 3 days a week. Even though the numbers don't seem impressive, I see changes.

Negatives: Having trouble managing electronic distractions. I've managed to not do any serious console gaming over the last few months, but, it is hard to keep away from the TV. Also, haven't worked on the social goals much. Typical me, living in my own world.

Pillbox

There are few delusional nonsense phrases that have been stuck in my head for years. Often, when in endless endless meetings with blathering on about how "improving the process will improve the product", I will scribble them in black ink on my everpresent pad of graph paper so that it looks like I'm down with the ISO 9001 like white on rice. "I like cheese." "Paper cow." "Pillbox"

But at the new job, with no meetings to go to and no e-mail to read, my habit of scribbling angrily has been replaced with staring wistfully out my 9th floor window at the world outside.

Today is an unbelievably beautiful clear day. Looking down from the office, traffic is unusually not snarled on Wilshire Blvd. Beyond, I see the many three-storey apartment buildings of south Santa Monica interspersed with trees from all corners of the globe: airy eucalyptus, pine, dense ficus, and, of course, palm, plus dozens whose names I never learned, moving ever so slightly in the nearly still air. Planes take off from the runways of LAX and Santa Monica airports heading west out over the ocean. Ever further south, the long, camel-backed hills of the Palos Verdes peninsula slowly descending to the South Bay. In the sea are two enormous container ships, moving slowly back to China. And on the horizon, Catalina Island rising out of far away mists.

From the ninth floor, our city looks beautiful and sedate, not the tangle of traffic and humanity and aggression and noise that it looks like from the ground. From here, my love for the Southland can be unqualified, unexcepted.