On Pain and Suffering (the good kind)
January 27th, 2012 Comments Off
When I first got the bug up my ass to quit killing myself slowly with the couch, and actually try to get in some kind of shape, I was not motivated by the standard new years resolution, but by the impending doom of MY 40TH BIRTHDAY! It was good motivation.
I had been demotivated from working out so many times in the past, usually because I never saw any results, or I got hurt. Needless to say, this sucked. So I did the thing any OCD-enhanced individual would do, I started reading.
I buried myself in magazines, blogs, books – pretty much everything I could find about effective exercise. Doing some prep work turned out to be a good plan. Through one of my chains of reading I found out about Kettlebells, and the assorted books by Pavel Tsatsouline. In Enter The Kettlebell, There is an entire chapter entitled “It’s Your Fault”.
This was terribly enlightening. The whole section is the opposite of the usual bravado that you read in any fitness writing, and is an admonishment to pay attention and not get hurt. I really hadn’t read that anywhere else, as an explicit fitness topic, and it is one of the things that has kept me buying Pavel’s books.
After that, one of the online friends through the kettlebell forums summed it up better in a single phrase:
“Don’t move into Pain”
Of course, the difficulty in following that advice, is that as you push yourself harder towards a fitness goal, it hurts. You are moving heavier weights, testing your endurance, and frankly, hurting.
It is a fine line between pushing yourself through the hard work, and not injuring yourself. And if you are new at it, it can be a very fine line. For me, fine enough where I ended up almost damaging a tendon in my elbow before I realized that this wasn’t just part of my lifting, but something was wrong. It ended up costing me three months of physical therapy to recover, and probably another three months of starting from scratch.
That was fine. It gave me time to focus and see the difference between stopping before the pain, which is there to warn you about getting hurt, and ignoring the suffering that pushing yourself to the limits causes.
Really, we are actively seeking out that suffering, and trying to drive through it. That’s what makes us stronger – both physically and mentally.
When I did the Livestrong Ride two years ago, it was my first time doing an organized ride of that size. it was 45 miles, of flats, hills, city and back streets. It prepped myself and trained for the distance, but the race day was miserable. It started cold, then once we were part way into the race, started to rain. It was sticky, oily roadspray, with cold, biting winds. my hands froze on the handlebars, and I was sore all over. My lesson to myself as I was on the road was that I could tell that while I was sore, tired, and freezing, I wasn’t actually hurting or in Pain. I was just suffering through a crappy ride. It actually cleared just a bit as I made it to the finish line.
I had nothing left in the end. I could barely walk to the car until I warmed up, but I felt great. The sense of reward and accomplishment was indescribable.
After that experience, I would add an addendum to my earlier advice:
Don’t move into Pain, but feel free to punch Suffering right in the cock.
Like this:
Ours goes to ’11
December 31st, 2011 Comments Off
I suppose that the end of the year is a time for reflection. Sadly, since I do not actually wear a tinfoil hat, I am not that reflective.
This year, I really appreciate the number of people who came into my life, and will truly miss those who have left. The thing that I truly enjoyed about Facebook is how you can add new people to your life even in a small way, and though you might not be physically close to each other, you have a connection that you might not have had before.
The downside to this also means that sometimes you learn about the loss of people who might completely passed you by. I found out today that an old friend from high school, died this week trying to save someone else’s life. I’m never sure how to feel about something like this, in that I might never have reconnected with this person in life, but knowing that they’re gone still feels like such a loss.
I suppose the best we can hope for is to keep building as many new, great, wonderful people as we can, and hope for as little loss as possible.
On the personal front, this marks one full year of Paleo style dieting, which has meant 20 pounds down and feeling a lot better. I’ve seen a lot of my friends get healthier this year, and a lot of family get healthier as well.
My lifting has improved. I’ve been able to try a lot of different, unique systems, and everything is been a fun and interesting challenge. I feel good that I can end the year feeling stronger and have had a lot of fun in the process.
To friends, family, and acquaintances alike, I wish a good year. Rarely, if ever do I agree with people on everything, but even when we disagree I hope that things work out the best for everyone.
Hope your 2012 is good, and as the Mayans say – Time to buy a new calendar, this ones out!
Za Chem!
November 25th, 2011 Comments Off
When I was living in Moscow, We had a post Soviet Chess Grandmaster that would hang out upstairs in the hotel bar, and you could sit down and play chess against him. Being an idiot, I figured, Hey, why not?
I should note that I am a terrible chess player. Miserable.
The bar itself was much larger than my room at the hotel, and as such, I spent most of my off hours there. It had a great balcony view down into the lobby, and out the glass windows of the front of the hotel giving a perfect view to the Dynamo neighborhood of Moscow, which was essentially the crappy area around the Dynamo Soccer stadium. The whole place was a marvelous shade of grey.
The Grandmaster sat in a quiet corner of the floor, with no view, and darker lighting. He was reading the paper, slowly sipping on a glass of vodka and smoking. There were three chessboards in front of him, set with pieces, ready to play.
He had been there all week, and no one had even approached him the whole time. (And yes, I had been in the bar all week for enough hours to make my personal observations statistically significant.)
So I sat down and smiled.
It took a moment, but he looked over at me from behind his paper, stared me square in the eye,and put the paper down, folding it in half. He took another sip from his vodka, cigarette still in his mouth, and knocked down two of his own pieces.
He then motioned for me to start. Apparently knocking down his pieces was a standard form of handicap or something. I was cool with that, so I moved a pawn. He immediately grabbed my pawn and put it back.
“Nyet” he said.
Okaaaay. I had to think for a second to determine if I was actually stupid enough to move a pawn the wrong way. I hadn’t, but apparently, it was still wrong.
Fine. I started again, moving a different pawn. This was apparently better, as he moved a piece. I moved again, and as fast as his hands could move he reset the entire board.
The Grandmaster looked exasperated. “Nyet,” he said again, “dumats! za chem?”.
My Russian was just passable, but I could translate: “No! Think! Why?”
He started to move pieces about the board to illustrate his point, while my brain continued to translate. In Russian, there are two words for “why”, the philosophical “Pochemu?” (as in “Why did this have to happen to me?”) and the concrete, “Za Chem”, better translated as “for what purpose?”
He was using “za chem?” and trying to make his point. He would move a piece on the board, look at me and ask, “za chem?” then show with his fingers where that piece could attack. he then would move another piece to defend, ask “za chem?” and show the defensive attacks available for that piece. he did this over and over, replaying some gave stored in his head to make the attack and counterattack point to me.
The waitress showed up at that point with more glasses of vodka, and I bought two, handing the grandmaster one, which he quickly downed, and we started again.
I focused. I moved my pawn.
He countered.
I focused again on his pawn. “Za chem?” I examined all the attacks possible, which of course was two. I moved another pawn to defend the first.
He countered again.
This continued for nearly six moves before he shook his head, grabbed all the pieces, and reset the board. We started over.
We played through another two shots of vodka, and I was able to make it up to nearly ten moves. Eventually my friends showed up, and we were planning to head out. I thanked him and he dryly lit another cigarette, and went back to his paper.
—
As I reflect back, nearly 20 years later, I find that I still remember the important lesson of always looking and examining situations – “Za chem? – for what purpose?” Each movement and each action by others is to be judged, “Za chem? – for what purpose?”
—
But I also now have a second lesson that I wish my younger self knew:
When playing chess with a Grandmaster, get the fucker drunk first.
Like this:
You said it.
October 5th, 2011 Comments Off
“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”
-Steve Jobs 1955-2011
42
September 6th, 2011 Comments Off
“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
“Forty two?! Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
Home is where you wear your hat
August 12th, 2011 Comments Off
What’s funny is that it feels like we just got back from vacation, but it has been a month now, and we have been working like mad just to get the house in shape post-construction. We still have a few small things to finish, one small section of fence, getting the grass to grow, and cleaning out the garage.
The garage is the worst part, we have been unpacking, tossing crap out, and it never seems to end. I just finished installing a new shed today, which should help us get the gardening stuff out. I also got a new sprinkler, i think the old one accidentally got buried when they excavated the foundation. Hopefully we will get all the grass in the yard before my birthday.
I’m very impressed with the final result of the remodel. As painful as the whole process was, we have a much more useful house out of the deal. And interestingly, the change in window design seems to keep the house much better ventilated as well. This was a huge problem before. The upstairs bedroom was super hot and stuffy, and it was hard to get air to flow in downstairs.
Losing the wine room sucked, but gaining the gym more than made up for it. The new office is probably my most used space. Good to get all that crap out of the bedroom. And the bedroom itself is a huge improvement, not just for the size and the closet, but we get a lot more air and light now.
I’ll be glad once the garage is clean, but i have to say I am happy with as far as we have come.
Wrap it up, I’ll take it.
July 12th, 2011 Comments Off
We got out of the apartment quick this morning, as we wanted to use up the last of our 24 hour bus tour. The closest stop was at the Hyde park corner, near Marble Arch, so we took a nice park walk on the way out. We were lucky to have the bus arrive after just a short wait, and it was mostly empty, so we got our choice of seats on the top. The weather was perfect, and this was the bus tour that we were hoping for.
The loop around London was beautiful, and really made up for the hot, slow bus ride the day before. We stuck with the tour up past Baker Street, down through the theater district, past several famous residences, all marked by the blue plate explaining who lived there and when. We stuck on the bus until we made it to the London Eye. This was now the third time we have come to the Eye, but the first time we have actually had tickets. The loop around the Eye is only about 30 minutes, which seems rather short for the cost, but the wait in line helps round it our to about 90 minutes, which makes it a better value for your time.
It was hot in line. We hung close to trees, seeking shade, and caught a few fortunate clouds overhead to keep us from cooking. In front of us, one older woman collapsed in the heat, which was sad to see, except for the fact that it helped move the line forward. Once up to the base, we could see that there was a wedding going on in one of the capsules, which was slowing the whole thing down. Once they were off, and the flower petals were cleaned out, the line started moving a lot faster. The skies cleared up in time for us to get in our pod, and we had an excellent view all the way around the city.
You couldn’t see the Tower or Tower Bridge, but everything else in town had a commanding view. I was glad to get a glimpse at the Battersea Power Station, from Pink Floyd Animals fame, as well as a hundred other movies and shows. It is one of my favorite bits of London architecture, very imposing yet unused. Apparently it is being converted to a shopping center, which is better than getting torn down, which has been threatened. We made snapshots all around and then just sat to enjoy the view as we slowly crept up and down around the ring. It was pretty amazing and worth the line, and three days of figuring out the tickets.
We walked down river a bit, and crossed over on the pedestrian way of the Golden Jubilee Bridge, which led us right back to Trafalgar Square. We had lunch in the cafe in the National Gallery, which was another great museum cafe, sat for a bit, and to cool off, Yulia accidentally knocked a glass of water over my leg. Fortunately I was wearing shorts, and it was on one leg only, as if it was in the center of my lap it would have looked much more conspicuous. We headed up to look at the exhibits, and just had enough energy to walk through about a quarter of the place before we were galleried out. We saw some amazing Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and one Davinci, along with a lot of smaller works.
We had two items remaining on our checklist before we we done with our trip, The first was to swing by the Sherlock Holmes museum. We took the tubes up to Baker street, and looked around until we found it. The line was huge, and with our tight schedule we didn’t want to take the rest of the evening waiting there, so we looked around a bit and headed over to Oxford Street for our second task: shopping.
We really hadn’t had a chance to look into stores the same way we did on our trip to France, but I think this is partially because you have a boutique culture in France that you just don’t have the same way here. The shops on Oxford Street were pretty cool, starting with some really huge discount shops that weed so busy that we couldn’t even walk around, and getting more and more swank as we went further down the street. Yulia managed to find a few nice things in one shop, and we checked a few more out then headed off to dinner. We found a French pub near our apartment, and had some good food for our last night.
Back at the apartment we got checked into our flight online, and I was able to buy upgrades to World Traveller Plus, for pretty cheap. This got us much better seats, and better service to boot. We were packed and ready to go home.
We have been on the move for 20 days total. That’s a long time to travel in such close quarters, but when so much of the year is spent apart, it is good for a family to compress mentally, even while we compress physically with each other. We’ve had surprisingly few problems with the trip, and even more surprisingly few problems with each other. (But a few) It will be some time before we take a trip this large again, but it worked out well this time, and was worth the risk and cost.
I have said before, I have two very good traveling partners, and they make this time worthwhile.
Raising Flags of All Nations…
July 12th, 2011 Comments Off
We were exhausted from our long walk the day before, and we slept in pretty late. I eventually got up and checked out the tour bus website to see what the costs would be. It was not bad, and I was able to book a 24 hour tour pass, including Cruise on the Theames, and add a trip on the Eye for under 100 Pounds. With this setup, we could pickup our tickets from the main office back at Trafalgar Square anytime.
We hit the Tubes, and made it out to Trafalgar by 11:30. There was some kind of marathon going on, and traffic was rerouted all over the place. I had Yulia and Sasha hang out at Cafe Nero (our punch card is almost full!) while I headed to the office to get our tickets. The line wasn’t too bad at the office, and I was able to get in and out fairly quickly, but they did explain that the marathon traffic diversions would change the routes for the day.
We were primarily headed out to the Tower of London, so the exact route didn’t matter to us, so I wasn’t worried about that yet. I got Yulia and Sasha from the Cafe, and we walked over to the bus stop. It was pretty crowded. We hung about for a while, and when the bus arrived, it was pretty full. This meant that we had to sit on the lower level instead of on top, with the better view.
Then we hit the traffic.
I hadn’t realized the side effect of the rerouting would be the huge impact of every car and bus being routed in the same path at once, and we crawled along at a snail’s pace. The tour itself was good, but we had too much time between items, and the heat was on so we were baking on the way. Eventually we made out way around to the Tower, and hopped off the bus.
We were pretty hungry at this point, and found a nice place to eat with a view of the tower, river and even a peek at Tower Bridge. Unfortunately the food in the area was limited, and we ended up with a “Sacrifice Meal” of KFC. We have tried to balance our meals while n the road between good meals, and cheap. The lowest scale of cheap meals I like to think of as sacrifice meals that we eat just to keep the trip going. This was one of those. The quality of the food was bad, but they made up for it in volume.
No longer hungry, as our insides were shutting down in self-defense, we got tickets and headed into the tower. Once inside I realized that we had now visited each of the man castles in each of the Capitals, Cardiff Castle, Edinburgh Castle, and now the Tower of London. All in one trip. What made this interesting is that you hear the same history three times, each from a different point of view. Heroes in one are the villains in another. And in a sense, they are all correct, from their point of view.
Political history aside, the tower is amazing. We walked through Charles I’s quarters, the White Tower exhibits, and the Crown Jewels. This took several hours, and there was much more to see, but we just ran out of time. We spent 4 hours there, and it was beautiful and amazing. everywhere you looked there were examples of the development of the place from Roman times to today. It has never stopped changing. Eventually we were just out of time. We headed out and fond that the cruise boats were still running, and would take us to Westminster, where we could get our tickets from the London Eye. I wasn’t sure that they had spaces that evening, but at least we could get them for tomorrow.
The crowd was big waiting for the boat, and we had to wait through to boats to get on, being literally the last folks let onto the second boat. It was a nice cruise around the bend, narrated by one of the cruise members who gave us bits of river history as we went. a memorable part was a rhyme he told us about the Cast Lions heads that line the river wall, and their relation to high tides.
If the Lions are Drinking, London is sinking…
If the lions are Ducked, London is — flooded.
Strangely it didn’t rhyme.
We left the tour boat, and walked back across the bridge to the ticket offices from the Eye. The day was sold out until too late, so we got tickets for the next day. We figured on getting dinner at the Swan Pub again, and headed for the Tube. There is a lot of construction and repair going on, and they have closed some tube entrances, so I got a bit confusing to figure out how to get into the Waterloo station, and we got completely looped around an underground sidewalk. We found an elevator down to the station on one sidewalk, but when it opened it appeared that someone had been using it as public restroom, so we headed into the train station to find the connecting tunnel there.
It was easy after that point, and we came out our station, and halfway to the pub, found a guy selling miniature pub signs. This looked like a pretty cool bit of artwork for the house, so we go two, including one for the Swan pub itself. Dinner at the Swan was great again, and the tourists who were the customers were fun to mock as usual.
Notting Off
July 11th, 2011 Comments Off
A beautiful morning, which was perfect as we were headed to the Notting Hill market. I was pleased that the Lancaster Gate tube station was’t as crowded as the day before, which made sense since it was Saturday. But everyone was getting out at Notting Hill Gate. Once we were out in the street we found even more crowds, and printed signs pointing the way to Portobello Road, the main street for the market.
The market was Huuuuge. Both sides of Portobello Road were covered in stalls, and it stretched as far as the eye could see. If we were big antiques collectors, it would have been incredible, at least a third of the stands were some kind of antique, lots of tourist junk stands, and as we got further in, each type seemed to be grouped loosely together. We found clothing in one section (Sasha got the jacket she was looking for), There was great farmers Market stands, artwork, and quite a few stands with homemade music mixes, mostly funk.
We stopped at a cafe in the middle of the place, and had some excellent food, all freshly made and baked. The place was crazy busy, which was our clue that it was good. After a rest we kept walking. And Walking. And Walking. It was nuts. We finally made it our to the Tube on the opposite side of Notting Hill. We had walked for around 4 hours, and the time flew past.
We caught the train back into town, and were going to check out the London Eye. It was a fairly big ride back into the center, but it was good to sit for a bit. We got out at Waterloo station, and had to dodge a few rain showers as we made our way to the Eye. Once we got there the lines were huge. I went in and figured the ticketing system, and from what I could tell it was much faster to order online and come back on a later day. Cheaper too.
I checked the guide book, and it recommended a cafe in the park, facing Buckingham Palace as a good, quiet place to rest, so we took a walk across the bridge, past Parliament (not the band), listened to Big Ben chime the 45 minute mark (would have preferred to Listen to Parliament, the band, but take what you can get…), and kept following the crowds out. We got a few photos outside Westminster Abbey, and eventually made our way to the park. It was much less busy, and had beautiful views of London in all directions.
The Cafe in the park (called In The Park – clever) was pretty reasonable, for a park cafe, and we had some food, cheese, and wine. It was a great place to watch people, ducks, and the view. This was a very diferent London from the one on our first trip. Being able to find affordable food, and some quiet laces really transforms a city. We loved it.
As it started to get late, we waked across the park, over to Trafalgar Square, and up to Picadilly Circus. We peeked int the Ripley Believe it or Not Museum and got a discount on entry by chatting up one of the workers out front. It was five floors of Ripley stuff, including a mirror maze. Not a bad show, although a bit overpriced, but we liked it.
On he way out grabbed one of the flyers for the Red tour buses, and saw that they had discounts on the eye in one of their packages. I could check that online – back at the apartment. We headed back, grabbed some takeout food from the Lebanese street behind out apartment and crashed.
