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Category: personal

struggle for more

I’m now in my 5th week of doing the program hundredpushups.com. I’m stuck on week 3.

This is going into my third week for week 3. I can’t seem to do any better on column 3 than I did last week or the week before. I’m confused why this isn’t working as I’d hope. I push myself until I can’t push myself up anymore. I break the muscles as much as I’m comfortable breaking them. Yet, I seem to be making no progress.

This is a struggle for more.

I am starting to not look forward to doing them, but I always feel good once I finish. I hope I can keep changing my outcome. I’m frustrated.

EDIT 9/08: Getting past week 3 has been very difficult and I’m still struggling to complete the week successfully. I’ve hit my plateau a couple of times and even rested for a week in between. This is just frustrating!

I think the key to success for me is going to be a steady balance of on and off. This won’t take weeks, it will probably take months of balance.

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the basics

I knew a challenge was the only way I’d force myself to work out. So far, so good.

I began a new program that works only only the upper body and I’m using it as a weight training to gain muscle mass. I don’t expect radical changes to my body nor do I expect to be ripped by the time I am done. I only expect results that are promised.

Hundred Pushups is a new challenge launched just months ago which guarantees by the end of the program you’ll be doing 100 pushups in six weeks. It requires around only 30 minutes a week and all your effort. That’s a program to which I can definitely commit.

My first week was a breeze. It starts out light for people who have little to no recent exercise experience. Pushing myself is difficult when you don’t know how to effectively push your limit. But, I go until I am stuck for more than a couple of seconds and can’t go anymore.

It wasn’t until the last set of my 2nd week that I began to realize this was about to get more difficult. On the first day of my third week (which was just a few hours ago), I felt as though there was a huge jump from last week to this week. I could not finish more than three sets before feeling completely physically drained. This might be because I either did not effectively push myself last week or because the jump from week 2 to week 3 was a little drastic. If I have to, I will repeat this week and make sure I perfect it.

Because I don’t think doing just pushups is enough, I’m actually supplementing this work out with pullups. I suck at pullups. I can’t do them for the life of me. But by the time I’m done with this pushup program, my goal is to do at least 15 normal chinups and 10 pullups. I’m already at four chinups and two pullups. I have a long way to go.

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5.8

It was just violent enough and long enough to shake my Texan nerves.

11:42 a.m.
I was sitting at my desk, business as usual.
I felt something.
A little startled, I looked around.
Curtains aren’t supposed to shake on their own.

Earthquake!!

I ran into the doorway as soon as I realized what was happening. It had been shaking about five seconds already by this time. I think it lasted just a few more seconds before it stopped. The excitement and adrenaline lasted me the rest of the day.

Amazing. This was the biggest earthquake LA has received since 1994.

glow

Went to Glow last night.
http://www.smgov.net/smarts/glow/

What I hoped to be something of a laser, light, glow in the dark extravaganza turned out to be an overcrowded, sparsely artistic, lines for everything loitering festival. Not enough lights, way too many people. They even had police holding back people because the pier was overcrowded.

I expected an outdoor rave like party. I got a theme park, boring sheep fest.

The event had so much potential from the photos and sound of it but it was just so unorganized, there was nothing really do to do except people watch and follow the crowds. Certain drugs at certain times might have helped but with so many people all doing the same thing in the same place, I don’t think it would have helped much. I was kinda expecting more of a Bourbon Street type atmosphere but it just seemed like everyone was confused as to where to go and what to do. Someone should have handed out millions of glow sticks at the top of the pier, that would have been amazing.

It was inspired by Nuit Blanche which is held in Paris every year. I’ve never been but I’m gonna guess it’s a little more interesting than this was.

Unless I know this gets better next time (IF there’s a next time), that’s the last time I go to that!

sunday lists

In the last month:

  • I met my friend at the local hospital just before 5am. She was rear-ended at a stop light and suffered minor cuts and physical shake-up. She showed up just before 7am.
  • I spent a few weeks after that helping her get her personal affairs in order. We also looked for cars, bought one, and I helped her with her job.
  • I learned what a dog walker does for a living. If I ever needed to get into a job that can make good money inconsistently, dog walking would be kinda high on the list.
  • At times, I was completely needed to take care of someone. I’ve never been in a situation where I am tending to someone and I can’t imagine doing this for someone in critical need is any better. I’ve gained respect for those who do this for a living. It’s mentally draining at times.
  • I left the house every single day. Sometimes, normally, I’m home for days in a row now because I have work or no incentive or need to go anywhere. It also helps save gas. I like alone time but need a social balance more often.
  • I helped someone to buy a new car. Out of all the SUVs out there, one of the best purchases anyone can make is a Honda CR-V. They’re one of the most fuel efficient, solidly built SUVs.
  • I realized how detailed one should be when buying a new/used car. VIN numbers, background checks, mechanic checks, registering, renewing, time, time and more time. It’s so consuming and tedious.
  • I learned first hand that car dealership salesmen are very aggressive even when you warn them not to be. Some don’t get the point when you tell them to back off.
  • I realized that car dealerships don’t carry cars older than about 5-7 years. I had no idea.
  • I went to Disneyland for a night and another full day. I love going to Disneyland randomly.

During this last month:

  • I did not go into work. I wasn’t called into work, I didn’t respond to or initiate anything. I will spend the next few weeks playing catch up. I spent 30 minutes on the phone for a meeting one morning. That was it.
  • I kinda dropped off the social radar from most people. The majority of my time was consumed.
  • I got sick with a summer cold. It lasted from Monday until today. Today I am 100%.
  • I paid no attention at all to this website. I’ve felt very apathetic about writing lately.
  • I spent less time online than usual. It was kinda freeing.

Escaping the monotony of life was nice for a few weeks, but within that escape I formed another routine of montony. It reinforces my belief that we’re beings of habits, complacency, and addictions. We find habits, we form too much complacency in the mundane and we become addicted to aspects of our habits and complacencies. Maybe I’m only speaking of myself, but I doubt that few who read this won’t identify.

hearing hurts

I was desperate.
I had to fix this.

Upon entering the Urgent Care center, I was anxious to get through this not knowing how long my wait would be. No one was waiting in the waiting room. It made sense after my visit ended.

After the routine check on my vital stats, I waited for about four minutes before a large, leathery doctor entered the room. Not one crack on his face showed his desire to help me. As cold as ice, this man shortly inquired about my condition. Two views into both of my ears indicated that he saw ear wax.

I followed him into another room where his nurse prepared to hold water below my ear. He mumbled for me to turn 90 degrees away from him with my right ear facing him. A nurse held a plastic box full of water below my ear. Then, as I watched his finish connecting the water pik, he slowly thrusts a cold, metal tube pretty deep into my ear.

WOOSH.
OW!!

I felt a very high pressure of water threatening to burst through my ear drum into my middle ear. The pain of such high water pressure in my ear made me cringe. Not only did it hurt, but it started messing with my other senses. I sat there, eyes shut tightly, teeth gritting, body tense. This pain was unbearable.

“Turn around,” he said.

Rinse and Repeat.
Unbearable pain, intense pressure, extreme loudness. This time, however, I looked into the water to see several pieces of ear wax, one as large as two peas. It was unbelievable that this was causing me so much discomfort.

He did this a couple of times to both my ears before we went back to the other room and verify my ears were unclogged.

“You may go,” he mumbled in a low, monotone voice.

As I walked to the waiting room, I noticed my center of balance was off. Whatever pressure was exerted to my ears had caused me to lose some balance. It was slightly simliar to being intoxicated, but luckily lasted only a couple of minutes.

This better be the first and last time I ever have to go through that. I’m now a little concerned that my ears are worse than they were before.

5 replies

listening through a tube

french kicksMy ears aren’t happy today. Last night, however, they were ecstatic. I was joined by a couple of new friends to accompany me to a French Kicks concert. We were front row, just feet away from the band. Seeing them live was great since I’m a relatively new fan of their music.

Today, however, I feel like the world is in a tube. I can hear half of what I was able to hear last night. When people talk, it sounds like my tubes are cutting out half of the timbre and tonality of their voice.  So, if there’s a lot of noise in the background, it’s not that I can’t hear the person talking. I just can’t always make out what they say.

Although these earplugs are rated well for me, Hearos branded earplugs don’t work for me as advertised. Supposedly, the rating for hearing protection with these plugs are better than standard plugs you’ll find at any drugstore, but my experience unfortunately has left me half deaf. Sadly, I’m already half deaf as it is so this is tragic. I can’t say I’m a little upset at my experience too but I really had little to no control over the situation.

I love seeing good music, I really like supporting bands by going to see them. I do not, however, like going deaf. It’s back to the cheap foam earplugs!

balls

Balls.

Just as I was leaving childhood and entering adolescence is when the pool full of balls was really popular. You know, it’s that thing that all the kids go jump in. They used to be at Burger King. They still exist at Chuck E Cheese. I only remember a few occasions where I played in that pool of balls because I don’t remember them being too common at my younger age.

Now I’m older. I know what happens when kids of all backgrounds and kinds of cleanliness play in the pool of balls. I’d love to jump in a huge pool of plastic balls again without remembering how many stinky, unwashed, germ filled feet and bodies have touched each and every ball. But I can’t. I’d probably still dive in but I’d feel so unclean afterward.

It’s time like this that I miss childhood.
Ignorance is bliss.

life philosophy

Do what you love and be around those who love you

screw blog software

I’ve made the switch to WordPress. I’ll talk about it in the next couple of days. All I can say is it’s infinitely easier than MovableType. No more major stress over my website! I am losing a bunch of comments that live in my phpBB forum, and I’m not even about to try and figure out how to transfer them. Anyone up for it? There’s money involved!

I’m sure there’s some broken mess all over the place, and I am not sure whether or not I’ll keep this new layout, but I’ll slowly figure it all out. I had a layout in development that I might refer to and integrate into this, but it depends on how much time I want to commit amongst the billion other things I have going on

3 replies