24 Hour Fitness.....Land of Sand

fig. 1-1 The standard morning of running with the others

So today's workout was pretty much crap as I found that it was way the hell too hot to run this morning on the treadmill at the almight 24 Hour Fitness.

My logic breaks down why it's so freaking hot in the gym, especially when everyone is supposed to be working out and breaking a sweat. For it to be that hot in the gym, some group of exercisers must be complaining that they're too cold. Let's see...

Is It The Elderly? Nope. Everytime I see them, they all pretty much wear sweatshirts and sweatpants, and are usually bustin' out some type of energy burning exercise.

Is It The Weight Lifters? Nah. They're always coming to the gym in barely anything anyway, and usually they're just as drenched with sweat as the next guy.

Is It The Exercise Class Participants? No chance. The instructors keep them moving way too much to get cold.

Is It The Pool Goers? Nope. Pools in a separate room and the water is heated.

Is It The People That Walk On The Treadmill? YES. Who else can be on a cardio machine in excess for 30 minutes, feel like they're exercising, and not even break a sweat? These meatballs! Hey! Walkers! I don't care if your ankles are "weak" or if you're "taking a break from your normal routine", either crank it up, or get the hell off the machine!



*Now it may just be that the facility just turns up the heat way to much, but far be it from me to resisting dumping all over the gym goers that decide to tie up one of the limited treadmills with their cosmo (or wall street journal) -reading walking a$$es.

"America's Got Talent...And I've Got This..."

Recently while I was back home in Idaho and pouring over my old grade school homework, I stumbled across a poem I wrote to my mother for Mother's day. I think I had written it in 4th Grade and it was honestly not that bad. I had seemingly mastered the concept of iambic pentameter by this point, which was very enlighting to me.

Essentially I could see talent going something like this. Before we're born, we're bartering certain elements of our lives for other elements. Some men may wish to be good with the ladies, but be unsuccessful in their jobs, others may wish the opposite and end up alone but successful. Apparently, I chose to barter away some element of my life, because I thought that for some reason, my strongest skill would need to be...poetry.

Yes, undeniably, I cannot throw a spiral football. I'm not skilled in building anything. I've grown out of touch with the inner workings of a computer and I'm so inept at cooking I could burn cereal. But low and behold, put a pencil and paper infront of me, and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't at least give me the basic "not bad!"

This skill, being extremely limited in it's use in everyday life, has actually come in handy more then a few times. It's helped me win poetry contests, I've received requests to have it published in literary magazines, and most notably, it's been responsible for woo-ing the hell out of more then a few women (however, unfortunate for me that my in-person follow-up sucks).

Now far be it from me to call poets like Poe, Tennyison, or Silverstein weenies...they poetry changed the face of writing in school forever, I'm just wondering why of all things this had to be the skill I excelled at. If there was ever a way that it could have been incorperated into the Army, hell I'd be a General by now.

Oooh well.

The Coldest I've Ever Been

fig. 1-1 What I dug out of my boots later that week....

While walking back from the gym this morning, and feeling the wonderous cold breeze from Nordic hell, I remembered the one time I was the coldest in my life.

It was back while I was in Officer Basic Training, as a lowly Second Lieutenant at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Naturally as I started the course in September, it was slated to complete mid January. Near the end of this course was a 10 day field exercise...which ironically landed in the middle of December.

Allow me to paint this picture first. If you're not familiar with the weather in southern Missouri, it is cold of a different sort. Not only is the wind more humid, but for some reason, the wind can also blow through pure steel it's that cold.

So on Day 1, as we're rolling out of the motor pool on the way to our bivouac (camping) site, it starts to rain. The temperature being one degree above freezing, obviously it felt like someone was holding a melting glacier over our heads. It continued to rain...hard, as in Missouri hard...as in if you looked up at the sky you'd drown hard. Despite the fact that everyone was wearing wet weather gear, we were all doomed to freezing. It initially started by my boots getting soaked after kneeling in a puddle while on a tactical halt (why I was dismounted, I still have no idea). Then the wetness crept up my legs and down my jacket sleeves while me and the other LT's fought to get giant, soaking wet canvas tents up in the pouring rain. Finally, after I had shivered to the point that I ran out of blood sugar (and ironically, it was lunch time), I just flat out sat down on the wet freaking ground and ate my cold beef stew MRE. I remember being so cold and so wet that I really didn't care any more. Most would call it good training, I would call it the first stage of hypothermia.

As the days rolled on, the rain bounced back in forth between heavy snow at night, and torrential down pours during the day. I vivdly remember at one point getting massive hail stones to boot. We experienced every type of weather pattern out there short of environmental disaster, and except for sunshine, it was all colder then balls. My other favorite memory was on the night of Day 7 or 8, when it was single digits, and the moon was taunting us from a clear sky (which as we all know makes the night colder). I can remember laying on freshly fallen snow at 2 am waiting to conduct an ambush. Subsequently, the group we were waiting to ambush got lost in the woods, and after 2 hours, we all just packed up and went back to camp. Fortunately my cot was next to the stove in the tent, unfortunately, my fingers were almost too frozen to get into bed.

Long story short, just remember that the Army goes to the extremes, and by that, I mean they go to the hottest or the coldest places on earth, and never the tween do they visit.

Ain't That The Tooth

So my 6 month annual checkup is fast approaching. As per usual, I'm bracing for the inevitable "carie" that usually gets brought up, and having to actually defend the fact that I still have two Wisdom teeth.
I'd swear at the tenacity that dentists want to pull wisdom teeth, it must be some kind of underground currency that they deal in. This would explain why all of my dentists are bummed when I tell them mine can't be pulled due to the inevitability of nerve damage.
I recently contacted my dentist to see what options were for sedation should the event rise that I need a filling. Apparently, they don't do gas, they don't do abrasion drilling, all they do is the ol' shot o' nummy stuff to the gums, which for some reason, never seems to work on me. I've been to dentists that used gas in the past and it was delicious.
I'm wondering if, unlike tattoo parlors, they'd be allowed to work on me if I showed up drunk...hm..

Jumping Back In The Fray?

So now that the week long vacation from HR world has subsided and I'm back in the driver's seat of this awesome stock car called "insurance & due diligence", I'm quickly reminded why the idea of winning the lottery is all the more attractive.

Unlike other people though, I doubt I'd quick working all together. Instead I probably just work a myriad of disposable jobs for extra walking around money, and quit whenever I pretty much felt like it. And the beauty of disposable jobs is that no resume would be needed so I wouldn't have to explain to an employer why I left a job after only three days.

I pretty much figure it would go down in my head like so:

After winning 5.5 billion (after taxes of course) in the lottery, Azurael has decided to quit his HR job and go to work as a fry cook at McDonald's during the evening shift.

Azurael: Guess I'd better throw down another batch of frys.
Lamo Assistant Supervisor/Trainer: You don't need to Azurael, the first one's arn't done cooking yet.
Azurael: Oh is that how it is? Well s$*t...I quit.

I would become an epic story at least at that one resturant, not for the fact that I stood up to the man in any capacity, but probably because they would see that it is a possibility for crazy people to work there.

Beyond food service, I figure a part time job as a bartender replacing everyone's order of Vodka with Everclear would work out to be a fun night of people watching (that is until I got caught and the bar lost it's liquor license).

And if all of that fell through, I'd ask to invent jobs that I could work for bare minimum wage that would just confuse people, such as being a door man at a local jiffy lube, or being the guy who cleans the pole between dances at strip clubs.

Don't get me wrong, despite being boring or somewhat irritating at times, I'm thankful that I have this job...some for the fact that my supervisors are laid back, the people here are nice, and it pays comparable to the Army. But more so in the fact that it allowed me to drop kick my name badge on a closing shift at Kmart.

But everything being the same, there's something to be said about being rich and just screwing with people.

Something Weighing Me Down

So now that I've reduced the drinking and increased the gym time, I realize that not only am I fighting myself to get in better shape, I'm also fighting something worse...genetics.

My family is not renowned for being able to bulk up quickly. Even my father and distant uncles, who worked on farms growing up, somehow managed to get skinny and somewhat defined, but never was what would be called "built".

Prior to my new venture into weight lifting, I've also been pretty much against this type of personal improvement. Mostly because of bad past experiences with "know-it-all" muscle heads, and my pure distain for the narcissictic lifters who look at their own a$$es all day in the giant gym mirrors. But also in the fact that all body builders that get older get fat. I'm not sure if it's because the muscle mass loses strength, and fat is the easy way to go...or what. I've always prioritized running over strength because I figured in the military, it's a hell of a better idea to shoot and move rather then stand and fight.

Either way, I do know that I have a strong "max-out" mentality when it comes to trying new stuff. So I'm desperately staving off the need to buy lifting gloves, one of those enormous leather belts, and drink protein smoothies 3 times a day in order to get results quicker.

We'll see where this ends up.

"Hope Is The First Step On The Road To Disappointment"

So now that the New Year is here, I'm fully expecting to see the usual influx of people at the gym that have for some reason put off getting physically fit until a new year starts. And I know in 60-90 days, I'll see a void in place of where these new gym members once were.
Resolutions to me are pretty much the way a person says "I'm going to change......but I'll wait until 01 January to do it"..(i.e. a long term version of 'I'll start/quit x, but I'll start tomorrow). I've always firmly believed that if you don't like something, change it immediately. Don't wait for a new year, don't wait for your friends, just...fix it. The reason why I've seen so many people fail in their resolutions is simple. First, resolutions are a "big thing", where as someone sitting around saying "hmm, I shouldn't smoke" isn't. This way, if you slip up for fail, you don't feel like a colossal douche, and you keep work at getting better. Secondly, if you don't set resolutions, you don't fail, just as long as you stick to the "fix things immediately" point of view.
Speaking of resolutions and people at the gym, I've also noticed an increase of personal trainers at the gym. Now while I do admire people who hire help to get in shape quicker, I don't buy into the fact that these trainers know more about the client's body then the client does. Sure, I personally have been exposed to literally thousands of hours of different exercises designed to prepare someone for war, but exercise is pretty intuitive. If you're fat and don't wanna be, then run (noooo, don't get on the treadmill and walk fatty...we all know running burns more fat then walking...hell, I'll refrain from poking fun at your gravy thighs if you can at least give me a slow jog). If you wanna get big, lift weights. Proper lifting method? Don't use your back...that's pretty much all you really need to know. At least 30 minutes a session, at least 3 days a week. More questions? Google that beast!
However, back to the item of the personal trainer. Now in the light that I look at personal trainers with some contempt, I looked at this one with an extra special dollop of contempt because this personal trainer was FAT (ahem..24 Hour Fitness). How in the heeeell can someone who's got a beer gut give fitness advice to someone who was skinnier then them?
To expound, the following is a list of people I would not take advice and/or services from if they were fat:

- Personal Trainer
- Life Coach
- Motivational Speaker
- Someone teaching leadership skills
- A Doctor
- A Nutritionist
- Spokesman for a Diet Product
- Spokesman for Exercise Equipment
- A Hippy (although I rarely do, what the hell could a hippy eat that would make them fat?)

And the following list is people I would be more willing to take advice/services from if they were fat:

- A Chef

Hmmm...the scales seem a bit tilted

Iceburg Off The Front Bumper!

So in light of the fact that I have to venture through the Cascades tomorrow, through holiday traffic and crap tons of snow an ice, I've put the blogging on hold for today. Also because I'm hoping I can get out of here early.

On the forefront of my mind is pretty much hoping I don't end up careeing off the road into a ditch tomorrow on my quest to go home.

Here's to ya!

Welcome To Azurael's World (Part 1)

fig. 1-1 The official womens wear for my country.

So many people say "if I ruled the world", but usually only at a time when they're getting pissed off about something (i.e. traffic jams, taxes). I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that's seriously thought about how I'd run a country (not the world because who seriously wants to handle that mess?). While I really don't have the time during my blogging time to write out entire levels of government and exacting laws, I can put down bullets of information about the general gist of "Azurael Land".

National Budget

- No foreign country gets any monetary aid until we fix our own crap.

- Senators & Congressmen cannot approve their own raises.

- A National Lottery will be implimented, and only those with a yearly income of less then $70,000 can compete.

Education

- Universities and colleges will be monitored by the state, and cannot increase enrollment fees except to compensate for inflation.

- Schools who participate in team sports will receive no state or federal funds. Only schools that foster individual sports will receive support.

- All funds freed up from the pit that is team sports will be reinvested into teacher's pay, teaching materials, and after school programs.

- Any teacher or group that strikes will have their teaching certificate revoked permanently. You do not become a teacher to get rich.

Military

- In order to receive citizen status, all individuals will be required to serve 2 years in any branch of the military.

- Those who do not serve are not allowed to vote, buy alcohol, work for the government, receive any monetary aid from the government, or breed.

- During times of war fighting organized militaries, the Geneva Convention will be strictly enforced.

- During times of war fighting terrorists, the Geneva Convention will be completely ignored.

- The military will at all time keep giant stocks of napalm, flamethrowers, and Agent Orange.

Law

- Juries will be comprised of professionals trained in criminal justice and understand the system and its quarks thoroughly. Unlike todays panel of complete idiots.

- In the evidence that video or DNA evidence can accurately identify the suspect, the suspect will be immediately sentanced and ineligible for appeals.

- All prisions will be maximum security & solitary confinement. They will also be located 1/2 mile below ground, and can be flooded in the event of a riot.

- All justice officials (i.e. police, judges, political figures) who commit crimes will be subject to double punishment.

Sports

- Pro-sports teams would not exist. Period.

- Individual sports would be encouraged.

Arts

- Abtract art will be considered disturbing the peace, and ticketed accordingly.

- Interpretive dance will be considered assault on each person who witnesses it.

- Jazz will be considered an atrocity.

---More to come later!

Working In A Paper Mine

And in usual business model-manner, the superiors waited until the last minute to drop a giant project bomb on me as it relates to the budget and all departments.

Suffice to say no witty entry today, as I'll be busy as the above depicted creature.