Author: hsoi

2011-05-05 workout

/ hsoi

It may be Cinco de Mayo, but there are no 12oz curls in today’s workout. 🙂

Today was MUCH better than Monday’s workout. Mentally I was there. Physically I pushed harder too. My shipment came, so yesterday I started loading creatine. No idea if that actually played into today’s performance. I will probably continue to load for just another 2-3 days and then go on a general maintenance amount of 2-5 grams (not sure yet). It seems the modern wisdom is you don’t need to load any more, nor cycle. Just keep on a daily “maintenance” dose and always take it every day.

Anyways, the workout went well. Felt good. But I certainly am feeling like I’m not getting enough per bodypart any more. I do want to switch to a split and have more work per part. However, I’m going to stick with this at least for 2 more weeks. It’s generally recommended to stay with a routine at least 8 weeks to see how it does. I may switch off at 6, but I may not… but won’t consider it before then. It’ll play into the discipline factor, and THAT mental game is important.

As for supplements.

  • Multivitamin. Right now just finishing out the jug of the “basic” multi from Costco. It’s good enough for now, better than nothing, and I’m not going to waste it.
  • Fish oil. I forget what the capsule amount is, but one of those a day.
  • Optimum Nutrition’s 100% whey gold standard. I like it because it’s one of the best whey’s out there, and well… it’s got digestive enzymes, which really help on the uh… “intolerance” factor. 🙂  I try to have at least one shake a day, maybe two, depending how my overall protein intake is for that day. Certainly have one after a workout.
  • Optimum Nutrition’s Creatine powder. Pure creatine, (CreaPure). Doing a small load right now just to get me going, but I’ll eventually just revert to a standard 2-5g dose per day every day. Take it in the morning on non-workout days (whenever my shake is), take it after workout on workout days (in the post-workout shake).
  • A lot of water. I’ve got a 16oz glass. I wake up, drink one of those. As soon as I have to pee, I’ll drink another full glass. Repeat this throughout the day. Keeps me rather well hydrated. I’ll have at least a gallon of water a day.

And that’s it. Nothing special, really. There’s all sorts of fancy shit on the market, but I don’t need to worry about that until a lot later. The male ego can’t help but be curious if it’s truly of any use and could get faster gains, but later. Right now my body should make great gains just because I’m new and fresh.

The bigger thing is diet, and that’s hard for me. The main thing? I’m not in control of the menu and the kitchen. Wife’s domain, and I don’t have time nor ability to short-order cook everything. Thankfully, Wife’s a fantastic cook, making not just great tasting stuff but also very conscious about what we’re putting into our bodies. Just that the needs of me, Wife, and 3 Kiddos doesn’t always align with my needs, thus some flux in the supplementation. For instance, last night Wife made this tomato pie (think a savory pie, like a quiche). Tasted fantastic, but not much for protein, so I threw back a scoop of whey in 8oz of water to help make up for it. But I can still do my best to watch my portions and exactly what I choose to put in my mouth.

Anyways, onwards. Enjoying the work. Enjoying the progress.

Perspective

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

A man named Derek Miller makes his last post — truly, his last post (if that page doesn’t load, try here).

Derek died just a couple of days ago of cancer. I don’t know him at all, just found his last blog page via Fark. He wrote the page while he was alive, with instructions for it to be posted after he died.

Derek writes about perspective. Most of us live our lives thinking we will never die, but when you have a terminal disease and know you’re dying and your time is limited, I can only assume it consumes your every thought to some extent or other. Obviously Derek accepted his mortality and used it to give some good advice for living:

While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I’ll miss these things—not because I won’t be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won’t have me there to support their efforts.

It turns out that no one can imagine what’s really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can’t expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won’t. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That’s neither bad nor good, but it is real.

I think and hope that’s what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible—so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.

As I have gone through life, I find the main reason people want to live, whether they realize it or not, is because there’s so much they don’t want to miss out on. The reality is, we all miss out on a lot of things every day. Why do we focus so much on what we don’t have, instead of focusing on what we do have? We spend all our time trying to not miss out on things, and in doing so all we’ve done is focus on trying to not miss out on things, which means we probably missed out on those things as well as missed out on a lot of other things too.

It reminds me of an Eagles song, “Learn to Be Still”

Now the flowers in your garden, they don’t smell so sweet.
Maybe you’ve forgotten the heaven lying at your feet.

We can’t stop death. We can’t avoid death. But what we do have control over is how we live. Live your life well.

Situational awareness

/ hsoi

An excellent piece on situational awareness.

The money quote:

Carrying a firearm for protection is a great step – you have the best tool available for the job of defending yourself. However, if you miss the early warning signs and have to be accessing that tool after the attack has started, you’re way behind the power curve.

Twitter

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I don’t know what came over me.

I’ve decided to pay a little more attention to Twitter.

I obtained a Twitter account (you ought to be able to figure out it) mostly to ensure the name was reserved. Then I hooked up my postings here to auto-publish to Twitter as well. But mostly I ignored Twitter in terms of keeping up with it, posting to it, whatever.  But something bit me last night.

Upon the suggestion of a friend, I’m trying out Twitterific as a desktop client app. Like all things the Icon Factory does, the interface is beautiful and well-thought out. Obviously a lot of influence from iPad and iOS development. But really, it’s slick and well-done.

We’ll see how it goes. I doubt it’ll be a primary source for me to send information out, but I’ve been spending the morning finding people to follow that might present news or information I care about. We’ll see how this goes.

Progress!

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ll just let Alice Tripp tell it.

SB 321 by Kleinschmidt/Hegar to allow the legal possession of firearms in an employee’s personal, locked vehicle when parked on their employer’s parking lot passed the second reading in the Texas House today at 7:48 pm.  The vote came after nearly 3 hours of debate and attempted amendments.

SB 321 was substituted for HB 681, Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt’s bill.  SB 321 by Sen. Glenn Hegar had already completed the process and had passed in the Texas Senate.

Rep. Kleinschmidt and his 98 co-authors successfully fought-off gutting amendments that would have turned the bill on its head by requiring specifically designated “gun parking areas” offered by Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) and another amendment would allow the employer the right to vehicle inspections.  It was offered by Rep. Juan Castro (D-San Antonio).

Seven amendments, not acceptable to Rep. Kleinschmidt,  were attempted and all failed.

The debate led off with Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) calling a point of order.  If the point of order had been sustained, the bill could have been slowed down or killed.  The point of order was overturned.

Senator Glenn Hegar, Jr. (R-Katy) has passed this legislation twice in past sessions but it’s a first for the Texas House.   The legislation has always stalled in House Calendar’s committee.   In addition to the hard work of Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt (R-Lexington), special thanks must go to Calendars Committee chairman, Rep. Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi) and Speaker Joe Straus.

Thanks also to our House Committee Chairman, Rep. Joe Deshotel (D-Beaumont), for his patience and for his help at the front microphone.

The next step is the vote on third reading.  Then SB 321 will return to the Senate for a last approval or discussion.    If all goes well, it next moves to Governor Perry’s desk and could take effect Sept. 1, 2011.

Insert title here.

/ hsoi / 15 Comments

Uh… guns, politics, beer, lifting weights, heavy metal, computers, programming. You know, blog topics.

Busy today so far, busy day ahead. I’ll write more later if I can.

In other news, I think puppy wants to play the deer that wander into our backyard area. We haven’t known what to make of how she acts around the deer… until this morning, when a doe came up to the fence to eat and Sasha started making play requests (the body posture, the bark, etc.). Deer didn’t want to play. 🙂

Oh… anyone in Austin, do you know if there’s any store in town that sells Speer Gold Dot .357 Magnum 135 grain? I want to try some out.

2011-05-02 workout

/ hsoi

Not feeling it today.

For all the great progress and improvements I’ve made every workout well… eventually you have to stumble. Today was that day. 🙂

I don’t know what it was, but I have a few guesses. When I started my jog to the gym, another person was out jogging. I thought to myself that I’d like to see if I can keep up with them or even pass them. It was evident I wasn’t going to pass, but 1. that did push me harder, 2. at least I tried to keep pace. That confirms what I knew, that my jogs decline as I go along… slow down, stride decreases, etc.. By the time I got to the gym I felt I had worked harder than usual. I start into my lifts, squats, bent-over bb rows, bb flat bench press, and I found myself still breathing hard and also pushing every rep a lot harder, a lot faster, a lot more explosive.

I think I wore myself out.

When I did barbell curls and rope triceps pushdowns, I was pretty zonked and opted to just superset them. I was just starting to feel drained, and even felt like I could go home and nap for a few hours.

I know I lost the mental game. My brain never was into the workout (I recall not wanting to go, but no… you must push yourself through), and it just got worse.

I still pushed hard. I still worked towards muscular failure. I did go up in weight in some exercises, but stayed the same or dropped reps in other exercises. But pushing harder during the set well… you tell me how it all went. It’s not just about numbers, it’s about overall impact.

I still think it was a good physical workout, just not a very good mental one. Not going to worry about it too much.

I have been thinking about how to change the routine, but I’m not ready yet. I’ll stick on this at least 2-4 more weeks before I switch. When I do switch, I’m thinking about doing a 2-day split, 2x week (e.g. Mon/Tue, Thu/Fri). Probably upper body one day, lower and abs the other. I’m going to keep the same exercises I’m doing now, but then add an isolation exercise. So for instance, bb flat bench press, then cable flies. Not all strictly that way tho, for instance the bent-over bb rows but then lat pull downs… not isolation, but ensuring a more thorough workout for that gross body part. Not totally sure, still thinking it through for what would be best and not lead to overtraining.

He’s dead

/ hsoi

Osama bin Laden is dead.

I wonder what difference it will make. Ten years later and it feels largely symbolic at this point, but it’s still good to have a madman gone. What difference will it make? I’m sure within some circles he’s now considered a martyr, but how much will that strengthen the cause? How much was bin Laden still in control of terrorist efforts and actions, thus will his demise actually weaken anything? It’s too soon to tell, but I do hope it leads to positive things for the world.

It feels like not just a chapter has closed, but a whole volume. What will be interesting is to see how the next volume will develop in light of this incident.

Hail hail the witch is dead!

Wild Hogs in Austin

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

No… the Republic of Texas biker rally isn’t for a few months yet.

I’m talking about feral hogs.

Apparently they started showing up in a northeast Austin neighborhood.

I can’t say I’m surprised because I know friends that live east of Austin have seen them running around. And so, the feral hog problem starts to come closer to home for the urbanites!

You know… I’ve got 6.8 Special ways to take care of a hog problem. Just give me a call!

Tho granted, the best way to try to manage this is going to involve trapping. If they’re as small as the article reports, trapping should be more effective AND they better do it now because they’re just going to reproduce like the plague.