Hey, I’m not trying to be all bandwagony here, but the whole Crossfit movement has a good thing going; and while I personally like having more control of my own programming, I do think that working out in that environment could be fun for a change of pace for a few weeks between cycles.

This is why I purchased the following and I think that, if you live in the Richmond area, you should too. Maybe we’ll even be workout buddies one day, and you can kick my ass in a Helen, or Alicia, or…. Stevach. Whatever they call their workouts.

…But get on it quick, because I think the deal ends tomorrow or the day after.

I used to have a blog. It was pretty cool. I loved it, nurtured it, and watched it grow like a radish patch in Farmville. Also, much like Farmville crops, nobody cared about it really; but I cared, and that’s all that mattered.

Then, one day… I forgot her.

I couldn’t really even tell you why, exactly, that I put it down. But a lot of things have happened in the “personal/family” life in the past 8 months or so, and I think the dust is still kind of settling on my psyche at the moment, so I’m going to chalk it up to that for the time being. I think when you’re going through what may or may not be a quarter-life/identity crisis, that it’s a good idea to step back for a bit and ask yourself why you’re doing the things that you do, and whether or not you should continue doing them.

I’ve definitely come to the realization that there has been a good bit of “wheel spinning” in my life, and while a lot of my wheel spinning to the casual, outside observer may look like forward progress (and I consistently justified it as such to myself), an observation from a good friend, who is close enough to me to see things for what they really were, opened my eyes to the reality of my current situation: I constantly fill my life with what are generally considered “positive” things hoping to scratch an itch that is not scratchable by external factors.

Also, when I fall short of my own expectations in said activities, I completely beat myself up about it until I no longer even want to do the activity I set my heart on. I’m pretty sure that’s called “negative” reinforcement, and I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m currently a negative reinforcement junkie, and need to straight up get. over. that. shit.

I’m not going to dig too much into that here, that’s a story for a completely different kind of blog, but I give you all this back-story to tie back into this here badass blog that has had good days and bad days. Or at least that’s the way I’ve looked at it previously. When I was writing frequently, and focused on a topic, I thought of things as being “good”. When I wouldn’t post for a whole week, I’d beat myself up about it, force myself to sit down and write something, anything, and then publish it.

Well I’ve decided that, at least for now, I’d like to continue blogging. I actually do enjoy it when I’m letting it come naturally, and excited about whatever it is that I’m writing about. All the Paleo stuff is awesome, and I enjoy reading about it, experimenting with it, and writing about it. I like having goals that I write down and release into the wild; and I like achieving those goals, not for other people, but for myself.

You may think since I haven’t been writing, I also haven’t been keeping up with the fitness aspect of things. Well, don’t worry, my dedication to fitness has not waned in the least. I’m a firm believer that if you’re a “fitness blogger”, if one of the two aspects of your repertoire should fall to the wayside, it should be the blogging part, and not the fitness part…That’s just stupid.

So I’m still squatting weekly, pulling 350+, rock climbing occasionally, and here in the past couple months or so I’ve been running twice a week, generally ranging from 4-6 miles per go. I’ve got some cool stuff coming down the pike on the fitness goal front, and I just did the SoCal Tough Mudder, so I have plenty of stuff to write about if I so choose.

Where is all this rambling going? (Look, I’m rusty okay)

Well… this is me, saying to you (and more importantly, myself), that I am still a blogger. However, I make no promises on the frequency of posts, or consistency of quality (as if there ever was), but I’m just going to… write. And write when I damn well please. No more stressing over it, because bottom line is, this is supposed to be fun and motivating for me.

Unless somebody wants to start paying me for this mess, in which case I will write on the regular, about pretty much anything you want (holla at me).

I have not perished. I’m taking a much needed, if unplanned, hiatus.

Good news? I got a promotion at work. Bad news? All the added work I’ve got on my plate now is threatening to kill me.

I plan on coming back online come the new year, and will post the Whole 30 write up then (I’ve actually written most of it, but just need to brush it up a bit).

In the meantime, here are some E-cards that resonate with, or (sadly) embody me… For those of you offended by the F-word, feel free to not read:

I feel like anybody who works out legit becomes a legal drug addict. An addict to the greatest drug on earth: endorphins.

Last week I really kicked it in, and I notice the energy, motivation, and mood all improve the more cardio and lifting that I do. The biggest thing I like about endorphins is that unlike other drugs (which i wouldn’t know anything about) it’s on the layaway system… you know, like at K-mart back in the day: You pay for it up front, and only after you’ve paid dearly, do you get your prize.

Other drugs are like credit cards… It’s all, “Yeeeaa, party now!!” and then next thing you know they’re repo’ing all your magic the gathering cards and adopted children that were cool back when you did it because Madonna and Brangie did.

But seriously, think about a night of drinking. You drink, feel great, lose your debit card, vomit, pass out on somebody’s couch, and then all the next day you’re completely worthless and swear you’ll never do that again (at least that’s been my experience… back in college. Not now).

Not so with endorphins. You put in the pain, suffering, and discomfort before you get the pay out… Plus, the best part of it is, it’s actually good for you. Unlike the alcohol that you pour down your gullet, which has no real value… other than it enables you to numb your insecurities/shame/logical thinking abilities if the situation calls for it.

My only complaint with all this is… It’s taking a lot of time. For months I was on a 3-4 days a week workout schedule. Now we’re looking at 5-6, and while it certainly feels good and I’m sure will pay off long term, it’s not giving me a whole lot of time for blogging or working on other things. I’ve also been doing a good job of cooking Paleo food, so as anybody who puts in the effort to eat Paleo knows, all that shopping and time in the kitchen eats up on your precious “after work” time. So now that the workout schedule is starting to solidify, I need to figure out how to lock in the rest of my life.

….If you’ve got any pointers on that, please feel free to lay them on me.

Man, things keep going down that try to keep me from getting this blog back on track, and it’s starting to piss me off. This post was originally entitled “Top 10 reasons Bangladesh can go and f#%* themselves”, then I calmed down a little bit and it was “Top 10 reason we should invade Bangladesh next”, and then I read through my list and, while hilarious (to me), it was extremely non-PC and I realized that someday I may in fact want to visit Bangladesh, and since I’ve had a few visitors from there I would hate to be stoned during a vacation….

But let me explain…

I recently attempted to login to my blog so I could write something wonderfully insightful and profound for the world to feast upon (as I’ve been known to do), only to be greeted by this:

I like how these assclowns have a copyright for their impressively creative group name: "underground hackers"!?.. At least throw a z on it like any legitimate group of 30 year old mamas boys would: "hackerzzz".. Now that demands respect

Awesome…. Turns out my whole ISP got hacked, so at least I wasn’t alone in my victimhood. We all got PWNED by what I’m sure was some 32 year-old Bangladouche living out of his grandmothers basement, pissed as hell that he recently got fired from his job at a Dell call center for playing World of Warcraft on the clock.

Good news is, I’m back online. Unhacked, and ready to rock and roll.

Oh my god.

Evidently, post natural disaster is not the most enjoyable time to work for a utility company. Many people don’t seem to understand that folks in our company are working around the clock (currently doing 12 hour, day/night shifts) to makey things go workey again, and some even get angry that things aren’t getting fixed as fast as they’d like and it’s our fault… like we made the hurricane happen.

Also, just in case folks weren’t aware, we don’t make money when you aren’t using our product. So obviously it’s in our best interest to get everything resolved. Get it? No ticky, no laundry…. Always wanted to say that (Departed reference).

So as a result from the long work hours and lack of electricity at home, this week my sleep, diet, and workout routine have all gone straight to sh*t. Not very good timing considering the strongman competition is one week from today, so I’m less than ecstatic about that, but I’ll just have to make due and hopefully get after it pretty aggressively over the course of the week to feel good about Saturday. Either way, as long as I successfully complete one event, I’m going to chalk it up as a W for the team.

Alright, back to work, here we goooooo (Saturday 12 hour shift… The things I do for you people).

Last Monday was once again the sometimes dreaded, but always needed, squat day. If you’ll recall from a recent post, squat day didn’t exactly go as planned on the previous go around, so there was a little trepidation for this next round.

We went heavy again, but for triples rather than singles, and thankfully at 285# I hit a triple without incident, thus erasing my less than stellar squat the previous week and totally redeeming myself… Which prompted me to share this video clip, for no real reason other than the fact that it amuses me.

Ah yes, what a great movie.

Anyway, sorry for being a bit sporadic with the posting the past week. It’s been insane: bachelor/going-away party planning, pre-bachelor party cleaning, earthquake, pre-bachelor party drinking (need to flex the tolerance a bit to make sure I still got it), and then instead of the actual bachelor party, we had a hurricane induced practice bachelor party, since a lot of folks aren’t able to make the trip due to weather, but the bride-to-be was already on his way… so we just went with it.

Now my house is filled with trash, beer bottles, and dirt, and my yard is covered in debris, burned out tiki torches, and a cable line that got ripped off the side of my house.

So that being said, due to cleanup and recovery from hurricane of mass destruction (whether it be in natural or alcoholic form), and considering the fact that I’m still out of power, my posting may be a bit patchy over the next few days as well. But I’m hoping everything is back to normal here soon.

Hope everyone out there made it through okay!

I’m getting a bachelor party organized for next weekend, so it’s understandably on my mind. A friend sent this my way, and I think it appropriate….

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook yesterday. I’ve never actually seen an episode of Jersey Shore, but was introduced to an abomination known as “Jerseylicious” recently, and if it’s anything similar to this… All I can say is, watching this almost makes me ashamed to be an American… Then I remember how awesome it is to be an American, and that “hey, I’m American”, and the pride returns (but damn do we have some dumb-ass TV).

This is your fault... You know who you are.