Tag: Movie

Daily Life

Happy As a Hippo

I really, really like the idea of maintaining a bullet journal. The engineering side of me appreciates how logical and organized it is. To be able to easily see and track tasks, events, and future plans just makes sense to me. I would like to be the type of person who is that organized. Unfortunately, I’m not and I don’t understand why.

A week ago, I said I was going to give it a try again (probably the fourth or fifth attempt). I rewatched the bullet journal video. I got everything set up. Dates and days added, tasks and events entered. The next day I stared at it. The following day I simply stared at it again. It’s now been a week… and I haven’t touched it. I literally don’t know what to put in it. I really don’t need reminding of the few tasks I entered. Anything critical is already on my electronic calendar so I’ll get a reminder.

So now what? Do I just enter stuff in for the sake of it? Maybe if I just keep writing stuff in it every day it’ll become a habit. But why? I’ve somehow managed to live a lot of years without a journal. Is my life really going to be better if I become a journal-person?

I don’t know what it is that I’m trying to solve by continually going back to the idea of the journal. Clearly there’s something I feel I’m lacking or missing out on. All the minimalist and entrepreneur-types on YouTube and Twitter say it’s the path to productivity. Maybe that’s answer – I just don’t feel productive. Perhaps continually trying to journal is a way to force myself to be more productive. But do I really need to be?

I’m reminded of The King of Scuba in the silly movie Along Came Polly. He tells Ruben the story of the hippo. The hippo painted stripes on himself to be like a tiger, but everyone knew he wasn’t a tiger. He put spots on himself to be like the leopard, but everyone knew he wasn’t a leopard. Finally, he looked in the mirror and decided he’d just be a hippopotamus. And then he was happy.

I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not. Being an uber-organized overachiever is not me. No matter how many times I try to journal, the end result will be the same. I am not a journal person. Never have been, never will be. Relaxed and care-free on the beach like the scuba king is more my personality. This is officially the end of any attempts to be a journal-person.

Ahhh… see, I’m already relieved.

Be like the hippopotamus. Just be happy.

Health

It’s All About The Butt, Baby

I just got back from the gym. Spent a bunch of time with the strength coach trying to figure out how to fix my back issue. After a lot of pain, tests, and movement analysis the verdict is in. My problem is that I don’t have a butt. None. Zero. My legs just end at my hips.

More specifically, a major part of my problem is that I never engage my glutes when moving. Like, at all. Rotation, lifting, bending, walking, running… my back is doing all the work. And because I have a weak core, it was only a matter of time before something gave out. This also explains why I can’t dance.

The good news is that it’s fixable (maybe not the dancing). The bad news is that it’s going to hurt and it’s not going to suddenly get better overnight. Why-oh-why didn’t I figure this out thirty years ago?

Back in the stone age when I was in high school, there should have been an “adulthood 101” class. The value of compound interest. Investing. Changing a tire. What to make for dinner for the next 50 years. The importance of an actual, daily, fitness regime. Instead, we learned the quadratic equation on the off chance we might someday work with gravitational physics. Oh, and dodgeball.

So here we are. An aging adult who now has to learn how to engage a major muscle group and build up some significant strength – or face daily pain and physical limitations for the next twenty years. Yeah, that’s not intimidating at all.

I was watching show last night that described the decline in physical fitness in the US since the ’60s. The difference in where we are today vs back then is shocking. How in the world did we let that happen as a society? It’s really criminal. The scary part? I don’t think it’s reversible. Excluding some sort of apocalyptic survival of the fittest event… you’re not going to convince 300 million people to suddenly get off the couch every day. Back then President JFK actually said, “…there is nothing “more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children.” Today, any politician that dared to suggest such a thing for our schoolkids would be instantly shouted down and cancelled. It’s discriminatory. We don’t have the funding. It shames kids who aren’t athletic. It’s racist. We can’t hurt their self-esteem. Besides, it’s really hard to have a proper PE class over Zoom.

I’m now faced with a hard decision. I either find a way to push through pain, change my daily routine, and learn a new athletic skill at my age… or I move to the couch, seek out a Norco or Oxy prescription, and accept that my ability to ski, play golf, ride the mountain bike, run, and hike is fading.

I don’t like either choice. I want to go back to the days when I could just do stuff and not worry about injury or pain. I don’t like strength training, never have. I get zero enjoyment from going to the gym. But I don’t like pills and I don’t want to give up my activities. It’s a quandry.

I’m not a quitter. Hopefully, this is the catalyst to make those necessary health changes I’ve been meaning to get around to. Because as a very wise man once said, “I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.”

The Dude abides. Now excuse me, I’m headed to the gym.

Health, Motivation

I’m A Cheater

It’s not something you really want to admit. But confession is good for the soul, or something like that. So here goes… I’ve been cheating. Now in my defense, I didn’t realize I’d been cheating. Let me explain. If you haven’t been breathlessly following my every post, I’d recently written about a life altering change – I switched from clip-in pedals to flat pedals on the mountain bike.

TL;DR – I love them and don’t know why I didn’t switch earlier. But it has exposed one flaw. You have to constantly keep more pressure, or force, on the pedals otherwise your foot will slide off. So now I’m generally pushing a harder gear than I’m used to. What I’ve discovered is that with the clip-in pedals I was able to “relax” quite a bit when pedaling. While my legs were going around, I was essentially coasting far more than I realized. If I try that now, my feet come off the pedals.

So I was cheating at the effort I was putting in and didn’t know it. I could never figure out why my climbing speed never seemed to improve. Now that I have no choice but to push hard, presto, my speed and power output are much greater than before. Crazy how that works.

We all cheat, we just don’t like to admit it. I’ve never had much upper body strength, my shoulder is kinda jacked up, so I suck at things like push-ups. So what do I do? I ignore doing push-ups because I don’t like them and can’t do very many. Unfortunately, push-ups are exactly what I should be doing. How many of you are avoiding doing the things you know, deep down, you should be doing?

Confronting our flaws and weak points is hard. If it was easy, we’d already be doing them. But the older I get, the more I wish I’d been stronger about conquering my weaknesses when I was younger. But you’re never too old to start. Deep down, you know what your weak points are.

So pick one. Resolve today that you’re going to start working on it. You’ll thank yourself later. So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can do a push-up. Don’t laugh. I’m pretty sure this will look like the Bill Murry push-up scene from the movie Stripes. But you’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

Cool, Daily Life, Lists

Notions Of Cool V.013

A random list of things and shower thoughts that an old guy (who still thinks he’s 20) finds cool or worth pondering.

  • While on vacation I listened to a podcast with Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate. His main platform is advocating for a Universal Basic Income. I do not agree with him, but was intrigued enough by his argument that it bears further investigation. He thinks that the coming economic collapse due to job loss is a crisis we can’t ignore. More to come on this.
  • I was diligent with sunscreen my entire trip… except one morning. It was very cloudy and overcast and I sat in the sun for an hour and a half before I realized I had no sunscreen on. Can you say – flaming red lobster? And I have dark skin and don’t burn easy. Probably not what the dermatologist will be wanting to see on the first appointment.
  • I read quite a few books on technology and innovation. It made me realize just how pitifully behind the times health care is. Hospitals are truely a bastion of “we do it this way because we’ve always done it this way”.
  • I’ve started exploring Minds.com. I’m not sure I’m smart enough or hip enough.
  • Rewatched the movie Safehouse with Denzel Washington on the plane. Pretty damn good movie.
  • I am most definately not in ketosis. That was a solid week of carbs. I kept the calories (mostly) in check and worked out… but there were plenty of carbs and sugar. And now – I feel like crap. My stomach has been upset much of the week. First time I’ve ever wanted to go back to a more restrictive way of eating. I truly feel better in ketosis.
  • The hound has been ballistic since we picked him up this afternoon. Order has been restored to the universe and the family is together again. This is a good thing.

Song of the day: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “Bad Reputation”