Cruiser’s Current Thoughts

I had an AWESOME day today. Everything just went right. You know when you have one of those days? Its great. I knew it wasn’t gonna be from morning till night. Of course not. Days like that rarely occur for me.

This morning was great. Projects for work were layed out an executed. Lunch time was pretty good too, got bills paid and even relaxed a little. Went to a class, and it helped a bit with my problems. After that, the rest of the work day was just a BLISS!!!

The GYM was even awesome. LAST day of tabata and Im grateful! No more tabata for a long while! But it is effective, I will say.

I even came come cheerful. Me and my sister joked around, and we had a good time. Ate. Logged on the comp, and then…

well, read the previous blog. I got no support, but thats okay. I kept to the time, and just kicked him out. Now Im waiting for my sister to have a little chat with her.

And now Im going to go get her cause this goodbye is taking longer than I like.

Im her big brother, and like to be protective of my little sister

Heres a quick story. But a situation going on right NOW that I need opinions on immediately.

Story: Drama happens, little sister leaves house. Something happens and we (my family and I) lose contact with her COMPLETELY. This was back in August 08. So, 7 months roll by, give or take. She contacts us. She and her BF (whom she ran away to after the drama) have drama because she contacted us. I go down from cheyenne to tulsa, okla to go pick her up. She comes lives with me. I help her get all the nessessities she needs to be independent. Still living with me.

Situation: BF drove up here, TO MY HOUSE, just to see her. Tonight. As in, 10 minutes ago, I just found out.

My verdict: He can stay and ‘talk’ for a half hour, no more. In my house. Sister is mad. I say: ITS MY HOUSE. And I think IM being nice since HE was the reason we did not have contact with her for about 7 months. He did nothing for her, except shut her away from her family. I provide a lot of things for her, and help her to get started on her independent life.

What do I do. The countdown timer is he has 20 minutes left, and he is going to leave. I will not let him stay in the area, or around.

Cookies, Cookies, And even MORE Cookies: Today there was a volunteer thing at a local elementary school. I went, and we just helped a class with decorating pots and putting plants in them. WELL, after this thing (lasted about 40 minutes) they brought out a giant cookie! Cut in into squares and handed them out to the kids. ‘Theres plenty more if you would like some…’ The teacher says to me. R.Kelly: "My minds telling me NO….but my body…MY BODY is telling me YE-HESS! ..nothing wrong…." haha. Oh man, and it smelled WONDERFUL! That really hurt.

Then after this class, we went to the teachers loundge to hang out and eat snacks and refreshments while we wait to be asked to go to another class. These ’snacks’ and ‘rereshments’ consisted of the following: 4 whole giant cookies, sodas. Oh and coffee. Everyone else there is just MUNCHIN AWAY….its cool guys…not like Im on some sort of carb depletion right now or anything. Dont mind me. Or that growling sound coming from my stomach.. Will power. I got it. I HATE it, sometimes.

THEN, its wednesday night. Always a fun night for me. Get to hang out with kids. Well, I invited a friend to tag along to see what its all about. She stopped by my favorite bakery (AWESOME AWESOME BREAD) and bought cookies. When I finally arrived, WOW. She bought a NICE amount of cookies. And they were the good kind. The kind that tease you, ‘Common…You KNOW you want me, big boy…’ Im thinkin, ‘DAMNIT!’ Well, the kids enjoyed the cookies. The adults enjoyed the cookies. Im there, wanting to cry…haha. Not really. But this really really sucked. But hey, it worked out in the end. Kids liked her, she wants to come back, and I, once again show a painful amount of will power to not eating those delicious big M&M cookies. I think there were 4 left in the end. Awww….1 more day. One more day of no carbs!
And its killin me! No carbs (and I am deperately craving them 24 hours a day!) for one more day. I dont know how people do it for weeks at a time. The water increase? Wow. Its all I can say.

Weight: Dropped drastically since I started. But I can’t wait to see the final tally.

Measurements: The only think I keep measuring are my arms. They’ve stayed about the same, but we’ll see what happens this weekend. My legs are looking ridiculous! And my back..well, again, the ‘after’ pictures will tell all.

The Gym: Wasn’t feeling it again today. Im hoping Im not causing too much damage still going without carbs. ONE MORE TABATA DAY AND IM DONE.

Okay, thats my day. Gonna have my only carbs of the day right now. All 19grams. Yummy.

cookies…..

Yesterday I had signs towards the end of my session. I didnt even get to my cardio cause I wasn’t feelin it. Stopped after 7 minutes.

Today I was losing focus BAD. For some reason I could not concentrate on the exercise I was doing. I ended up turning my Ipod OFF! Helped just a tad, but my eyes and thoughts were still wandering. Gained a little back at the end, but did no cardio.
So monday: Not feelin it

tuesday: Lost focus

Wednsday/Thursday?: Who knows. These are my last 2 days when it comes to training for the MuscleTech competition. I tend to enjoy back workouts, but same with legs, which I did today. Chest I can see probably dragging, but Im not going to fall into that mind set. Im gonna go in fully determined and see what happens during these days.

The Plan: First time experimenting with ‘carb loading’ so we’ll see what happens. Water intake was increased from roughly 1 gallon a day to 2-2.5 gallons a day. Also, carbs have been wiped off my plate. And Im hungry. Now more than ever am I paying close attention to what foods have. Eating nothing but protein is a BI*CH!

The meeting: My boss can talk. He can TALK. A LOT. Had an hour meeting today that extended to roughly 3. NOT the greatest time to increase your water intake, and deplete your carbs. WOW….I was so hungry. Thankfully I had stopped drinking water about a half hour prior and went to the bathroom like 3 times before the meeting. And once during a short break. just 3 more days of this. just 3 more days….

Nothing Else: Nothing much going on anymore. I could lure you more into my mind and explain WHAT exactly distracted me in the gym, and has been putting me in a pissed off mood lately, but I dont think bb.com is truly ready for it. Different worlds, different mentality. Leave it at that.

Tuna with Lemon: Yummy….

Try it!

Okay, my previous blog explains how I went to my gym and it was still closed. An update: Made it there, 2nd round, ZERO errors. Cools. But, I get there, and its only been open maybe 5 minutes. A few cars outside, doesn’t look busy. And then I SEE IT!:

Mens Locker Room: I’ve bi*ched about it before. Naked men walking around, and I never see them working out. WELL TO-DAY, I see it with my very own eyes, that they DO-NOT workout. Im walking into the locker room. Why is there 3 people in the shower? Why are there 2 guys in the jacuzzi? Why are there bodies inside the steam room? THE GYM JUST OPENED! Is this truly all they do, but still think they own the right to say, ‘But I go to the gym…’ ?! Un-F*CKING-BELIEVABLE! What do they hope to accomplish? Do they really think sitting in the steam room is going to do them some good? Seriously, I was changing into my workout clothes, a guy walks in, gym bag and all. He completely undresses himself, then walks straight to the steam room. LAZY PEOPLE. JUST FLAT OUT LLLLLAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
YYYYYYYYYY.

The Weight Room: No sh*t talking here. The place got packed real quick, and Im glad that the number of lazy people did not out number the ones wanting to actual workout and produce sweat from making an EFFORT. Sure, there were some that were working out bad, weird, …creepy. You know, the ones that kinda just keep looking at you, and you just feel their eyes burning into your skin? But in the end, I had an uninturrupted workout session, and my last Shoulder Tabata Training. ***Posted a video on my page of Tabata in action!***

Speedbag: once again, Loved it. Video taped the whole 35 minute session. To include the 4 minute delay cause I noticed a screw had completely fallen off. Me being me, wanted to fix it. Crazy thing is, I did notice it when it fell off, it just didnt register fully at the time. Oh well. Love the speedbag. ***Posted a video of me showing off my skittles on the speedbag as well…Skills***

Lazy People: I dont like them. I dont want to be near them. I can be lazy sometimes. I enjoy it in a sense when I just really dont feel like making an effort. I truly understand. BUT, I dont do this often, or everyday, or EVERY GOD DAMN WAKING F*CKING MOMENT OF MY EXISTANCE. Phew…sorry about that. But yeah. For some reason, I found myself looking watching videos on youtube regarding obese people. And I just couldnt help but get mad. I was sersiously heading down that road when I was in middle school. Depressed, hated life, wanted to just be LAZY. I sure did struggle in MANY occasions throughout and after nearly 10 years, I finally commited myself to living healthy, and STAYING healthy. Im not into bodybuiling to get huge and compete. Just want a healthier life. The muscles and endurance are just a bonus . But seriously, everyone can change. EVERY-ONE CAN CHANGE. Its all in the person though. Are they determined, or are they lazy.

Quit using excuses as reasons why you can’t change. No one else really cares, its all about you. Your only damaging yourself. And for those who say they enjoy being like that, all I’ll say to that is: Yeah.

Just Go.

Holy crap. 2 of these were NEAR COLLISION errors! Now, my gym is a about a 2 minute drive, IF THAT sometimes. About a 5 minute walk. I drive because I really hate cold and we have 40 mile an hour winds outside and I think it said it was in the 30’s or 40’s today.

ANYWAY, so, as soon as Im about to pull out of my parking spot and head out, I notice 2 cars coming over a hill behind me. My street is a one-way street with 2 lanes.) Im thinking, ‘Okay, I got about 7-10 seconds before they get to me, so I can just pull out really quickly.’ Well…I didn’t notice that both of them were speeding. So, if it were a normal car going normal speed, this would not have caused a problem. But no, one of the cars had to swerve out of the way. My fault? Partially for wanting to get to the gym. They’re fault? Partially for going probably 45 in a 30 mph zone. Damn…close one.

SO, that JUST happened. I make my first left about 30 meters down, and hit the street that will take me to the gym. The very next street I have to cross is also a one way with 2 lanes. I reach a stop sign and, duh, stop. I notice a vehicle coming down the one way that turned its signal to make a right (down the same street Im heading down) so I figured, he’ll slow down, I’ll go since I have time. …ummm, no, he was just signaling to change lanes, for whatever reason. Only car on the road, so when I went, him having the right away, I completely cut him off, realizing my stupidiy. This was COMPLETELY my fault. Now, this happened just seconds from the first incident.

At this point Im thinking, ‘Damn. I do NOT need to be on the road right now.’ And I just have just one busy street that I have to cross to get to the gym parking lot. Im praying that I get across it safely. And sure enough…I DO! …only to notice the gym doesn’t open till 11am. DAMNIT! So I head down a road, not knowing what Im gonna do for 20 minutes, and as Im making a right before I hit a dead end, I flintch and make a left instead, not having enough room to complete the turn. I have to stop, reverse, and go the right way…

Im thinking, ‘Head home. Head home before you crash.’ So i did, ate an orange, and figured I’d blog the whole 5 minute experience to y’all. Funny now, but during that time….oh man.

Okay, heading to the gym now. Have fun people.

5 days!

Guess thats what I needed. After I woke up today, I felt refreshed, and in a decent good mood. I even started with joking with my sister. Had a good laugh.

Last night before I fell asleep, she asked me, ‘Is tomorrow thursday or friday?’ Im thinking, WHOA! WAY off, there buddy. So I say, ‘Its gonna be thursday tomorrow…’ and go to sleep. I kinda chuckle to myself.

Now, I’m supposed to be at work at 7:30 in the morning, mon-fri. First thing I hear this morning, ‘Hey, Michael. Its 7:20.’ So I say, ‘Yeah, Im not going today.’ ‘Umm, okay. Why?’ ‘Just cause. I dont feel like it…’ ‘Arn’t you going to get in trouble?’ ‘No. They dont really care if we dont come in on saturday…’ It takes my sister a moment, then says, ‘I thought you said it was thursday?’ ‘Yeah, about 2 days ago.’ I laugh, shes laughs realizing her dates are just a teeny tiny bit off…I go back to sleep for another 2 hours. Wake up feeling good.

So today I got a fairly big day. Teaching my sister how to drive stickshift, go gorcery shopping (weekly event), Hit the gym, work on my van, study study study. And not necessarily in that order. Figured I’ll get my daily dose of BB.com early so I can concentrate on studying once I start.

Saw a video of a turtle (my favorite animal) that had one leg missing but was replaced with a wheel. Pretty cool, Im thinking. And then I saw this video, which made me chuckle a bit more.

Then, I saw this one too!

My kinda turtle…haha.

Then FINALLY, the best one.

I can just hear the turtle saying, ‘Come back, Bi*ch!’ ‘Why you runnin? Why you runnin!’ haha.
Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Turtle Power!

Finally calming down after reading several friends blogs, but Im still in a sh*tty mood. I wish I could say that I dont know what it is thats causing me to be angry, but I do know. And the sad part is: No, there is NOTHING I can do to change it. Accepting it will only mean I am allowing myself to be defeated. There is only one thing that can happen, and thats what gets me depressed, which in turn pisses me off. So, here are the order of the events of today:

Morning: Wake up, go to Community Collage, take a test, miss the score by 3 points. F*CK! Head to work, take care of various little things.
Lunch: Made eggs n beans, ate with a whole wheat tortilla, YUMMY! Laugh and joke with my sister, and back to work I go.

Soon as I get back: Boss stops me and gets on me for 2 projects I was supposed to pick up 2 days ago. I explained that while they were SUPPOSED to be ready, they were not. I did indeed make contact with the people, and they said NEXT week the projects will be done. I feel irritated cause I can’t control these projects. Just put in the requests, and wait.

3pm: Head out to pick up another project that IS supposed to be done today, and I hit the jackpot. Go to clinic to sign a release form, and the guy behind the counter REALLY irritated me cause he had me do something extremely unnessesary, then turns his back to talk to someone else and ME, not liking to be rude and seriosuly trying to contain myself from saying something..umm ‘not so nice’, just stand there. He eventually turns around…

4pm: Getting ready to go to the gym directly from work, I get on the computer one last time and figure I’ll just surf a little bit before I leave at 4:20.

4:50pm: Im bummed. Im pissed. Im so completely irritated that I cant stop thinking, ‘Whats the f*cking point.’ I get off the computer, and head to the gym.

The Gym: Already pissed, I walk into the locker room and wash my hands. Just as I turn around to grab a paper towel, some ugly ass naked guy stops RIGHT before the towels. I try to quickly grab one, and I tear off a piece of it. Ugly f*ck says, ‘Oops, ya just ripped off a piece!’ Im thinkin, ‘No sh*t, f*ck head…’. So I try to grab the paper towel again (the naked f*ck is still just standing there. No towel, no shame, just gross.) and I tear another small piece off to which f*ck Face says, ‘Ya just ripped off another piece!’ "Oh WELL…’ I say as I walk off TRYing to breathe.  I just dont want to scream at him for being so indecent. Its gonna happen one day, and boy I’ll tell the tale.

I go to the weight room and begin my first exercise. Wide Reverse Grip Lat Pulldowns. Tabata. Set the timer and go to work. 2 sets in, I was dragging. (mind you, its barely a minute into the exercise) I know why, and it makes me more mad, and I push through the rest of the pulldowns. This isn’t wont be the only time it happens while in the gym.

It normally takes me just under 1 hour to complete 1 tabata session. Today, I was still lifting after an hour and 20 minutes or so. Why is this bad? 7 exercises, 4 minutes each. 28 minutes of lifting, or total for all 56 sets. Normally take about 3-4 minutes of rest between exercises, so thats maybe another 25-30 minutes equaling roughly an hour. So the extra 20 minutes today came from dragging. That is, ME dragging. This has been slowly creeping up on me since monday. I haven’t taken note of it until today. I definitely wasn’t feeling cardio today AT ALL. That was until a song came on…

The Punching Bag: The song got some anger pumping in me. What better way to take it out than to punch the bag! That’ll get my cardio session in. …well, I thought it would. I put on my gloves, have everything ready to go. Being right handed I start: Right jab…Right jab right jab, Left jab OUCH! I shake off the sting. Try another left jab, same sting. I already knew I had a cut between my ring finger and pinky, but then my index finger ALSO hurt with every jab. I tried a hook, upper, even tried just hitting the bag with the side of my hand. It wasn’t gonna work. Every impact with my left hand caused me to flintch. I wanted to work through the pain, but it was just too discouraging. So I gave up and went home. I failed.

Itailian Pasta with Mexican Chicken: I knew what I wanted to make for dinner so I made the preperations during lunch (while I was in a better mood) and began cooking as soon as I got home. Advised my sister that I wasn’t in the greatest mood just so shes aware. But made dinner, tasted really good, and got filled up. All very nice. Still not so much happy.

The books: My books for the F&N cert came in today. So thats a big plus too! I’ll be studying a lot tomorrow.
The phone call: Talk to my friend in LongIsland, and says its all good to head on up there. So this is what I need. To get away. Wish I could get away from the problem, but I can’t. Maybe a different scenery will make me see it differently. I dont know. 3 more weeks and I should be in New York.

The internet: Logged on and saw some bodyspace blogs, made me feel a little better. And here I am. a little over an hour later. A little better after writing about how dull/boring/sh*tty my day was, and how things will get worse.

Things always get worse before they get better, right?

I walk into my gym locker room and FIRST THING I notice is that the steam room is out of order.

My immediate thought: ‘Damn! What are those poor people that come JUST to be in the steam room NAKED gonna do to sweat?! They might actually have to work out…(GASP!) No way!’

Yes, I CAN be an ass*hole. But, Im just telling the truth. Truth be told. Can you handle the truth? YOU CAN’T HANDLE…a stick of butter. Too slippery.

So, on with my blog:

The Gym: Dominated the gym today. I was rocking the triceps, the chest, the forearms. It was such an awesome burn that, once again, I wanted to quit. Desire to quit=Great workout. Plus, there were some cuties at the gym, which as always, naturally makes me work harder. I guess I just dont want to look like a wimp in front of them. So I will rep out TILL I literally cant lift anymore. Love it. Love women.

The speedag: Once again, my favorite new cardio. On sunday I came face to face with a shocking reality: THE SPEED BAG WAS RIPPED! NOOOOOO! So I could’t work the speed bag all this week. Until today. I checked, and EUREKA!, theres a new one hanging! Oh, and just like taking a week off from lifting only to come back stronger, I was the fastest I’ve ever been on the speed bag today. bouncing up and down to a rhythem, singing along, 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3….over and over. The only reason I stopped is cause Im going to be using my arms again for back tomorrow, so I didnt want to tire them out too much. Saturday Im planning on filming a short clip of me on the speed bag. ‘He just wants to show off…’ is probably what YOU are thinking right now.

….ya know what? ITS TRUE! Shoot, if you could work the speed bag too, wouldn’t you be impressed with yourself? (dont lie to yourself!) I sure am. After always being intimidated by it, I can get an awesome session in.

New monitor: I bought a monitor last week cause after my laptop screen went out, I’ve been using an OLD (we’re talking, mid 90’s old) 15" monitor to do all computer work. Resolution couldn’t go higher than 800×600, and everything was crammed into the screen, I had to use a side to side scroll to view a web page.

ANYWAY, this new monitor is a WIDEscreen 21" flat monitor. IT IS AMAZINGLY BIG! I love it. Money can’t buy love, but it sure puts a smile on my face! No more bulky monitor for me! YAY!

PT: I have to just throw this in there real quick. So today’s session was a mile and a half run, and approximately  15 different stations (running outdoors in a HUGE track) where we did different short exercises. I admit, I made no effort. I kept pace with the last person on each sprint, cause I wanted to use minimal energy. I even got called out on it. The one that was directing it today said ‘Common Gaytan! I KNOW you can out sprint me!’ Im just like, la da di da da…Strollin. Why did I do this? Refer to ‘The gym/the Speedbag’ above and you will see why I was using minimal effort for the pt session.

May: BIG TRIPS PLANNED! A week after I finish my competition portion, Im taking 3 days off from the gym. Hit upper body, lower body, then DRIVING to texas on mothersday weekend. Soon after that, Im flying up to New York again! I can’t wait! I need another break. Decompress. Relax, and loosen up a bit on my diet. (next week is gonna SUCK!)

Then, after Im up in Longisland for nearly a week, I must face a sad reality…Yep. I have to come back to Cheyenne…

F*ck…..

…Im thinking to myself, ‘Why. Why why why.’ I knew what I was getting myself into when I tagged along to join everyone at dairy queen for, duh, Ice cream. I enjoy doing what I do on wednesday nights. Earlier they had pizza. Oh my mouth salivated like crazy and I think a bit of drool came out when I said, ‘No, thank you.’ ALOL. My body wanted it, I WANTED it, and boy was it a fight to just look away. But in the end, I had fun, and its always a good feeling to know that they enjoy having ya around. Pretty cool indeed.

Good Feelings: Reading Kim’s blog earlier, I looked into what relaxes me. As some have read in my blogs before, I have some ’slight’ anger problems. But there are somethings that help relax me and make me feel alright. Like today. Wednesday nights are fun. Gym time is awesome. Riding my bike is soothing. Guitar playing is relaxing. Guitar playing/singing is uplifting. Singing is encouraging. Cooking is fascinating.

And that is my list of things that help me get through anger. What sucks is that soon after Im done with these, a slight annoyance can spark anger like lighting forth of july fireworks. Sad. Truly is sad. But while Im doing these things, NOTHING can get me. Except when in the gym. I just keep to myself and then blog about it later. haha

McDonalds: Shan was talkin about how she likes to block the exit to Mcdonalds. Dick move? HELL NO! I think thats hilarious! But thats not my topic. My topic is that while reading news online, there was an article on how EVEN THROUGH THIS RECESSION, somehow McDonalds is making BANK. Dare I explain? I can think of one reason, and probably fairly, and sadly accurate, but with money low, what better way to make money than to advertise your sh*ttyass food for a buck. People, in a desperate obligation to save, will choose the full meal for a buck. End results: McDonalds makes more money, MUCH MUCH more, with their mutated food.

Oops. Did I say mutated? yeah. I did. I just read an email (In spanish so I didn’t fully understand it. I speak it and understand it, I dont read it very well. Sad.) about somehow they found the actual ‘meat’ that they’re using for their burgers. The picture looked like a chicken, but it had no eyes, no mouth,  and just extremely gross looking. And this is what they’re saying is ‘beef’. So um. Yeah. I USED to like Mcdonalds, but after seeing that, ummm, never again. They’re fries are DELICIOUS, but not worth going back. Sorry McDonalds.

Website: I just found this looking for pictures of the mutated chicken. These are genetically enhanced animals, per what the video was saying. I love my meats, I can’t give them up. But this is just… just see for yourself: http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp

Corn & Beans: I really would like to know if I can survive on just eating corn and beans. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night, whatever. Beans having a great source of protein and carbs, low fat, and then corn just being THE MOST delicious vegetable ever. You can also make tortillas out of them. But seriously, any dietitions/nutritionist out there: Can I survive on just beans and corn? I have my reasons.

Training: Resumes again tomorrow. 8 more workout days. LAST workout days. Then, the post training, final competition pictures will be taken and posted. I CANT WAIT! Man, the changes Im seeing. The feeling is phenominal! I just got to mentally prepare myself to finish strong. I HOPE that all of this is worth it in the end. I put a painful amount of effort into this competition. Damn…

Tired: Im going to bed early, for I have another LONG dragging day tomorrow…

Sleep tight people. Hope the bed bugs bite.