rawlife’s BodyBlog

   My brother and I got in a long discussion the other night.  I told him about some awful news I read in the paper about a forest in the Yukon, 6.5 million acres, totally and completely destroyed by fires and a beetle that had previously not been able to make it through the low temps of the winter, wihch now, due to temperature increase, thrives.  It’s just really unforuntunate.  It’s upsetting to me how many people are still hiding behind their comfort, calling global warming a farce.  This is an exhibition of a high degree of ignorance.  The argument has never been whether or not the the weather is changing or that the average global temp is up a degree and a half or so; the argument has been whether or not people are the cause of it.  The fact that the global average temperature has increased isn’t arguable-it’s observable, measureable and agreed upon.  I can, at least, accept that people want to argue whether or not it’s their fault. 

    Anyway, a big part of the solution is finding as many simple infficiencies as possible that the average man can change.  Scientists, researchers, and engineers are going to have to take care of the tough stuff, making our factories, cars, power plants more environmentally friendly, but the public needs to pick up the slack in the daily grind.  I’ve got to be honest, it’s really not that hard, there are leaks literally everywhere.  Plug’em all and we can make a damn big difference.  The end product is the goal here, but to be honest, it’s pretty damn fun, if you ask me.

    I’ll give you a good example, my hobby: trees.  Trees, by nature, are not a good long term solution, but they do have the ability to buy us some time, which would be real nice, in my opinion.  Much like some baby animals in the wild, something like 9 out of 10 saplings die in the wild simply because they are choked out by others, or they’re not getting enough sun, or enough water, or etc…This is a source of giant potential here.  In one area we have a total surplus of trees, in other more urban areas, we have a total shortage.  If we know that a lot are being wasted when a lot are needed elsewhere, we have the most perfect situation ever to do something good!  Even more perfect is the situation in parks and even reserves where maintenance teams are cutting the grass.  Every year seeds fall, take root, and saplings grow.  Every late spring, early summer, they are cut down.  They are guaranteed to die.  Why not just move them?  All it takes is a little get’up and go!  When tree harvesting, you still have to think about preserving the forest, but you also have to accept the truth, and that is that most of these trees will die where they are and also that there are very many here whereas there are very few there.  This combination makes the solution real friggin simple.  You just have to do what works and forget about the fact that it’s illegal or against the rules of the park, or whatever it is.  Many hardcore environmentalists will be upset, and many law abiding tax payers will as well.  You just forget’em and do what’s right.  I’ve been doing this for a while now and I think it’s great.    

So here’s a pic of Thor and Odin. my two Oak saplings that I took from the miliary base because they cut grass. 

There were many many growing, basically all destined to die for one reason or another.    These leaks are literally everywhere, in every walk of life; you’ve just got to think of them.  We’ve got use what we have in front of us and figure out how to make it better, more efficient.  And, again, sometimes, you’ve just got to think about doing what’s right, and what makes sense versus what is legal.  Sometimes you just don’t give a **** whether what you’re doing is legal or not; you know it’s the right thing to do, so you do it anyway. 

   I’ve been so sore from that crossfit session the other day that I’ve been crushing lb after lb of meat like its nobody’s business.  Just been craving it.  2lbs two days ago and 3lbs yesterday.  My triceps don’t even feel like they are a part of my body, rather some alien lifeform on the backs of my arms squeezing the shiit out of me, causing me pain.  Inglorious Bastards!

   Anywho, this is gonna be a short one.  I’m still hard at work on the project, it being my main motivation for the workouts right now.  That and, of course, the back-which I am happy to report has taken another leap forward due to another exercise I developed for a clear weak link in my body.  Its goin in the book.  As you can see, I’m actually startin to look like somethin here.  On the other hand, my legs are starting to lag again, which I suppose I could have predicted.  I’ve found good biomechanical substitutes for deeps squats, but load is a problem.  I think I might get a weight vest. 

   It was nice, but more than that, it was productive aiiiii.  I’ve kind of unconsciously come to the conclusion that I need to be more open about my various weak spots.  The first being women.  The last couple of times I’ve talked about it, I’ve known that my feelings(not my opinions) weren’t going to be real popular, but I figure my actions will be even less popular if I keep having these…tendencies we’ll call them. 

    I find myself, as I’ve written about before, in the very stereotypical of being the kind of guy who is relatively, if not totally, uninterested in women who are my own age or a few years older, along with women in general that don’t match my definition of what "attractive" is.  So anyway, I might have gotten a few people perturbed last night, but hopefully they’re all my friends and they understand…even if it was the first time hanging out with a few of them.  Nonetheless, I got a lot of out it.  It seems like when you’re open about these things, you learn at a rate that must be 10x the rate learn at when you keep things inside. 

    So already today I started feeling a bit different, allowing myself to be attracted to women whom I knew my body was definitely attracted to-see that’s the thing, it’s not like I find them unattractive, it’s more that when I think about it, I find IT unattractive…the whole situation-’oh crap, be with them, they’re going to start looking old, I’m going to desperately want out…’  Yup, that’s how it goes in my head. 

    The one thing I don’t think I will ‘get over’ though is this idea that I’m not 100% sure there is a whole lot of reason to have to be with the same person forever.  That seems somewhat limiting to me.  I understand that to others, it’s the opposite of limiting, but as of yet it’s not that for me.  I’m not particularly attracted to meaningless sex and relationships, but being with one person forever might be letting the pendulum swing a little to far in the other direction. 

   In other news, I crushed some cross-fit yesterday.  We did some "Cindy," and I came in last place.  To my defense, that was because I was the only one using some semblance of good form, eller hur Matte, Joel?  Eller Eller??!!

    It’s been so long since I blogged blogged that I thought I might as well get on the horse again; I’ve been meaning to anyway.  I’m grubbin on a little din din right now, so I apologize if this takes a while.  I’ve got about .5lb raw beef, some dill, some nuts, and some chopped onion in one of my two favorite bowls and I’m goin at it. 

   The book is on its way to being done here.  I’ve got basically all of the context done, with the exception of a few little parts.  I handed it over to a buddy today to see what he thinks…we’ll see if that turns out to be a good idea or not.  I was a little apprehensive letting my close friends read it given that I might not agree with what they are saying and it could turn out ugly-probably mostly on my end though, I’m the one who is notorious for not being able to take constructive criticism that well.  Honestly, you should just see me, it’s like watching a terrible accident happen.  I’m very insecure in that way-when people tell me I’m wrong about something.  Really wish I wasn’t, and would love be a WHOLE LOT more in control of my responses to people when they have a discussion with me of that sort.  So often it just ends up with me talking 95% of the time, pointing out step by step why they are, in fact, wrong, and not me while they get a word in maybe every 3rd paragraph or so.  It’s embarassing afterwords, I feel like such an idiot donk.  It’s weird how certain things can really press your buttons…but I’d bet my bottom dollar it has a whole lot to do with your past experiences.  That’s it for now, I’ve got some work to do.

l It’s been too long-especially after I specifically said in my last blog how I was going to keep these pics coming on their scheduled days.  I apologize, I’ve got to become more reliable in regards to this.  Anyway, I’m home and got a new little pocket camera now so I don’t have to use my big one, which is nice-I’ve got a monster, Canon Mark III 1ds, for my trips…pics are just a bit too big for this medium.  Anyway, workouts are going very well and I’m putting on quite a bit of size-hope it comes through in the pics.  In addition to that the book writing and editing is a rediculous thorn in my side, but it’s going well. 

   I’m home now, but I’ve never had jet lag like this.  I didn’t get to sleep until 3 last night.  The night before was almost 5am-I’ve never had to wait 7 hours to fall asleep.  I get nervous when I don’t sleep, something about it really freaks me out, like I’ll never be able to sleep again.  I’ve found that I can so easily fall into negative cycles, and when I see a potential one, I get really worked up about it….and then, of course, I’m not able to sleep.  As is usually the case though, there was a silver lining.  That anxiety has caused me enough problems over the years and I think life just decided to take over and teach me a lesson in relaxation.  So as I was laying, not sleeping, I kind of consciously went through my whole upper body and relaxed it bit by bit, calmed my breathing and said certain phrases, whichever ones felt right, over and over again.  It was really therapeautic.  The night before was just awful, I was nauseaus the whole next day. 

    Anyway, since I’m home I figure I’ll start writing a bit more.  I’ll keep updating with weekly pics too, time to get my butt back in shape, yo.  I decided to change the workouts a bit.  After that last HIT workout, I got a bit hooked again.  I’m gonna do a split for now, but still do it in high paced HIT fashion.  Today I busted some chest, front and medial delts, along with some tris.  Good times.

   So here’s what’s happening: I’ve been eating a lot the last couple of days.  Being vegan for those few days and visibly losing muscle pissed me off a bit and I ending up going too far in the other direction.  That’s alright, it will come off when it is time for it to come off.  Right now I don’t mind too much though because the main goal is to pack on the lbs.  In other news, I have been filming a bit: filmed my first HIT workout in forever as well as dinner preperation.  It was fun.