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‘Had an awkward moment at the Cincinnati WEBN fireworks Saturday night. I was walking down the path behind Serpentine Wall and, out of nowhere, one girl in a group of three bolted at me screaming, "Hey, muscles!" and proceeded to squeeze my bicep with both hands for a split second before running away. Sadly, I think she would’ve been too young anyway. Haha!

My buddy said I was red in the face, and of course I would be: that’s never really happened to me, and how are you supposed to react to something like that? After the fact, I was kicking myself for not turning and yelling, "Thank you!" I never saw who they were. And will never see them again. The memory, though, will last forever. Until I forget it in my senility. But I’ve got about 50-60 years until that happens.

On a serious note, I’m giving competing next spring much deeper consideration. I’ve now had two friends ask if I was going to, and I think I’m finally gaining confidence. My buddy reassured me that, even though I may think it’s embarassing to get on stage in front of thousands of my peers in a skimpy pair of trunks, I am competing to be "one of the buffest guys on campus." He also said I’ve got a noble shot at winning it, so I’ll take another 2 months to evaluate the quickness of my progress to determine if I’ll be ripped enough to gun it for the highest spot. I think hollywoodomega would be happy. I’m still trying to find information about the competition, though. When the time comes…

Seeing as my weight gain goals seem well within reach (165 by late August and I’ve already gained 5 lbs in less than a month), I’ve almost convinced myself that I might compete next Spring. If I weigh 180-190 by February/March with enough mass/strength to go around, I’ll cut down to around 170 for it. It’s weird thinking that I used to want to keep my weight down below 130, and not 2 years later want to push the threshold higher than ever. I’m glad my efforts are finally paying off, though.
I never thought I’d see the day I would even consider getting on stage in front of people while minimally clothed. Even if I don’t, it’ll push me to work harder, eat bigger, and get big huge. The only thing I have to do is ignore my friends’ judging my alleged steroid use and the grief they’d give me if I get up there. Let’s see how it all turns out.

Alright. I finally bought a bathroom scale now that I have monies to throw around. The weight seems about right compared to what I was before and my new diet for weight gain. But do I really have 17.2% body fat? It doesn’t seem right. I’ll have to check to see if everything is calibrated right, but my body does not look like 17.2%. It was incalculable not even a year ago, and now it’s way up? I haven’t gotten fat, so something must be wrong with the scale (am I in denial? Haha). We’ll see, Taylor scales… We’ll see.

Edit : So apparently these scales suck for body fat anyway. 9 times out of 10 it proves to be grossly overestimated (at least on BB.com forums). Either I’ll bring it back and just get a standard weight scale or forge on with this piece of crap and consistently hate myself for being a near-obese man in an ectomorph’s body.

Can anyone explain to me why I have the oblique ridge on my left side but not my right? This has baffled me for years.

I don’t overbalance ab workouts to one side. No oblique has been favored over the other. 12 for 12, 8 for 8: you name the alternated exercise, a balance is always struck. It’s not entirely noticeable if you don’t look for it, but when I do see it, it bothers me. Anyone else have this discontinuity issue? Any way to resolve it? Some medical explanation as to why it happens?

Damn, it feels amazing to be back at it after taking a week off. I’m staying at school this summer, so I took a week to go home and take a break from everything here. I didn’t work out last week because the gym charged $5 per visit for students, so I said F it. I think the rest was all I needed. I kept up my supplement regimen, played some intense frisbee a few days… I didn’t lose time. All I know is, this summer will either go really well or really poorly. I’m working on getting my buddy to go to the gym with me every day. He’s knowledgeable when it comes to weight lifting moves and I know he’d push me harder than most people could. Fingers crossed…

I think tomorrow might be measurin’ day (I would measure tonight, but that would be cheating, considering I got done with my workout a little over an hour ago). I finally found my tape in the mad cleaning adventure I’ve been on for the past few days. It’s amazing how dirty one room can get.

It’s been a few months since I measured, but I’m not expecting any drastic gains. I can’t (personally) see any big gains in myself. I guess tomorrow will be the moment of truth.

I finally pulled the trigger on a tub of AAKG powder from Higher Power. I’ve been reading up on arginine for the past I-don’t-know-how-many months and how amazing it is, but I couldn’t really afford it. Casein and whey took the priority for the most part. But, the time had come, I finally had a little extra money to spare, and I went for it.

The results? I felt like I could push myself a lot harder than I ever could before. Maybe it was myself telling myself, "There’s nothing but the here and now. This set is all that matters. Push it." I’m sure the powder had a lot to do with it, too. I busted through my rut with the overhead press, and every other set came more easily. I’m hooked. Hooked.

I had a guy at the gym ask if my abs were perfect while I was doing side flexions off the bench. Considering this has never happened before, I struck up conversation like I do in any other situation. We discussed the routine I was doing earlier (lying on a bench, doing a leg lift straight into corkscrews), and he asked how I did them and what they worked. I showed him how the side flexion worked, and he said, "Yeah–I can feel it workin’!" Not 10 minutes later, I saw him trying both out. I’m glad to see I fulfilled his "You learn something every day" quota. It was after midnight, so he learned early. Haha!

You read that right: Pasty. Not pasty as in the delicious northwoods Michigan meat-stuffed pastry (pronounced pass-tee), but pasty as in white, ghostly, borderline albino. I got a ripe-nasty sunburn over spring break, and it’s all but gone now. I feel like my body would look better with a tan; like it would show definition better. From my experience, people look better with them than without, so I will probably pull the trigger on a package here before summer kicks into gear and quickly accelerates to 80 miles per hour (read "degrees"). Hopefully I can get outside enough to not have to spend money to lie in a bed when I can just walk out the front door and lie down (even if it is passed out drunk). We’ll see.

I can’t be sure what happened on Saturday, but I somehow managed to climb to the Top 6 profiles on BodySpace. What happend? Haha. I can’t think of what I did that could’ve sparked that kind of interest in my profile. It’s not a bad thing, of course! I’m truly honored, but taken aback at the same time. Thanks for looking, everyone! I hope we can benefit from each other.