Week 3

Week 3

Day 11

July 11, 2011

I am hurting right now!!! Up at 7:00 am. No math, Zoie had an Oral exam with the state teacher today and I try not to be present so she's own her own. She did well, by the way, and her math teacher has nothing but good things to say about her. Huge turn around since last year at the public school... I cannot say enough great things about the home schooling stuff. I wish I could say this is the future but it does require a lot of work on the parents end and I don't see the majority of parents taking up the slack there.

Work was ok. Nothing horrible happened.

Stopped to get some gas and a couple of drinks for the wifey and I on the way home. Got home and started my workout. Here's where it gets good! I did my 2 mile warm up run. Did some stretching and went right into my weights. Started with combos, on to isos. But about half way through my iso lifts my arms and back started getting shaky. I was pushing right to the edge! I have been here before and pushed through it, right into injury. Tonight I recognized it and stopped! Now I am sitting here typing and every move hurts but feels so good at the same time! Once again I pushed right to the edge and then stepped back... Awesome! This is extremely motivational to me. I can't wait till I can do the same thing with my mind. And now for something completely different.

Random question of the day: Are you a hero or a villain?

Let me preface this answer by saying that I think most people who are asked this question desire to be both. Not me. I don't desire to be either. I am intelligent enough to understand the world is made of average people making the best decisions they know how. One person's hero is another's villain and vice-versa. One man's paradise is another's hell. One man's good deed is another's evil, etc. Why would I even want to be one or the other or both? Humans always seem to need a comparison to place themselves in there own minds. For example, If you feel hot it is because the environment around you is cooler than you are. If you are fast it is because others are slower than you. If you want to feel good about yourself you identify people around you who you think are bad. If you want to feel bad then you find some good people and you shock them with bad behavior. How unproductive and silly. Progress is not good or bad, righteous or evil. It's just productive. In short, screw emotion. Just do what you have to do.

New daily segment! We have a temp working for us now and she cleaned out one of our offices today. Coming by to check the scene, I noticed an old and busted paper back dictionary in the trash. I picked it out and said thought what a great addition to the project. So here is the plan. Every day I will randomly open to a page and pick the first word I don't recognize. That will be the word of the day. I will post the word of the day and use it in a couple of sentences.

Today's word is efficacious. Meaning, being capable of producing the desired effect. As in: Our congressmen do not seem to be efficacious in dealing with our budget and deficit matters!

Day 12

July 12, 2011

Good day, but not for the project. Up at 7 due to hangover caused by 1, yes 1 drink. 1 green apple Joose! I am seriously considering hopping on the wagon for the duration of this project. Work was frustrating but tolerable. As soon as I came home I had to dismantle our main ac unit, flip it on it's side and blow it out with the compressor. It was leaking condensation into our dining room due to a drain hole being plugged with junk. Once cleaned out I reinstalled it and went straight to work on the tub project and put up and caulked the last trim piece. All that is left is to reinstall the shower head and the curtain rod. It's 10:30 pm now so I won’t have time for a workout or studying tonight.

Today's word is paramour. A paramour is a lover in an illicit or adulterous affair. As in: Bill Clinton's secret service agents were not efficacious enough to keep his paramour hidden from the media.

Today's random question. What do you you believe is on the dark side of the moon?

Oh! Isn't this common knowledge? On the dark side of the moon there lives a race of creatures know as Cantseemems atallums. They are curious little creatures who's existence is only known about through the overly dramatic interpretations of astronaut dreams. They have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, hair, two arms, two legs, ten fingers and ten toes, walk upright and are a lot like humans except for the fact that they look nothing like us. They can pick up American television although only 3 channels, Fox News, CNN and C-SPAN. They tried to learn our language from this but failed miserably as they could not mimic the humans ability to talk through their asses. They use to get around on foot until they happened across a funny little car that someone left in the middle of nowhere. They go about there lives much like we do but they only eat, eating moon pies. Some of there hobbies include bathing in moonlight Growing moon flowers, watching the Moon Over Parador and Moonstruck, drinking moonshine, cconceiving moon children and the tango. There are of course invisible to the naked eye. But who walks around with naked eyes any way. That's indecent. Try throwing a shirt and pants, or for god sakes at least some underwear on you eyes and you will see that these little devils are everywhere on the moon. Just ask any astronaut that has actually been there. Humor aside, I'm sure there's plenty of nice moon rock on the dark side of the moon.

Day 13

July 13, 2011

Today was good. Up at 6:30am and Zoie took another math test. She did very well although she took her time and made me late for work. Work was an adventure in ridiculousness. Came home and started my workout. Ran my first 3 mile warm up in a while and it felt good! Went straight into the weights and did my normal sets. When I went to do my situps though, I found that one of our dogs left me a a motivational gift right next to where my head comes down. I worked hard right to the end and found the limit again. Arms and back shaking. Right to the edge of the envelope, right where I want to be. Going to read from Wiring Simplified which is a guide for making sense of the electrical code, for an hour or so tonight.

Word of the day is recalcitrant. Recalcitrant means a stubborn resistance to authority or guidance.

As in: It should be expected that corporations would take recalcitrant attitudes towards regulation.

Today’s random question: If your best friend was cheating on their spouse, would you say anything?

Hmmm. Depends, whether or not they have kids. I am a bit of a libertarian in my belief that it's not my place to tell other people how to be moral. If there are no kids between them then I would not say anything to the spouse, but I would make a point of telling my friend that I would never do what they are doing. If there are kids involved then my friend is hurting his or her kids in ways I will not get into here. I would not tell the spouse directly but I would arrange for the spouse to be in the right place at the right time to see what he or she needed to see.

Day 14

July 14, 2011

Up at 6 am. Had Zoie complete 2 math assignments and then it was off to work. Absolutely nothing memorable happened at work today. Back home I had to finish a couple of projects in preparation for our house guests this weekend. Took a quick 2 mile run and showered off.
 

The word of the day is elide. To elide is to omit, or to slur over a syllable of a word. As in: The general idea of Ebonics is to elide over syllables in words that are inefficient to pronounce.

Today's random question is: Paper or plastic?

Hmm... Are we talking grocery bags or currency? If we are talking grocery bags than plastic. Far less energy is wasted producing and distributing plastic bag to paper and plastic bags can now be recycled. If we are talking currency, than I say paper. I am a plastic hater. I do have a debit card but I do not and will not own any credit cards. When you pay for something with a credit card not only are you locking yourself into paying more that the product is worth but you are also cheating the retailer that you are buying it from out of 2-3% of profit. Many retailers are just raising their prices and passing the credit costs on to you to maintain their profit margins. In a time when our economy is growing by less than 1% a year, we could pump about 2% more into it by just buying everything with cash. This is of course ignoring the basic fact that the credit card companies are more profitable when you are slow paying and maintain large balances. In short the credit card companies want to profit off both the consumer and the retailer, and actively try to maximize the profit from the consumer by doing their best by keeping you in debt. Cash is still king.

Day 15

July 15, 2011

I'm taking a day off today from project. We have some friends in coming from out of town to stay the weekend with us and I will not have time to do anything till tomorrow. This week has not left me much time to progress but I promise next week I will have more time and it will be different.

Day 16

July 16, 2011

Up at 7am. Lazy day. Had a french toast breakfast with the fam and our friends. Had to do a grocery run and spent the afternoon continuing to pick up oak branches from the half an oak tree that fell in our yard a couple weeks ago. Did a 4 mile warm up run for my workout. Felt good! Feels great to be hitting the distance again. Had some company in the Sunfire gym today. My friend Ricky from Virginia pumped some iron with me and showed me a couple of lifts they're doing up north now. One kicked my butt. It involved holding a short bar with a cord and a 10lbs plate attached to it straight out from your body and rolling the bar and the cord with the weight up and down. This is tough and lights up your forearms fast! Otherwise I lifted my normal sets. Felt good.

Today’s word for the day is pillory. A pillory is a piece of wood with holes cut in it designed to hold a person captive by their hands and head. I think this is what I would call a 'stock'. As in: I believe any impeached president should be locked in a pillory and be the target of rotten tomato projectiles.

Today’s random question is: Who is someone who you think history has forgotten?

Easy one. Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes, using light, discovered the Earth was round 200+ years before Christ and even devised a method using shadows to estimate the Earth's diameter. His figure was amazingly accurate. Eatosthenes and the intellectual word knew the Earth was round and even had an idea of who large it was over 1500 years before Christopher Columbus was born. Eratosthenes was just one man in a collection of intelligent men AND women who built and maintained the library of Alexandria. Who knows how much the world really new before it was destroyed. History has done it's best to forget the library and in my mind, Eratosthenes, the first man to prove the Earth is round.