Moving On?

Well I’ve finally decided to give it up. I’ve spent the past 2 months dwelling on a dead relationship waiting for it to resurrect itself. But to what point and purpose? She’s moved on so why haven’t I?

I almost puked after a random conversation this week in which she revealed that her new boyfriend had discussed moving in with her. Ouch. That stung a little. So what the hell am I doing? So why am I not dating? Its not like she’s going to come to her senses and move back from Boston and live happily ever after with me. It’s done, over; there are too many obstacles between us and at this point too much animosity. Love does not concur all and that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve lost almost 20 pounds since moving to Manhattan in January. My abs are visible for the first time in almost 10 years and I’ve been noticing a lot of glances from the opposite sex lately. Its time to put my ass back on the market.

Latest chapter of my so called life

The last 2 weeks have seen me loose both a relationship and my apartment. The apartment is replaceable, but what about the relationship? Maybe things will get better in 2006.

X-Mas in NYC 2005

Fuck Boston

"We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love." -Sigmund Freud

New Plans?

I’ve been contemplating starting my own business. As of late I’ve come to feel that my I’ve become a slave to my job. I see a future behind a desk helping to make someone else rich and I find myself wondering if this is what I really want?

Three years ago I would have killed to be where I am now. I have a relatively high paying job in lower Manhattan and the life style that goes with it. Three years ago this is exactly what I wanted. For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of living and working in Manhattan. I’ve always had a romantic fascination with the culture and the life style of New York City. So now, three years later I have everything I thought I wanted ……. But alas its true what they say – beware what you wish for.

Yeah I have an awesome job, and I make a good amount of money for a 28-year-old, and I’m living a pretty exciting lifestyle and enjoying on a regular basis all that New York City has to offer. The downside to all this is the ridiculous cost in leisure time one must pay to enjoy this. I commute 90 minutes each way to work because my high paying job doesn’t pay me quite enough to be able to afford to move into Manhattan. That is of course unless I wanted to downsize to a tiny apartment and get rid of my car and most of my furniture and belongings. I work 10 plus hours a day because my high paying employer wants to get their money out of me. I have on average 2 hours of free time a day, which is usually spent doing every day things like the making dinner and doing the dishes. I have little time for anything else, and I find myself cutting back on my sleep in order to add some extra free time to my day.

So lately I’ve been feeling like a slave, a slave to my job, and a slave to my life style. My job will never pay me enough, no matter how much I make, to make it worthwhile to live here. Good housing in a commutable distance to work runs in the 700k+ range, which might get you at best a nice 2-bedroom condo. Its fun to go out in NY, and to enjoy all the city has to offer, but at some point it gets old. What was once new and exciting is now old and boring as even in a city of 8 million people you find yourself doing the same things over and over again.

So I’m thinking of moving back home and starting my own business using the knowledge I’ve learned in the boardrooms of lower Manhattan. For sure I’d be making less money, for a few years anyway. Certainly I’d miss my proximity to the city. But on the upside the cost of living upstate is a fraction of what it is here. I could buy a multi family home for what a one-bedroom condo goes for.

Of course there’s pro’s and cons to any decision…more deliberation and though will be required. My decision to move here was a simple one; I had nothing to loose at the time. A failure now could cost me all that I’ve spent the past 3 years working towards.

Bill Starr

As part of my pursuit and fascination with the worlds of bodybuilding and weightlifting I’ve been exposed to the writings of hundreds of authorities on the subject. Of those authors and so called authorities there are only a few that I would consider to be low on the bullshit factor. Stuart McRobert, Randall Strossen, John McCallum, Brooks Kubik and Bill Starr are a few.

Bill Starr is the author of the famous weightlifting book The Strongest Shall Survive Strength Training for Football. Over the course of the past 30 years his methods have been tested on the grid iron and the lifting platform and the successes of his pupils has elevated him to an elite status in the weightlifting world - as an authority who’s advice actually delivers.

I’ve been reading Bill Starrs writings for years but until recently I haven’t really followed any of his advice to the letter. Finally, having tested just about every other method over the course of the past 10 years I have decided at long last to follow a bill starr routine exactly as written.

My results over the past 6 weeks have been pretty astounding considering how slow my gains have historically been. Since the end of July I have added 60 pounds each to my squat and deadlift and 35 pounds to my bench. Still below my previous bests but I’m steadily creeping back to where I was and I‘m currently gaining strength faster then at any other point in my life.

I’m wondering now why in the past 10 years I hadn’t given bill starrs advice a try before. I guess it was because bill starrs approach is not focused on bodybuilding but on weightlifting, specifically weightlifting geared to improving football performance. Over the years as I’ve come to accept my genetic limitations. I’ve learned to accept the fact that I’ll never look like a professional bodybuilder and I will never grace any magazine covers or endorse any supplements. Coming to that realization has given me a new since of focus and empowerment. I’m now focused on building a lean muscular and strong physique. The unrealistic pursuit of a bodybuilders physique has only led me down a road of anguish and disappointment.

Technology

I decided against buying an apple, but I did test my technical prowess refurbishing a used laptop. A friend bequeathed her old laptop to me last weekend. It had been sitting unused in her basement since one of her roommates managed to infect the machine with more then 30 viruses and over 1800 pieces of spy ware. I was able to format the drive and install a new copy of windows - which sounds easy except for the fact the machine was so bogged down with viruses and spy ware that it was barely working or communicating with the drives.

Once I managed to format the drive and install a new OS I was pleasantly surprised by the speed of a 5 year old system. The machine is an IBM t21, 800mhz P3 with 512 megs of ram and a 4,200 rpm drive. I expected it to be a lot slower, but for basic computing tasks like internet and email I don’t notice a significant difference from my HP desktop with a 2.2ghtz atlalon xp with a gig of ram and a 7,200 rpm drive. The laptop was built before wireless so I had to add a pc card to access my wireless network.

Before owning this thing I never understood the fascination with laptops. Unless you are seriously pressed for space or required a notebook for work I didn’t see the point. Even a moderately priced desktop system will generally outperform all but the most expensive of laptops. Desktops have access to a broader range of peripherals and displays and are far more upgradeable. And most laptop keyboards are annoying and uncomfortable to type on. Up until now I had always figured a good desktop system coupled with a good PDA was the best way to match computing needs with portability. I have to admit however, I’m starting to understand this irrational fascination with laptops. They save space (in my case if I dumped my desktop in favor of a laptop I would save a lot of space in my tiny apartment). And lets face it - the wireless thing is just plain cool…..

Summer Update

I haven’t written in this in a while. Spending 3 hours a day commuting back and forth to work really eats into your free time.

So whats new with me?

I’ve lost about 20 pounds since January – down to about 175. I’m feeling better and my clothes are getting loser. Its been happening so gradually that few people have noticed. My strength has been climbing too – I’m slowly reclaiming all of my former strength, and by January I hope to exceed my previous bests.

I’m contemplating buying an apple computer. I consider myself a tech junkie and lately I’ve been getting irritated by windows instability and security issues. Windows is a spyware and virus magnet. I’m thrilled with the apple designs (aesthetic as well as technological) and the new operating system looks pretty impressive. Of course deciding on an apple is only part of the dilemma – if I decide to take the plunge then I must also decide on a laptop vs a desktop…ahh decisions.

So whats new in the love life? I’m starting to feel like I’m in a long distance relationship with someone who lives 30 minutes from me...

Until next time.

I'm Back!

OK – so I haven’t updated this in a while. Ever more change and upheaval in my life. Finally it has sunk in that conditions will never be ideal - so all I can really do is make the best of the time and opportunities that have been given to me. Time to stop worrying about the past and missed opportunities.

Stay tuned…

New Year & New Body?

I’ve been lifting weights since my freshman year in college. I had to take a fitness class as part of my degree and I ended up liking it so much that over the past 10 years I doubt I’ve gone more then a week without training. At the beginning of the course I had to take a fitness test which among other things benchmarked my max squat, bench, and body fat. My numbers at the time were:

September 1995
Bodyweight 145lbs
Bodyfat 15%
Bench 95 lbs
Squat 185 lbs

Over the next 8 years I made steady although slow progress. I peaked in 2003 in terms of my physical condition. Here were numbers at my peak:

September 2003
Bodyweight 170 lbs
Bodyfat 11%
Bench 305 lbs
Squat 420 lbs

I added 30 pounds of muscle to my frame while more then tripling my bench and more then doubling my squat over the course of eight years. I have more of a runners physique then a bodybuilders so I think my progress was pretty impressive considering my genetic limitations.

Like everything else in life, the road has gotten a little bumpy. 2004 was a year of distractions and setbacks. A shoulder injury kept me from training heavy in January. In March my father had emergency heart surgery. In may and June I was traveling due to work. In August my grandmother passed away. In November I aggravated an old neck injury. As a result of all these events I became lax at the gym and even more lax with my diet. I gained a lot of weight in the last year and haven’t made any progress in terms of building more muscle. Here are my numbers as of January:

January 2005
Bodyweight 195 lbs
Bodyfat 24.3%
Bench ??
Squat ??

My goals in terms of physical development for the new year is to get back down to 10-11% bodyfat while trying to build a few pounds of new muscle.

New Years Resolutions

I always make new years resolutions, and for the most part I’m pretty good about sticking to them. My resolutions in the past have always been a bit simplistic, so this year I decided upon something more aggressive. This year I have resolved to start doing things that I would normally find uncomfortable and would thus avoid. In general I avoid situations that I’m uncomfortable with and until recently I was only dimly aware of this being a problem. I tend to avoid situations that take me out of my comfort zone, such as driving to strange places, or joining conversations with strangers. I imagine this resolution will result in a major overhaul of my lifestyle as I begin to appreciate just how often I shy away from things.

Three years ago I also made a series of life altering changes. I was at the lowest point in my life, things had fallen through with my long-term girlfriend and I was working at a shity job that I despised and living at home under the oppressive scrutiny of my parents. Meanwhile all of my friends had graduated from college and found jobs and moved away. It was during this period that I met someone special who taught me that bad situations are temporary and that I really hadn’t scratched the surface of life. After this revelation I took a serious look at myself and decided to do something about my situation. The changes I made are so simple and obvious to me now, but at the time I really was unaware that anything better lay in store for me.

So once again I am confronted by things that are within my power to improve. Now that I am aware that they exist it is up to me to either defeat them, or continue suffer from them.

A good start to the new year.

I’m a little encouraged by the start of 2005. Although I got piss drunk and embarrassed myself I did manage to spend the evening with someone I care about. The events of the past 5 years have left me with an acute appreciation for time spent with others, especially on special occasions.