This past week had two memorable dates. The first was the 8th anniversary of Mom's departure flight to Heaven, flying in first class! Fortunately, I have already checked in for my upcoming flight, but the departure time is always so last minute.

Man

That said, I look forward to reconnecting with my folks...AND staying! What does a Blue Plate Cafe look like on a street corner of a restored Earth? I gotta think a non-fallen western omelette would be SPECTACULAR.

It has been way too long of a time apart and this world has gotten so WEIRD! Men running around dressed up like women and beating them at women's sports because of their MAN DNA—and I am supposed to applaud that? That is what these knucklehead corporate sponsors do. Geez, that is so anti-competitive. What's next...

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That man ought to...

1. Study The Last Dance (2020) series. He will put that dress back on the rack for whom it was designed.

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2. Watch the Band of Brothers miniseries. My favorite scene in the entire series:

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3. Consume Jocko Willink's book, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win:

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Fitness and the Fire Within

I delight in The Last Dance because not only does it highlight Michael Jordan's competitiveness, but also uncorks an untouched bottle from '92 to '98, a span of time that I value dearly. There is always a cartoonish depiction of the '90s—we were not all looking like Eddie Vedder or Gwen Stefani! Honestly, the way I look now is the way I looked then: a shirt with cargo shorts and a belt. That summed up the decade for me.

I mean, I did LOVE my best friend entitled all-purpose khakis but I am led to believe that was my personal trait:

I could wear them...

1. With a tie to work at Piggly Wiggly;
2. Worship at church;
3. Attend school;
4. Play basketball.

I found that they felt like the pants of a heavyweight dobak/gi. And thus, I split the seam of many khakis along the way. I do not know if my black, Dan Post cowboy boots ever worked with khakis but I wore them all the time.

And a character trait I had in whatever context I wore those khakis was...competition:

1. Piggly Wiggly: Always the fastest sacker; won smiles from my female peers; and I just enjoyed digging deep when I labored.
2. Church: Ah, my poor Sunday school teacher.
3. School: I never saw grades as competitive. I felt the whole process was arbitrary, a viewpoint I would hold for the next 20 years when I graduated with my MA and continue to view today. In high school, I never studied and got the grades I wanted. But, there was a scoreboard regarding social engagement. In hindsight, I wasted too much time with a mirror in my pocket, a comb at hand and breath spray / Winterfresh gum at the ready.
4. Basketball / Martial Arts: Inherently competitive. In basketball, I would always guard the biggest and play in the low post to rip out rebounds or get knocked silly with putbacks in a different era of basketball:

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The second memorable date that I referenced at the outset of this entry ties into my own competition for and against myself. Six years ago on April 2, The 1st Expedition was launched. I weighed in at 321 and began a journey of education in the most effective way to lose and maintain lost weight while also achieving greater agility, stamina and strength.

I committed failures along the way to achieve that goal, but I did find the answer regarding weight. The answer?

Do not eat sugar (carbs). Eat what your forefathers ate before the agricultural revolution. Be who you are.

That answer seems obvious to me now. But long did I heed the advice of "authorities." Now I question all authorities because they cannot even get the basics right! How am I able to trust the complex? They are no better than a loinclothed shaman with a year or two of Latin language, dancing in circles around the object of a patient with a lit incense stick in front of a crowd of hooping and hollering nurses.

This music video and its lyrics are an apt analog. And his patient rides shotgun:

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Another big turning point for me was my time in PhD studies when I recognized that I grasped things more readily than those for whom tutelage I was under. This ability was confirmed by another professor without my prodding. Is it too much of a leap to think those with a PhD are not a whole lot different than others given an MD? I have no paper on the wall, yet I continue to challenge ideas, learn and grow. Do those who possess a terminal degree continue? As much as I love the '90s, I fear the doctors of today just keep a cassette on hand of what they tell their patients.

I walk the walk. If it works, I will champion it. If I just have been told it is the right thing to do, I walk back. Gotta show that proof in the pudding.

But again, all of this is under the umbrella of competition. To become better, you gotta challenge yourself and by extension, you are challenging ideas of the best way to win. And unlike conflict or a sporting event, there is not an easily definable target to achieve—yes, of course folks use that number on the scale. Mine remains 163 lbs with a dream of 155, but it is more than that. Sure, I could hit that mark by ripping out body parts or taking my table saw to a leg or two. No, the assumption is to become the best 163 version of me, which is a goal that is like finding the slope of a curve; always approaching 0, are we not?

I am not going to cheat myself through long-term fasting, semi-starvation dieting or to MMA cutting weight to bounce on that goal. I want to thrive at that weight. I want to earn it by my own hand.

Status

I took up the crutch yesterday—who knew I would go back to that?! I have been busy the past, few days—OK, busy everyday. But yesterday, I got around to taking the vines/overgrowth/overhang off the gate to our pool and clearing another portion of the "yard" atop our pool's concrete decking. I also dumped the last 11 lbs of calcium into the pool (need more, but that was what was on hand). I then spent time in a 66℉ pool in an air temperature of 59℉ hoping I could restore my leg.

However, it did not, so I grabbed the crutch for the next leg that afternoon that involved me dropping that same crutch for a wheelbarrow to cart debris to the curb. I even somewhat trimmed a shaggy bush while wavering in the wind. I hesitantly stepped down into the pool for a second time in the late afternoon for another revitalization attempt.

I like the idea of blood being rushed to the internal organs to pick up some rich nutrients and then later be sent back to my leg. As much as I do not like inflammation and swelling, it is such a good thing for me. The reason we hate on inflammation is because we are doing something stupid that makes the body respond with inflammation. My guess is that this is the same response our culture has toward cops. I have heard arguments regarding the same attitude for cholesterol, like blaming the firemen for the fire, that ol' correlation vs causation thing.

After 13 days in a row of being @thePool for at least an hour, I am afraid that with this noontime air temperature of 48℉, I'm gonna have to cancel today's session. I'm No Stranger to the Rain—I metaphorically and literally thrive in it. Around 5-6 PM yesterday, I was out there as the rain punched holes through my pool's surface tension.

But as far as mud, I had enough of mud in '98 working a hand auger to grab test dirt for All-in-One gas stations. And the good times were the new sites. The bad one was at an Exxon that had gasoline infused into the soil; I was at the bottom of an 8-foot hole, delighted that there wasn't a smoke nearby. That convenience store had an item that I ate there and inexplicably have never found again: chicken jerky. Shouldn't that be ubiquitous?

And then there was that time at 17 when mud's grasped a hold of my truck all the way up to its bumper when I was eager to try out a section of TN-385 2½ years before its completion in September '98. Ahh, my boots were made for walkin'.

As for today's rain's mud, it is looking doubtful that I'll be ripping greenery down. There was some talk about getting the city inspector out to take a gander at our sidewalk forms to the door, but I'm guessing they won't give him a holler 'til ol' Hulk comes by for those old concrete segments, which have decorated my lawn for nearly 3 weeks now. They jackhammered one segment, and I was actually the one to throw it onto my ol' trusty Ace Hardware wheelbarrow with my $6 Harbor Freight gloves and cart it to my contractor's work truck. So, I guess I am The Hulk. Makes sense.

This Reelin' in the Years reminds me of a recent experience. I stepped inside Stewart Brothers Hardware on Hwy 70 and I might as well have ridden up there in a DeLorean. It was as if I was a teen again. I remember the times walking over there with my Dad looking for some odd bolt to get a Chief 17 running or whatever for our print shop was in a bay down the alleyway next door. I used to walk up daily to their receiving bay to dump trash into the bin there—on one occasion on that dumpster walk with the two-wheeler, I specifically remember listening to a new song by Garth Brooks: That Summer. Later, to my Dad's chagrin, I threw away my 1979 F-250's topper in that bin—hey, I sat at The Cook Kid's Table in '94-'95. Our print shop moved out to Somerville in my college years, but would come back to that same area again, after my time working with my parents, this time just across the parking lot at the new structure.

I mean, MAYBE Stewart Brothers has had one upgrade in all the years for I spied some LCD monitors (those displays emerged to replace CRTs in the mid-00's). There was even the same woman there that was there some 28-31 years ago. Stewart Brothers imparts on me the same feelings as I do about my Great Oaks Church at the Barn—but that store STILL exists. After spending the past couple of years around the ghosts of UofM for even 2012 is dust in the wind, it is encouraging to see something unchanged by time.

Yesterday's soundtrack was '90s Alternative, from Found Out About You to Far Behind (with a just handful of skips along the way).

I got out there to run my new Harbor Freight Atlas 80V Brushless 21-in. Self-Propelled Lawn Mower through its paces. Before it was all said and done, I managed to be outside from 11 AM to just before 5 PM.

What did I do?

I fired up my '90s tunes of Bartlett and took a couple gulps from my iced Tactisquatch Roast, yes that same one of the mug I own. Yes, my absence from coffee is over. I forgot that coffee heals me. My quad/knee was not a significant factor for the afternoon.

And thus, I embarked:

1. Cut the front and backyard grass for the first time;
2. Removed more sticks including some on the back of the property that is unfenced;
3. Cleared that STRANGER THINGS evergreen ground cover down the length of our pool sidewalk and the subsequent tangling vines—some with thorns;
4. Pressure-washed mud away from the cleared sidewalk;
5. Skimmed the pool for an hour-and-a-half while in it.

Along the way about 3 ½ hours in, I encountered a heat event that rocketed my heart rate to 174. I had EXTREME fatigue, light-headed/dizzy, was hot on a cloudy day and felt a tingling sensation in my hands. I thought I had kept myself hydrated throughout, but I must have failed.

At any rate, I tossed 4 cups of water over my head and could taste the salt streaming down my face. Thus, I popped back about 4 pinches of Redmond's salt, drank some water and sat down to gather myself. I tried the wet shirt over my head thing, but that was just laborious (and ridiculous). I then put my tools away and grabbed the recharging battery to finish mowing around the pool.

And while I missed my 1 PM date with the pool, I had a lot of skimming to do and could use the cooldown, so I gladly waded in those 71℉ waters with a skimmer for the next 90 minutes. There was not a space open on the shallow end that was not splattered by bits of plants and that was in the context of being careful in my yardwork.

It is a funny thing: later that evening on a trip to Harbor Freight and the Oakland Walmart, I felt refreshed. My leg in short bursts functioned better than it has in months, like pre-August levels. Eventually, an ache in my shins would overtake me, but it is promising. This daily schedule in an upper-60s pool has had a profound impact on my training.