TDotCom

yesterday and today i was asked to run the vault at a True Team Section meet at the ole stomping grounds (Park HS). I’ve been running the pole vault at various meets for, well, this is my sixth summer out of school, plus the couple two or three years that i came home and helped out when i was in college… so we’ll say my 8th year running the vault at the end of the season meets. It’s a lot of fun - i’ve gotten to meet quite a few of the coaches and even the vaulters i’ve gotten to know at these few meets (especially the ones who’ve been vaulting for a couple years) - or at least i recognize them.

Yesterday sucked balls, because we were unable to get the vault in due to the weather (it’s not safe to vault in the rain and while i enjoy fun like everyone else, it’s not my style to be putting kids in bad situations). almost sounds like i’m going the route of responsible??? what is that all about. regardless, the decision was made to put the boys vault off until today. which means i get to run both the boys and girls vault in one afternoon - in the same time frame as which it is expected to run just the girls vault.

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It’s that time of year again!!!

It’s on…

…like donkey kong!

i’ve been toying with the idea of playing football again this year - this time with a GPFL team, the St. Cloud Fighting Scots. and after many conversations with the wife and with myself, i’ve decided this year it’s just not going to happen. not an easy decision to make, but after i thought about it, well, it just isn’t that difficult to see what the right decision is - it’s just not the favorite decision. this is one of those times when the right decision is not the same as the favorite decision. i’ve just got too much on my plate right now, with wurk, the fitness center, the other ’side jobs’, spending time with the wife and dog and just life in general. i’ve been looking at the pros and cons and i even made a pseudo-list (i didn’t write it down, but i did have the list in my head). there were only two pros on my list: i get to play football and i have something to write about on my blog every week (that last one really isn’t that big of a deal, cuz as you can see - i’ll blab about other stuff). the cons however….

• time - playing in st. cloud takes a bunch of time, even if practices are only once a week
• money - with gas already at $3/gal, this summer’s road trips are not going to be cheap and right now katie and i are working hard to get ourselves completely out of debt (save the house mortgage). this would put us right back into the spending rut.
• safety - i’m no spring chicken and i’m not completely sold on the solidity of the OL and the ability to keep myself from compromising situations on the field. i don’t recover nearly as fast as i used to and i’m not in the best of shape right now (sure, i’m stronger in the weight room than i think i’ve ever been, but that’s only part of being ‘in shape’, i’m greatly lacking in the cardio endurance).
• family time - last year was extremely tough on katie and my relationship, she liked that i was doing something i liked, but at the same time, she spent a lot of the weekends working while i was out playing. that’s not fair to her and we didn’t get to spend nearly as much quality time together as we should have as husband and wife.
• cocoa - with both katie and i working full time, cocoa is kenneled up during the day. i don’t care for that and neither does katie (i’m sure cocoa doesn’t like it too much either). not playing this summer would give me more time to spend with my hunting buddy and continue to work on her training
• weekends - playing football is fun, but it also depletes every weekend during the season. i haven’t been fishing nearly as much as i would like and bird-hunting season in the fall has also been limited. a couple days out on the golf course would be nice and spending time with friends and family has been so rare it’s not even funny.
• business(es) - hey, i’m a small business owner - that takes time to run. the fitness center is going pretty good. we’ve got a lot of things planned in the next year and we’re still getting our methodologies worked out. that combined with the fact that i’ve got wedding photos that i took in february that need to be finished (i HATE red-eye) and a couple website projects that i’ve had to turn down because i just don’t have the time. even less time with the addition of a football season.

there might be more that i’ve got on my list that i just can’t think of right now - and that’s a by-product of not writing down my list and trying to have everything in my head - but you get the idea… my priorities have shifted. it’s not just me i’m thinking about here. i F’ing hate it, but it looks like i’ve grown up - NO MEGUSTA! but at the same time, it’s not all bad.

i’ve got pictures of the new equipment for the fitness center, tis most excellent and we’re all really excited about it (including our members, which is a good thing). i’ll post them later tomorrow (i promise).

well, i certainly did whine quite a bit yesterday, so i’m going to be a little more positive today. while i’m still somewhat sleepy (and as soon as katie comes home and the load of laundry is finished, it’s bed time). i was able to get some things accomplished today and that’s a good thing.

i promised a photo of the fitness center today, so here we go:

I’m not even sure if i’ve really let everyone in on the lowdown with the fitness center. here’s my attempt at such long overdue explainings:

last winter, katie was working at horizon chiropractic. a client and owner of a 24hour women’s only fitness center came in to tell dramy (the chiro) that she was moving to washington DC and had to sell her business. (i call her dramy cuz her name is amy and she’s a doctor… dr. amy… dramy, get it?) dramy and angie (the fitness center owner) had begun their businesses around the same time, so they got to know each other fairly well; both being in health related industries in river falls, they did a bunch of ‘new business’ stuff together. dramy jokingly said katie should buy the business… little did she know, katie was having a similar thought. that night, she and i talked about it during dinner. i kinda laughed it off at first. but i got to thinking about it and the next day i called katie and told her to get more information about it. well, she did and we weighed the pros and cons and had many a discussion about it. we asked a friend who worked at a bank if he wanted to partner with us and at the time, my dad had just quit his job. well, the friend decided it wasn’t in everyone’s best interest (as he was living quite a ways away). so we asked my dad if he would be interested. in an email he wrote; “if you don’t buy it, i’ll buy it myself” - we knew he was in. so we did it. we formed an LLC - T’s Health & Wellness Center was born. (i didn’t come up with the name - that was katie’s suggestion. my suggestion didn’t get too far: “Fitness U-Foria” or FUF for short! eh, eh? nah).

We purchased the fitness center on December 1 - slowly but surely, it’s become more and more “ours” as we painted and have made changes to the place. we’ve got a decent client base and we’re progressing (we’re getting some new equipment next week! and we’re all pretty excited about that). so now you all know about the fitness center in a nutshell. i’m sure i’ll be talking more and more about it as time goes on.

AM REPORT: usually thursday is a running/agility day, but the track boys have a meet tomorrow, so we lifted frid lifts today: bench and squat 3×5 - after yesterday’s poor performance, i honestly wasn’t expecting much this morning. i was still somewhat tired - just worn down. but i did have a decent day, broke some records even. bench - 325, 340, 350lbs squat - 415, 435, 455lbs.

last night i ventured out to check out the scots - a semi-pro team out of st. cloud. they were terrible last year and they play in the GPFL (i’d post the league site, but i’m not sure what it is). i’ve been highly recruited to play for them, they’ve gotta new coach (same coach of the alexandria mustangs back in the day) and quite a few players - even a handful of decent players. now, i know some peeps be reading this expecting me to say what i’m gonna do - well, tough luck. i’m still thinking. i know they want me to play pretty bad. its tired out and i’m thinking it’s bed time right now, yesterday i was gone from 5am to 10pm, worked out in the morning, worked all day and then went to the scots practice. this morning, well, read the AM report below. i felt good last night at practice, got to run around and make a couple guys look like fools (that’s always fun). i spose you’ll just have to check back to see what i decide to do (and then, what we (as in the wife and i) decide to do as it’s not just my decision anymore).

good news is we’re getting our new equipment at the fitness center soon! maybe tomorrow i’ll put some photos of what the place looks like - but like i said, today is tired out… it’s sleepy time.

AM REPORT: power clean and trap bar (deadlift) 3×5 - today i was sorer than i thought i was going to be and it might’ve just been cuz i was tired from the long day yesterday. the powerclean was fugly: 280, 295, 295 (4) the trap was a little better, at least i broke some records in the trap: 485, 495, 510lbs - still i’ve definitely had better days.

ain’t it amazing what a good weekend will do for a guy? had a bunch of goodies goin on this weekend. saturday, we bought a storm/screen door for out front door. we’ve been wanting to get one for a while, and it was beautiful enough to get-er-done. so we bought the thing and i started workin on gettin er installed. i got only so far before we had to run to meet katie’s brother and her parents for dinner. mike (her brother) came up from florida for an extended weekend (is interviewing up this-a-way for a job today). so we had a champ’s dinner and then katie and i went to $cotty and Red’s engagement party. good times i tell ya. we watched the twins beat up on the d-rays and told stories, most of which were exaggerated

sunday, katie and i did a long overdue sleep in - then went to visit her grandpa (parents and brother) in eau claire. post visit, katie had some piano lessons to teach. i finished putting up the storm door whilst she finished some of the paperwork for the new job (which started today - yay). a nice relaxing weekend. good times.

AM REPORT: towel bench and box squat - felt pretty good after the nice weekend, a couple records to boot. 3×5 this week: towel bench went something like 335, 355, 365lbs and box squat 565, 585, 620lbs. at least i think that’s what i did, i don’t have my card with me, regardless, a decent morning workout.

i just had to laugh when i stumbled across this web gem. i’ve played with a couple distros of linux, and the only real issue i’ve ever run across is driver support (and then only with some old wireless cards for laptops). in fact, i’ve got one older laptop, that won’t even load the windows installer - all i get is a blank screen when i restart the laptop and run the installer from the cd - however, i’ve got it running a Ubuntu derivation of linux (i believe it’s Xubuntu) like a champ! i like to putz around with games, too - and that’s reason #2 i haven’t completely abandoned the world. #3 is that i do run some applications that i’m not sure are linux compatible… and the last real big hangup from completely switching over my entire fleet of computers to linux: i’m the PC support guy for the majority of my family.

i’ve enjoyed poking around the free and magnificent world of linux. and if the world wasn’t in such a crystalizer by the gates’ and jobs’ of the world… i think linux would be king.

while i’ll say i’m a PC guy, i’ve worked on macs as well and our graphics department at wurk has macs… i find myself not completely hating them. i likes some of the things they’re capable of doing (i’m a fan of the toolbar and the ease of switching programs amongst other things). and if they weren’t so damn expensive and i so short on moneys, i might actually think about purchasing one… but don’ t tell that to the many mac users that i’ve made fun of over the years about this… (then why am i posting it for the world?? meh).

katie starts her job-shadowing on monday. she’s real excited about the new job. she went shopping today to get ‘new professional clothes’ which is just a reason to spend some moneys if you ask me. she did stop in and surprise me at work today, which was cool. i’m extremely happy that she’s gotten the job - she’s been a lot more relaxed, a big stress no longer weighing her down, and when momma’s happy, you’d better damn well be happy too!

AM REPORT - bench and squat day: not the best day, but not the worst either. i gotta knee that’s buggin me, but i was still able to break some records! 3×3 - finished the bench with 355lbs on my last set and 485lbs in the squat, although both were pretty darn tough. lookin forward to taking a couple days to rest up (the weekend) and get back after it on monday morning.

side note: i’ve actually been doing some of that posting stuff this week! how’s bout that.