And now, a post about breathing

I’ve never been a very strong breather. I was told I have bronchial asthma about sixteen years ago. Some of those tests include how much air you can put out. It involves exhaling as hard as you can into a tube. Back then (and even now), I can only put out about half of what I should be able to put out, even with asthma. For as long as I can remember, I also could only breathe out of one nostril. It swapped, pretty much like I had a perpetual cold, but it was always only one. That led to a lot of problems, like not really being able to breathe or sleep well and pretty much dying when trying to exercise.

A couple of years back, I had a sinus infection and was prescribed this really awesome nasal spray that opened up my sinuses. This allergy season has been batshit crazy on me, so about a month ago I tried Zicam. It’s another nasal spray. Still a little pricey, but not as much as the prescription (even though it was a generic). For the first time in…pretty much ever, I can breathe through both nostrils. It’s so different. It’s weird that I feel like I have to relearn how to breathe. It’s helping me sleep better (I still wake up a lot, but the sleep is so much better). It’s REALLY helping me through the workouts. I’m able to breathe and keep my muscles oxygenated and not cramp as much. I also don’t get dizzy from not breathing well through the exercises (maybe a little bit at the end).

I’m a little worried about getting dependent on it. It’s not a steroid or anything like that, but I don’t think I can breathe as freely without it. Whether it’s physical or environmental (most likely both), I just have trouble breathing. Not real sure what to do about this situation.

Let’s GOOOOOOO!!!!

That’s what Shaun T shouts at the beginning of every Insanity workout. I’m five days in to this program. It’s every bit as hard as the website makes it out to be, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a 300lb asthmatic. Even the people doing the workouts behind Shaun can’t do the whole thing without almost collapsing on the floor. The first day starts out with a ‘fit test’. You do this every two weeks for the 60 days to track your progress. I almost passed out when I did it the first time. The point was to do as many as you could during the time allotted for each exercise. By the fourth one, I could only do four or five reps of the last few. After the second workout, I could barely move my legs. I powered through the third one and am already starting to go longer without resting. My legs are better, too.

There are 10 or so workouts. The ones I’ve done so far (except for the recovery one) have been pretty similar. A warm-up, where you do three sets of 5 or 6 exercises and get progressively faster with each set. Then there’s a stretching session. Then it’s the heart of whatever workout you’re doing. Today I did ‘Pure Cardio’. This one consisted of two sets of drills. The second one was ok, the second was pretty hard. Finally, there’s another stretch.

The point of this workout is to go as hard as you can for as long as you can. That’s what I was doing at first. That probably had something to do with the lack of ability to move my legs on Tuesday. The past few days I’ve been taking it easier for the first set of the warm-up so I can push it for the third set. After the last two workouts, I felt like I could do them again. I don’t know if that means I’m not pushing it hard enough, or what. I’m resting when I feel like my heart is going to explode or when I don’t feel like my limbs will be able to support my body weight, but I get right back in it as soon as I can. It is kind of a lot of rest, but I really feel it’s needed. Yeah, you’re supposed to go hard the whole time, but they stress ‘never sacrifice form’, ‘know your limits’, and ‘rest when needed’. I think I should try to push harder going forward.

I think the problem is that I’m still unfamiliar with the workouts. Some of them follow the format of the warm-ups where it’s three sets of five or six exercises with increasing intensity, but some aren’t. Others, like today’s, are two sets of drills where you only do the exercises once, as hard as you can. I don’t know which ones are which yet. Today, for example, I took it a little easier than I might have had I known I wasn’t going to do the exercise again. It was still tiring. I was struggling by the end of the level two drills. Lots of push up variants that my tiny girl arms can’t handle yet. If I did go hard during the level one drills, I don’t know if I could have done the level two drills. I’m sure I’ll figure it out sooner or later. I’d rather it be sooner. I was worried about the Pure Cardio workout, but after doing it, I feel like I want to (and should) do it again.

Some of them are hard in that I can’t actually do the exercises. I got too much junk in the way to be able to bend or stretch the way I’m supposed to. Hopefully that’ll work itself out, too, because that’s really annoying.

One main reason I picked this workout is because it looked fun. It is. Normal cardio is boring to me. Things I like aren’t as readily available to me as I’d like, like climbing or rowing or hiking on something that’s not a flat path. I have no expectations of getting a beach body in 60 days. I also plan on doing the workout a lot longer than 60 days. Maybe repeat the second month, since that’s meant to be more intense. I’m a little surprised I made it through five days, honestly. It’ll be pretty rad when I can do the whole thing without stopping.

I’m also not doing the meal plan. I’m not counting calories, or anything, either. I’m just trying to not eat like a jackass. Pretty much been Cheerios for breakfast, a salad (and maybe a small cup of soup, depending on the available soup) from the cafeteria at work for lunch, and whatever I can find for dinner. I suck at following meal plans. Slipped up a bit this week when I had a piece of pizza with my lunch salad. So bad, but so delicious.

This post is about empathy. I think of myself as a very empathetic person. I guess it would depend on which definition of empathy you want to choose. I tend to think of it in the ‘experience of foreign consciousness in general’ bit. Some people say that it’s not only being able to understand the feelings of others, but also knowing the appropriate response. I’m not too good at that last part. It’s a ‘sophisticated imaginative process’ and I am a VERY imaginative person. I’d say half of the things going on in my head every day is pure imagination. At least half.

In general, I think this is a pretty good thing. The problem comes in, though, when I get that way about fictional characters in TV/movies. If I happen to get emotionally invested in characters, I very much feel what they feel. When the plot is up, it’s good times for me. When the plot goes darker, it’s a rough few days for me. I think this is why whenever I leave a movie theater I feel like I can do anything. My general outlook and confidence levels are so high, it’s almost alpha male-like. I am unstoppable. The feeling goes away, unfortunately. Movies pretty much always have happy endings. Well, they’re not unhappy, anyway. And that happiness makes me happy. It’s different with TV. TV is a long journey. Seasons go on for weeks and months. Things go up and down. When I watch two seasons in two days, it’s a big fucking shitstorm for me mentally, especially if I get attached to one (or more) characters. That happened this weekend. I’m house-sitting and pretty much the only thing I do when I’m house-sitting is watch TV. More than usual. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. This weekend, I was watching Skins, a BBC teen drama that I read good things about. Don’t let the ‘teen drama’ label fool you. Apparently, England does teen dramas a lot differently than the US. It really is a hell of a show. As it happens, I got emotionally invested in several of the main characters. The ups in this show are good, and the downs in this show are very, very down. That’s where I’ve been at for the past few days. Down.

The ups affect me differently than the downs. The happiness I get from the good times make me happy for everyone and everything. I take the downs, though, and apply them only to me. I take the emotions the characters are having and turn them into my own. It’s a pretty taxing process that usually lasts a few days.

This particular weekend has left me with a lot of questions, though. It’s making me realize how unhappy I am in my current situation. I generally don’t think about it, but it’s the only thing I’ve had to think about for a couple days. It’s no different from what it was yesterday or the day before that or the few years before that. As far as situations go, I shouldn’t complain. I have a job that pays the bills, a car that gets me from A to B, an apartment, and a few very close friends. That’s more than a lot of other people have. Most of my issues are mental (as if you couldn’t tell). I have a hard time putting them into words, though. I go on instinct. A lot of the time, I can’t really tell you why I do something or why I feel a certain way, it’s just my ample gut giving me the thumbs up or thumbs down. My gut has a moderately high success rate, I think. The downside to this is that if I want to try and evaluate my life and figure out how to make things better, it’s really hard. I can’t really put into words what the problem is and when I can’t define the problem, it’s damn near impossible to try and solve it. I think I was able to define a few key areas, though: passions, determination, ambitions, and the ‘how to not be so damn lonely because I’M REALLY FUCKING LONELY’ conundrum. I want to try to make a separate post about each of those. Not tonight, though, and probably not the next few nights because I’m hella busy. This blog is called ‘Illusion of progress’, after all, and was supposed to chronicle how I’m getting to who and what I want to be. Defining the issues is the first step, really. This post was meant to give a little insight into my head since the few people that I know that know about this blog don’t really get a whole lot of that from me.

Fly Like an Eagle

Back in April when I flew to RI, I gave up my seat on the way back and got a free ticket voucher. I intended to use it on Sept. 5 – Sept. 13. Last month, I went online to see if I could use it on there, but I couldn’t, which was fine. They gave me a number to call and said I could book it through there. I called that number, and after a 20 minute conversation with a very dumb support rep, she told me that I would have to go to the airport to use this voucher. Fast forward to today. I finally got to the airport to try and book this flight. I wasn’t in any kind of rush. If there was a United flight checking in, I fully intended to wait until they were all done with those people. There wasn’t, so I walked right up to try and book this flight. I told the guy the deal, and he said that I could, indeed, book this flight there, but he didn’t know how. He wasn’t a trainee, but I don’t think he’s been working there that long, either. He ended up calling a lead over to assist. After about five minutes, the lead couldn’t really figure out how to book this flight, either. I don’t know how airline software ended up being so complicated to use, nor do I know why it hasn’t been updated. Seems like it takes Shift+F5+A+4+reach-around to get into the main menu. A manager (I guess) came to assist, and he couldn’t seem to remember how to do it, either. Looks like they don’t get too many of these at the Eastern Iowa Airport. They ended up calling some sort of help line to see if they could be of assistance, but they were on hold for a long time. Meanwhile, other people were coming up with questions about flights, baggage claims, etc. I told them I was in no real rush, so in between helping them and trying to navigate their menus, I was kind of spacing out at the check-in counter. After about forty five minutes, the manager finally found the option. Seems as though they were in the wrong fare class (you can only get certain fare class seats with a free ticket voucher. Says so right on there.). I got my reservation and was on my merry way. On a side note, I never once was asked to show my ID while booking this flight. The leader did ask me if I was Thomas Reyes (since that was the name on the voucher) and “not some super-secret spy”. I had one of those angel/devil shoulder moments, kinda like the one from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where there are two devils. The angel eventually came along and won.

That story, by itself, isn’t very provocative. The only reason I’m telling it is so that I can tell you this next part. While I was spacing out at the counter, I was looking around. There were actually a lot of cute women in fairly cute dresses. There was also this one couple. The guy was late checking in for a flight to Denver. His girlfriend/whatever was…rather large and wearing a fuschia dress that was…rather not. They ended up starting to make out like this was the last time they’d ever see each other. The dude ended up kinda lifting her dress up and grabbing her ass just as I’d glanced over there. Was she wearing underwear? All signs point to no, but they could have been hiding. I really had no desire to inspect any longer. This must be god’s way of ‘making up’ for not letting that girl skinny dip last night. If so, well, I bite my thumb at you, god.

Dance of the Pool Boy

A lot of you guys know that my temporary part time “job” (I say “job” cause I’m not getting paid. I’m getting discounted rent) as the ‘guy who closes the pool at night’. Yes, that’s my official title. The job consists of kicking everyone out, straightening up the chairs, cleaning up any trash, checking the chlorine levels and locking the pool area up. The pool closes at 10:00. No one is allowed in after 10:00. Well, except staff. Staff can swim whenever the hell we want to. Too much liability to have pool parties after 10:00.

Tonight, I checked the water temperature, and it was absolutely perfect to do some forbidden swimming, so I locked up the pool, walked back home to change and went back. The on-call maintenance guy had a service call, so he was at the office. We were talking for awhile when some girl (possibly two. I couldn’t really see at night through the slots in the fence) came up and was all, “Are you guys supposed to be there?” To which we replied, “Yes.” She countered, “Why can you guys be in there and not me?” To that, we reposted, “We’re maintenance.” We got a retort of, “Well, I’m a princess.” Ok, so she may have been a little drunk. And she may have been a princess, but she kinda sounded like…a whore. We maintained that there was too much liability to have anyone in the pool after hours, and she left us with a “Well, it’s your loss” and a few other words. She was a little drunk princess/whore that wanted to do some late night skinny dipping. I had to turn her away, and no one in all the land was sadder than I. I don’t get a whole lot of chances to see naked women IRL. Not for free, anyway. I still think I can get a pool boy role-playing scenario going on one night this summer. You know, if I end up actually speaking to someone of the opposite sex. Got two weeks to get something set up for my birthday. *fingers crossed*

I ended up swimming for a while then came home. The end.

A career query

I have a little conundrum. I think it’s a conundrum anyway. It has to do with work. I’m really checking in to Kirkwood to see about their A+, NET+ and Security+ certification prep courses. They have a program for each of those that run one right after the other. They also have a program that does all three that runs from September to May. Saves you about $1100 in tuition costs. Total, that program is $3500. That’s a lot of money. I’m lucky in that AEGON provides tuition assistance as long as you are taking classes that relate to your current position or any position you can get within the company. It’s not always available, and even when it is, it’s a little hard to get since there are a lot of people going for not a lot of money. Should I go this route and have AEGON pay for tuition, books, etc, I could get all three of these certifications within a year. Sounds pretty cool, right?

Here’s the problem. Geonetric has an opening for what seems to be an entry level Helpdesk Tech. Cool in it’s own right, especially if you check out the “10 reasons to work at Geonetric” page on their jobs site. The problem is, I…I really don’t want to be an idiot in a company full of programmers and IT people. I’d like to get my certifications before taking on a job like that (or at least right after I get hired). Geonetric, however, doesn’t have tuition assistance. I’d be on my own for that $3500 plus books, lab fees, etc. The last thing I want is more student loans, even though these may be totally worth it. My question is: do I try for the job at Geonetric, try and hold my own for two to three months before those classes start and go from there or stay at AEGON for another year, take the tuition assistance and maybe hope that a job opens up in our IT department? Even if one doesn’t, it shouldn’t be too hard getting another job once I get those certifications. They are kinda few and far between (I’ve only seen three non-senior positions open in a little over a year and they were all in the middle of January), but it seems like when one opens, a bunch do. My job at AEGON is pretty boring at times, but it’s not unbearable. I tolerate it just fine. I don’t dread going into work every morning, just falling asleep by noon. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Since the vendor certifications are part of Kirkwood’s “Continuing Education” program and not actually college credit classes, they are not covered by AEGON’s tuition assistance.

And now, a post about strippers

After a recent trip to the strip club, I was thinking about the whole psychology of the business. Strippers are quite good at getting money out of people. The good ones are fairly good at reading people and using that knowledge to their advantage. The great ones are even better, but only few of them are great at it. I think that few of them, though, really understand the psychology behind it all. I think if they did, they could really be exceptional and make a lot more money.

This led me to think of a really awesome part time job: strip club profiler. Not profiling the girls, profiling the clientelle. Get a behavioral analyst, some Criminal Minds-type shit, to read the customers. Read their body language, their behavior, their attitude, etc, and build a profile to relay to the girls that will help them really work the guy/girl/whoever. Take me, for example: a large, not terribly attractive guy that wears his self-consciousness on his sleeves (and pant legs. and shoulders. and shoes), and a dancer’s eyes light up like pachinko machines. The difference between me and a lot of other guys that frequent strip clubs that fit that description is that I already know the game they’re playing. Point is, if I already know what I’m dealing with, I can use that to my advantage. Like I said, strippers are already really good at this. I somehow think they could be a lot better, though.

Here is the second set of pictures for those who haven’t seen them yet.

Home again

I’ve been in RI for about three days now and have no desire to go back to Iowa. It’s been a real good time. Been hanging out in downtown Newport and at the beach cause, well, there really isn’t much to do. People say that about Iowa, but I think there’s plenty to do there. The most popular thing to do here is just kinda walk/bum around. Downtown, at the beach, down Ocean Dr at the parks, wherever. I’m not complaining. I actually like the bumming around. Problem is, there aren’t many places to bum around indoors when it’s raining. That’s why I need to get my bowling alley up, cause then I’ll be a MILLIONAIRE!!!!! Of course, I need about $3 million to actually build a bowling alley, but that’s besides the point. I’m bumming around in Panera right now because they have free wifi. If it weren’t raining, I’d probably be outside leeching their wifi instead of stealing a seat from the huge cruise ship crowd they have today. Tomorrow I’m bringing my grandpa to Fall River for his chemo, so I’ll be there pretty much most of the morning/early afternoon. After that, the weather should be clearing up, and I should be hitting Cliff Walk and Ocean Drive. For now, here are some of the pictures I took so far.

Final Four

Next week is the last week of my bowling league, and it’s position round. 1st place vs. 2nd, 3rd vs. 4th, etc. The team in 1st has clinched 1st place. Second through fourth place teams are separated by 3.5 games. We are in third right now, 1.5 games out of second. The fourth place team is four games behind us. Now, we need to only win one game to clinch third place (actually, we can tie), which is important, since I heard that only the first three teams cash. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’m pretending it is. If we lose all four games, we end up in fourth. If we lose all four games and the team in fifth wins all four games, there’s a three way tie for third place, and we will drop to fifth in the tiebreaker (total pins from season). It is of the utmost importance that we at least tie one game. We beat the team we play next week 4-0 the last time we played them. This team is also kind of our rival. DRAMA!!

On a related bowling note, the year-end 9-pin Lancer tournament is the weekend of the 18th and 25th, and I’m going to completely miss it because I’m going to be in RI. Kinda sad, but nothing is going to stop me from getting to RI. Summer leagues start next month, and I’m looking to bowl on Monday nights at 6:00PM. I don’t know the current status of my team, but I’m pretty sure we’ll need at least one more.