Sometimes you get what you need

I've been deep in thought (again) about things, and mainly the state of our society (notice the our, I'm including myself here). A while back I was speaking with someone at work who I deeply respect, and he noted the stark difference between his generation and mine. "Back in my day" he said "we would buy a dump of a house that we could easily afford, then we'd put sweat and real equity in the thing to make it our own little mansion. Your generation seems to prefer to max themselves out buying something that they can barely afford, but don't have to do anything to. When it comes time to fix it, they just sell it."

And you know, that's so freaking true.

I know people who lease cars because "I don't want to worry about maintenance costs", nevermind the loss you take by constantly, essentially, renting a vehicle. Or those who I've seen with a computer that needs a little work, instead they decide to just replace it with a new one. We go to college and instantly expect a high-paying job that gives us lots of stuff, and when we can't really afford it, we leverage ourselves to the roof. What's with that?


We (notice the self-inclusion here) have forgotten that whole "hard work" mantra. I like Dave Ramsey, and one of the things I like best about him is his emphasis on how hard work shows results. When I've put my mind to something, and work my tail off, it has results. When I kind of amble along and hope for something to happen.. guess what? It doesn't.

Several years ago I sat around hoping for some sort of miracle that would bust me out of my lonely 500 pound prison. Some sort of miracle cure that would instantly give me the life I'd always wanted. It, obviously, didn't happen. Rather I put some hard effort forward, and now I've got most of the things I've always wanted and needed. There's one last push to get through, today I realized, that final mindset change to really push forward. I haven't done it yet, others have (like LFoaB), so I know it's possible.

Slowly but surely I'm realizing what I have that I need, and that the rest that isn't there, just requires some dang hard work on my part. I've come so close, but I always stop when the end is close. Today I caught myself wanting to stop carrying bags of wet leaves to the pickup, going "oh there's only three left, they can wait". Why? Why can they wait? Why can all of this wait? They can't! They've waited long enough, damnit!

The wants, however, they can wait.

Winter Plans (Or how I'm going to learn to lose weight when everyone is gaining)

Fall and Winter have always been tough for me, or rather, mostly winter. It seems like after a tough summer, by late August/early September I run out of gas (proverbially) and take some time off from the bike, gain some weight, then re-focus sometime in late September. This year has been no exception, right there right now, etc etc. Winter is the problem, once it starts getting really cold all I want to do is eat, drink, and stay warm.

Which is, you know, the perfect opposite of what needs to be done to lose weight/stay fit.

So this year, after three years of cold season errors, I'm putting everything together. Finally. Step 1 is that yes, I'm planning to continue bicycle commuting all year round. I rode in some pretty dang cold and slick conditions last winter, so I know what it takes to Not get hypothermia or break bones. I'm not going to even try for long commutes, and there's a complex answer to why not, but it simply breaks down to time. So my rides will amount to about 12 miles a day, which I'm going to use for the mental health benefit, when I ride at a reasonable pace (like I did yesterday) I just feel damn good afterward.

What about exercise? The other day I renewed my Y membership for that. This is where making time comes in to play, I'm blocking off 90 minutes on M-W-F to go over my "lunch hour" and hit the elliptical hardcore. Tuesdays and Thursdays are pretty crazy for me, so I generally work through lunch on those days anyway (well, right now EVERY day, but I'm working this out..). It's not the 6 hours a day they talk about on the biggest loser, but it's better than 0.. right?

Yesterday was also the first day on the elliptical and.. there's work to be done :). I keep reminding myself that I'll get there (I think I can I think I can I think I can..).. which is where it's at every year it seems like, when I first get back on those horrid awful machines. That I love. We have an odd relationship, that's for sure. I'm thinkin this year, that I won't suspend that membership over the summer.

Thank You for the support via comments, tweets, and emails after my last post - as my wife commented, it means a LOT to me. It's been a tough couple months, but my head is up, and man are those leaves gorgeous on the bike path. Go check 'em out, fall only happens once a year.

The Right to Bare Arms

I have this sinking suspicion that this will be the last image like this for some time to come now, our winter has come early and come with a vengeance. So awesome, right? Notice I said "winter" and didn't mention "fall", seems we've skipped right over the whole fall thing into winter. But, enough about the weather.

Where have I been? Today I got stopped by a reader on the bike path, noticed by my record-holding amount of headset spacers, and it's not the first time today that I've been reminded that I've not blogged for some time. Yeah, about that, oops. Been over a month, actually. Yeesh. So what's happened? Where have I been? I refer to it as the quad-fecta: I'm back in school, the kids are back in school, work is busier than ever, and we have this toddler guy in the mix. I do lots of typing for work and school, so blogging has fallen by the wayside in a terrible way. And so has my cycling, and my health overall.


That photo was taken last week on a particularly miserable day - it was 40 degrees, raining steadily with a wind blowing right in my face, and I wasn't at all prepared for it clothing-wise. I lucked out and had a rain jacket in the car, and my light windproof gloves kept the cold at bay a little bit, but man.. it was wretched. It wasn't just that, though, my self-discipline has been particularly terrible lately with regard to the old intake thing, and terrible with regard to the whole exercise thing, that day it was wearing hard on my head as I realized I couldn't just hammer it home in 10 minutes like I used to be able to pull off. The cold muscles managed to get me there in 20, with a 5 minute stop to get out of the rain and convince myself to keep riding.

I'm human, it's becoming all too evident, but man I'm getting tired of falling off the wagon, then having to write about it. I've written a lot about it, but thing is, getting back on is tough as nails - but you can still get back on. I figure that I'm still ahead in the getting back on vs falling off score, which in the end is all that matters - but at some point you've got to just man the hell up and do it. I can find more excuses not to do something than I can find to do it, and I can find all kinds of excuses why I chose not to do it - or I could just use all that energy and freaking do it.

Did that little thought rollercoaster make any sense? Still on board? Hah

Anyway, someone said something today that really hit me - "baby steps are just procrastination", ya know, so true. I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, and he continually emphasizes this magical concept of "hard work", and the benefits thereof. I'm still adding them together in my brain, and waiting for the output.

So how many times have I made one of these "I'm back on the wagon" posts? Hell, I don't even know at this point, and even I am sick of reading 'em, but I'm hoping that maybe someone reading goes "well crap, happens to someone else, guess there is a way out after all". That's it.

But man, I'm really sick of writing them. Maybe just sick enough for once to do some size 14 steps.