progress

max bench 185.  First time I've put up bodyweight in over a year.  Doctor told me to assume I'd been off at least 3 years considering everything.  Like I said, deep hole to climb out of.  Deep.  As long as the wall don't cave in on me, I think I can get out.  Felt like it today anyway.
Assistance: dumbbell bench press, close-grip, pulls, dips.
Conditioning: 100 barbell (#45) thrusters for time.  Call it 13 minutes.  Bad time, good work.
High rep band face-pulls, 100
100 situps

blurry b/c I still had thruster shake

(105)

102

Dynamic bench: chains 9x3, dynamic press: bands 8x1
Assistance: JM's press, dumbbell press incline, clapping push ups.
Mobility work.

This one's been hanging around for a while, waiting for the right time.  See, around here we like full-auto and big magazines.  Dark and/or poor people voting?  Not so much.

While there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.  --Debs, convicted of sedition.

keep your powder dry.

prowler 101

Get you a heavy, runner-ed, push thing. Some people call them sleds, some prowlers (tm).  Others prefer not to name them or even really speak about them, so evil they are.  Some people just use cars. (Take the brake off, find neutral).  FUT BIRST, have three babies that grow to roughly 20 kg each.  Put them, the plate babies, on the push thing. Try to balance your load unless you want the added fun of compensating for a right or left pull, reminiscent of a misaligned auto.  Next, push the push thing and the plate babies like a good christian would the devil to his home in hell.  Hard and fast as you can manage.  It's fun to tell yourself the babies souls are depending on you because, let's face it, they are.  You'll slow down but you'll feel like you're working harder, these phenomena, the slowing down, the seeming increase in gravity, are magically proportionate.  Speed down, work up.  Yet, oddly, speed up, work also up.  This is the magic.  This is the reward.  Savor it, kinda like you do orange juice after you've already brushed your teeth, the way you do skunky sunflower seeds,  like you savor the taste in your mouth after you vomit.  Do this--push, devil, hell, guilt trip, savor,  a bunch of times, 'til you start to taste metal, 'til one of the plate babies says you're slowing down. 'Til you stop caring so much about who's going to hell or souls or who are the twerps on my push thing? and they sure are well-fed.  Yeah, do it say 40yds x 10.  Feel your heart explode with joy or hatred, self-pity or lactic acid or something.  Boom goes the ticker.  Cough a lot.  Try to find some saliva.  Calculate total weight.  Get confused by addition.  Call it 250, 255.  Whatever.  Three babies.   But FIRST first, 12x2 dynamic box squats, dynamic dead lifts 8x1.  GHR, reverse hyper, lunge steps.

Upon four-legged forest clouds the cowboy angel rides.  That's me, hiding in the back, the cowboy angel.  Just cowboy for short.

C

Hundy days.  Here it is.  Feel great.  Exercising, reading, sleeping, eating.  In short, very much alive.  Like the country song says, feels so good feeling good again.  Thank you for your love and constancy, your support, your gifts and generosity.

Especially, thank you for your friendship.  Next to the love of a good woman, it's the most important thing.

yesterday:  max close-grip bench 150
assistance:  reverse grip press, rolling tri extensions, shoulder raises, hammer curls

today, conditioning:  40 yard backward sled drag (300#)/ 5 tire flips  X 5
skill work: 2 strict pull ups every minute, 20 minutes

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
                                                                             --Papa, Farewell to Arms

97 (official count) bottles of barolo on the wall

Big check up today.  Good report.  Slight dip in whites which they say is to be expected and not worrisome at all, especially b/c there was a good bump in the platelet department.  Over all that is a better predictor of engraftment, marrow health and the whatnot.  Reds steady.  Free to consume fresh fruits and vegetables.  Not needed back for a month.  Also did a marrow biopsy, results pending.  Should know in a week, but all other indicators are good.  Won't lie, quite a chore waiting on the verdict.  The news is either terrific or disastrous.  I feel great, so Im optimistic.

At the Rick's Sunday night for preseason football.  He offered me a glass of wine but I cant have any so I said just one.  He had the first hit and tasted something funky so I held off.  Later he said maybe it was kinda growing on him.  I tried it at dinner.   Hey now, i thought, that's tasty.  Another quaff.  Really tasty.  I dont know man, this tastes fantastic to me.  What is it?  Dont know, my parents gave us a couple bottles.  By the end of dinner I had finished a second glass.  Good as the chicken and Portuguese sausage was, the wine captivated me.  Seriously, man this is good.  That funky taste at the end is a delightful tannic finish.  Starts out cherry evolves to a mouth full of blackberries and just wrings your tongue clean.  Really structured stuff.  Is it gone?  No, we have two bottles.  Here.  Hmm.   I read the label.  '99 Barolo.  A swallow almost came out my nose.  Tremendous grape juice.  I figured it for at least a $50 bottle.  Google confirms 66-75 bucks.  I only had one or several more.  I have to drink for the German woman too, teach her a little Italian.

Max effort parallel box front squat 125
Assistance: bent over rows, GHR, back extensions
Conditioning 4 x 500m row, 30 second rest.  I think I averaged 2:17/500m. Slow as me in trig, but getting better (whereas all the trig I know is still in the calculator)

Wash that camping right outta your hair

Market for victuals, gym, breakfast, home depot for new spigot handle, drum store for new sticks, bakery for birthday cupcakes, gun store for trigger locks and eye protection. Range.  Wyatt's last 5 at 25yds all on the paper.  I shot a 3-group with the .243 you could cover with a penny.  Also at 25yd (I confess), but i was trying to dial the scope in. A day of fun for about $25.01.  Missed my nap.  Hope you all are staying busy.  Idle hands will high five WITH CHIPS.

Dynamic bench, 9x3 banded.  Dynamic shoulder press, 6x1 banded
Assistance:  pull, dip, push

Took a minute of video of  these two shuckin' an jivin' unaware.  It is simply delightful.  But not the kinda thing I want on the interweb.  Sorry.  Ags dances all around singing "hey soul sister" to Adders, who gives herself a keen suds beard and calls herself Mean Mr. Mustard.  Ags got tired of her soul sister ignoring her and pow, shower puff right in the kisser.  Time to put in your bedroom hottub.

96

Dynamic squats:  wide leg, box, band.  12x2, deadlifts: deficit, banded, 6x1
Assistance: deficit dead, GHR, reverse hyper
Conditioning: bent over sled tow sprints, 90yd x 5, rest while partner works.

Dell came down to help me measure for some replacement windows and he says he'll come back to teach me how to install them.  Heather and the twins went camping at Muddy Run.  Wyatt and I are at large.  We had soft-shell crabs for lunch and Asian pork burgers for dinner, no bun.  Went to the range for some .22 rounds but had no bullets.  Stopped by Brian's to cadge some.  He turned his back yard into a range in about 30 seconds.  Stretched Wyatt to twice his previous distance and he was twice as accurate.  Much improved.  Then we drove to Hershey to pick up Brian's Volvo tractor.  Wyatt rode back in the big rig.  Maybe we get to the range tomorrow.  If we're not too hungover or in need of bail.

Sir Walter Raleigh was such a stupid get.

on the paper at 10yd (94)

max press: 115
pull push dip
mobility training

Wyatt is shooting his new Cricket .22.  Peep sight, no less.

"signifying sureness of the soul"

Dynamic bench:  9x3 +chains
Assistance:  incline dumbs, pulls, reverse curl bench
Mobility

My mom made these  sundresses for the girls.  Made them, with her hands.  Wyatt's first hunting license arrived yesterday.  I had the best tomato of the year today.  Yellow, beginning to bleed red. Fat as a baby.  Dense as a pear and almost as sweet.  What's the mozz and basil for?   Anybody know the Frost poem of title?  One I never tire of.