Chores

As promised to myself, I made a start on the chores around the house. One that I hadnt put on the list but has been completed today was to clean the BBQ and get a gas bottle refill, checked it all and made sure its working. So I'm all ready for the summer BBQ's out on the deck.


Speaking of the deck I can also tick off re-sealing the decking - just one coat this year. After close inspection, it wasn't in too bad of condition. Got it done in around 1 hour - this time I wore knee pads - what a difference they made: No knee blisters!!

I have a vistor staying here for a few days. One of Madii's friends who moved interstate has come down to Melbourne for a visit and no where to stay. He (yes He..) sleeping in the spare room at the very bottom of the house!! Seems pretty nice, for a vegetarian... polite 'n all.

Tomorrow we're all off to Melbourne Zoo. Haven't been for a few years and this will be Andrew's little girl Miss Olivia's first time.

Pretty quiet on the training front. Saturday morning's squat session went better than expected. Although wondering why I had agreed to squat at D's so early, I felt good, no hip twinge for a change and so warmed up raw to 5 reps at 75kg and knocked off 8 sets of 2reps at 90kg with light knee wraps ever careful of my wonky knee. Nice and easy. Tomorrow night I'll be back over at MBS in Richmond to speed bench with SPL.

Looking at that paragraph, I'm thinking I need to put an acronyms & abbreviations list on the side of the page. LOL

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Christmas Chainsaw Adventures

Guess who got a CHAINSAW for Christmas......

How funny too that Leigh, without prior knowledge of the chainsaw gave me a DVD titled 'Women that kill' and a 'Evil Penguins' featuring a penguin with a Chainsaw on the cover. He also gave me Dawn French's book 'Dear Fatty'. That alone is justification, officer, for a chainsaw massacre. Brave move that one! Actually, it looks like a good read.... :-) Its next on my list after I finish Jeffery Deaver's 'The Broken Window' which I got for my birthday last week.

Poor Andrew had the pleasure of buying the chainsaw and told the salesman that he was buying it for his 'mother-in-law'. 'You're game! Oh well if she has a go at you, you'll be dead before you know it - its pretty sharp!' LOL.

So, Christmas over for another year. Such a long day of eating, drinking, eating, drinking, eating, eating and then when you think its over... some more eating.

Spent Boxing day away from the crowds / shopping. I have this theory that all the stuff on sale has been brought in especially for the sales. ie. nothing that I saw / wanted last week is actually on sale. Watched a favorite movie with Madii, 'Love Actually' no matter how many times I watch it, it makes me laugh, it makes me cry. Pure fantasy of course - love is never so romantic in real life.

I did, however, venture to Westfield today (Saturday) with Madii as she wanted to spend her Christmas money and spoilt myself with a 1/2 price GUESS bag.

Have not made a move on any of the chores so far... choosing to indulge myself in doing nothing more than lounging in the sun. Tomorrow... no, Monday, I'll make a start on Monday.... (famous last words....)

Gym tomorrow - 0700 squatting - ick! Such an unfriendly time of the day.

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Christmas Eve

Had my MRI this morning - Eoww very claustrophobic. Worse than a sun bed! Fortunately my head wasn't too far into the machine and I could kinda see daylight behind me. Closed my eyes and listened to the music. Really noticed my breathing, big, shallow, shallow, shallow... My old yoga instructor always said to notice your breathing, but I never really did - not like this anyway. After a first little bit I was ok. Appt to get the results in mid Jan after I return from leave .

Yes 2 & 1/2 weeks of leave from today, of course returning smack bang into carrying the P1 pager :-(

Holiday Tasks.
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Clean and re-coat the decking (thats what Christmas holidays are for..)
Clean the gutters. Ick - ladder of death....
De-spiderize / cobweb the outside of the house.
Clean Windows (yuk)
Finish spray painting the horse float - and wash it!!
Train, train and when I'm not doing anything else... train.
Oh... and sleep in every day.

If I can find the money I might get some more stones and pavers for the drive and around the side of the house - where, since Leah has returned home, the truck has been relegated to (again)

Yay - Christmas tomorrow :-)

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Pictoral post

Munted Rabbit

Priscilla's contribution to Christmas dinner.....

One bicep pic.
Actually the pic is of the bruise which looked uncannily like the little MSN man.

Me 'n Mojo - Isn't he a spunk!

Freshly mowed backyard (1/2 acre)
hours of fun on a 30c day.

Struck down by a virus

Miserable weekend - some dodgy damn Trojan virus infected my laptop. No matter how many times I cleaned it - it kept coming back. The main virus - a dropper, was loading other viruses and remaining undetected itself - sneaky. Took me until Tuesday to get rid of it, in the mean time I was using a older decommissioned machine to work with and after installing some updates to make it compliant - the hard disk failed. Fortunately Madii's photo's have been able to be retrieved and a new hard drive from another decomm machine has been installed. GIT are in the process of re-imaging it with all the oracle software and updates etc....

Tuesday I went off to see Dr. Barresi, my sports doctor about my wobbly knee cap. He's referred me on to a knee specialist concerned that I may have a slight tear in the meniscus. It doesn't hurt, just feels unstable sometimes and is rather stiff when I try to squat deep. Of course it hurts more now that there might really be something wrong - LOL, but in fact its been like this since mid September (2 weeks before Nats). I remember the exact moment it happened too, I was doing walkouts with 200kg and I felt my knee 'give a little' - didn't hurt, but since then the knee cap has felt 'wobbly'. I went on to squat 145kg at Nats so.... ahhh... I'll just be a llittle careful with it - keep the knees wrapped when I squat until I know what's what with it.

Also have an appointment next week for an MRI on my right hip. I am determined to know why my hip hurts - all the stretching in the world hasn't alleviated the pain - it's so annoying. Its not a pain that stops me lifting but more like.... it makes me hesitate and not drop into the squat becuase I know I'll get this sharp stabbing pain - grrrrr. Dr Barresi suspects "Labral tear with ligamentum teres tear" That's what we'll be looking for. Not that anything much can be done if that is what the problem is - pain management and inflammation control, but no magic bullet.

Benched with SPLC again on Tuesday evening - speed work, which is what they do on Tuesdays, nice and easy for me. I almost didn't go due some mad panic attack, a completely irrational feeling that I was like an intruder inviting myself along to their training - Stupid! and I'm glad I went. I've become so accustomed to training on my own or with Leigh that I find it a little hard to interact with others and then I try too hard and get into a mess. I'm sure it will get easier as I get to know them.

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Friday, December 12

Busy week in the office with one of our main machines down for a few days making life very difficult and slow and then trying to get thru the backlog of work in my queue.

Madii came a cropper at the weekend falling from Mojo on the last jump of the last round of the State Qualifier. Stirrup leather broke just before a double jump, too late to pull up and when she landed between the jumps she came off onto her back and winded herself quite badly. Bugger too as she had a clear round otherwise. Poor Mojo didn't know what was going on and just stood there beside her even as I and the medics came running up - what a good boy. She's ok tho', sore but otherwise ok.

Tuesday night I trained with Southern Powerlifting Club at Muscle and Body Shape Gym in Richmond. They all made me feel very welcome and it was really good to train with like minded people. We did some speed bench with bands and board presses. I've done lockout work before but not board presses. Was really good to try something different too. For someone that trains 90% on my own, I really enjoyed training with the group. I think this will do a lot for my training and hopefully I can give back to them in some way too.

Deadlift training Wed afternoon went a bit pear shaped and so I ended up doing another leg workout Thursday night at Definition. Squats 8x3 @90kg with light wraps and belt. My right knee cap has taken on a life of its own and seems to be trying to escape so I've booked an appointment with Dr. Ben B at Melbourne Sports Medical Centre. It doesn't hurt to squat, but 'moves' which is really uncomfortable - so that's why I used wraps this week. I probably could have gone without the belt but I was just lazy. Did 5 reps@ 80kg with just light knee wraps... (Yep Lazy!)

Lunch at 'The Curry Club' today followed by chocolates and coffee at 'Truffles Chocolatier' in Richmond, all courtesy of our USA manager to thanks us for the excellent work our team does, given that there are only four of us here! Maybe some fat lady benching tonight at Definition - I'm sure I'm up a weight class....

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Something new

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.... Was lacking imagination last night for some core work so asked Dirk for a suggestion. What he came up with was nothing short of wicked. I'll try to describe it:

Bar anchored to the floor at one end with a plate of your choice at the other, I started with a 10kg plate. Standing with legs apart in front of the bar grip the bar, alternate grip, close to the plate. Stand erect and swing the bar, arms extended, across your body and up - stop before the bar descends in over the arc. Keep your knees facing forward and twist only from the waist - really works the obliques to control the bar. Too much swing and its going to fly over the arc and take you with it!! Massive cardio work too - or maybe that's just my poor CV fitness!

Squatting tonight at Doherty's....

Major running around to do tomorrow...

Sunday we're off to Wesburn Park Equestrian centre for the state qualifiers - Madii and Mojo are doing Grade 3 showjumping. We've had Mojo in the 'Jenny Craig' paddock this week and hand feeding him - he's just getting too fat, doubt he'll be able to haul his fat belly over the jumps. The video is Madii fighting with him to do the cross country jumps SLOW - he tends to bolt at them.

Kangaroos the back yard the other night.
Taken with my camera on max zoom.

My weird-arse Latte art

Max Ryan - need I say more. xxx

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Landmark Sex:

Thanks to IceTV's online TV guide I'm discovering all manner of obscure shows.

On SBS tomorrow night:

Landmark Sex: Married to the Eiffel Tower
A compelling documentary about the ‘objectum sexual' disorder. Naisho is married to the Eiffel Tower. She has a passion for inanimate objects, and her mission is to fight the stigma surrounding the disorder and create a global network of sufferers - like Amy, in love with a church organ, and Eija Riita, who married the Berlin Wall. Present tense narrative mixes with intimate stories as the characters describe their love and relationships, and just what it's like to be in love with a highly public structure.

An interesting review of the 'documentary' is on the internet - and I quote:

"Standing wistfully in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, Naisho announced that "despite our vast differences, we are very much in love". The bridge kept quiet in that way bridges tend to. This former world champion archer had enjoyed previous affairs with a crossbow and a sword, which could at least be conducted indoors. Asking the Golden Gate Bridge to come back to your place is a bit trickier.

Naisho regularly made love to a piece of metal stolen from the bridge. Fortunately we were spared this spectacle, although she was filmed getting hot and heavy with a length of fencing."

So there is hope for me yet to find true love..... ;-)

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Drug free

It's been 9 days since I had any meloxicam (Mobic), I am in pain when I walk and the underside of my foot feels swollen although visually it appears not to be so. I am also questioning if the onset of a bout of tendinitis in my right elbow is related to the cessation of this anti-inflammatory drug. I've increased the does of glucosamine and fish oil but so far no tangible benefit. Mobic is, I am told, not addictive however it's not the sort of drug that anyone should be on long term given it has some cardio vascular risk. I've been on it for the past 12 months since my chilectomy. I'll hang out a bit longer and see if my body starts manage naturally. In the event of failure, the doctor advised that there is an alternative drug treatment...... I'm off to see Andrea Bisaz this afternoon - my chiro, no doubt he'll have some more poking and proding to for my elbow too.

Still cant complain too much, while the elbow is inhibiting my pull work, deadlift, back etc... I still managed to bench on Monday although I had to cut the assistance work - attempted some close grip bench (triceps) and this hurt majorly.

Night off tonight - gonna crash in front of the telly or do something equally exciting like wax my legs. A sigh of relief as Dad has gone home from hospital (admitted Tuesday morning) He wasn't too good when I saw him Sunday, but ok enough now to go home. Apparently he overdosed his Ventolin 'cos he was having trouble breathing and this caused some heart palpitations etc.... bit scary when you're 85. Parents.... what a worry!

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