I found this book by Danny John called From the Ground Up which has the best plain English guide for good form for squatting with a barbell which I have ever read.  My trainer just says to keep the weight over your heels, but never exactly how do that.  The tips in this book were obviously written by a coach who has taught a lot of kids how to lift.  For example, to correct your stance, jump up and down three times.  Where your feet land on jump 2 or 3 is the proper natural foot alignment for a squat.  Who knew?  If there's a question about what he means by "chest up", he says "imagine being on a beach when a bikini model walks by", which is an arched back, lats wide, chest up posture, he just calls it "Muscle Beach chest" from that point forward.  I've always been impressed in my experience with hockey coaches by their practice of associating complex concepts with two or three word commands which can be barked at game speed to correct an athlete.  I know that "soft hands!" echoes in my head every time a pass bounces off my stick, or "hockey position!!" if I catch myself standing straight legged in skates and can't stop or turn quickly enough.  After reading that, I imagined him shouting "Muscle Beach" across a stinky gym at some young chump who is lifting incorrectly.  Going down, you imagine your feet are stuck to the ceiling and you have to pull your butt to the ceiling.  Then "push the floor away" to get the bar going up.  That makes so much more sense to me than "stay on your heels."

Back in the gym

I'm having a nice lunch at the neighborhood Chinese buffet following a good back workout.  I just piled the plate full of honey baked chicken, rice, and broccoli.  Okay, and a couple of crab rangoon.  I'm 186# according to the gym scale.  That's the new benchmark.  

Regarding the weekend, I accomplished a lot less than I had hoped.  Friday night at The Duo Trio CD release party, I had a great time hanging out with Terry and Nicole.  We found ourselves at Town Topic at 3:30am via The News Room.  Ouch.  I was a zombie for most of Saturday.

Saturday night I skipped going to see the NHL-rules hockey game and grabbed some tasty LC's Barbecue carry out.  Then, Nic and I rolled to Adam's birthday party.  Fun! til 4am.  I got to see the UFC fights, even.  Chuck Liddell is an animal.

Sunday, I rested on the sofa and zoned out playing online poker.  I doubled my buy-in in a cash Hold'Em game.  I came in second in an Omaha tournament and won 300,000 play money chips.  I find Omaha to be much more engaging than Hold'Em.  I basically only played hands with a suited king or ace and/or pocket pairs.  I limped unless I had two pairs or a pair of face cards in my hand.  I bet a medium sized bluff at every flush possibility on the board.  This worked because I'd get caught bluffing a couple of times, but covered the damage to my stack when I made the same size bet with the nut flush and got callers or the opportunity to reraise.  I folded to any post flop raise unless I had the nuts or good odds to draw the nuts.  I was chip leader until heads up, then my inexperience showed.  I need to practice heads up Omaha.  I might start coming in first.  I think I'm ready to switch from play money to cash Omaha.

Fall approacheth.

What a day!  I helped a friend who sells Prepaid Legal Services memberships setup a web site.  I was most shocked to find that you can have a unix hosted site with PHP and your own cgi-bin and a domain registration with a catchall email address for the domain, and a cool interface for adding A records for a year for $71, unlimited drive space, and unlimited transfer.  Web hosting has achieved commodity status.  I foresee moving this journal to my own domain very soon.  I got a nap, and Kris called to say that he had the day free to help finish the flooring at my annoyingly vacant rental.  I'm glad.  It needs a full day of TLC before someone could move in.  I had the broken washer hauled out of there, and subsequently got a discount on a newish high capacity dryer, which is sorely needed at my brother's house.  It was a good trade, and the guy guaranteed the dryer for 60 days.

I received a desperate sounding email from Lutzie, the man who rents the ice rink for his invitation only games twice a week. 

from Lutzie

to Lance, Robert, Darren, Mike, Marc, Jared, Mark, Jeff, Corky, Sam, Mark, Brian, Joe, Kevin, Marty, Clay, Joe, Brian, Daniel, Jim, Greg, Kirk, Gerald, Anthony, Mike, Jeff

More options

5:05 pm (7 hours ago)

I had 2 late cancellations today so I  have a spot for 2 players tonight. If you want to play or know of anyone who does, just call me at 816-xxx-xxxx.

 

Lutzie

They're a fun bunch to socialize with, so I called him to say that I'd like to fill in.  It's worth the $18 for the ice time, but they grill after they play, and the food is excellent.  I learned that Lutzie owns many millions of dollars worth of construction equipment and an excavation and landscaping company.  I knew he had a bank.  I wonder if it's repo stuff?  At any rate, I rushed around and made it to the game a few minutes late, and had a lot of fun.  But I'm wiped out.  I can tell I'll be sore tomorrow.  Playing hockey three days in a row, I've probably lost six pounds.  I'm at 190 now.  My scale says I'm 21% body fat.  I think it reads a bit high.  No thanks to the fact that I pigged out on brats with sriracha sauce and mustard right after I had already had a chili dog. . . I'm going to be feeling the heartburn later.

I don't know if my skate blades are just dull or I hit a soft spot on the ice, but my skate slid out and I strained my groin.  I will be sitting out any hockey opportunities this weekend.  I need to have the blades sharpened tomorrow.  I wanted to go to the rink anyway.  There's a Friday Night Lights 2 hockey challenge game tomorrow at Pepsi Ice Midwest.  It's a semi-annual NHL rules game for anyone brave enough or stupid enough or tough enough.  Full bodycontact.  5 minutes for fighting.  I'm glad that's becoming a tradition.  Seems like fun.

I have conflicting party invitations for Saturday, but I know I'll end up at Adam's birthday party after showing my face at the UFC watch party (and poker tourney).

Sunday is the KC Curling Club Open House at the rink from 11a-1p.  They're begging for volunteers to help with the event, so I might show up and lend a hand.

I hope tomorrow is asfun and productive. 

Another job offer?

In a strange twist of fate, I was contacted by a recruiter whom I've been working with on the UMB Bank job opportunity I interviewed for a while back.  It's the job for which I narrowly missed being hired when I failed to get his call/voice mail for a couple of hours due to a dead cell phone battery.  Well, the guy who made the low ball offer and undercut me didn't work out, and they're preparing an offer for me.  The recruiter is shooting for $42 an hour for 8 months.  If he hits the mark, I might jump all over it and send my apologies to the Sprint hiring manager.  The dilemma is troubling.  Sprint network versus UMB web?  Benefits versus no benefits?  Slumming in a NOC job versus $25k a year more and preservation of my ever increasing salary history?  Easy job in my core competency versus challenging job which expands my experience?  Pain in the ass 30 minute commute versus easy 15 minute commute?  Midnight shift versus daytime hours?  30 minute meal break versus 1 hour lunch downtown?  Kansas versus Missouri?  Working weekends and holidays versus a bank holiday schedule?  I'm accepting advice at this point.

Sprint employee

The most unique thing to happen today is my receipt of a spam offer for a Johnny Cash Mastercard.  The second most unique thing is a job offer.  It's a huge pay cut for me, but the job is super_nerd_cool!!!!!111  It's a vampire shift in the Sprint Network Control Center.  I have been to the Sprint campus and I've seen the hive of geekdom that monitors the Sprint network from Puerto Rico to Maine to Hawaii.  The cubes are literally in honeycomb shape with aisles that zigzag.  When you're in one of these cubes, you're completely surrounded by large flat screen monitors two high.  And when you stand up to peer over the cube walls, you find yourself surrounded again by large flat screen TVs hanging from the ceiling and tuned to the news and weather channels.  I will have the Sprintlink internet backbone folks as cube neighbors and a clear view into the wireless voice network area. My area monitors the wireless data area.  Basically, the 2G and 3G internet access or text messaging or ringtone downloads cross the portion of the network I'll be monitoring, etc.  It's a rare opportunity to work with every division of Sprint and get my head around their entire network architecture.  The overnight nature of the shift leaves the days free for school work or other pursuits.  I suspect I'll workout in the morning following my shift, have a nice big meal, then sleep in the middle of the day.  That starts on September 5.  So, I have a deadline to finish all my little projects. 

September 9, I start school.  It's a network security course taught by a Sprint employee, Mr. Xie.  Since Sprint will be reimbursing my tuition, I can use the super low interest school loan money to pay off higher interest debt. . . and I have accumulated plenty of that over the past couple of months being "self-employed".

I'm going to celebrate by playing some drop-in hockey tonight.

Birthday 36, The Sequel

Now that I've been up for roughly 24 hours, I'm kinda zombified.  To summarize, though, I had an early job interview, a big breakfast sandwich at Wendy's, some time to read emails, a good workout, a brief lunch, a little nap, birthday dinner in the afternoon, a profitable session of poker at Harrah's, a long wait for a table, a second birthday dinner late, and birthday drinks on a rooftop deck.  It was very laid back and conversational.  That's what I needed after such a long day.  I didn't get serenaded by the wait staff.  I didn't have to exert myself.  I didn't have to drive.  I came home with more money than I left with.  I got to spend time with friends relaxing on a patio in the most perfect weather.  That's a good night all the way around.  Thanks to Adam, Jo, Scott, Tricia, and Christina for a good time.  Thanks to the Thorsons, and Rich & Lisa, as well.

I'm trying to doze off, but there's a nasty thunderstorm outside, and I have to be at a job interview in five hours.  If I head out at 5am on a Saturday for an interview on my birthday, it had better pan out!

I received a birthday greeting from a radio station.  How do they know my birthday?  I got a nice card from Southwest Airlines and a free birthday burger coupon from Red Robin.  I need more birthday freebies.  Know of any?  Can't you eat free at Denny's on your birthday?