25 February 2026

For the exciting conclusion to the plumber saga, he identified the problem, but couldn’t fix it. There’s an electrical issue with the well pump. Today is feeling like a hit the wall type of day. I’ve been running hot for awhile now, with the plumber yesterday, rearranging furniture Monday, and daily push up videos, I’m tired. Mondays and Tuesdays are supposed to be my weekend and I didn’t use it to rest. Don’t expect much else to get accomplished this week, or even next week, I need to slow down. Speaking of not slowing down, I’m also working on this new business idea. I was telling the plumber about starting a cafe and he said next time maybe I can make him a couple of coffee. In my head, my response was, “I don’t know anything about coffee.” Now I see how that would be confusing to people. Coffee is 99% water, a resource nearly free to me. The purpose of coffee is it’s cheap, easy to make, and slightly addictive. My ideal costumers don’t trade money for food, they have time to spend. Holding a drink is an excuse to waste time in a new place. The product I’m interested in is environments, or as The Cornerstone masthead says, “Truth, Faith, Community”. Once in my building, people are subjected to the sight, sounds, smells, taste, and textures that I provide. Of course I want to have good coffee and success in whatever I attempt, but if we don’t see the bigger forces at play, we are at the mercy of their control.

2/24/26

The push up challenge is off to the races. Yesterday’s video and today got recorded without any problems. I’m currently waiting for a plumber who is supposedly on the way. Since last week they’ve been telling us almost everyday that someone is coming out. I’m feeling lucky today. Yesterday we had a constructive day in the living room. My queen had gotten new furniture, rug, and lamps. The only thing that stayed was the big couch I had to move off the old rugs to vacuum. The two old rugs were moved to some new locations and we laid one big beautiful new rug. I took a picture of the room to get a scale of the big rug, they really do tie the room together. My queen was nice enough to assemble the new furniture, so we moved everything into position and it looks great. The plumber is here.

23 February 2026

We had a good weekend, uneventful. Another episode of my show produced and distributed. Yesterday, when recording I decided not to do a live show at the same time and will not be going back. The reason I wanted to do live was a YouTube metric of watch time, streaming live can be helpful. The downside of being live is my anxiety is way higher, doing the show yesterday was a breeze and I won’t be hurting myself anymore. Other business that was accomplished was registering my company for an LLC. The Cornerstone Press is the company and website of the same name is where I’ll be digitally publishing my newspaper. The newspaper hasn’t officially started yet. The business is for a cafe, a place where I can distribute the physical copy of the newspaper. People can get hyped up on caffeine and then rally the troops. That would be one dimension, another would be coming together and making connection within the community, so as a city we need less intervention. We went to eat at a Mexican restaurant this weekend and it’s a good looking business. Now that my head is in that game I’m taking photos and mental notes for the direction I’d like to go. The first project I have to complete is my 22, 22 pushup videos. I’ll start the first video today. Once my head is cleared of one project, I can put more energy into others.

Humility

What makes humility a virtue? Humility is the act of being humble. To be humble is to know one’s place, not to belittle. No human is the master of the universe, even the most powerful CEO needs to be humble to stay within their limits. Knowing our limits keeps us humble, humility is being great in a circle and knowing if we step outside of the circle, could lose it all. Being humble keeps us safe. Bad actors try to separate individuals by pulling them out of the circle and cutting ties. Everyone needs to know what their safe space is and when they are not prepared to venture beyond, humility is helpful.

Faith That Moves the Storm WAR ep 83

Crusader reads Matthew Chapter Eight, exploring the miracles performed by Jesus, including the healing of a leper and a centurion’s servant, the calming of a storm, and the encounter with possessed individuals. The discussion emphasizes themes of faith, authority, and the call to discipleship, highlighting the reactions of those around Jesus and the implications of his miracles.

20 February 2026

After dropping off the elder princess a song came on the radio, Ludacris’ 44 bars. That got me thinking about the theme in rap to make songs that are all about bars as a display of physical dominance; or lyrical dominance. The concept is something like 4 beats in music make a bar and the song is bar after bar of pure rap. The song is pure in the sense there is no hook or chorus, the music takes a backseat to lyrics. One of my favorite songs is Jadakiss’ 40 bars of terror and a more recent take is Redman’s 80 barz, both artists are hall of famers. This type of song is not commercially successful, that’s why I suggest it’s about establishing dominance. A successful song in the industry follows a formula. A simple example looks like all songs being 3-4 minutes long with a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then maybe a slight variation on the chorus again. There was an executive that would speak to classes explaining the business side of the art, he’s passed now and I can’t find his name. The point is executives that risk millions on new art, don’t want it to be very new, they want another hit. The artists, or in this case rappers, especially male rappers want to see where their skills measure against another artist irrespective of industry intentions. The way they do that is rhyme after rhyme, there’s physical endurance to do that 40 bars straight. Then a master of the craft would find a whole song of ABAB rhyme scheme boring. Making patterns more complicated, like with piano, begins to use math. Taking 4 bars with 4 beats gives an opportunity for at least 16 rhymes, maybe the first bar and the fourth bar use ABAB to mirror each other. Inside the pattern can be a new pattern which opens up to infinite possibilities. 

19 February 2026

I had to make this drawing to explain my new pull up technique. Now, I’ll try to add words to the explanation. Most people think of a pull up as the body hanging loosely from the hands. People should bare in mind muscles only pull and most are only connected at two places, so they they only pull in a straight line. Chest muscles pull the shoulders forwards and back muscles pull the shoulders backwards. The dead hang from the bar leaves the tension on shoulder muscles, a small muscle compared to the back. The first step from a dead hang is to use the shoulder muscles and latissimus dorsi(lats), muscles on the outer back, to rotate the entire body as close to parallel to the ground. Engage the core to keep legs up. Once parallel, the back is in position to pull in a straight line, making most efficient use of the effort. The reason I got hurt doing pull up was Mike Mentzer. He was a bodybuilder in Arnold’s time, and trained Duran Yates who ushered in the new age of muscle giants. Mike was a successful bodybuilder on his own, but Arnold’s politics shunned him. The philosophy that Duran Yates proved true is intensity matters. Arnold was promoting hours in the gym everyday, while Mike said only a half hour a couple times a week. The difference is Mike went to exhaustion in that time: maximum intensity. I was using one of Mike’s techniques to increase intensity when I got hurt. The reason I got hurt is because that was my first set, I’m older and need to take time warming up. Stretching is always good, it will take a heavy focus to release the current tension in my neck.

18 February 2026

The little princess work me up sometime during 5 AM. I started warming up a bottle and when I went in to give it to he, I was hit by that smell. She went poddy, so I changed her diaper. Thankfully the princess was quiet because she had a bottle of milk. The problem was timing, being awake that close to our normal wake up time means she might not go to sleep and having an event as active as a diaper change means she hasn’t slept since then. The night before had the elder princess barging into our room two or three times in the night until I took some time to lay with her in her bed; that’s kids life. A couple months ago, the baby was waking up ever three hours for food and I was begging to sleep as good as I’m getting now. When I talk about both the girls reaching kindergarten, that’s when I imagine I’ll have whatever a normal life is again. In the Fall they’ll both be in daycare for the first, so that’s really exciting. For now, everyday is chipping away at the newborn stage. The hard part for a parent is to remember who they were before kids, so they can return to it. There’s nothing wrong with fully committing to one’s kids, adults still have preferences in their activities and habits. Most days I watch a lot more cartoons and eat more baby food than I did years ago. The opportunities will come, it’s up to me to be ready for when they do and not to be checked out. I believe most people check out of life because after decades they forget where they were going and question why they even cared in the first place. These are tired ideas and nature is relentless.

17 February 2026

The one pull up I did yesterday went well, but when I woke up this morning my injured muscles was aching again. I’ll take more time to rest it as this muscle affects my neck movement. The muscle feels like an old injury from when the elder princess was a baby. With a newborn, the goal is to do whatever makes the baby happy and quiet. After finding something that works, like rocking the baby a certain way, that becomes the goto technique. Always holding the baby in the same army cause a muscle to strain and there’s no rest with a baby. With my right side disabled, I had to hold the baby in the left and since they want comfort, a new way of holding upsets the baby. I don’t think I ever healed from that injury because my neck never had the same range of motion again. By taking all the time I need to heal, I’m hoping to help that old problem. My push ups seem mostly unaffected and I’m hoping to start recording my push up project next Monday. There’s still a lot of writing I need to do, starting will help to get the juices flowing again. My newspaper is coming along, the newsstand arrived yesterday and I still need to build it. Last night, I was working on the website for the paper. I have half of it done and I think I figured out how to present the other half. For my kingdom, today is the beginning of the week after yesterday’s holiday. For me personally, today is more like a Saturday, or the first day of the weekend. The only other person home is the little princesses, so I will take this time to do nothing and rest.