10 September 2025

On the edge of mid life, I told myself it’d be nice if I live another 37 years. As I’m trying to exercise more, the increase in effort causes stress. Yesterday was a push ups day that left my wrists feeling injured, even pushing down the top of a soap dispenser hurt. They day before I was doing squats and then it became a challenge to sit on a toilet, to be honest the toilets in my house are too short. Continuing my regiment is necessary to feel healthy and loosing weight will make everything easier, but eventually feeling like out of shape will be indistinguishable from getting older. The injuries start coming and they don’t stop coming, still there’s nothing to be done except be more active now. As Hamlet said, “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.” Meaning we suffer either way, from a life long fight or a slow death. It’s probably obvious that I’m running low since my writing seems darker. When tired, I relive past mistakes, what a nasty trick of the mind. Then I look forward, how to get out of this mess? Rest, rest and run, then repeat.

9 September 2025

Continuing where I left off about my garage gym, here’s a photo attempting to get most of the room in one shot.  In the future, I’d like to extend padding on the ground. The blue on the ground is 1 inch thick padding and I ordered two more sets of that in black. Hopefully the new pads are the same as the old because I was waiting to purchase more since the price had gone up and then they sold out, some how the ones I ordered ended up being cheaper than the original though they’re a different brand. Eventually, I’d like to add a second layer of padding, though I’m not rushing into that. What I do need to focus on is building a desk. As I prepare my equipment to start recording again, the pile of cables and devices keeps growing. Currently most of my work is in a cabinet or a couple different places, I need it all in one place and visible. There’s even more equipment that I will need, only everything has to get connected and tested for me to know what’s missing. From the last time I was recording, I wanted a teleprompter to be able to read my script, that would require an additional monitor to read from and more equipment to connect. Another project to get started on is decorating my armor. There is a pattern on my shirt that can be seen on the front and the back, so I want the logo on the front of the armor to preserve that idea. First I’ll have to get paint specifically for metal to prime it, then I can add color and now we’re talking about a couple months from now. Who knows what the world will look like at that time.

8 September 2025

After what felt like forever my punching bags are hanging again. There was a whole ordeal to get them up, but first I’ll cover last week. The baby wasn’t sleeping well during the night and during those times it’s a struggle to function, even last night she had some middle of the night wakes. Things should be improving as everyone gets healthier, which leads me into exercising more. The garage is coming together, on one side is my throne set up and the other punching bags, when riding the bike I can look back and forth feeling good. Getting into the installation, the reason it took forever to put up is it required drilling into concrete. Masonry work takes extra energy I haven’t had, on top of that I needed to get a hammer drill that can handle the work. The first drill I got was the cheapest Walmart had, about $30, I would have been very happy to get the job done for that much. I did get a carbide tipped drill bit that cost almost as much as the drill itself, but the combination only got about an inch into the cement. My next attempt was going to Tractor Supply though I couldn’t find a hammer drill, so I went back to Walmart to buy their more expensive drill. It’s still Walmart and about $100 for a hammer drill is still pretty cheap, these fancy drills get get up to several hundred easy. The new drill was battery powered, after several recharges and struggling, the holes were deep enough. The rest went up quickly and I technically put the beam sideways, it’s now up and usable. Being able to hit things makes me a happy boy.

5 September 2025

What a week, two nights ago the baby woke up every two hours and after a night like that I can’t function during the day. My whole life I’ve had people naysaying everything that goes on like, “two hours is plenty of sleep” or whatever stupid argument they want to make for the sole purpose of being disagreeable. Now that voice is always in my head saying what I do will never be good enough. That is something I plan to save my kids from, I congratulate them on baby steps and encourage them to keep going. I’m not writing these things to get some sort of award or to say woe is me, it’s just my life and I’m thinking about it. I know what hard work is and can evaluate something as hard without it being the hardest thing humanity has ever seen. That’s how people are, unless it’s the most extreme then they don’t want to hear it. On the podcast I went over the story of the guy with a purple heart saying he has no room to complain because people lost limbs and I bet the people that lost limbs say they can’t complaint because people lost their lives. The attitude is a race to the bottom and the only winners are dead, I hate the way of thinking because it’s not progressing towards anything, the person wants to be a speed bump in the conversation. Waking up every two hours is interrupted sleep, we don’t need a PhD to be able to say that. When I don’t get enough sleep I get cranky and as naturally aggressive person will break everything around me if the world around wants chooses my low point to pick a fight.

3 September 2025

Yesterday was rough, hopefully we’ve turned the corner now. With the little princess being sick, she didn’t want to nap, the first attempt was a struggle and the second nap didn’t happen. Each time I try to put her down means 30 plus minutes of holding and rocking the baby. When things are going good she’ll finish a bottle and be falling asleep in under 10 minutes. All that extra work caused a couple of the muscles on my baby holding side to tighten up. Last night I slept on the heating pad to loosen things up. The range of motion in my neck has severally decreased since having kids, maybe some day I will get enough rest and stretching to bring it back. I was really at the end of my rope with the baby though. Usually I can calm a fussy baby down, but when they’re sick, especially an ear infection, they’re crying all the time. Being left alone with a baby that won’t stop crying is soul crushing. No one is coming to help, just have to wait out the storm, while still making sure she’s fed and clean. Often if the baby is sick she will throw up when placed on her back and that means a lot of cleaning, have to replace the sleep sack she’s in, pajamas, and bed sheets. There’s also the dilemma of whether or not to do this work in the dark, we are trying to go to sleep after all. There was some point I went to the other side of the house to scream. Today is already looking like a better day.

2 September 2025

The little princess has been sick, she initially got sick from her big sister starting daycare and apparently it’s almost guaranteed that a baby will get an ear infection after being sick because they lay on their backs all the time. She’s not sleeping well right now and yesterday morning I needed to get milk since we were out. I took the little princess with me to Walmart, I was in and out as fast as could be only getting milk. After checking out, I go to leave and some cart is blocking traffic, so I went around to exit. Crossing through the door the sensor beeps and the person calls me back. All I had in my hands were milk and a baby, I hand the employee my receipt that only has milk on it, $4.19 I remember because prices have been inflating over recent years. All the backed up traffic was now behind me. The employee asked me to step back inside, I hadn’t slept well and the baby is fussy, so I was not having it and told them that I’m going to leave. I don’t know why there are even people at the doors checking receipts when there’s no reason to stop for them, even when it’s their own equipment malfunctioning there’s nothing the employee can do except waste my time. Now when I need to make a milk run in the future, I know that’s not the fastest place to go.

28 August 2025

In my 20’s any sort of ailment was healed after a couple days. It’s probably a week since I first got sick, the worst was the first couple days and I’ve been dealing with mucus production since then. Taking some Sudafed yesterday helped dry up the mucus and hours after taking the medicine I did some push ups, had some extra energy to burn. Sudafed gives energy, it can even cause trouble sleeping, so I’m aware that’s fake energy and to still go slow. Many times in the past I’ve taken medicine that gives energy then jump back into normal life and self improvement, except with it being fake energy I end up prolonging the sickness because I don’t rest. All this fake energy talk reminds me that being sick is fake tired, I don’t really feel down and out, it’s a temporary condition. My natural response is to fight it, do more activities to overcome the weakness, that never works. Life is a constant ebb and flow, best to have the proper action for corresponding feelings. Being able to do some exercise reminds me that it’s coming, to be patient, now is still rest time. When I was young and exercising at my highest level, I didn’t practice rest, it’s somewhat possible then plus nonstop movement is common in the infantry. Gains could have been greater with more rest though, I learned Arnold would take a week off fairly often and a couple months off from lighting every year. Lesson learned, it’s still hard to put into practice, the world doesn’t stop moving when I sleep.

27 August 2025

What a morning, first call was 5 AM with the little princess waking up for some milk. Then starting sometime after 6 she was up again and something kept banging against my bedroom window, by 6:30 the elder princess was screaming in bed and the morning had begun. There was a small issue when I dropped of the elder princess at daycare where usually a teacher takes the child out of the car. Well this morning there was only one teacher and she was having a conversation with the car in front of me, I trust my child to walk like 6 feet to the door, which she did. Nothing was said, but it didn’t seem like the teacher liked that and I’m reminded off all the trouble I had with school. The queen and I were talking about 18 and 19 year olds doing adult activities now seems wild and yet I joined the Army when I was 17. I really hated school, still do apparently. I don’t want my actions to effect their situation, but I can articulate why I did something and why it wasn’t wrong. Schools don’t like free thinkers. In the military they at least have muscle to support rules. Do the wrong thing in combat then you die, break the rules in garrison and you can go to jail. Don’t do what a teacher says and the worst they can do is kick you out, I didn’t want to be there anyway. Can’t force that on my kids though, best to say nothing.

26 August 2025

Every new desire brings along unforeseen responsibilities. Yesterday I was waxing my armor and was thinking how meditative the activity is, swirling a towel in circles, making sure each area gets covered. There’s a lot of oddly satisfying videos of similar jobs, like pressure washing is a good example of watching a job gradually get done; or mowing the lawn. How did I get to waxing metal though, I have this steel armor and I wish it was stainless steel now that I know the different, perhaps that would be magnitudes more expensive. In poor conditions steel rusts and I happened to place mine in the worst conditions, my recording studio is a garage. Garages get hot and humid, perfect to form rust, so I had to solve that problem. My first attempts were WD40 and a brush, that was slightly effective, but it wasn’t until I got a metal wire brush that I could really take rust off. The armor was temporarily clean and would be back growing a day or two later. To prevent rust a protective coating needs to added, I got some mineral oil as it was technically food safe and it seemed like any oil would work. Then I needed to get the metal our of the garage, it took way longer to move than it should have, so now it’s in a better place. Oil coats the metal and the oil can wear a coat too, in this case a layer of fabric to keep air from moving on top. Cotton would work, but wool is usually better, it’s even antimicrobial for baby bottoms. The armor is brushed, oiled, and covered in wool, then I need moth balls to keep the wool from being eaten; a cedar chest would work too. And it turns out oil is a short term coating, for longer storage wax is preferred, which brings me to sitting in my closet waxing armor, smelling like moth balls. All because armor looks cool. Another new addition to my stage is a table with a knight/horse.

25 August 2025

With the princess starting daycare, the whole family quickly got sick and it’s been a struggle to make it through the day even without extracurriculars. All day the kids want to be held, and so do the adults. Being sick I consider a low point and it makes me question my life not only because the unnecessary has to get cut, I also ask why am I doing certain things. I’ve been building this absurd recording studio for a podcast that doesn’t currently exist, so why and why am I even doing a podcast. Side note, I won’t call it a podcast in the future since it’s the same as any show or audio/visual file and the word podcast now has negative connotations. The point of my show and this blog is not for the now, but to have experienced it for the future. People think they think a lot, but until it’s put on paper or said out loud it doesn’t exist. Being able to channel thoughts into existence is a skill that gets better with practice. Writing a show is different form of expression, the blog is to keep ideas flowing and the show is to refine the excess into excellence. Doing hard things makes me better. Everyday it would be nice to continuously pick the easy path, but there’s no free lunches, sedentary life is atrophy. Keep moving, you’re still alive, aren’t you?