Kaitlin and I decided that we were ten years old and built a bird feeder using a few common household items and a stick. It actually turned out pretty good! The first few days were a little discouraging: no birds wanted in on our humble buffet.

Today they finally found the time to check it out! My wife got a couple of really excellent shots of two birds chowing down together. Go here to see the rest!

I’ve been approaching my weightlifting once more with renewed interest and vigor. I found that dividing the week up into separate days for each muscle group was much more effective. Four days a week, one each for legs, arms, back, and chest. It lets me hit each one with more intensity, put up higher weights, and make excellent gains as a result. My max deadlift hit 307lbs over the weekend, which was a huge accomplishment for me. I’m going to be focusing on my legs for the next month or two, then moving on to my chest.

My arms have made a huge improvement over the last month or two. I was doing a routine that put a little more focus on them because I wasn’t quite satisfied with how they were developing in relation to my legs. My legs have always responded extremely quickly to any sort of training. I guess that’s what I get for playing soccer for over 10 years.

I’m at about 182, maybe 183lbs right now, which puts me exactly 30lbs over my starting weight of 153lbs, which was on 27 Sept 2010. The progress has been fairly steady, but I’m ready to invoke the old cliche and take it to the next level. I’ve already put a heavier focus on a proper diet, now I just need to make sure I have the right lifting routine to match it or else I’ll just get fat.

Life at home has been pretty positive overall. With Kaitlin having hit the 10 week countdown recently, the reality is sinking in a little bit more. We’re going to be parents, I’ll think suddenly. Like I hadn’t known that to begin with or something. The Great Accumulation of Stuff has been coming along nicely. We’ll be getting the remainder of the cloth diapers, washable wipes, the crib, and God only knows what else within the next month or so.

Aside from the finances, the only thing I really need to “worry” about is the birth itself. While Kaitlin will definitely have the Big Job that day, my responsibilities aren’t to be overlooked. We’ve got a definite idea of how we’d like the birth to go in terms of medication, interventions, and the like (namely, as natural as possible). It’s my job to make sure that, when Kaitlin is at her most vulnerable during the birthing process, she doesn’t have to worry about anything else. We’ve educated ourselves to the point where we’re pretty aware of the pros and cons of all the different medical interventions, so we’re going to be more than capable of “informed refusal” as well as “informed consent”.

I’m going to be switching into Protective Husband Mode for the duration of the process. I’m well aware of the fact that the difficulty ahead for me pales in comparison to the difficulty Kaitlin’s going to be facing, but it’s nonetheless something for which I should be extensively prepared. It’s going to be exhausting, I’ll have drained the lion’s share of my own mental and physical resources upon its completion. My physical fitness is just another way of preparing me for that. It’s going to be my crucible, an event which will shape me in ways entirely unknown to me. It is a trial of which I must be entirely capable.

Charlie Chaplin in ‘The Great Dictator’. He has an amazingly powerful voice and the content is very moving.

In other news, I had a tremendous workout today. I did squats until I felt like I was going to pass out, then I did deadlifts until I felt like I was going to puke. My legs are killing me and I feel extremely accomplished.

Love this character.

I have this thing. It’s like a terrible compulsion and I have no idea when it will strike. I’ll find a thing, tangible or otherwise, and I’ll just fucking need to have it, to learn it, to know all about it. I have to consume it (whatever ‘it’ is) in its entirety. My wife’s the same way, only she’s much better at it for the simple fact that she does it so much more often than I do. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to find something she wanted to learn that she hasn’t become incredibly good at. But I digress.

I started with video games, but I’ve essentially reached the end of that. I own both an Xbox 360 and a PS3, as well as all the games I care to have for both consoles. I also recently bought a very powerful gaming PC. Both the PS3 and the PC are hooked up to my 1080p 40” Sony TV, and they’re running through my Sony 5.1 system, which is fucking thunderous. So I’ve got basically every game I want right now, and I’ve beaten all the ones I really like.

I moved onto weight lifting about half a year ago. I did all my research, found the right workout routine, learned all about proper dieting, how to gain weight, how to do the lifts with proper form. Then I got the weight set, which includes a squat rack, a bench, olympic barbell, and about 300 pounds of barbell weights. I’ve got a chin-up bar and 200 pounds of dumbbell weights, also. So I’ve got all the weight equipment I’ll need for the forseeable future.

Finally, last week, I wanted to learn about motherfucking snakes. I read and I read and I read. I learned all about ball pythons (Python regius), including proper housing, feeding techniques, learning the different morphs, temperature control, humidity control, and all the miscellaneous dos and don’ts. Yesterday I found an ad on Infomall. Ball python for sale, 2 years old, female. So I bought her. She’s the darling in the pictures. 

She’s quite big, able to wrap around my forearm all the way to my fingertips with plenty of length to spare. The lady who sold her to me said that she hadn’t eaten since her last shed, which was early February. This is normal for ball pythons. They will sometimes go up to two months without food, but rarely. She said Lucy would be hungry, so I thawed out a jumbo mouse (yes, I’ll be keeping dead mice in my freezer), ran the head under hot water for a little bit (really entices the python, smells kinda bad), and got the tongs out. I removed Lucy’s hide (the upside-down flower pot she hides under during the day), and dangled the mouse in front of her in the most enticing fashion I could manage.

I never knew how fast pythons were until then. She struck amazingly quickly and yanked the mouse out of the tongs. I quickly replaced the hide, the tank lid, and the heating lamp. I peeked in a few minutes later and got a little bit discouraged: she had the mouse in the hide but wasn’t eating it, just sort of looking around. A few minutes after that I checked in and found her poking around the mouse. As soon as she found the head she casually engulfed it with her jaws. 20 minutes later I came in and saw a very smug looking python and no mouse.

I’m really glad I was able to get her before the baby comes. It’s going to be the last big thing I get myself before it’s all diapers, car seats, and soiled clothes (don’t get me wrong, that’s gonna be awesome, I’m just sayin’). Maybe within the year I’ll be able to get another. I’m hoping for a male around the same age as Lucy by then so I’d be able to breed them. Who knows, I could turn this into a side business some day!

It’s not like I’m obligated to post here, and my new wireless keyboard seems hellbent on making this process much more difficult than it would ever need to be. And to think I’d bought it for the convenience! I guess that’s what I get for buying Lexma brand products. The key presses require indomitable strength to function properly, the backspace key (which is half the size of conventional backspace keys) doubly so.

Had I mentioned that I’m going to be a father? I’m sure it’s come up at some point, but I suppose it bears repeating. She’s six months along now, six months which seem to have passed by without my noticing. It seems as if mere weeks had passed since she came into the kitchen (I know, I know, ‘what was she doing out of it?’) and told me the great news. I feel the baby kick all the time and it warms my heart. The ultrasound chick told us we were having a girl and we eventually decided to name her Annabelle.

Kaitlin came up with the name first, apparently, and I’d since dismissed it in favor of my first choice, Abigail. She’d vetoed that decision, however, and one day while I was brushing my teeth I decided that Annabelle would be an awesome name. I had, of course, since forgotten that Kaitlin had come up with the name in the first place. As far as I was concerned, the idea was mine.

I guess most of the reason for my utter lack of blog posts is my utter lack of doing anything awesome. I got my wife pregnant, sure, and that’s a fairly big deal, especially since it took something like nine months for me to get there. Outside of my biological drive to father a dozen children, though, things have been pretty quiet.

The workout routine I’d started with had started to lose its appeal. I’d put on a good 20 pounds and gained a fair bit of strength, but it was less and less fun as time went on. I’ve since changed my routine to something that is a great deal more punishing. Check it.

Chest/arms:

Bench press, 3x12, 10, 8, increasing weight each set.

Seated overhead press, 3x8

Lateral raises, 3x8

Barbell curls, 3x10

Skullcrushers, 3x8

I’m thinking of adding incline bench press to work more of my upper chest, since the bench can only hit it so much.

Back/legs:

Squats, 3x10, 8, 6, increasing weight each set.

Deadlifts, 3x10 (probably my favorite exercise)

Bent over rows, 3x8

Wide-grip pullups, pronated, 3x10

Weighted calf raises, 3xfailure

I added the calf raises in to even out the legs and I can really feel the burn. It’s fun to push myself past the threshold of pain on those exercises. It really feels like I’m getting something out of it.

Gaining weight is difficult. I don’t know how some people manage to do it, but I can’t just eat all day. I mean, I could if the food was garbage like most people eat, and if I drank soda all the goddamn time, but I can’t roll like that. I’ve stocked up on clean foods, I drink a ton of milk, and I’m getting a lot of protein every day. It’s just hard to remind myself to eat what is basically a full meal every three hours in order to gain weight.

Pretty much everybody will tell you that any given workout routine is 80% diet. If I’m not gaining weight, I’m not gaining muscle and I’m basically just working out for no reason. I weigh about 173 pounds right now, up from 155 in September. I’m hoping to hit 190 in a few months, then I’ll start eating at a caloric deficit and doing cardio to cut out the body fat while I keep eating a ton of protein to maintain my muscle mass. With less body fat, the muscle I’ve gained will show a lot easier. Then I’ll bulk again, and within a year or so I should be reaching my long term goals. 

14:06 <Riddy> Grandma is afraid of invisible bears.

14:06 <Alexx> Invisible bears are no laughing matter, dude.

14:06 <Alexx> They’re scary as shit.

14:06 <Pravus_> Yeah, I’d be scared of invisible bears.

14:06 <Alexx> I mean, have you ever seen one?

14:06 <Alexx> NEITHER HAVE I.

14:06 <Pravus_> Glad we don’t have many around here.

14:06 <Alexx> How do you know, thougH?

14:07 <Pravus_> Well.. I’ve never seen any around here

14:07 <Alexx> WELL NO SHIT.

14:07 <Alexx> THEY’RE INVISIBLE BEARS.

Back from the hunting trip. It was only a few days, only really went out for geese once, spent the later evening wandering the field with a shotgun, hoping to kill something. Took a few pictures along the way to document my adventures.

(1) My dad and uncle got this coyote when they were going from pond to pond jumping ducks. My uncle had some special shotgun shells, they’re supposed to be able to take a coyote out at 150 yards. They got this one at about 40.

(2) I set up in the shadow of a hay bale, which you can see behind me. I had a coyote call (it’s supposed to sound like a dying rabbit, which basically just sounds like a crying infant) and a lot of time to kill.

(3) This was the hunting ground! You can’t see it in the picture, but I had three goose carcasses spread out along the tree line, in the hopes of tempting a coyote to come out for some free lunch. It requires a lot of patience. It was really relaxing to just sit there, but the wind was pretty high. Every time I looked in one direction, the wind blew particles from the hay bale behind me into my eyes, which basically blinded me. No good.

(4) My supplies. Smokes, a radio, a 12 gauge, and some ‘Dead Coyote!’ shells. I had a belt on with some bird shot, which would come in handy later. You don’t want to shoot birds with coyote shells.

(5) After an hour and a half I just got bored and decided to walk around. While I was walking along the perimeter of the field, I heard some rustling in the cut hay stalks by my feet. I looked a little closer and found this little guy. At first he ran away, but I took a few steps after him and he turned around and stood up on his hind legs. I reached out my foot and prodded him with my toe, and he attacked my boot, but gave up when he realized it was too tough. Brave little guy. He just stood there and looked mean until I got bored and walked off.

(6) and (7) Found evidence of beaver activity near the edge of this little pond I found. Tons of wood chips laying around, and a few stumps and felled trees. Pretty interesting to me, only because I’d never seen a beaver’s work first hand.

(8) and (9) In a flash of forethought I replaced the Dead Coyote! shells in the shotgun with some smaller bird shot. Skirting the edge of the pond, I heard the noise of dozens of flapping wings. Looked up and saw a cloud of about 40 birds taking off. I never even knew they were there. I fired into the middle of the cloud and dropped 9 of them, but they landed just at the pond’s edge. I didn’t have any waders, so I had to call my dad to come over in the quad with his waders on and scoop ‘em up for me. I only breasted four of them, enough for a decent stew. This type of bird is called an American Coot. Small breasts in them, but the meat’s as good as any other.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve only been married three years (this coming August), but I’ve learned a few things. Things both interesting and strange, about myself and about the strange, wonderful, life-long partnership in which I’ve found myself. I’m not sure when I became fully aware of it, just that I suddenly found it necessary to tell everyone.

I found myself getting annoyed in increasingly smaller periods of time. Not just annoyed, but annoyed for stupid reasons. Whenever my wife sneezes, for instance. I don’t know what it is. The volume, the timbre, or the particular KIND of sound. But for just a brief moment, I feel as if she has done this thing with the sole intention of angering me. Also, she has the hiccups right now and I want to slap her.

Marriage teaches you a lot about yourself, too. On That 70s Show I once heard a character say “being a man means doing stuff you don’t want to do”. Sure, it was for comedic effect, but it’s actually pretty true. Don’t want to wake up in the morning to go to work? Don’t want to hold your wife’s bag while she tries on clothes? Too fucking bad, son. You’re a man now and that’s what men do. Put on your big boy pants, pony up, and get that shit DONE.

Getting married provides excellent motivation, I find. Before I got hitched I was working a shit job in a small village and going nowhere. Who would have known that just four years later I’d be owning my own house! This sort of thing doesn’t just fall into one’s lap, however; this sort of thing must be ACCOMPLISHED. Do I sound like I’m bragging? Maybe I am.

I also learned how to shut my goddamn mouth. There are plenty of times when I feel as if I have the Perfect Thing to Say. Were this any other universe, were I in any other position, I would say It, but no! I am a learned man now, wise in the ways of the world. I have learned the wisdom in shutting the fuck up. Sometimes it’s simply best to nod your agreement and proceed. This particular philosophy is applicable to life in general, I find.

To enter a marriage is to enter into an existence inexorably bound to another. You function as a single individual in many respects. Some might argue that one might give up a degree of autonomy for this rare privilege. Not so, I say! The desires of the one quickly become the desires of the pair, even if the other one was previously unaware of it. Strange how that works, I know, but you get used to it pretty quick. It’s actually kind of nice.

In conclusion, there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’, but there is ‘meat’, and meat is delicious.