More Pandemic Life

During this work at home phase of my life, we’ve been getting up and going for a walk first thing. Since I’m sitting on my brains most of the day, it’s nice to get the blood circulating first thing.

Today rather than just walking around the neighborhood, we drove up to the campus of UT Dallas, a couple of miles up the street. We got a good walk, and I actually jogged a couple of times. I have to say, I understand why people have a hard time “getting in shape”. At first it felt HORRIBLE. Now, I’m just a little bit overweight. Not horrible, but not lean. I have two physical things I like to do, skateboarding and aikido. So exercise is just an unintended consequence of doing the things I enjoy. But neither is really great for cardio, and if you haven’t run in a long time, it is kind of jarring. If you are overweight at all, you notice the movement of the flab on your gut. It’s disgusting. And it’s crazy how middle-age hits. All of a sudden you just don’t have the cardio you once did.

So we were walking and we’d pick a short section and say “jog to the stop sign. After the first couple such intervals the jogging felt a bit bit less horrible. Is it really possible to forget how to run and have to relearn it? I guess it must be.

Anyway, that’s what we did this morning. The walking in the morning is good. I kind of like it. I doubt I’ll really start “running”. I did that years ago, made great progress, and after a few months developed iliotibial band syndrome. I stopped running, let the symptoms die down, and started running again, and it came right back. No amount of stretching kept it at bay. It’s pretty painful.

 

Pandemic Life

I hate that there is a pandemic, and I really hate that people are suffering, and dying, and that people can’t work. I hate it.

But I have to say, I like working from home. I get a lot done. I like being able to walk to the front of the house and see my wife during the day. I like not having to spend nearly an hour of my day in the car. I like being at home, not eating any restaurant food, losing a lot of my gut already. I like getting up, going for a walk with my wife instead of having to drive to work, and then going for another walk in the evening instead of having to drive home. I do miss my colleagues. I love my profession, and I’m proud to be part of it, and the people I work with are of the highest quality. I miss my Aikido dojo, getting together in-person with my gaming group, skating with a friend or two from time to time, and being able to go to the store without wanting everyone else in the store to disappear (I’ve only been once — we are doing grocery curbside pickup — pop the trunk and they put the stuff in. No contact).

I miss these things, but there are some parts of this lifestyle, as noted, that aren’t too bad. It stinks that we have to have people getting sick and dying to rediscover our lives, and realize that we’re being run ragged most every day of our adult lives.

I think the republicans are seriously afraid that people might enjoy having a lot of their life back, and that people might suddenly understand that 75% of the shit they are buying isn’t needed or really of any value at all.

A new post!

Haven’t posted here a lot lately, as I’ve not gotten a lot of freestyle in so far this year. I did manage to get to Florida at the end of February, right before the Covid-19 shit hit the fan, and skated with my friend Terry Synnott for three days. It was super fun and good to be back on the freestyle board. Looking forward to building on my freestyle this year, in total solitude and isolation, of course.

Also, since the World Freestyle Roundup was cancelled and they replaced it with an online event due to the pandemic, I entered, and I’m representing Mexico. My wife’s family is from there, and I love Mexico. So they are represented.

It looks cool

Just posting this because I think it looks cool. The grip tape that came on my Bustin Boombox was super coarse. Not as bad as pizza grip, but a lot rougher than regular grip tape. Man, I don’t need that in my life. I left it on the nose and tail, ripped it off the whole middle section of the board, and replaced it with pieced together remnants of normal grip tape.